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REPUBLICAN SENATOR Sends Letter to FBI Director Questioning FBI Relationship to British Spy Who Investigated Trump

HERE S THE BACKGROUND:On January 11, 2017, the media reported on the existence of a private intelligence dossier containing unverified allegations of misconduct and ties between then President-elect Donald Trump and the Russian government. The dossier was written by a former British MI6 intelligence agent, Christopher Steele, who went into hiding after the release of the dossier.The media and the intelligence community have stressed that accusations in the dossier have not been verified. Most experts treated the dossier with skepticism and caution. Trump himself has denounced the report, calling it fake news and phony. A Russian government spokesman dismissed the dossier, saying its allegations were false.The document alleges that the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) has kompromat on Trump damaging or embarrassing material which could be used to blackmail him, including allegations about Trump s sexual and financial activities in Russia. The dossier also states that the Russian government promoted Trump s candidacy to create divisions in Western alliances, and that during his presidential campaign there was exchange of information between Russian sources and people associated with Trump s campaign.The dossier was produced as part of opposition research during the 2016 United States presidential election. The research was initially funded by Republicans who did not want Trump to be the Republican Party nominee for president. After Trump won the primaries, a Democratic client took over the funding; and, following Trump s election, Steele continued working on the report pro bono.In a Monday letter to FBI Director James Comey, Grassley asked for records pertaining to any agreements the agency may have had with Christopher Steele. The MI6 agent wrote an explosive memo on behalf of Trump s political enemies alleging that the Russians had compromising information on the president.Comey briefed Trump on the existence of the memo in a private meeting in January.Shortly after, several news organizations published the unverified allegations, which the White House denied.In late February, The Washington Post reported that the FBI reached an agreement with Steele whereby the British spy would continue his investigation on behalf of the bureau.Read more The Hill

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OBAMA AND VALERIE JARRETT Finalize Executive Action Gun Control Proposal

It s almost as though we don t even have a Constitution Never let a crisis go to waste President Barack Obama s advisers are finalizing a proposal that would expand background checks on gun sales without congressional approval.White House adviser Valerie Jarrett says the president has asked his team to complete a proposal and submit it for his review in short order. She says the recommendations will include measures to expand background checks.Jarrett spoke Wednesday night at a vigil for the victims of the Newtown shooting, according to a summary provided by the White House.After the mass shooting in Roseburg, Oregon, Obama said his team was looking for ways to tighten gun laws without a vote in Congress. White House officials have said they re exploring closing the so-called gun show loophole that anti-gun advocates claim allows people to buy weapons at gun shows and online without a background check.The move comes following the deadly terrorist attack in San Bernardino, California, that left 14 people dead. All of the guns used in the massacre were purchased legally. Opponents of new gun control regulations have argued that the proposals being pushed by Obama would not have prevented the tragedy or recent mass shootings. Via: The Blaze

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Bombshell Reveals Nazi Connection To the Koch Brothers

The infamous conservative Republican financiers Charles and David Koch had a family connection to the Nazis, a new book reveals.Jane Mayer, the New Yorker journalist who was among the first mainstream writers to document the Kochs multi-million dollar campaign to effectively take over the Republican Party and the larger conservative movement, uncovers the connection in her new book, Dark Money.The book, Dark Money, by Jane Mayer, traces the rise of the modern conservative movement through the activism and money of a handful of rich donors: among them Richard Mellon Scaife, an heir to the Mellon banking fortune, and Harry and Lynde Bradley, brothers who became wealthy in part from military contracts but poured millions into anti-government philanthropy.But the book is largely focused on the Koch family, stretching back to its involvement in the far-right John Birch Society and the political and business activities of their father, Fred C. Koch, who found some of his earliest business success overseas in the years leading up to World War II. One venture was a partnership with the American Nazi sympathizer William Rhodes Davis, who, according to Ms. Mayer, hired Mr. Koch to help build the third-largest oil refinery in the Third Reich, a critical industrial cog in Hitler s war machine.The Kochs, who are among two of the wealthiest individuals in America, stand atop an industrial giant Koch Industries that has previously been fined for being one of the worst polluters in America. The brothers use their fortune to finance a political machine that often pursues goals that would enrich the brothers by pursuing a hardline right wing agenda that favors big business and opposes government oversight and regulation.The brothers bankroll a network of groups that often hide their spending on political goals under tax laws. That is the dark money that Mayer s book title refers to. The Kochs run groups like Americans for Prosperity, Freedom Partners, the Center to Protect Patients Rights and then they are also able to flow money towards groups like the NRA, Americans for Tax Reform, and the Club for Growth.What those groups all have in common is their opposition to progressive ideals and their targeting of progressive and Democratic politicians.These groups also work at the state level to prop up governors and state legislators. One particularly potent success the Kochs had was helping Wisconsin s Scott Walker in his campaign to restrict union rights in his state. And the Kochs have cells working towards similar results in all 50 states.After spending about $400 million on the 2012 election, unsuccessfully trying to dislodge President Obama, the brothers announced plans to spend at least $900 million pushing for conservatives in 2016.Featured image via Flickr

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VIOLENT ENVIRONMENTAL LUNATICS Cost Taxpayers MILLIONS To Protect Trump’s EPA Director After Receiving “Unprecedented” Number of Credible Death Threats

Environmental Protection Agency administrator Scott Pruitt has received an unprecedented amount of death threats, requiring a 24-hour security detail, according to an editorial published in the Wall Street Journal.The paper revealed the EPA has received more than 70 credible threats against EPA staffers, with a disproportionate number menacing Administrator Scott Pruitt and his family, since President Donald Trump took office.Credible threats from liberal opponents have resulted in the EPA s inspector general s office recommending 24/7 security detail for Pruitt, which is costing taxpayers $2 million per year. Mr. Pruitt has received more than five times as many threats as his predecessor, Gina McCarthy, the editorial explained. These include explicit death threats. Some have referenced Mr. Pruitt s home address. Federal law enforcement has determined that some of those threatening Mr. Pruitt are likely capable of carrying out acts of violence. Democratic lawmakers have complained that the security detail is a waste of money, claiming there is no apparent security threat against the administrator to justify such a security detail or expenditures. EPA security has already caught suspects prowling around the Administrator s neighborhood, the Journal reported.Liberals have justified the death threats. Last week, a San Francisco columnist argued death threats against Pruitt were justified because he is a banally evil, milquetoast, science-denying government administrator. The death threats make a warped sort of sense, wrote liberal columnist Mark Morford. Mr. Pruitt didn t invent these threats, and Cabinet members shouldn t have to fear violence as a price of public service, the WSJ editorial board said.For entire story: WFB

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Twitter BLASTS Whole Foods For Yet Another Expensive, Unnecessary Product (TWEETS)

Whole Foods is a store that many people love. They love the organic food, the appearance of cleanliness and health, and the impeccable customer service. However, lately, this popular chain has found itself under fire for creating and marketing products that are excessively expensive and completely unnecessary often at the expense of the environment due to the packaging, and at the expense of its customers budgets.Everyone remembers the absolute shitstorm caused by the asparagus water last year that the chain sold $6 a bottle for water with a couple of stalks of asparagus in it. Apparently, that did not teach the folks at Whole Foods a lesson, because they have now just had a similar reaction to another ridiculously expensive product oranges that are already peeled, which are going for a whopping $6 a pound.Needless to say, the public has not taken kindly to this move, and many people have taken to Twitter to blast the chain. Here are just a few choice critical tweets:Firstly, it was pointed out how environmentally irresponsible this is:If only nature would find a way to cover these oranges so we didn't need to waste so much plastic on them. pic.twitter.com/00YECaHB4D Nathalie Gordon (@awlilnatty) March 3, 2016 @awlilnatty Fucking hell. That makes me unbelievably angry actually. Talk about necessarily contributing to plastic taking over the planet. Swiftie Be (@StephanieBe) March 3, 2016Others pointed out how ironic the chain s antics are, given its name:@ajdomanico @awlilnatty the irony of this being Whole Foods too Mollie Goodfellow (@hansmollman) March 3, 2016Others made fun of the obviously lazy nature of the people who would purchase this:@ConorS @awlilnatty @MisterVivian next logical step: half eaten. (@Jemppu) March 4, 2016It was pointed out that it could be ableist to assume that everyone can peel an orange; however, that point was quickly followed by the obvious fact that such people are not who Whole Foods is targeting. In fact, due to the fact that most disabled people are not exactly well-to-do, they likely could never even afford to shop at Whole Foods, making that particular point moot:@otherbecky @awlilnatty You know, as well as i do, that that is NOT who that is marketed towards. Also, the packaging is still superfluous. Swiftie Be (@StephanieBe) March 4, 2016All of this and more is true here. This is simply outrageous. Shame on you, Whole Foods. You market to organic food-eating, hippieish, health conscious liberals, and you expect us to put up with this, to not notice? Well, for the second time in their price-gouging attempt, Whole Foods was forced to backtrack, calling the marketing and selling of these pre-peeled oranges a mistake. @awlilnatty Definitely our mistake. These have been pulled. We hear you, and we will leave them in their natural packaging: the peel. Whole Foods Market (@WholeFoods) March 3, 2016You re damn right it was a mistake. Hopefully you people have learned your lesson this time.Featured image via Flickr

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BREAKING NEWS: Susan Rice ADMITS To Unmasking “US Persons” During Interview With MSNBC Media Ally Andrea Mitchell [VIDEO]

During her Tuesday interview with MSNBC s Andrea Mitchell, former National Security Advisor Susan Rice for the first time admitted to unmasking U.S. persons included in intelligence reports. There s no equivalence between unmasking and leaking. The effort to ask for the identify of an American citizen is necessary to understand the intelligence report in some circumstances. Daily CallerBut only less than 2 weeks ago, on March 22nd, Susan Rice told PBS host Judy Woodroof that she knew nothing about the unmasking of people being investigated. Watch the video below, as she pretty much lies through her teeth.

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STUNNER: Donald Trump is Next President of United States

21st Century Wire says Republican candidate Donald J Trump will be the 45th President of the United States.History has been made, as he will be the first person ever to hold office despite having no previous political or military experience Trump s victory was definitive. By breaking through the seemingly impregnable Blue Wall in the northern rust belt of Wisconsin and Michigan, Trump effectively ran the table on Democrat favorite Hillary Clinton in what pundits are calling one of the biggest political realignments in decades. It s time for America to bind the wounds of division, said Trump in front on a crowd of thousands at his acceptance speech at the Hilton in downtown Manhattan.Trump s victory over Clinton is now regarded as the most stunning upset in US political history upending the establishment s false polling and the mainstream media s collusion with the Democratic Party and the Clinton campaign. Neither the polls or the pundits saw this coming.It s reported that Hillary Clinton called Trump to concede the race before he addressed his supporters. I ve just received a call from Secretary Clinton, said Trump. She congratulated us, it s about us, on our victory. And I congratulated her and her family on a very, very hard-fought campaign. I mean, she fought very hard. Hillary has worked very long and very hard over a very long period of time, and we owe her a major debt of gratitude for her service to our country. And I mean that very sincerely. Earlier this week, Trump predicted his victory, likening it to the UK s surprise BREXIT vote this past summer, saying it would be Brexit Plus Plus. After being written off by the media and the party establishment in the GOP primaries, and then again in the general election, Trump still managed to capture the imagination of one of the biggest insurgent voting blocks in electoral history. Before the results came in, yesterday 21WIRE editor Patrick Henningsen commented on the key to Trump s success, explaining: Granted, half of the American population have been conditioned to hate Trump for various reasons. But many of them are missing the key point in the Trump story, just like they did in the Sanders story. Trump offered millions of voters something profound: the idea that even in today s insulated political fortress that is Washington DC, anything is still possible in American politics where an outsider can come in and shake up a stale and corrupt ruling class. Stay tuned for more updates.READ MORE ELECTION NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire 2016 FilesSUPPORT 21WIRE SUBSCRIBE & BECOME A MEMBER @21WIRE.TV

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“GOOD-BYE SWEDEN”: How Muslim Violence…Porous Borders And Horrible Health Care Drove Swedish Blogger To U.S.A.

This blogger s piece is a glimpse into the future of America. Unless we all find a way to stand together and stop Barack Obama and the Democrat party s fundamental transformation from happening we ll be looking for another country who cares more about its citizens than its immigrant population This is the last post on this blog. I am leaving Sweden for good shortly, and will no longer be following its descent from what was once the third most prosperous country in the world. Frankly, it s just too damn depressing.I was born and raised in Sweden, which leaves a cultural mark even though I moved to USA in the 1990s and have spent the better part of my adult life as an American. Coming back for a few years has been a shocking experience.When I was a child, Sweden was a dull yet very safe place to live. Yes, there was a heavy blanket of socialism and collectivist values covering everything, but there was a core of pragmatism beneath the redness. The intention and goal was always to benefit the citizens, even though they went about things in a backwards manner.Prime minister L fven Today, it s as if the inmates are running the asylum. The politicians are participating in a chicken race of goodness where everybody tries to one-up each other in caring for the citizens of OTHER countries while Swedish retirees, school children, handicapped and other vulnerable categories of people are thorougly ignored. Violence is exploding. Jihadist Trojan horses are flowing through the porous border along with the tens of thousands ID-less refugees.But what makes me the most pessimistic about Sweden s future is how the social fabric itself has been undermined.Now, to be clear, it is my opinion that modest immigration is healthy for society and beneficial for trade, cultural development and so forth. Protectionism as a concept is counter-productive, while free trade and the ability for skilled labor to go where they re in demand is beneficial for everyone.Having said that, what Sweden is doing is something completely different. The once homogenous population has been forever altered by a rapid and massive addition of people from vastly different cultures and value-systems. 26,8% of the population is now foreign-born or with at least one foreign-born parent, and the national census bureau estimates that some 150 000 per year will arrive to the country of just 9,8 million residents.There simply is no possible way to absorb and assimilate such volumes of people, period. Then you are merely creating ethnic enclaves, which due to incompatible language, culture and job skills become ghettos, which in turns brews crime, misery and extremism. Once the inflow has exceeded the capacity for absorbtion, further immigration only makes the problem worse.It s like someone having read that a cup of green tea per day is healthy, so they make it a policy to chug four gallons per day, every day. It s a good thing overdone to the extreme until it becomes toxic.Then you have the Swedish school system. There really is no nice way to put it; it s a complete disaster. The minister of education is a man-boy who spends his time making Youtube-videos showing heart-signs with his hands to boost school results, while university-level students can t read and comprehend the course literature.Education minister Gustav FridolinSince there is a delay in the changes in the school system, it is only in recent years the full impact of the knowledge-averse progressive school system is starting to be felt. Hard facts are largely irrelevant; the important thing is to sit in a group and discuss things until a consensus is reached. But with no hard facts to base the conclusions on, it becomes an exercise in futility because it s all random assumptions and opinions. As a university-level history student (!) was quoted as saying in newspaper Svenska Dagbladet the other day: Why would all these dates matter? Who cares in what order things happened? That s not exactly fertile soil for creating the researchers and engineers of the future.Financially, Sweden is an oddity in that it never had its real estate correction when Lehman Bros went belly-up and the housing market everywhere in the West crashed. Sweden just kept steaming ahead, which means housing is ridiculously overinflated. In Stockholm, the real estate prices increased 19% and in Gothenburg 24% in the last 12 months alone from an already sky-high level.Tear-down abandoned house from 1932 with small, unremarkable lot in the outskirts of Stockholm. Current bid: 7,5 million SEK, or close to $900,000.As a result, personal debt of the Swedish population is at an all-time high. To keep all this afloat the normal mortgage interest rates are at 2% with central bank Riksbanken at -0,25%, and yet a significant portion of the borrowers are hanging by a thread. If and when foreign banks and investors decide it s time to turn their backs on Sweden (as happened in the early 1990s) there s going to be a lot of pain.Then you have the financial obligations going forward. Like much of the western world, there is a demographic change where fewer tax-paying adults are to support a glut of retirees. What makes it especially dire for Sweden is that in addition to the old Swedes, there s also a ton of elderly immigrants that are granted family visas based on younger relatives having been granted asylum. They ve never paid a dime in taxes, yet enter the system with full benefits from day one. In theory, this would be made up for by the younger relatives working and paying taxes. Sadly, this is not the case; while ethnical Swedes have a 82% employment rate, immigrants only have 57% with non-Europeans coming in at just 51%.If Sweden was a person, it d be like the guy with three mortgages, seven maxed-out credit cards and four collection agencies chasing him that just signed a lease for a brand new BMW X6. Simply put, there s a lot of red ink in the future; it just hasn t been fully realized yet.Finally, there s the sorry state of the Swedish defense. After decades of constant slashing of the defense budget, the extent of Swedish ambition is to stall an invader for a week in a limited area. This with war raging in Europe, Russian missiles pointed at Sweden in Kaliningrad, and Russian submarines and bomber jets openly thumbing their nose at Sweden as they intrude on Swedish territory on a regular basis. The power vacuum in Scandinavia is so tangible you can almost hear a sucking sound as you fly over it. This, too, will require massive investments when the penny finally drops amongst Swedish politicians.So while I can t claim to be any kind of authority on macroeconomics or social predictive models, I see red lights across the board.In some ways, I d compare the country to a farm. Previously, Sweden acted like a sensible farmer and planted wheat here, carrots there, potatoes over there et cetera, by implementing free schooling, sound infrastructure investments, state-financed research and so forth. A few decades later, they reaped the rewards and climbed the prosperity ladder.In the late 1960s, this pragmatic line was abandoned as leftist idealist Olof Palme took over. But there was plenty to harvest from previous years, so Sweden continued to be the land of milk and honey for a good long while. Then things started drying up, and the process has been one of gradual erosion and decline since the 1990s.The famous Swedish health care system is a good example. 120 000 hospital beds in the late 1960s became 20 000 today. Cancer patients are put on waiting lists for months. Entire emergency wards shut down for summer. The crumbling Swedish railroad system is another symptom I examined in-depth last year. The aforementioned defense that now consist of about three fat generals and a rusty rifle (bullets withheld for budgetary reasons).A sensible farmer would see the problems for what they are and hurry to plant new seeds, so as to return to bountiful harvests of wheat, carrots, potatoes etc. Instead, the Swedish politicians goes by dogma and plants what they think SHOULD grow. So they plant M & Ms, hot dogs and pretzels. The results won t be fully evident for a few years yet, but as the last reserves of the old harvests are depleted, things will get Interesting.From what I can see, there simply is no plausible scenario where these social tensions and future financial committments will not lead to a downward spiral of hardship and strife. I hope I m wrong. I really do, because I have friends and family I care about that will remain here to see it all play out.But I won t. I ll be back in the US being mad at Obama for being a lying scumbag. And if Trump manages to get elected in 2016? Whoo boy. A racist ignoramus who takes pride in the worst qualities of a cranky eight-year old should make George Dumbo Bush seem like Abe Lincoln by comparison. So every country has its problems. USA has its corrupt yokel in office, just as Sweden has Stefan L fven. Via: The Sweden Report

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Meet The INCREDIBLY Racist GOP Senator That Just Endorsed Trump (VIDEO)

After failing to denounce or renounce an endorsement from the Ku Klux Klan, Donald Trump topped off his Sunday with the announcement of an endorsement from Senator Jeff Sessions (R-Alabama).Sessions said he would be backing Trump thanks to his harsh anti-immigration policies. You have asked for 30 years, and politicians have promised for 30 years, to fix illegal immigration, said Mr. Sessions at the rally, held at an outdoor stadium filled with thousands of Trump supporters. We have an opportunity Tuesday it may be the last opportunity we have for the people s voice to be heard. He concluded, I am pleased to endorse Donald Trump for the presidency of the United States. But Senator Sessions has a history of alleged racial insensitivity that fits right in with Trump s white supremacist campaign.In 1986 Sessions was nominated for a federal judgeship, but the nomination failed after allegations of racial insensitivy surfaced. J. Gerald Hebert, a lawyer from the Department of Justice who had worked with Sessions, testified to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee that Sessions had referred to the NAACP and the ACLU as un-American and Communist-inspired because they had forced civil rights down the throats of people. Hebert also testified that Sessions had complained that a white lawyer was a disgrace to his race because he had litigated voting rights cases.Sessions himself admitted that he described the Voting Rights Act of 1965 as a piece of intrusive legislation. Another assistant U.S. Attorney testified that Sessions told him he used to think the KKK was okay until he found out some of them were pot smokers. The same attorney said Sessions called him boy and told him, be careful what you say to white folks. Sessions racial problems resurfaced during the nomination of Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor. Sessions whined that the judge had referred to herself as a wise Latina, then complained that she did not vote like other Puerto Ricans.Featured image via YouTube

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Bombshell Report Shows GOP Presidential Campaign A Complete DISASTER In Multiple States

Presidential elections are won by well-prepared, well organized multimillion dollar efforts that are executed at the state level. Some of the best models of this have been President Bush s campaign in 2004 and President Obama s campaigns in 2008 and 2012. What needs to be done and how it should be done are known by seasoned campaign operatives and candidates who put the people in place to make it happen.Donald Trump s presidential campaign, and the Republican Party s planning to help his campaign in multiple states that are key to winning, are a complete disaster with only four months to go until the election, according to a new report from the Associated Press.With early voting beginning in less than three months in some states, the review reveals that the national GOP has delivered only a fraction of the ground forces detailed in discussions with state leaders earlier in the year. And that is leaving anxious local officials waiting for reinforcements to keep pace with Democrat Hillary Clinton in the states that matter most in 2016.The Republican Party s massive failure gets even worse when you zoom in to swing states, as the Associated Press has:Some examples of Republican shortfalls: Ohio Republicans thought they were going to see 220 paid staffers by May; in reality there are about 50. Plans for Pennsylvania called for 190 paid staffers; there are about 60. Iowa s planned ground force of 66 by May actually numbers between 25 and 30. In Colorado, recent staff departures have left about two dozen employees, far short of the 80 that were to have been in place.AP even found that Trump s headquarters in Florida, one of the most important states in the fight for the electoral college, was closed and its voice mailbox full. Florida has 29 electoral votes and in 2012 was decided by a margin of 0.87 percent on the ground organizing is key to winning it.These failures at the state organizing level don t even take into account the massive disparity in campaign advertising between Clinton and Trump. While she has been pumping out ads in important states like Ohio, Pennsylvania, Florida, Colorado, and New Mexico along with super PACs that support her, Trump hasn t been advertising at all. In 2012, Mitt Romney s campaign was outspent by President Obama, but he was actually spending money Trump isn t spending on much, besides many of his own entities who showed up as campaign vendors.Republicans, especially in 2012, derided President Obama s background as a community organizer, but they could do with one right now to organize for their candidate in the communities he needs in order to have a chance at winning. That doesn t seem to be happening.Featured image via Flickr

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Supreme Court Strikes Down Texas Abortion Law, And Anti-Choicers Are Positively FUMING (TWEETS)

The Supreme Court sided with women on freedom and the right to choose today with their ruling on Texas restrictive abortion law. In a 5-3 ruling, they said that the arguments that the law merely protects women s health are actually just a substantial burden on women seeking abortions. Since abortion is a constitutional right, no matter what the right-wing thinks, Texas law was deemed unconstitutional.Justice Stephen Breyer wrote the majority opinion, and said: There was no significant health-related problem that the new law helped to cure. We agree with the District Court that the surgical-center requirement, like the admitting-privileges requirement, provides few, if any, health benefits for women, poses a substantial obstacle to women seeking abortions, and constitutes an undue burden on their constitutional right to do so. He was joined by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Anthony Kennedy, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan. Ginsburg wrote her own concurring opinion, where she said: When a State severely limits access to safe and legal procedures, women in desperate circumstances may resort to unlicensed rogue practitioners, faute de mieux, at great risk to their health and safety. The 5-3 decision isn t just a victory for women and women s rights, but it also shows that the Supreme Court would have struck the law down even with a full bench, and a staunch conservative in Scalia s place. Anybody who thinks that a full bench would have stopped this is living in Fantasyland.Even so, anti-choice conservatives are still busy trying to convince people that the law actually protected women. Nothing could be further from the truth, which is why this case went all the way to the Supreme Court. Yet, here they are, in all their righteous anger about it, claiming that today is a sad day for women all across the country.Texas Governor Greg Abbott said (all emphasis from The New York Times): The decision erodes states lawmaking authority to safeguard the health and safety of women, and subjects more innocent life to being lost. Texas goal is to protect innocent life while ensuring the highest health and safety standards for women. Senator John Cornyn seems to agree with that. He said: Today s ruling sets a dangerous precedent for states like Texas, which the Constitution makes clear should be free to pass laws that are in the best interests of our citizens. Common-sense requirements that abortion clinics be held to the same standards as other medical facilities put the health of the patient first, and today s decision is a step back in protecting the well-being of mothers across our state. You two just keep telling yourselves that.Of course, National Right To Life can always be counted on to provide total ignorance masquerading as sane, logical reasoning on the issue of abortion: How shabby are these abortion clinics that they cannot meet the minimum standards other outpatient surgical centers are required to meet, and just how bad are these abortionists that they can t get admitting privileges at a local hospital? As we saw with Kermit Gosnell in Philadelphia, it s clear that the lucrative abortion industry is not able or willing to police itself and allows filthy, deplorable conditions to go unchecked. Ah, yes, invoking Kermit Gosnell, as if he s the norm and abortion doctors who are actually ethical and competent are the exception. Don t they have more evidence than that? Oh, wait, no they don t. One case is more than enough for them to think they can justify destroying a woman s right to choose what she does with her own body.Over on Twitter, many are celebrating this as the victory for women it is, but there are still anti-choicers rearing their ugly heads with the same twisted logic, spinning this as a grave mistake endangering thousands of women. Or they re making the argument that this violates states rights (or doing both). Oh please:Hillary should pick Kermit Gosnell as her running mate > #SCOTUS #Texas #Abortion #Trump pic.twitter.com/2KRpiFIMHx EagleGraphs (@EagleGraphs) June 27, 2016 This means more women will die as the clinics which are not to code, will continue to send women to the emergency https://t.co/sFC0tMHD6X ConservTexas (@ConservTexas) June 27, 2016Thanks to today s Supreme Court ruling, women in Texas can say goodbye to health inspections and safety standards at their abortion clinics. Petre Pan (@petr3pan) June 27, 2016 I don t understand why anyone would support the overturn of the Texas abortion laws. Even pro choice activists. K (@Kristenn_2) June 27, 2016The next woman in Texas that dies due to complications of an abortion will probably die without proper medical care, or care in time. Jacob Botzman (@JacobBotzman) June 27, 2016 Supreme Court Strikes Down Texas Abortion Law, Dooms Women to Substandard Care https://t.co/OIQJvJXOQK Sue Merriner (@treetopangel) June 27, 2016#SCOTUS strikes down Texas law designed to provide essential protections for health & safety of women inside the state s abortion facilities Steve Daines (@SteveDaines) June 27, 2016 How can #aca be constitutional but the #texas law on #abortion clinicals not be? #SCOTUS @Scotus Andrew Holter MPA (@AndrewHolter) June 27, 2016Score one for women, and zero for misogynistic dung weasels who want to tell women what they can and cannot do with their bodies. It was never about protecting women, or even about protecting unborn babies. The anti-choice, anti-woman argument has always, and will always be, about controlling women and their sexuality. The Supreme Court saw right through it.Featured image by Pete Marovich/Getty Images

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What Facebook Just Did About Guns Is Going To Drive The NRA Insane

Facebook announced that it will be banning its users from arranging private gun sales over both the main Facebook site and its photo-sharing site Instagram.While these new rules do not apply to licensed gun dealers, who can still post with the stipulation that they do not conduct purchases on the site, it does apply to private one-on-one sales that do not require background checks in many states.What is very important is that the move covers gun parts and ammunition as well. The banning of ammunition sales is obviously effective since without massive amounts of bullets you can t have massive amounts of gun violence. The fact it applies to gun parts is significant as well. Federal law doesn t currently cover some gun parts, like an unfinished lower receiver. They are treated as not a gun if they are 80 percent or less complete. This allows them to be sold without serial numbers or background checks. If you provide the parts to someone who is experienced enough to complete them, you basically have what will make an untraceable gun. Afterward, they can be assembled with other parts into a fully functional firearm. Some websites even sell the machines to complete receivers and boast about the fact you can build unserialized firearms legally in your own home.Facebook s status as a non-governmental entity gives it more control over what it can allow on its network. It simply doesn t matter if a person s slightly unfinished gun parts are legal to sell to anyone without background checks. Facebook can restrict whatever they want, just like they do with marijuana, pharmaceuticals or other illegal material. This helps tremendously in curbing the ways federal law has failed us.Facebook s head of product policy, Monika Bickert, said Over the last two years, more and more people have been using Facebook to discover products and to buy and sell things to one another. We are continuing to develop, test and launch new products to make this experience even better for people and are updating our regulated goods policies to reflect this evolution. Do you think that any Republicans will be boycotting Facebook now? What will their alternative be?featured image via wikicommons

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Trump To Gut Coast Guard, Airport Security, And FEMA To Fund Useless Border Wall

Donald Trump s obsession with building a massive expensive wall along the Mexican border is literally going to make America less secure.Despite claiming that he will beat back terrorism and keep Americans safe, Trump is drafting a budget proposal that would cripple three of the nation s most critical agencies that do way more to help Americans than any wall will ever do.The cost of Trump s wall is projected to reach past $20 billion. During the campaign, Trump repeatedly claimed that Mexico would pay for the wall, but it s clear now that American taxpayers will be footing the bill. And rather than create a new budget item, Trump is considering just cutting funding from existing national security and national emergency management agencies to use it to pay for the wall instead.On the chopping block includes the U.S. Coast Guard, a crucial branch of the military that patrols and secures our ports, coast lines, and waterways, defending them from potential terrorist attacks and rescuing people.This particular cut is fiercely opposed by Republican Rep. Duncan Hunter, who explained on CNN Wednesday why the Coast Guard is too important to slash. You have President Trump talking about security, criminal networks that s what the Coast Guard does, literally! Hunter said. So how can the president talk about stopping illegal immigration, illegal drugs, and criminal narco networks, and then say we re going to cut the military and cut the Coast Guard? The way you stop bad things from happening here is not directly on the border, necessarily. So this is nonsensical to me. But that s not all.According to the Washington Post,The proposal, drawn up by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), also would slash the budget of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which provides disaster relief after hurricanes, tornadoes and other natural disasters. The Coast Guard s $9.1 billion budget in 2017 would be cut 14 percent to about $7.8 billion, while the TSA and FEMA budgets would be reduced about 11 percent each to $4.5 billion and $3.6 billion, respectively.In regards to the Transportation Security Administration, Trump plans to cut post-9/11 programs, which includes a program that trains airline crews how to deal with hijackers, a program that funds the use of special law enforcement teams that sweep transportation hubs for potential threats prior to and during major events like an inauguration, a program that gives local law enforcement more ability to patrol in and around airports, and a program that funds the use of special TSA agents who are trained to specifically detect people exhibiting odd behavior at check-points.In other words, programs that have been considered a vital piece of airport security and for preventing a repetition of the Sept. 11, 2001, hijackings So Trump is literally looking to sacrifice programs designed to prevent another 9/11 in order to build a wall that most experts consider useless in stopping immigration.Donald Trump is once again demonstrating that he cares more about himself than he does about the safety and security of the American people. The Coast Guard protects our coastal boarders from inside and outside threats. The TSA helps prevent another 9/11 attack from occurring on American soil. And FEMA responds to help Americans before, during, and after a disaster strikes. Gutting these agencies doesn t make America safer. It makes us more vulnerable and that appears to be exactly what Trumps wants.If it wasn t clear enough before, it definitely is now. Trump is the greatest threat to our national security.Featured image via Mark Wallheiser/Getty Images

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Putin Claims To Have Transcript Of White House Meeting, Available Only At Trump’s Request

Speaking at a press conference with visiting Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni in Sochi, Russia, Vladimir Putin has claimed that he has a transcript of Donald Trump s meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. Furthermore, Putin said he would be willing to provide a copy to the U.S. Congress. The only catch is that the request would have to come from Trump himself.The Trump administration came under fire for holding a meeting with Lavrov and Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak in the Oval Office last week, a meeting that Russian media were able to attend, yet from which U.S. media were banned. The situation came to a head when it became clear that Trump had disclosed confidential details pertaining to ISIS during the session. Initially, the White House denied the scandal, only to later claim that it was wholly appropriate for the president to discuss such information with the Russians. At no time were intelligence sources or methods discussed and the President did not disclose any military operations that weren t already publicly known, Trump s national security adviser H.R. McMaster said at a press conference on Monday. The premise of that article is false that in any way the President had a conversation that was inappropriate or that resulted in any kind of lapse in national security. The Kremlin still denies that Trump shared any U.S. intelligence during the meeting, with Russian President Vladimir Putin downplaying reports as political Schizophrenia, however, Trump s comments still have not been made public. Now it seems Putin is willing to go a step further to help out. If the administration of the United States deems this possible, we will be ready to provide a transcript of the Lavrov-Trump meeting to the U.S. Senate and Congress, Putin told reporters during the press conference in Sochi, adding it will happen if the U.S. administration wishes so. Not everyone sees Putin s offer as particularly beneficial to Trump, who the FBI has now confirmed is under investigation over links to the Russians, especially U.S. Rep. Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee. Probably the last person the person [Trump] needs to vouch for him right now is Vladimir Putin, Schiff told CBS s This Morning. Sure, send it [the transcript] our way. But its credibility would be less than zero. Featured image via Lintao Zhang/Pool/Getty Images

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HA! DONALD TRUMP’S Unusual New Year’s Tweet To His “Many Enemies”

President-elect Donald Trump is throwing a private New Year s Eve party at his Mar-a-Lago Club that is expected to draw hundreds of guests, including Sylvester Stallone.Via: Hollywood ReporterPhoto Credit: Dan Scavino, Jr.

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HACKING DEMOCRACY? CIA Accusing Russia of Doing What Langley Does So Well

Peter Certo Other WordsEven in an election year as shot through with conspiracy theories as this one, it would have been hard to imagine a bigger bombshell than Russia intervening to help Donald Trump. But that s exactly what the CIA believes happened, or so unnamed officials brief on the matter told the Washington Post.While Russia had long been blamed for hacking email accounts linked to the Clinton campaign, its motives had been shrouded in mystery. According to the Post, though, CIA officials recently presented Congress with a a growing body of intelligence from multiple sources that electing Trump was Russia s goal. Now, the CIA hasn t made any of its evidence public, and the CIA and FBI are reportedly divided on the subject. Though it s too soon to draw conclusions, the charges warrant a serious public investigation.Even some Republicans who backed Trump seem to agree. The Russians are not our friends, said Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell, announcing his support for a congressional probe. It s warfare, added Senator John McCain.There s a grim irony to this. The CIA is accusing Russia of interfering in our free and fair elections to install a right-wing candidate it deemed more favorable to its interests. Yet during the Cold War, that s exactly what the CIA did to the rest of the world.Most Americans probably don t know that history. But in much of the world it s a crucial part of how Washington is viewed even today.In the post-World War II years, as Moscow and Washington jockeyed for global influence, the two capitals tried to game every foreign election they could get their hands on.From Europe to Vietnam and Chile to the Philippines, American agents delivered briefcases of cash to hand-picked politicians, launched smear campaigns against their left-leaning rivals, and spread hysterical fake news stories like the ones some now accuse Russia of spreading here.Together, political scientist Dov Levin estimates, Russia and the U.S. interfered in 117 elections this way in the second half the 20th century. Even worse is what happened when the CIA s chosen candidates lost.In Iran, when elected leader Mohammad Mossadegh tried to nationalize the country s BP-held oil reserves, CIA agent Kermit Roosevelt led an operation to oust Mossadegh in favor of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. The shah s secret police tortured dissidents by the thousands, leading directly to the Islamic Revolution in 1979.In Guatemala, when the democratically elected Jacobo Arbez tried to loosen the U.S.-based United Fruit company s grip on Guatemalan land, the CIA backed a coup against him. In the decades of civil war that followed, U.S.-backed security forces were accused of carrying out a genocide against indigenous Guatemalans. Chile s democratically elected leader Allende was murdered in a brutal CIA coup d etat on September 11, 1973 (Image Source: Evergreen.edu)In Chile, after voters elected the socialist Salvador Allende, the CIA spearheaded a bloody coup to install the right-wing dictator Augusto Pinochet, who went on to torture and disappear tens of thousands of Chileans. I don t see why we need to stand by and watch a country go communist due to the irresponsibility of its own people, U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger purportedly said about the coup he helped orchestrate there.And those are only the most well-known examples Continue this article at Other WordsREAD MORE MORE ELECTION NEWS AT: 21WIRE 2016 FilesSUPPORT 21WIRE SUBSCRIBE & BECOME A MEMBER@ 21WIRE.TV

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