874: Trump Trope

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Tue, 01 Nov 2016 13:01

PhotoFor months, demonstrators in North Dakota have voiced their opposition to an oil pipeline crossing an under-water source that lies on reservation land.Credit John L. Mone/Associated PressIf you're seeing a wave of Facebook friends suddenly checking in to the Standing Rock Indian Reservation in Cannon Ball, N.D., online, it's probably not because they've decided to travel to the site of tense protests between the police and activists against the Dakota Access oil pipeline.

Supporters of the protesters appear to be falsely checking in out of solidarity online '-- in hopes of confusing law enforcement officials they believe are trying to track protesters who are actually at the reservation.

What's going on at Standing Rock?

Protests have been boiling over in a long standoff with the police over the fate of an oil pipeline under construction near the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation. On Friday, the police said they arrested more than 142 people and used beanbags and pepper spray to disperse the crowds.

Company officials say the pipeline will be a safer way to transfer oil 1,170 miles from North Dakota to Illinois. But activists say the construction of the pipeline will harm sacred cultural lands and local water supplies. Activists call themselves Water Protectors and are busy raising money online that is intended to help them operate an encampment near the protest area.

Who started the Facebook protest?

It's not clear. But activist pages, including Stand Against Dakota Access Pipeline '-- No DAPL, have shared some version of a message that is all over Facebook: ''The Morton County Sheriff's Department has been using Facebook check-ins to find out who is at Standing Rock in order to target them in attempts to disrupt the prayer camps. Water Protectors are calling on EVERYONE to check in at SR to overwhelm and confuse them.''

Is the check-in movement distracting law enforcement?

No, according to the authorities.

''The Morton County Sheriff's Department is not and does not follow Facebook check-ins for the protest camp or any location. This claim/rumor is absolutely false,'' the department wrote on its Facebook page on Monday.

It's not unheard-of, however, for the police to rely on social media to locate and track the movements of suspects, but it looks like this particular movement was started without an understanding of how the authorities would gather data '-- or if they were doing this at all.

Are there precedents for this?

Checking in to protests has been a favorite pastime of online observers who can't be where the protest is but want to spread the word.

Perhaps the most notable example is the so-called Twitter Revolution during protests of Iran's 2009 presidential elections. People changed their Twitter avatars to a green overlay and switched their locations to Tehran in hopes of confusing law enforcement officials trying to track down activists and bloggers.

These efforts don't always work to organize on-the-ground protests, but that's beside the point. With very little effort, online activists can use social media to bring more publicity to a cause, the latest example being the Standing Rock check-ins you may be seeing on your Facebook feed.

Continue reading the main story

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Sun, 30 Oct 2016 20:52

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The State Department is ordering family members of employees posted to the U.S. Consulate General in Istanbul to leave because of security concerns.In a statement issued Saturday, the State Department says the decision is based on security information indicating extremist groups are continuing aggressive efforts to attack U.S. citizens in areas of Istanbul where they reside or frequent.The Consulate General remains open and fully staffed. The order applies only to the U.S. Consulate General in Istanbul, not to other U.S. diplomatic posts in Turkey.The travel warning issued Saturday updates a warning last week of increased threats from terrorist groups throughout Turkey. U.S. citizens were advised to avoid travel to southeast Turkey and carefully consider the risks of travel to and throughout the country.The State Department said international and indigenous terrorist organizations in Turkey have been targeting U.S. as well as other foreign tourists.Anti-American sentiment runs high in Turkey despite its status as a NATO ally and a member of the anti-ISIS coalition.In addition to the terrorist threat, friction between Washington and Ankara has increased since a failed July coup in Turkey, which Turkish officials blame on a U.S.-based cleric who lives in self-exile in Pennsylvania. Turkey has requested his extradition, but the U.S. has yet to make a decision.

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Source: teleSURtv.net

Mon, 31 Oct 2016 06:42

Using his emergency powers, the Turkish president has so far fired more than 100,000 civil servants and shut down hundreds of critical media outlets.

Turkey said it had dismissed a further 10,000 civil servants and closed 15 more media outlets over suspected links with terrorist organizations and U.S.-based cleric Fethullah Gulen, blamed by Ankara for orchestrating a failed coup in July.

RELATED:Turkey Is Running Out of Courts After 32,000 Arrested Post-Coup

More than 100,000 people have already been sacked or suspended and 37,000 arrested since the aborted coup in an unprecedented crackdown President Tayyip Erdogan said is crucial to wipe out the network of Gulen from the state apparatus.

Thousands of academics, teachers, health workers, prison guards and forensics experts were among the latest to be removed from their posts through two new executive decrees published in the Official Gazette late Saturday.

Opposition parties described the move as a coup in itself. The continued crackdown has also raised concerns over the functioning of the state.

"What the government and Erdogan are doing right now is a direct coup against the rule of law and democracy," Sezgin Tanrikulu, an MP from the main opposition Republican People's Party, said in a Periscope broadcast posted on Twitter.

But the Erdogan government is using the state of emergency and its executive powers to allow Ankara to crack down on the Kurdish population in the country and its parliamentary representatives of the leftist People's Democratic Party.

A Turkish court Sunday formally arrested Gultan Kisanak and Firat Anli, co-mayors of the largely Kurdish southeastern city of Diyarbakir on charges of membership in a terrorist organization after five days in detention.

The local prosecutor had said Kisanak, a lawmaker before becoming Diyarbakir's first female mayor in 2014, and Anli had given speeches sympathetic to the PKK, called for greater political autonomy for Turkey's estimated 16 million Kurds and incited violent protests in 2014.

Earlier police used rubber pellets to break up several hundred protesters marching against their arrests. The internet has been largely down in the city for several days, witnesses said.

ANALYSIS:A History of the Turkish-Kurdish Conflict

Turkey's southeast has been rocked by the worst violence in decades since the collapse last year of a cease-fire between the state and the Kurdistan Workers Party, designated a terrorist organization by Turkey, the United States and the European Union.

The executive decrees have also ordered the closure of 15 more newspapers, newswires and magazines, which report from the largely Kurdish southeast, bringing the total number of media outlets and publishers closed since July to nearly 160.

Universities have also been stripped of their ability to elect their own rectors according to the decrees. Erdogan will from now on directly appoint the rectors from the candidates nominated by the High Educational Board. The pro-Kurdish opposition said the decrees were used as tools to establish a 'one-man regime.'

The government extended the state of emergency imposed after the coup attempt for three more months until mid-January. Erdogan said the authorities needed more time to wipe out the threat posed by Gulen's network as well as Kurdish militants who have waged a 32-year insurgency.

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Mon, 31 Oct 2016 18:31

Robin Lakoff is a professor of linguistics at the University of California, Berkeley, and the author of Language and Woman's Place

I am mad. I am mad because I am scared. And if you are a woman, you should be, too. Emailgateis a bitch hunt, but the target is not Hillary Clinton. It's us.

The only reason the whole email flap has legs is because the candidate is female. Can you imagine this happening to a man? Clinton is guilty of SWF (Speaking While Female), and emailgate is just a reminder to us all that she has no business doing what she's doing and must be punished, for the sake of all decent women everywhere. There is so much of that going around.

The people are demanding Clinton act like moral exemplars, thundering from the pulpit like Jonathan Edwards or Cotton Mather. But Donald Trump, Rudy Giuliani, Chris Christie, Newt Gingrich, Rush Limbaugh and their many conservative friends are not remotely Clinton's moral superiors. They are simply bullies, using gender discrimination to give a veneer of plausibility to their accusations.

FBI Chief James Comey has shown himself to be another bully of the same kind. He has repeatedly talked down to Clinton, admonishing her as a bad parent would a 5-year-old. He has accused her of ''poor judgment'' and called her use of a private email server ''extremely careless.'' If Comey's a Boy Scout, here's one old lady who will never let him help her across the street.

If the candidate were male, there would be no scolding and no ''scandal.'' Those very ideas would be absurd. Men have a nearly absolute right to freedom of speech. In theory, so do women, but that, as the creationists like to say, is only a theory.

Clinton's use of a personal server has not been found to be a crime. Then how is it that so many have found the charge so easy to make, and make stick? How has her use of the server made plausible all the claims that she is ''deceptive'' and ''untrustworthy''?

It'snot about emails; it's about public communication by a woman in general. Of course, in the year 2016, no one (probably not even The Donald) could make this argument explicitly. After all, he and his fellow Republicans are not waging a war on women. How do we know that? They have said so. And they're men, so they must be telling the truth.

(How to tell the genders apart: men are truthful; women are liars. Now you know.)

But here's Hillary Rodham Clinton, the very public stand-in for all bossy, uppity and ambitious women. Here are her emails. And since it's a woman, doing what decent women should never do'--engaging in high-level public communication'--well, there must be something wrong with that, even if we can't quite find that something. We will invoke the terminology of criminal law to account for our feelings. She's getting away with treason! Put her in jail! We can't quite put our fingers on it, but the words sure do make a lot of people feel better, so they must be right.

Clinton has repeatedly apologized, but apparently not enough for her accusers. In fact, her apologies were her only mistake. By apologizing she acknowledged guilt. But that's what women are supposed to do (because women are always guilty of something). Several members of her own staff sent emails grumbling that she was a recalcitrant apologizer. But her instinct was right: apologizing has only made her weaker. Her opponent never apologizes, not really. So accusations slide off his back like water off a duck's.

Imagine the emails the Trump campaign must be exchanging '... Now those would be legitimately interesting!

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Mon, 31 Oct 2016 23:40

IJR Opinion is an opinion platform and any opinions or information put forth by contributors are exclusive to them and do not represent the views of IJR.

I'm old enough to remember last week, when Democrats were ridiculing the notion that supposedly neutral American institutions might possibly be using their power to influence the election.

But then James Comey disclosed on Friday that previously unaccounted for evidence in the Clinton email investigation warrants further examination, prompting cries of shock from Clinton supporters that the FBI director is trying to...influence the election?

Senator Harry Reid went so far as to warn Comey that his announcement might have violated the Hatch Act, a law which prohibits government officials from using their power to influence the election. Democrat Rep. Elijah Cummings argued on CNN that Comey had essentially become a Republican puppet. Multiple pundits have called on Comey to resign in the past couple days, as did a top Democrat (Rep. Steve Cohen) on the House Judiciary Committee.

His reasoning:

''The fairness of our electoral system is like the fairness of a trial, and no justice official should act in such a way to potentially influence an election whether intended to or not.''

At least there's a bipartisan consensus now that public officials, in the Justice Department or elsewhere, may be using their power to influence elections, and should be held accountable whether intentional or not. It's not so far-fetched and paranoid anymore, is it?

Not exactly. It's only dismissed as conspiratorial paranoia when officials ''act in such a way'' that might benefit Democrats, such as when Attorney General Loretta Lynch secretly met with President Bill Clinton on an airport tarmac in the middle of his wife's criminal investigation. Harry Reid's response to that scandal?

''All I can say is Loretta Lynch is one of the most outstanding human beings I've ever known. Her ethics is above reproach.''

In contrast, here's what Reid said about Comey over the weekend:

''Through your partisan actions, you may have broken the law...I led the fight to get you confirmed because I believed you to be a principled public servant. With the deepest regret, I now see that I was wrong.''

(By the way, just a few months ago, Harry Reid said that ''no one can question'' his ''integrity'' and ''competence.'')

Is the Attorney General working out some sort of deal to free Hillary Clinton from any charges? Crazy for even thinking it! Is the FBI Director dropping news about Hillary Clinton to influence the outcome of the election? Unethical and improper, and he should resign even if its not true.

James Comey made a factual statement to Congress that the FBI found and is looking into more emails, determining that superfluously sharing information is more prudent than meticulously withholding it. Democrats, for obvious reasons, don't like this latest revelation - because any news that reminds voters that Hillary Clinton was (and still apparently is) the subject of an FBI investigation a week from the election is damaging to her chance of victory.

Call me skeptical, but when it comes to the sudden pearl-clutching we're seeing from the left, that's about as deep as this goes.

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Source: American Renaissance

Sun, 30 Oct 2016 22:00

Chicago aldermen on Tuesday hit Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump where it hurts''in his formidable ego''for using a spike in homicides and shootings to paint a ''distorted caricature'' of the city.

The City Council's Transportation Committee unanimously agreed to strip Trump of a recognition he covets: ''Trump Plaza,'' the honorary designation for the east side of Wabash Avenue between Illinois Street and the Chicago River, outside the 96-story Trump International Hotel & Tower.

''We can actually use his own words against him: 'When you hit us, we hit back,' '' said Transportation Committee Chairman Anthony Beale (9th).

''You've hit Chicago numerous times. . . . When you hit Chicago, Chicago hits back.''

{snip}

As for the honorary street designation, one of the Trump Plaza signs already has been stolen. So only one more needs to be removed. That will be done post-haste, if the full City Council approves the punishment, thanks to a so-called ''pending passage'' letter that Beale promised to sign.

Reilly said Trump no longer deserves the honor after making political hay at Chicago's expense in a way that has damaged the city's reputation on the global stage.

Trump's decision to portray Chicago as a ''war zone'' that needs stop-and-frisk during the first presidential debate was the final straw.

''He was comparing us to a war-torn, third-world country. That was a set of comments that didn't just insult me. It insulted anyone who loves this great city,'' Reilly said.

{snip}

Original Article

Topics: Crime, Donald Trump

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Mon, 31 Oct 2016 03:24

HILLARY CLINTON'S MELTDOWN! CALLS DNC CHAIR DONNA BRAZILE 'BRAIN DEAD BUFFALO' AND TELLS MATT LAUER HE'S FINISHED IF 'BASTARD' TRUMP WINS AFTER ROGUE EMAIL QUESTION DURING PRESIDENTIAL FORUMPosted on October 17, 2016Updated on October 18, 2016

HILLARY TO DONNA BRAZILE: ''I'm so sick of your face. You stare at the wall like a brain dead buffalo, while letting that f '' '' '' ing Lauer get away with this. What are you good for, really? Get the f '' '' '' to work janitoring this mess '' do I make myself clear?''''If that f '' '' '' ing bastard wins, we all hang from nooses! Lauer's finished'...and if I lose it's all on your heads for screwing this up.''''Hillary proceeded to pick up a full glass of water and throw it at the face of her assistant, and the screaming started.''

( SOURCE: BILL STILL )

NBC Crew '' Crooked Hillary's Massive Meltdown at Sept. 7th Forum

Remember the Sept. 7 Commander-in-Chief Forum where Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton appeared separately but back-to-back for 30 minutes each?

According to an email forwarded to us late last night, which originated from a Comcast email address, the technical crew for NBC which produced the event is now speaking out about what took place moments after Clinton walked off the set '' a massive profanity-laced tirade aimed at NBC's host, Matt Lauer.

It turned out that Clinton had been fed all the questions for approval in advance of the forum.

But then, after the approval, Matt Lauer had had a change of heart and he started his questioning with an unapproved line concerning Clinton's use of an illegal private server for her sometimes classified, work-related emails.

According to a Comcast official (the parent company of NBC Universal) who apparently was quoting those on the set:''When Matt posed the one legitimate question about the FBI investigation concerning her homemade server and the unsecured emails, we could see she was beginning to boil.''According to an NBC Associate Producer of the Forum, as soon as Clinton got off the set, she exploded.

''Hillary proceeded to pick up a full glass of water and throw it at the face of her assistant, and the screaming started.''''She was in a full meltdown and no one on her staff dared speak with her '' she went kind of manic and didn't have any control over herself at that point.''

''How these people work with this woman is amazing to me. She really didn't seem to care who heard any of it.''

''You really had to see this to believe it. She came apart '' literally unglued; she is the most foul-mouthed woman I've ever heard '... and that voice at screech level '... awful!''''She screamed she'd get that f'.....ing Lauer fired for this.''

Referring to Donald Trump, Clinton said:''If that f '' '' '' ing bastard wins, we all hang from nooses! Lauer's finished'...and if I lose it's all on your heads for screwing this up.''So, Crooked Hillary fears the gallows, eh? Interesting.

Hillary's face during Matt Lauer's unscripted question on emails. Isn't she lovely?

Her dozen or more aides were visibly disturbed and tried to calm her down when she started shaking uncontrollably, as she screamed to get an executive at Comcast the parent company of NBC Universal, on the phone. Then, two rather large aides grabbed her and helped her walk to her car.

Matt Lauer was massively criticized for the rest of the week on air by the Clinton campaign and the rest of the MSM as having conducted:''an unfair and partisan attack on Clinton.''

According to the email, calls were made to the New York Times, the Washington Post, Huffington Post and Twitter executives with orders to crush Matt Lauer.

One staffer on the Clinton campaign told the NBC staff that they all fear Clinton's wrath and uncontrollable outbursts, and one described Hillary as ''an egotistical psychopath.''Since Hillary does not allow any staff to have cell phones when she is in their presence, no footage is available.

Interim DNC chairman Donna Brazile, the first black woman to hold the position, was singled out by Hillary during the rant. She screamed at Donna:

''I'm so sick of your face. You stare at the wall like a brain dead buffalo, while letting that f '' '' '' ing Lauer get away with this. What are you good for, really? Get the f '' '' '' to work janitoring this mess '' do I make myself clear?''

A female NBC executive said that Donna Brazile looked at Mrs. Clinton and never flinched, which seemed to enrage Hillary all the more. The executive continued:''It was the most awful and terrible'...and racist display '' such a profane meltdown I have ever witnessed from anyone, and I will never forget it.

''That woman should never see the inside of the oval office I can tell you that. She was unhinged and just continued to verbally abuse everyone '' she was out of control.''Why did Lauer ask his rogue question? According to sources close to Lauer, because:'''... the American people deserve an answer from the former Secretary of State.''I'm still reporting from Washington. Good Day.

Bill Still is a former newspaper editor and publisher. He has written for USA Today, The Saturday Evening Post, the Los Angeles Times Syndicate, OMNI magazine, and has also produced the syndicated radio program, Health News.

Connect with Bill Still:https://www.facebook.com/BillStillOff'...https://twitter.com/billstill?lang=enhttps://www.youtube.com/user/bstill3/'...https://plus.google.com/u/0/109353617'...

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Mon, 31 Oct 2016 15:06

In the heat of a presidential campaign, you'd think that a story about one party's nominee giving a large contribution to a state attorney general who promptly shut down an inquiry into that nominee's scam ''university'' would be enormous news. But we continue to hear almost nothing about what happened between Donald Trump and Florida attorney general Pam Bondi.

Iraisedthis issue last week, but it's worth an update as well as some contextualization. The story re-emerged last week when The Post's David A. Fahrentholdreportedthat Trump paid a penalty to the IRS after his foundation made an illegal contribution to Bondi's PAC. While the Trump organization characterizes that as a bureaucratic oversight, the basic facts are that Bondi's office had received multiple complaints from Floridians who said they were cheated by Trump University; while they were looking into it and considering whether to join a lawsuit over Trump University filed by the attorney general of New York State, Bondi called Trump and asked him for a $25,000 donation; shortly after getting the check, Bondi's office dropped the inquiry.

Marco Rubio accused Donald Trump of starting a "fake university" at the Feb. 25 GOP debate in Houston. Here's what you need to know about Trump University. (Peter Stevenson/The Washington Post)

At this point we should note that everything here may be completely innocent. Perhaps Bondi didn't realize her office was looking into Trump University. Perhaps the fact that Trump's foundation made the contribution (which, to repeat, is illegal) was just a mix-up. Perhaps when Trump reimbursed the foundation from his personal account, he didn't realize that's not how the law works (the foundation would have to get its money back from Bondi's PAC; he could then make a personal donation if he wanted). Perhaps Bondi's decision not to pursue the case against Trump was perfectly reasonable.

[Read more: Yes, the presidential race is tightening. But it's too early for Democrats to panic.]

But here's the thing: We don't know the answers to those questions, because almost nobody seems to be pursuing them.

For instance, there was only one mention of this story on any of the five Sunday shows, when John Dickerson asked Chris Christie about it on ''Face the Nation''(Christie took great umbrage: ''I can't believe, John, that anyone would insult Pam Bondi that way''). And the comparison with stories about Hillary Clinton's emails or the Clinton Foundation is extremely instructive. Whenever we get some new development in any of those Clinton stories, you see blanket coverage '-- every cable network, every network news program, every newspaper investigates it at length. And even when the new informationserves to exonerateClinton rather than implicate her in wrongdoing, the coverage still emphasizes that the whole thing just ''raises questions'' about her integrity.

The big difference is that there are an enormous number of reporters who get assigned to write stories about those issues regarding Clinton. The story of something like the Clinton Foundation gets stretched out over months and months with repeated tellings, always with the insistence that questions are being raised and the implication that shady things are going on, even if there isn't any evidence at a particular moment to support that idea.

When it comes to Trump, on the other hand, we've seen a very different pattern. Here's what happens: A story about some kind of corrupt dealing emerges, usually from the dogged efforts of one or a few journalists; it gets discussed for a couple of days; and then it disappears. Someone might mention it now and again, but the news organizations don't assign a squad of reporters to look into every aspect of it, so no new facts are brought to light and no new stories get written.

The end result of this process is that because of all that repeated examination of Clinton's affairs, people become convinced that she must be corrupt to the core. It's not that there isn't plenty of negative coverage of Trump, because of course there is, but it's focused mostly on the crazy things he says on any given day.

But the truth is that you'd have to work incredibly hard to find a politician who has the kind of history of corruption, double-dealing, and fraud that Donald Trump has. The number of stories which could potentially deserve hundreds and hundreds of articles is absolutely staggering. Here's a partial list:

Trump's casinobankruptcies, which left investors holding the bag while he skedaddled with their moneyTrump's habit ofrefusingto pay contractors who had done work for him, many of whom are struggling small businessesTrump University, which includes not only the people who got scammed and the Florida investigation, but also asimilar story from Texaswhere the investigation into Trump U was quashed.The Trump Institute, another get-rich-quick scheme in which Trump alloweda couple of griftersto use his name to bilk people out of their moneyThe Trump Network, a multi-level marketingventure(a.k.a. pyramid scheme) that involved customers mailing in a urine sample which would be analyzed to produce for them a specially formulated package of multivitaminsTrump Model Management, whichreportedlyhad foreign models lie to customs officials and work in the U.S. illegally, and kept them in squalid conditions while they earned almost nothing for the work they didTrump'semploymentof foreign guest workers at his resorts, which involves a claim that he can't find Americans to do the workTrump'suseof hundreds of undocumented workers from Poland in the 1980s, who were paid a pittance for their illegal workTrump'shistoryof being charged with housing discriminationTrump'sconnectionsto mafia figures involved in New York constructionThe time Trumppaidthe Federal Trade Commission $750,000 over charges that he violated anti-trust laws when trying to take over a rival casino companyThe fact that Trump is now being advised by Roger Ailes, who was forced out as Fox News chief when dozens of womencame forwardto charge him with sexual harassment. According to the allegations, Ailes's behavior was positively monstrous; as just one indicator, his abusive and predatory actions toward women were so well-known and so loathsome that in 1968 the morally upstanding folks in the Nixon administration refused to allow him to work there despite his key role in getting Nixon elected.And that last one is happening right now. To repeat, the point is not that these stories haveneverbeen covered, because they have. The point is that they get covered briefly, then everyone in the media moves on. If any of these kinds of stories involved Clinton, news organizations would rush to assign multiple reporters to them, those reporters would start asking questions, and we'd learn more about all of them.

That's important, because we may have reached a point where the frames around the candidates are locked in: Trump is supposedly the crazy/bigoted one, and Clinton is supposedly the corrupt one. Once we decide that those are the appropriate lenses through which the two candidates are to be viewed, it shapes the decisions the media make every day about which stories are important to pursue.

And it means that to a great extent, for all the controversy he has caused and all the unflattering stories in the press about him, Trump is still being let off the hook.

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Mon, 31 Oct 2016 15:32

Democratic National Committee interim chairwoman and former CNN contributor Donna Brazile appears to have leaked more than one debate question to Hillary Clinton's campaign team during the primaries.

In an email dated March 5, 2016, Brazile sent a note to Clinton's campaign chairman, John Podesta, and the Democratic nominee's director of communications, Jennifer Palmieri, titled "One of the questions directed to HRC tomorrow is from a woman with a rash."

The body of Brazile's email read, "Her family has lead poison and she will ask what, if anything, will Hillary do as president to help the [people] of Flint."

"Folks, I did a service project today. It's so tragic. And what's worse, some homes have not been tested and it's important to encourage seniors to also get tested," she wrote.

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On March 6, during a Democratic primary debate in Flint, Mich., Clinton fielded a question from Lee-Anne Walters, one of the city's first residents to report having issues with water contamination.

"After my family, the city of Flint and the children in D.C. were poisoned by lead, will you make a personal promise to me right now that, as president, in your first 100 days in office, you will make it a requirement that all public water systems must remove all lead service lines throughout the entire United States, and notification made to the '-- the citizens that have said service lines," Walters asked Clinton.

The former secretary of state responded, "Well, I agree completely. I want to go further though. I want us to have an absolute commitment to getting rid of lead wherever it is because it's not only in water systems, it's also in soil, and it's in lead paint that is found mostly in older homes. That's why 500,000 children today have lead '' lead in their bodies."

Brazile seemingly leaked more than one debate question to the former secretary of state's campaign team.

Also from the Washington Examiner

Sixty percent of voters now hold a negative opinion of the Democratic presidential hopeful.

'10/31/16 11:01 AM

On March 12, Brazile reached out a second time to Palmieri to give advance notice of a certain question that would be asked the next day at a town hall hosted by CNN.

"From time to time I get the questions in advance," Brazile, then a CNN as a political analyst, wrote. "Here's one that worries me about [Hillary Rodham Clinton]."

Brazile included in her email the following question:

DEATH PENALTY

19 states and the District of Columbia have banned the death penalty. 31 states, including Ohio, still have the death penalty. According to the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, since 1973, 156 people have been on death row and later set free. Since 1976, 1,414 people have been executed in the U.S. That's 11% of Americans who were sentenced to die, but later exonerated and freed. Should Ohio and the 30 other states join the current list and abolish the death penalty?

Palmieri responded, "Yes, it is one she gets asked about. Not everyone likes her answer but can share it."

Also from the Washington Examiner

Kellyanne Conway says it's funny that Clinton is for honesty and full disclosure in the "11th hour."

'10/31/16 10:38 AM

Clinton, who was at the time running a tough campaign against the surprisingly successful Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., was asked about the death penalty during a March 13 town hall in Columbus, Ohio.

At the time of both email exchanges with the Clinton team, Brazile served as DNC's vice chair under Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., who stepped down later after emails surfaced suggesting various Democratic officials has conspired to ensure the former secretary of state won the primary. The emails, which allegedly come from Podesta's personal account, were published online by the hacking group WikiLeaks.

Brazile has denied outright that she fed questions to the Clinton campaign ahead of debates.

"As it pertains to the CNN Debates, I never had access to questions and would never have shared them with the candidates if I did," she said in a statement earlier this month, addressing the leaked death penalty question correspondence. "As a longtime political activist with deep ties to our party, I supported all of our candidates for president. I often shared my thoughts with each and every campaign, and any suggestions that indicate otherwise are simply untrue."

Brazile did not respond to the Washington Examiner's request for comment.

''

This article has been updated.

Top Story

"I don't consider what Comey did to be updating congress. I view it as supplementing his previous testimony."

'10/31/16 9:48 AM

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Mon, 31 Oct 2016 16:25

5300959

Donna Brazile, the interim chair of the Democratic National Committee, began providing town hall and debate questions to the Clinton campaign earlier than previously known, emails released by WikiLeaks on Monday show.

The email threads also show that Brazile, a former CNN contributor, revealed to the Clinton campaign the name of the person who provided her with a question that was asked of Clinton at a March 13 town hall co-hosted by CNN and TV One. Brazile also shared a question from a debate hosted by CNN a week earlier.

A March 12 email exchange shows Brazile stating that she received a town hall question from Roland Martin, a TV One host who co-moderated a March 13 town hall with CNN's Jake Tapper.

A March 5 email shows that she shared a question with Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta and communications director Jennifer Palmieri that was to be asked in a March 6 debate hosted by CNN in Flint, Mich.

Hillary Clinton asked about Flint water crisis at March 6, 2016 CNN debate. (Youtube screen grab)

The emails were hacked from Podesta's Gmail account.

When part of the March 12 email was released earlier this month, Brazile initially vehemently denied that she shared a question with the campaign. ''What a stretch,'' is what she told The Daily Caller when asked about it. (RELATED: Donna Brazile Shared Town Hall Questions With Clinton Campaign)She has since said that the email may have been doctored by Russian hackers. She also complained that she is being ''persecuted'' over the matter.

Brazile has recently stopped short of denying that she received the debate question and shared it with the Clinton campaign. But in an interview with PBS's Tavis Smiley last week, she said that CNN did not provide her the question. Notably, she did not deny that Martin gave it to her. Martin has given waffling answers on whether he shared the question with Brazile. (RELATED: Donna Brazile Claims She's Being 'Persecuted' Over Leaks To Clinton Campaign)

In the March 12 exchange, Brazile mentions Martin by name and offers to provide more than just the one town hall question that she is known to have shared with the campaign.

''I'll send a few more. Though some questions Roland submitted,'' Brazile wrote to Palmieri in the March 12 email thread, which is entitled ''From time to time I get the questions in advance.''

The question she provided to Palmieri matched verbatim a question that an exonerated death row inmate asked Clinton the next night.

CNN and host Jake Tapper have strongly denied sharing that question or any other with Brazile or anyone else.

But an email released on Monday casts new doubt on the network's claims that it never shares questions with outsiders.

On March 5, Brazile tipped the Clinton team off to a question that was to be asked the next day at a debate that was hosted by CNN's Don Lemon and Anderson Cooper.

''One of the questions directed to HRC tomorrow is from a woman with a rash,'' Brazile wrote to Podesta and Palmieri.

''Her family has lead poison and she will ask what, if anything, will Hillary do as president to help the ppl of Flint.''

March 12 email from Donna Brazile (via WikiLeaks)

A transcript of the debate shows that a woman named Lee-Anne Walters did ask the question of both Clinton and Sanders.

''After my family, the city of Flint and the children in D.C. were poisoned by lead, will you make a personal promise to me right now that, as president, in your first 100 days in office, you will make it a requirement that all public water systems must remove all lead service lines throughout the entire United States, and notification made to the '' the citizens that have said service lines,'' the woman asked. (RELATED: Jake Tapper Says DNC Chair's Town Hall Leak Is 'Very, Very Troubling')

Brazile, who claimed during the Democratic primaries that she was neutral, has defended herself during the email controversy by claiming that she was in regular communication with all Democratic candidates. But there has been no evidence produced so far that she shared debate and town hall questions with Sanders.

Neither Brazile nor the DNC returned requests for comment.

Update: CNN slammed Brazile in a statement while denying that the network leaked any information.

''CNN never gave Brazile access to any questions, prep material, attendee list, background information or meetings in advance of a town hall or debate,'' Lauren Pratapas, a spokeswoman for the network, told TheDC.

''We are completely uncomfortable with what we have learned about her interactions with the Clinton campaign while she was a CNN contributor.''

She said that CNN accepted Brazile's official resignation on Oct. 14. The longtime Democratic consultant's deal was suspended in July when she became interim head of the DNC.

Questions still remain about how Brazile obtained the question in advance of the debate. TheDC is told that a CNN employee spotted Brazile talking with a Flint resident at a community event on March 5, the day before the debate. The woman allegedly mentioned to Brazile that she had a rash and that she and her children suffered from lead poisoning.

It is still unclear whether that woman was Lee-Anne Walters and how Brazile would have known that she would appear at the debate and be asked to pose a question to Clinton and Sanders.

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Archived Version

Mon, 31 Oct 2016 16:43

CNN says it is "completely uncomfortable" with hacked emails showing former contributor and interim DNC chair Donna Brazile sharing questions with the Clinton campaign before a debate and a town hall during the Democratic primary, and has accepted her resignation.

Hacked emails posted by WikiLeaks show Brazile, whose CNN contract was suspended when she became interim DNC chair over the summer, sharing with the Clinton campaign a question that would be posed to Hillary Clinton before the March CNN Democratic debate in Flint, and sharing with the campaign a possible question prior to a CNN town hall also in March.

In a statement, CNN spokeswoman Lauren Pratapas said that on Oct. 14, the network accepted Brazile's resignation.

"On October 14th, CNN accepted Donna Brazile's resignation as a CNN contributor. (Her deal had previously been suspended in July when she became the interim head of the DNC.) CNN never gave Brazile access to any questions, prep material, attendee list, background information or meetings in advance of a town hall or debate. We are completely uncomfortable with what we have learned about her interactions with the Clinton campaign while she was a CNN contributor," Pratapas said.

In a tweet, Brazile thanked CNN and her now former colleagues there.

"Thank you @CNN. Honored to be a Democratic Strategist and commentator on the network. Godspeed to all my former colleagues," she wrote.

A CNN employee, speaking on background, suggested Brazile may have met the woman who was supposed to pose the question about lead poisoning during a service event planned the day before the debate.

As for the town hall event, a follow up email from Brazile posted by WikiLeaks on Monday and other emails obtained by POLITICO seem to point to Roland Martin, a TV One host who was co-moderating the Town Hall, as the source of the questions.

Hadas Gold is a reporter at Politico.

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Archived Version

Tue, 01 Nov 2016 01:04

Now that the FBI has obtained the needed warrant to start poring over the 650,000 or so emails uncovered in Anthony Weiner's notebook, among which thousands of emails sent from Huma Abedin using Hillary Clinton's personal server, moments ago the US Justice Department announced it is also joining the probe, and as AP reported moments ago, vowed to dedicate all needed resources to quickly review the over half a million emails in the Clinton case.

In the letter to Congress, the DOJ writes that it ''will continue to work closely with the FBI and together, dedicate all necessary resources and take appropriate steps as expeditiously as possible,'' assistant attorney General Peter J. Kadzik writes in letters to House and Senate lawmakers.

So far so good, even if one wonders just how active the DOJ will be in a case that has shown an unprecedented schism between the politically influenced Department of Justice and the FBI.

And yet, something felt odd about this.

Kadzik... Kadzik... where have we heard that name?

Oh yes. Recall our post from last week, "Clinton Campaign Chair Had Dinner With Top DOJ Official One Day After Hillary's Benghazi Hearing" in which we reported that John Podesta had dinner with one of the highest ranked DOJ officials the very day after Hillary Clinton's Benghazi testimony?

It was Peter Kadzik.

In other words, the best friend of John Podesta, Clinton's Campaign char, at the DOJ will be in charge of a probe that could potentially sink Hillary Clinton.

For those who missed it, this is what we reported previously:

The day after Hillary Clinton testified in front of the House Select Committee on Benghazi last October, John Podesta, Hillary's campaign chairman met for dinner with a small group of well-connected friends, including Peter Kadzik, who is currently a top official at the US Justice Department serving as Assistant Attorney General for Legislative Affairs.

The post-Benghazi dinner was attended by Podesta, Kadzik, superlobbyist Vincent Roberti and other well-placed Beltway fixtures. The first mention of personal contact between Podesta and Kadzik in the Wikileaks dump is in an Oct. 23, 2015 email sent out by Vincent Roberti, a lobbyist who is close to Podesta and his superlobbyist brother, Tony Podesta. In it, Roberti refers to a dinner reservation at Posto, a Washington D.C. restaurant. The dinner was set for 7:30 that evening, just one day after Clinton gave 11 hours of testimony to the Benghazi Committee.

Podesta and Kadzik met several months later for dinner at Podesta's home, another email shows. Another email sent on May 5, 2015, Kadzik's son asked Podesta for a job on the Clinton campaign.

As the Daily Caller noted, the dinner arrangement "is just the latest example of an apparent conflict of interest between the Clinton campaign and the federal agency charged with investigating the former secretary of state's email practices." As one former U.S. Attorney tells told the DC, the exchanges are another example of the Clinton campaign's ''cozy relationship'' with the Obama Justice Department.

The hacked emails confirm that Podesta and Kadzik were in frequent contact. In one email from January, Kadzik and Podesta, who were classmates at Georgetown Law School in the 1970s, discussed plans to celebrate Podesta's birthday. And in another sent last May, Kadzik's son emailed Podesta asking for a job on the Clinton campaign.

''The political appointees in the Obama administration, especially in the Department of Justice, appear to be very partisan in nature and I don't think had clean hands when it comes to the investigation of the private email server,'' says Matthew Whitaker, the executive director of the Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust, a government watchdog group.

''It's the kind of thing the American people are frustrated about is that the politically powerful have insider access and have these kind of relationships that ultimately appear to always break to the benefit of Hillary Clinton,'' he added, comparing the Podesta-Kadzik meetings to the revelation that Attorney General Loretta Lynch met in private with Bill Clinton at the airport in Phoenix days before the FBI and DOJ investigating Hillary Clinton.

Kadzik's role at the DOJ, where he started in 2013, is particularly notable Kadzik, as helped spearhead the effort to nominate Lynch, who was heavily criticized for her secret meeting with the former president.

It gets better because, as we further revealed, if there is one person in the DOJ who is John Podesta's, and thus the Clinton Foundation's inside man, it is Peter Kadjik.

Kadzik represented Podesta during the Monica Lewinsky investigation. And in the waning days of the Bill Clinton administration, Kadzik lobbied Podesta on behalf of Marc Rich, the fugitive who Bill Clinton controversially pardoned on his last day in office. That history is cited by Podesta in another email hacked from his Gmail account. In a Sept. 2008 email, which the Washington Free Beacon flagged last week, Podesta emailed an Obama campaign official to recommend Kadzik for a supportive role in the campaign. Podesta, who would later head up the Obama White House transition effort, wrote that Kadzik was a ''fantastic lawyer'' who ''kept me out of jail.''

Podesta was caught in a sticky situation in both the Lewinsky affair and the Rich pardon scandal. As deputy chief of staff to Clinton in 1996, Podesta asked then-United Nations ambassador Bill Richardson to hire the 23-year-old Lewinsky. In April 1996, the White House transferred Lewinsky from her job as a White House intern to the Pentagon in order to keep her and Bill Clinton separate. But the Clinton team also wanted to keep Lewinsky happy so that she would not spill the beans about her sexual relationship with Clinton.

Richardson later recounted in his autobiography that he offered Lewinsky the position but that she declined it.

Podesta made false statements to a grand jury impaneled by Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr for the investigation. But he defended the falsehoods, saying later that he was merely relaying false information from Clinton that he did not know was inaccurate at the time. ''He did lie to me,'' Podesta said about Clinton in a National Public Radio interview in 1998. Clinton was acquitted by the Senate in Feb. 1999 of perjury and obstruction of justice charges related to the Lewinsky probe. Kadzik, then a lawyer with the firm Dickstein Shapiro Morin & Oshinsky, represented Podesta through the fiasco.

Podesta had been promoted to Clinton's chief of staff when he and Kadzik became embroiled in another scandal.

Kadzik was then representing Marc Rich, a billionaire financier who was wanted by the U.S. government for evading a $48 million tax bill. The fugitive, who was also implicated in illegal trading activity with nations that sponsored terrorism, had been living in Switzerland for 17 years when he sought the pardon. To help Rich, Kadzik lobbied Podesta heavily in the weeks before Clinton left office on Jan. 20, 2001. A House Oversight Committee report released in May 2002 stated that ''Kadzik was recruited into Marc Rich's lobbying campaign because he was a long-time friend of White House Chief of Staff John Podesta.''

The report noted that Kadzik contacted Podesta at least seven times regarding Rich's pardon. On top of the all-hands-on-deck lobbying effort, Rich's ex-wife, Denise Rich, had doled out more than $1 million to the Clintons and other Democrats prior to the pardon. She gave $100,000 to Hillary Clinton's New York Senate campaign and another $450,000 to the Clinton presidential library.

Kadzik's current role

In his current role as head of the Office of Legislative Affairs, Kadzik handles inquiries from Congress on a variety of issues. In that role he was not in the direct chain of command on the Clinton investigation. The Justice Department and FBI have insisted that career investigators oversaw the investigation, which concluded in July with no charges filed against Clinton.

But Kadzik worked on other Clinton email issues in his dealings with Congress. Last November, he denied a request from Republican lawmakers to appoint a special counsel to lead the investigation.

In a Feb. 1, 2016 letter in response to Kadzik, Florida Rep. Ron DeSantis noted that Kadzik had explained ''that special counsel may be appointed at the discretion of the Attorney General when an investigation or prosecution by the Department of Justice would create a potential conflict of interest.''

DeSantis, a Republican, suggested that Lynch's appointment by Bill Clinton in 1999 as U.S. Attorney in New York may be considered a conflict of interest. He also asserted that Obama's political appointees '-- a list which includes Kadzik '-- ''are being asked to impartially execute their respective duties as Department of Justice officials that may involve an investigation into the activities of the forerunner for the Democratic nomination for President of the United States.''

It is unknown if Kadzik responded to DeSantis' questions.

Kadzik's first involvement in the Clinton email brouhaha came in a Sept. 24, 2015 response letter to Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Chuck Grassley in which he declined to confirm or deny whether the DOJ was investigating Clinton. Last month, Politico reported that Kadzik angered Republican lawmakers when, in a classified briefing, he declined to say whether Clinton aides who received DOJ immunity were required to cooperate with congressional probes.

Kadzik also testified at a House Oversight Committee hearing last month on the issue of classifications and redactions in the FBI's files of the Clinton email investigation.

Finally, it is also worth noting that Kadzik's wife, Amy Weiss, currently at Weiss Public Affairs worked on the 1992 Clinton/Gore Campaign as a Press Secretary, and Communications Director for the Democratic National Committee, and a White House Deputy Assistant to the President/Deputy Press Secretary to President Bill Clinton.

* * *

And now it seems that Kadzik will be in charge of the DOJ's "probe" into Huma Abedin's emails. Which is why we are a little skeptical the DOJ will find "anything" of note.

Amy Weiss, Peter Kadzik, with lobbyist Tony Podesta, brother of John Podesta.

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Archived Version

Sun, 30 Oct 2016 22:09

Constitutional Crisis: FBI used prohibited FISA domestic terror warrant in Clinton-Weiner email search

'...by Gordon Duff, with Ian Greenhalgh, Editors '' Veterans Today

In a surprise announcement, the Department of Justice just admitted that there was no legal authorization in place to access email accounts of Hillary Clinton aide, Huma Abedin, estranged wife of accused sex offender former Congressman Anthony Weiner.

The government admitted that no warrant had been requested and that discussions to seek a warrant had not yet begun, making the letter FBI Director James Comey wrote to Congress on Friday a potentially criminal act, if it can be proven that Comey was aware of this fact and of the actions of his subordinates in ''planting'' Clinton emails on Weiner's laptop.[14]

(CNN)Justice Department and FBI officials are working to secure approval that would allow the FBI to conduct a full search of top Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin's newly discovered emails, sources familiar with the discussions told CNN.

Government lawyers haven't yet approached Abedin's lawyers to seek an agreement to conduct the search. Sources earlier told CNN that those discussions had begun, but the law enforcement officials now say they have not.[14]

FBI Director James Comey is under assault for what is being perceived as more than simply partisan behavior. Former presidential advisor, Lanny Davis writes for The Hill:

''Comey as FBI director '-- an investigative agency, not a prosecution agency '-- (does not) have any authority to send a report to Congress in the middle of an investigation about the past or present subject of an investigation. He appears to be in violation of the limits on his authority as FBI director by disclosing investigation information '-- or possible investigation information '-- directly to Congress with obtaining permission from the attorney general or someone else delegated authority by her. His decision to reveal the results of an ongoing investigation, before a published criminal indictment, violates due process principles and pre-indictment secrecy rules and guidelines of the Justice Department.''[16]

Through court challenges to FBI search tactics under FISA and other counter-terror legislation, accessing ''cloud'' based emails and either representing them as ''found'' in a warranted search of a hard drive or in ''syncing'' a computer to place emails on a drive under a warranted search, clear prohibitions have been established.[Addendum I]

In this case, with no warrant in place at all, there are no possible interpretations of FBI actions that could be consistent with admissibility.

In what has been seen by most a the long expected ''October Surprise,'' the highly controversial letter written by FBI Director James Comer, something more far reaching has developed, a constitutional crisis that may well exceed that of Watergate or even Iran/Contra. Like the Federal Reserve, the FBI itself lacks a clear constitutional authority. There is no mention of nor authorization given, in the constitution, for a national police force. In fact, the Constitution, in the 10th Amendment ratified in 1791 states:

''The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.''[12]More often than not, this has been ignored, a ''stepchild'' of the Bill of Rights. Here, however, the FBI, created initially as the ''sex police''[11], created to enforce the Mann Act[13], has assumed not only ''powers not granted'' under the constitution, but has exponentially expanded its reach, well beyond constitutional limitations on rights of privacy and against unreasonable search and seizure, assailed by laws like the Patriot Acts.''

Behind the current controversy, that of an FBI director being accused of interfering in an election and acting against policy, procedure and advice of the Attorney General, is something more. The FBI has crossed into the area of possible criminality, violating clear cut Federal Court restrictions, not only through an illegal search but by actually planting evidence and then channeling misleading information into the press with a clear intent to subvert constitutional authority.

Another issue is the kind of language Comey has been using to mollify critics who have kept a flurry of investigations going and who have subjected him to hostile interrogation for endless hours in front of highly partisan committees. Colonel Jim Hanke (ret), former US attache to Israel and ranking NATO military intelligence planner commented on the nature of Comey's assertions of Hillary's classified emails:

''Take the text of any of the emails we have seen. Anything here could have been said in a press conference or on a television interview and, in those formats, would not have been considered classified. There would have been fallout, for sure, not from disclosing policy or in endangering operations, real issues that get high level classification. Hillary's emails, were they made public, and there was reason to expect this might well happen, are revealing and reflect on her personal judgement and, at times, demonstrate a lack of grasp, particularly when it comes to Russia or Syria. These are issues of public confidence, not criminality nor are they areas of real security classification.

Conversely, what we have seen Comey do may well rise to the level of something serious, certainly he undermines the FBI and attacks the American system of government. As to what his intent was or to what laws apply, this is not my area of expertise but I would like to think that criminal code could deal with this kind of threat.''

One additional consideration to put into the mix is Wikileaks. During recent weeks while Wikileaks has released two dozen batches of emails, the Clinton campaign has mirrored earlier charges made against Wikileaks by former National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinsky, that Wikileaks ''sexes up'' and even fabricates documents that are, according to Brzezinsky, when speaking to Judy Woodruff of National Public Radio, ''seeded'' into a virtual deluge of material.

The FBI used FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) powers when it downloaded and ''synced'' Clinton emails into former Congressman Anthony Weiner's computers, according to legal experts.[1,4,6,7] The FBI knowingly violated the law in applying terror statutes when they illegally expanded their search into Weiner's computers and downloaded emails from a 3rd party account. With only days before an election, the term ''October Surprise'' has never been more applicable.

The question people are asking is; ''Why did Director Comey choose to ignore legal advice and, more importantly, was he aware that he was upsetting an American presidential election based on a pattern of criminal-level misconduct by his own agency?''

The FBI lied when it claimed the it found Clinton emails when it searched Anthony Weiner's computer. Sources now tell VT that the FBI in fact ''synced'' the email account of Weiner's estranged wife, Huma, downloading the emails ''from the cloud'' and falsely claiming they were discovered as part of a legal search warrant. However, there is no case law supporting the expansion of such warrants to spouses or others whose email accounts may be accessible through devices but were not stored on hard drives and not by any stretch of the imagination, legally accessed under any possible search warrant tied to Weiner's sexual indiscretions.

What did in fact happen here was planting of evidence, by the FBI, illegally accessing a ''cloud based'' email account not included in a search warrant and downloading to a hard drive that was included in a warrant. This is a common FBI/DHS practice used in terror investigations, making use of a single warrant to follow cloud accounts for multiple users.

In an article in today's Washington Post, the issue of how the FBI found emails that should not been on Weiner's computer were brought to light.

''Top Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin has told people she is unsure how her emails could have ended up on a device she viewed as her husband's computer, the seizure of which has reignited the Clinton email investigation, according to a person familiar with the investigation and civil litigation over the matter.

The person, who would not discuss the case unless granted anonymity, said Abedin was not a regular user of the computer, and even when she agreed to turn over emails to the State Department for federal records purposes, her lawyers did not search it for materials, not believing any of her messages to be there.

That could be a significant oversight if Abedin's work messages were indeed on the computer of her estranged husband, former congressman Anthony Weiner, who is under investigation for allegedly exchanging lewd messages with a 15-year-old girl. So far, it is unclear what '-- if any '-- new, work-related messages were found by authorities. The person said the FBI had not contacted Abedin about its latest discovery, and she was unsure what the bureau had discovered.''[8]

There is no evidence, of yet, that Director Comey was aware the ''evidence'' he took to congress was illegally planted on Weiner's computer but Comey was aware of the practice. Typically, the FBI search warrants used can give access to cloud based emails as outlined below by FBI Special Agent James M. Cauthen:

''An alternative is for the investigator to search in the same manner as the user would'--with the computer turned on and connected to the data. In this example, the investigator needs access to the subject's computer with the relational database software and connection to the cloud. The investigator could consider combining two search warrants'--one on the computer owner for the location being searched under Rule 41 and one on the cloud provider under §2703 for the content to which the computer is connected.

With this approach, the investigator will need to understand how to operate database software and make queries. These queries must comply with the search warrant. The investigator must conduct the search carefully as actions taken on a live system will change the data on the computer. Using this method, it may be possible to obtain a single search warrant combining the provisions of Rule 41 and §2703; however, it should be noted that there is no case law yet on implementing this strategy.'' [7]

In light of the controversy over the handling of this issue by FBI Director Comey, an article in The New Yorker, dated October 28, 2016 cuts to the director's state of mind. From that article:

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)'--James Comey, the embattled director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, presided over a special ceremony on Friday evening to commend the brave F.B.I. agents who had to touch Anthony Weiner's computer.

In awarding the commendations to the agents, whom Comey called ''the bravest men and women this country has to offer,'' the F.B.I. director criticized the political uproar that he said had overshadowed ''their selfless acts of heroism.''

''These agents have performed far and beyond the call of duty,'' a visibly angry Comey said. ''I know we're eleven days away from an election and tensions are running high, but we shouldn't let that subtract in any way from what these brave agents did with their own hands.''

''Who among us could look at ourselves in the mirror and say, 'I have what it takes to touch Anthony Weiner's computer'?'' Comey asked. ''I know I sure as hell couldn't.''[15]

A common way to hide ones train in Washington is to wrap whatever the smell is ''in a bloody flag'' or to hand out medals for heroism. This is ''deception 101'' and Comey wasn't in the least bit coy about using his agents, who may be steeped in ethical or even criminal complicity, in that same ''bloody flag'' theatrics.

The Clinton/Weiner connection may well be an abuse of expanded counter-terrorism powers the FBI assumed during the Bush era. However, in 2008, these powers were curtailed by a Federal court decision. [Addendum I] From the New York Times, April 19, 2016:

''WASHINGTON '-- A federal judge has rejected a legal challenge to rules permitting F.B.I. agents, when working on domestic criminal cases, to search emails written by Americans that the government has intercepted without a warrant in the name of gathering foreign intelligence.

In an 80-page opinion that was issued in November and remained classified until being made public on Tuesday, Judge Thomas F. Hogan, the chief judge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, ruled that what critics call ''backdoor searches'' of messages by the F.B.I. comply with both the Constitution and the FISA Amendments Act. That 2008 statute legalized a form of the government's once-secret warrantless surveillance program.''[9]

There has been considerable controversy involving the FBI's illegal expansion of search warrants in criminal cases. With the expanded powers under the Bush administration's Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, covering the use of broad ''single warrant'' powers in domestic terrorism cases, the FBI has on numerous occasions misused FISA powers in criminal investigations.

This has been brought before the Federal Courts in 2008 [Addendum I] and the FBI should well consider itself forewarned not to attempt to apply questionable expanded powers under FISA legislation intended to apply to terror threats. That FISA was applied here, knowing a court challenge would take far too long to correct the damage, in this case a ''rigged'' presidential election, as claimed by Clinton campaign advisor, John Podesta.

References:[1] Elena Kagan:Supreme Court Hasn't ''Gotten to'' Email, CBS News, August 21, 2013.

[2] Josiah Dykstra, ''Seizing Electronic Evidence from Cloud Computing Environments,'' in Cybercrime and Cloud Forensics: Applications for Investigation Processes, ed. K. Ruan (Hershey, PA: IGI Global, 2013).

[3] Tony Sammes and Brian Jenkinson, Forensic Computing: A Practitioner's Guide, (London, UK: Springer-Verlag, 2000). Forensics was developed on the idea of copying data from a hard disk drive that was turned off or dead. Live recovery involves changes to the contents of a computer's storage space, 18 U.S.C. §2510(15). Therefore, it is essential that someone competent to give testimony performs it, showing that the continuity and integrity of the evidence has been preserved.

[4] U.S. Department of Justice, Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section, Criminal Division, Searching and Seizing Computers and Obtaining Electronic Evidence in Criminal Investigations 3d ed., (Washington, D.C.: Office of Legal Education, Executive Office for United States Attorneys, 2009), 84. Although the courts have not directly addressed the matter, the language of Rule 41 combined with the Supreme Court's interpretation of ''property'' may limit computer searches to data that physically resides in the district in which the warrant was issued.

[5] For legal purposes, there are two classes of cloud providers: those who provide ''electronic communication services,'' and those who provide ''remote computing service.'' See 18 U.S.C. §2510(15) and 18 U.S.C. §2711(2) respectively.

[6] United States v. Gorshkov, 2001 WL 1024026 (May 23, 2001). In this case, the defendants moved to suppress the evidence, but the motion was denied. Nonetheless, the investigator was charged with hacking by foreign authorities who requested that the investigator be extradited for trial. U.S. authorities have not complied.

[7] Cauthen, James M. Special Agent FBI Sacramento Field office:https://leb.fbi.gov/2014/october/executing-search-warrants-in-the-cloud

[8] Zapotosky, Matt with Hamburger, Tom and Tumulty, Karen:https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/clinton-aide-huma-abedin-has-told-people-she-doesnt-know-how-her-emails-wound-up-on-her-husbands-computer/2016/10/29/1d30c2b8-9e15-11e6-a0ed-ab0774c1eaa5_story.html

[9] Savage, Charles; Judge Rejects Challenge to Searches of Emails Gathered Without Warrant:

[10] https://www.dni.gov/files/documents/20151106-702Mem_Opinion_Order_for_Public_Release.pdf

[11] https://www.fbi.gov/history/brief-history

[12] Wikipedia '' Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitutionhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution

[13] Wikipedia '' Mann Acthttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mann_Act

[14] FBI discovered Clinton-related emails weeks agohttp://edition.cnn.com/2016/10/30/politics/clinton-emails-fbi-abedin/index.html

[15] COMEY PRAISES BRAVE F.B.I. AGENTS WHO HAD TO TOUCH ANTHONY WEINER'S COMPUTERhttp://www.newyorker.com/humor/borowitz-report/comey-praises-brave-f-b-i-agents-who-had-to-touch-anthony-weiners-computer

[16] Lanny Davis: Comey's actions improper, irresponsible and possibly illegalhttp://thehill.com/opinion/lanny-davis/303427-lanny-davis-comeys-actions-improper-irresponsible-and-possibly-illegal

Addendum I

Related Posts:The views expressed herein are the views of the author exclusively and not necessarily the views of VT, VT authors, affiliates, advertisers, sponsors, partners, technicians, or the Veterans Today Network and its assigns. LEGAL NOTICE - COMMENT POLICYPosted by Gordon Duff, Senior Editor on October 30, 2016, With 2321 Reads Filed under WarZone. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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Archived Version

Sun, 30 Oct 2016 23:00

(Before It's News)

A thread on 4chan with an FBI insider confirms everyone's worst suspicions. The Hillary Clinton email server was merely a distraction from the Clinton Foundation and most of DC is in up to their necks in what could be the biggest scandal of all times. This inside info from someone claiming to be a high level FBI analyst whose job was to look at the records, with NOTES added to clarify some of the responses.

The smoking gun is about to arrive and there are ''a lot of people involved''. To save everyone time, here are the choice bits with the link to the entire archive, where you can decide for yourself if this is for real or not. Looks like Trump and Putin hold some of the cards. This could be the most interesting election ever. (Lanugauge Warning):

You are welcome to copy this, please post a link to the original here at BIN.

This level of corruption is something expected in a developing country or a place like China, where they openly persecute good people and have industrial scale organ harvesting of Falun Gong and others. The Clinton Foundation is up to their neck with Jiang's vile regime in China, but there is so much to see here'...keep reading.

Original thread archived at archive.is: http://archive.is/RffAd#selection-33761.0-33761.121

Why Hillary was Not Indicted

>>79480356 (OP)Will she be indicted?

{NOTE: This thread was from BEFORE the announcement by Comey that there would not be any indictment}

>>79481119There is intense pressure for us not to do so. I am posting from a position of near anonymity and enough plausible deniability to evade prosecution, as we have all been given gag orders.

There is enough for her and the entire government to be brought down. People do not realize how enormous this whole situation actually is. Whether she will be or not depends on how much info about others involved gets out, and there are a lot of people involved.

The real point of interest is the Clinton Foundation, not the e-mail server. We received the server from Benghazi, then from the server we found data on the CF. Then we realized the situation is much worse than previously thought.

Super Classified Materials on the Clinton Email Server

>>79481467She had SAP level programs on her server, which if made public, would literally cause an uprising and possibly foreign declarations of war.

{NOTE: A Special Access Program is an intelligence program classified above top-secret. They are held on closed servers at secret locations. The only way to get one is if you are specifically read on to a program, have a need to know, then you must physically go to a location and pass through several layers of security to even look at the program. A good example in non-classified terms would be the locations and operations of our intelligence operatives around the globe, or our missile silo locations.}

The Clinton Foundation is the Key

>>79481382

>>79481397

The real point of interest is the Clinton Foundation, not the e-mail server. We received the server from Benghazi, then from the server we found data on the CF. Then we realized the situation is much worse than previously thought.

{NOTE: This explains why the investigation took so many people and so long}

A Bigger Problem than Hillary

>>79481665

Killing HRC would not cause this problem to go away. The problem is with the Clinton Foundation as I mentioned, which you should just imagine as a massive spider web of connections and money laundering implicating hundreds of high-level people. Though I do not have a high opinion of Hillary, she is just a piece -albeit a big piece '' of this massive shitstorm.

>>79481265Legal is asking preliminary questions about whether or not she has been coached (she has) and setting up the general line of questioning. I am a high level analyst though, so my job is only to look at her records.

>>79482104The DOJ is most likely looking to save itself. Find everyone involved in the Clinton Foundation, from its donors to its Board of Directors, and imagine they are all implicated.

The ENTIRE Government is Involved

>>79482245My opinion is the entire government is guilty of treason, which is why HRC's death would not cease the investigation or prevent further scandals. Many, many people are involved.

>>79482342There already is enough to indict. Comey has been trying to stall because he does not want to face the Clinton Machine, as well as the rest of Washington D.C. But this case would explode into a million other cases if fully brought to light, and then we would be one agency competing against the entire government and a hoard of other interests. It is a very tense and uncomfortable position.

What Lynch is saying is she will accept whatever they do and make her determination as she will. Nothing about her responsibilities has changed, she is simply trying to keep her hide intact.

Foreign Powers Have Some of the Documents

Trump Has Some of the Documents

Russia Will Probably Leak All Info they Have

>>79483349Foreign powers are in possession of some of the documents we have analyzed, because they were hacked from the Clinton server. Trump has some files as well, and likely plans to leak them and use them to his advantage soon.

The leaks will have to be made in a non-transparent fashion.

>>79483350If we recommend, we literally hand over documentation implying the entire government is involved in treason at the highest levels and everyone is about to duck and cover, as well as some sensitive details of SAPs which would obliterate national security.

>>79483587I am not sure, but some of my war strategy buddies are estimating a high probability that Russia will leak all of the info they have to the world, since Clinton wants to go to war with them and they have no desire to be in conflict with the US.

>>79483751If we do not recommend, it will look like a cover-up and Trump will use the perception to bolster his message. I did work in PsyOps once, and Trump's use of confirmation bias is legendary.

Bill Clinton Will Likely Die This Year

If Trump Wins, Hillary Goes to Jail

>>79484201Bill Clinton will likely die this year.

Everything is Corrupt, Even Trump is Dirty

>>79484305Impossible to say. The entire government is corrupt. No one is clean, not even Trump.

>>79484534Trump has donated to the Clinton Foundation in the past, though for fairly innocuous things like building permits and such. He is smart, so his tracks are covered well. But if any prosecutor wants to go very in-depth Trump would be brought on bribery charges. He could easily get out of them, but he would be charged nonetheless.

>>79484664We have our hands tied. My message to you and everyone on this board is do not get distracted by Clinton's e-mails. Focus on the Foundation. All of the nightmarish truth is there. The e-mails will pale in comparison.

>>79484759I do not know of Trump's record, but from the case he definitely knew to limit his exposure and make it only look like a donation.

>>79484907If Trump wins, HRC will be prosecuted. I have heard rumors Christie will be his AG, and Michael Flynn will be his VP pick.

A Multitude of Scandals

>>79485031Saudi Arabia visits and donations to the CF. Russian Uranium fiasco. HRC and the Israel lobby, the Council on Foreign Relations. AIPAC. The list is endless.

Three Choices '' Could Crash Everything

>>79485572I will put it to you this way: You have three choices,

A) turn over all of the information to the DOJ, make public a recommendation, the truth comes out, the entire world realizes how much the US is meddling in foreign affairs and we go to war, the civilian population realizes how much foreign money influences our government, and a civil war begins.

B) You cherry-pick the data to implicate the people already in the eye of public opinion, so the chips fall on the heads of a select few and the whole system does not crash.

C) you do nothing and watch the unstable political climate to gauge how you will respond.

I am confident if Trump wins she will be going to jail.

The Problem is the Entire Government

>>79485629Comey will likely resign in any case. FBI is being very quiet for a reason, most of us want to keep our jobs.

>>79485655Snowden has nothing to do with any of this.

>>79485706Possibly. I don't know for sure.

>>79485756Obama and HRC do hate each other. HRC hates black people and Obama dislikes recklessness. As far as the investigation, some details are correct. As to the outcome, no one knows.

>>79485779Truthfully, not many. The FBI is rather fond of /pol/. We study more than we investigate.

>>79485920

The problem is with the entire government. HRC is one component of that government.

Hillary Sold SAP's to Overseas ''Donors''

>>79486178All I can tell you about the SAPs is HRC had them, and she did not have proper authority to have any of them. They were leaked to her by someone, and she did sell them to overseas donors. Possessing them alone makes her guilty of treason.

Obama is loosely tied to the CF, but much more tied in with the same people who donate to the CF.

>>79486240Russian borders, Ukraine, everywhere NATO is, the South China Sea, the Phillipines, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Africa.

Soros is at the heart of all of this.

>>79486254If it comes down to it, I would fight. But most of us are of the opinion that HRC will not be president, and having Trump in office makes our job that much easier. But right now we have to carefully wade through the mud.

>>79486263As I stated before, BC likely wanted LL to focus on the e-mail server and shy away from prosecuting the foundation.

>>79486289We will go to war with Russia and possibly China if she wins.

Obama Wanted to Postpone the Case Until 2018

>>79483056Didn't Obama push to have the case postponed until 2018 as well?

>>79486562There is talk of it. I do not know where the order came from.

A Difficult Position for FBI Insiders

>>79487155If leaking data en mass destroys my country, we betray the country. If we do nothing, we betray the country. I am not disagreeing with you. I am saying the situation is more complicated when you are inside, and you do not have the breadth of info that I have that would make your eyes fall out of your skull if you knew what all was going on.

>>79487691It benefits her because her donors have paid for it. I do not want to post any information about me or where I am, because if any hint got out that I posted anything, I would be fired and blacklisted. Possibly killed.

Soros Guiding Everything '' Global Government

>>79488021Soros funds, instructs, and influences every layer of US government. right down to the tax code.

Correct theories: Huge Jewish influence, Soros as a puppet master, red team planner. You would have to ask specifically.

>>79490049The goal (of Soros, since I assume that is what you are asking) is to create a global government where all people intermingle and breed and become on people ruled by a racially pure Jewish race. They sincerely believe under their rule all human conflict will cease because there will be no more cause for division. This desire is born out of a fear of the horrors of WWII. The Holocaust is a lie, but the death toll was still massive nonetheless. And many people were brutalized by it.

Russia Hacked the Clinton Email Server 100%

do russia (or others) have enough info to bring down clinton if they leaked it? would they be more likely to leak it or use it for blackmail?

>>79490064They have enough to take her down. I am not sure of the totality of what they have. I can tell you that they 100% hacked her server.

Orlando and LA Gay Parade Attacks were Inside Jobs

>>79490062are the incidents manufactured with the intent of harsher gun control laws?

>>79490153Yes. They gay bar attacks were inside jobs.

If Everything is Exposed, Human Trafficking and all the Payoffs

>>79490632>In regards to the Clinton Foundation, what would happen if all of this information ended up being released to the general public?

I said in the last thread, total chaos. The government would be exposed at every layer, who pays who, who buys what, and no one has yet asked about the human trafficking bits I have been laying out.

>What if you, you personally, leaked all the documents to the darkweb or some other online outlet. What would happen?

Silencing and/or death. Some places are trying to leak but we censor them too fast.

>Would the countries that would be named in the documentation declare war if there was a large change in government?

No, they would declare war because all of our secret operations in their countries would be exposed.

>Couldn't you have the AGs of some of the right aligned states indict her? If they were given enough information and documentation?

We have thought about this. It is on the table.

9/11 Was a Mossad Inside Job

>>79489525 (OP)What do you know about 9/11? Was it an inside job?

>>794907919/11 was Mossad.

Get Smarter About Civil War (The FBI's Main Concern)

>>79490926If a civil war broke out, 100% certainty China and Russia would get involved.

>Also, what fears would need to be resolved in order for the FBI to be willing to go nuclear on this bitch and the foundation?

This would be like launching a nuke at NYC. We would hit the target, but we would then be at war with the whole US.

The FBI is facing the entire federal government in this case. It is why we are so quiet.

Sex Rings in All Governments

>>79493354Sex rings are popular in all governments, but pedophilia is primarily in British parliament & Saudi Arabia, and that's why HRC and BC love foreign donors so much. They get paid in children as well as money. Dig deep and you can find it. It will sicken you.

Link to Article

Archived Version

Mon, 31 Oct 2016 03:13

Updated Oct. 30, 2016 7:59 p.m. ET The surprise disclosure that agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation are taking a new look at Hillary Clinton's email use lays bare, just days before the election, tensions inside the bureau and the Justice Department over how to investigate the Democratic presidential nominee.

Investigators found 650,000 emails on a laptop used by former Rep. Anthony Weiner and his estranged wife Huma Abedin, a close Clinton aide, and underlying metadata suggests thousands of those messages could have been sent to or from the private server that Mrs. Clinton used while she was secretary of state, according to people familiar with the matter.

It will take weeks, at a minimum, to determine whether those messages are work-related from the time Ms. Abedin served with Mrs. Clinton at the State Department; how many are duplicates of emails already reviewed by the FBI; and whether they include either classified information or important new evidence in the Clinton email probe.

Officials had to await a court order to begin reviewing the emails'--which they received over the weekend, according to a person familiar with the matter'--because they were uncovered in an unrelated probe of Mr. Weiner.

The new investigative effort, disclosed by FBI Director James Comey on Friday, shows a bureau at times in sharp internal disagreement over matters related to the Clintons, and how to handle those matters fairly and carefully in the middle of a national election campaign. Even as the probe of Mrs. Clinton's email use wound down in July, internal disagreements within the bureau and the Justice Department surrounding the Clintons' family philanthropy heated up, according to people familiar with the matter.

The latest development began in early October when New York-based FBI officials notified Andrew McCabe, the bureau's second-in-command, that while investigating Mr. Weiner for possibly sending sexually charged messages to a teenage minor, they had recovered a laptop. Many of the 650,000 emails on the computer, they said, were from the accounts of Ms. Abedin, according to people familiar with the matter.

Those emails stretched back years, these people said, and were on a laptop that hadn't previously come up in the Clinton email probe. Ms. Abedin said in late August that the couple were separating.

The FBI had searched the computer while looking for child pornography, people familiar with the matter said, but the warrant they used didn't give them authority to search for matters related to Mrs. Clinton's email arrangement at the State Department. Mr. Weiner has denied sending explicit or indecent messages to the minor.

In their initial review of the laptop, the metadata showed many messages, apparently in the thousands, that were either sent to or from the private email server at Mrs. Clinton's home that had been the focus of so much investigative effort for the FBI. Senior FBI officials decided to let the Weiner investigators proceed with a closer examination of the metadata on the computer, and report back to them.

At a meeting early last week of senior Justice Department and FBI officials, a member of the department's senior national-security staff asked for an update on the Weiner laptop, the people familiar with the matter said. At that point, officials realized that no one had acted to obtain a warrant, these people said.

Mr. McCabe then instructed the email investigators to talk to the Weiner investigators and see whether the laptop's contents could be relevant to the Clinton email probe, these people said. After the investigators spoke, the agents agreed it was potentially relevant.

Mr. Comey was given an update, decided to go forward with the case and notified Congress on Friday, with explosive results. Senior Justice Department officials had warned the FBI that telling Congress would violate policies against overt actions that could affect an election, and some within the FBI have been unhappy at Mr. Comey's repeated public statements on the probe, going back to his press conference on the subject in July.

The back-and-forth reflects how the bureau is probing several matters related, directly or indirectly, to Mrs. Clinton and her inner circle.

New details show that senior law-enforcement officials repeatedly voiced skepticism of the strength of the evidence in a bureau investigation of the Clinton Foundation, sought to condense what was at times a sprawling cross-country effort, and, according to some people familiar with the matter, told agents to limit their pursuit of the case. The probe of the foundation began more than a year ago to determine whether financial crimes or influence peddling occurred related to the charity.

Some investigators grew frustrated, viewing FBI leadership as uninterested in probing the charity, these people said. Others involved disagreed sharply, defending FBI bosses and saying Mr. McCabe in particular was caught between an increasingly acrimonious fight for control between the Justice Department and FBI agents pursuing the Clinton Foundation case.

It isn't unusual for field agents to favor a more aggressive approach than supervisors and prosecutors think is merited. But the internal debates about the Clinton Foundation show the high stakes when such disagreements occur surrounding someone who is running for president.

The Wall Street Journal reported last week that Mr. McCabe's wife, Jill McCabe, received $467,500 in campaign funds in late 2015 from the political-action committee of Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, a longtime ally of the Clintons and, until he was elected governor in November 2013, a Clinton Foundation board member.

Mr. McAuliffe had supported Dr. McCabe in the hopes she and a handful of other Democrats might help win a majority in the state Senate. Dr. McCabe lost her race last November, and Democrats failed to win their majority.

A spokesman for the governor has said that ''any insinuation that his support was tied to anything other than his desire to elect candidates who would help pass his agenda is ridiculous.''

Dr. McCabe told the Journal, ''Once I decided to run, my husband had no formal role in my campaign other than to be'' supportive.

In February of this year, Mr. McCabe ascended from the No. 3 position at the FBI to the deputy director post. When he assumed that role, officials say, he started overseeing the probe into Mrs. Clinton's use of a private email server for government work when she was secretary of state.

FBI officials have said Mr. McCabe had no role in the Clinton email probe until he became deputy director, and by then his wife's campaign was over.

But other Clinton-related investigations were under way within the FBI, and they have been the subject of internal debate for months, according to people familiar with the matter.

Early this year, four FBI field offices'--New York, Los Angeles, Washington and Little Rock, Ark.'--were collecting information about the Clinton Foundation to see if there was evidence of financial crimes or influence-peddling, according to people familiar with the matter.

Los Angeles agents had picked up information about the Clinton Foundation from an unrelated public-corruption case and had issued some subpoenas for bank records related to the foundation, these people said.

The Washington field office was probing financial relationships involving Mr. McAuliffe before he became a Clinton Foundation board member, these people said. Mr. McAuliffe has denied any wrongdoing, and his lawyer has said the probe is focused on whether he failed to register as an agent of a foreign entity.

Clinton Foundation officials have long denied any wrongdoing, saying it is a well-run charity that has done immense good.

The FBI field office in New York had done the most work on the Clinton Foundation case and received help from the FBI field office in Little Rock, the people familiar with the matter said.

In February, FBI officials made a presentation to the Justice Department, according to these people. By all accounts, the meeting didn't go well.

Some said that is because the FBI didn't present compelling evidence to justify more aggressive pursuit of the Clinton Foundation, and that the career anticorruption prosecutors in the room simply believed it wasn't a very strong case. Others said that from the start, the Justice Department officials were stern, icy and dismissive of the case.

''That was one of the weirdest meetings I've ever been to,'' one participant told others afterward, according to people familiar with the matter.

Anticorruption prosecutors at the Justice Department told the FBI at the meeting they wouldn't authorize more aggressive investigative techniques, such as subpoenas, formal witness interviews, or grand-jury activity. But the FBI officials believed they were well within their authority to pursue the leads and methods already under way, these people said.

About a week after Mr. Comey's July announcement that he was recommending against any prosecution in the Clinton email case, the FBI sought to refocus the Clinton Foundation probe, with Mr. McCabe deciding the FBI's New York office would take the lead, with assistance from Little Rock.

The Washington field office, FBI officials decided, would focus on a separate matter involving Mr. McAuliffe. Mr. McCabe had decided earlier in the spring that he would continue to recuse himself from that probe, given the governor's contributions to his wife's former political campaign.

Within the FBI, the decision was viewed with skepticism by some, who felt the probe would be stronger if the foundation and McAuliffe matters were combined. Others, particularly Justice Department anticorruption prosecutors, felt that both probes were weak, based largely on publicly available information, and had found little that would merit expanded investigative authority.

According to a person familiar with the probes, on Aug. 12, a senior Justice Department official called Mr. McCabe to voice his displeasure at finding that New York FBI agents were still openly pursuing the Clinton Foundation probe during the election season. Mr. McCabe said agents still had the authority to pursue the issue as long as they didn't use overt methods requiring Justice Department approvals.

The Justice Department official was ''very pissed off,'' according to one person close to Mr. McCabe, and pressed him to explain why the FBI was still chasing a matter the department considered dormant. Others said the Justice Department was simply trying to make sure FBI agents were following longstanding policy not to make overt investigative moves that could be seen as trying to influence an election. Those rules discourage investigators from making any such moves before a primary or general election, and, at a minimum, checking with anticorruption prosecutors before doing so.

''Are you telling me that I need to shut down a validly predicated investigation?'' Mr. McCabe asked, according to people familiar with the conversation. After a pause, the official replied, ''Of course not,'' these people said.

For Mr. McCabe's defenders, the exchange showed how he was stuck between an FBI office eager to pour more resources into a case and Justice Department prosecutors who didn't think much of the case, one person said. Those people said that following the call, Mr. McCabe reiterated past instructions to FBI agents that they were to keep pursuing the work within the authority they had.

Others further down the FBI chain of command, however, said agents were given a much starker instruction on the case: ''Stand down.'' When agents questioned why they weren't allowed to take more aggressive steps, they said they were told the order had come from the deputy director'--Mr. McCabe.

Others familiar with the matter deny Mr. McCabe or any other senior FBI official gave such a stand-down instruction.

For agents who already felt uneasy about FBI leadership's handling of the Clinton Foundation case, the moment only deepened their concerns, these people said. For those who felt the probe hadn't yet found significant evidence of criminal conduct, the leadership's approach was the right response.

In September, agents on the foundation case asked to see the emails contained on nongovernment laptops that had been searched as part of the Clinton email case, but that request was rejected by prosecutors at the Eastern District of New York, in Brooklyn. Those emails were given to the FBI based on grants of partial immunity and limited-use agreements, meaning agents could only use them for the purpose of investigating possible mishandling of classified information.

Some FBI agents were dissatisfied with that answer, and asked for permission to make a similar request to federal prosecutors in Manhattan, according to people familiar with the matter. Mr. McCabe, these people said, told them no and added that they couldn't ''go prosecutor-shopping.''

Not long after that discussion, FBI agents informed the bureau's leaders about the Weiner laptop, prompting Mr. Comey's disclosure to Congress and setting off the furor that promises to consume the final days of a tumultuous campaign.

Write to Devlin Barrett at devlin.barrett@wsj.com

Link to Article

Archived Version

Mon, 31 Oct 2016 15:01

By Eric HolderOctober 30 at 10:38 PM

Eric Holder was U.S. attorney general from 2009 to 2015.

I began my career in the Justice Department's Public Integrity Section 40 years ago, investigating cases of official corruption. In the years since, I have seen America's justice system firsthand from nearly every angle '-- as a prosecutor, judge, attorney in private practice, and attorney general of the United States. I understand the gravity of the work our Justice Department performs every day to defend the security of our nation, protect the American people, uphold the rule of law and be fair.

That is why I am deeply concerned about FBI Director James B. Comey's decision to write a vague letter to Congress about emails potentially connected to a matter of public, and political, interest. That decision was incorrect. It violated long-standing Justice Department policies and tradition. And it ran counter to guidance that I put in place four years ago laying out the proper way to conduct investigations during an election season. That guidance, which reinforced established policy, is still in effect and applies to the entire Justice Department '-- including the FBI.

The department has a practice of not commenting on ongoing investigations. Indeed, except in exceptional circumstances, the department will not even acknowledge the existence of an investigation. The department also has a policy of not taking unnecessary action close in time to Election Day that might influence an election's outcome. These rules have been followed during Republican and Democratic administrations. They aren't designed to help any particular individual or to serve any political interest. Instead, they are intended to ensure that every investigation proceeds fairly and judiciously; to maintain the public trust in the department's ability to do its job free of political influence; and to prevent investigations from unfairly or unintentionally casting public suspicion on public officials who have done nothing wrong.

[The costs of Comey's appeasement]

The Post's Matt Zapotosky breaks down the unknowns following the FBI's announcement on Oct. 28 that it will renew its Hillary Clinton email probe. (Bastien Inzaurralde/The Washington Post)

Director Comey broke with these fundamental principles. I fear he has unintentionally and negatively affected public trust in both the Justice Department and the FBI. And he has allowed '-- again without improper motive '-- misinformation to be spread by partisans with less pure intentions. Already, we have learned that the importance of the discovery itself may have been overblown. According to the director himself, there is no indication yet that the ''newly discovered'' emails bear any significance at all. And yet, because of his decision to comment on this development before sufficient facts were known, the public has faced a torrent of conspiracy theories and misrepresentations.

This controversy has its roots in the director's July decision to hold a news conference announcing his recommendation that the Justice Department bring no charges against Hillary Clinton. Instead of making a private recommendation to the attorney general '-- consistent with Justice Department policy '-- he chose to publicly share his professional recommendation, as well as his personal opinions, about the case. That was a stunning breach of protocol. It may set a dangerous precedent for future investigations. It was wrong.

The director said in July that he chose to take that extraordinary step in response to intense public interest. During my 12-year service in the Public Integrity Section and as attorney general, I worked on some of the most politically sensitive cases that our country saw. The additional public scrutiny such investigations provoke makes it even more important that we handle those cases consistently and responsibly. That is exactly why guidelines are put in place: so that Justice Department leaders, including FBI directors, will not substitute their own judgments and opinions for reasoned, fair, coherent and time-tested policy.

I am mindful of the unique facts that surrounded the July decision. The airplane meeting between the attorney general and former President Bill Clinton led to the perception among some that inappropriate communications occurred. Perceptions matter. But the solution was not for the FBI director to announce the department's decision about whether to proceed. That determination '-- and how or whether it should have been be publicly revealed '-- rested with department lawyers, after consultation with FBI counterparts.

[James Comey is damaging our democracy]

If the attorney general determined that she could not participate in the process, the deputy attorney general, Sally Yates, a respected, apolitical, career prosecutor, should have stood in her place. Any comments should have come from the attorney general or deputy attorney general, the people who always communicate prosecutorial decisions made by the department. And let me be clear: Far less than that which was shared in the July news conference, and afterward, should have been revealed.

Those of us who have served as stewards of our nation's justice system '-- from line prosecutors to attorneys general '-- are tasked with an awesome responsibility. The idea that all Americans are entitled to the same rights and obligations '-- to fair treatment and due process '-- is central to who we are and what we stand for as a nation. Whether that idea endures for future generations depends on the actions we take to keep its promise real.

I served with Jim Comey and I know him well. This is a very difficult piece for me to write. He is a man of integrity and honor. I respect him. But good men make mistakes. In this instance, he has committed a serious error with potentially severe implications. It is incumbent upon him '-- or the leadership of the department '-- to dispel the uncertainty he has created before Election Day. It is up to the director to correct his mistake '-- not for the sake of a political candidate or campaign but in order to protect our system of justice and best serve the American people.

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Archived Version

Mon, 31 Oct 2016 12:25

THE F.B.I. is currently investigating the hacking of Americans' computers by foreign governments. Russia is a prime suspect.

Imagine a possible connection between a candidate for president in the United States and the Russian computer hacking. Imagine the candidate has business dealings in Russia, and has publicly encouraged the Russians to hack the email of his opponent. It would not be surprising for the F.B.I. to include this candidate and his campaign staff in its confidential investigation of Russian computer hacking.

But it would be highly improper, and an abuse of power, for the F.B.I. to conduct such an investigation in the public eye, particularly on the eve of the election. It would be an abuse of power for the director of the F.B.I., absent compelling circumstances, to notify members of Congress that the candidate was under investigation. It would be an abuse of power if F.B.I. agents went so far as to obtain a search warrant and raid the candidate's office tower, hauling out boxes of documents and computers in front of television cameras.

The F.B.I.'s job is to investigate, not to influence the outcome of an election.

Such acts could also be prohibited under the Hatch Act, which bars the use of an official position to influence an election. That is why the F.B.I. presumably would keep those aspects of an investigation confidential until after the election. The usual penalty for a violation is termination of federal employment.

That is why, on Saturday, I filed a complaint against the F.B.I. with the Office of Special Counsel, which investigates Hatch Act violations, and with the Office of Government Ethics. I spent much of my career working on government and lawyers' ethics, including as the chief White House ethics lawyer for George W. Bush. I never thought that the F.B.I. could be dragged into a political circus surrounding one of its investigations. Until this week.

(For the sake of full disclosure, in this election I have supported Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, John Kasich and Hillary Clinton for president, in that order.)

On Friday, the director of the F.B.I., James B. Comey, sent members of Congress a letter about developments in the agency's investigation of Mrs. Clinton's emails, an investigation which supposedly was closed months ago. This letter, which was quickly posted on the internet, made highly unusual public statements about an F.B.I. investigation concerning a candidate in the election. The letter was sent in violation of a longstanding Justice Department policy of not discussing specifics about pending investigations with others, including members of Congress. According to some news reports, the letter was sent before the F.B.I. had even obtained the search warrant that it needed to look at the newly discovered emails. And it was sent days before the election, when many Americans are already voting.

Violations of the Hatch Act and of government ethics rules on misuse of official positions are not permissible in any circumstances, including in the case of an executive branch official acting under pressure from politically motivated members of Congress. Violations are of even greater concern when the agency is the F.B.I.

It is not clear whether Mr. Comey personally wanted to influence the outcome of the election, although his letter '-- which cast suspicion on Mrs. Clinton without revealing specifics '-- was concerning. Also concerning is the fact that Mr. Comey already made unusual public statements expressing his opinion about Mrs. Clinton's actions, calling her handling of classified information ''extremely careless,'' when he announced this summer that the F.B.I. was concluding its investigation of her email without filing any charges.

But an official doesn't need to have a specific intent '-- or desire '-- to influence an election to be in violation of the Hatch Act or government ethics rules. The rules are violated if it is obvious that the official's actions could influence the election, there is no other good reason for taking those actions, and the official is acting under pressure from persons who obviously do want to influence the election.

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Absent extraordinary circumstances that might justify it, a public communication about a pending F.B.I. investigation involving a candidate that is made on the eve of an election is thus very likely to be a violation of the Hatch Act and a misuse of an official position. Serious questions also arise under lawyers' professional conduct rules that require prosecutors to avoid excessive publicity and unnecessary statements that could cause public condemnation even of people who have been accused of a crime, not to mention people like Mrs. Clinton, who have never been charged with a crime.

This is no trivial matter. We cannot allow F.B.I. or Justice Department officials to unnecessarily publicize pending investigations concerning candidates of either party while an election is underway. That is an abuse of power. Allowing such a precedent to stand will invite more, and even worse, abuses of power in the future.

Link to Article

Archived Version

Mon, 31 Oct 2016 17:04

On Sunday, Harry Reid wrote a scathing letter to FBI Director James Comey, warning Comey that he may have broken the law.

''I am writing to inform you that my office has determined that these actions may violate the Hatch Act, which bars FBI officials from using their official authority to influence an election. Through your partisan actions, you may have broken the law.''

Which is a remarkable enough. But it's far from the biggest charge in Reid's letter.

''In my communications with you and other top officials in the national security community, it has become clear that you possess explosive information about close ties and coordination between Donald Trump, his top advisors, and the Russian government -- a foreign interest openly hostile to the United States, which Trump praises at every opportunity. The public has a right to know this information. I wrote to you months ago calling for this information to be released to the public. There is no danger to American interests from releasing it. And yet, you continue to resist calls to inform the public of this critical information.''

Harry Reid is saying that the FBI not only knows of collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian government, but that the FBI is deliberately shielding this information, while misdirecting public attention toward the email 'scandal' without any valid information.

If Reid is right, then James Comey is guilty of something that goes far beyond just using his office to provide a competitive advantage to a candidate. Comey is using the full weight of the FBI to swing the election to a man he knows is in service to a foreign power.

Conservatives want to stop people from voting on Election Day. Fight back against voter suppression by clicking here and signing up as a volunteer for Protect the Vote. Help make sure all Americans have the chance to cast their ballot.

Reid's accusations are extraordinary, and his statement that he approached Comey about this matter months ago certainly indicates that it's far more than mere rumors.

To be clear, Democrats including Reid have argued for months and months that the Russian government wants Trump elected president, citing hacks into Democrats that intelligence officials say probably originated in Russia. Trump himself has stoked the fire by saying nice things about Russian President Vladimir Putin, and his former campaign manager's ties to Russian interests are well chewed-over.

But there is no public evidence to support Reid's claim of actual "coordination" between the Trump campaign and the Russian government. And were that to be the case, it would be a scandal of epic proportions.

No public evidence. But Reid has been privy to classified briefings, and it's the content of those briefings that seems to be at the heart of the push he's making.

If Harry Reid has been told in briefings about evidence the Trump campaign is coordinating with the Russian government, information that has not been made public, then not only is Director Comey sitting on this information, but so are Republican Senators and Congressmen with access to the same briefings.

The highest officials of the Republican Party'--including Comey'--are hiding a connection that directly affects the integrity of the election and the security of the nation. That's not electioneering. That's a thousand times worse.

That's not throwing this race for Donald Trump. It's doing it for Vladimir Putin.

And if there's any doubt that Reid no longer has the slightest shred of respect for Comey '...

Reid closed his letter with a reminder that he had once ''been a supporter'' of Comey's, even back when Republicans filibustered his nomination as FBI chief.

''I led the fight to get you confirmed because I believed you to be a principled public servant,'' Reid concluded. ''With the deepest regret, I now see that I was wrong.''

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Mon, 31 Oct 2016 18:21

Former assistant director of the FBI James Kallstrom spoke out against the Clintons on a radio show Sunday morningHe likened them to a 'crime family' and said the 'Clinton Foundation is a cesspool'He also said Hillary is a 'pathological liar' and said the FBI's investigation into her email server was 'never a real investigation' Kallstrom is best known for leading the investigation into the explosion of TWA flight 800 in the late 1990sBy Regina F. Graham For Dailymail.com

Published: 11:26 EDT, 30 October 2016 | Updated: 12:44 EDT, 30 October 2016

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A former FBI official described the Clintons as a 'crime family' days after the bureau reopened its investigation into Hillary's personal email server.

James Kallstrom, the former assistant director of the FBI, spoke out against the Clinton family on Sunday in a radio interview with host and Greek-American billionaire businessman John Catsimatidis on 'The Cats Roundtable'.

'The Clintons, that's a crime family. It's like organized crime, basically. The Clinton Foundation is a cesspool,' Kallstrom said.

'It's just outrageous how Hillary Clinton sold her office for money.

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James Kallstrom (left), the former assistant director of the FBI, spoke out against the Clinton family (Bill and Hillary pictured right) on Sunday. He described them as a 'crime family'

'And she's a pathological liar, and she's always been a liar. And God forbid if we put someone like that in the White House.'

Kallstrom, who is best known for leading the investigation into the explosion of TWA flight 800 in the late 1990s, also went after the FBI in the interview and said the initial investigation into the email server was 'never a real investigation.'

'They never had grand jury empaneled. And the reason '... was that Loretta Lynch would not go along with that,' Kallstrom said.

'So this investigation was without the ability to serve subpoenas, serve search warrants, and obtain the evidence that they ended up begging for. It was just ludicrous what went on.'

Kallstrom said the Clinton Foundation is a 'cesspool' and claimed that Hillary (right) is a 'pathological liar. He said: 'And God forbid if we put someone like that in the White House'

He added that the FBI 'left so much stuff on the table'.

Kallstrom did defend the agents who were tasked with investigating Clinton.

'This is not the FBI agents who's to blame for this fiasco going on. This is the leadership. This is Jim Comey '... The agents are furious with what's going on. I know that for a fact,' he said.

Kallstrom praised Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump as a 'good human being' and a 'patriot'.

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Tue, 01 Nov 2016 02:03

With the FBI accused of pushing the Clinton campaign, which as recently as a week ago was seen as invincible as it stormed toward the November 8 presidential election, over the proverbial cliff, it was perhaps inevitable that in order to preserve the appearance of impartiality. the Bureau would proceed with a probe of Trump's own campaign. And, according to NBC which cited law enforcement and intelligence sources, it has done so by focusing on Trump's former campaign manager Paul Manafort, and specifically his foreign business connections.

The news of the inquiry, which has not blossomed into a full-blown criminal investigation, emerges just days after FBI Director James Comey's disclosure that his agency is examining a new batch of emails connected to an aide to Hillary Clinton. It also comes a day after Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid criticized Comey's revelation and asserted that Comey possesses "explosive information about close ties and coordination between Donald Trump, his top advisors, and the Russian government."

As a reminder, Manafort, who resigned as Donald Trump's campaign manager in August, was previously an international political consultant. He became a liability for the Trump campaign amid reports of his involvement with a pro-Russian political party in Ukraine. One damaging New York Times story earlier this year alleged the party had earmarked more than $12 million in under-the-table cash payments, raising questions about whether Manafort had run afoul of U.S. lobbying laws that would he require he register as ''foreign agent'' with the Justice Department.

Manafort's name in an alleged payment ledger

What received far less focus at the time of Manafort resignation, is that as part of the probe, the FBI was also looking into the PR firm of John Podesta's brother, the Podesta Group founded by prominent democrat Tony Podesta.

But back to Manafort, and the NBC story, which in retrospect is merely a regurgitation of a CNN report from August 19, which reported the exact same thing over two months ago: the FBI did not comment. Manafort told NBC News "none of it is true ... There's no investigation going on by the FBI that I'm aware of." He said he had never had ties to Russian president Vladimir Putin, or had dealings with Putin and his government. He said any suggestion of such ties was "Democratic propaganda."

"This is all political propaganda, meant to deflect," he said.

Furthermore, it appears that the latest news is actually a step down from the origianl CNN report: sources told NBC that the FBI review is not a full-blown criminal investigation, but rather an initial inquiry.

NBC News reported in August that Manafort was a key player in multi-million-dollar business propositions with Russian and Ukrainian oligarchs '-- one of them a close Putin ally with alleged ties to organized crime '-- which foreign policy experts said raised questions about the pro-Russian bent of the Trump candidacy. A few days later, amid other reporting on Manafort's Ukraine ties, Manafort was ousted from the campaign.

Rep. Adam Schiff of California, the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, regularly receives sensitive briefings. Schiff said he could not discuss Reid's assertions, but he said, "Americans have every right to be concerned about what they see in terms of Trump advisors and their closeness with the Kremlin, Trump's policies vis-a-vis Russia, Trump's potential financial interest, all of those things ought to be of deep concern to voters."

He added, "Whether an investigation is appropriate depends on whether there's evidence of criminal connections. Of course the intelligence community wants to know what foreign influence Russia may be looking to exert in the United States."

Manafort was paid millions of dollars '-- $12.7 million in cash, according to The New York Times'--representing a pro-Russian politician in the Ukraine.

Meanwhile, Democrats have used this renewed opportunity of ties between a former Trump staffer and Russia, or rather Ukraine, to pitch the worn out propaganda line that Trump is nothing more than a KGB plant.

Trump has taken a series of pro-Russian positions that experts from both parties say are far outside the mainstream, and inexplicable from a political viewpoint. He continues to cast doubt on Russian involvement in election hacking, for example, despite the intelligence community's public assessment.

"The relationships that Trump's advisors have had with pro-Russian forces are deeply disturbing," David Kramer, a former senior State Department official in the George W. Bush administration and a former adviser to Marco Rubio's presidential campaign, told NBC News in August. "Trump's attitude on Russia is not in line with most Republican foreign-policy thinking. Trump has staked out views that are really on the fringe."

Yes, heaven forbid someone step out of line with most Republican foreign-policy thinking, which incidentally, is a carbon copy of most Democrat foreign-policy thinking these days: shoot first, bomb second, and only ask questions if you are subpoenaed by Congress.

* * *

Meanwhile, not content with letting the Russian "angle" drop, on Monday evening, the master of propaganda, John Podesta himself, whose brother would be in the same trouble as Manafort if not more if the FBI were truly probing pro-Russian/Ukrainian lobbying connections, tweeted that "Donald Trump has a secret email server set up to communicate privately with the Russian Alfa Bank."

Which is wonderful (granted he may be borrowing a little too heavily from the Hillary Clinton script), the only problem is that at almost exactly the same time, the NYT reported that U.S. Officials Doubt Donald Trump Has Direct Link to Russia.

For much of the summer, the F.B.I. pursued a widening investigation into a Russian role in the American presidential campaign. Agents scrutinized advisers close to Donald J. Trump, looked for financial connections with Russian financial figures, searched for those involved in hacking the computers of Democrats, and even chased a lead '-- which they ultimately came to doubt '-- about a possible secret channel of email communication from the Trump Organization to a Russian bank.

Law enforcement officials say that none of the investigations so far have found any link between Mr. Trump and the Russian government. And even the hacking into Democratic emails, F.B.I. and intelligence officials now believe, was aimed at disrupting the presidential election rather than electing Mr. Trump.

In other words, the FBI itself is telling the Democrat establishment to move on and find a different attack on Putin because the "Putin agent" is getting old. Alas, that means either more tax stories or more allegations of rape, both of which the public appears to no longer care as much about.

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Tue, 01 Nov 2016 14:16

The most important revelation in the WikiLeaks dump of John Podesta's emails has nothing to do with Hillary Clinton. The messages go all the way back to 2008, when Podesta served as co-chair of President-elect Barack Obama's transition team. And a month before the election, the key staffing for that future administration was almost entirely in place, revealing that some of the most crucial decisions an administration can make occur well before a vote has been cast.

Michael Froman, who is now U.S. trade representative but at the time was an executive at Citigroup, wrote an email to Podesta on October 6, 2008, with the subject ''Lists.'' Froman used a Citigroup email address. He attached three documents: a list of women for top administration jobs, a list of non-white candidates, and a sample outline of 31 cabinet-level positions and who would fill them. ''The lists will continue to grow,'' Froman wrote to Podesta, ''but these are the names to date that seem to be coming up as recommended by various sources for senior level jobs.''

The cabinet list ended up being almost entirely on the money. It correctly identified Eric Holder for the Justice Department, Janet Napolitano for Homeland Security, Robert Gates for Defense, Rahm Emanuel for chief of staff, Peter Orszag for the Office of Management and Budget, Arne Duncan for Education, Eric Shinseki for Veterans Affairs, Kathleen Sebelius for Health and Human Services, Melody Barnes for the Domestic Policy Council, and more. For the Treasury, three possibilities were on the list: Robert Rubin, Larry Summers, and Timothy Geithner.

This was October 6. The election was November 4. And yet Froman, an executive at Citigroup, which would ultimately become the recipient of the largest bailout from the federal government during the financial crisis, had mapped out virtually the entire Obama cabinet, a month before votes were counted. And according to the Froman/Podestaemails, lists were floating around even before that.

Many already suspected that Froman, a longtime Obama consigliere, did the key economic policy hiring while part of the transition team. We didn't know he had so much influence that he could lock in key staff that early, without fanfare, while everyone was busy trying to get Obama elected. The WikiLeaks emails show even earlier planning; by September the transition was getting pre-clearance to assist nominees with financial disclosure forms.

We certainly want an incoming administration to be well-prepared and ready to go when power is transferred. For Obama, coming into office while the economy was melting down, this was particularly true. But the revelations also reinforce the need for critical scrutiny of Hillary Clinton, and for advocacy to ensure the next transition doesn't go like the last, at least with respect to the same old Democrats scooping up all the positions of power well in advance.

Many liberal pundits have talked about the need to focus exclusively on Donald Trump, and the existential threat he presents, in the critical period before Election Day. And there is a logic to that idea: Trump would legitimately be a terrifying leader of the free world. But there are consequences to the kind of home-team political atmosphere that rejects any critical thought about your own side. If the 2008 Podesta emails are any indication, the next four years of public policy are being hashed out right now, behind closed doors. And if liberals want to have an impact on that process, waiting until after the election will be too late.

Who gets these cabinet-level and West Wing advisory jobs matters as much as policy papers or legislative initiatives. It will inform executive branch priorities and responses to crises. It will dictate the level of enforcement of existing laws. It will establish the point of view of an administration and the advice Hillary Clinton will receive. Its importance cannot be stressed enough, and the process has already begun.

The wing of the Democratic Party concerned about personnel decisions made its opinion known almost two years ago. Dan Geldon, now chief of staff to Senator Elizabeth Warren, met with Dan Schwerin, a top adviser to Clinton's campaign, in January 2015. According to an email follow-up with Podesta and others, Geldon ''was intently focused on personnel issues, laid out a detailed case against the Bob Rubin school of Democratic policy makers.'' He was also ''very critical of the Obama administration's choices.''

The ''Bob Rubin school'' is named for the former top executive at Goldman Sachs and Citigroup and first Clinton administration Treasury secretary. It is composed precisely of the kinds of Democrats that the Warren wing opposes on domestic policy, particularly on financial matters. In the Obama administration, that school won out. Froman, chief of staff to Rubin at Treasury, gave options for Treasury secretary that ranged from Rubin himself to Summers and Geithner, two of his key prot(C)g(C)s. In another 2008 email Rubin imagined for himself a ''Harry Hopkins'' position in the Obama administration, referring to Franklin Roosevelt's top adviser.

The Rubin school dictated the Obama administration's light-touch policy on bank misconduct (which resulted in no serious legal or fiduciary consequences for the major players) and its first-term approach to the financial crisis (which was defined by a stimulus package that even at the time was criticized for being woefully inadequate, as well as a premature turn to budget-cutting). These are exactly the flaws that Geldon, Warren's emissary, stressed. According to Schwerin, he ''spoke repeatedly about the need to have in place people with ambition and urgency who recognize how much the middle class is hurting and are willing to challenge the financial industry.''

Around the same time as that meeting with Geldon, the Clinton campaign was setting up a dinner meeting with its economic policy team, Geithner, Summers, and members of the investment firm Blackstone (along with Teresa Ghilarducci, a retirement security researcher).

This is a fight over who dominates the Democratic Party's policy thinking in the short and long term. In 2008 the fight was invisible and one-sided, and the fix was in. In 2016 both sides are angling to get Clinton to adopt their framework. Those predisposed to consider Clinton some neoliberal sap might not agree, but this is actually a live ball. Presidents lead coalitions, and they have to understand where their coalition is and how things change over time. Peter Orszag this week suggested a trade-off: Give the Warren wing its choices on personnel, in exchange for more leeway to negotiate an infrastructure package with Republicans that gives big tax breaks to corporations with money stashed overseas. While that deal needs more detail, it reveals the power the Warren wing has, relative to the Obama era, to make significant strides on appointments.

Which side will win? The rank and file can actually have a voice in this, to make it known what personnel decisions would be acceptable or unacceptable. They can't do it by ignoring evidence or sitting on their hands. The demand to only hold one thing in your head at a time'--that Trump must be stopped'--would squander this opportunity.

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Tue, 01 Nov 2016 14:17

From:fromanm@citi.com To: john.podesta@gmail.com Date: 2008-10-06 11:34 Subject: ListsJohn -- Attached are three documents: -- A list of African American, Latino and Asian American candidates, broken down by Cabinet/Deputy and Under/Assistant/Deputy Assistant level, plus a list of Native American, Arab/Muslim American and Disabled American candidates. We have much longer lists for most of the groups, and the lists will continue to grow as we reach out further and more openly, but these are the names to date that seem to be coming up as recommended by various sources for senior level jobs. (I have tried to include member of Barack's campaign and Senate policy staff, as well as participants in the Transition project, as appropriate.) -- While you did not ask for this, I prepared and attached a similar document on women. -- At the risk of being presumptuous, I also scoped out how the Cabinet-level appointments might be put together, probability-weighting the likelihood of appointing a diverse candidate for each position (given one view of the short list) and coming up with a straw man distribution. (Obviously, multiple permutations of this are possible. This was just one example to show how it might pan out.) Let me know when you'd like to discuss. I am around this morning until about 11:30. -- Mike 212-793-1987

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Mon, 31 Oct 2016 02:30

Secondary verification by google.com DKIM keyRe: Urgent callFrom:robbymook@gmail.com To: john.podesta@gmail.com Date: 2014-06-29 20:20 Subject: Re: Urgent callAny chance you talked to him? On Tue, Jun 24, 2014 at 7:33 PM, Robert Mook wrote: > Yes. 909.489.2049 > > > On Tue, Jun 24, 2014 at 6:39 PM, John Podesta > wrote: > >> Do you have his number? >> On Jun 23, 2014 6:20 PM, "Robert Mook" wrote: >> >>> John, >>> Mikey Dickerson was the lead engineer brought in to fix the Obamacare >>> website (you probably know more about this than I do, but link below just >>> in case). >>> We are desperately trying to get him to oversee the Eric Schmidt >>> project. He's apparently open to doing it but a little worried about how >>> legit it is and what it means for later on. I was hoping you could call >>> him to tell him how important the project is and how much faith higher ups >>> would have in his ability to deliver a really good product ...and how that >>> would inevitably mean a position later. >>> I'm going to talk to him as well, but would be really helpful for him to >>> hear the same talking points from you. We really want/need this guy >>> running this project and let's just say he'd be a really strong CTO for a >>> national campaign. >>> Would you be able to do that? Mikey is low key so I'm not worried about >>> him blabbing if you tell him it's a confidential conversation. >>> Cheryl, adding you on here in case HRC may want to meet with him to >>> discuss Obamacare website...that would REALLY help us make the case to him!! >>> >>> >>> >>> http://washingtonexaminer.com/michael-dickerson-the-invisible-man-behind-obamacares-tech-surge/article/2540253 >>> >> >

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Delivered-To: john.podesta@gmail.comReceived: by 10.140.25.147 with SMTP id 19csp219856qgt; Sun, 29 Jun 2014 15:20:50 -0700 (PDT)Return-Path: Received-SPF: pass (google.com: domain of robbymook@gmail.com designates 10.140.30.73 as permitted sender) client-ip=10.140.30.73Authentication-Results: mr.google.com; spf=pass (google.com: domain of robbymook@gmail.com designates 10.140.30.73 as permitted sender) smtp.mail=robbymook@gmail.com; dkim=pass header.i=@gmail.comX-Received: from mr.google.com ([10.140.30.73]) by 10.140.30.73 with SMTP id c67mr51781710qgc.16.1404080449989 (num_hops = 1); Sun, 29 Jun 2014 15:20:49 -0700 (PDT)DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=20120113; h=mime-version:in-reply-to:references:date:message-id:subject:from:to :content-type; bh=wa5lw3xxyjSYFFSEsJz2B8aPnGm2kprTe80tgGB4NX4=; b=wQe44+0mWre/lD9mM++cNpW2O2wKFnbkOXKmDJ96v9JBsi9a9VkEl+d+PYR9Y9i1SU 0F4/nSj6Rm9tfkhgHxbBhxoV32bEEqwsdhHspviEbkPSu09aJf1f/5xSgmyrHuPizkbP BBqCKylpFsQsBV6Xv1sS1RqEziS7VuxaxucfFWFuD1W07B98BE4TCfYAqy+jXSoBVo5N 1aSu8eRNbCvWpmaM5z2YPwUEU9A+M+yVQ+z3Ped4QfDdkYLmUsX7HiLATRbB+nLWaSFF vhDBmOSSgeC9Zbeetq3iCIWIs2MV5xu9l5JBk6K4DaX9JOxHa5XfUkqdpZm8c1xERWgw +lqQ==MIME-Version: 1.0X-Received: by 10.140.30.73 with SMTP id c67mr51781710qgc.16.1404080449983; Sun, 29 Jun 2014 15:20:49 -0700 (PDT)Received: by 10.96.121.8 with HTTP; Sun, 29 Jun 2014 15:20:49 -0700 (PDT)In-Reply-To: References: Date: Sun, 29 Jun 2014 18:20:49 -0400Message-ID: Subject: Re: Urgent callFrom: Robert Mook To: John Podesta Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary=001a113a35a4751d7e04fd00f45f--001a113a35a4751d7e04fd00f45fContent-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8Any chance you talked to him?On Tue, Jun 24, 2014 at 7:33 PM, Robert Mook wrote:> Yes. 909.489.2049>>> On Tue, Jun 24, 2014 at 6:39 PM, John Podesta > wrote:>>> Do you have his number?>> On Jun 23, 2014 6:20 PM, "Robert Mook" wrote:>>>>> John,>>> Mikey Dickerson was the lead engineer brought in to fix the Obamacare>>> website (you probably know more about this than I do, but link below just>>> in case).>>> We are desperately trying to get him to oversee the Eric Schmidt>>> project. He's apparently open to doing it but a little worried about how>>> legit it is and what it means for later on. I was hoping you could call>>> him to tell him how important the project is and how much faith higher ups>>> would have in his ability to deliver a really good product ...and how that>>> would inevitably mean a position later.>>> I'm going to talk to him as well, but would be really helpful for him to>>> hear the same talking points from you. We really want/need this guy>>> running this project and let's just say he'd be a really strong CTO for a>>> national campaign.>>> Would you be able to do that? Mikey is low key so I'm not worried about>>> him blabbing if you tell him it's a confidential conversation.>>> Cheryl, adding you on here in case HRC may want to meet with him to>>> discuss Obamacare website...that would REALLY help us make the case to him!!>>>>>>>>>>>> http://washingtonexaminer.com/michael-dickerson-the-invisible-man-behind-obamacares-tech-surge/article/2540253>>>>>>--001a113a35a4751d7e04fd00f45fContent-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printableAny chance you talked to him?On Tue, Jun 24, 2014 at 7:33 PM, Rob=ert Mook wrote:Yes. =C2=A0909.489.2049=On Tue, Jun 24, 2014 at 6:39 PM, John Podesta wrote:Do you have his number?

On Jun 23, 2014 6:20 PM, "Robert Mook"= wrote:John,Mikey Dickerson was the lead engineer brought in= to fix the Obamacare website (you probably know more about this than I do,= but link below just in case).We are desperately trying to get h=im to oversee the Eric Schmidt project. =C2=A0He's apparently open to d=oing it but a little worried about how legit it is and what it means for la=ter on. =C2=A0I was hoping you could call him to tell him how important the= project is and how much faith higher ups would have in his ability to deli=ver a really good product ...and how that would inevitably mean a position =later.I'm going to talk to him as well, but would be really helpful= for him to hear the same talking points from you. =C2=A0 We really want/ne=ed this guy running this project and let's just say he'd be a reall=y strong CTO for a national campaign.Would you be able to do that? =C2=A0Mikey is low key so I'm not wo=rried about him blabbing if you tell him it's a confidential conversati=on.Cheryl, adding you on here in case HRC may want to meet= with him to discuss Obamacare website...that would REALLY help us make the= case to him!!http://washingtonexaminer.com/michael-dicker=son-the-invisible-man-behind-obamacares-tech-surge/article/2540253--001a113a35a4751d7e04fd00f45f--

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Mon, 31 Oct 2016 03:53

WikiLeaks - The Podesta EmailsThis key's fingerprint is A04C 5E09 ED02 B328 03EB 6116 93ED 732E 9231 8DBA

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Secondary verification by google.com DKIM keyendowmentFrom:tflournoy11@gmail.com To:

john.podesta@gmail.com Date: 2015-02-26 17:18 Subject: endowment

Foreign govt donors: all the money is in.

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Delivered-To: john.podesta@gmail.comReceived: by 10.25.24.31 with SMTP id o31csp3490731lfi; Thu, 26 Feb 2015 11:18:49 -0800 (PST)X-Received: by 10.229.248.138 with SMTP id mg10mr21668614qcb.29.1424978328517; Thu, 26 Feb 2015 11:18:48 -0800 (PST)Return-Path: Received: from mail-qa0-x231.google.com (mail-qa0-x231.google.com. [2607:f8b0:400d:c00::231]) by mx.google.com with ESMTPS id d9si1628528qar.71.2015.02.26.11.18.47 for (version=TLSv1.2 cipher=ECDHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256 bits=128/128); Thu, 26 Feb 2015 11:18:48 -0800 (PST)Received-SPF: pass (google.com: domain of tflournoy11@gmail.com designates 2607:f8b0:400d:c00::231 as permitted sender) client-ip=2607:f8b0:400d:c00::231;Authentication-Results: mx.google.com; spf=pass (google.com: domain of tflournoy11@gmail.com designates 2607:f8b0:400d:c00::231 as permitted sender) smtp.mail=tflournoy11@gmail.com; dkim=pass header.i=@gmail.com; dmarc=pass (p=NONE dis=NONE) header.from=gmail.comReceived: by mail-qa0-x231.google.com with SMTP id w8so9168085qac.8 for ; Thu, 26 Feb 2015 11:18:47 -0800 (PST)DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=20120113; h=from:content-type:content-transfer-encoding:subject:message-id:date :to:mime-version; bh=hlhzJYu00CWA0Z04XaGksVKtevxyq3+YqVTuX9pZNgw=; b=pUWHBU3ZWpj6p8kume+0VYcHyGxUbKr8PbXBWeIC99WRlBJ9lQQirsPtOrcBt+RfHC kquA5bJwc17BXrRAaeE3gDf04G5rXn9+3yQ/ctw6MczD8Modv/9gYikPPLuMz/1n13ZM dsBCx59q0DDn27b/Pyk8lcliG4gdQn57NPmJcyq1d6nZqW9YAr2ond19TEEfNOMb3CYD 34PpGNEHgIQugrVclfTjLp1AAuAlux50xv2K94NnrR6BIAgMZudD/aTbfcJPXRFJwtNh 8N02LF4c2qgvLPpWsE0xtTNppCyIStQMAJqwoibsW0zKdgnR0tUgZeaqvDhd08t79wfk j1Kw==X-Received: by 10.140.231.204 with SMTP id b195mr21077435qhc.98.1424978327798; Thu, 26 Feb 2015 11:18:47 -0800 (PST)Return-Path: Received: from [192.168.0.2] (cpe-74-71-28-26.nyc.res.rr.com. [74.71.28.26]) by mx.google.com with ESMTPSA id a92sm1091510qgf.11.2015.02.26.11.18.47 for (version=TLSv1 cipher=ECDHE-RSA-RC4-SHA bits=128/128); Thu, 26 Feb 2015 11:18:47 -0800 (PST)From: Hartina Flournoy Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-asciiContent-Transfer-Encoding: 7bitSubject: endowmentMessage-Id: Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2015 14:18:45 -0500To: John Podesta Mime-Version: 1.0 (Mac OS X Mail 6.6 \(1510\))X-Mailer: Apple Mail (2.1510)Foreign govt donors: all the money is in.

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Archived Version

Mon, 31 Oct 2016 21:31

WikiLeaks - The Podesta EmailsThis key's fingerprint is A04C 5E09 ED02 B328 03EB 6116 93ED 732E 9231 8DBA

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From:tom.nides@gmail.com To:

john.podesta@gmail.com Date: 2015-03-06 21:11 Subject:

For what it's worth. There is only one thing that needs to be done on this email thing. (Which I am sure nobody wants to do). Get a state dept career lawyer to go through all the emails and pull the official ones. I know all the reasons not to do it but it's going to happen so we should do it. Btw you know as well as I every god damn cabinet officer and WH staff uses there gmail account! Sent from my iPhone

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Archived Version

Tue, 01 Nov 2016 10:44

Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton arrives on her campaign plane at Martha's Vineyard Airport on 20 August 2016. Photograph: Carolyn Kaster/AP

The emails currently roiling the US presidential campaign are part of some unknown digital collection amassed by the troublesome Anthony Weiner, but if your purpose is to understand the clique of people who dominate Washington today, the emails that really matter are the ones being slowly released by WikiLeaks from the hacked account of Hillary Clinton's campaign chair John Podesta. They are last week's scandal in a year running over with scandals, but in truth their significance goes far beyond mere scandal: they are a window into the soul of the Democratic party and into the dreams and thoughts of the class to whom the party answers.

The class to which I refer is not rising in angry protest; they are by and large pretty satisfied, pretty contented. Nobody takes road trips to exotic West Virginia to see what the members of this class looks like or how they live; on the contrary, they are the ones for whom such stories are written. This bunch doesn't have to make do with a comb-over TV mountebank for a leader; for this class, the choices are always pretty good, and this year they happen to be excellent.

They are the comfortable and well-educated mainstay of our modern Democratic party. They are also the grandees of our national media; the architects of our software; the designers of our streets; the high officials of our banking system; the authors of just about every plan to fix social security or fine-tune the Middle East with precision droning. They are, they think, not a class at all but rather the enlightened ones, the people who must be answered to but who need never explain themselves.

'We learned to fight back': Dreamers campaign against Donald TrumpLet us turn the magnifying glass on them for a change, by sorting through the hacked personal emails of John Podesta, who has been a Washington power broker for decades. I admit that I feel uncomfortable digging through this hoard; stealing someone's email is a crime, after all, and it is outrageous that people's personal information has been exposed, since WikiLeaks doesn't seem to have redacted the emails in any way. There is also the issue of authenticity to contend with: we don't know absolutely and for sure that these emails were not tampered with by whoever stole them from John Podesta. The supposed authors of the messages are refusing to confirm or deny their authenticity, and though they seem to be real, there is a small possibility they aren't.

With all that taken into consideration, I think the WikiLeaks releases furnish us with an opportunity to observe the upper reaches of the American status hierarchy in all its righteousness and majesty.

The dramatis personae of the liberal class are all present in this amazing body of work: financial innovators. High-achieving colleagues attempting to get jobs for their high-achieving children. Foundation executives doing fine and noble things. Prizes, of course, and high academic achievement.

Certain industries loom large and virtuous here. Hillary's ingratiating speeches to Wall Street are well known of course, but what is remarkable is that, in the party of Jackson and Bryan and Roosevelt, smiling financiers now seem to stand on every corner, constantly proffering advice about this and that. In one now-famous email chain, for example, the reader can watch current US trade representative Michael Froman, writing from a Citibank email address in 2008, appear to name President Obama's cabinet even before the great hope-and-change election was decided (incidentally, an important clue to understanding why that greatest of zombie banks was never put out of its misery).

The far-sighted innovators of Silicon Valley are also here in force, interacting all the time with the leaders of the party of the people. We watch as Podesta appears to email Sheryl Sandberg. He makes plans to visit Mark Zuckerberg (who, according to one missive, wants to ''learn more about next steps for his philanthropy and social action''). Podesta exchanges emails with an entrepreneur about an ugly race now unfolding for Silicon Valley's seat in Congress; this man, in turn, appears to forward to Podesta the remarks of yet another Silicon Valley grandee, who complains that one of the Democratic combatants in that fight was criticizing billionaires who give to Democrats. Specifically, the miscreant Dem in question was said to be:

'''... spinning (and attacking) donors who have supported Democrats. John Arnold and Marc Leder have both given to Cory Booker, Joe Kennedy, and others. He is also attacking every billionaire that donates to [Congressional candidate] Ro [Khanna], many whom support other Democrats as well.''

Attacking billionaires! In the year 2015! It was, one of the correspondents appears to write, ''madness and political malpractice of the party to allow this to continue''.

There are wonderful things to be found in this treasure trove when you search the gilded words ''Davos'' or ''Tahoe''. But it is when you search ''Vineyard'' on the WikiLeaks dump that you realize these people truly inhabit a different world from the rest of us. By ''vineyard'', of course, they mean Martha's Vineyard, the ritzy vacation resort island off the coast of Massachusetts where presidents Clinton and Obama spent most of their summer vacations. The Vineyard is a place for the very, very rich to unwind, yes, but as we learn from these emails, it is also a place of high idealism; a land of enlightened liberal commitment far beyond anything ordinary citizens can ever achieve.

Consider, for example, the 2015 email from a foundation executive to a retired mortgage banker (who then seems to have forwarded the note on to Podesta, and thus into history) expressing concern that ''Hillary's image is being torn apart in the media and there's not enough effective push back''. The public eavesdrops as yet another financier invites Podesta to a dinner featuring ''food produced exclusively by the island's farmers and fishermen which will be matched with specially selected wines''. We learn how a Hillary campaign aide recommended that a policy statement appear on a certain day so that ''It wont get in the way of any other news we are trying to make '' but far enough ahead of Hamptons and Vineyard money events''. We even read the pleadings of a man who wants to be invited to a state dinner at the White House and who offers, as one of several exhibits in his favor, the fact that he ''joined the DSCC Majority Trust in Martha's Vineyard (contributing over $32,400 to Democratic senators) in July 2014''.

How does the US electoral college work?(Hilariously, in another email chain, the Clinton team appears to scheme to ''hit'' Bernie Sanders for attending ''DSCC retreats on Martha's Vineyard with lobbyists''.)

Then there is the apparent nepotism, the dozens if not hundreds of mundane emails in which petitioners for this or that plum Washington job or high-profile academic appointment politely appeal to Podesta '' the ward-heeler of the meritocratic elite '' for a solicitous word whispered in the ear of a powerful crony.

This genre of Podesta email, in which people try to arrange jobs for themselves or their kids, points us toward the most fundamental thing we know about the people at the top of this class: their loyalty to one another and the way it overrides everything else. Of course Hillary Clinton staffed her state department with investment bankers and then did speaking engagements for investment banks as soon as she was done at the state department. Of course she appears to think that any kind of bank reform should ''come from the industry itself''. And of course no elite bankers were ever prosecuted by the Obama administration. Read these emails and you understand, with a start, that the people at the top tier of American life all know each other. They are all engaged in promoting one another's careers, constantly.

Everything blurs into everything else in this world. The state department, the banks, Silicon Valley, the nonprofits, the ''Global CEO Advisory Firm'' that appears to have solicited donations for the Clinton Foundation. Executives here go from foundation to government to thinktank to startup. There are honors. Venture capital. Foundation grants. Endowed chairs. Advanced degrees. For them the door revolves. The friends all succeed. They break every boundary.

But the One Big Boundary remains. Yes, it's all supposed to be a meritocracy. But if you aren't part of this happy, prosperous in-group '' if you don't have John Podesta's email address '' you're out.

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Source: teleSURtv.net

Sun, 30 Oct 2016 21:56

Those arriving by boat will have no way of legally entering the country, even for a holiday.

The Australian government announced Sunday that it will introduce a blanket ban on all refugees who arrive in the country by boat. The law, which would be retroactive to 2013, would block boat arrivals from gaining any type of entry visa into the country, further outraging human advocacy groups.

RELATED: Australian Psychologists Issue Apology to Indigenous People

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said that the law aimed to ''send the strongest possible signal to the people smugglers '... they must know that the door to Australia is closed to those who seek to come here by boat with a people smuggler.''

The law would apply to all adults who attempted to reach Australia by boat after July 19, 2013, and would constitute a lifetime ban. The refugees would not be able to enter the country on a humanitarian, business or even a tourist visas or as a spouse, even if they had already been deemed a refugee.

Turnbull said that ''people smugglers are the worst criminals imaginable'' adding that the law is important to support the country's tough border policy known as ''operation sovereign borders,'' which intercepts refugee boats before they reach Australia, where hundreds are held in offshore mandatory detention centres for ''processing.''

The law will mean that around 1,300 people who are currently in detention on the islands of Nauru and Manus island off Australia's northwest coast, will not be able to ever enter Australia. The majority of those held in the offshore camps would qualify for asylum status under existing laws.

Children would be exempt from the law, and would still allow discretion from the immigration department to legally let people into the country. The new proposal will be introduced through the federal parliament next week and despite criticism from the opposition Labor party, Turnbull expects the bill to be passed, given that similar policies have received bipartisan support.

The Greens party said the government had ''sunk to a new low'' through the legislation. "Supporting this policy will mean innocent men women and children will be punished for doing nothing wrong," said Greens immigration spokesperson Nick McKim.

RELATED: Australia Wants to Make it Easier to Kill Civilians in Syria'‹

Advocacy and human rights organizations who are well accustomed to slamming the government's harsh border policies are outraged by the new proposals. "It is fundamental that Australia lifts its effort to make a far greater contribution to this global crisis '... The way to do it is not to propose further measures that are about protecting borders rather than protecting people," refugee lawyer David Manne said to Reuters.

Last weekend, over 20,000 people peacefully marched across Australian cities to protest rising xenophobia and hate against refugees, while sending a message that Australia - a country built on mass migration, welcomed refugees.

While Australia has had a harsh immigration policy since John Howard's Liberal Party toughened the country's borders in the early 2000's, recently there has been rising anti-Islamic and anti-immigration rhetoric. Far right groups including the United Patriots Front, as well as One Nation Senator Pauline Hanson have called for bans on Muslim immigration.

RELATED: Australian Psychologists Issue Apology to Indigenous People'‹

An October report from Amnesty International detailed the country's mandatory detention program asamounting to torture, claims that were rejected by Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and the government of Nauru.

In August the Australian and Papua New Guinea government's announced that they would be shutting down the Manus Island detention centre, which holds around 800 people, after leaked documents showed more than 2,000 incidents of sexual abuse, assault and suicide attempts by desperate detainees.

Turnbull has continually praised Australia's immigration policy for stopping the number of dangerous refugee arrivals by boat, and at the U.N. general assembly said that the policy was ''both principled and pragmatic.''

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Mon, 31 Oct 2016 16:41

The ageing Russian aircraft carrier that sailed through the English Channel escorted by the Royal Navy has been plagued by years of technical problems and is accompanied everywhere by a tug in case it breaks down.

The plumbing is so bad on the 55,000 ton Admiral Kuznetsov that many of its toilets cannot be used, while it has had repeated problems with its power and a string of accidents, naval experts said.

The Soviet-era warship is leading a flotilla of eight naval vessels to the eastern Mediterranean, where its aircraft are expected to join a renewed assault on the rebel-held city of Aleppo.

The Admiral Kuznetsov sailed through the Dover Strait billowing clouds of black smoke on Friday ''marked every step of the way'' by the Royal Navy's HMS Duncan, the Defence Secretary said.

Nato officials have said the Russian deployment is the largest of its kind since the Cold War and designed to demonstrate Moscow's military might as well as blitz the only large rebel-held city in Syria.

We have had people on board Russian ships and it's always a bit of a shock. The conditions inside are pretty mankyRoyal Navy source

But as the ship sailed through the Channel, it was mocked on social media by maritime enthusiasts, for its notoriously poor state of repair.

One Royal Navy source said: ''All their ships look shiny on the outside, but are pretty horrid on the inside. You only have to look at the smoke she's belching out to see not all is well.

''We have had people on board Russian ships in the last 10 years or so and it's always a bit of a shock. The conditions inside are pretty manky.''

Peter Roberts, naval expert at the Royal United Services Institute, said: ''In naval folklore, there's something called an unlucky ship and Kuznetsov is undoubtedly an unlucky ship.

''Kuznetsov is one of those that has things going wrong through design and just through luck.''

Work began on the Admiral Kuznetsov in 1982 and it was commissioned in 1990. Since then it has been plagued by technical problems, he said.

The vessel is powered by steam turbines and turbo-pressurized boilers that are so unreliable that it is accompanied by a large ocean-going tug whenever it deploys, in case it breaks down.

Admiral Kuznetsov passes through the Strait of DoverCredit: Gareth Fuller/PAFlaws in the water piping system mean it freezes during winter. To prevent pipes bursting, the water is turned off to most of the cabins and half the latrines do no work.

Mr Roberts, a former Royal Navy officer, said: ''There's nothing more depressing for a naval captain when he leaves home waters than to be escorted by a tug because even your commander in chief thinks you are going to break down.''

One sailor was killed when a fire started on board the ship during a visit to Turkey in 2009. The ship also spilled hundreds of tons of oil in the Irish Sea during a refuelling accident the same year.

But Mr Roberts said despite the ship's troubles, it could not be written off.

He said: ''She's a big, fast and impressive ship with capable jets and she's going to war in Syria.''

The Admiral Kuznetzov passes through the English Channel near KentCredit: JIM BENNETTHe said the Royal Navy still does not yet have any aircraft carriers of its own and Britain is a decade away from being able to carry out a similar deployment with its own warships and jets.

''The [Kutnetsov's] power plant is bad, but I am not sure we in Britain should over criticise that given our recent history with the Type 45.''

The Navy announced earlier this year that all six of its Type 45 destroyers needed engine refits after troubles with power outages.

He went on: ''It's easy to be disparaging, she's an unlucky ship and she has really basic errors in design, but she still represents an impressive capability.''

Nick Childs, a naval expert at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, said: ''It's had a troubled history, it's had reliability issues and its old. But on the other hand, there's capability there.

''It's a limited capability compared to a US carrier, but it's not to be dismissed.

''It can provide limited capability and it they get to the eastern Mediterranean they can launch some strikes in Syria with these planes.''

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Tue, 01 Nov 2016 02:01

Donald Trump gives a fist-pump to the ground crew as he arrives on his plane in St. Augustine, Florida, on Oct. 24.Jonathan Ernst/Reuters

The greatest miracle of the internet is that it exists'--the second greatest is that it persists. Every so often we're reminded that bad actors wield great skill and have little conscience about the harm they inflict on the world's digital nervous system. They invent viruses, botnets, and sundry species of malware. There's good money to be made deflecting these incursions. But a small, tightly knit community of computer scientists who pursue such work'--some at cybersecurity firms, some in academia, some with close ties to three-letter federal agencies'--is also spurred by a sense of shared idealism and considers itself the benevolent posse that chases off the rogues and rogue states that try to purloin sensitive data and infect the internet with their bugs. ''We're the Union of Concerned Nerds,'' in the wry formulation of the Indiana University computer scientist L. Jean Camp.

In late spring, this community of malware hunters placed itself in a high state of alarm. Word arrived that Russian hackers had infiltrated the servers of the Democratic National Committee, an attack persuasively detailed by the respected cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike. The computer scientists posited a logical hypothesis, which they set out to rigorously test: If the Russians were worming their way into the DNC, they might very well be attacking other entities central to the presidential campaign, including Donald Trump's many servers. ''We wanted to help defend both campaigns, because we wanted to preserve the integrity of the election,'' says one of the academics, who works at a university that asked him not to speak with reporters because of the sensitive nature of his work.

Hunting for malware requires highly specialized knowledge of the intricacies of the domain name system'--the protocol that allows us to type email addresses and website names to initiate communication. DNS enables our words to set in motion a chain of connections between servers, which in turn delivers the results we desire. Before a mail server can deliver a message to another mail server, it has to look up its IP address using the DNS. Computer scientists have built a set of massive DNS databases, which provide fragmentary histories of communications flows, in part to create an archive of malware: a kind of catalog of the tricks bad actors have tried to pull, which often involve masquerading as legitimate actors. These databases can give a useful, though far from comprehensive, snapshot of traffic across the internet. Some of the most trusted DNS specialists'--an elite group of malware hunters, who work for private contractors'--have access to nearly comprehensive logs of communication between servers. They work in close concert with internet service providers, the networks through which most of us connect to the internet, and the ones that are most vulnerable to massive attacks. To extend the traffic metaphor, these scientists have cameras posted on the internet's stoplights and overpasses. They are entrusted with something close to a complete record of all the servers of the world connecting with one another.

In late July, one of these scientists'--who asked to be referred to as Tea Leaves, a pseudonym that would protect his relationship with the networks and banks that employ him to sift their data'--found what looked like malware emanating from Russia. The destination domain had Trump in its name, which of course attracted Tea Leaves' attention. But his discovery of the data was pure happenstance'--a surprising needle in a large haystack of DNS lookups on his screen. ''I have an outlier here that connects to Russia in a strange way,'' he wrote in his notes. He couldn't quite figure it out at first. But what he saw was a bank in Moscow that kept irregularly pinging a server registered to the Trump Organization on Fifth Avenue.

More data was needed, so he began carefully keeping logs of the Trump server's DNS activity. As he collected the logs, he would circulate them in periodic batches to colleagues in the cybersecurity world. Six of them began scrutinizing them for clues.

Trump Tower.Ullstein Bild/Getty Images

(I communicated extensively with Tea Leaves and two of his closest collaborators, who also spoke with me on the condition of anonymity, since they work for firms trusted by corporations and law enforcement to analyze sensitive data. They persuasively demonstrated some of their analytical methods to me'--and showed me two white papers, which they had circulated so that colleagues could check their analysis. I also spoke with academics who vouched for Tea Leaves' integrity and his unusual access to information. ''This is someone I know well and is very well-known in the networking community,'' said Camp. ''When they say something about DNS, you believe them. This person has technical authority and access to data.'')

The researchers quickly dismissed their initial fear that the logs represented a malware attack. The communication wasn't the work of bots. The irregular pattern of server lookups actually resembled the pattern of human conversation'--conversations that began during office hours in New York and continued during office hours in Moscow. It dawned on the researchers that this wasn't an attack, but a sustained relationship between a server registered to the Trump Organization and two servers registered to an entity called Alfa Bank.

The researchers had initially stumbled in their diagnosis because of the odd configuration of Trump's server. ''I've never seen a server set up like that,'' says Christopher Davis, who runs the cybersecurity firm HYAS InfoSec Inc. and won a FBI Director Award for Excellence for his work tracking down the authors of one of the world's nastiest botnet attacks. ''It looked weird, and it didn't pass the sniff test.'' The server was first registered to Trump's business in 2009 and was set up to run consumer marketing campaigns. It had a history of sending mass emails on behalf of Trump-branded properties and products. Researchers were ultimately convinced that the server indeed belonged to Trump. (Click here to see the server's registration record.) But now this capacious server handled a strangely small load of traffic, such a small load that it would be hard for a company to justify the expense and trouble it would take to maintain it. ''I get more mail in a day than the server handled,'' Davis says.

''I've never seen a server set up like that.''

Christopher Davis of the cybersecurity firm HYAS InfoSec Inc.That wasn't the only oddity. When the researchers pinged the server, they received error messages. They concluded that the server was set to accept only incoming communication from a very small handful of IP addresses. A small portion of the logs showed communication with a server belonging to Michigan-based Spectrum Health. (The company said in a statement: ''Spectrum Health does not have a relationship with Alfa Bank or any of the Trump organizations. We have concluded a rigorous investigation with both our internal IT security specialists and expert cyber security firms. Our experts have conducted a detailed analysis of the alleged internet traffic and did not find any evidence that it included any actual communications (no emails, chat, text, etc.) between Spectrum Health and Alfa Bank or any of the Trump organizations. While we did find a small number of incoming spam marketing emails, they originated from a digital marketing company, Cendyn, advertising Trump Hotels.'')

Spectrum accounted for a relatively trivial portion of the traffic. Eighty-seven percent of the DNS lookups involved the two Alfa Bank servers. ''It's pretty clear that it's not an open mail server,'' Camp told me. ''These organizations are communicating in a way designed to block other people out.''

Earlier this month, the group of computer scientists passed the logs to Paul Vixie. In the world of DNS experts, there's no higher authority. Vixie wrote central strands of the DNS code that makes the internet work. After studying the logs, he concluded, ''The parties were communicating in a secretive fashion. The operative word is secretive. This is more akin to what criminal syndicates do if they are putting together a project.'' Put differently, the logs suggested that Trump and Alfa had configured something like a digital hotline connecting the two entities, shutting out the rest of the world, and designed to obscure its own existence. Over the summer, the scientists observed the communications trail from a distance.

While the researchers went about their work, the conventional wisdom about Russian interference in the campaign began to shift. There were reports that the Trump campaign had ordered the Republican Party to rewrite its platform position on Ukraine, maneuvering the GOP toward a policy preferred by Russia, though the Trump campaign denied having a hand in the change. Then Trump announced in an interview with the New York Times his unwillingness to spring to the defense of NATO allies in the face of a Russian invasion. Trump even invited Russian hackers to go hunting for Clinton's emails, then passed the comment off as a joke. (I wrote about Trump's relationship with Russia in early July.)

In the face of accusations that he is somehow backed by Putin or in business with Russian investors, Trump has issued categorical statements. ''I mean I have nothing to do with Russia,'' he told one reporter, a flat denial that he repeated over and over. Of course, it's possible that these statements are sincere and even correct. The sweeping nature of Trump's claim, however, prodded the scientists to dig deeper. They were increasingly confident that they were observing data that contradicted Trump's claims.

Donald Trump speaks at a rally at in Springfield, Ohio, on Thursday.Paul Vernon/Getty Images

In the parlance that has become familiar since the Edward Snowden revelations, the DNS logs reside in the realm of metadata. We can see a trail of transmissions, but we can't see the actual substance of the communications. And we can't even say with complete certitude that the servers exchanged email. One scientist, who wasn't involved in the effort to compile and analyze the logs, ticked off a list of other possibilities: an errant piece of spam caroming between servers, a misdirected email that kept trying to reach its destination, which created the impression of sustained communication. ''I'm seeing a preponderance of the evidence, but not a smoking gun,'' he said. Richard Clayton, a cybersecurity researcher at Cambridge University who was sent one of the white papers laying out the evidence, acknowledges those objections and the alternative theories but considers them improbable. ''I think mail is more likely, because it's going to a machine running a mail server and [the host] is called mail. Dr. Occam says you should rule out mail before pulling out the more exotic explanations.'' After Tea Leaves posted his analysis on Reddit, a security blogger who goes by Krypt3ia expressed initial doubts'--but his analysis was tarnished by several incorrect assumptions, and as he examined the matter, his skepticism of Tea Leaves softened somewhat.

I put the question of what kind of activity the logs recorded to the University of California's Nicholas Weaver, another computer scientist not involved in compiling the logs. ''I can't attest to the logs themselves,'' he told me, ''but assuming they are legitimate they do indicate effectively human-level communication.''

Weaver's statement raises another uncertainty: Are the logs authentic? Computer scientists are careful about vouching for evidence that emerges from unknown sources'--especially since the logs were pasted in a text file, where they could conceivably have been edited. I asked nine computer scientists'--some who agreed to speak on the record, some who asked for anonymity'--if the DNS logs that Tea Leaves and his collaborators discovered could be forged or manipulated. They considered it nearly impossible. It would be easy enough to fake one or maybe even a dozen records of DNS lookups. But in the aggregate, the logs contained thousands of records, with nuances and patterns that not even the most skilled programmers would be able to recreate on this scale. ''The data has got the right kind of fuzz growing on it,'' Vixie told me. ''It's the interpacket gap, the spacing between the conversations, the total volume. If you look at those time stamps, they are not simulated. This bears every indication that it was collected from a live link.'' I asked him if there was a chance that he was wrong about their authenticity. ''This passes the reasonable person test,'' he told me. ''No reasonable person would come to the conclusion other than the one I've come to.'' Others were equally emphatic. ''It would be really, really hard to fake these,'' Davis said. According to Camp, ''When the technical community examined the data, the conclusion was pretty obvious.''

It's possible to impute political motives to the computer scientists, some of whom have criticized Trump on social media. But many of the scientists who talked to me for this story are Republicans. And almost all have strong incentives for steering clear of controversy. Some work at public institutions, where they are vulnerable to political pressure. Others work for firms that rely on government contracts'--a relationship that tends to squash positions that could be misinterpreted as outspoken.

The researchers were seeing patterns in the data'--and the Trump Organization's potential interlocutor was itself suggestive. Alfa Bank emerged in the messy post-Soviet scramble to create a private Russian economy. Its founder was a Ukrainian called Mikhail Fridman. He erected his empire in a frenetic rush'--in a matter of years, he rose from operating a window washing company to the purchase of the Bolshevik Biscuit Factory to the co-founding of his bank with some friends from university. Fridman could be charmingly open when describing this era. In 2003, he told the Financial Times, ''Of course we benefitted from events in the country over the past 10 years. Of course we understand that the distribution of state property was not very objective. '... I don't want to lie and play this game. To say one can be completely clean and transparent is not realistic.''

To build out the bank, Fridman recruited a skilled economist and shrewd operator called Pyotr Aven. In the early '90s, Aven worked with Vladimir Putin in the St. Petersburg government'--and according to several accounts, helped Putin wiggle out of accusations of corruption that might have derailed his ascent. (Karen Dawisha recounts this history in her book Putin's Kleptocracy.) Over time, Alfa built one of the world's most lucrative enterprises. Fridman became the second richest man in Russia, valued by Forbes at $15.3 billion.

Alfa's oligarchs occupied an unusual position in Putin's firmament. They were insiders but not in the closest ring of power. ''It's like they were his judo pals,'' one former U.S. government official who knows Fridman told me. ''They were always worried about where they stood in the pecking order and always feared expropriation.'' Fridman and Aven, however, are adept at staying close to power. As the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia once ruled, in the course of dismissing a libel suit the bankers filed, ''Aven and Fridman have assumed an unforeseen level of prominence and influence in the economic and political affairs of their nation.''

Unlike other Russian firms, Alfa has operated smoothly and effortlessly in the West. It has never been slapped with sanctions. Fridman and Aven have cultivated a reputation as beneficent philanthropists. They endowed a prestigious fellowship. The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, the American-government funded think tank, gave Aven its award for ''Corporate Citizenship'' in 2015. To protect its interests in Washington, Alfa hired as its lobbyist former Reagan administration official Ed Rogers. Richard Burt, who helped Trump write the speech in which he first laid out his foreign policy, serves on Alfa's senior advisory board. The branding campaign has worked well. During the first Obama term, Fridman and Aven met with officials in the White House on two occasions, according to visitor logs.

Fridman and Aven have significant business interests to promote in the West. One of their holding companies, LetterOne, has vowed to invest as much as $3 billion in U.S. health care. This year, it sank $200 million into Uber. This is, of course, money that might otherwise be invested in Russia. According to a former U.S. official, Putin tolerates this condition because Alfa advances Russian interests. It promotes itself as an avatar of Russian prowess. ''It's our moral duty to become a global player, to prove a Russian can transform into an international businessman,'' Fridman told the Financial Times.

Tea Leaves and his colleagues plotted the data from the logs on a timeline. What it illustrated was suggestive: The conversation between the Trump and Alfa servers appeared to follow the contours of political happenings in the United States. ''At election-related moments, the traffic peaked,'' according to Camp. There were considerably more DNS lookups, for instance, during the two conventions.

Start: DNS lookup history start date.RFC from Alfa-Bank:

Alfa-Bank rep provided with 2 ips, hostname, count.Errors:

4:11 a.m. UTC: DNS lookup errors Trump-Email.com.Errors:

1:12 a.m. UTC: DNS lookup errors Trump-Email.com.Taken down:

9:53 a.m. EST USA time: Trump-Email.com deleted from Trump authoritative name server zone.In September, the scientists tried to get the public to pay attention to their data. One of them posted a link to the logs in a Reddit thread. Around the same time, the New York Times' Eric Lichtblau and Steven Lee Myers began chasing the story.* (They are still pursuing it.) Lichtblau met with a Washington representative of Alfa Bank on Sept. 21, and the bank denied having any connection to Trump. (Lichtblau told me that Times policy prevents him from commenting on his reporting.)

The Times hadn't yet been in touch with the Trump campaign'--Lichtblau spoke with the campaign a week later'--but shortly after it reached out to Alfa, the Trump domain name in question seemed to suddenly stop working. When the scientists looked up the host, the DNS server returned a fail message, evidence that it no longer functioned. Or as it is technically diagnosed, it had ''SERVFAILed.'' (On the timeline above, this is the moment at the end of the chronology when the traffic abruptly spikes, as servers frantically attempt to resend rejected messages.) The computer scientists believe there was one logical conclusion to be drawn: The Trump Organization shut down the server after Alfa was told that the Times might expose the connection. Weaver told me the Trump domain was ''very sloppily removed.'' Or as another of the researchers put it, it looked like ''the knee was hit in Moscow, the leg kicked in New York.''

As one of the researchers put it, it looked like ''the knee was hit in Moscow, the leg kicked in New York.''

Four days later, on Sept. 27, the Trump Organization created a new host name, trump1.contact-client.com, which enabled communication to the very same server via a different route. When a new host name is created, the first communication with it is never random. To reach the server after the resetting of the host name, the sender of the first inbound mail has to first learn of the name somehow. It's simply impossible to randomly reach a renamed server. ''That party had to have some kind of outbound message through SMS, phone, or some noninternet channel they used to communicate [the new configuration],'' Paul Vixie told me. The first attempt to look up the revised host name came from Alfa Bank. ''If this was a public server, we would have seen other traces,'' Vixie says. ''The only look-ups came from this particular source.''

According to Vixie and others, the new host name may have represented an attempt to establish a new channel of communication. But media inquiries into the nature of Trump's relationship with Alfa Bank, which suggested that their communications were being monitored, may have deterred the parties from using it. Soon after the New York Times began to ask questions, the traffic between the servers stopped cold.

Last week, I wrote to Alfa Bank asking if it could explain why its servers attempted to connect with the Trump Organization on such a regular basis. Its Washington representative, Jeffrey Birnbaum of the public relations firm BGR, provided me the following response:

Alfa hired Mandiant, one of the world's foremost cyber security experts, to investigate and it has found nothing to the allegations. I hope the below answers respond clearly to your questions. Neither Alfa Bank nor its principals, including Mikhail Fridman and Petr Aven, have or have had any contact with Mr. Trump or his organizations. Fridman and Aven have never met Mr. Trump nor have they or Alfa Bank had any business dealings with him. Neither Alfa nor its officers have sent Mr. Trump or his organizations any emails, information or money. Alfa Bank does not have and has never had any special or exclusive internet connection with Mr. Trump or his entities. The assertion of a special or private link is patently false.

I asked Birnbaum if he would connect me with Mandiant to elaborate on its findings. He told me:

Mandiant is still doing its deep dive into the Alfa Bank systems. Its leading theory is that Alfa Bank's servers may have been responding with common DNS look ups to spam sent to it by a marketing server. But it doesn't want to speak on the record until it's finished its investigation.

It's hard to evaluate the findings of an investigation that hasn't ended. And of course, even the most reputable firm in the world isn't likely to loudly broadcast an opinion that bites the hand of its client.

I posed the same basic questions to the Trump campaign. Trump spokeswoman Hope Hicks sent me this in response to my questions by email:

The email server, set up for marketing purposes and operated by a third-party, has not been used since 2010. The current traffic on the server from Alphabank's [sic] IP address is regular DNS server traffic'--not email traffic. To be clear, The Trump Organization is not sending or receiving any communications from this email server. The Trump Organization has no communication or relationship with this entity or any Russian entity.

I asked Hicks to explain what caused the Trump Organization to rename its host after the New York Times called Alfa. I also asked how the Trump Organization arrived at its judgment that there was no email traffic. (Furthermore, there's no such thing as ''regular'' DNS server traffic, at least not according to the computer scientists I consulted. The very reason DNS exists is to enable email and other means of communication.) She never provided me with a response.

What the scientists amassed wasn't a smoking gun. It's a suggestive body of evidence that doesn't absolutely preclude alternative explanations. But this evidence arrives in the broader context of the campaign and everything else that has come to light: The efforts of Donald Trump's former campaign manager to bring Ukraine into Vladimir Putin's orbit; the other Trump adviser whose communications with senior Russian officials have worried intelligence officials; the Russian hacking of the DNC and John Podesta's email.

We don't yet know what this server was for, but it deserves further explanation.

Update, Oct. 31, 2016: The article has been updated to make clear that the New York Times reporters learned of the logs independently, not from the Reddit thread. (Return.)

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Mon, 31 Oct 2016 16:57

It has become a commonplace: The notion that many people who voted "Leave" in the EU referendum now regret their vote because they didn't think "Leave" would win or they didn't realise the consequences of leaving the Single Market would be so bad.

If you search for "Brexit I didn't think it would happen" you get dozens of stories about hapless voters who thought they were merely casting a protest vote, not fundamentally altering the economic and constitutional basis of the entire country.

This iconic tweet from the day after the EU referendum sums it all up:

Now, a poll from British Election Study, an academic group dedicated to voting trend research, has found that the portion of Leave voters who regret their vote (or "don't know") is greater than the total margin of victory for Brexit. The poll was noticed by The Economist:

The Economist

That level of post-poll regret is unusual; only 4% of voters regretted their ballot in the 2015 general election.

The margin in the Brexit vote was 52% to 48% in favour of Leave. The BES study suggests that if the vote were taken again today then Britain would stay inside the EU.

Here's Edith Piaf.

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Mon, 31 Oct 2016 16:36

MILAN'--Italy said it would hold a national referendum on Dec. 4 on key constitutional changes that aim to slim down the country's legislature, speed up lawmaking and attack the bureaucratic morass.

Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, who has dubbed the changes ''the mother of all reforms,'' has pledged to resign in the case of a ''no'' vote.

The...

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Source: American Renaissance

Sun, 30 Oct 2016 22:00

Defiant Dutch anti-Islam politician Geert Wilders said Friday he will refuse to attend his hate speech trial next week, dubbing it a travesty aimed at silencing him as the country prepares for 2017 elections.

The trial opens on Monday before a three-judge bench with the far-right politician facing charges of insulting a racial group and inciting racial hatred for comments he made about Moroccans living in the Netherlands.

''It is my right and my duty as a politician to speak about the problems in our country,'' Wilders said in a statement Friday, dubbing the case ''a political trial, in which I refuse to cooperate''.

It comes as opinion polls have shown his far-right Freedom Party (PVV) doing well ahead of March elections.

After riding high amid the migrant crisis, the party is now polling neck-and-neck with Prime Minister Mark Rutte's Liberals each predicted to win between 25 to 29 seats in the 150-seat parliament.

Set to last until November 25, the trial focuses on a comment made at a March 2014 rally when Wilders asked supporters if they wanted ''fewer or more Moroccans in your city and in the Netherlands?''

When the crowd shouted back ''Fewer! Fewer!'' Wilders answered: ''We're going to organise that.''

{snip}

Wilders said Friday he would leave his defence in the hands of his lawyer Geert-Jan Knoops and instead ''go to work'' in the parliament in The Hague.

{snip}

Judges earlier this month dismissed arguments by Wilders' lawyers that the trial was ''politically motivated'' adding they did not believe it will impact the PVV's election campaign.

Politicians ''are granted broad freedoms of expression because of their official position,'' the judges ruled last month.

''Precisely therefore politicians have an important role to avoid feeding intolerance by making these kind of public statements.''

Wilders hit back Friday saying ''it is a travesty that I have to stand trial because I spoke about fewer Moroccans.''

''Millions of Dutch citizens (43 percent of the population) want fewer Moroccans,'' he claimed.

''Not because they despise all Moroccans or want all Moroccans out of the country, but because they are sick and tired of the nuisance and terror caused by so many Moroccans.''

{snip}

Original Article

Topics: Censorship, Europe, Islam in Europe/Asia

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Source: CNET News

Mon, 31 Oct 2016 19:12

Bloomberg via Getty ImagesSeriously, #HillaryForPrision is actually trending on Twitter.

Supporters of GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump are apparently using a glaringly misspelled version of #HillaryForPrison, the popular hashtag used to hurl accusations at Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, because they charge the social network is censoring them.

The #HillaryForPrision hashtag was trending as high as at No. 2 on Monday with more than 115,000 tweets, which came in well behind "Happy Halloween."

Twitter declined to comment on the claims, instead directing us to a section of its FAQ stating that:

"Trends are determined by an algorithm and, by default, are tailored for you based on who you follow and your location. This algorithm identifies topics that are popular now, rather than topics that have been popular for a while or on a daily basis, to help you discover the hottest emerging topics of discussion on Twitter that matter most to you."

Clinton's campaign didn't immediately respond to requests for comment.

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Source: American Renaissance

Sun, 30 Oct 2016 22:01

Imagine if, during the Jim Crow era, a newspaper offered advertisers the option of placing ads only in copies that went to white readers.

That's basically what Facebook is doing nowadays.

The ubiquitous social network not only allows advertisers to target users by their interests or background, it also gives advertisers the ability to exclude specific groups it calls ''Ethnic Affinities.'' Ads that exclude people based on race, gender and other sensitive factors are prohibited by federal law in housing and employment.

{snip}

The ad we purchased was targeted to Facebook members who were house hunting and excluded anyone with an ''affinity'' for African-American, Asian-American or Hispanic people. (Here's the ad itself.)

When we showed Facebook's racial exclusion options to a prominent civil rights lawyer John Relman, he gasped and said, ''This is horrifying. This is massively illegal. This is about as blatant a violation of the federal Fair Housing Act as one can find.''

The Fair Housing Act of 1968 makes it illegal ''to make, print, or publish, or cause to be made, printed, or published any notice, statement, or advertisement, with respect to the sale or rental of a dwelling that indicates any preference, limitation, or discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, handicap, familial status, or national origin.'' Violators can face tens of thousands of dollars in fines.

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 also prohibits the ''printing or publication of notices or advertisements indicating prohibited preference, limitation, specification or discrimination'' in employment recruitment.

{snip}

Facebook says its policies prohibit advertisers from using the targeting options for discrimination, harassment, disparagement or predatory advertising practices.

''We take a strong stand against advertisers misusing our platform: Our policies prohibit using our targeting options to discriminate, and they require compliance with the law,'' said Steve Satterfield, privacy and public policy manager at Facebook. ''We take prompt enforcement action when we determine that ads violate our policies.''

{snip}

He said Facebook began offering the ''Ethnic Affinity'' categories within the past two years as part of a ''multicultural advertising'' effort.

Satterfield added that the ''Ethnic Affinity'' is not the same as race''which Facebook does not ask its members about. Facebook assigns members an ''Ethnic Affinity'' based on pages and posts they have liked or engaged with on Facebook.

When we asked why ''Ethnic Affinity'' was included in the ''Demographics'' category of its ad-targeting tool if it's not a representation of demographics, Facebook responded that it plans to move ''Ethnic Affinity'' to another section.

Facebook declined to answer questions about why our housing ad excluding minority groups was approved 15 minutes after we placed the order.

{snip}

Original Article

Topics: Anti-Discrimination Law

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Tue, 01 Nov 2016 10:53

A student at Francis Marion University wrote anop-ed explaining how upset she gets when people who aren't from the South say ''y'all'' '-- because it's ''cultural appropriation.''

In a piece for the Patriot, the school's official student newspaper, Leah Power explains that although she has ''attempted to build up a thick skin towards the insensitive jokes, stereotypes, cultural appropriation and overall ignorance'' that she sees around her, she just cannot help but get very upset every time she hears someone who is not from the South use the word ''y'all.''

Power writes that she remembers traveling outside of the South when she was young and having to deal with ''people joking about my accent and the stereotypes of the dumb, inbred, redneck hicks who made up the southern states,'' but that ''sometime in the last year or so, ['y'all' has] gone from a redneck pronoun to a socially acceptable form of addressing a group of people.''

There are conversations about whether it's socially acceptable for white women to wear cornrows if they refuse to recognize the African-American culture and the oppression of black women. There are conversations about the refusal to use people of ethnic backgrounds in runway shows designed around their heritage. Similarly, it seems like the very people who made the inappropriate jokes about the South and made incorrect assumptions about southern people are the same ones picking and choosing what parts they find socially acceptable.

''So yes, I am offended,'' Power writes. ''I wish I weren't. I wish that I was able to rise above this, but I am. [sic]''

Although I do think that Power is overreacting, it also is true that ''y'all'' is a word traditionally associated with southern culture '-- so I can at least kind of understand how she would reach the conclusion that people who use the word but reject other parts of the culture are appropriating.

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Source: FCW: The business of federal technology

Tue, 01 Nov 2016 14:46

Social Media

The social media transitionBy Adam MazmanianOct 31, 2016The First Lady's Snapchat account will be archived and preserved along with the rest of the Obama administration's social media.

Plans to archive tweets from the @POTUS Twitter account to clear the decks for the new administration have been in the works since at least August. Now the White House has fleshed out plans to archive web content, videos, images and social media content from a variety of platforms including Facebook, Vimeo, Flickr, iTunes, Snapchat, Tumblr, YouTube, Instagram, the WhiteHouse.gov website and MySpace.

In an Oct. 31 blog post, Kori Schulman, special assistant to the president and deputy chief digital officer, announced that tweets made under President Barack Obama's @POTUS handle will be transferred to the National Archives and Records Administration and viewable under the newly created @POTUS44 account. As FCW first reported in August, the new administration will start fresh, at least when it comes to social media, with a blank slate @POTUS account.

A similar process will occur with the vice presidential, first lady and press secretary Twitter accounts and official accounts on platforms such as Tumblr, YouTube and Instagram.

The Obama administration is also looking to make the "We the People" petition platform a permanent part of the White House's digital operation. The service attracted 12 million registered users, who created more than 470,000 petitions.

"The 'We the People' code has been open-sourced, and we're taking every step possible to make it easy for future administrations to carry on this tradition," Schulman said.

Plans are also afoot to make White House social media downloadable as bulk, open data. In the meantime, the administration is casting a wide net for proposals on ways to archive the content and make it as open and available as possible.

About the Author

Adam Mazmanian is executive editor of FCW.

Before joining the editing team, Mazmanian was an FCW staff writer covering Congress, government-wide technology policy, health IT and the Department of Veterans Affairs. Prior to joining FCW, Mr. Mazmanian was technology correspondent for National Journal and served in a variety of editorial at B2B news service SmartBrief. Mazmanian started his career as an arts reporter and critic, and has contributed reviews and articles to the Washington Post, the Washington City Paper, Newsday, Architect magazine, and other publications. He was an editorial assistant and staff writer at the now-defunct New York Press and arts editor at the About.com online network in the 1990s, and was a weekly contributor of music and film reviews to the Washington Times from 2007 to 2014.

Click here for previous articles by Mazmanian. Connect with him on Twitter at @thisismaz.

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Source: FCW: The business of federal technology

Tue, 01 Nov 2016 14:48

Defense

DOD to create chief innovation officer positionBy Sean D. CarberryOct 31, 2016At its first public meeting at the Pentagon in early October, the Defense Innovation Board was emphatic about its No. 1 recommendation: The Defense Department should create a new chief innovation officer position. Now Defense Secretary Ash Carter has announced he intends to do just that.

Speaking at the Center for Strategic and International Studies on Oct. 28, Carter said he was moving forward with three recommendations from the board, whose members include astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, Instagram Chief Operating Officer Marne Levine, Alphabet Chairman Eric Schmidt and Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos.

In addition to planning to hire a chief innovation officer, "who will act as a senior adviser to the secretary of defense and will serve as a spearhead for innovation activities," Carter said DOD officials will "increase our focus on recruiting talented computer scientists and software engineers into our force, both military and civilian."

The department will also invest more in machine learning via "targeted challenges and prize competitions...through a virtual center of [excellence] model that establishes stretch goals and incentivizes academic and private-sector researchers to achieve them."

Carter's announcements were the latest in a string of innovation initiatives he has launched in recent years -- reforms that he said are a function of changing technology and the access adversaries have to that technology.

"When I began my own career in physics decades ago, most technology of consequence originated in America," he said. "And much of that was sponsored by government, especially the Department of Defense. Today we're still major sponsors, but much more technology is commercial. The technology base is global, and other countries have been trying to catch up with the breakthroughs that for the last several decades made our military more advanced than any other."

During his tenure at DOD, Carter launched the Defense Innovation Unit Experimental (DIUX) program, which now has offices in the Silicon Valley area of California, Boston and Austin, Texas. He also created DIB, the Strategic Capabilities Office and the Defense Digital Service.

And just as Carter's legacy on topics such as combating the Islamic State group, the Taliban and other terrorist groups will be debated for years, his innovation legacy might be equally contested.

"I'm very encouraged by what I see," said retired Marine Maj. Gen. Arnold Punaro, a former staff director for the Senate Armed Services Committee. "Two things that matter in terms of getting anything done in government, particularly in the Pentagon, [are] you've got to have the organizational framework and leadership and you've got to have the budget, and my view is he's put in place both of those."

Punaro told FCW that Carter has made significant technology investments in the fiscal 2017 budget, currently stalled in Congress, and that the fiscal 2018 budget also includes substantial funding for technology. In addition, Punaro believes that DIB, DIUX, DDS and other offices, including the new chief innovation officer position, are organizational structures that will carry DOD forward after Carter's term ends.

Former Pentagon official Paul Brubaker, however, said Carter's efforts do not add up to a substantive reform of legacy systems and procedures or the creation of a culture of innovation.

"Creating an innovation culture is not something you do by fiat," Brubaker told FCW. The former director of planning and performance management in DOD's Office of the Deputy Chief Management Officer said Pentagon officials have recognized for years that the acquisition and hiring systems need to be revamped and that DOD needs to tap into centers of innovation around the country.

"We actually tried to put in those [reforms] years ago, and the culture just ate them alive," Brubaker said. "And it's going to continue to eat them alive unless there is some very clear roadmap on how you get from the existing culture to a culture of innovation."

Specifically, he said the roadmap must address the underlying processes that "lie in wait and eat innovative ideas for dinner."

"Unless there is a holistic approach to this, little pockets of innovation within the defense establishment are not going to create the kind of systematic institutional change that's being suggested here," Brubaker added.

He said it will be up to the next administration to establish an innovation culture at DOD -- a process he wishes Carter would have embraced earlier in his tenure.

About the Author

Sean Carberry is an FCW staff writer covering defense, cybersecurity and intelligence. Prior to joining FCW, he was Kabul Correspondent for NPR, and also served as an international producer for NPR covering the war in Libya and the Arab Spring. He has reported from more than two-dozen countries including Iraq, Yemen, DRC, and South Sudan. In addition to numerous public radio programs, he has reported for Reuters, PBS NewsHour, The Diplomat, and The Atlantic.

Carberry earned a Master of Public Administration from the Harvard Kennedy School, and has a B.A. in Urban Studies from Lehigh University.

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Mon, 31 Oct 2016 17:12

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan '-- Besieged Afghan officials in the southern province of Oruzgan said on Sunday that scores of regular Afghan soldiers had surrendered in the past week to the Taliban, a trend also occurring recently in other provinces.

The latest case involved 41 Afghan National Army soldiers who surrendered and turned their base, the Mashal base in Chora District, over to the insurgents on Saturday night, according to Dost Mohammad Nayab, the spokesman for the province's governor.

He said it was the third Afghan Army post in the province to surrender to the Taliban in the past week. Significant surrenders have been reported in Kunduz and Helmand Provinces as well.

The Taliban have taken more territory in Afghanistan this year than at any time in their 15-year struggle against the Western-supported Afghan government, according to United Nations data. At the same time, the Afghan military has suffered declining numbers and high attrition rates, according to data from the United States military. Afghan officials have said military casualty rates are historically high.

Oruzgan Province has been under heavy siege for nearly two months, and its capital, Tirin Kot, has nearly fallen to the insurgents four times in that period, according to the provincial governor, Abdul Karim Karimi. In the past, there have been numerous defections by Afghan police officers in Oruzgan, with 20 outposts abandoned in September and many of the officers suspected of changing sides, the governor said.

But the better trained and equipped Afghan military has proved more cohesive than the police, which makes the recent surrenders particularly worrisome.

On Thursday, Mr. Nayab said, 15 Afghan soldiers gave themselves up and surrendered their base, known as Kitod, which guards the road linking the provincial capital to the heavily contested Chora District. Twenty soldiers surrendered a base known as Sajawal on the outskirts of Tirin Kot a week ago.

In addition, Mr. Nayab said, 70 members of the Afghan Civil Order Police, a militarized and elite police unit, surrendered their base near Tirin Kot, known as Garmaw, about three weeks ago. In all cases, the soldiers surrendered all of their equipment and weapons, he said.

''The government is unable to provide supply by air, and the soldiers in the bases are stuck without even enough food, so finally they are surrendering to the Taliban,'' Mr. Nayab said.

A spokesman for the Afghan Ministry of Defense, Dawlat Waziri, confirmed that the Taliban had captured the Mashal base, but he denied that any Afghan soldiers had surrendered.

''Afghan Army members have never surrendered to the enemy,'' he said. ''They have been killed or wounded, but have never in our history surrendered.'' He said an investigation was underway.

On Sunday, the Special Inspector General for Afghan Reconstruction issued its quarterly report to the United States Congress. It cited data provided by the American-led NATO coalition in Afghanistan showing the Afghan military declining in size because of recruitment problems and increased attrition.

According to the report, the Afghan military's uniformed forces declined by 2,199 in the third quarter of 2016, leaving the army at 87 percent of its authorized military strength of about 170,000. Attrition in the military, caused by rising casualties, declining re-enlistments and desertions, was about 33 percent annually as of August, the report said '-- an increase from 28 percent a year earlier.

The American inspector general's report also cited data showing that 33 of Afghanistan's 400 districts were under Taliban control or influence, while 116 districts were contested, one of many indications of how much the conflict has spread.

According to the United Nations, this year 382,000 Afghan civilians had been forced to flee from 196 districts, in nearly every province, as of October. That was up from 135 districts during 2015.

In addition to Oruzgan, areas hit particularly hard by recent fighting include the provinces of Kunduz in the north and Helmand in the southwest. In Kunduz, the capital has been overrun by the insurgents twicein thelast year. And in Helmand, the Taliban have repeatedly advanced to within short distances of the capital, Lashkar Gah, which remains under threat.

United States airstrikes have repeatedly prevented all three places from falling completely to the insurgents. But American forces still in Afghanistan '-- numbering about 10,000, compared with a peak of 140,000 a few years ago '-- have made little difference on the ground.

Lately, the Taliban insurgents have begun regularly uploading videos showing captured soldiers, boasting of treating them well and allowing them to return to their families as long as they promise not to rejoin the fight.

One video showed the soldiers who surrendered at Sajawal, in Oruzgan, last week. An Afghan reporter for The New York Times who recognized one of the soldiers confirmed its authenticity.

Taimoor Shah reported from Kandahar, and Rod Nordland from Kabul. Fahim Abed and Jawad Sukhanyar contributed reporting from Kabul.

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Mon, 31 Oct 2016 15:33

'Fraudulent research makes it past gatekeepers at even the most prestigious journals'

London 31 October: A new report published by the Global Warming Policy Foundation reveals the extent to which current policy-making is reliant on untrustworthy peer-reviewed research, much of which cannot be replicated and ''may be simply untrue''.

click on the image above to watch a short video about the GWPF report

''Fraudulent research makes it past gatekeepers at even the most prestigious journals,'' says Donna Laframboise, the study's author and the investigative journalist behind the 2011 expos(C) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) entitled: The Delinquent Teenager Who Was Mistaken for the World's Top Climate Expert.

The report, entitled Peer Review: Why Skepticism is Essential, describes the peer-review process as ''haphazard and byzantine'', raising serious questions about the state of modern science and casting doubt on policies that claim to be 'evidence-based'.

Laframboise explains:

''A policy cannot be considered evidence-based if the evidence on which it depends was never independently verified'... News from the worlds of astrobiology, ecology, economics, chemistry, computer science, management studies, medicine, neuroscience, psychology, and physics all tell the same tale: 'peer-reviewed' does not equal 'policy-ready'.''

This has striking implications for climate change policy, and particularly for the IPCC, which relies on the credibility of the peer-review process to provide support for its conclusions, and is quick to dismiss research that has not been peer-reviewed.

Laframboise describes how the now-disgraced former IPCC chairman Rajendra Pachauri was once asked if an Indian environment ministry report might alter the IPCC's pessimistic view of Himalayan glaciers. The 'IPCC studies only peer-review science', Rajendra Pachauri replied dismissively. Until the report's data appears in 'a decent credible publication', he said, 'we can just throw it into the dust- bin'.''

Full report (pdf)

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Source: The Deplorable Climate Science Blog

Tue, 01 Nov 2016 14:46

Sixteen years ago, The Independent announced snow is a thing of the past.

Snowfalls are now just a thing of the past '' Environment '' The Independent

Fast forward 16 years, the BBC has announced that snow will soon be a thing of the past.

BBC '' Earth '' Will snow become a thing of the past as the climate warms?

This will come as a bit of a shock to the planet, which believes fall/winter snow extent is rapidly increasing and currently near record high levels.

Rutgers University Climate Lab :: Global Snow Lab

Rutgers University Climate Lab :: Global Snow Lab

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Tue, 01 Nov 2016 00:37

The Zika virus could cause infertility in men, a new study suggests.

Scientists in the US discovered that mice infected with Zika had shrunken testicles, low testosterone levels and low sperm counts.

Although the findings have not yet been replicated in humans, experts say that the virus may also have worrying conseqences for men who become infected.

The more we learn about the Zika virus, the more interesting and alarming it becomes.Prof Allan Pacey University of Sheffield

Dr Michael Diamond, of the University of Washington, who co-authored the study, said: "While our study was in mice, and with the caveat that we don't yet know whether Zika has the same effect in men, it does suggest that men might face low testosterone levels and low sperm counts after Zika infection, affecting their fertility.

"We don't know for certain if the damage is irreversible, but I expect so, because the cells that hold the internal structure in place have been infected and destroyed.''

The research is the first to link Zika to male infertility. Previously it was though that the virus, which is passed on through mosquito bites, was only dangerous for pregnant women, because it can lead to babies being born with shrunken heads and brain damage, a condition known as microcephaly. In rare cases it can also lead to Guillain-Barre syndrome which can cause paralysis and lead to death.

Hundreds of babies have been born with microcephaly in South America since the Zika outbreakCredit: Felipe Dana According to Public Health England (PHE), some 244 British people have contracted the virus since the current outbreak from travelling abroad, but they did not have records for how many were men.

The study authors say men may not realise they are infertile until many years after infection.

''This is the only virus I know of that causes such severe symptoms of infertility," said co-author Dr Kelle Moley, professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Washington.

''You might also ask, 'Wouldn't a man notice if his testicles shrank?' Well, probably. But we don't really know how the severity in men might compare with the severity in mice. I assume that something is happening to the testes of men, but whether it's as dramatic as in the mice is hard to say.''

British experts said the findings coincided with reports that men infected with Zika suffered from pelvic pain and blood in their urine. The effects are similar to those seen following human infection with other sexually transmitted infections.

Pregnant women have been advised to avoid Zika infected countries but no advice has been given for men Dr Derek Gatherer, lecturer in the Division of Biomedical and Life Sciences at Lancaster University, said it was important to start monitoring the fertility of men who had been infected with Zika to see if patterns emerge.

''The question of whether or not male Zika patients develop subsequent fertility problems ought to be answerable by comparing the numbers of children born to that group, and their sperm counts, against a social and age matched Zika-negative group,'' he said.

''It's been known for a while that Zika virus in men can find its way into the reproductive organs and may then go on to be sexually transmitted, but this study in mice is the first suggestion that this passage through the reproductive tract may actually be damaging.

''Whether the results are relevant to human Zika infection remains to be seen. Nevertheless, some clinical reports of pain in the lower pelvis of Zika patients, and blood in their sperm would be consistent with a similar effect happening in humans.''

Officials preparing for the Olmypics in Rio this summer The virus is known to persist in men's semen for months and PHE currently recommends that men use condoms for six months upon returning from a Zika-endemic region to avoid passing the disease to their partners.

However, the new research suggests that the virus can also damage the male reproductive system.

Scientists found that after three weeks the testicles of Zika-infected mice had shrunk to one-tenth of their normal size and their internal structure was completely destroyed. Levels of their sex hormones also dropped and their fertility was reduced.

By six weeks after infection, the number of motile sperm was down tenfold, and testosterone levels were similarly low.

When healthy females were mated with infected mice, the females were around four times less likely to become pregnant as those paired with uninfected males.

10-year-old Elison nurses his 2-month-old brother Jose Wesley Prof Richard Sharpe, of the MRC Centre for Reproductive Health at the University of Edinburgh said: ''The big question is whether the same course of events might happen in men infected with Zika, because if so, it could well result in permanent loss of or reduction in fertility

''For sure, any generalised infection of the testes bad enough to provoke an immune reaction within the testes is bad news for testis function and sperm generation. The answer is that we just don't know.

''These new findings strongly suggest that testes function in human men infected with Zika should be closely investigated so that we can try and establish whether or not Zika poses a new threat to male reproductive function.''

In August, US scientists said that the disease had the potential to cause long-term memory problems, similar to Alzheimer's disease.

Prof Allan Pacey, professor of Andrology at the University of Sheffield, added: ''The more we learn about the Zika virus, the more interesting and alarming it becomes.''

Governments in South America are attempting to combat the outbreak by releasing genetically modified or infected mosquitoes into communities to bring down insect populations.

The research was published in the journal Nature.

Follow Telegraph Science & Tech

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Tue, 01 Nov 2016 15:14

Nontuberculous mycobacteria (NTM) are naturally-occurring organisms found in water and soil. NTM lung infection occurs when a person inhales the organism from their environment. Most people do not become ill but for some susceptible individuals, a slowly progressive and destructive disease can occur.

Key FactsNontuberculous mycobacteria (NTM) are organisms naturally found in soil and water.NTM infections can become chronic and require ongoing treatment. Some patients, however, do not require treatment for their less severe infections.Treatment of NTM requires antibiotics for 1 to 2 years.What Is NTM?NTM are mycobacteria found throughout nature in water and soil. NTM represent over 150 different species, most of which do not seem to cause human disease except in individuals with a weak immune system.

How NTM Affects Your BodyExposure to environmental sources of NTM can lead to NTM entering the lungs. In most individuals, the NTM organisms are cleared from the lung naturally and do not cause infection. In some people, the organism infects the airways and lung tissue leading to disease. This causes inflammation in the respiratory system. Without treatment, many people, but not all, will develop a progressive lung infection characterized by cough, fatigue, and often weight loss.

How Serious Are NTMThere are about 50,000 to 90,000 people with NTM pulmonary disease in the United States, with a much higher frequency in older adults. However, NTM can affect any age group. In some people NTM infections can become chronic and require ongoing treatment. Severe NTM lung disease can have a significant impact on quality of life. Death directly related to NTM lung disease is relatively rare.

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Tue, 01 Nov 2016 15:13

''NTM'' is short for Nontuberculous Mycobacteria. NTM lung disease is a devastating chronic illness mostly affecting women.

NTM is a naturally occurring environmental pathogen which impacts tens of thousands of people every year in the United States alone. The bacteria are widely found in the environment, including soil and tap water, which means people can become infected through everyday activities such as showering and gardening. Nearly every water source contains NTM, and because water heater temperature standards are lower than needed to eliminate such pathogens, the concentration of NTM in tap water has increased.

NTM is not as well-known or understood as Tuberculosis. An estimated 50,000 to 90,000 people in the United States have pulmonary NTM disease at any given time, and between 12,000 and 18,000 people become infected each year. The rate of infection increases five-fold in patients over 65 years old, presenting a growing risk as the Baby Boomer population ages. The National Institutes of Health has found in a multi-state study of patients hospitalized with severe lung infections that incidence of NTM is on the rise in the United States.

Underlying pulmonary problems and prior pneumonia are but a few risk factors, and a number of genetic diseases including Cystic Fibrosis, COPD, and Alpha-1 Antitrypsin Deficiency have a statistically demonstrable link with NTM. Slender Caucasian women are particularly vulnerable to infection.

It is now known that immunosuppressive medications such as chemotherapy, prednisone, or drugs used to treat conditions such as Rheumatoid Arthritis, psoriasis and Crohn's Disease, may increase the risk of NTM infection.

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Thu, 03 Nov 2016 13:44

[See NewsBusters for more.] A Boston law firm has been secretly funneling money to top Democrats in an effort to influence the 2016 elections. Yet, ABC and NBC have, thus far, skipped the revelation. Only CBS This Morning on Wednesday covered the story. Co-host Gayle King explained, ''Hillary Clinton's campaign is returning thousands of dollars in donations tied to what may be one of largest straw donors schemes ever uncovered.'' She added that the Thorton law firm has given thousands to Democratic Senators Elizabeth Warren and Harry Reid, as well as President Obama. Hillary Clinton is giving back her donation. Reporter Tony Dokoupil told viewers, ''According to the firm's own documents leaked by a whistle-blower, days or even hours after making these donations partners received money matching the amount they gave.''

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Thu, 03 Nov 2016 13:17

See more in the cross-post on the NewsBusters blog.

Continuing the liberal media's rush to tarnish the FBI's reputation, MSNBC's All In host Chris Hayes and American Urban Radio Networks correspondent April Ryan blasted Director James Comey's letter about the Hillary Clinton e-mail investigation on Wednesday as a move that ''raised serious questions about the FBI's integrity and impartiality'' akin to the Bureau's spying on Martin Luther King Jr.

Within his show's first two minutes, Hayes admitted that while the full impact of Comey's bombshell letter on the election remains unknown, he ruled ''it's clear that his disclosure and the spate of now competing one might say warring FBI leaks that have followed have raised serious questions about the FBI's integrity and impartiality.''

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Wed, 02 Nov 2016 23:05

In this video released by Project Veritas Action, a top Democratic donor is caught on camera disparaging members of the African American community at a fundraiser for North Carolina U.S. Senate candidate Deborah Ross.

In the video, prominent Ross donor Benjamin Barber expresses his opinion about blacks who vote Republican by comparing them to Nazis.

When you consider civil rights activist Charles Evers, brother to Medgar Evers, is a staunch Donald Trump supporter '' this video is insulting in the extreme.

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Wed, 02 Nov 2016 21:03

US12:02 02.11.2016(updated 12:18 02.11.2016) Get short URL

In an exclusive interview with Sputnik, Mr. Murray said:

"The source of these emails and leaks has nothing to do with Russia at all. I discovered what the source was when I attended the Sam Adam's whistleblower award in Washington. The source of these emails comes from within official circles in Washington DC. You should look to Washington not to Moscow."

When asked about whether or not WikiLeaks have ever published information at the behest of Moscow, Mr. Murray said:

"WikiLeaks has never published any material received from the Russian government or from any proxy of the Russian government. It's simply a completely untrue claim designed to divert attention from the content of the material."

The Podesta leaks are a trove of emails that have been dropped almost daily by WikiLeaks and consist of emails from Hillary Clinton's campaign manager John Podesta. The leaks, along with the DNC troves, have provided insight into the inner workings of the Clinton campaign, leaving the presidential nominee red-faced. Clinton's allies have accused the whistleblowing website and Russia of working in cahoots with the Trump campaign.

(C) AFP 2016/ Brendan Smialowski

Clinton advisers Jake Sullivan (L), Nick Burns (2L) and John Podesta (2R) wait with Clinton Campaign Chairman, Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton for a meeting with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko on September 19, 2016 in New York.

The role of WikiLeaks as a thorn in the side of the US government dates further back than the Podesta and DNC leaks.

The whistleblowing site is renowned for leaking information on sensitive US policy positions, such as the much excoriated relationship with the monarchy of Saudi Arabia. During her tenure as Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton is quoted as saying in reference to Mr. Assange, "can't we just drone this guy?"

(C) AP Photo/

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange

While a nuisance to Washington, the WikiLeaks revelations have often been hailed as a champion of accountability.

"I think whistleblowers have become extremely important in the West because the propaganda model '-- as Chomsky puts it '-- has been reinforced to the extent that people don't get any true information out of the media at all. It's worth saying that Julian Assange and WikiLeaks are publishers; they publish what whistleblowers leak to them," Mr. Murrary told Sputnik.

Yet, whistleblowers in the US continue to be subject to lengthy prison sentences.

A prime example is Chelsea Manning, who was sentenced on August 21, 2013 to a thirty five year sentence for providing WikiLeaks with sensitive military and diplomatic documents highlighting, among other things, US military conduct in Iraq.

Whistleblower Chelsea Manning

Mr. Murray also mentions the case of John Kiriakou, a former investigator of international terrorism with the CIA who turned whistleblower.

"The only person from the CIA who was jailed over the CIA use of torture was John Kiriakou. John was jailed for blowing the whistle on CIA torture."

"The people who did the torture have suffered no comeback at all," adds Mr. Murray.

(C) AP Photo/ Cliff Owen

Former CIA officer John Kiriakou

The recent leaks come on the heels of increased tensions between the West and Russia, especially over the conflict in Syria.

A host of officials and journalists in the West have prophesied over a doomsday scenario. For example, former British general with NATO Sir Alexander Richard Shirreff is quoted as saying that, "under President Putin, Russia has charted a dangerous course that may lead inexorably to a clash with NATO."

"There is no chance whatsoever that Russia is going to ever attack the United States, that simply isn't going to happen," Mr. Murray told Sputnik.

"Just as Russia is not going to attack the United Kingdom. There never has been a chance that Russia would ever attack either of these two countries. But of course the narrative is all to do with power and funneling huge amounts of American taxpayer money into the defense industry and the security industry and these people are both from the class that benefits."

It's an extremely dangerous game, says Mr. Murray, and it feeds into a foreign policy that is completely mad.

"In Syria '-- and I should say I'm no fan of the Assad regime at all '-- but the idea that backing assorted groups of jihadists to tear the country apart is a better solution is crazy and it's especially crazy when we've already messed up Iraq, Afghanistan and now we're doing exactly the same thing again and you can see it doesn't work, it only works in terms of promoting continued instability and continued spending for the military and the security services."

Mr. Murray also believes that the public can't get clear analysis of these issues from mainstream media, because they are part of the same money/power nexus.For a more insightful view and better understanding of the bigger picture, listen to the latest edition of Hard Facts with John Wight and Craig Murray.

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Wed, 02 Nov 2016 14:46

Something Strange Happened After a Car Bombing

Added: 21 hours ago Occurred On: Oct-30-2016By:evilfoundnationIn:Iraq, WTFTags:Something, Strange, Happened, After, a, Car, Bombing, the, other, Day, baghdad, iraq, WTF, Location:Baghdad, Baghdād, Iraq(load item map)Marked as: featuredViews: 248330 | Comments: 642 | Votes:97 | Favorites:72 | Shared: 540 | Updates: 0 | Times used in channels:3Direct link:Direct link without comments:

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Tue, 01 Nov 2016 18:01

Gina McCarthy also plans to give ''climate deniers'' a cold shoulder!

A few weeks ago, the Environmental Protection Agency rolled out a brand new ''Climate Justice'' program.

This initiative would be incomplete, however, if it did not target those most disproportionately impacted by climate change. It has been well documented that the impacts of a warming and increasingly unstable climate are already weighing more heavily on underserved, low-income, minority, and tribal communities.

As with Obamacare, Americans who believe that this new program is actually going to improve their lives will be'...deeply disappointed.

Despite the wildly successful fracking industry, which now accounts for half of all U.S. output, the head of the EPA says Americans are going to have to learn to live with less fossil fuels.

People have to start living a life that's commensurate with reductions in greenhouse gases,'' EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy said while discussing the recent global deal to limit the use of hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) used in air-conditioning and refrigeration.

During a social media discussion with Mashable last week, McCarthy said that fighting climate change will ''not have to be just what government does, but it has to be what people do.''

''People have to start living a life that's commensurate with reductions in greenhouse gases to the extent they can,'' McCarthy said. ''But also, as you said- demand government to be responsive to this.''

I do not think that the minority communities targeted in the ''Climate Justice'' program will appreciate this approach when they do not have enough gas to head to work, or they have to decide between heating their home in the winter or buying locally grown food at the store they are forced to walk to.

But perhaps minorities will be consoled that the EPA is hiring a new ''diversity'' bureaucrat at a six-figure salary?

The Environmental Protection Agency is looking to hire a ''Diversity and Inclusion Specialists,'' who will make $100,000 or more per year.

The agency will hire the employee to set up a diversity and inclusion ''advisory body,'' according to a government job posting.

I might consider applying for the job, but apparently McCarthy doesn't want to talk to ''climate deniers''.

Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Gina McCarthy said she's done talking to ''climate deniers'' who don't think human activities are causing global warming.

''If they haven't figured out by now, what in God's name could anyone say to them?'' McCarthy said in a Facebook Live interview with Mashable Tuesday.

''I don't check out flat Earth society and I'm not talking to climate deniers,'' she said. ''That's it. Sorry, I know I'm supposed to be for everybody, but my patience has worn thin over eight years.''

Between the Animas River spill, the Flint Water Crisis, East Chicago's lead and arsenic contamination problem, the misuse of the rules pertaining to ''Waters of the United States'' regulations, and the court cases involving the EPA-created law under ''Clean Power Plan'', Americans have lost patience with the EPA.

Should Donald Trump be elected, I would give anything to see him go into McCarthy's office and shout ''You're fired.'' Now, that would be real climate justice!

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Tue, 01 Nov 2016 17:50

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Tue, 01 Nov 2016 17:10

Mike Blake | Reuters

Mark Cuban arrives to attend the third and final 2016 presidential campaign debate between Republican U.S. presidential nominee Donald Trump and Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton at UNLV in Las Vegas, Oct 19, 2016.

Cuban has repeatedly hammered Trump for his business acumen and potential to drag the stock market down. The billionaire developer has touted his business success on the campaign trail as evidence of his ability to be president.

However, he said Trump's bizarre remarks show he lacks fitness for the presidency and voters should not expect that to change.

"The thought that once he was elected or if he's elected that all the sudden now with all this potential power he's just going to keep quiet and stay scripted. There's no chance that happens. ... The levels to which he would be corrupted by that power are just beyond conception right now," Cuban said.

He added that he sees risks in a Clinton presidency in that some of her proposals favored by the far-left wing of the Democratic Party, like backing out of or reforming some trade deals or expanding government spending on college. Cuban said he does not agree with her on all policies but "she understands how government works enough that I can lobby against her."

Trump campaign spokeswoman Hope Hicks responded to Cuban's remarks in a statement, saying that "I don't think anyone affiliated with Hillary Clinton has much credibility when speaking about corruption. Furthermore, unlike Mark Cuban, Mr. Trump has a winning temperament and his message has resonated with Americans across the country."

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Tue, 01 Nov 2016 15:49

SOLVED![Blind Gossip] No one is really shocked at the demise of this marriage. Actually, it seems that it wasn't really much of a marriage to begin with!

[The Wife's Boss] set it up as a business arrangement from the beginning.

She didn't want questions about a lesbian working so closely with her, and [The Wife] wanted a baby (but not out of wedlock) so she encouraged [The Wife] to ''marry'' [The Husband] even though everybody knew what a dog he was.

They are all ambitious, so at first the arrangement worked for everybody.

They never slept in the same room and they never had sex, though, so I'm not really sure how the child/ren came about.

Similar:The Stall

Wife:

Husband:

Wife's Boss:

[Optional] Are you surprised about any of this?

SOLVED!Wife: Huma Abedin

Husband: Anthony Weiner

Wife's Boss: Hillary Clinton

The marriage of Huma Abedin and Congressman Anthony Weiner was supposed to be political gold for all the parties involved.

Born in Michigan and raised in Saudi Arabia until she was 18, Huma Abedin has been by Hillary Clinton's side since Abedin's stint as Clinton's personal White House aide in 1996.

In 2001, Abedin met Anthony Weiner at a Democratic National Convention meeting. Weiner was a fiery, up-and-coming politician at the time. At Hillary Clinton's urging, the two went out on one date'... but Abedin found Weiner obnoxious and walked out in the middle of the date.

Fast forward several years.

In 2008, Abedin, at the age of 32, relayed to Hillary Clinton that she wanted a child. As a single Muslim female with a scant history of dating men, it would have been scandalous for her to have a child out of wedlock. The Clintons leaped at the chance to advance their own political agenda, and urged her to pair up with Weiner.

At the time, Weiner was a successful New York City Congressman, and appeared to be in a good position to eventually become Mayor of New York City. Weiner, seeing a chance to secure a permanently close personal and political relationship with the Clintons, agreed to the match.

Abedin and Weiner married in 2010. Bill Clinton officiated. Hillary Clinton said: ''I have one daughter. But if I had a second daughter, it would (be) Huma.''

Awww. What a sweet and happy occasion!

Unfortunately, that happiness was short-lived.

Within the first year, Abedin became pregnant'... but Weiner was already involved in his first of several rounds of sexting and nude photo scandals.

The first major scandal involved a girl named Sydney Leathers.

Weiner blamed the sexting on the fact that his wife would not have sex with him and slept in a separate bedroom. Weiner resigned from Congress.

Abedin was humiliated and wanted a divorce, but the couple stayed together at the urging of the Clintons. Abedin had the baby a few months later.

Over the next few years, Weiner continued to be plagued by more sexting and nude photo scandals. He eventually failed at his run for Mayor of NYC in 2013.

In August 2016, Weiner was caught sexting an underage girl. Sexting? Disgusting, but not unheard of for a politician. He could come back from that and still have a career in politics. Pedophile behavior? Political suicide! You can't come back from that.

The Clintons told Abedin to file for divorce.

As you now know, the FBI probe into Weiner's criminal sexual activity recently unearthed 650,000 emails on a laptop that was used by both Weiner and Abedin. Some of those belong to Abedin, although the number (believed to be over 10,000) and content are unknown. Abedin claims she does not know how the emails ended up on the laptop.

For now, Abedin is off the campaign trail and Clinton is keeping her distance from Abedin.

Although Bill Clinton has said that Hillary has had sexual relationships with women '' and there has been much speculation over Hillary's close relationship with Abedin '' we do not know if Huma Abedin and Hillary Clinton are romantically involved. However, we are confident in reporting that Abedin's marriage to Weiner was a calculated political move on everyone's part'... and that it backfired miserably.

Congratulations to Ginnynotjenny for being first with the correct response!

[Optional] What do you think the FBI will find in Huma's emails?

BG Note: We know that many of you have strong emotions about the 2016 Election. Please keep your comments civil.

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Tue, 01 Nov 2016 15:48

Posted October 31st, 2016 @ 6:13pm

Imagine you lived in a world in which no one except one senior citizen ever drank alcoholic beverages. Would you think it is a good idea to choose this one person '' the only drinker in the world '' to be in charge of the nuclear arsenal?

No, that would be crazy. We know alcohol impairs judgment. And a president is on-call for emergencies 24-hours a day. Alcohol plus life-and-death decisions is a dangerous combination.

The only reason social drinking (or worse) is not automatically disqualifying for the Commander-in-Chief job is because '... wait for it '... many of us also drink alcohol. Or most of us do '' at least enough to consider it normal behavior and socially acceptable.

We Moist Robots like to judge the world through filters that assume we are the standard for normal and sensible behavior. And because many of us drink '' as do most of our role models '' we figure it must be okay for a President to drink.

It isn't.

Because of nuclear codes and terror attacks and whatnot.

In most presidential elections, voters have a choice of one social drinker or the other social drinker. Risk-wise, that's a tie. But this election features a candidate who is known to like her alcohol versus a candidate who has reportedly never had a drink, an illegal drug, or a cigarette. And that means alcohol can be considered in the risk assessment.

I would argue that alcohol consumption is the biggest risk differential in this election. We're just blind to that risk because alcohol is socially acceptable. But even in your own life, you see alcohol being the force behind unwanted pregnancies, drunk driving, bar fights, domestic abuse, sexual abuse, and just about every bad decision you've ever made. If we humans were even a little bit objective we would never select a leader who is likely to be impaired by alcohol several hours per week, including the workday. (Allegedly.)

Here's a quick summary of the other risks, organized by candidate. I'll rank them from 1-10 with 10 being ''drinks alcohol.''

Trump Risks

1. No political experience in office (4)

2. Might say something insulting to another leader (3)

3. Might go nuts for the first time in his 70-year life. (2)

4. Aggressive negotiating stance might cause trouble (5)

5. Might institute some racist/sexist/homophobic policies (0)

6. Doesn't do his homework on the issues (3)

7. Health problems (5)

8. Budget deficit expands to deadly proportions (6)

9. Might cause a race war (3)

Clinton Risks

1. Perpetual scandals and investigations. (5)

2. Health problems for Hillary Clinton (7)

3. Health problems for Bill Clinton that become distractions. (7)

4. Scandals for Bill that distract (8)

5. Big donors to Clinton Foundation rely on wars to make money (9)

6. Clintons are relatively easy to blackmail. (8)

7. Budget deficit expands to deadly proportions (8)

8. Immigration policies are more likely to allow in terrorists (9)

9. Drinks alcohol (10)

I didn't include Climate change in the risk assessment because neither candidate is likely to do much about it.

You can do your own risk assessment and play with the estimates. This is subjective stuff. My only point is that the consumption of alcohol is the biggest risk variable.

'--

Video of Clinton allegedly drunk in the morning.

Video of Clinton allegedly drunk while wondering why she isn't 50-points ahead.

Wikileak email about trying to sober-up Clinton at 4:30 PM.

Video of Clinton allegedly passing out drunk at 911 ceremony.

Images of Clinton drinking socially.

'--

You might enjoy reading my book because of social proof. And by that I mean other people like it.

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Tue, 01 Nov 2016 15:10

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) '-- A medical mystery is being investigated in Montgomery County to learn more about a lung infection that has been linked to water. The disease is called Nontuberculous Mycobacteria or NTM.

It's a lung infection, similar to tuberculosis, that is caused by a bacteria found mainly in water but also in soil and in the air. Doctors say NTM is rare but the number of patients is growing.

The unlikely victims are white, thin, post-menopausal women who live in affluent neighborhoods around Philadelphia's Main Line. ''This is being researched very intensively right now,'' says Dr. Leah Lande, a pulmonologist at Lankenau Medical Center which is part of Main Line Health.

''This is in all of our water,'' she says. ''We are exposed to it everyday when we take a shower.''

Study: Facebook Helps You Live Longer

Dr. Lande doesn't want to cause unnecessary hysteria and emphasizes that the lung infection is very rare. She says she treats about 100 patients a year. Symptoms include a cough and fatigue.

A study from the American Thoracic Society and the National Institutes Of Health in 2012 identified 7 significant clusters of NTM around the country. One of the clusters was found in the greater Philadelphia metropolitan area where significant clusters were identified in Montgomery County.

''You're thinking, have you hurt yourself by drinking water,'' says Karen McCarthy. Karen, who lives in nearby West Chester, was diagnosed with NTM in May.

She's being treated with antibiotics until next September and has installed a special water filter in order to avoid re-exposure. NTM causes the 54-year-old to struggle with fatigue and respiratory issues.

But Karen makes sure to stay in shape which ironically made her more susceptible.

She says she was shocked when she found out that being healthy and fit can put you are risk for the disease.

The NIH report also noted that most NTM patients had higher education and income levels. The infection is difficult to identify. ''The diagnosis is tricky, it is often delayed,'' says Dr. Lande. ''I will see patients as well as others that have been undiagnosed for several years.''

Dr. Lande says mycobacteria can be especially dangerous when it's aerosolized in the shower or from a humidifier and even with dirt that blows in the air. Philip Leitman had never heard of NTM but he says he learned about the lung infection fast after his wife Fern was diagnosed.

They lived in another NTM hot spot in Florida. The lung infection eventually killed her.

''She was such an amazing person,'' said Philip. ''But she is in my heart and with our children in their hearts and with our grandchildren.'' He started an online NTM support group. But not everyone is at risk.

Dentists Issue Warning Regarding Do-It-Yourself Braces

Doctors say African-Americans and people who are heavy tend to not get NTM even though the bacteria that causes it is everywhere.

So why do only certain people develop the infection? ''We don't know,'' says Dr. Lande. ''A lot of people are trying to figure that out now but that's not really understood right now.''

Aqua Pennsylvania ,which supplies water to our area, says it doesn't test for the bacteria because it's not a regulated contaminant and there is no EPA-approved method to measure it.

Switching to bottled water isn't necessarily the answer because the bacteria can be in so many places, but it only causes problems for an unfortunate few.

New Jersey Gas Tax Goes Up'...A Lot

Stephanie Stahl, CBS 3 and The CW Philly 57's Emmy Award-winning medical specialist, is featured daily on Eyewitness News. As one of the television industry's most respected medical reporters, Stahl has been recognized by community and he...

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Tue, 01 Nov 2016 01:06

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Mon, 31 Oct 2016 21:28

On Friday evening as the sun descended over the old Hollywood set of ''Desperate Housewives,'' Elon Musk took to a stage and fired up his presentation about climate change. It was a strange scene, with hundreds of people crowded into the middle of a subtly artificial suburban neighborhood.

It wasn't until about a minute into the speech that Musk casually let the crowd in on Tesla's big secret. ''The interesting thing is that the houses you see around you are all solar houses,'' Musk said. ''Did you notice?''

The answer, in short, was no. Like everyone else, I knew we were there to see Musk's new ''solar roof,'' whatever that was supposed to mean. But try as I could as we walked in, I didn't see anything that looked like it could carry an electric current. If anything, the slate and Spanish clay roofs looked a bit too nice for a television set. This is the future of solar, Musk proclaimed. ''You'll want to call your neighbors over and say 'check out the sweet roof.' It's not a phrase you hear often.''

The roof tiles are actually made of textured glass. From most viewing angles, they look just like ordinary shingles, but they allow light to pass through from above onto a standard flat solar cell. The plan is for Panasonic to produce the solar cells and for Tesla to put together the glass tiles and everything that goes along with them. That's all predicated on shareholders approving the $2.2 billion acquisition of SolarCity, the biggest U.S. rooftop installer, on Nov. 17.

Four things I didn't think were solar cells.

Tesla says the tempered glass is ''tough as steel,'' and can weather a lifetime of abuse from the elements. It can also be fitted with heating elements to melt snow in colder climates. ''It's never going to wear out,'' Musk said, ''It's made of quartz. It has a quasi-infinite lifetime.''

In a Q&A with reporters after the presentation, Musk said the tiles are comparable to competing high-efficiency solar panels. The current prototypes that Tesla engineers are working with reduce the efficiency of the underlying solar cell by just 2 percent. With further refinement, Musk said he hopes the microscopic louvers responsible for making the tiles appear opaque can be used to actually boost the efficiency of standard photovoltaic cells.

This, apparently, is a solar roof.

Putting the pieces togetherThe vision presented at Universal Studios in Los Angeles is the grand unification of Musk's clean-energy ambitions. The audience was able to step into a future powered entirely by Tesla: a house topped with sculpted Tuscan solar tiles, where night-time electricity is stored in two sleek wall-hung Powerwall batteries, and where a Model 3 prototype electric car sits parked out front within reach of the home's car charger.

Attracting less attention on Wisteria Lane was Tesla's Powerwall 2, a major upgrade of its home battery for electricity storage. When the original Powerwall was released last year, I was skeptical. Mostly, it was just too pricey for the amount of power it provided, especially in the U.S. where electricity is cheap and most people can sell their excess solar power back to the grid. Version 2 is a much different product. It packs more than twice the capacity'--14 kilowatt hours versus 6.4 kilowatt hours'--for less than half the price after installation. It includes a built-in Tesla-brand inverter and comes with a ten year, infinite-cycle warranty.

More power to ya.

Photographer: Tom Randall/Bloomberg

Electricity storage is crucial for future uptake of solar power. Already in some solar-heavy regions, more electricity is being produced during the middle of the day than people can consume, and utility prices spike in the evening hours when the sun goes down. In the U.S., some states are abandoning payments for daytime rooftop solar, undermining huge investments that families have made in their solar systems. The only recourse is for customers to use that electricity themselves, at night.

Like previous attempts at solar shingles, the solar-plus-battery package hasn't really caught on yet. SolarCity's total bundled sales thus far number in just the hundreds. But an argument can be made that the products just weren't compelling enough yet and the prices were still too high.

The Powerwall 2 may be the cheapest lithium ion battery for the home ever made when deliveries start in January. Tesla is selling the batteries at retail prices that are cheaper than the average manufacturing cost at most companies, according to data compiled by Bloomberg New Energy Finance. We "certainly expect it will move the market prices downwards as we saw last year with the first Powerwall," said Yayoi Sekine, a BNEF analyst who covers battery technology.

''The future is going to overwhelmingly be solar plus battery,'' Musk said. "They go together like peanut butter and jelly."

Source: Bloomberg New Energy Finance

Let's wait and seePowerwall 2 looks ready for primetime. The new solar shingles? Let's wait until more details emerge. Tesla says we should expect a slow initial rollout beginning in about nine months. Within two years of production, the shingles could account for five percent of the five million roofs installed in the U.S. every year, said Peter Rive, SolarCity's co-founder and chief technology officer. SolarCity, under the Tesla brand, would also manufacture and sell surface-mounted solar panels for homeowners who have no plans for replacing their existing roofs.

The pricing on the new solar roof is a bit'--squishy. Musk said that someone who buys a Tesla roof will save money compared with someone who buys a comparable traditional roof plus electricity from the grid. But make no mistake: This will be a premium product, at least when it first rolls out. The terra cotta and slate roofs Tesla mimicked are among the most expensive roofing materials on the market. SolarCity CEO Lyndon Rive noted that the price of a conventional roof can vary widely, from $7,000 to $70,000'--based on materials, size, complexity, location'--so giving out firm prices of a solar roof at this point would be difficult.

''It is the metaphoric 'super-car' of residential solar,'' said BNEF solar analyst Hugh Bromley. ''It portrays cutting-edge technology with broad appeal, but '... it competes in a solar market where most customers are comfortable in a family sedan.''

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You will now receive the Game Plan newsletterTelsa will release more financial information about the SolarCity deal this week before it goes to shareholders for a vote. If all of Musk's plans come true, by the end of next year you'll be able to walk into a Tesla store, buy a Model 3 electric car, a slate-glass solar roof, and a Powerwall 2 to manage the flow of all those electrons in your life. There are a lot of details to be hammered out until we know for certain whether Musk's vision for a grand unification will become more than just a great television backdrop. But these tiles, viewed up close, are definitely worth tuning in for.The 2017 trifecta: Solar roof, Powerwall 2, Model 3

Photographer: Tom Randall/Bloomberg

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Mon, 31 Oct 2016 06:35

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Sun, 30 Oct 2016 22:57

About this Video

Jordan Peterson, a psychology professor at the University of Toronto, posted a YouTube video criticizing the proposed Bill C-16, which adds gender identity and gender expression to the list of prohibited grounds of discrimination. His video caused concern and sparked conversation. The Agenda convenes a panel to ask: Is the legislation a matter of human rights or a case of legal overreach that threatens freedom of speech?

Gender, Rights and Freedom of Speech

Help make the world a better place through the power of learning.

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Sun, 30 Oct 2016 22:54

Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton used a national TV interview Friday to accuse her Republican counterpart Donald Trump of 'innuendo, conspiracy theories and defaming people' starting with her closest aide Huma Abedin.

In the exclusive interview with MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell, Clinton said she can take Trump's attacks, but 'I do regret that he's going after so many people.'

That was a reference to Trump's swipe at Abedin, a decades-long Clinton aide and the wife of former Democratic congressman Anthony Weiner.

Trump has been criticizing Abedin for weeks, starting with a DailyMail.com interview in which he alleged that Abedin had likely leaked classified State Department information to her husband, disgraced ex-Democratic congressman Anthony Weiner.

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Hillary Clinton found herself defending her closest aide, Huma Abedin, after Republican billionaire Donald Trump launched a series of attacks on Abedin this week.

Hillary Clinton's top aide, Huma Abedin, has been with the senator for many years and has only recently found herself in a harsh spotlight over her emails and her close ties to Clinton.

Fox News political commentator Megyn Kelly irritated Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump at last month's GOP primary debate, prompting the billionaire to launch a Twitter war against her.

Clinton would have none of it.

'I can take that. I mean, that is just par for the course. But he is going after so many people, many of them by name,' Clinton told Mitchell.

'I think it's an unfortunate development in American politics that his campaign is all about who he's against, whether it's immigrants or women broadcasters, or aides of other candidates.

'He's is the candidate of "being against".

'He's great at innuendo and conspiracy theories and really defaming people. That's not what I want to do in my campaign, and that's not how I'm going to conduct myself.'

Clinton's reference to 'women broadcasters' was about Megyn Kelly, a Fox News TV personality and commentator who was the subject of multiple attacks by Trump on Twitter and in various TV interviews last month.

Trump has been attacking Abedin since July, initially using the DailyMail.com interview to charge that 'the person seeing her emails more than anybody else is Huma. And who's Huma married to? The worst deviant in the United States of America, right? Weiner!'

Last week, Trump had continued to criticize Abedin by saying, 'Do you think there's even a 5 percent chance that she's not telling Anthony Weiner '' now of a public relations firm '' what the hell is coming across? Do you think there's even a little bit of a chance? I don't think so.'

'If you think that Huma isn't telling Anthony, who she's probably desperately in love with, in all fairness to Anthony. Cause why else would she marry this guy? Can you believe it? Can't see straight.'

And on Monday, Trump used one of his favorite weapons, Twitter, to fire a shot across her bow.

Billionaire Donald Trump's attacks on Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin since July were initially unexpected, as candidates rarely take shots at the staffers of their campaign rivals.

Donald Trump vs. Huma Abedin continued this week, when the billionaire took to Twitter to slam the top aide to Hillary Clinton.

Weiner himself got involved too, denying that Abedin had leaked any secret information to him and punching back at Trump.

'I think it's absurd and frankly insulting, not only to my wife '' who, when she worked at the State Department, had a pretty high security clearance, a higher clearance than even some of the candidates running for president '' but it also reflects very poorly on apparently what Mr. Trump thinks about government employees who have high security clearances, that they are talking about things," Weiner said on The Brian Lehrer Show, according to ABC News.

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Sun, 30 Oct 2016 22:07

ROUGH CUT (NO REPORTER NARRATION) Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton told supporters in Florida on Sunday that they can be sure her hair won't go white in the White House, unlike some other recent presidents. Clinton said she doesn't have the same problem as "young men" like President Barack Obama and her husband, former President Bill Clinton. "They go into office'... and within years they've turned white," she said. "Now, since I've been coloring my hair for years you will not see me go white in the White House." Clinton was speaking at a predominantly black church in Fort Lauderdale. Florida is a key swing state in the November 8th election. The New York Times reported on Sunday that its latest polling has Clilnton's Repubican rival Donald Trump leading Clinton by four percentage points in the state.

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Sun, 30 Oct 2016 21:50

Erin Olivera waited weeks for doctors to tell her why her youngest son was paralyzed.

Ten-month-old Lucian had started crawling oddly '-- his left leg dragging behind his right '-- and soon was unable to lift his head, following Erin only with his eyes.

She took him to a hospital in Los Angeles, but doctors there didn't know how to treat what they saw.

Lucian's legs felt soft as jelly and he couldn't move them. His breathing became rapid. The left side of his smile drooped as his muscles weakened.

Physicians ran test after test, and Erin began spending her nights on a hospital room couch. After Lucian fell asleep, during her only minutes alone between working and visiting her three other kids, she cried.

A terrifying reality was taking hold: Doctors wouldn't be able to give her a diagnosis for her paralyzed child.

''How can I make a decision for him when I don't even know what's wrong?'' she said. ''What can I do to help him?''

So one morning in July of 2012, Erin lifted Lucian out of his hospital bed, his body limp and heavy. She rested his cheek on her shoulder, the way he liked to be held since he'd become weak.

Erin returned home to Ventura County with a child she thought might never learn to walk.

In the years since, hundreds of children across the country have shown up at hospitals unable to move their arms or legs. Dozens of kids have become paralyzed in the past few months alone.

They suffer from a mysterious illness that continues to alarm and puzzle scientists. This kind of sudden and devastating paralysis hasn't been widespread since the days of polio. Lucian, one of the disease's earliest victims, set off a hunt among doctors to discover its cause.

::

Before Lucian got sick, he liked to sit on the floor in the kitchen of his home in Moorpark, his small hands pressed against the glass door to the backyard as he tried to stand. He'd roll around, babbling at the dogs outside.

The child Erin brought home from the hospital didn't have enough strength to crawl and couldn't always sit up on his own.

On his first birthday, three weeks after he came home, Erin and her husband Israel propped Lucian up with pillows in a high chair. He giggled as he smeared red frosting on his bare chest and in his blonde hair.

After the kids went to bed in the evenings, Erin and Israel would whisper about Lou-Lou, as they called him. When Erin was pregnant, the couple had decided Lucian would be their last child. They wanted to save money, perhaps take a family vacation. Erin would focus on graduating from nursing school.

Now the future felt upended by questions about their youngest son '-- whether he'd ever be able to drive a car, get married, have kids.

They took him to more doctors, but that failed to bring a diagnosis, let alone a treatment.

Through months of physical therapy, Lucian eventually regained strength in most of his limbs, but still couldn't move his left leg at all. When he crawled, it dragged behind.

Desperate, Erin resorted to endless Internet searches looking for clues about her son's condition.

Then one day, she came across an article online about a dozen paralyzed kids. She immediately thought of Lucian.

The article mentioned Dr. Keith Van Haren, a Stanford University child neurologist who had diagnosed many of the other cases.

She called him.

::

Around the time Lucian first got sick in 2012, Van Haren was flummoxed by a young girl who'd just shown up at his clinic at Stanford.

The 3-year-old had been at home recovering from a bad cold when she suddenly couldn't move her arm. Weeks later, it still hung from her body like dead weight, flopping wildly when she walked.

The paralysis struck Van Haren as unusual.

Doctors had been treating her for an autoimmune disease, as if her body were wrongly attacking its own cells. But if that were the case, her arm wouldn't be so limp nor would the paralysis be so limited to one spot; Van Haren would expect other parts of her body also to be somewhat weak.

This, Van Haren thought, looked more like the most infamous cause of paralysis: polio. But it was eradicated so long ago in the United States that most doctors here have never seen a case.

''We know about it through history books,'' said Van Haren, then just two years out of training.

The girl had been vaccinated against polio. Van Haren didn't know what to tell her parents.

When he contacted California's health department about the odd case, he learned that scientists there had already developed a hunch.

A handful of physicians had seen patients with similar symptoms and asked Dr. Carol Glaser to test them for polio.

''I thought, 'Well that's crazy. We don't have polio here,'' said Glaser, then head of the encephalitis and special investigations section at the California Department of Public Health.

Glaser quickly determined the patients weren't suffering from polio. She also tested for pathogens that can sometimes cause such paralysis, including West Nile virus. All negative.

Then she decided to check for other viruses in the same family as poliovirus, known as enterovirus. And in some of the paralyzed patients, she found a possible culprit: enterovirus D-68.

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Enterovirus D-68 was incredibly rare, almost never seen after it was first discovered in 1962 in four California children who had pneumonia. Though a cousin of poliovirus, it was only supposed to cause a runny nose and cough.

Van Haren had never heard of it.

Glaser asked Van Haren to consult for the health department, and together they watched for more paralysis cases. Their findings were preliminary, but what if they were accurate? What if there were an outbreak?

::

In the middle of the night, Erin sped past crop fields and cattle ranches on the 5 Freeway, headed north to Stanford. Israel sat next to her in the passenger seat, Lucian asleep in the back.

Erin had found some peace from visiting a polio survivors group at a senior center. The survivors, who reminded her of Lucian, told her they'd lived full, happy lives. Don't limit us, they'd said.

Still, Erin showed up for a 10 a.m. appointment with Van Haren hoping for a chance of full recovery.

''What happened to your forehead?'' asked Lucian, as Van Haren entered the exam room.

Van Haren explained to Lucian, now 2-years-old, that he had a birthmark.

''Does it cause you pain?'' Lucian asked.

Van Haren said it didn't, and told Erin and Israel that the question bothered him. Erin thought her son had insulted the doctor.

But Van Haren explained that he was sorry that that was Lucian's first question. That meant, he said, that Lucian knew pain.

Van Haren began to examine Lucian's leg.

It was 2014, two years since Van Haren first treated the young girl with the paralyzed arm.

By now Van Haren, who himself had small children, had grown accustomed to identifying the unique paralysis and relaying the tragic verdict.

One, two, three or four limbs paralyzed. Sudden onset. No cognitive changes.

Lucian fit the bill.

Within minutes, Van Haren delivered the diagnosis: polio-like paralysis likely caused by enterovirus D-68.

Erin's nose turned red like it does when she tears up.

Van Haren told her there were other children like Lucian, and that doctors were learning more about the disease every day.

He said Lucian should continue physical therapy, but there was no cure. Chances were Lucian would never move his left leg.

As they headed back home, Erin, who was driving, waited for Lucian to fall asleep in the backseat. Then she started to cry.

::

After Erin and Israel returned home with Lucian's diagnosis, the mystery paralysis began to spread.

In late summer of 2014, enterovirus D-68 started sending kids struggling to breathe to emergency rooms around the country. News reports called it a rare, cold-causing virus, a danger to children with asthma.

But then an 11-year-old boy in Texas with a seemingly normal fever lost the ability to walk and move his right arm.

A 17-year-old girl in Santa Barbara experienced severe neck pain at her birthday party and ended up in the hospital, paralyzed from the neck down.

In Oregon, a 13-year-old boy's diaphragm stopped working, so he needed a ventilator to breathe. He was completely paralyzed, able only to wiggle his toes and his right hand.

Whatever was happening to these children was ''pretty much, literally, exactly, what polio did,'' said Dr. Jean-Baptiste Le Pichon, a child neurologist who treated four such patients in 2014 at Children's Mercy Hospital in Kansas City, Mo.

Glaser watched from California as the numbers of paralyzed kids grew. She became horrified that her theory about enterovirus D-68 might be correct.

That October, Van Haren spoke at a national meeting of child neurologists. He asked 300 specialists how many of them had seen these kinds of paralysis cases in the past few months.

''More than half the hands in the room went up,'' he recalled.

Doctors coined a name for the phenomenon: acute flaccid myelitis. ''Acute flaccid'' for the sudden and total paralysis and ''myelitis'' for an injury to part of the spinal cord involved in muscle movement, called the gray matter.

Between August 2014 and January 2015, 120 children in 34 states were diagnosed with acute flaccid myelitis, according to federal health officials. The median patient age was 7.

Erin hoped the new cases would lead to a cure for her son.

But doctors say that though the disabled children can regain strength in some limbs, there's usually also some paralysis that cannot be reversed '-- just like with polio.

Scientists think a virus travels to the spinal cord and damages motor function there, irreversibly.

::

Holding the red handles of his walker, Lucian, 5, jumped up and down and told his brother Nikolas to put on his shoes faster. Kids shout, skee balls thump, arcade games cha-ching.

The boys stood on either side of Erin, pulling at her skirt as she talked to the cashier at Chuck E. Cheese's. ''We need tokens! We need tokens!'' they chanted.

A year apart in age, Nikolas and Lucian share the same round, bright eyes and blondish hair. Sometimes they try to pass for twins.

Four years after being hospitalized, Lucian wears braces on both legs '-- the one on his left leg decorated with Spider-Man designs, the right with skulls. When he uses his wheeled walker, he steps with his right leg, pulling his left behind him. His left leg is still completely paralyzed.

Israel stopped working so he could take care of Lucian. Erin often works 64 hours a week as a hospital psychiatric nurse so the couple can pay their bills.

Erin and Israel abandoned their 10-year plan, as well as dreams of buying their oldest son a car when he turned 16, or a vacation home. Their priorities have instead become much more short-term.

Over the summer, the biggest one was kindergarten.

They knew Lucian would do fine academically, he often seemed precociously intuitive and observant.

But would he use a walker or a wheelchair? Would he be in special needs classes? Would they be able to potty-train him on time? Would he need an aide in the classroom? And the most agonizing: would he fit in?

Erin had seen Lucian sitting alone at playgrounds, watching other kids run around. Erin and Israel stayed up at night worrying about how to deal with bullies, joking about ''who's going to bail which one of us out of jail first,'' she said.

Lucian is too young to fully grasp his disability. He knows he can't run or walk on his own, and that makes him unlike other kids. And when he meets new people, he squints his eyes as if he's trying to read their face, to understand them '-- how they'll react to him.

But if you ask Lucian why he uses a walker, he'll blame his older sister, who fell on and fractured his leg two years ago. His parents have repeatedly told him that isn't why he's paralyzed, but he doesn't seem to hear.

That half-understanding sometimes protects Lucian from the pain of his injury's permanence. But it also means each day could bring a new reckoning of his life's limitations.

A few months ago, Lucian asked his parents for an injection. ''It'll fix my leg and it'll be like Niko's,'' he said, using his pet name for Nikolas.

Erin told Lucian what she had many times before: his disability is permanent, there's no miracle treatment. His leg would get stronger over time, with exercise, but it would never be like his brother's.

Lucian angrily pursed his lips and his eyebrows tensed. He went silent.

::

Between June and August this year, another 30 children nationwide became paralyzed, and scientists still don't know why.

Dr. Manisha Patel, who heads the acute flaccid myelitis team for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said the agency is concerned by the increase and its resemblance to 2014. Experts think case numbers for September and October will be even higher.

But there's not much public health officials can do, because the paralysis officially remains a medical mystery.

Many suspect that enterovirus D-68 '-- which gave hundreds of people a severe cold in 2014 '-- also caused the paralysis outbreak that year. Some of the paralyzed children had enterovirus D-68 in their system, and researchers have found that injecting mice with enterovirus D-68 paralyzes them.

But to confirm the link, doctors need to find enterovirus D-68 in the paralyzed children's cerebrospinal fluid, to show that the virus traveled to the spinal cord and created the injury there '-- which they haven't yet.

And physicians are still baffled that no one had noticed the possible risk of paralysis before.

Some think there hadn't ever been enough cases of enterovirus D-68 to unmask the horrifying side effect; only 26 people tested positive for the virus in 36 years. Another possibility is that enterovirus D-68 recently mutated to become more likely to paralyze those infected.

For now, experts say that enterovirus D-68 isn't enough of a threat to make a vaccine and that many people now have immunity to the virus from the 2014 outbreak. Plus, it will probably mutate again, rendering a vaccine that protects against the current strain useless.

''You kind of hold your breath and hope it doesn't get worse,'' Van Haren said.

::

Lucian had been too excited about his first day of kindergarten to eat his Cheerios in the morning, instead unzipping his backpack and removing folders and papers.

But walking from the minivan to the school '-- a taxing process of pulling his left leg with the right, today with the added weight of his bag and lunchbox '-- had tired him by 8 a.m.

In his new classroom, Lucian sat cross-legged at the edge of a colorful rug, his walker to his left. When his teacher took attendance, he turned around to grin at Israel, sitting in the back.

Israel got permission from the school to stay with Lucian on his first day, unsure if the boy would be able to manage on his own. When Erin left an hour prior, Lucian called after her, his eyes wide with panic.

Lucian's teacher Taylor Severn began to teach the class a game: the kids dance to music and freeze when she shakes a tambourine.

''I'm going to stand up with my walker,'' Lucian announced to the class.

The song started and Lucian gripped the handles of his walker, happily shaking his body and kicking his legs. He froze. He danced.

When Severn turned off the music, the students plopped to the floor.

Lucian pushed his walker back. He bent over and put his palms on the rug to slowly lower himself. He pulled his left leg over the right so he was sitting cross-legged. He clasped his hands together and fixed his eyes on his teacher.

At 10 a.m. recess, Israel decided to go home earlier than he'd planned, since Lucian seemed to be doing OK.

He watched his son pull a toy out of a bin on the yard, extending his arm as he tried to land a tethered ball into a cup. Kids around him hula-hooped and took turns on tricycles.

A boy asked Lucian about his walker, and he pointed to his left leg and sheepishly explained that his sister fell on it when they were playing.

Israel walked over to Lucian, who was now at a lunch table eating a Rice Krispie treat.

He kissed his son and headed to his car.

Lucian, talking to the girl across from him, didn't turn around to watch him leave.

soumya.karlamangla@latimes.com

Twitter: @skarlamangla

To read the article in Spanish, click here

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