Saturday, December 9, 2017

The Corruption of College Athletics

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The U.S. likes to view itself as the epitome of sports integrity, but beyond its own professional and amateur doping scandals, there is the institutionalized corruption around U.S. college athletics, reports Lawrence Davidson. By Lawrence Davidson There is an old…Read more →

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WaPo Reporter Tweets Picture Of Empty Trump Speech, Gets Called Out By Trump And Retracts

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A day after CNN botched a hit-job on President Trump - which came a week after an erroneous ABC report on General Flynn sent stocks tumbling, which came a month after Bloomberg's Justin Sink launched "KoiGate" during President Trump's trip to Japan - the Washington Post's David Weigel hopped on the Fake News bandwagon and tweeted a photo of an empty arena before a Trump rally in Florida - hours before the event started. 

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Trump responded to Weigel's tweet, saying the WaPo reporter had "put out a phony photo of an empty arena hours before I arrived." 

.@DaveWeigel @WashingtonPost put out a phony photo of an empty arena hours before I arrived @ the venue, w/ thousands of people outside, on their way in. Real photos now shown as I spoke. Packed house, many people unable to get in. Demand apology & retraction from FAKE NEWS WaPo! pic.twitter.com/XAblFGh1ob

Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 9, 2017

Let's take a closer look at those pics.

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Weigel - who had already been fired once by the Washington Post once in 2010 over political bias only to be rehired in 2015, deleted the tweet - saying that Davide Martosko of the Daily Mail told him he'd gotten it wrong. 

Sure thing: I apologize. I deleted the photo after @dmartosko told me I'd gotten it wrong. Was confused by the image of you walking in the bottom right corner. https://t.co/fQY7GMNSaD

Dave Weigel (@daveweigel) December 9, 2017

Martosko seemed surprised:

I told you?

David Martosko (@dmartosko) December 9, 2017

We haven't connected in at least a year, BTW. https://t.co/87jp1l8CD8

David Martosko (@dmartosko) December 9, 2017

Trump took the opportunity to ding the MSM "opposition party," referring to suspended ABC News correspondent Brian Ross as a "fraudster" at the rally, a week after Ross published fake news that former National Security advisor Michael Flynn had directed Trump to make contact with Russian officials during the campaign. ABC later corrected the report - but not after it sent the Dow spiraling 350 points. Trump suggested people who lost money "consider hiring a lawyer and using ABC for the damages this bad reporting has caused - many millions of dollars!" 

People who lost money when the Stock Market went down 350 points based on the False and Dishonest reporting of Brian Ross of @ABC News (he has been suspended), should consider hiring a lawyer and suing ABC for the damages this bad reporting has caused - many millions of dollars!

Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 3, 2017

Trump also took shots at CNN during the rally after the network was forced to make a major correction to a story on Friday in which they said Donald Trump Jr. received documents from Wikileaks on September 4, 2016 before they had been officially released, when in fact, a random person emailed him a link to publicly available documents on September 14. 

CNN corrected the report, issuing the following statement.

CNN originally reported the email was released September 4 -- 10 days earlier -- based on accounts from two sources who had seen the email. The new details appear to show that the sender was relying on publicly available information. The new information indicates that the communication is less significant than CNN initially reported.

Trump shot back, tweeting "Fake News CNN made a vicious and purposeful mistake yesterday. They were caught red handed, just like lonely Brian Ross at ABC News (who should be immediately fired for his mistake)," Trump wrote. "Watch to see if @CNN fires those responsible, or was it just gross incompetence?" It is worth noting that Ross was not fired but rather suspended for 4 weeks.

Fake News CNN made a vicious and purposeful mistake yesterday. They were caught red handed, just like lonely Brian Ross at ABC News (who should be immediately fired for his mistake). Watch to see if @CNN fires those responsible, or was it just gross incompetence?

Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 9, 2017

With the "resistance" MSM reporting story after story which either coincidentally or due to the underlyuing bias, turns to be faker and faker news, and Robert Mueller's Special Counsel stacked with very, very, very, very biased investigators which are being revealed in bombshell after bombshell, one has to wonder who will believe whatever 'grand scheme' of collusion or whatever it is that Mueller is probing these days, they accuse Trump of next in what seems like an endless witch hunt through an upside-down rabbit hole. 



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Trump Continues What He Once Called the Biggest Hoax in American Politics – Ep. 307

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A Nonfarm Payroll Beat Today the labor department released the November jobs report -  Nonfarm Payroll -  of course Wall Street always highly anticipates this number; all the politicians, Donald Trump was ready to tweet as soon as the data was released.  The expectation was for 190,000 jobs and we beat, with 228,000 jobs. An Even Bigger Hoax The unemployment rate held steady at 4.1%, which prompted President Trump to tweet, "The unemployment rate remains at a 17-year low of 4.1%. Now remember, when Trump is running for office he called 5% unemployment "The biggest hoax in American history", claiming that the rate was really 30, 40, 50%.  Well if 5% was the biggest hoax in American history, what's 4.1?%? It's an even bigger hoax. Disappointing Numbers So THIS is the biggest hoax in American history, except that the difference is now Trump is the purveyor of that hoax.  He is no longer calling it out, he is now participating in the same hoax that he criticized in order to get elected.  The numbers that missed were the average hourly earnings, which, again, everybody keeps talking about how earnings are going to go up; they were looking for a .3% increase in average hourly earnings following flat earnings the previous month.  Not only did they not get .3%, they got +.2%, but they revised last month's 0% to -.1%. So really, very disappointing numbers on the wages. Labor Force Participation Labor Force Participation rate held steady at 62.7%; that's near the lowest it has been in this cycle.  And again, if you look at where the jobs were, we did manage to create 31,000 manufacturing jobs.  We have had a boost in manufacturing jobs, despite the fact that we are not seeing it in the trade balance, because we have the worst trade deficit in five years, so I don't really know what everybody's manufacturing, if we're not exporting it, or if it is not reducing our imports.    

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Tuesday, December 5, 2017

Gov’t Report Now Proves Cops Were Told to Stand Down in Charlottesville and They Covered It Up

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The post Gov’t Report Now Proves Cops Were Told to Stand Down in Charlottesville and They Covered It Up appeared first on GOV'T SLAVES.



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ZUCKER ROAST REVEALED...

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Meat is Heat: The Effects of Diet on Global Warming

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One of the most prestigious medical journals in the world editorialized that climate change represents “the biggest global health threat of the 21st century.” Currently, chronic diseases are by far the leading cause of death. Might there be a way to combat both at the same time? For example, riding our bikes instead of driving is a win-win-win for the people, planet, and pocketbook. Are there similar win-win situations when it comes to diet?

As I discuss in my video, Diet and Climate Change: Cooking Up a Storm, the foods that create the most greenhouse gases appear to be the same foods that are contributing to many of our chronic diseases. Researchers found that meat (including fish), eggs, and dairy had the greatest negative environmental impact, whereas grains, beans, fruits, and vegetables had the least impact. And not only did the foods with the heaviest environmental impact tend to have lower nutritional quality, but they also had a higher price per pound. So, avoiding them gives us that triple win scenario.

The European Commission, the governing body of the European Union, commissioned a study on what individuals can do to help the climate. For example, if Europeans started driving electric cars, it could prevent as much as 174 million of carbon from getting released. We could also turn down the thermostat a bit and put on a sweater. But the most powerful action people could take is shift to a meat-free diet.

What we eat may have more of an impact on global warming than what we drive.

Just cutting out animal protein intake one day of the week could have a powerful effect. Meatless Mondays alone could beat out a whole week of working from home and not commuting.

A strictly plant-based diet may be better still: It’s responsible for only about half the greenhouse gas emissions. Studies have suggested that “moderate diet changes are not enough to reduce impacts from food consumption drastically.” Without significant reduction in meat and dairy, changes to healthier diets may only result in rather minor reductions of environmental impacts. This is because studies have shown that the average fossil energy input for animal protein production systems is 25 calories of fossil energy input for every 1 calorie produced—more than 11 times greater than that for grain protein production, for example, which is around 2 to 1.

Researchers in Italy compared seven different diets to see which one was environmentally friendliest. They compared a conventional omnivorous diet adhering to dietary guidelines; an organic omnivorous diet; a conventional vegetarian diet; an organic vegetarian diet; a conventional vegan diet; an organic vegan diet; and a diet the average person actually eats. For each dietary pattern, the researchers looked at carcinogens, air pollution, climate change, effects on the ozone layer, the ecosystem, acid rain, and land, mineral, and fossil fuel use. You can see in the video how many resources it took to feed people on their current diets, all the negative effects the diet is having on the ecosystem, and the adverse effects on human health. If people were eating a healthier diet by conforming to the dietary recommendations, the environmental impact would be significantly less. An organic omnivorous diet would be better still, similar to a vegetarian diet of conventional foods. Those are topped by an organic vegetarian diet, followed by a conventional vegan diet. The best, however, was an organic vegan diet.

The Commission report described that the barriers to animal product reduction are largely lack of knowledge, ingrained habits, and culinary cultures. Proposed policy measures include meat or animal protein taxes, educational campaigns, and putting the greenhouse gas emissions information right on food labels.

Climate change mitigation is expensive. A global transition to even just a low-meat diet, as recommended for health reasons, could reduce these mitigation costs. A study determined that a healthier, low-meat diet would cut the cost of mitigating climate change from about 1% of GDP by more than half, a no-meat diet could cut two-thirds of the cost, and a diet free of animal products could cut 80% of the cost.

Many people aren’t aware of the “cow in the room.” It seems that very few people are aware that the livestock sector is one of the largest contributors to greenhouse gas emissions. But that’s changing.

The UK’s National Health Service is taking a leading role in reducing carbon emissions. Patients, visitors, and staff can look forward to healthy, low-carbon menus with much less meat, dairy, and eggs. “Evidence shows that as far as the climate is concerned, meat is heat.”

The Swedish government recently amended their dietary recommendations to encourage citizens to eat less meat. “If we seek only to achieve the conservative objective of avoiding further long-term increases in [greenhouse gas] emissions from livestock, we are still led to rather radical recommendations” such as cutting current consumption levels in half in affluent countries—“an unlikely outcome if there were no direct rewards to citizens for doing so. Fortunately, there are such rewards: important health benefits…” By helping the planet, we can help ourselves.

There are tons of articles on diet and sustainability. It’s such an important topic that I may review the new science once every year or two. When the U.S. Department of Agriculture entered these waters, the meat industry appeared to freak out, and the Dietary Guidelines debate continues.


What about just cutting down on meat in terms of health impacts? See my video, Do Flexitarians Live Longer?.

What are the health and food safety consequences of buying organic? See my video series that includes:

For information on GMOs, check out: 

I’m thrilled to announce that the How Not to Die Cookbook is out today(!), and there’s a great burger recipe in there that I’m sharing as another sneak peek into the book. Get the recipe here. The book is available at all major outlets now. 

In health,

Michael Greger, M.D.

PS: If you haven’t yet, you can subscribe to my free videos here and watch my live, year-in-review presentations:



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Monday, December 4, 2017

Ron Paul: Good News, Young Americans Want A New Political Party

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Authored by Ron Paul via The Ron Paul Institute for Peace & Prosperity,

Do we need a third major political party?

I often joke that I’d be happy if we actually had a second party, as when it comes to the big issues – war, monetary policy, civil liberties – the Republicans and Democrats are more alike than different.

Perhaps that’s why a recent NBC News poll has found that nearly two-thirds of young people surveyed do not believe either the Republicans or Democrats are doing a good job and that a third major political party is needed.

I think this is an encouraging sign. I suspect the NBC News poll result reflects the fact that young people are not as easily hoodwinked by the mainstream media and by the two-party duopoly charade in Washington. This generation has grown up with the Internet and the abundance of alternative media that challenges what really is a one-party system in the United States. They have been exposed to many new ideas, including good ones like libertarianism and non-interventionism.

Currently, mainstream politics in the US is all about power – how to get it and how to keep it – and not at all about philosophy or ideology. It is about selling out principles at every turn in order to chalk up another point in the “win” column. On issues like war and spending, it’s incredible how easily the two major parties are able to “compromise.”

A serious effort to create a new political party could be very exciting, but only if that new party is based on real ideas rather than simply the desire for power. Creating a viable third party will not be easy. While there is plenty written in the media about foreign collusion in US elections, the real collusion is between the Republican and Democratic Parties to prevent new parties from joining them on the national stage and the ballot.

Unfortunately the Libertarian Party has failed to live up to what should have been its role as an ideological alternative to Washington’s one-party system. As was quite obvious in the 2016 presidential election, the Libertarians yielded to prevailing attitudes on war, welfare, the Federal Reserve, and more. In believing that winning was more important than standing for something, they ended up achieving neither.

I would still like to have some hope for the Libertarian Party, but to really fill its role as a challenger to our two party system (that is actually a one party system) it would need a major overhaul. It would need to actually embrace the core libertarian principles of non-aggression and non-intervention in the affairs of others.

At the end of my 2008 presidential campaign, I brought together the candidates of the “minor” political parties and proposed that we agree on some basic principles regardless of whether we are libertarians, conservatives, progressives, or greens. Among those was the idea that we should never go to war unless we were directly attacked or threatened, that the Federal Reserve should not be allowed to benefit the rich by creating money out of thin air, and that we should not endorse deficit spending. 

If a new party could come together and agree on these basic principles while agreeing to disagree on other, less important priorities, we could begin a formidable movement toward peace and prosperity. 

Let us hope that this NBC News survey provides the inspiration to a real pro-peace, pro-prosperity movement in the United States. I have much confidence in the youth of our country!



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Is Flynn's defection a death blow?

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Why did Gen. Mike Flynn lie to the FBI about his December 2016 conversations with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak?

Why did he not tell the FBI the truth?

As national security adviser to the president-elect, Flynn had called the ambassador. Message: Tell President Putin not to overreact to President Obama’s expulsion of 35 Russian diplomats. Trump will be president in three weeks, and we are committed to a new relationship.

Not only was this initiative defensible, it proved successful.

Putin accepted the loss of his diplomats and country houses on Long lsland and the Eastern Shore. Rather than expel U.S. diplomats in retaliation, he invited them and their families to the Kremlin’s New Year’s parties.

“Great move … (by V. Putin),” tweeted Trump, “I always knew he was very smart.” This columnist concurred:

“Among our Russophobes, one can hear the gnashing of teeth.

“Clearly, Putin believes the Trump presidency offers Russia the prospect of a better relationship with the United States. He appears to want this, and most Americans seem to want the same. After all, Hillary Clinton, who accused Trump of being ‘Putin’s puppet,’ lost.”

Flynn, it now appears, was not freelancing, but following instructions. His deputy, K.T. McFarland, sent an email to six Trump advisers saying that Obama, by expelling the Russians, was trying to “box Trump in diplomatically.”

“If there is a tit-for-tat escalation,” warned McFarland, “Trump will have difficulty improving relations with Russia.” Exactly.

Flynn was trying to prevent Russian retaliation. Yet, as the ex-director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, he had to know his call to Kislyak was being monitored and recorded.

So, again, why would he lie to the FBI about a conversation, the contents of which were surely known to the people who sent the FBI to question him?

The other charge of lying about a call with Kislyak was Flynn’s request for Russian help in getting postponed or canceled a Security Council vote on a resolution denouncing Israeli settlements on the West Bank.

Obama’s White House was backing the anti-Israel resolution. And Bibi Netanyahu had asked Trump to weigh in to block the vote.

Bottom line: Flynn, acting on instructions, tried to prevent a U.N. condemnation of Israel, and to dissuade Russia from a mass expulsion of U.S. diplomats, lest this poison the well against a rapprochement for which the American people had voted.

In the court of public opinion, Flynn’s actions would find broad support. Rather than deny knowledge of them, Trump should have taken credit for them.

Why the general would lie to the FBI about conversations he had to know U.S. intelligence had recorded is a puzzling question, but now also an irrelevant one, water over the dam.

For Trump’s general is now the newly conscripted collaborator of the media-Mueller-Democrat-deep state conspiracy to overturn the election of 2016 and bring down the Trump presidency.

Remarkable.

After 18 months, we have no evidence Trump colluded with Russia in hacking the emails of the DNC or John Podesta, which is what the FBI investigation was supposedly about.

There is no conclusive evidence Flynn committed a crime when, as national security adviser-designate, he tried to prevent Obama from sabotaging the policies Trump had run on – and won on.

Yet there is evidence Russian intelligence agents colluded with a British spy in the pay of the oppo research arm of the DNC and Hillary Clinton campaign – to find dirt on Donald Trump.

And there is evidence James Comey’s FBI wanted to hire the British spy who appeared to have access to the Russian agents who appeared to possess all that wonderful dirt on the Donald.

It is hard to see how this ends well.

This weekend, after Flynn’s admission he lied to the FBI, Beltway media were slavering like Pavlov’s dogs at anticipated indictments and plea bargains by present and former White House aides, Trump family members and perhaps Trump himself.

The joy on the TV talk shows was transparent.

Yet the media have already been badly damaged; first, by the relentless Trump attacks and the cheering for those attacks by a huge slice of the country; second, by their reflexive reaction. The media have behaved exactly like the “enemy” Trump said they were.

In this us-versus-them country, the media now seem to relish the role of “them.” The old proud journalistic boast to be objective and neutral reporters, observers and commentators is gone.

We are all partisans now.

As last Friday’s sudden 300-point drop in the Dow reveals, if Trump’s enemies bring him down, they will almost surely crash the markets and abort the recovery that took hold in Trump’s first year.

And if the establishment, repudiated by Trump’s victory, thinks it will be restored to the nation’s good graces if they destroy Trump, they are whistling past the graveyard.

When Caesar falls, the cheering for Brutus and Cassius tends to die down rather quickly. Then their turn comes.

Show your appreciation to President Trump for all his accomplishments! Send a card to the White House — for free — at ThankTrump.us.



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NSA, DOJ Still Aren't Letting Defendants Know They're Using Section 702 Evidence Against Them

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The NSA has never taken its evidentiary obligations seriously. The agency is supposed to inform the court and defendants if surveillance-derived evidence is being used against them. (And it's actually supposed to hand over the evidence as well.) This just doesn't happen. The NSA encourages parallel construction to obscure the true source of evidence used in court cases. The FBI's access to Section 702 collections makes this much easier. It allows the FBI to present NSA evidence as its own, heading off any scrutiny of the NSA's programs and collection methods.



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Victim’s Testimony Reveals Establishment-Connected East Coast Trafficking Network

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Disobedient Media spoke with Greg Bucceroni, a survivor of child sex trafficking, who described his experiences in an alleged child sex ring in the late 1970's that primarily targeted troubled young boys on the East Coast. The network through which elite pedophilia was enabled was allegedly comprised of prominent political figures and pornography producers who were in turn tied to organized crime.

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Sunday, December 3, 2017

Comey Tweets Bible Quotes And Nature Scenes, Gets Wrecked By Sebastian Gorka In Spectacular Fashion

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Content originally published at iBankCoin.com

ap_17129812593371-300x190.jpgJames Comey has been quite the chatterbox on Twitter since revealing his new handle in early November (@Comey) – firing off tweets about nature scenes, bible quotes, social gatherings, and most recently quoting himself – proclaiming how ‘honest’ and ‘strong’ the FBI is amid revelations that he put an anti-Trump / pro-Hillary agent in charge of both the Clinton email investigation and the early Trump-Russia probe – for which the FBI is now facing a contempt action over their anti-Trump bias during the election.

“I want the American people to know this truth: The FBI is honest. The FBI is strong. And the FBI is, and always will be, independent.” -Me (June 8, 2017) 

“I want the American people to know this truth: The FBI is honest. The FBI is strong. And the FBI is, and always will be, independent.”
Me (June 8, 2017) pic.twitter.com/OZ1ZiBrMNL

— James Comey (@Comey) December 3, 2017

Comey is quite the deep thinker. To be honest, you have to have a pretty high IQ to understand: 

Goodbye Iowa. On the road home. Gotta get back to writing. Will try to tweet in useful ways. pic.twitter.com/DCbu3Yvqt3

— James Comey (@Comey) October 23, 2017

“If you want truth to go round the world you must hire an express train to pull it; but if you want a lie to go round the world, it will fly; it is light as a feather and a breath will carry it.” Rev. Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1855). pic.twitter.com/YZf4q88wyi

— James Comey (@Comey) November 11, 2017

And look – Comey and his wife Patrice Failor love making onion rings! 

Happy Birthday to the love of my life. Nothing goes together like onion rings and a cosmo (it IS her day, after all). pic.twitter.com/538fGuotNN

— James Comey (@Comey) November 10, 2017

Then Gorka shows up…

Comey’s PR campaign then attempted to appeal to the religious demographic, quoting a bible verse (after quoting Churchill but before his Messiah complex kicked in and he quoted himself):

“But justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream” Amos 5:24 https://t.co/o89PSY1YBd

— James Comey (@Comey) December 1, 2017

Oh man, throwing Amos 5:24 around like he owns the joint… until former Trump advisor, new Fox commentator, and all around badass Dr. Sebastian Gorka shows up to call James out over exonerating Hillary Clinton in the email investigation before the anti-Trump / pro-Clinton agent in charge, Peter Strzok, was finished looking at the evidence 

Curious @Comey:

What's the right Bible verse for u precooking an innocent verdict for Hillary's #ServerGate before investigation was over? https://t.co/KeMx9Yzxej

— Sebastian Gorka DrG (@SebGorka) December 2, 2017

I'd offer Psalm 82:2 as a response to @Comey: "How long will you judge unjustly, And show partiality to the wicked?" https://t.co/r4vkc10AYt

— Ned Ryun (@nedryun) December 2, 2017

Hours before, Gorka dinged Comey for buring the investigation into Tony Podesta – brother of Hillary Clinton’s campaign advisor, John Podesta, “influence-peddling for Uranium 1 with Hillary?” 

Curious @Comey:

What's the right Bible verse for you burying investigation into Podesta influence-peddling for Uranium 1 with Hillary? https://t.co/KeMx9Yzxej

— Sebastian Gorka DrG (@SebGorka) December 2, 2017

Tony Podesta is of course the disgraced co-founder of the Podesta group, who left his firm in late October when he reportedly became a central focus in Robert Mueller’s FBI Special Counsel investigation into Russian involvement in the 2016 election.

As a former long-time Podesta Group executive who was “extensively” interviewed by Robert Mueller’s special counsel told Tucker Carlson Tonight, Tony Podesta and Paul Manafort were bringing a “parade” of Russian oligarchs into Washington D.C.through a shell corporation operating as a pro-Russia Ukrainian think tank.

The former exec also said that in 2013, John Podesta recommended that Tony hire David Adams, Hillary Clinton’s chief adviser at the State Department, giving them a “direct liaison” between the group’s Russian clients and Hillary Clinton’s State Department, and that Tony Podesta regularly met with the Clinton Foundation while lobbying for Uranium One – the Canadian mining company bought by the Russia’s state-owned Rosatom after obtaining approval from the Obama administration.

Former Podesta Group Exec: Paul Manafort was in PG offices "all the time" representing Russian political and business interests. #RussiaGate pic.twitter.com/6dFB1MJRdP

— ZeroPointNow (@ZeroPointNow) October 25, 2017

And on Friday, Gorka posed the question as to how Comey got to head the FBI after only 12 years in the field:  

1st Question:

How did Comey get to head the @FBI, the most important & powerful law enforcement agency, with just 12 years in the field?? https://t.co/OPOUKMmXJ6

— Sebastian Gorka DrG (@SebGorka) December 1, 2017

Maybe it’s because Comey has had deep ties to Democrat / Clinton interests for years; earning $6 Million dollars in one year as Lockheed’s top lawyer – the same year the egregiously overbudget F-35 manufacturer made a huge donation to the Clinton Foundation. Comey was also a board member at HSBC shortly after NY AG at the time Loretta “tarmac” Lynch let the Clinton Foundation partner slide with a slap on the wrist for laundering drug money.

So as James “hand of the devil” Comey continues to tweet like everything’s normal – letting everyone know the FBI is “honest” and “strong,” while the noose is tightening, enjoy the white-hot phosphorous Dr. Gorka drops to illuminate the target.

Follow on Twitter @ZeroPointNow § Subscribe to our YouTube channel



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FDA Withholds Potentially Damning Evidence On Controversial Drugs

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If the FDA lying about kratom (as recently released FOIA documents suggest) is the bullet then the news released today at Scientific American may just be the smoking gun as far as FDA corruption. The FDA recently issued an advisory regarding kratom, alleging it was a dangerous and addictive drug with the potential to worsen the opiate epidemic. This is utter hogwash and based on "junk science" as per Dr. Jack Henningfield, an authority on addiction and abuse and a former chief of the National Institute for Drug Abuse (NIDA) and Johns Hopkins professor. When a Reuters reporter asked the FDA for more information about their allegations in the kratom advisory warning, the FDA referred them to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). This was apparently a bluff, which was called in mid-November. According to FOIA documents published at MuckRock,

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1 in 36: ASD rate set a new record high in 2016

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The National Health Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) released its latest prevalence rate for autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) in American children this Wednesday. Their “data brief”, which is based on information gathered in the National Health Information Survey (NHIS), reported an ASD rate for 2016 of 2.76%, or 1 in 36 American children (1).This is the highest rate ever recorded in a national survey of children in the United States and was an increase from the rate of 1 in 45 children (or 2...

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What The Media Isn't Telling You About the Indictment Of Mike Flynn

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Authored by Robert Parry via ConsortiumNews.com,

The Russia-gate prosecutors have taken the scalp of ex- National Security Adviser (and retired Lt. Gen.) Flynn for lying to the FBI. But this case shows how dangerously far afield this 'scandal' has gone...

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Russia-gate enthusiasts are thrilled over the guilty plea of President Trump’s former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn for lying to the FBI about pre-inauguration conversations with the Russian ambassador, but the case should alarm true civil libertarians.

What is arguably most disturbing about this case is that then-National Security Adviser Flynn was pushed into a perjury trap by Obama administration holdovers at the Justice Department who concocted an unorthodox legal rationale for subjecting Flynn to an FBI interrogation four days after he took office, testing Flynn’s recollection of the conversations while the FBI agents had transcripts of the calls intercepted by the National Security Agency.

In other words, the Justice Department wasn’t seeking information about what Flynn said to Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak – the intelligence agencies already had that information. Instead, Flynn was being quizzed on his precise recollection of the conversations and nailed for lying when his recollections deviated from the transcripts.

For Americans who worry about how the pervasive surveillance powers of the U.S. government could be put to use criminalizing otherwise constitutionally protected speech and political associations, Flynn’s prosecution represents a troubling precedent.

Though Flynn clearly can be faulted for his judgment, he was, in a sense, a marked man the moment he accepted the job of national security adviser. In summer 2016, Democrats seethed over Flynn’s participation in chants at the Republican National Convention to “lock her [Hillary Clinton] up!”

Then, just four days into the Trump presidency, an Obama holdover, then-acting Attorney General Sally Yates, primed the Flynn perjury trap by coming up with a novel legal theory that Flynn – although the national security adviser-designate at the time of his late December phone calls with Kislyak – was violating the 1799 Logan Act, which prohibits private citizens from interfering with U.S. foreign policy.

But that law – passed during President John Adams’s administration in the era of the Alien and Sedition Acts – was never intended to apply to incoming officials in the transition period between elected presidential administrations and – in the past 218 years – the law has resulted in no successful prosecution at all and thus its dubious constitutionality has never been adjudicated.

Stretching Logic

But Yates extrapolated from her unusual Logan Act theory to speculate that since Flynn’s publicly known explanation of the conversation with Kislyak deviated somewhat from the transcript of the intercepts, Flynn might be vulnerable to Russian blackmail.

Yet, that bizarre speculation would require that the Russians first would have detected the discrepancies; secondly, they would have naively assumed that the U.S. intelligence agencies had not intercepted the conversations, which would have negated any blackmail potential; and thirdly, the Russians would have to do something so ridiculously heavy-handed – trying to blackmail Flynn – that it would poison relations with the new Trump administration.

Yates’s legal theorizing was so elastic and speculative that it could be used to justify subjecting almost anyone to FBI interrogation with the knowledge that their imperfect memories would guarantee the grounds for prosecution based on NSA intercepts of their communications.

Basically, the Obama holdovers concocted a preposterous legal theory to do whatever they could to sabotage the Trump administration, which they held in fulsome disdain.

At the time of Flynn’s interrogation, the Justice Department was under the control of Yates and the FBI was still under President Obama’s FBI Director James Comey, another official hostile to the Trump administration who later was fired by Trump.

The Yates-FBI perjury trap also was sprung on Flynn in the first days of the Trump presidency amid reverberations of the massive anti-Trump protests that had arisen across the country in support of demands for a “#Resistance” to Trump’s rule.

Flynn also had infuriated Democrats when he joined in chants at the Republican National Convention of “lock her up” over Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server and other alleged offenses. So, in targeting Flynn, there was a mix of personal payback and sabotage against the Trump administration.

The Legal Construct

The two-page complaint against Flynn, made public on Friday, references false statements to the FBI regarding two conversations with Kisylak, one on Dec. 22, 2016, and the other on Dec. 29, 2016.

The first item in the complaint alleges that Flynn did not disclose that he had asked the Russian ambassador to help delay or defeat a United Nations Security Council vote censuring Israel for building settlements on Palestinian territory.

The New York Times reported on Friday that Russia-gate investigators “learned through witnesses and documents that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asked the Trump transition team to lobby other countries to help Israel, according to two people briefed on the inquiry.

“Investigators have learned that Mr. Flynn and Mr. Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner, took the lead in those efforts. Mr. Mueller’s team has emails that show Mr. Flynn saying he would work to kill the vote, the people briefed on the matter said,” according to the Times.

Breaking with past U.S. precedents, President Obama had decided not to veto the resolution criticizing Israel, choosing instead to abstain. However, the censure resolution carried with Russian support, meaning that whatever lobbying Flynn and Kushner undertook was unsuccessful.

But the inclusion of this Israeli element shows how far afield the criminal Russia-gate investigation, headed by former FBI Director Robert Mueller, has gone. Though the original point of the inquiry was whether the Trump team colluded with Russians to use “hacked” emails to defeat Hillary Clinton’s campaign, the criminal charge against Flynn has nothing to do with election “collusion” but rather President-elect Trump’s aides weighing in on foreign policy controversies during the transition. And, the first initiative was undertaken at the request of Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, not Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The second item, cited by Mueller’s prosecutors, referenced a Dec. 29 Flynn-Kislyak conversation, which received public attention at the time of Flynn’s Feb. 13 resignation after only 24 days on the job. That phone call touched on Russia’s response to President Obama’s decision to issue new sanctions against the Kremlin for the alleged election interference.

The complaint alleges that Flynn didn’t mention to the FBI that he had urged Kislyak “to refrain from escalating the situation” and that Kislyak had subsequently told him that “Russia had chosen to moderate its response to those sanctions as a result of his request.”

The Dec. 29 phone call occurred while Flynn was vacationing in the Dominican Republic and thus he would have been without the usual support staff for memorializing or transcribing official conversations. So, the FBI agents, with the NSA’s transcripts, would have had a clearer account of what was said than Flynn likely had from memory. The content of Flynn’s request to Kislyak also appears rather uncontroversial, asking the Russians not to overreact to a punitive policy from the outgoing Obama administration.

In other words, both of the Flynn-Kislyak conversations appear rather unsurprising, if not inconsequential. One was taken at the behest of Israel (which proved ineffective) and the other urged the Kremlin to show restraint in its response to a last-minute slap from President Obama (which simply delayed Russian retaliation by several months).

Double Standards

While Flynn’s humiliation has brought some palpable joy to the anti-Trump “Resistance” – one more Trump aide being taken down amid renewed hope that this investigation will somehow lead to Trump’s resignation or impeachment – many of the same people would be howling about trampled civil liberties if a Republican bureaucracy were playing this game on a Democratic president and his staff.

Indeed, in the turnabout-is-fair-play department, there is some equivalence in what is happening over Russia-gate to what the Republicans did in the 1990s exploiting their control of the special-prosecutor apparatus in the first years of Bill Clinton’s presidency when interminable investigations into such side issues as his Whitewater real-estate deal and the firing of the White House travel office staff plagued the Clinton administration.

Similarly, Republicans seized on the deaths of four U.S. diplomatic personnel on Sept. 11, 2012, in Benghazi, Libya, to conduct a series of lengthy investigations to tarnish Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s tenure and raise questions about her judgment. Democrats understandably called these attacks partisan warfare in legal or investigative garb.

What I have heard from many Hillary Clinton supporters in recent months is that they don’t care about the unfairness of the Russia-gate process or the dangerous precedents that such politicized prosecutions might set. They simply view Trump as such a danger that he must be destroyed at whatever the cost.

Yet, besides the collateral damage inflicted on mid-level government officials such as retired Lt. Gen. Flynn facing personal destruction at the hands of federal prosecutors with unlimited budgets, there is this deepening pattern of using criminal law to settle political differences, a process more common in authoritarian states.

As much as the Russia-gate enthusiasts talk about how they are upholding “the rule of law,” there is the troubling appearance that the law is simply being used to collect the scalps of political enemies.



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FOIA Docs Reveal FDA Lied About 'Evidence' Of Kratom Danger

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If you've been following along with us here at the Goldwater as we cover the war on kratom, you won't be surprised to find that the FOIA documents show the FDA have absolutely no documents supporting their wholly unscientific claims regarding the South East Asian plant used safely by thousands. The FDA is not only making false claims about kratom but the people who market it and use it as well. FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb recently expressed his fears that kratom could worsen the opiate addiction and cited 36 (supposed) deaths. As is, the data available shows not one single death connected solely to the use of kratom, even in laboratory conditions where doctors were attempting to induce fatal toxicity or respiratory depression on rodents or other small animals weighing only a few ounces. blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"p lang="en" dir="ltr"BREAKING NEWS:

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