Saturday, January 27, 2018

Fitton: I Knew FBI Was Lying

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Judicial Watch Sues for FBI Text Messages

 

 

SOURCE: JUDICIAL WATCH

 

 

By Tom Fitton

 

 

A miracle!  Your Judicial Watch files a federal lawsuit and the Justice Department finds the “missing” text messages!  Of course, as we said all along, they were never missing in the first place.

 

On Wednesday we announced the filing of a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the Justice Department for text messages and other records of FBI official Peter Strzok and FBI attorney Lisa Page (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Justice (No. 1:18-cv-00154)).

 

Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI), chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, revealed in a letter dated January 20 that the FBI claimed it is unable to preserve text messages for a five-month period between December 14, 2016, and May 17, 2017, due to “misconfiguration issues” with FBI-issued phones used by Strzok and Page. The missing messages span dates between the presidential transition and the launch of Robert Mueller’s Russia probe, where both Strzok and Page were employed.

 

So, lo and behold, right after we sued for the texts, the Justice Department said it has found the texts. According to Fox News, Inspector General Michael Horowitz reported that his office “succeeded in using forensic tools to recover text messages from FBI devices, including text messages between Mr. Strzok and Ms. Page that were sent or received between December 14, 2016 and May 17, 2017.”

 

We sued after Justice failed to respond to our December 4, 2017, FOIA request for:

 

  • All records of communications, including but not limited to, emails, text messages and instant chats, between FBI official Peter Strzok and FBI attorney Lisa Page;
  • All travel requests, travel authorizations, travel vouchers and expense reports of Peter Strzok;
  • All travel requests, travel authorizations, travel vouchers and expense reports of Lisa Page.

 

The text messages are of public interest because Strzok and Page were key investigators in the Clinton email and Trump Russia collusion investigations. Strzok was reportedly removed from the Mueller investigative team in August and reassigned to a human resources position after it was discovered that he and FBI lawyer Lisa Page, who worked for FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, and with whom Strzok was carrying on an extramarital affair, exchanged pro-Clinton and anti-Trump text messages.

 

Strzok reportedly oversaw the FBI’s interviews of former National Security Adviser, General Michael Flynn; changed former FBI Director James Comey’s language about Hillary Clinton’s actions regarding her illicit email server from “grossly negligent” to “extremely careless;” played a lead role in the FBI’s interview of Clinton; and is suspected of being responsible for using the unverified dossier to obtain a FISA warrant in order to spy on President Trump’s campaign.

 

The Strzok-Page text messages are potentially responsive to several pending Judicial Watch FOIA lawsuits, but showing the agency’s contempt for transparency and the rule of law, the FBI has yet to produce any of the records, explain the missing records to the courts, or otherwise be forthcoming about these newly disclosed materials.

 

I didn’t believe for one minute that the Strzok-Page texts were really missing. For example, the IRS told us that Lois Lerner’s emails were “missing,” and we forced them to admit they existed and deliver them to us. The State Department hid the Clinton emails, but our FOIA lawsuits famously blew open that cover-up.

 

It is shameful that the FBI and DOJ have been playing shell games with these smoking gun text messages. We hope to get these messages through our lawsuit and we will be sure to let you know when we do!

 

 

 

Short clip runs 45 seconds. Tom is getting angry.

 

 

 

 

 

Longer clip about the JW lawsuit against Justice and FBI…

 

 



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Thursday, January 25, 2018

Was it just sex? Fallout from Clinton's lie heard 'round the world

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“I want you to listen to me. I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Ms. Lewinsky. I never told a single person to lie, not a single time, never.”

Those were the infamous words spoken by the most powerful man in the world directly from the White House 20 years ago Friday.

Former President Bill Clinton with White House intern Monica Lewinsky in the Oval Office

Former President Bill Clinton with White House intern Monica Lewinsky in the Oval Office

In 1998, America had many reasons to believe President Bill Clinton was lying through his teeth about his sexual affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky:

  • Clinton was being sued for sexual harassment by Paula Jones, a former Arkansas state employee who claimed Clinton exposed himself to her when he was the state’s governor in 1991. (A year later, Clinton settled Jones’ lawsuit with a $850,000 check.)
  • Clinton had denied having a 12-year relationship with model and actress Gennifer Flowers during a segment of “60 Minutes,” but Flowers produced taped recordings of phone calls she had with Clinton. And in 1998, Clinton admitted under oath that the two had a sexual encounter.
  • Rumors had been circulating for seven years that Clinton had raped a woman in 1978, and the woman was later identified in 1999 as Juanita Broaddrick, a nursing home administrator in Arkansas.
  • In March of 1998, former White House aide Kathleen Willey claimed Clinton sexually assaulted her in the Oval Office in 1993.
  • It was later revealed Lewinsky co-worker Linda Tripp had been secretly recording phone calls during which Lewinsky discussed her sexual affair with Clinton. Tripp learned that Clinton had been giving gifts to Lewinsky and that the young intern had kept a blue dress containing the president’s DNA.

Still, on Jan. 17, 1998, during his Paula Jones deposition, Clinton had been asked under oath: “Did you have an extramarital sexual affair with Monica Lewinsky?”

“No,” Clinton replied after being sworn in, later stating: “I have never had sexual relations with Monica Lewinsky. I’ve never had an affair with her …”

The president said he didn’t recall ever being alone with Lewinsky. He later claimed his statements were “legally accurate” and waffled on the meaning of “is,” but he also told America, “It’s nobody’s business but ours.”

Monica Lewinsky and President Bill Clinton

Monica Lewinsky and President Bill Clinton

A CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll taken 20 years ago, from Jan. 25-26, 1998, revealed 61 percent of Americans believed Clinton had an affair. A full 56 percent said they believed Clinton lied under oath. And 48 percent said they thought he tried to obstruct justice. Only 44 percent of America was satisfied with his denials.

Despite the Lewinsky bombshell revelations, Clinton’s approval ratings were above 60 percent, and they continued to soar through the end of his presidency. After his impeachment, his approval ratings approached 70 percent.

So what exactly was happening in America?

Its president had lied under oath about a sexual affair with a young intern and had been accused of committing serious crimes, such as perjury, persuading Lewinsky to commit perjury and obstructing justice, to hide his misdeeds. Why was his approval so high?

And was it all just about sex, as Clinton’s defenders and Democrats in Congress claimed?

Monica Lewinsky and President Bill Clinton

Monica Lewinsky and President Bill Clinton

“It was about the rule of law,” former Rep. James Rogan, R-Calif., a key player in Clinton’s impeachment who was selected by the House to prosecute Clinton in the Senate, told WND.

“Clinton was a defendant in a federal civil rights action. He had been ordered by a trial judge to answer questions under oath. And he purposefully committed perjury, subornation of perjury and then obstruction of justice in an effort to win the suit that was filed against him and, of course, to avoid any collateral political damage.”

Judge James E. Rogan

Judge James E. Rogan

Rogan, a judge of the Superior Court of California and a former gang-murder prosecutor with the Los Angeles District Attorney’s office, was one of the select House Managers who prosecuted Clinton. From his very first day on the House Judiciary Committee, Rogan took meticulous notes during every meeting related to Clinton’s impeachment. He published his detailed impeachment notes in his memoir, “Catching Our Flag: Behind the Scenes of a Presidential Impeachment.”

It’s the ultimate insider’s story! Judge James E. Rogan’s spellbinding book “Catching Our Flag” is the definitive work on the only 20th-century impeachment of a U.S. president

Rogan explained that the Lewinsky affair mattered in the context of the Jones’ civil rights lawsuit because Jones’ attorneys sought to show a pattern of conduct by Clinton and argue that the president had a propensity for committing such offenses.

“Once they got wind that Monica Lewinsky was out there and that it was potential corroboration of Paula Jones, Bill Clinton moved heaven and earth to destroy that corroboration,” Rogan said.

“So it wasn’t just to avoid embarrassment. He knew that Paula Jones’ case against him became far more problematic if another person similarly situated was able to come forward or they could demonstrate that he had this pattern of conduct. That’s where all of the perjury and the subornation of perjury and getting people involved to basically get Monica Lewinsky out of town, out of the way, and getting her to lie under oath about their relationship, what that was all about.”

Clinton showered Lewinsky with gifts, including an Alaskan stone carving, a decorative pin, a signed copy of his State of the Union address, a souvenir from Radio City Music Hall, stuffed animals, chocolates and sunglasses. She gave him a tie, love notes, a book and about 30 other gifts and a Valentine’s Day note addressed to “Handsome.” More significantly, Clinton helped her try to secure a job in New York.

At the time, Clinton apparently didn’t know Linda Tripp had recordings of Lewinsky discussing her sexual relationship with the president. And Tripp turned those tapes over to Jones’ lawyers.

“Once that became public, Clinton’s people in the White House went on a search-and-destroy mission for Monica Lewinsky,” Rogan said.

In 1998, then-President Bill Clinton tells America, "I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky. These allegations are false"

In 1998, then-President Bill Clinton tells America, “I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky. These allegations are false”

Even New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd wrote that some White House officials felt “a little nauseated” over their mission to smear Lewinsky and depict her as a crazy bimbo.

“Inside the White House, the debate goes on about the best way to destroy That Woman, as the President called Monica Lewinsky,” Dowd wrote in 1998. “Should they paint her as a friendly fantasist or a malicious stalker? … At least some of the veteran Clinton shooters feel a little nauseated this time around, after smearing so many women who were probably telling the truth as trashy bimbos. … It is probably just a matter of moments before we hear that Ms. Lewinsky is a little nutty and a little slutty.”

But what about all the other Clinton scandals that could have potentially led to the president’s impeachment at the time?

In his book, Rogan lists a number of potentially explosive allegations against the Clintons – all taking place before Clinton was impeached:

  • What about Clinton’s former Associate U.S. Attorney General Webster Hubbell, the one time Arkansas law partner of Hillary Clinton, who collected over $700,000 in “consulting fees” from Clinton friends while he awaited federal prison sentencing for stealing $400,000? What about the White House giving Mrs. Hubbell a high-paying job while her husband sat in federal prison? Did that have anything to do with Hubbell’s refusal to cooperate in the grand jury investigation?
  • What about Bill and Hillary Clinton’s Whitewater land investment deal, where former Arkansas state court judge David Hale testified that Clinton pressured him to make an illegal $300,000 loan to Susan McDougal, the Clintons’ Whitewater business partner who herself received a two-year prison sentence for Whitewater related fraud? … What about Clinton releasing McDougal from prison on his last day in office by granting her a presidential pardon …?
  • What about major Clinton donor Johnny Chung‘s statement that the Clinton White House was like a subway: “You have to put in coins to open the gates”? What about Chung donating $366,000 to the Democratic National Committee – a portion of which Chung later admitted came from China’s military intelligence community – while seeking favors during forty-nine visits to the White House?
  • What about the Clintons renting out the Lincoln Bedroom in the White House to donors for at least $5.4 million in contributions to the Democratic National Committee during 1995 and 1996 alone?
  • What about Clinton Commerce Secretary Ron Brown‘s alleged statement to a close business associate – that Bill and Hillary Clinton approved the sale of seats on official government trade missions to donors giving at least $50,000 to the Democratic National Committee?
  • What about Charlie Trie’s illegal contribution of $460,000 to President Clinton’s legal defense fund, along with an additional donation of $220,000 to the Democratic National Committee, in exchange for twenty-three White House visits? What about Trie’s private White House coffee with Clinton, where Trie brought a Chinese arms dealer as his guest – all while the U.S. and China engaged in sensitive global arms negotiations?
  • What about China obtaining top-secret U.S. missile technology – through both theft and over-the-table Clinton-approved technology transfers – thereby allowing China to modernize its nuclear missiles? What about the chairman of the aerospace company engaged in (and profiting heavily from) these Clinton-approved technology transfers being the single largest donor to Clinton’s Democratic National Committee and Democratic Party satellite organizations?
  • What about John Huang raising $3.4 million for the Democratic Party, his sixty-five White House visits in 1996 alone, and his later money-laundering conviction trying to hide the donations?
  • What about the Clinton White House hiring Democratic Party operative Craig Livingstone to head the sensitive White House Office of Personnel Security, when Livingstone’s only prior “security” experience came from working as a bouncer at a D.C. nightclub? What about reports that Livingstone improperly obtained and rifled through up to nine hundred national security background files on high-level former Republican administration officials? What about reports that senior White House figures, including Hillary Clinton, reviewed thes files illegally and for political purposes?
  • What about investigating Clinton and Vice President Gore’s direct role in their “Citizenship USA” program, implemented to bypass background checks and grant rushed citizenship to over one million aliens that the White House identified as likely 1996 Clinton voters? What about their granting citizenship to 75,000 aliens with criminal arrest records, and an additional 180,000 aliens without FBI fingerprint criminal background checks?

Why didn’t Congress seek to investigate Clinton for all of these potentially impeachable offenses?

The short answer: It simply didn’t have the stomach for it.

And America was suffering Clinton scandal fatigue.

Bill_Hillary_Clinton

Rep. Bob Barr, R-Ga., had introduced a resolution authorizing an impeachment inquiry against Clinton for his foreign campaign money laundering connections. His resolution lacked support simply because the GOP believed impeaching Clinton was a bad idea.

In his own colorful way, Barr explained the problem to Rogan: “Nailing Bill Clinton is like trying to nail a fart to the wall. There’s a lot of smell and you know it’s there. You just aren’t sure where to nail.”

But Rogan and many others in Congress apparently smelled something offensive emanating from the Clintons, and the stench went beyond the Lewinsky affair.

“I was somebody who felt at the time that all of the Lewinsky stuff – although bad and demonstrating perjury and subornation of perjury and obstruction of justice were all certainly impeachable offenses – I was far more interested in investigating things such as the Clinton White House essentially opening up all of our nuclear secrets to communist China,” Rogan explained.

“Some of the pay-to-play scandals with Johnny Chung and the other people, the pardons and so forth, I wanted to get into all of those areas and I thought that they were far more dangerous to American domestic and national security than certainly this sex scandal. But we were losing in the battle of public opinion.”

Chinese-American businessman Johnny Chung (left) with Bill and Hillary Clinton, in a photo signed by Hillary wishing him "best wishes and appreciation"

Chinese-American businessman Johnny Chung (left) with Bill and Hillary Clinton, in a photo signed by Hillary wishing him “best wishes and appreciation”

Rep. Henry Hyde, R-Ill., then the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, had been “beaten down,” Rogan explained.

“He was getting tremendous pressure from a fractured House leadership and from a unified Senate leadership that did not want this thing to go to an impeachment to wrap up these hearings,” he said. “Those of us who were urging that we expand the hearings and take our time, and we were just shot down. That wasn’t going to happen. … There was no support from the fractured House leadership. And there was, of course, tremendous pressure put on Chairman Hyde and I presume the leadership of the House from the Senate to make this all go away.”

In fact, Rogan recalled approaching Hyde about looking into various Clinton scandals.

“I remember, I can see him in my mind’s eye, smoking on his big, Churchillian cigar, shaking his head in disgust and saying, ‘That g-ddamn Clinton. Look, you just can’t beat it.'”

Kenneth Starr testifies in November 1998

Kenneth Starr testifies in November 1998

Even after four long years of investigating the Clintons’ role in Whitewater, laundering Chinese campaign contributions, giving Webster Hubbell hush money and other potentially explosive scandals, independent counsel Kenneth Starr’s case ultimately focused on the Lewinsky scandal.

Starr’s report cited 11 areas of potentially impeachable offenses, including allegations that Clinton:

  • lied under oath at a civil deposition while he was a defendant in a sexual harassment lawsuit;
  • lied under oath to a federal grand jury;
  • attempted to influence the testimony of a potential witness who had direct knowledge of facts that would reveal his deposition testimony lies;
  • obstructed justice by helping and encouraging a witness’ plan to refuse to comply with a subpoena;
  • obstructed justice by encouraging a witness to file an affidavit he knew was false, and then made use of the false affidavit at his own deposition; and
  • obstructed justice by lying to potential grand jury witnesses, knowing they would repeat those lies before the grand jury.

Clinton’s acts and others “were part of a pattern that began as an effort to prevent the disclosure of information about the President’s relationship with a former White House intern … and continued as an effort to prevent the information from being disclosed in an ongoing criminal investigation,” Starr concluded.

House Democrats had initially insisted that they be informed of any information concerning a range of Clinton scandals arising from Starr’s investigation.

But after the 1998 election in which Republicans lost five House seats and House Speaker Newt Gingrich announced his plans to resign, the Democrats suddenly began insisting that the impeachment investigation be confined to just the Lewinksy scandal. And Democrats were winning the public messaging war.

“We all know that Bill Clinton is a world-class liar,” Hyde said, according to Rogan’s diary entry dated Nov. 30, 1998. “The problem is that the clock is ticking, and we haven’t much time left. America is tired of the whole thing. Ken Starr is a great man, but he spent too long – four and a half years – and he spent too much money on his investigation. Unfortunately, I’m in hurry-up mode. We have to keep our case to the basics: perjury, subornation of perjury, and obstruction of justice in the Monica Lewinsky matter.”

It’s the ultimate insider’s story! Judge James E. Rogan’s spellbinding book “Catching Our Flag” is the definitive work on the only 20th-century impeachment of a U.S. president

During the House debate on Clinton impeachment, Hyde took the House floor and spoke about the significance of the rule of law:

The question before this House … is not a question of sex. … The matter before the House is a question of lying under oath. This is a public act, not a private act. This is called perjury. The matter before the House is a question of the willful, premeditated, deliberate corruption of the nation’s system of justice. Perjury and obstruction of justice cannot be reconciled with the office of the president of the United States. …

We must decide if the chief law enforcement officer of the land, the person who appoints the attorney general, the person who nominates every federal judge, the person who nominates the Supreme Court, and the only person with a constitutional obligation to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, can lie under oath repeatedly and maintain it is not a breach of trust sufficient for impeachment. …

The president is our flag-bearer. He stands out in front of our people, and the flag is falling. Catch the flag as we keep our appointment with history.

The House ultimately impeached Clinton for perjury (Article I) and obstruction of justice (Article III). Five House Democrats voted to impeach Clinton for perjury.

Clinton-impeached-wapo

Thirteen House Republicans from the Judiciary Committee, including Rogan, prosecuted Clinton before the Senate. The House managers took videotaped depositions from Lewinsky, Clinton adviser and friend Vernon Jordan and White House aide Sidney Blumenthal. They were not allowed to call witnesses or conduct a full trial.

“I did know – and I argued very strongly at the time – that there was zero chance of Bill Clinton every being held constitutionally accountable in the Senate if we were precluded from being able to put on our case,” Rogan told WND. “The only possible way we might have been able to change public opinion would have been to try the case. And that means call the witnesses, put forth our evidence and let America see why the House of Representatives, with the most Republicans and five Democrats crossing over voting to impeach the president of their own party, why the House of Representatives impeached a popularly elected president of the United States.

“In the Senate at the time, the fix was in. We were never allowed to call a single witness. It was the only impeachment trial in the history of America – up to that time there had been about 16 or 17 of them – where the prosecutors were precluded by the jury from being allowed to call a single witness.”

The Senate voted to acquit Clinton of both charges.

President Bill Clinton is acquitted by the Senate of charges of perjury and obstruction of justice (Photo: Twitter)

President Bill Clinton is acquitted by the Senate of charges of perjury and obstruction of justice (Photo: Twitter)

“In 20 years, I don’t believe I have ever once criticized the U.S. Senate for their verdict,” Rogan told WND. “Does that surprise you? I’ve never criticized them for their verdict because that was their constitutional prerogative. The Constitution gives the House the authority to impeach or not impeach. The Constitution gives the Senate the authority to remove or not remove. And there are a lot of factors that go into that being political decisions. I’ve never criticized the Senate for the verdict because that was their constitutional prerogative.

“My criticism back then was that they jimmied all the rules of impeachment to preclude us from being able to put on our case and, therefore, guaranteed a fixed result. And that was not the Senate’s finest hour.”

Catching-Our-FlagRogan would later suffer defeat during his 2000 re-election bid after he was fiercely targeted by Democrats after the impeachment.

It’s the ultimate insider’s story! Judge James E. Rogan’s spellbinding book “Catching Our Flag” is the definitive work on the only 20th-century impeachment of a U.S. president

Despite the Senate decision to acquit the president, Clinton’s impeachment was a success for America in a very significant way.

The U.S. Constitution (Article 2, Section 4) states: “The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.”

But the Founding Fathers never provided a specific definition of the term “high crimes and misdemeanors.”

“So where does the definition come from? It comes from the precedents of the House of Representatives,” Rogan explained. “In the face of all of this evidence of perjury, subornation of perjury and obstruction of justice in a federal civil rights case, had the House of Representatives failed to impeach President Clinton on one or all of those counts, we would have set a precedent for every future president of the United States who might do that when the topic is more weighty than perhaps an affair with an intern. And we would have set a precedent that those are not impeachable offenses.”

Rogan concluded: “That was a cost far too high for me as a member of the House under constitutional oath to do my job. That was a price too high for me to pay. So I voted to impeach him. I helped lead the prosecution. I paid the price for it that I knew I would pay, which was defeat when I stood for my next election.”
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Wednesday, January 24, 2018

NSA deletes 'honesty, 'openness' from core values

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(The Intercept) The National Security Agency maintains a page on its website that outlines its mission statement. But earlier this month, the agency made a discreet change: It removed “honesty” as its top priority.

Since at least May 2016, the surveillance agency had featured honesty as the first of four “core values” listed on NSA.gov, alongside “respect for the law,” “integrity,” and “transparency.” The agency vowed on the site to “be truthful with each other.”

On January 12, however, the NSA removed the mission statement page – which can still be viewed through the Internet Archive – and replaced it with a new version. Now, the parts about honesty and the pledge to be truthful have been deleted. The agency’s new top value is “commitment to service,” which it says means “excellence in the pursuit of our critical mission.”



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WATCH: Comedian Shreds Media’s Regime Change Talking Points in Under a Minute

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syria

This could well be one of the most epic less-than-60-second devastating take-down of just about every mainstream media lie on Syria

The post WATCH: Comedian Shreds Media’s Regime Change Talking Points in Under a Minute appeared first on The Free Thought Project.



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Democrats Demand Twitter, Facebook Crackdown on #ReleaseTheMemo “Russian Bots”, There Is Just One Problem…

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Last week, a four page memo detailing FBI abuse of FISA warrants against the Trump campaign was circulated within the US House of Representatives

Amid calls from several Congressional Republicans, the hashtag #ReleaseTheMemo immediately went viral

In an effort to …



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Diabetes: What We Have All Been Taught Was Incurable. Obesity-related Hyperglycemia Ain’t Necessarily “Type 2 Diabetes”

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“The medical profession is being bought by the pharmaceutical industry, not only in terms of the practice of medicine, but also in terms of teaching and research. The academic institutions of this country are allowing themselves to be the paid



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Tuesday, January 23, 2018

First Case Of The Zika Virus In 2018 Reported In Singapore

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The first Zika case of 2018 has been recorded and it broke a four-month streak without a single reported case of the Zika virus. Now, the first case of the new year has been confirmed in Singapore.The Ministry of Health says the latest case is the first since September 29, 2017.The patient sought outpatient treatment and is doing well, according to the Ministry of Health. While they confirmed the case and status of the patient, they declined to comment on where the infection originated or any further details on the case.Doctors cited patient confidentiality.Not the most settling answer. The first case of Zika that was locally transmitted in Singapore was reported in August 2016 and by the end of the year, the number of victims would rise to 450 people.The aedes aegypti mosquito is responsible for the spread of the

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NYPD Cops Allowed 20 ‘Get Out Of Jail Free’ Cards For Friends And Family Per Year

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Officers with the New York City Police Department (“NYPD”) are allotted 20 so-called “get out of jail free cards” per member, according to multiple media reports. The unofficial cards are distributed by various police unions throughout the New York City metropolitan area, including the city’s largest police union, the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association (“PBA”).



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Monday, January 22, 2018

Las Vegas Update: Irregularities Cause Story Behind Massacre To Stink To High Heaven

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Authored by Jon Hall via Free Market Shooter blog,

Months ago, I called for scrutiny amid a constantly-revolving news cycle concerning the Las Vegas massacre that occurred last October.

 

https://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/inline-images/20180122_LV1.jpg

The victims of the Las Vegas massacre.

64-year-old Stephen Paddock opened fire on a country music festival from the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay hotel, which overlooked the festival venue. Paddock’s onslaught left 58 dead and 546 injured.

 

https://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/inline-images/20180122_LV2.jpg

Sadly, despite being the worst mass-shooting in U.S. history, the story has long since been abandoned by any traditional media outlets. A slow and ebbing trickle of developments have transpired despite the story dropping off of the radar…

For instance, in late December, the chief of the FBI’s Las Vegas office, Aaron Rouse, revealed the agency likely wouldn’t brief the public concerning the massacre until their official report was released sometime around the one-year anniversary of the tragedy.

Speaking with the Las Vegas Review-Journal, Rouse detailed:

Paddock’s motivation has not been linked to any sort of affiliation or ideology, and evidence still suggests the gunman had no co-conspirators… FBI investigators have about 22,000 hours of surveillance and cellphone footage to comb through, along with about 250,000 separate photos… Local and federal authorities have to sift through about 40 terabytes of data.

At the turn of the new year, it was revealed that Mandalay Bay staff – where Paddock had been staying – had at least 10 interactions with him during his stay.

Paddock’s huge arsenal of guns and thousands of rounds of ammunition somehow wasn’t noticed throughout 10 interactions with hotel staff – an immediate answer is needed as to how.

Court documents unsealed a week ago reveal that Marilou Danley, Paddock’s girlfriend, told authorities that they would likely find her fingerprints on some of the bullets used during the massacre because she helped Paddock load ammunition into magazines.

Although claiming she had no prior knowledge of Paddock’s plans, Danley deleted her Facebook account at 2:46 a.m. on the night of the massacre, just hours after Paddock began firing at 10:08 p.m. 

FBI agents also knew Paddock left behind caches of guns, ammunition, and explosives when they sought warrants before searching his properties. Oddities in Paddock’s online behavior were also noticed. As reported by Fox News:

The documents said Paddock had received an email from a Gmail account in July encouraging him to try an AR-style rifle before buying one. “We have huge selection” in the Las Vegas area, the email allegedly noted.

Paddock wrote back that he wanted to try several scopes and different types of ammunition. An email in response suggested trying a bump stock on the rifle with a 100-round magazine.

Paddock’s email address and the Gmail address had similar names, leading investigators to suspect that he may have been emailing himself, although they couldn’t figure out why.

Over the weekend, the trickle of developments continued, with Fox News revealing Paddock had child porn his computer… but last we knew, the hard drive to Paddock’s computer was missing.

Furthermore, after months of claims and explanations by authorities that Paddock was a “lone gunman”, Fox5 of Las Vegas revealed that Metro Police confirmed they’re unable to release further details on the case because “there are still suspects being investigated”. 

Even after months of being ignored by the mainstream media, the story still doesn’t add up.

 

https://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/inline-images/20180122_LV3_0.jpg

The Las Vegas shooting investigation – with only four months of radio silence from authorities to show after the horrific incident and no clear answers – is still as murky as ever with no clear sign of when the veil will drop… if ever.



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'Gotcha' undercover video interviews get legal thumbs-up

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tv-camera-crop

A California Superior Court, pointing to “an established body” of law supporting the practice of using undercover video for news gathering, has thrown out a claim by a woman who was caught in such an interview.

Kimberly Koerber sued James O’Keefe’s Project Veritas over recordings of Koerber making comments such as “damn the Second Amendment” and “the dead white guys did not create this country.”

An executive in the school textbook industry, she was captured on video pushing an elitist, progressive agenda of global warming hype, gun control and other far-left issues.

Koerber, a former manager for Pearson, the nation’s leading textbook publishing company, was with National Geographic when the interview was released two years ago.

She was interviewed as part of a series of reports on the controversial federal education-standards program Common Core.

“People that are not educated, Fox TV viewers, think that Common Core comes from the educated liberal groups, and that’s why they are against it,” Koerber was recorded saying. “They don’t know anything about it. They think it’s liberal so they’re against it. That’s what I think it is. It’s a knee-jerk reaction. My mother, oh my God, she’s a Fox person. If I could remove Fox from my television set, I would.”

Additional statements by Koerber:

  • On the Constitution: “It is being covered, but not the way they … cause they’re idiots and they don’t know what’s in it.”
  • On climate change: “They are people that don’t really know what they are talking about. I … I can’t stand it. If they talk to me one more time about … climate change not being real, I’m just gonna scream.”
  • On Christianity in Common Core: “Yes it is [out]. Totally. It’s not a core concept at all.”
  • On critics: “They don’t agree with Islam, so they don’t want their kids to be taught it. They don’t agree with birth control so they don’t want their kids to talk about it. They don’t agree with math because they don’t understand it. It’s not the same math they did in high school. So they don’t want their kids to know about it.”

In her suit against Project Veritas, she cited dozens of complaints.

See the video:

However, the court dismissed the case entirely, pointing out that it was filed beyond the statute of limitations. But the court went even further, knocking down the individual claims and, in dismissing the complaint, said it could not be refiled.

Project Veritas noted Monday the judge said that California courts have recognized that surreptitious recording for newsgathering is “conduct in the furtherance of the exercise’ of free speech,”

“The judge found that there was no ‘invasion of privacy,’ and there was nothing ‘confidential’ or criminal about surreptitiously recording the conversation between Koerber and the undercover journalists, which took place on a Starbucks patio with other people visible in the video,” Project Veritas said.

The ruling could have an influence on a case before the U.S. Supreme Court against the Center for Medical Progress, CMP, which videoed National Abortion Federation members at a meeting.

More than a dozen other videos by CMP exposed the abortion industry’s sale of the body parts of unborn children.

Koerber complained that Project Veritas published false information about her, but the court noted the video captured Koerber in her own words.

“This lawsuit was frivolous from the beginning,” said Project Veritas First Amendment attorney Ben Barr. “It featured one angry subject of a report who alleged eleven counts of malfeasance by Project Veritas, ranging from negligence to trespass. After review, the judge agreed not a single count was grounded in reality.”

“Like many other copycat lawsuits filed against Project Veritas, wild claims of recording ‘confidential’ and ‘private’ discussions simply were not true,” stated Project Veritas founder and President James O’Keefe. “This holding vindicates just how careful Project Veritas is in complying with the law when performing undercover investigations.”

Among her complaints were infliction of mental distress, a business code violation, invasion of privacy, public exposure of private facts, false light and negligence.

“The court finds that the entirety of the action is barred by the statute of limitations. In addition, the court finds that plaintiff has failed to show, through admissible evidence, reasonable likelihood of prevailing on the merits of the cauess of action as well,” the court said.

She declined to provide evidence that she was presented in a “false light” or that there was any profit for Project Veritas.

O’Keefe’s most recent project takes on the bias in social media.

He caught a former software engineer for Twitter admitting the social media giant cancels the accounts of users on the instructions of the Chinese government “a lot.”

It was the fourth investigative video in a series released over the last two weeks by O’Keefe. Earlier videos revealed Twitter’s desire to bring down President Trump and its practice of ogling explicit images and messages that users presume are private.

In the latest video, Project Veritas found a former software engineer admitting that Twitter is pressured by foreign governments – notably China – to censor messages and ban certain users.

An undercover journalist asks former employee Conrado Mirando if foreign governments pressure Twitter to ban certain people in their countries.

Miranda initially tells the PV journalist that he “cannot disclose that information.”

At another meeting, however, he opened up.

“Normally, does Twitter, like, say if someone from Iran calls and is, like, hey in our country we need these people banned so that they cannot be seen?”

He responds: “Yeah that happens. We do that a lot for China.”

He explains: “We are actually under constant attack from the Chinese. Like, both Chinese hackers, like ‘good guys’ and from Chinese government. Because sometimes they ask us to take down an account, and we don’t take down, because, we’re, like, at the end of all it, like, anybody say. … And then the Chinese government, like, starts to try and hack us, and sometimes they point someone, or like yeah, we actually violated blah, blah, blah, and then the good guys from China start attacking us. It’s a mess.”

The video:

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Report Shows US Law Enforcement Routinely Engages In Parallel Construction

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A long report by Human Rights Watch delves into the secretive world behind the evidence given in criminal cases. Multiple law enforcement entities are making use of DEA tips to build cases and secure convictions, but they're burying the original evidence using parallel construction, whitewashing it of possible Fourth Amendment violations.



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