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Cab driver Douglas Schifter took his own life outside New York City Hall. He left a Facebook post blaming both government officials and rideshare companies like Uber for his death. RT LIVE… Via Youtube
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“Those who are able to see beyond the shadows and lies of their culture will never be understood, let alone believed, by the masses.” - Plato
Seeking Truth in a World of Propaganda. Links do not necessarily indicate agreement with stories or perspectives.
Saturday, February 10, 2018
New FOIA Release Shows Trump Administration Potentially Violating Constitution
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Upon Trump’s election to the presidency and his refusal to completely divest from his business interests— including innumerable real estate holdings— some warned that the president’s resulting conflict of interest could result in violations of the law, particularly the domestic emoluments clause of the article 2 of the U.S. Constitution.
Originally intended to prevent the President from putting his personal interests above those of the nation, the domestic emoluments clause bars the President from receiving any emolument, or compensation, from federal or state governments while in office other than the fixed Presidential salary. Trump has previously stated that he will reject the annual $400,000 salary while serving as President.
Though the Trump administration has essentially stonewalled many FOIA requests, a new FOIA release from an individual agency has shown that Trump-owned properties have been receiving substantial amounts of government funds in what appears to be a violation of the emoluments clause. The document, released by the General Services Administration (GSA) via a FOIA request reveals that the GSA spent $1,760.46 in just three days at the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C.
This is by no means an isolated incident. Previous FOIA requests turned up several examples of federal staff using government charge cards (i.e. taxpayer funds) to stay at resorts owned by Trump. For instance, last year, a FOIA document revealed that the White House National Security Council (NSC) paid the full price of $1,000 for a two night stay of a single, unidentified guest at Trump’s luxury hotel Mar-a-Lago. According to financial disclosures filings, Trump holds a 99.99% stake in Mar-a-Lago and its profits are held in a revocable trust and Trump is able to withdraw funds from that trust without restriction.
Mar-a-Lago has often been cited as an example of Trump “monetizing” the Presidency, largely because Mar-a-Lago’s membership fee doubled after Trump was elected and each weekend Trump spends there has been alleged to cost taxpayers around $3 million— based on a government report of a trip to Chicago and Palm Beach taken by former President Barack Obama in 2013 reported by The Hill and The Washington Post— although Politifact notes that using cost estimates of Obama’s trip to compare to Trump’s excursions are not entirely accurate.
Other potential violations of the domestic emoluments clause that have come to light in the past year include payments of the U.S. Embassy to a Trump hotel in Panama, and federal employees using government charge cards to pay the full price for rooms at Trump’s Washington D.C. and Las Vegas hotels.
However, because of the difficulty in obtaining documents requested through FOIA from the Trump administration, it is unknown how many such violations exist. For instance, when asked to provide visitor logs from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort, which the State Department has termed “the Winter White House,” the Trump administration only provided a list of the delegation that accompanied the Japanese Prime Minister during last year’s visit even though the President has received numerous visits from foreign and domestic government officials while at the Florida resort.
In addition, more than 80 high-ranking federal employees— based on social media activity alone— are known to have stayed at the Trump International Hotel in D.C. FOIA requests are currently being processed in order to determine if government funds were used during those visits.
While the lack of transparency has made it difficult to show if Trump is profiting from the presidency on a wide scale, these individual cases that have so far come to light raise cause for concern, particularly for those who had hoped to see a return to respecting the Constitution under Trump.
The post New FOIA Release Shows Trump Administration Potentially Violating Constitution appeared first on Ben Swann's Truth In Media.
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Friday, February 9, 2018
Comey forced to reveal Weiner emails after DOJ learned of them
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(Daily Caller) On Wednesday the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee released a majority staff report titled “The Clinton Email Scandal And The FBI’s Investigation Of It.” The committee also released thousands of text messages between two agents and lovebirds Peter Strzok and Lisa Page that shed light on the criminal intent of deep state players to avoid prosecution of Hillary Clinton and to block and destroy a Trump presidency.
One text message exchange is making the rounds on the internet today.
Peter Strzok was the Chief of the Counterespionage Section during the FBI’s investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a personal email server. He also hated Donald Trump along with his lover Lisa Page.
In this exchange posted online Peter Strzok admits the DOJ was forced to tell Congress about the Weiner laptop emails only because George Toscas at the DOJ found out about them.
The FBI sat on this evidence for a month before turning it over to Congress and only because they couldn’t hide it from George Toscas.
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Hopelessly Flawed Oxford ‘Study’ Claims Virtually Every Conservative News Site Is ‘Junk News’
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A new study from the Oxford Internet Institute claiming that conservatives and Trump supporters are more likely to share so-called "junk news" on social media has a hopelessly slanted methodology, which labels virtually every major conservative news site, ranging from National Review to Breitbart News, as "junk."
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A new study from the Oxford Internet Institute claiming that conservatives and Trump supporters are more likely to share so-called "junk news" on social media has a hopelessly slanted methodology, which labels virtually every major conservative news site, ranging from National Review to Breitbart News, as "junk."
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FDA just falsely declared kratom to be an opioid
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Syria: Without Evidence or Logic, US Ambassador to UN Says New Chemical Attack against Syrian Citizens Were Done by Syrian Government
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A new chemical attack against Syrian citizens has been blamed on Syrian President Assad. Predictably, the US Ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, is blaming Assad and calling for war before an independent investigation of the event can be conducted. It is highly suspicious that the medics at the scene of the supposed gas attack are the 'White Helmets' who are linked to al Qaeda’s and who previously have been exposed staging fake attacks and providing actors to play the role of victims. [...]
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A new chemical attack against Syrian citizens has been blamed on Syrian President Assad. Predictably, the US Ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, is blaming Assad and calling for war before an independent investigation of the event can be conducted. It is highly suspicious that the medics at the scene of the supposed gas attack are the 'White Helmets' who are linked to al Qaeda’s and who previously have been exposed staging fake attacks and providing actors to play the role of victims. [...]
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Thursday, February 8, 2018
Will The Conspiracy Against Trump and American Democracy Go Unpunished?
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In keeping silent about evil, in burying it so deep within us that no sign of it appears on the surface, we are implanting it, and it will rise up a thousand fold in the future. When we neither punish nor reproach evildoers, we are not simply protecting their trivial old age, we are thereby ripping the foundations of justice from beneath new generations.
— Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn
The American people do not realize the seriousness of the Russiagate conspiracy against them and President Trump. Polls indicate that a large majority of the public do not believe that Trump conspired with Putin to steal the presidential election, and are tired of hearing the media prostitutes repeat the absurd story day after day. On its face the story makes no sense whatsoever. Moreover, the leaked emails are real, not fabricated. The emails show exactly what Hillary and the DNC did. The public knows that these transgressions were pushed out of news sight by the false story of a Trump/Putin conspiracy. The fact that the entirety of the US print and TV media served in a highly partisan political way to bury a true and disturbing story with a fake news story—Russiagate—is one reason some polls show that only 6% of Americans trust the mainstream media. All polls show that large majorities of independents, Republicans, and youth distrust the mainstream media. In some polls about half of Democrats trust the media, and that is because the media is servant to Democratic Party interests.
Russiagate is a dagger aimed at the heart of American governmental institutions. A conspiracy involving top officials of the Obama Department of Justice, FBI, and other “security” agencies was formed together with Hillary Clinton and the Democratic National Committee, the purpose of which was to defeat Trump in the presidential election and, failing that, to remove Trump from office or to discredit him to the point that he would be reduced to a mere figurehead. This conspiracy has the full backing entirely of the mainstream media.
In other words, it was a coup not only against Donald Trump but also against American democracy and the outcome of a presidential election.
There is no doubt whatsoever about this. The facts are publicly available in the declassified Top Secret Memorandum Opinion and Order of the FISA Court—and in the declassified report from the House Intelligence Committee—given by the presstitutes the misleading name of the “Nunes Memo,” as if it is Nunes’ personal opinion and not the findings of months of work by an oversight committee of Congress.
All of this information has been posted on my website for some time. If you have difficulty following my explanation, former US Attorney Joe DiGenova explains the felony actions by the FBI and Obama Justice (sic) Department here.
Briefly, the National Security Agency discovered that the FBI and DOJ were abusing the surveillance system. As a favor of one security agency to another, NSA Director Adm. Rogers permitted the FBI and DOJ to rush to the FISA Court and confess their transgressions before the NSA informed the Court. The FBI and DOJ pretended that their deception of the Court in order to obtain surveillance warrants for highly partisan political purposes was not due to their intent but to procedural mistakes. The FBI and DOJ told the Court that they were tightening up procedures so that this would not happen again. The FISA Court Memorandum and Order clearly states:
On October 24, 2016, the government orally apprised the Court of significant non-compliance with the NSA’s minimization procedures involving queries of data acquired under Section 702 using U.S. person identifiers. The full scope of non-compliant querying practices had not been previously disclosed to the Court.
What this legalese jargon is saying is the the FBI and DOJ confessed to obtaining warrants under false pretexts. These are felonies.
The FISA Court Memorandum and Order is about resolving these deficiencies and returning the FBI and DOJ to legal practices. For example, the Court Memorandum and Order says:
On January 3, 2017, the government made a further submission describing its efforts to ascertain the scope and causes of those compliance problems and discussing potential solutions to them. See January 3, 2017, Supplemental Notice of Compliance Incidents Regarding the Querying of Section 701-Acquired Data (“January 3, 2017 Notice”). The Court was not satisfied that the government had sufficiently ascertained the scope of the compliance problems or developed and implemented adequate solutions for them and communicated a number of questions and concerns to the government.
In other words, the FBI and DOJ were attempting to make corrections to their “compliance problems” in ways that would allow them to continue to mislead the FISA Court, and the Court wasn’t letting them.
The FISA Court Memorandum and Order was released prior to the House Intelligence Committee report and has been completely ignored by the utterly corrupt press prostitutes. The FISA Court Memorandum and Order, relying on the confessions of the FBI and DOJ, verifies the House Intelligence Committee report that the FBI and DOJ illegally obtained spy warrants for partisan political purposes.
Rep. Adam Schiff, a Democrat who is a disgrace to the voters of his California district, to the Democratic Party, and to the House of Representatives, knows full well that the FBI and DOJ deceived the FISA Court. Schiff is so partisan that he lies to the hilt in the face of hard documented evidence from both the FISA Court and his own House committee. Schiff is so totally devoid of all honesty and integrity that he is the perfect leader for a shithole country, something that he and his ilk are turning the United States into.
The honest left—not the Identity Politics left, which is a collection of deranged idiots—does not believe a word of the concocted Russiagate conspiracy against Trump. They object to the Russiagate conspiracy not because they like Trump, which they most certainly do not, but because they understand that it is a lie directed against truth. They understand that the American mainstream media has deserted factual, truthful reporting and serves as a propaganda ministry for the war/police state that American is becoming.
For example, Eric Zuesse holds The Atlantic and its presstitute writer, David A. Graham, to account for lying about the House Intelligence Report.
Andre Damon writes on the World Socialist Web Site:
The Democratic Party was thrown into disarray Friday after the publication of a classified memo exposing as a factionally-motivated witch hunt the investigation by leading intelligence agencies into the Trump administration’s alleged collusion with Russia. . . . The release of the memo once again underscores the fact that the US intelligence agencies have massively intervened in US politics.
The real left, as opposed to the fake left, understands that the people have no chance when the highest officials of the Department of Justice and the security agencies join in a conspiracy against a democratic outcome. When the justice and police authorities have no respect for the truth, as the Russiagate conspiracy proves, the people are doomed. If the FBI-DOJ-DNC-presstitute conspiracy goes unpunished, The Lie will have prevailed over The Truth and all of us will be endangered.
The important question before us is: will the treasonous criminals in the FBI, DOJ, and DNC be indicted and held responsible? Or do high government officials get a pass as do the police who rob and murder citizens and never face justice for their crimes?
From the sound of things, it looks like they will get a pass. Rep. Nunes felt compelled to say on TV how much he likes Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who is a party to the deception of the FISA Court. President Trump says he will not fire the conspirator against him, Robert Mueller, even though both Trump and Mueller know that the Russiagate investigation headed by Mueller is a concocted conspiracy against American democracy and the President of the United States. It seems that high government officials, like state and local police and executives of “banks too big to fail,” are above the law.
What about the FISA Court, readers ask, why did the FISA Court let the FBI and DOJ get away with their illegal acquisition of spy warrants? Once the Court knew about it, the Court did not let them get away with it, as the Memorandum and Order makes clear. The FISA Court does not have prosecutorial power to indict and bring a case against the FBI and DOJ criminals. That has to be done by the DOJ, and the DOJ is not going to indict itself.
Former US Attorney Joe DiGenova believes that continuing investigations will result in high officials being indicted, convicted, and sent to prison. If the US is to have any future as a country in which government is accountable to law, it is essential that DiGenova be correct. However, I will believe it when I see it.
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Tuesday, February 6, 2018
Overflowing Swamp: Non-Partisan Watchdog Report Shows Political Bribery Now at Record Levels
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(TFTP) While President Trump promised to “drain the swamp” when he was on the campaign trail, a new report from a non-profit, nonpartisan research group shows that after one year of the Trump administration, lobbying is at records levels in Washington.
The Center for Responsive Politics reported that in 2017, “the number of registered lobbyists along with federal lobbying expenditures went up, reversing annual declines in both registrations and spending that began a decade ago.” This increase occurred for the first time since 2007.
The report noted that the money spent on federal lobbying increased by 6 percent, rising from $3.15 billion to $3.34 billion, and marking the largest increase in one year since former President George W. Bush’s last year in office.
In contrast, spending on lobbying had declined five of the past six years, and up until 2017, the report claimed that “the number of registered lobbyists had dropped each of the past 10 years, from a record 14,827 in 2007 to a 20-year low of 11,169 in 2016.” The number then increased last year:
“Last year, 11,444 registered lobbyists appeared in quarterly reports filed with Congress. Those reports include basic information on spending, issues and entities lobbied, usually with vague language and broad strokes.
A fourth-quarter report by Kevin Kayes of QGA Public Affairs, for instance, said the firm was paid $37,500 by U.S. Steel to lobby on ‘trade law enforcement.’ The audience was ‘U.S. Senate, U.S. House of Representatives.’
Based on the report—typical for most filings—the members of Congress who were lobbied by the firm is obscured from public scrutiny.”
The Center for Responsive Politics also found that thousands of lobbyists who were supposed to report their activities failed to do so until after the filing deadlines had passed—and they faced no consequences.
In 2017, there were a number of companies that significantly increased the amount they spent on lobbying—many of which were tech companies. The report noted that Facebook spent $11 million, Amazon spent $13 million—about $2 million more than it spent in 2016—and Google spent $18 million on lobbying.
While lobbying expenditures went down under the Obama administration, it should be noted that the results were nowhere near what Obama promised when he was on the campaign trail.
“No political appointees in an Obama-Biden administration will be permitted to work on regulations or contracts directly and substantially related to their prior employer for two years,” Obama promised. “And no political appointee will be able to lobby the executive branch after leaving government service during the remainder of the administration.”
However, Politifact reported that the administration “granted waivers to several former lobbyists, allowing them to serve. The administration also allows recusals, where former lobbyists simply recuse themselves from discussions concerning whatever interest it is for which they used to lobby.”
President Trump was also critical of the corruption in Washington while he was on the campaign trail. He told CBS’ Face The Nation in June 2016 “he would ‘have no problem’ banning lobbyists and big donors from working in his administration.”
While it appears that Trump has changed his tune—in the same way that Obama retreated on his promises—a comment made about Trump in 2015 is notable today. When one Twitter user wrote, “The Donald owes NOTHING to lobbyists. He could restore our Republic,” Trump retweeted the statement and wrote, “True.”
"@pbstwo: @realDonaldTrump @hyannis1952 @FoxNews The Donald owes NOTHING to lobbyists. He could restore our Republic." True.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 22, 2015
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What are Little Boys Made of? Too Many Chemicals!
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By The World Mercury Project Team
At least one in six American children (roughly 17%) has a diagnosed developmental disability. No matter which once-rare disorder one considers—learning disabilities, autism spectrum disorder (ASD), attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), tics, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) or emotional disturbances—each has witnessed a dramatic escalation over the past several decades. A systematic literature review recently published in Acta Neurobiologiae Experimentalis contends that these trends are at crisis proportions. The crisis is spiraling out of control, with society-wide impacts on services, institutions, families and, especially, boys.
There are at least two boys for every girl with a neurodevelopmental disorder. For ASDand ADHD, the male-to-female ratio is roughly four and five to one, respectively. Genetics cannot explain this consistent sex-specific pattern. What can explain it is children’s vastly increased exposure to and bioaccumulation of chemical neurotoxins at the same time that the explosion in neurodevelopmental disorders has unfolded. The studies examined in the systematic review indicate that males are more vulnerable to leading environmental toxins—and there are plausible biological mechanisms to explain this heightened vulnerability. In fact, the skewed sex ratio is, in and of itself, a vital clue that can help pinpoint major causes of neurodevelopmental disorders.
The primary chemical culprits
The review’s authors examined over four decades’ worth of studies (1970–2016) covering roughly 16 types of neurotoxicants. They used a six-point scoring system to categorize research that involved either humans, animal models or tissue cultures. The review identified a number of sex-dependent effects, some of which were clear-cut and others somewhat less so:
- Seven neurotoxins had more adverse effects for males, including extremely consistent effects for ethylmercury-containing thimerosal, lead, some organochlorine pesticides (dieldrin, endosulfan and heptachlor) and air pollution (including automotive exhaust and airborne toxic metals). Male-specific effects were present but somewhat less consistent for three other neurotoxins: elemental mercury vapor, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and organophosphate pesticides (OPPs).
- Two organochlorine pesticides (DDT and DDE) affected more females.
- For three categories of neurotoxins—inorganic mercury salts, methylmercury and endocrine disruptors such as phthalates and bisphenol A (BPA)—there were gender-specific neurotoxic effects but it was not possible to determine whether males or females were more adversely affected.
There was either insufficient or no research to draw conclusions about gender-specific neurotoxic effects for six types of neurotoxins: aluminum adjuvants in vaccines, arsenic, glyphosate, perfluorinated compounds, polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). The authors remind us, however, that “the lack of findings cannot be taken as a priori evidence of no gender-specific neurotoxic effects.”
…studies are needed to understand whether combined neurotoxic exposures (such as receiving both thimerosal-containing and aluminum-containing vaccines) provoke gender-specific effects.
The shortage of research on whether aluminum adjuvants are associated with gender-specific neurotoxic effects is particularly disturbing, given the ease with which injected aluminum particles enter the brain. Evidence indicates that the increased use of aluminum adjuvants is having serious neurological consequences and correlates with the rise in ASD. Moreover, a groundbreaking study that recently examined brain tissue from deceased ASD individuals found unprecedented levels of aluminum, particularly in male brains.
Male vulnerabilities
The review’s authors discuss half a dozen plausible reasons why neurotoxins encounter increased susceptibility in males—particularly during sensitive developmental stages. These include biological mechanisms that protect females, such as greater availability in females of glutathione and sulfate (both of which are critical for detoxification); less vulnerability to oxidative stress and free-radical-mediated damage; and more neuroprotection from female hormones, which help “deactivate” inflammatory processes and suppress neuronal hyperexcitability.
Males, in contrast, tend toward a greater neuroinflammatory response, and testosterone appears to enhance and “potentiate” neurotoxicity. Illustrating this point, the authors cite work showing that “thimerosal toxicity to neurons was significantly increased by co-exposure with testosterone, whereas estrogens significantly reduced the toxicity of thimerosal to neurons.”
In 2013, the federal government awarded more than 38 times as much funding ($291 million) to ASD researchers studying genetics as to those studying ASD’s environmental aspects ($7.5 million)—even though genetics “only addresses at best about 20% of the ASD population.”
Addressing the crisis
The systematic review concurs with several other consensus papers (from 2006, 2014and 2016) that link neurodevelopmental disorders to environmental toxins. According to the 40 years of research examined in the review, four neurotoxins (thimerosal, lead, air pollutants and some organochlorine pesticides) stand out in exhibiting consistent male-specific effects. These toxins likely have played “a leading role in the recent and dramatic increase in neurodevelopmental disorders.”
The review’s authors spell out several important areas for further research. For example, studies are needed to understand whether combined neurotoxic exposures (such as receiving both thimerosal-containing and aluminum-containing vaccines) provoke gender-specific effects. In addition, the authors note the many other variables that can come into play and contribute to toxic effects, including age and timing of exposure; dose; absorption and transport of toxins within the body; and the strength of the individual’s detoxification, cellular repair and compensation systems. Unfortunately, research funding priorities in the U.S. are highly distorted, as the field of ASD research illustrates. In 2013, the federal government awarded more than 38 times as much funding ($291 million) to ASD researchers studying genetics as to those studying ASD’s environmental aspects ($7.5 million)—even though genetics “only addresses at best about 20% of the ASD population.”
Emphasizing the high cost of inaction, the authors outline steps that can be taken immediately. Stating that “a true preventive program would address the exposure-related issues by reducing or stopping the causative exposures to the identified neurotoxicants” [emphasis added], the authors recommend:
- Banning (once and for all) thimerosal as a vaccine ingredient and in the manufacture of vaccines
- Eliminating toxic metals from all makeup and cosmetics
- Banning organochlorine pesticides
- Using existing technologies to reduce air pollution
Perhaps most importantly, they call for the formation of an independent scientific task force—meaning one without any ties to industry—to study neurodevelopmental toxicity and “make recommendations to effect legislation that would address and reduce toxic exposures among pregnant women, infants and children.” Surely there is no shortage of scientists who would embrace the task of protecting our most vulnerable boys and girls.
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Sunday, February 4, 2018
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