The White House on Sunday did not rule out that Attorney General Jeff Sessions may recuse himself from Justice Department investigations into allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, a deputy White House press secretary, said congressional investigations into possible Russian hacking of Democratic groups would have to run their course before Sessions needed to decide whether to step aside from the FBI probes. Sessions was a top adviser to President Donald Trump, a Republican, during the 2016 presidential campaign. "I wasn't saying that he shouldn't recuse himself or that he should," Sanders told ABC's "This Week." "My point is I don't think we're there yet. Let's work through this process." U.S. intelligence analysts have concluded that Russia tried to help Trump win the White House by discrediting Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton and her party through cyber attacks. President Barack Obama, a Democrat, expelled Russian diplomats in retaliation in December. Moscow has denied the accusations. The FBI is investigating alleged Russian election-related hacking and financial transactions by Russian people and companies believed to have links to associates of Trump, according to current and former government officials. Trump has dismissed the controversy about ties between his aides and Russia as a "ruse" perpetrated by a hostile news media. "Russia talk is FAKE NEWS put out by the Dems, and played up by the media, in order to mask the big election defeat and the illegal leaks," Trump wrote on Twitter on Sunday. Trump fired his national security adviser, Michael Flynn, three weeks into the new administration after disclosures surfaced that Flynn had discussed U.S. sanctions on Russia with the Russian ambassador to the United States before Trump took office and misled Vice President Mike Pence about the conversations. Democrats have been pushing for an independent investigation into whether there were links between the Trump campaign team and Russian officials. "The attorney general must recuse himself," House of Representatives Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi said on ABC. Republican lawmakers echoed the White House, saying the investigations must take their course. Senator Tom Cotton said it was premature to talk about a special prosecutor. "If we get down that road, that's a decision that Attorney General Sessions can make at the time," he told NBC's "Meet the Press."


McALLEN, Texas — A story wildly circulated by Mexican news outlets about a woman having her visa taken away because she had memes making fun of U. S. President Donald J. Trump has been deemed false by U. S. authorities. [The story began when Mexican media celebrity Denise Maerker reported on her show Atando Cabos that a woman in one of the Tijuana border crossings had her visa taken away by an immigration official because she had various memes making fun of Trump. Maerker took to Twitter to comment on the story and credited a journalist by the name Rocio Galvan. Various news outlets like Radio Formula, El 5inco, El Mañana, and others went off Maerker's tweet to further disseminate the story. The uncertainty caused by the alleged arbitrary measure spread on social media as various individuals began to ask about the case. "There were no such events that occurred within any ports within the San Diego Field Office," U. S. Customs and Border Protection responded to an inquiry by Breitbart Texas into the stories circulated by Mexican media. Breitbart Texas also requested similar information from ports of entry in Texas, and Arizona and received similar answers. By Friday afternoon, Maerker sent a retraction of sorts in a second tweet and had Galvan back on her show, where they clarified that the woman who had her visa taken away was never told that it was over the Trump memes. According to CBP, officers have the authority to cancel visas if the individual is found to be inadmissible under the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA). The act lists the grounds for denial of entry into the country including health related reasons, criminality, security, immigration violations and others the act does not list memes or jokes as a reason for canceling denial. The agency further stated that when arriving at a U. S. Port of Entry CBP officers can inspect electronic devices such as computers, cell phones cameras and other items. Ildefonso Ortiz is an award winning journalist with Breitbart Texas. He the Cartel Chronicles project with Brandon Darby and Stephen K. Bannon. You can follow him on Twitter and on Facebook. Brandon Darby is managing director and of Breitbart Texas. He the Cartel Chronicles project with Ildefonso Ortiz and Stephen K. Bannon. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook.


Tensions among Republicans about President Donald Trump boiled over on Tuesday as two senators accused Trump of debasing U.S. politics and the country's standing abroad, a rebellion that could portend trouble for his legislative agenda. The extraordinary public criticism of the president from Jeff Flake and Bob Corker further strained what had already been a fraught relationship between Trump and fellow Republicans as they try to enact tax reform and other policy items. In an emotional speech on the Senate floor, Flake repeatedly targeted Trump's style of governing, saying American politics had become "inured" to "reckless, outrageous and undignified" behavior from the White House. "The instinct to scapegoat and belittle threatens to turn us into a fearful, backward-looking people," said the Arizona lawmaker, who announced he would not run for re-election next year. "I will not be complicit or silent," Flake said. Trump, via Twitter, has been unrelenting in his criticism of Corker and Flake, accusing them of supporting Democratic priorities, and using sometimes slashing language, such as his dismissal of Corker as "liddle Bob Corker." By announcing he will be leaving when his term ends in early 2019, Flake effectively freed himself up to speak his mind, without having one eye on voter reactions in his home state. A Morning Consult survey conducted Sept. 24 to Oct. 24 said Flake had an approval rating in Arizona of 30 percent. Corker, who has also said he is not running for re-election in Tennessee, accused Trump of telling falsehoods that could be easily proven wrong and willfully damaging the country's standing in the world, eviscerating the president with comments that stirred deepening divisions in the Republican Party. "You would think he would aspire to be the president of the United States and act like a president of the United States, but that's not going to be the case apparently," Corker told reporters. "I've seen no evolution in an upward way. In fact, I would say, he's almost devolved." White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders dismissed the comments from Flake and Corker and said Trump wanted senators who could make progress on his policy goals. "He wants people to be in the Senate that are committed to actually moving the ball down the field, and I don't think these two individuals necessarily have been as focused on that," she told reporters. Republican congressional leaders who have learned to tread carefully amid controversies surrounding Trump, largely stayed on the sidelines of the latest fight. "We're going to concentrate on what our agenda is and not any of these other distractions that you all may be interested in," Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told reporters. Republican House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan played down Corker's criticism of Trump, urging reporters to "put this Twitter dispute aside." Great American Pac, a pro-Trump political group, declared victory over Flake and sent out a fund-raising appeal. "Senator Flake wisely decided to give up on his own terms rather than fight a losing battle for re-election and have the voters retire him at the ballot box next year," said the group's top strategist, Ed Rollins. The president is seeking to build consensus around proposed tax cuts. Republicans control both chambers of Congress, but hold just a 52-48 majority in the Senate. Securing passage of his tax-cut plan is critically important to Trump, who has yet to get major legislation through Congress since taking office in January. Trump visited the Capitol on Tuesday for a policy lunch that was described by participants as productive. Over the summer, Trump pilloried Senate Republicans - as a group and some by name - after they failed to generate sufficient votes to repeal and replace the 2010 Affordable Care Act, popularly known as Obamacare, one of his top presidential campaign promises. The dollar lost ground on news that Flake would not seek re-election because it added to investor worries about the fate of the tax plan, which has widely been seen as a potential boost to American companies. It recovered after a Bloomberg report that Trump asked senators at a closed-door lunch whom they would support to become the next Federal Reserve chairman. Bloomberg quoted one senator as saying that John Taylor, viewed in the markets as an inflation hawk, got the most votes. Trump has also provoked the ire of another respected senior Republican, Senator John McCain, whose war record he mocked during last year's campaign. Last week, former Republican President George W. Bush, who has kept a low profile since leaving office in January 2009, took a thinly veiled swipe at Trump in a speech in which he decried "bullying and prejudice" and denounced anti-immigrant sentiment.


After my first Airbnb guests checked out of our garage apartment last February, I eagerly called up their online review. I had no reason to suspect anything but flattering comments from the two young women from Oregon, one of whom had originally planned on coming with her husband to celebrate their fourth anniversary until he had to drop out at the last minute. She brought a friend instead, but disappointment, I discovered, came along in her suitcase. When they arrived for the stay in my home southwest of Austin, I met them cheerily with a basket of muffins and walked them through the apartment, which my husband and I used to rent out until we decided to jump on the Airbnb gravy train. If all went well, we figured we could make the $650 we used to get per month in six nights. As a travel writer, I've reviewed scores of hotels and was quite sure I knew what I was doing. We bought a sumptuous pillowtop mattress, luscious sheets and towels and an array of pillow styles. I left coffee, tea and real (no powdered creamer for my guests!) as well as bubble bath for the tub. As I arranged the vintage patio furniture on the balcony and looked out over our 15 acres of rolling Texas Hill Country terrain, I thought, Who wouldn't love this? Well, as they say, pride goes before a fall. "Very little supplies in the kitchen," was just one of the gripes the Oregon women left in their review. They gave me three out of five stars — a rating handed out in fewer than six percent of stays, according to a subsequent note from Airbnb. Thanks to my faceplant out of the gate, I was told my search placement would be impacted. For months to come, my cumulative star rating remained less than nearby hosts. I was devastated, especially since I had sung the guests' praises in my review of them (reviews are published simultaneously so I didn't see theirs in advance). I felt the same pangs of rejection and inadequacy that go with unrequited high school friendships. And so I discovered how little I knew about hospitality in the brave new sharing economy. Airbnb offers pages of advice on how to meet its hosting standards in areas such as communication ("respond to reservation requests within 24 hours," for instance) and pricing ("a very high price may lead travelers to assume your listing is extra luxurious — they shouldn't be expecting a castle when they arrive at a cottage"). The site also lets you know what will happen if you consistently fail to measure up. "Travelers … tell us that getting rejected can be discouraging, so if you decline an excess number of reservation requests, your listing may be temporarily deactivated. " (The company, which says it has removed hosts for apparent discrimination, is attempting to get even more stringent with this type of penalty in order to address recent reports of some hosts not accepting requests from minorities.) But in all those pages of practical information, here's what Airbnb doesn't tell you. Honest reviews of both hosts and guests are what keep the whole Airbnb system in check. Without them, people could go on benders with no consequences. Or hosts could get away with horrors like leaving hair doilies in the shower drain. But even if you're used to people throwing darts at you in your professional life, it's something else to have strangers judging your home and your way of living. And doing it publicly. I'd told the Oregon women they were my first guests and to let me know how I could improve, but they never mentioned any problems and seemed happy enough. Being called out online is like asking someone if you have food in your teeth and having that person proceed to announce that yes, in fact you do, over a loud speaker. That first review started well enough — beautiful setting and décor kind, gracious host. Then came "although" and the first salvo: "There was no drinking water," as if I was a stingy guarding my oasis spring, when I regularly had our well water tested and it was just fine. (The true outrage, I wanted to tell them, is when $ hotels charge $10 for a bottle of water.) The women also complained that the jets didn't work on my whirlpool tub, even though I had told them that's why I hadn't advertised the feature on my listing. The personal sting of such is compounded by the potential financial one, since negative comments affect future bookings. I had been told by experienced Airbnb hosts to price my property low initially to get reservations, which would lead to reviews that would attract other guests. Then I could raise my rates. But they didn't say what would happen if you got a big raspberry. Luckily, I already had more bookings lined up. Even the things you can't control. My worst sin in that first review turned out to be location, location, location. They claimed I was at least an hour from downtown (not 30 minutes as I said truthfully in my listing). Their low rating on my accuracy was, in the Airbnb webosphere, the equivalent of yelling, "Liar, liar. " My listing included a map that showed exactly where I was in relation to Austin. When they arrived, the Oregon women told me their GPS took them the wrong way, and they did make the trip during rush hour hence the drive time. No matter. Their travel issues became my issue. I wanted to respond to their review with an apology for not clearing the highways out of Austin for them, but I had the sense to know snark would not win me future bookings. Instead I immediately put a disclaimer on my listing that "your driving time may vary because of traffic. " "Duh" implied. Once you've gotten a review, you start looking at every possible defect as a potential online skewer. One day, when the wind blew one of the sheets off the clothesline and onto the ground (I had some romantic notion that people would appreciate the smell of bedding) I imagined the review I'd get if our next guests suffered a spider bite in bed. Another time I noticed the bathroom sink was leaking in my head I saw, "Could not sleep because of the drip, drip, drip. " The emergency plumber bill was about half as much as my imminently arriving guests were paying for the whole stay. At that moment, the $650 a month from tenants seemed like a bargain. When I bemoaned my bad review to a friend, she mentioned that she always gives wine to her guests. Aha, I thought. That's what I was missing. So in addition to a basket of muffins, I began leaving a nice bottle of sauvignon blanc. "How much are you spending on each guest?" my husband asked when he saw me carting the swag to the apartment. To be honest, I didn't really care. My pride was at stake and anyway, it seems to have worked. All my reviews were glowing after the addition of alcohol. You may start your Airbnb career imagining you'll be a magnanimous, kind of host. But at some point you'll have guests who'll make you want to hide under your bed until they've gone out for the day. We had a perfectly nice couple who could not master the thermostat and would call or text every time the temperature was not to their liking. They'd also frequently update us on their struggles with the icemaker, the washer's spin cycle, the ceiling fan switch. On one occasion, when I ran into the couple in the driveway, they informed me that they'd found an insect they suspected was a "kissing bug" (which they claimed was poisonous though I'd never heard of it in my 20 years in the Texas Hill Country). They were thinking of sending it off for testing, and oh, by the way, the wife had some weird bite on her arm. I think my eyes spontaneously crossed. Later, after they'd checked out and given me five stars (wine for me after that one) I got a text from them saying that the agricultural extension agency confirmed the insect was indeed a kissing bug. It was with great joy that I deleted it and thanked the patron saint of innkeepers, St. Martin of Tours — who according to some sources also serves that role for alcoholics, appropriately enough — that they hadn't included that little tidbit in their review. Even at a Motel 6. I'm no longer hosting for Airbnb — not because I got my Egyptian cotton sheets in a wad, but because we sold our house five months into my gig. We made a bit of money from our stint as guesthouse hosts — maybe not as much as my husband hoped with the wine and all. Plus, because of that first blot on my record, I never felt I could raise my rates. However, I gained something else in the process: a new empathy for those I've scrutinized in my other life as a hotel reviewer. Cleaning toilets in between guests will do that for you. These days I avoid using a hotel towel to wipe off my eye makeup because I know firsthand that mascara is nearly impossible to get out. I lose the tone when I call the front desk over a temperamental connection. I was just a hobbyist, but I'll think twice about with Airbnb in our new home though we have the space. The hospitality business is one long, grinning, tap dance, more easily disparaged than done.


The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday appeared poised to strike down a North Carolina law barring convicted sex offenders from Facebook and other social media services, with justices noting the expansive role such online tools play in today's society. Lester Packingham, a registered sex offender due to a statutory rape conviction, challenged the North Carolina law as a violation of his free speech rights under the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment. The court heard an hour of oral arguments in Packingham's appeal of his conviction for violating the statute in 2010 when he posted a message on Facebook expressing his surprise at a traffic citation being dismissed. Justice Elena Kagan mentioned Donald Trump's Twitter feed, which he used as a candidate and now as U.S. president, as an example of how social media has become vital in the political sphere. "The president is speaking to the people through this medium," Kagan said. The case, which tested the social media smarts of the notoriously tech-averse justices, is the latest of several in recent years that have explored constitutional rights in the digital age. The North Carolina law, enacted in 2008, makes it a felony for people on the state's sex offender registry to use online services that can lead to social interactions with minors. Leading social media companies like Facebook and Twitter are covered by the law. Opponents of it have raised concerns that the law could be interpreted as covering other online activity in which users must create profiles and can interact with other users. That even could include certain news websites. Packingham was on North Carolina's sex offender list because of his 2002 conviction at age 21 on two counts of statutory rape of a 13-year-old girl. Kagan, the youngest of the justices at 56, appeared to speak for the social media generation as she repeatedly mentioned how central to life online interactions have become in recent years. Her questions indicated concerns that the law was written so broadly that it goes beyond the intended purpose of preventing contact between sex offenders and children. "So whether it's political community, whether it's religious community, I mean, these sites have become embedded in our culture as ways to communicate and ways to exercise our constitutional rights, haven't they?" Kagan asked at one point. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the 83-year-old liberal and the oldest member of the court, appeared to share Kagan's view. "The point is that these people are being cut off from a very large part of the marketplace of ideas. And the First Amendment includes not only the right to speak, but the right to receive information," Ginsburg said. Justice Samuel Alito, a conservative who is 10 years older than Kagan, was more skeptical of people's reliance on social media, saying they can get information from other sources as they did a decade ago. But Alito conceded: "Now, I know there are people who think that life is not possible without Twitter and Facebook and these things, and that 2003 was the Dark Ages." The law does not require proof that the user intended to use a particular service for an illegal purpose. It also exempted chatrooms and photo-sharing sites, which Kagan seemed to find perplexing because that would be where what she called "the most dangerous activity" would take place. Packingham was convicted of violating the law after local police saw the Facebook post he wrote upon avoiding the traffic citation. "Praise be to GOD. WOW! Thanks JESUS," he wrote. Some of the justices over the years have shown a lack of familiarity with cutting-edge technology even as they set legal rules on such issues as police surveillance and intellectual property protections worth billions of dollars. Last week, Justice Sonia Sotomayor referred to popular video-sharing website YouTube as "the You Tube," prompting some amused reactions on Twitter.


BIRDSVILLE, Australia — Birdsville sits perched on the edge of the vast Simpson Desert, hundreds of miles from the nearest city, on the far reaches of the Australian outback. It is an unforgiving place, choked by swirling sandstorms and baked by summer temperatures that can reach 122 degrees Fahrenheit. Home to just 100 people, it has one primary school with six students, one tiny hospital and one police station, which are staffed by one nurse and one policeman. But every year, thousands of people descend on the town for the Big Red Bash, which its organizers claim is the remotest music festival on earth. "This is the ultimate Australian country gig," said Jimmy Barnes, one of Australia's rock musicians, as he lounged backstage at the festival in July. The Big Red Bash, named for the towering sand dune on which it is usually held, just outside Birdsville, is what Mr. Barnes called "a celebration of the bush. " The event was first held in 2013 with an audience of just 600 this year's festival had 7, 000 attendees. The influx of visitors is critical for the survival of the community that has built its recent fortunes on tourism. The town also hosts the annual Birdsville Races, a renowned horse racing event that was first held in 1882 and now attracts thousands of people each year. "Once upon a time, Birdsville depended on local ringers, stockman, drovers," said Don Rowlands, an Aboriginal elder of the local Wangkangurru and Yarluyandi nations and a ranger of the nearby National Park, referring to the workers on the cattle ranches that surround the town. Now, he said, "it would not survive without tourism — not a chance in hell. " For many, the attraction of the Big Red Bash is its remoteness. Fresh vegetables are delivered twice a week by truck ("road mail," as locals call it) some residents fly their own small planes (the airfield, conveniently, is a walk from the pub) and if the lights go out, electricians must be booked from the closest city, Mount Isa, which is a drive away. "You don't go through Birdsville, you come to Birdsville, and that makes the difference," Nell Brook said. She and her husband, David, whose family settled in Birdsville in 1885, farm on an enormous scale. They own 40, 000 cattle on five properties that span 32, 000 square kilometers. "It's an effort to get here," said Ross McGregor, 51, a laundry worker who drove for two days from his home in Townsville for the Big Red Bash. "It's a challenge. " Sporting a bushy beard, a black pirate hat and Mr. McGregor, like many attendees, is a "gray nomad," a movement of retirees and older citizens who traverse the country in trailers. The prevalence of vehicles, in particular, has opened up tourism in the outback. And Birdsville, Mr. McGregor said, has become a destination in itself, a "beacon in the desert. " Established in the 1880s to collect tolls for cattle drovers moving across the borders of Australia, Birdsville was once a thriving frontier town. When the tolls were abolished with the federation of six colonies that united under the Commonwealth of Australia in 1901, the town, which sits on the Diamantina River, fell into decline. Those who stayed worked on cattle ranches. While the coastal areas of Australia developed, Birdsville's remote inland location ensured its isolation. "You can't just go down to the shop and buy things," Mrs. Brook said. "You always have to plan what you need for the next two months. " She said that in the 1970s, the telegraph was the only way to connect with the outside world. A flight brought fruit, vegetables, mail and a movie that residents would gather together at the Brook home to watch. The town's first telephone line was installed in 1986, and the first cell tower in 2011. Birdsville is expected to get broadband internet access next year. To travel to Birdsville, visitors had to fly or take the dangerous, dusty Birdsville Track, a dirt road from Marree, in South Australia, which crosses three deserts. Mailmen willing to risk the hazardous, weekslong journey on the Birdsville Track became heroes. Tom Kruse, who delivered letters to outback properties from the 1930s to the 1950s in his Leyland Badger truck, was immortalized in the 1954 documentary "The Back of Beyond. " In the 1960s, the perils of crossing the desert made national headlines when five members of the Page family — Ernest Page his wife, Emma and their three children — ran out of gas and water and died from dehydration after abandoning their car. Their partly decomposed bodies were found near Deadman's Sandhill under a coolibah tree on New Year's Day in 1964. Their brutal deaths, combined with Mr. Kruse's expeditions, helped cement the town in national legend. "It's become a bucket list for people," said Greg Donovan, founder of the Big Red Bash and its sister event, the Big Red Run, a ultramarathon through the Simpson Desert. Tourism has become a mainstay. Visitors flock to the Birdsville Hotel, which has quenched thirsty travelers since 1884, and the Birdsville Bakery, celebrated for its curried camel pies, with meat from feral camels that roam the desert. "I could have built a bakery in Marree to the south, Bedourie to the north, Quilpie to the east," said Robert "Dusty" John Miller, the owner of the bakery. "I would have failed in the first year because they don't have the iconic status this town's got. " Even so, tourism, along with cattle rearing, has taken its toll on the desert. As a boy, Mr. Rowlands, the park ranger, hunted for "bush tucker" after school, catching wild goanna, the native monitor lizards, and snakes to cook over a pit of hot ash like his Aboriginal ancestors. "Now, you can go down with a magnifying glass and find nothing," said Mr. Rowlands, 58. "And here we have Birdsville full of people, but nobody really knows what has happened to the land. " The town's infrastructure can also buckle under the pressure. During last year's Big Red Bash, the Birdsville Hotel ran out of food. This year, the Birdsville Bakery ran out of bread, and the town's power grid failed. "We're building our own little minicity with facilities, sanitations, rubbish," said Mr. Donovan, noting that almost everything needed to be transported for hundreds of miles on dirt roads. "If you have a bit of rain, those roads get closed. There are no shortcuts. " Mr. Donovan, who is from Sydney, applauded the "she' " optimism of the residents. "In the bush, you have your good years and your bad years, and people roll with that. " Yet, with meager employment opportunities, few young people stay. Tourism is limited to the winter months, when temperatures are more temperate. In summer, "it's back to the old days," said Lucas Trihey, who organizes events at the Big Red Bash. "There's no one around. You can't go outside and eat a sandwich. It will end up full of sand. There's a real frontier feel. " Recreation in the summer shrinks to barbecues, swimming in the billabong, and drinking stubbies, or bottles of beer, on Big Red under the stars. But, Mr. Miller said, the lack of diversions has helped foster real community spirit in the town. "We need one another," he said as he as he got up to dispense another curried camel pie to a hungry customer.


Preet Bharara, the top federal prosecutor in Manhattan known for pursuing a series of cases targeting public corruption and crime on Wall Street, said on Wednesday he has agreed to remain in his post after Donald Trump becomes U.S. president. Bharara, appointed to his position by Democratic President Barack Obama in 2009, told reporters following a meeting with the Republican president-elect at Trump Tower in Manhattan that Trump asked him to stay on during his administration and he accepted. Trump takes office on Jan. 20. "We had a good meeting," Bharara said. "I said I would absolutely consider staying on. I agreed to stay on." The announcement's timing, when Trump has not yet finished filling all Cabinet-level positions, was unusual. But some former prosecutors who served under Bharara said they were not surprised their former boss would be willing to remain as the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York. "I think Preet is an independent, law enforcement-minded prosecutor who loves his job and is clearly talented in it," said Arlo Devlin-Brown, a former chief of Bharara's public corruption unit who is now a partner at the law firm Covington & Burling. U.S. Senator Charles Schumer of New York, the incoming Senate Democratic leader who Bharara previously worked for as chief counsel, said Trump called him last week to ask what he thought about Bharara staying in his job. "I am glad they met and am glad Preet is staying on," Schumer said in a statement. "He's been one of the best U.S. Attorneys New York has ever seen." Bharara's office has pursued an aggressive push against corruption in state and city politics, an agenda that could fit with Trump's vow to "drain the swamp" in Washington. Those political investigations led last year to the convictions of former New York Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, a Democrat, and former New York Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos, a Republican, in separate corruption trials. Bharara also brought dozens of successful cases against insider traders and was on the cover of Time magazine in 2012 with the headline "This man is busting Wall St." Those cases include the 2011 conviction of Galleon Group founder Raj Rajaratnam, who is serving an 11-year prison term, and a $1.8 billion settlement and plea deal in 2013 with hedge fund SAC Capital Advisors LP. His 227-lawyer office also secured corporate settlements with companies including General Motors Co and JPMorgan Chase & Co; won several convictions and guilty pleas of former employees of Ponzi scheme operator Bernard Madoff; and prosecuted Suleiman Abu Ghaith, a son-in-law of the late al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. Bharara's office's priorities have often matched those set by Obama's Justice Department. Amid an increase in civil rights investigations nationally, for example, Bharara's office joined a lawsuit that led to a settlement in 2015 aimed at reducing violence in New York City's Rikers Island jail complex. How priorities set by the Justice Department under Trump's pick for attorney general, Republican Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama, affects the cases Bharara's office pursues remains unclear. "Obviously there is likely be some changes in priorities from Main Justice (the department's Washington headquarters), and the office will have to adjust to those," said Richard Zabel, who previously served as Bharara's deputy before becoming hedge fund Elliott Management's general counsel. Bharara said his office had for the past seven years pursued its work "independently, without fear or favor." Former prosecutors they expect that to stay the same. "He would have only taken it on if he were 100 percent confident that that independence could be preserved," said Matthew Schwartz, partner at the law firm Boies, Schiller & Flexner and a former prosecutor under Bharara.


It didn t take long for conservative Christians to jump to the defense of Roy Moore.Not long after the Washington Post published a story containing detailed accusations from several women who claim that Moore sexually assaulted and abused them as teens, conservatives disgustingly continued to back him despite having the opposite reaction to allegations against several high profile Hollywood actors and producers.And that s not to mention the reaction conservatives had when right-wing websites pushed a conspiracy claiming that Hillary Clinton ran a sex trafficking operation inside a pizza restaurant, a conspiracy that was immediately and thoroughly debunked.Conservatives STILL believe that conspiracy, but refuse to believe the very real victims who have come forward about Moore.Rather than call for Moore to step aside, conservative Christians are more rabid than ever, and that includes Jerry Falwell Jr., who along with the rest of his anti-gay friends still supports Moore just like they continued to support Donald Trump despite Trump saying on tape that he likes to grab women by their genitals without their consent. It comes down to a question who is more credible in the eyes of the voters the candidate or the accuser, Falwell said. The same thing happened to President Trump a few weeks before his election last year except it was several women making allegations. He denied that any of them were true and the American people believed him and elected him the 45th president of the United States. And I believe the judge is telling the truth. So Falwell Jr. is making Moore s guilt contingent on whether voters elect him or not. In other words, he s telling Republican voters that electing him is the equivalent of a jury verdict of not guilty. But that s not how the justice system works. And it s not how we should be judging political candidates.It should be pointed out that the race in Alabama has turned into a dead heat according to a poll taken after the bombshell story dropped, so clearly voters must not think Moore is very credible.These are credible allegations that should be taken seriously. Seriously enough that Moore should be forced to withdraw his candidacy. The fact that conservatives are using the Bible to defend sexual abuse and assault proves that they are nothing more than fake Christians. They would support a pedophile rather than vote for a Democrat. That s how far conservative Christians have fallen. They are literally supporting a man who claimed that homosexuality causes pedophilia, the same man who is being accused of predatory sexual behavior involving a 14-year-old girl. Only Moore is a straight white Christian so conservatives think his pedophilia is acceptable.Hillary Clinton was right. These people are deplorable.Featured Image: Scott Olson/Getty Images


Democrat @timkaine: "There is no legal justification" for President Trump's airstrikes on Syrian airbase https: . Friday on CNN's "New Day," Sen. Tim Kaine ( ) the 2016 Democratic nominee, told show host Chris Cuomo there was "no legal justification" for President Donald Trump's action against Syria a night earlier, which was a military strike against a Syrian air base in response to the nation's use of chemical weapons earlier in the week. Kaine said although he agreed from a "moral standpoint" with the decision, there was no "legal justification" for Trump's decision because he did not come to Congress first. "There is no legal justification for this," Kaine said. "I think from a moral standpoint — absolutely, I agree with Senator Rubio. It was the right thing to do. It is the right thing to do — to try to deter Bashar from war crimes and remember, I voted to use military action against Syria in August of 2013. Senator Rubio voted against it back then when Bashar did the same thing. But I said the president has to come to Congress. And Donald J. Trump, citizen Trump back then said exactly the same thing. A president has to go to Congress. He should not have done this without coming to Congress. " Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor


A student at the University of Florida lost points on an essay assignment for his decision to use the word "man," instead of the word "humankind. "[Student Martin Poirier received a on an essay assignment, despite his professor's claim that the paper was "thoughtful. " The reason? He dared to use the word "man," instead of "humankind. " "Thoughtful paper, although the errors are killing you," Professor Jack Davis wrote at the bottom of the paper. Davis claimed that the exercise is "not to enforce political correctness" but rather serves as "both a grammar refresher and a style and user guide. " He also claimed that students would only lose points when they violate two or more " " guidelines, meaning that just the singular usage of "man" was not enough for Poirier to have his grade marked down. "I do not lower a student's grade for only one inconsistency, and I single out no student as an example," Davis said. Poirier claims that Professor Davis' class is "certainly biased," but that he believes "Davis is rather moderate compared to his peers and formulated the rule in order to be 'by the books. '" "It is on those grammarians who, like the rest of the academy, have eagerly stoked the slide towards gender [and] social anarchy," Poirier claimed. "Political correctness on college campuses goes far deeper than this one excess by this one teacher. By and large, the radical liberationist ideas go unchallenged because no truly oppositional content is presented," he added. Tom Ciccotta is a libertarian who writes about economics and higher education for Breitbart News. You can follow him on Twitter @tciccotta or email him at tciccotta@breitbart. com


Here are the top 10 comments of the week on our digital platforms, as selected by our readers and the journalists who moderate nearly every comment. 1. If forcing a girl to wear hijab is against her freedom and "feminism," what about forcing her not to wear hijab when she wants to? Isn't it also against her freedom of choice? — Aysha Jahan on The Times's Facebook page, responding to an article about efforts by the police in several French beach towns to enforce a ban against the "burkini," a modest swimsuit worn by observant Muslim women. This comment received more than 2, 450 likes. 2. A 6. 2 magnitude earthquake, while not small, is not particularly large. The reason it caused so much damage is that many of the beautiful ancient buildings are composed of unreinforced masonry (stone). These are the most dangerous buildings to be in during an earthquake as they have very little sheer strength, and therefore collapse when exposed to lateral ground accelerations. Such buildings can undergo seismic retrofitting, but the process is expensive and I suspect that most buildings in Italy have not undergone such a procedure. So therefore it is likely an unaddressed infrastructure issue that led to wide such spread devastation. — Geoscientist in Tallahassee, Fla. reacting to an article about the earthquake that struck central Italy, killing more than 200 people. 3. I grew up in Southern California. I remember when the Whittier Narrows quake crumbled parts of my hometown and what it felt like to be thrown out of bed for the Northridge quake and being forced to crawl on my hands and knees to safety as my mother screamed from her room down the hall. We were fine, just broken dishes and books everywhere, but I remember the terror. I can't imagine how these people felt as their houses collapsed around them. My heart goes out to Italy. Know that many Americans who have lived through earthquakes themselves are thinking of you. We hope many are pulled from the rubble alive. And hopefully you can rebuild stronger. Peace. — Dr. A. in Texas. 4. The triple standard continues — woman, a Clinton and Democrat. Whitewater, a conspiracy theories, Benghazi, and now "the emails. " All of these have produced nothing other than a normal human being with a long track record of excellent service who has made a few errors and has a few flaws. Bernie Sanders had a lot of things right, including letting the spinning of the emails fall by the wayside. If this were a man, not a Clinton, and not a Democrat, this wouldn't even be news. — 6Strings in North Carolina, reacting to an article about a judge's order to the F. B. I. to release nearly 15, 000 of Hillary Clinton's emails that it collected off her personal server. This comment received more than 4, 300 reader recommendations. 5. In economics, educational achievement, social status, in those measurable areas, this ethnic group has a large portion of its population at the bottom. Look at the public schools and how Democratic factions like teachers' unions and organizations like the N. A. A. C. P. have a stranglehold on this group's children. Trump's remarks are correct — just look at these urban cities that have been under Democratic control for decades. One could go on and on, but why not admit the overall accuracy of what Donald Trump stated? I'm voting for Donald Trump. — Pianki in St. Louis, reacting to an article about Donald Trump's attempts to reach out to black voters. 6. It should surprise no one that white people just don't want to live with blacks, regardless of income. And yet everyone still treats this fact as though it were new, or they bend over backwards trying to deny it all together. Face it. It makes no difference if you are a professional, black person — because in the end, you're still black. — N. Smith in New York, reacting to an article about racial segregation in cities like Milwaukee, where 59 percent of black families with household incomes over $100, 000 a year live in poor areas. This comment received more than 190 reader recommendations. 7. My son will now attend elementary school without an EpiPen. I pray he doesn't touch anything with . .. have considered home school now. How long will the people of this country suffer to Big Pharma until we rise up against it? — Jennifer Ericksen on The Times's Facebook page, reacting to an article about the sudden and steep increase in the price of an EpiPen, an injection device that delivers a dose of epinephrine to a user suffering an anaphylactic allergy attack. 8. I am a chemist by training and trade. As far as the bagels are concerned, the lye (i. e. NaOH) reacts with the proteins and sugars in the flour and causes (I am guessing) carmelization reactions. By the time the bagels are boiled and baked, the lye has been completely neutralized and there should, in fact, be no free lye remaining. If you want to follow the recipe that uses lye, be careful (generally speaking, kitchens can be dangerous places if you aren't careful) but don't worry about having remnants of a toxic chemical in your food. — Perry Brown in Salt Lake City, reacting to an article about whether lye is a key ingredient in bagel baking. 9. As for Facebook, I've found that it has both fostered all sorts of very productive (i. e. polite and reasonable) political discourse and also led to some personal disappointment. On the one hand, you can speak with people about political matters in a way that would be far too awkward in person ("no religion or politics" is still the standard rule of etiquette for most social gatherings, I find). On the other, it means I now have to see how much my grandfather loves Trump. It stings every time I see him post something, but what can you do? You have to let people be themselves and have the emotional restraint to not respond to everything you see online. Facebook, like most digital media, is nothing but what you make it. — Jonathan Krause in the United Kingdom, reacting to an article about Facebook's role in political news coverage during this election cycle. 10. This is what happens when get more access to the same funding and facilities get, beginning in middle and high school and on through college. This is why women's rights are human rights. The benefits of empowering can be felt all across the societies that choose to do so. — Leanne Harpin on The Times's Facebook page, reacting to an article about American female athletes in the Rio Olympics, where they won 61 medals. Had the women been a separate country, they would have been third in the overall medal count. This comment received more than 550 likes.


Donald Trump s Education Secretary is off to a terribly embarrassing start.Just a day after being confirmed by the Senators she paid for after Mike Pence cast a tie-breaking vote, Betsy DeVos is already proving how ignorant she is about teaching and education.After her first full day in the position, DeVos posted a tweet about it and then joked about not knowing where the pencils are, which is pretty damn insulting to teachers since they usually have to buy their own pencils and other supplies.Day 1 on the job is done, but we re only getting started. Now where do I find the pencils? :) pic.twitter.com/0vRKF1opE9 Betsy DeVos (@BetsyDeVos) February 9, 2017Understandably, teachers and their supporters were pretty pissed off about DeVos question and they absolutely trashed her for it in response.@BetsyDeVos not in the thousands of public schools that can barely afford supplies. Looking forward to you cleaning that lil issue up. Erin Weaver (@ByErinWeaver) February 9, 2017@BetsyDeVos Enjoy destroying our education system. Good luck with your incompetence. Alisha Grauso (@AlishaGrauso) February 9, 2017@BetsyDeVos you realize how NOT funny this is since most teachers buy their own supplies. But I bet you re gonna pink slip them anyway. MalyndaHale (@MalyndaHale) February 9, 2017@BetsyDeVos A true educator wouldn t have to ask we carry them with us at all times Laura Fischer (@Buckeyegal2008) February 9, 2017@BetsyDeVos You worked a whole day but didn t have anything to write with? Maybe you could hold a bake sale to buy some pencils. (((David Lytle))) (@davitydave) February 9, 2017@BetsyDeVos You gave the @GOP $200 million and not one of them will help you find supplies? @marcorubio? eBaum s World (@ebaumsworld) February 9, 2017@BetsyDeVos At the store. Something you should know: we teachers buy pencils and supplies for our classes with our OWN money. Robin McCauley Lynch (@RobinMcCauley) February 9, 2017@RobinMcCauley @WendyLiebman @BetsyDeVos I know teachers who use their own money for supplies and that s wrong. Teachers deserve better. Race Bannon (@BannonRace) February 9, 2017@BetsyDeVos I don t know, maybe go to a public school and get one? USC (@AlumniUSC) February 9, 2017Funny enough, DeVos did, in fact, try to go to a public school on Friday morning and got blocked by protesters at the entrance. So she ran away..@BetsyDeVos is this what you plan to do with your pencil while public school teachers work hard to educate and protect students? pic.twitter.com/fzyCPlhLkb Jaipreet Virdi (@jaivirdi) February 9, 2017. @BetsyDeVos If YOU work in education, YOU buy the pencils, the paper, &, sometimes, a kid s shoes. Spend a week in a school & GET A CLUE. Crystal (@CMorganNC) February 9, 2017@BetsyDeVos Why don t you buy some pencils like you bought off your confirmation? Easy D (@DaveStylee) February 9, 2017Betsy DeVos doesn t give a damn about education. She only cares about indoctrinating our kids into her extremist religion and gutting the Education Department from the inside will help her do exactly that. She should have never been confirmed but Republicans are easily bought.Teachers work hard to educate our kids. They often have to spend their own money to make sure the classroom has enough supplies, including pencils. Betsy DeVos deserves all the mockery she is receiving.


Facebook Inc said on Wednesday it had found that an operation likely based in Russia spent $100,000 on thousands of U.S. ads promoting divisive social and political messages in a two-year-period through May. Facebook, the dominant social media network, said 3,000 ads and 470 "inauthentic" accounts and pages spread polarizing views on topics including immigration, race and gay rights. Another $50,000 was spent on 2,200 "potentially politically related" ads, likely by Russians, Facebook said. U.S. election law bars foreign nationals and foreign entities from spending money to expressly advocate the election or defeat of a candidate. Non-U.S. citizens may generally advertise on issues. Other ads, such as those that mention a candidate but do not call for the candidate's election or defeat, fall into what lawyers have called a legal gray area. Facebook announced the findings in a blog post by its chief security officer, Alex Stamos, and said that it was cooperating with federal inquiries into influence operations during the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Facebook briefed members of both the Senate and House of Representatives intelligence committees on Wednesday about the suspected Russia advertising, according to a congressional source familiar with the matter. Both committees are conducting probes into alleged Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election, including potential collusion between the campaign of President Donald Trump and Moscow. Facebook also gave its findings to Robert Mueller, the special counsel in charge of investigating alleged Russian interference in last year's presidential election, a source familiar with the matter said. The company produced copies of advertisements as well as data about the buyers, the source said. Mueller's office declined to comment. Facebook said it found no link between the Russian-purchased advertising and any specific presidential campaign. The ads were mostly national in their focus and did not appear to reflect targeting of political swing-states, the company said. Even if no laws were violated, Facebook said the 470 accounts and pages associated with the ads ran afoul of the social network's requirements for authenticity and have since been suspended. Facebook did not print the names of any of the suspended pages, but some of them included such words as "refugee" and "patriot." More than $1 billion was spent on political ads during the 2016 presidential campaign, thousands of times more than the presumed Russian spending identified by Facebook's security team. But the findings buttress U.S. intelligence agency conclusions that Russia was actively involved in shaping the election. Facebook previously published a white paper on influence operations, including what it said were fake "amplifier" accounts for propaganda, and said it was cracking down. As recently as June, Facebook told journalists that it had not found any evidence of Russian operatives buying election-related ads on its platform. Representative Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, called the Facebook report "deeply disturbing and yet fully consistent with the unclassified assessment of the intelligence community." "We are keenly interested in Russia's use of social media platforms, both the use of bots and trolls to spread disinformation and propaganda, including through the use of paid online advertising," he said in a statement. A Facebook employee said Wednesday that there were unspecified connections between the divisive issue ads and a well-known Russian "troll factory" in St. Petersburg that publishes comments on social media. Ellen Weintraub, a member of the U.S. Federal Election Commission, said U.S. voters deserve to know where the ads are coming from and that the money behind them is legal. "It is unlawful for foreign nationals to be spending money in connection with any federal, state or local election, directly or indirectly," Weintraub said in a phone interview. She declined to comment on the Facebook ads, saying she could not discuss subjects that could come before the agency. Facebook declined to release the ads themselves, prompting a sharp rebuke on Twitter from Pierre Omidyar, the billionaire founder of First Look Media, a producer of feature and documentary films, television and podcasts. "Facebook keeps the targeted political ads it publishes secret, emboldening criminals," wrote Omidyar, the eBay founder who also provided funding to launch media organization The Intercept. "I don't see how that can possibly be legal." Facebook's disclosure may be the first time a private entity has pointed to receiving Russian money related to U.S. elections, said Brendan Fischer, a program director at the Campaign Legal Center, a Washington nonprofit that advocates for more transparency. "Whoever may have provided assistance to Russia in buying these Facebook ads is very likely in violation of the law," he said, adding that Facebook has a legal duty to act if it is aware of similar activity in the future.


Mississippi's vast flatlands, laced with the remains of a fading industrial base, are fertile ground for the incendiary populism of Donald Trump. For the insurgent presidential candidate, there's plenty of voter outrage to tap into here and in a swathe of other southern states that could push Trump closer to securing the Republican presidential nomination in the coming weeks. Mississippi's unemployment rate is among the highest in the nation: more than 75,000 manufacturing jobs have disappeared in the past 15 years; and white voters at the core of the state's Republican Party fear the rise of immigrant workers. The deep economic dislocation felt by many in Mississippi, reflected in Reuters interviews with dozens of voters, explains how Trump is attracting broad-based support in southern states, including from many evangelical Christian voters prepared to overlook his past liberal positions on touchstone social issues. In South Carolina last weekend, exit polls showed Trump comfortably beat both his closest rivals Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio among evangelical voters, despite their more consistent appeals to Christian values. "Look at immigration, look at terrorism, look at the things that really matter," said Heather Fox, a field director for the Trump campaign in Mississippi. "If we don't have a country, it's not going to matter about the Bible or the Constitution because we are going to be dead and gone," she added during a recent gathering of Republican voters in a Holiday Inn conference room in Lucedale, southern Mississippi, that began with a prayer. Caleb Howell, a Baptist deacon, says even those with jobs often see little chance of promotion. "There are not many options," he said, "even for preachers." From the Mississippi coast through Alabama, Tennessee and the Appalachian coalfields of Kentucky, America's economic recovery has been patchy if not outright elusive. The four-state region is the country's least educated and least well paid, according to federal jobs data. Politically, the region has emerged as a bedrock of support for billionaire real estate mogul Trump, who has hammered home his pledge to return America to "winning" ways versus foreign competitors and foes. In polling conducted for Reuters by Ipsos, Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee and Kentucky ranked among Trump's top seven states nationally, with more than 40 percent of Republicans and independent poll participants backing him. (See this graphic on census data from Trump's heartland. here) Alabama and Tennessee vote on March 1 on "Super Tuesday", along with 13 other states and territories in the heated race to select the Republican Party's presidential candidate. Kentucky holds a Republican caucus on March 5 and Mississippians vote in their party primary on March 8. The 2007 to 2009 economic crisis fell particularly hard on Mississippi and neighboring states. The number of jobs fell faster than in much of the rest of the country, climbed back more slowly, and as of last year remained more than 200,000 short of where it was before the crisis, federal data show. Economic and cultural dislocation runs strong, whether it's anger over Washington's regulatory reach into industries like coal mining, the perceived threat to conservative values on issues like same-sex marriage, or the conviction that the economy no longer works for average Americans. A nation-leading 32 percent of the adult population in the four-state region has only a high school degree, a problem at a time when the fastest job and wage growth is in occupations that require a bachelor's degree or more. Since 2000, jobs available in Mississippi for those with only a high school degree fell five percent, according to a Reuters analysis of federal occupational data. Between 2000 and 2014, median household income fell nearly 12 percent in Mississippi, about twice as fast as the overall U.S. decline, adjusted for inflation. Income among white households fell slightly more than 12 percent, compared to a decline of less than five percent for all whites nationally. "We're shipping out all the work and bringing in all the people that don't want to work," said Walter Wright, 46, who owns a real-estate company in Hurley, Mississippi. He said he supports Trump because of his tough build-a-wall approach to stopping illegal immigration and because "he is angry." Although the region has the lowest share of foreign-born residents in the country, at fewer than four percent, and the lowest portion of Hispanic residents, whether born in the U.S. or elsewhere, the numbers have been growing. In Alabama and Mississippi, for instance, the Hispanic population more than doubled from 2000 to 2010. That's coincided with a difficult economy. Mississippi, once a major builder of ships and furniture, has seen an exodus of thousands of jobs in both industries to China and Mexico over the past two decades. Mississippi's manufacturers shed 75,738 jobs between 2000 and 2015, according to Manufacturers' News Inc, a publisher and compiler of industrial directories and databases. "We have had way too many industries shut down and now they are in Brazil, they are in Mexico, they are in China," said Fox. Trump has said he will bring back American jobs "from China, from Mexico, from Japan, from so many places." He has proposed doing this by slapping tariffs on foreign goods and negotiating better trade deals. He has threatened a 35 percent tax on Ford Motor Corp vehicles made in Mexico that are brought back to the United States to be sold. Most economists doubt Trump can revive manufacturing on its former scale in Mississippi or elsewhere, especially for unskilled workers. His threats also risk a trade war that could backfire by raising costs and hurting American jobs. While trade deals like the North American Free Trade Agreement may have shifted some jobs abroad, the integration of global supply chains has also helped Tennessee stand out in the region with its booming auto industry, and drawn foreign companies like Airbus to Mobile, Alabama. Republican Party officials say Trump has strong support, especially in northwest Alabama where International Paper Co shut a 43-year-old plant in 2014, laying off 1,100 workers. "The day of putting on a suit and tie at 6 in the morning and getting a clean cut shave and taking your briefcase to an office somewhere, it's gone," said Blake Nash, 29, a Trump supporter whose mother was let go at the plant in 2006. In Nash's town of Lexington, near the Tennessee border, red, white and blue Trump signs sprout from streets studded with Baptist churches, the only banners of any presidential candidate in the area. Nash, who has no health insurance and calls his university degree in health sciences worthless, recently applied for a job with a company that contracts work with Boeing Co and Lockheed Martin Corp, but was rejected because he didn't have the right training. With good jobs at home scarce, he works on contract in other states such as Texas. Many farmers in Lauderdale County, the location of the International Paper plant, relied on the factory for their primary income, said Charlie Thompson, a farmer who worked there for 34 years and lost his job in 2014. Thompson, 58, former president of the Lauderdale County Farmers Federation, estimates that about 15 percent of the sacked workers were farmers, further straining a county where the number of farms was already in decline. "If you can equate signs in the yard with being popular, I would say probably Trump is a front runner around here," said Thompson. Still, a win is no sure thing. At the Lucedale forum, Chris McDaniel, a Republican state senator in Mississippi and Cruz supporter, hammered at Trump's inconsistency on conservative hot-button issues such as abortion. "How sure and solid has Trump been? Just a few years ago, he was pro-choice," McDaniel said, referring to a television interview Trump gave in 1999 when he said "I'm very pro-choice" and that he would not ban partial-birth abortions. He has since said he is against abortion. "We are kind of afraid of what he has been in the past," said Gussie Vise, 71, a retired teacher and wife of a local preacher. She is leaning toward Cruz but says of Trump,"we like him."


Donald Trump took quite a bit of heat following the racist shooting in Kansas City that resulted in the deaths of two Indian engineers. The perpetrator shouted what sounded like Trump-inspired racial slurs like get out of my country, before killing Srinivas Kuchibholta, who died and Alok Madasani, who was injured. Trump took almost a week to address the shooting at all. There was also a spate of vandalism toward Jewish cemeteries and for most of a week, crickets from Trump.Trump did finally talk about the shooting and the vandalism in his address to Congress on Tuesday, but many say it was too little too late. After all, Trump doesn t hesitate in calling out Muslim terrorists. He and his people even make up terrorist attacks.In an interview with CNN s Alisyn Camerota, Trump surrogate Anthony Scaramucci said that the only reason Trump didn t address the Kansas City shooting and the string of vandalism in Jewish cemeteries, was that it would cause more fear and civil unrest. He s not constantly condemning [hate crimes by white people], Camerota pointed out. There was silence after Kansas City. He didn t tweet about it. Some people felt if had it been a Muslim, had it been a Middle Eastern gunman instead of a white gunman, he would have immediately condemned it. The president is controlling the bully pulpit and the news cycle, and he doesn t want to overly discuss the stuff because you re worried that in itself will cause a fire, he replied. You re trying to strike the right balance. You can agree with me or disagree with me. I do believe the president has consistently, and maybe not with the level of volume you d like, but he has consistently and his administration has consistently denounced these acts of violence. Source: Raw StoryHere s the video:Let s see if you can follow that logic and I ll be frank, I m having trouble with it. Trump s anti-Muslim rhetoric, which has always flowed freely whenever he speaks or tweets, is a huge recruiting tool for ISIS. Apparently, he doesn t care that he is causing unrest and fear toward Muslims and by Muslims.Hate crimes since the election have been up and hate groups are on the rise. The horse has left the barn as far as Trump inspiring hate, but he does have the bully pulpit. If he can influence hate, he can certainly influence people not to act on their hatred. He won t, though. As more and more sane people turn against him, Trump is left with a base that looks a lot like Hitler s Brownshirts. He doesn t want to offend his biggest supporters.


U.S. President Donald Trump said on Friday he was preparing to call British Prime Minister Theresa May after a home-made bomb on a London train injured 22 people. Trump, who spoke briefly with reporters before going into the Oval Office, said he had been briefed on the attack, which police called a terror incident, calling it a terrible thing. Asked about a Friday morning tweet in which Trump said the U.S. ban on travelers from certain countries should be more specific, Trump said: We have to be tougher and we have to be smarter. (This story corrects third paragraph to show Trump was referring to the U.S. travel ban in his quote, not the London attack.)


Does anyone REALLY care what our president drinks? CNN thinks they do. They thought it would be a great idea to bring on a doctor who would tell them how horrible it is for Trump to drink lots of Diet Coke. Well, they thought wrong This one backfires on Brooke Baldwin LOL!Near the close of Brooke Baldwin s CNN program Monday afternoon, she invited on a board-certified gastroenterologist to assess the effect on President Donald Trump s health of his massive Diet Coke intake.VISUAL AIDE:The discussion came with a visual aide of a dozen Diet Coke cans, representing the 12 Trump knocks back per day in the White House, according to a recent New York Times report.Dr. Samantha Nazareth noted the diet soda had less calories than regular soda, but drinking 12 essentially replaces what other liquids will provide to your body. You should be drinking water, not this, she said.Baldwin wondered if drinking that many Diet Cokes could be super crazy harmful to the body, but Nazareth said not necessarily. Instead, it might encourage the drinker to engage in more sweets. You need to think of the body in its entirety. What are you drinking? What are you eating? Nazareth asked. How much are you sleeping? How much stress are you getting a day? This all affects the body. It s not just 12 cans. Trump called the New York Times story an example of fake news because of its report on his reported TV-watching habits, but he didn t push back on the detail about the Diet Cokes.


Meeeeoowwww The comments below by Ivana Trump were totally out of line and rude. Ivana is promoting her new book but it s only a turn-off when she behaves like this to Melania. Who wants to support anything this snarky woman promotes? The rude comments go on and on First Lady Melania Trump wasted no time in responding. We give her credit she called it exactly what it was: attention-seeking and self-serving noise Ivana Trump said she should be considered the first lady because she was President Trump s first wife, prompting a stinging rebuke from third wife and current first lady Melania Trump that the remark was attention-seeking and self-serving noise. Ivana, the mother of Ivanka, Donald Jr. and Eric, said she has a line to the White House but tries not to call Trump too often because it makes Melania Trump jealous Ouch!Ivana Trump to @arobach: I don't like to call POTUS at the White House: "I don't want to cause any kind of jealousy" https://t.co/SiTlUUDX2S pic.twitter.com/nyvSj3Wk9O Good Morning America (@GMA) October 9, 2017THE FACT THAT IVANA THINKS SHE WOULD CAUSE ANY JEALOUSY IS LAUGHABLE! I have the direct number to White House, but I no really want to call him there because Melania is there, Ivana told ABC s Good Morning America during an interview on Monday. I don t want to cause any kind of jealousy or something like that because I m basically first Trump wife. MELANIA WASTED NO TIME RESPONDING: Mrs. Trump has made the White House a home for Barron and the President. She loves living in Washington, DC, and is honored by her role as first lady of the United States. She plans to use her title and role to help children, not sell books, spokeswoman Stephanie Grisham said in a statement to CNN. There is clearly no substance to this statement from an ex, this is unfortunately only attention-seeking and self-serving noise. Ivana Trump, 68, who married Donald Trump in 1977 and divorced him in 1992, has been making the rounds of talk shows to promote her memoir, Raising Trump, which was published on Tuesday.WHAT A B*TCH! IVANA THINKS IT MUST BE TERRIBLE FOR MELANIA TO BE IN WASHINGTONDespite her comment that she should could carry the mantle of first lady, Ivana Trump said she really wouldn t be happy in the White House and wouldn t be willing to change places with Melania. I think for her to be in Washington must be terrible, Ivana Trump said. It s better her than me. I would hate Washington. IVANA TAKES A SHOT AT MELANIA!But then she took a veiled shot at the first lady s White House role. Would I straighten up the White House in 14 days? Absolutely. Can I give the speech for 45 minutes without [a] teleprompter? Absolutely. Can I read a contract? Can I negotiate? Can I entertain? Absolutely. But I would not really like to be there. I like my freedom, she said.Ivana also takes full credit for raising their three children because he was on the telephone making the deals. He was a loving father, don t get me wrong, and he was a good provider, but he was not the father which would take a stroll and go to the Central Park or go play to baseball with them or something, she said, It was only until they were about 18 years old [that] he could communicate with them, because he could start to talk business with them. Ivana Trump on Pres. Trump as a dad: "He was not the father which would take a stroller and go to Central Park." https://t.co/iGg9piFeFi pic.twitter.com/f7ukRIm4t8 Good Morning America (@GMA) October 9, 2017 Before, he really didn t know what conversation to strike with the little kids , she added.


A Catholic priest has been caught on camera snorting cocaine on church grounds, in a room covered in Nazi memorabilia.As the BBC reports:Fr Stephen Crossan is reported to have snorted coke through a 10 note during a night of drinking in July 2015 in Banbridge, County Down.He was in a room containing Nazi memorabilia, and seemed to say I shouldn t as he snorted, the Sun on Sunday reported.He has taken leave from the priesthood.A spokesperson for the PSNI said: Police are aware of the article in a Sunday newspaper and are making inquiries. The Church has confirmed that the footage took place in the Priest s parochial house, on the grounds of St Patrick s Church, Banbridge, in July of last year.This Priest forms part of the same Catholic Church which in Northern Ireland and the U.S., attempts to exert a moral authority over men, women and children. The same church which is fighting to prevent the equal marriage rights of same-sex couples. The same church which is fighting the reproductive rights of women and men, through opposition to abortion and contraception. The same church which is trapping people in loveless or violent marriages, by fighting the right of (predominantly) women to divorce. The same church which covered up rampant sexual abuse of children by their priests, rather than expose themselves to public accountability.However, this same cocktail of toxic beliefs has infected the Republican Party of the United States through the Christian Conservative movement. Despite the clear and incontrovertible evidence that religiosity is not the same as morality, this party and it s Quiverfull followers still attempt to assert a moral authority of secular liberals.Unfortunately for the Father Crossan, the Duggars and other Christian Conservative leaders your moral hypocrisy has a way of making itself known to the world.Featured Image via Screengrab


A tightening siege has pushed people to the verge of famine in the eastern suburbs of Damascus, residents and aid workers say, bringing desperation to the only major rebel enclave near the Syrian capital. Cases of malnutrition among children have almost doubled in the last two months at one clinic in the suburbs, which have been under siege by Syrian government forces since 2013 but come under new pressure this year as tunnels used to smuggle in food have been cut off. The child that we consider normal in Ghouta is the child whose weight is on the lowest end of the normal weight scale. We don t have fully healthy children. The main reason is the lack of food and nutrition, said Dr Amani Ballour, a paediatrician. There are children who we previously classified as at risk of malnutrition, who are now classified as medium-level acute malnutrition or extreme-level acute malnutrition cases. At two and a half years old, Hala al-Nufi weighs less than five kilos (12 pounds). She suffers from a metabolic disorder, but a lack of adequate food has made the case extreme. Hala, her eyes hollow and her translucent skin stretching over her tiny bones, had gotten sicker in recent months, her parents said. They worry she will not survive the siege. Um Said, a mother of six, says she is too hungry to breast feed her six-month-old twins, Marwa and Safa. I put the child to the breast, but there is no milk. I am not eating. I slept without supper last night, she said. Sometimes I hit myself against the wall, she said. For God s, sake open the road. In the name of the prophet, I kiss your hands and feet, open the road for us. We are going to die of hunger. We are eating from the trash bins. At least 1,200 children in eastern Ghouta suffer from malnutrition, on the rise with 1,500 others at risk, a spokeswoman for the U.N. children s agency UNICEF said. We could be at the doors of starvation, of a medical catastrophe, said health worker Mahmoud al-Sheikh. He said children were not yet dying of hunger but could be soon. God help the people in the coming time. The army s advances in recent months have shrunk the rebel-held pocket in the densely populated area of satellite towns and farms east of the capital. Food, fuel and medicine once traveled across frontlines into the suburbs through a network of underground tunnels. But early this year, an army offensive nearby cut smuggling routes that provided a lifeline for around 300,000 people in the enclave. Supplies have barely entered in months. Shortages have sent prices soaring even higher. Residents and local aid workers say they fear the worst if nothing changes when the cold arrives and stocks run out. A kilogram of sugar now costs more than 5,000 Syrian pounds ($10.81 dollars), roughly 14 times the state-regulated price in nearby Damascus. Two malnourished babies died this week after the siege aggravated their illnesses, a local official said. Photos of one of them a skeletal baby girl brought widespread attention to a crisis that has been growing there for months. Linda Tom, a spokeswoman for the U.N. humanitarian affairs office (OCHA) in Syria, said the one-month-old girl, Sahar, had congenital abnormalities. Hunger worsened her condition, and the baby died of pneumonia. Through a series of offensives and evacuation deals, the Damascus government has defeated opposition pockets around the capital. Eastern Ghouta has held out, but residents say there is now talk for the first time of agreeing to evacuate. People are under pressure, they will erupt. There is no baby milk at all. Mothers and fathers are watching their children go hungry. They want a solution in any way, at any price, said Adnan, 30, who runs a local aid group. Families relied on crops they harvested in the summer, and meagre food distributions from warehouses run by the opposition government based in Turkey, he said. Adnan s group had preserved and dried vegetables that it will distribute to 1,500 families next week, but besides that, its food aid has halted. Even if I get funding, there are no goods to buy, he said. The eastern Ghouta has shut down. There is a state of paralysis. The Wafideen crossing at the outskirts, where checkpoints allowed some goods to enter, has also been heavily restricted or shut, the U.N. and residents said. Only two aid convoys have reached the Ghouta since July, each with food and medicine for about 20 percent or less of the population. In July, Moscow and rebels in the Ghouta signed a ceasefire that had sparked hopes of opening crossings and aid flowing into the suburbs. But residents say none of that has materialized. The de-escalation deal reduced the barrage of air strikes and artillery, but the siege only got harsher, they said. Fierce ground battles also rage on in some frontline districts. When people in the Ghouta learned of the deal and thought it would bring relief, many began using up their food reserves at home, said Khalil Aybour, head of the local council in the town of Douma. After they saw it was all rumors, he said, the misery grew immensely.


Donald Trump didn t exactly have the best showing in Iowa, at least, not for a guy who said just before the caucuses began that he would have a tremendous victory. He ended up finishing 2nd, a full 4 points behind Ted Cruz and ended up tying with Marco Rubio for seven delegates.While he didn t throw a huge tantrum on stage, he isn t exactly being that presidential about it, either. Behind the scenes you know he must be fuming mad. Rarely is he silent on Twitter, and after the loss he didn t tweet a word; there was just silence for 14 long hours. Losing Iowa finally brought Donald Trump back down to earth, and if you re able to gather anything from his latest tweet, it s that he doesn t handle losing very well. Instead of preparing himself for the oath of office, and acting presidential, he had to find a way to offer an excuse. And, boy did he.Pic via Twitter.Trump has been known for quite some time for saying anything and everything on the popular site, and normally we could care a less, but he needs to be called out for being a sore loser. Shortly afterwards, he also posted a cryptic message that made it seem like he wasn t as interested in running for president anymore. Really? Here was what he said, in part: I will keep doing, but not worth it! What exactly does this mean? It must mean he doesn t think running for president is worth it unless people give him credit for things. That, or self-funding his campaign isn t worth it enough for him to be president. Either way, if Trump doesn t self-fund his own campaign he d be beholden to outside groups and special interests, and has already said himself that he doesn t want that. So, according to his own rules, he has to fund his it. There s no other way according to him. And, to make matters worse, it s already been proven that he is, in fact, NOT self-funding his campaign. Go figure. So, what he says is not even true. For more on this, visit HERE. He s in this for the attention and nothing else. He could care a less about Making America Great Again. Pic via Twitter.Here s news for you, Donald: being president is much harder than this. You don t give up after the first contest. And, you sure as heck don t complain. That loser front page cover from the New York Daily News must have really got to him.Featured image from Facebook


When you live in a state that thinks the worst things about their school system is open bathrooms and the fact that textbooks fail to show Jesus riding a dinosaur, it s not surprising that that state s Republican Party platform would fail to pass a 5th grade grammar test.Well, it wasn t a test, so to speak, but when the Republican Party released their platform, along with its official stance against all things gay, the tiniest of grammar fails seemed to indicate that most Texans are gay. Grammar nerds, judge for yourselves:Homosexuality Homosexuality is a chosen behavior that is contrary to the fundamental unchanging truths that has been ordained by God in the Bible, recognized by our nations founders, and shared by the majority of Texans.We ll get to the fact that this is a reprehensible and probably unconstitutional platform in a moment, but for now, let s laugh.The controversy is over the very last comma. There s a grammatical argument going on, said Rudy Oeftering, vice president of the LGBT Republican group Metroplex Republicans, who brought the issue to my attention. Some are insisting the use of commas in the Homosexuality plank in the platform could be interpreted as saying that the founders and the majority of Texans are gay. Source: The New Civil Rights MovementEven if we let that slide, Texans should be embarrassed at how poorly written the sentence is to begin with.Needless to say, it s a poorly written sentence in general. Either truths should be singular or has should be have, and nations lacks a possessive apostrophe.They should be, but anyone who s ever been subjected to Republicans on social media knows that things can get so much worse.Twitter had fun with the Texas GOP, though:Also, the Texas GOP platform would require Caitlyn Jenner and Laura Jane Grace to use men s restrooms, which seems problematic. daveweigel (@daveweigel) May 17, 2016 The Truth is Revealed by the Texas GOP Committee @TexasGOP, The Majority of Texans are Homosexuals! https://t.co/Dz9LAHhFrY PC Godless Liberal (@TheAntiCruz) May 19, 2016@mikesmith8026 @GregAbbott_TX if Mike Smith is the face of the @TexasGOP then they are in trouble #grammar #spelling #stopsayingthug John (@JohnsPolitics) July 25, 2015If only this was the worst thing about the Texas GOP platform. They want to abolish the 17th Amendment of the Constitution, which allows citizens to vote for their Senators. The Legislature wants to do it instead.They want to nullify any laws that they think are unconstitutional. This amounts to succession. They also want to defund and abolish the majority of government agencies and anything that might have a chance of saving the environment, but they do want a strong military to kill all the Mooslims. Oh, and they want the gold standard back.By now, we re used to that anti-government stuff from petulant Texans, but the plank on homosexuality is the only one that addresses people directly. Here s the entire paragraph. See if it doesn t make you throw up in your mouth a little. Homosexuality is a chosen behavior that is contrary to the fundamental unchanging truths that has been ordained by God in the Bible, recognized by our nation s founders, and shared by the majority of Texans. Homosexuality must not be presented as an acceptable alternative lifestyle, in public policy, nor should family be redefined to include homosexual couples. We oppose the granting of special legal entitlements or creation of special status for homosexual behavior, regardless of state of origin. We oppose any criminal or civil penalties against those who oppose homosexuality out of faith, conviction, or belief in traditional values. Source: EsquireIt doesn t take a deep reading between the lines to see that this platform is a warning to all LGBT people to stay in the closet or risk harassment and bullying, without penalty, from anyone who hides behind the Bible.


Home This Month Popular Is Western Civilization Worth Saving? Is Western Civilization Worth Saving? Beau Albrecht  My father was a high-ranking student radical poobah and still thinks Castro is the bees' knees. Although this makes me technically a red diaper baby, I rejected all that baloney early on. These days, I write stories - mostly comedy science fiction - as well as maintain a blog mainly about dating advice, political commentary, and my writing projects. November 4, 2016 Politics  By 2050, it's predicted the USA will no longer have a white majority, which in 1960 was 90%. For this, we can thank Ted Kennedy's Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, which the politicians swore up and down wouldn't change the American ethnic composition. In Europe, due to declining native birth rates and mass immigration , this will eventually come to pass for several other nations later this century, all according to the Coudenhove-Kalergi Plan . The leftists, with their really big hearts , think all this will be wonderful.  Globalism and cultural Marxism are the driving forces behind population replacement policies, but unawareness and apathy are almost as much of a problem . Some think that if Western civilization will go down the toilet, they should just "go with the flow" and enjoy the ride all the way down the tubes. Thanks to media propaganda and educational indoctrination, they have no idea that their own civilization is worth anything, and don't have the slightest concern for their own posterity. Still, they're pretty naive to believe that things can't turn far worse within their own lifetimes. Why this is bad (for those who need reminding) In the future, is this going to get better, or worse?  If trends continue unabated, the founding peoples will lose control over their destiny. History shows that when this happens, the results are not good. Pillaging and plundering is a more genteel affair in modern times (though not always ) but you're still not going to like it. Will your new rulers say, "Since things have changed so much, how about we abolish Affirmative Action and set-asides to show we've transcended race?" Don't count on it. More likely, they'll double down on these preferential treatment programs, and come up with new ones, and you will have no chance to block the spoils systems.  That's just the beginning, too. The " diversification " of cities for the last several decades has been bad—Detroit, need I say more?—and riots really are getting out of hand. Now imagine what it will be like when you have no hope of influencing things like Section 8 housing moving into your neighborhood, or if you'll get any real police protection.  This is what we're facing if the Aztlán crowd takes over the Southwest, the community agitators get in charge of the big cities, and together their constituency has an electoral majority controlling the Federal government. (Also remember that they've been told since the 1960s that you're evil oppressors responsible for all their problems.) Parts of "flyover country" might be able to hold out for a while, but nothing short of forming their own country will stop the advance of "progress". If it were ever to come to secession, they'll be surrounded, outnumbered, and outgunned. Let's keep things from getting to that point. Is there any hope? "Refugees" have taken on the characteristics of invaders  I've painted a grim picture, but I have to be realistic. As for what will happen later, things only look worse; Jean Raspail's Camp Of The Saints describes a bleak future like that. This isn't just the USA on the line, but Western Europe too, and perhaps Eastern Europe and Australia in time. If we want to keep from disappearing into the endless night, the time to act is now.  Sometimes, with luck, sovereignty can be regained: for example, the Spanish Reconquista, or the nations of the Balkans rising after a few centuries under the Turkish yoke. However, the results aren't guaranteed; some nations may never recover. In these examples, the "dhimmis" were subjugated under military occupation, but they were not outnumbered in their own lands. The founding populations must not allow themselves to be dispossessed in their own countries in the first place.  Granted, the dark forces of globalism are very powerful—and they'd like us to think they're invincible—but they must be stopped. They also want you to think they're smarter than you and know what's good for you . (If they'd simply focus on getting richer, and cease their social engineering, they'd have far less to answer for.) Not only has our political establishment failed us, they're working against the public . It won't be easy, but we must reassert control over our destiny. Do we deserve to be dispossessed? Brainwashed SJWs welcoming their own destruction  Some will even say—often with haughty condescension—that if we lose our countries, then we deserve this fate. Ignoring for a moment the sheer snottiness, as well as the "might makes right" argument incongruent with the usual rhetoric of fairness by the "prepare to be assimilated, resistance is futile" crowd, let's consider the following facts: In the 1920s, a Communist propaganda campaign was launched in the Western world. In the 1930s, this mutated into cultural Marxism and kicked into high gear during the 1960s. Most people have no idea of the scope of it all, or where things like political correctness came from. Only senior citizens remember what it was like living in a fairly normal country. Even fewer never grew up exposed to this propaganda in one form or another. The rest of us have been indoctrinated from an early age by the mass media and educational establishment. The Western political tradition lately is about openness and democracy. For this reason, we don't conduct political change by torches and pitchforks these days. We play fair, even if our enemies often don't . Further, political correctness encourages the "disadvantaged" to have solidarity, but vilifies the same in the majority. This is one reason why we're on the defensive, and (for now) usually losing. Most people only have a vague idea about the extent of managed democracy and sheer corruption. Those against population replacement policies mostly put their faith in the mainstream opposition parties, not realizing that they've sold out to deep-pockets globalists too. "Mainstream" conservatism is a controlled opposition , providing token resistance at best.  So with that extent of treachery, disinformation, limited options for resistance, and managed democracy, it's grotesquely dishonest for the defeatists to tell us that we're losing a fair fight! As for their opinion that we should just give up, I have one word: No.  Whenever you hear the defeatists crowing that this is inevitable or that we "deserve" it, remember that they want to demoralize you and anyone else listening. (The same goes for when they tell you that loving your people and wanting your posterity to survive is "hatred".) Suppose someone is losing his home by a devious swindle, orchestrated by crooks widely lauded for their fairness, caring, and honesty. It would be the height of arrogance to tell the defrauded that he deserved it and should shut up about it and let it happen. The depopulation and population replacement agenda "First, the EU has to accept at least a million asylum-seekers annually for the foreseeable future… The EU should provide 15,000 euros ($16,800) per asylum-seeker for each of the first two years to help cover housing, health-care and education costs—and to make accepting refugees more appealing to member states."  Don't be fooled: this isn't happening because some vague, invisible force called "progress" is pushing things inevitably in this direction. No, it's being actively promoted by globalist interests that have adopted cultural Marxism as a means of control.  Why are native fertility rates declining below replacement level? The major factors are: Women are encouraged to spend their 20s partying and their 30s trying to get rich in a cube farm. Encouraging them to to make starting a family last priority often leaves them very unhappy over the long term, and many will miss the chance to begin. Good economy tends to be positively correlated with higher fertility rates. During recessions, births go down. The implications are obvious. If less tax money was taken from working citizens for costly social services programs and spit-in-your-eye wars, then they'd be able to afford more children. Sending the guilty to prison (instead of bailing them out) when they crash the economy might be a good indirect measure too. About a third of American babies conceived end up aborted . (Thanks, feminism!) The same leftists who think this is wonderful will scream bloody murder whenever a savage killer on Death Row is executed, but all that's another matter.  Because of declining fertility rates, the globalists tell us that we must open the floodgates of Third World immigration to prop up the population and support the aging citizens. So they've fed us poison, and to soothe the symptoms, they want to feed us another kind of poison. To hell with that!  Granted, keeping Social Security going in the USA will be a challenge. Still, it's pretty uncertain that newly-arriving immigrants—if they become the majority—will be able or willing to support millions of elderly "gringos". As for future European retirees, will they be well cared for by "refugees" from Africa and the Middle East? The way things are now, many of them prefer rioting , looting, and collecting welfare over working. So these are going to be the people propping up the European retirement programs?  Dispossession is inevitable only if we let it happen. For now, we must educate the rest of the public about what's going on, and convince them that their future is worth saving and their posterity is worth preserving. Once we've achieved critical mass, we can confront the political establishment and get the government to start working for us rather than against us What's in it for us? Whenever someone writes that Western civilization is nothing but injustice and oppression, they're using technology we invented to complain about us.  It's fashionable—especially in academia—to bash Western civilization. We're not perfect, but nobody else is either. The truth is that we're a creative, dynamic, and industrious people. Some of us are under the impression that we don't have any culture (only other people do) but that's mistaken. I could spend all day listing our major artists, composers, poets, philosophers, writers, theologians, and the like, but I only would scratch the surface.  Other cultures have made notable contributions—particularly East Asia and the Middle East—but the fact is that the majority of science and technology that makes life comfortable today originated in the Western world. Electricity, motorized transportation, refrigeration, telecommunications, computers (need I go on)? Yep, that was us. We shared our medical advances with the rest of the world, increasing longevity and quality of life around the globe. Whether the world's future looks more like Star Trek or more like Blade Runner may have a lot to do with whether or not our people survive.  Finally, most of us are going to live out our lives in our native countries. Do we want them to stay the same nations we grew up in? Some time in the future, today's youth will be running the show while we're elderly. What kind of a place do we want it to be by then? Western civilization is great; let's keep it going.


A senior UAE diplomat said on Wednesday the Arab world would not be led by Turkey, the Gulf State s first comment on Ankara since a quarrel broke out last week over a retweet by the Emirati foreign minister that President Tayyip Erdogan called an insult. Anwar Gargash, Minister of State for Foreign Affairs of the United Arab Emirates, said there was a need for Arab countries to rally around the Arab axis of Saudi Arabia and Egypt. The sectarian and partisan view is not an acceptable alternative, and the Arab world will not be led by Tehran or Ankara, he wrote on his official Twitter page. Last week, Turkey summoned the charge d affaires at the UAE embassy in Ankara, after UAE Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahayan shared a tweet that accused Turkish troops of looting the holy city of Medina a century ago. Erdogan himself lashed out: Some impertinent man sinks low and goes as far as accusing our ancestors of thievery ... What spoiled this man? He was spoiled by oil, by the money he has, the Turkish leader said at an awards ceremony. Turkey s state-run Anadolu newspaper reported on Saturday that Turkey planned to rename the street where the UAE embassy is located in Ankara after Fakhreddin Pasha, the commander of the Ottoman Turkish troops at Medina in 1916. Medina, the holiest site in Islam after Mecca, is now in Saudi Arabia. The UAE sees itself as a bulwark against political forms of Islam, and views Erdogan s Islamist-rooted ruling AK party as a supporter of groups like the Muslim Brotherhood, which it opposes.


Do you know who this is? He is Edward Ed Mezvinsky, born January 17, 1937. Then you ll probably say, Who is Ed Mezvinsky? Well, he is a former Democrat congressman who represented Iowa s 1st congressional district in the United States House of Representatives for two terms, from 1973 to 1977.He sat on the House Judiciary Committee that decided the fate of Richard Nixon.He was outspoken saying that Nixon was a crook and a disgrace to politics and the nation and should be impeached.He and the Clintons were friends and very politically intertwined for many years.Ed Mezvinsky had an affair with NBC News reporter Marjorie Sue Margolies and later married her after his wife divorced him.In 1993, Marjorie Margolies-Mezvinsky, then a freshman Democrat in Congress, cast the deciding vote that got President Bill Clinton s controversial tax package through the House of Representatives.In March 2001, Mezvinsky was indicted and later pleaded guilty to 31 of 69 counts of bank fraud, mail fraud, and wire fraud.Ed Mezvinsky embezzled more than $10 million dollars from people via both a Ponzi scheme and the notorious Nigerian e-mail scams.He was found guilty and sentenced to 80 months in federal prison. After serving less than five years in federal prison, he was released in April 2008 and remains on federal probation.To this day, he still owes $9.4 million in restitution to his victims.About now you are saying, So what! Well, this is Marc and Chelsea Mezvinsky.That s right; Ed Mezvinsky is Chelsea Clinton s father-in law.Now Marc and Chelsea are in their early thirties and purchased a 10.5 million dollar NYC apartment (after being married in George Soros mansion).Has anyone heard mention of any of this in any of the media?If this guy was Jenna or Barbara Bush s, or better yet, Sarah Palin s daughter s father-in- law, the news would be an everyday headline and every detail would be reported over and over.And yet say there are no double standards in political reporting. And people are already talking about Hillary as our next President! And then there is possibly Chelsea for president in our future!The cycle never ends!