Strangest Things: America Is 'The Upside Down'

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Authored by Doug 'Uncola' Lynn via TheTollOnline.com,

Why should Trump give any credence to the intelligence agencies who first tried to prevent, and later subvert, his presidency?

You may not be able to alter reality, but you can alter your attitude towards it, and this, paradoxically, alters reality. Try it and see.

– Margaret Atwood

The above quote, attributed to the author of “The Handmaid’s Tale”, is seemingly representative of the elite establishment today in their dystopian zeal to erase the presidency of Donald Trump.  How? By means of manufacturing an Attitudinal New Reality complete with Orwellian-style and Twilight Zone-type narratives reminiscent of the “Upside Down” , the other-worldly dimension of Netflix’s “Stranger Things”.

Of course, where we are today was likely inevitable from the start.

When businessman Donald Trump announced his candidacy for President of the United States, he was ridiculed by the political establishment, Hollywood, and the Corporate Mainstream Media.  When it appeared that he could actually win, the U.S. Intelligence Agencies, under President Obama, spied on Candidate Trump and set up members of his team for a grand scheme of entrapment arranged by former CIA Director, and perjurist, John Brennan; even as corrupt high-ranking officials in the FBI, like James Comey, arranged for Hillary Clinton’s crimes to be swept under the political rug.

Soon, we heard about wiretaps at Trump Tower and illegal unmasking by former National Security Director Susan Rice, even as Wikileaks released the password to Vault 7, also known as: “The Largest Ever Publication of Confidential CIA Documents” where a program entitled UMBRAGE was revealed. It was a formerly top-secret initiative whereby American intelligence agencies could mimic internet hacks from other countries, including Russia.

Unsurprisingly, the alleged mastermind behind “Vault 7 was recently indicted by the U.S. Department of Justice after being arrested for child porn on his computer, just as the Pakistani-Intelligence operative , Imran Awan, was let off the hook by an Obama appointed judge; because there was “no evidence” that congressional computer systems were compromised by Awan after a Democratic Party caucus server was replaced by a look-alike.

Paradoxically even WikiLeaks now says the murder of Democratic National Committee employee, Seth Rich, has been contradicted by Rod Rosenstein’s “July 2018 indictment of 12 Russian military intelligence agents”:

The [Seth Rich] murder spawned several right-wing conspiracy theories, including the false claim that Rich had been involved with the leaked DNC emails in 2016, contradicted by the July 2018 indictment of 12 Russian military intelligence agents for hacking the e-mail accounts and networks of Democratic Party officials and by the U.S. intelligence community’s conclusion the leaked DNC emails were part of Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections. Law enforcement as well as fact-checking websites like PolitiFact.com, Snopes.com, and FactCheck.org stated that these theories were false and unfounded. The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and The Washington Post called the fabrications fake news and falsehoods.

Wow.  Someone moved fast there, didn’t they? WikiLeaks, PolitiFact.com, Snopes.com, and FactCheck.org all claim there is nothing to see in the Seth Rich murder. Indeed, it appears all of the t’s are crossed and the i’s are dotted and all of the bases are covered.

Put a bow on it.  It’s a wrap.

Except Jack Burkman, a Washington-based attorney and lobbyist who has worked with a private investigative team to find the killer of DNC staffer, Seth Rich, recently claimed to have found a “credible” witness who will identify the murderers of Seth Rich as “a current DEA (Drug Enforcement Administration) agent” and a “current ATF (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives) agent”.

Moreover, we do know because of the GOP Groundhog Day 2018 Memo, that Hillary Clinton and the DNC financed the Russian Dossier on Trump and, according to former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, it was used to finally obtain the FISA warrant required to spy on Team Trump. The 90-day surveillance warrant on Carter Page was then renewed three times. It appears this was done in order to dig up political dirt and diminish Trump’s chances of winning the 2016 Presidential Election and, later, to undermine his presidency.  At the same time, the culprits specifically named in the memo (i.e. James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, and Bruce Ohr) seemingly conspired to bury the multifarious crimes of Hillary Clinton.

A mole in Trump’s campaign was also later revealed as Steven Halper,a 73-year-old Oxford University professor and former U.S. government official who was paid over $1 million by the Obama administration including $411,575 that was made in two payments by September 26, 2016.  That date was three days after a Yahoo News article by Michael Isikoff on Trump aide, Carter Page, that the FBI later used as supporting evidence in the FISA warrant application for Page.

Then, after Trump won the election, the phony Russian conspiracy was utilized:

1.) By online social networks to censor the alternative media

2.) By President Obama to sign into law the “Countering Disinformation And Propaganda Act”on December 23, 2016

3.) By Obama’s National Security Advisor, Susan Rice, to feloniously unmask Trump administration officials

4.) By Democrats and the Media to pressure the new president’s National  Security Advisor to resign and the nation’s new Attorney General to recuse himself from the Russia investigation

5.) By deputy Attorney General, Rod Rosenstein, to appoint his trusted, dear friend and collaborator, Robert Mueller, as Special Counsel to investigate President Trump’s non-existent collusion with Russia

6.) By Robert Mueller to transition the imaginary Russiagate Collusion into allegations of Obstruction of Justice against Trump for firing former FBI Director, James Comey

7.) By Robert Mueller to obtain minor process crimes on Paul Manafort (Trump’s former campaign chairman), Rick Gates (business associate of Manafort), George Papadopoulos (Trump’s former foreign policy advisor) and Michael Flynn (Trump’s former national security advisor)

But wait. There’s more.

In apparent  “violation of Justice Department policies and, perhaps, legal prohibitions on disclosure of grand jury secrets”, it appears that AP reporters and FBI agents colluded in a conspiracy against Trump’s former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort; who, two days after America celebrated Independence Day 2018, remained in solitary confinement.

Now, because of the ongoing efforts of Deputy Attorney General, Rod Rosenstein, and his personally appointed Special Counsel, Robert Mueller, it seems President Trump’s attorney client privileges have been summarily rescinded; as former President Obama and his Secretary of State Hillary Clinton both whistle past the graveyard.

Of course, this is exactly what deep state operatives like Robert Mueller and Rod Rosenstein do; they investigate others for crimes they themselves have committed.  Rosenstein, who appointed Mueller as special council signed off on at least one of the misrepresented, and therefore illegal, FISA applications to spy on Donald Trump.  Moreover, it was Rosenstein who advised President Trump to fire Robert Mueller’s close friend and associate, James Comey; an act for which Mueller might still one day attempt to bring an obstruction of justice charge against Trump.

Mueller was also former president Obama’s director of the FBI when the Bill and Hillary Clinton Foundation received $145 million in Uranium One payments for selling twenty-percent of America’s uranium deposits to Russia.

Former CIA Officer and whistleblower Kevin Shipp said what Hillary Clinton did with her charity and Uranium One is the biggest espionage case involving government officials in the history of this country, and “that James Clapper, Director of National Intelligence, was protecting her and leaking things to the media and lying” and that John Brennan, Director of the CIA, protected “her by starting a false investigation (on Trump) and stirring things up with this (false/unverified) dossier”.

And, who led the investigation into the Uranium One sale? It was Rod Rosenstein, the same troll who hired his best friend, Robert Mueller, to investigate Donald Trump’s alleged collusion with Russia.

I don’t know about you, but I’m getting dizzy with all those spinning concentric circles of corruption.

But that’s not all...

– Last month, questions were raised as to why Imran Awan, who was under investigation for illegally accessing confidential information on Congressional computer systems, was answering phones at his law firm, which had connections to Bill and Hillary Clinton.

– During FBI agent Peter Strzok’s testimony to Congress, Jim Jordon (R-Ohio) got the former FBI agent to admit that the FBI received the Hillary Clinton Funded “Golden Shower” dossier on Trump from the FBI’s Bruce Orr (whose wife worked for Fusion GPS) – which was an astounding admission on internal collusion – before Democrat Sheila Jackson Lee interrupted the exchange.

– Republican Rep. Louie Gohmert of Texas said during the hearing with former FBI official, Peter Strzok, that the Inspector General discovered that nearly all of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s emails were sent to a foreign entity and that the FBI didn’t follow-up on that finding.

– It was furthermore revealed that FBI agent Peter Strzok, himself, actually knew Clinton’s emails were in the hands of a foreign entity, that a whistleblower from the State Department tried delivering significant evidence in the Clinton email investigation which went nowhere, and that Inspector General, Michael Horowitz, was called four times from someone wanting to brief him about it and Horowitz never returned the call.

– In the aftermath of Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) claiming that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein had “personally redacted information and threatened House Intelligence Committee staffers” and Republican Texas Rep. Louie Gohmert telling a TV morning show that he believed government personnel working for Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein were spying on his office, NBC News reported the following:

Powerful GOP Rep. Jim Jordan accused of turning blind eye to sexual abuse as Ohio State wrestling coach

 

“It’s sad for me to hear that he’s denying,” said one former wrestler. “I don’t know why he would, unless it’s a cover-up.”

 

–   It was later reported that the law firm investigating the accusations against Jim Jordan were also involved in the FISA abuse scandal by assisting both the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee to fund the now discredited Steele Dossier.

–   Days after the decades old sexual scandal slurs against Republican Congressman Jim Jordan were resurrected in the media, Jordan’s 21 year-old nephew died in a car crash in Illinois.

Coincidences?  Sure.

But now, the kicker:

In an effort to divert publicity away from the Capitol Hill testimony of disgraced FBI agent Peter Strzok, and to subvert President Trump’s ongoing efforts toward peace with Russia, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein announced the Mueller Investigation’s single indictment of Twelve Russian intelligence officers for alleged election hacking under President Obama’s watch; even though, according to Rosenstein , “no American was a knowing participant” in the Russian efforts to influence the 2016 election and there was “no allegation in the indictment of any effect on the outcome of the election” .

Immediately following the indictments, Trump Tweeted these questions:

“Where is the DNC Server, and why didn’t the FBI take possession of it? Deep State?

This, as the veteran GOP political operative, Roger Stone, said he was the ‘U.S. person’ mentioned in the Mueller indictment of the 12 Russians.

Then, as initial claims were made that Republicans were preparing to impeach Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein because they felt Rosenstein had “continually stonewalled their investigation into corruption at the FBI” – Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) suddenly ruled out the possibility of impeaching Rosenstein, saying there was “not enough support for his ouster”.

The evening before his historic meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, President Trump lamented the “hatred and dissension” in the U.S. and Tweeted that “no matter what he achieves in Helsinki, journalists will bash him for being not good enough or for kowtowing to Putin”.

Just prior to his meet with Russian President Putin, Donald Trump Tweeted:

Our relationship with Russia has NEVER been worse thanks to many years of U.S. foolishness and stupidity and now, the Rigged Witch Hunt!

After Trump’s meeting with Putin, the U.S. President called the Russian leader’s denial of election meddling ‘very powerful’ – as Putin said he wanted Trump to win the 2016 election, and laughed about the “golden showers” dossier.

In the press conference following their meeting, President Trump shocked the Deep State senseless by again raising legitimate (and still unanswered) questions regarding the Democratic National Committee’s missing server and Hillary Clinton’s missing emails; as Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed U.S. intelligence agents funneled $400 Million to the Hillary Clinton Campaign.

Just then, the real fun started:

–   In the immediate aftermath of the Trump-Putin meeting, the Obama Administration’s CIA director, John Brennan, charged that President Trump’s post-summit press conference with Russia President Vladimir Putin was an act of treason; as disgraced former FBI Director, James Comey, called for a coup against the sitting president by means of patriots standing up and rejecting Trump’s behavior.

– The New York Times offended many in the LGBT community by posting a homophobic cartoon of Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin as gay lovers.

– “Just days after special counsel Robert Mueller charged 12 Russian intelligence officials with directing a sprawling hacking effort aimed at swaying the 2016 election” and “just hours after President Donald Trump met with Russian President Vladimir Putin”, federal prosecutors charged an alleged Russian agent and “Gun Rights Activist”, named Maria Butina, for using the National Rifle Association (NRA) as a conduit to influence members of the Republican Party.

–  In the wake of the Trump-Putin meeting, Russia’s elite and media celebrated the meeting as victory for Putin and “an end to the West’s attempt to isolate Russia”, as U.S. cable news network’s saw “the apocalypse”, Trump as a worse-case-scenario Russian mole, and Trump’s Helsinki performance as an act that will ‘Live in Infamy’ as much as “Pearl Harbor” or “Kristallnacht”.

–  And for the cherry on top:  Former U.S. President Barack Obama, while on foreign soil, disparaged “strongman politics” and called today’s times “strange and uncertain”, before adding that “each day’s news cycle is bringing more head-spinning and disturbing headlines”.

Anyone not clueless or pathologically self-deceived realizes if Trump had acknowledged, during the Helsinki press conference with Putin, any meddling in accordance to the contrived findings of Robert Mueller’s investigation – the mainstream media would have insinuated what they have all along:  That Trump, colluded with Russia to win the election.

That is what they want people to believe.

Except Trump didn’t, initially, play according to their rules. Instead, he brought up the missing DNC server again to a collective gasp from a worldwide audience.

And that was why we witnessed the outright panic of Deep State tools and their drones in the Corporate Mainstream Media Bubble; all of whom have created an alternate reality.

Although Trump has now said he misspoke and acknowledges the Russian meddling, all of the other information is still available out there for anyone to see.  However, Orwellian Propaganda and a Perceived Phony Parallel Universe will likely make it impossible for a talented reality TV star to ever sway the people who voted for Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders.

Recently, it was reported that the Democrats now lead the GOP by 12 million registered voters.

Nevertheless, it appears the deep state is still making plays as they continue to run out the clock until the 2018 Midterm Elections.  Even then, Trump’s fate will remain in polling booths populated by mushy-minded, lukewarm Independent Voters rallying to overcome fake news and censorshipin order to save America.

Not exactly fertile ground to plant flowers of hope, but of course anything can happen.

Regardless of who wins, however, the losers will not accept the results as the U.S. continues to unravel like Hillary Clinton’s neural synapses.

All the snowflakes can hear now is Trump’s treason with Putin. This is because, in a bullshit world, optics are everything.

As I consider the American Sheeple, and post this article about the manifestation of the Advertised New Reality, I remain haunted by a quote from Netflix’s “Stranger Things”, Season 2, Episode 5 – where a vodka-drinking, bearded, balding man wearing a robe and sporting circa 1960’s Austin Powers-type eyeglasses exclaimed:

You’re being naive, Nancy! Those people… They’re not wired like me and you, okay? They don’t spend their lives trying to get a look at what’s behind the curtain. They LIKE the curtain. It provides them stability, comfort, definition.

This… this would OPEN the curtain, and the curtain BEHIND that curtain, okay? So the minute someone with an ounce of authority calls bullshit, everyone will nod their heads and say, “See? Ha! I knew it! It was bullshit.”

That is if you even get their attention at all.

In the aftermath of FBI agent Peter Strzok’s appearance before Congress, the full Editorial Board of The Wall Street Journal said:

President Trump will have to declassify a host of documents if he wants Americans to learn the truth about what happened in 2016.

Will Trump do that? Would it make any difference if he did?  Stay tuned.

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Former CIA Officer: Clinton "Involved In Biggest Treason In History"

ORIGINAL LINK

Via Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com,

Former CIA Officer and whistleblower Kevin Shipp says what Hillary Clinton did with her charity and Uranium One while she was Secretary of State was a crime for the history books. 

Shipp explains, “Hillary Clinton used this to launder money in foreign banks so it wasn’t subject to U.S. laws, congressional subpoenas or FOIA demands for the evidence.  This was done to launder this money globally into the Clinton Foundation so the U.S. government could not examine it at all.” 

Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller was the head of the FBI while the Uranium One deal was being done by Clinton and the Russians.  One fifth of U.S. uranium production was bought by the Russians in a deal Clinton pushed and approved.  The Clinton Foundation received more than $140 million from some of the same Russian players who were involved with Uranium One.  Why didn’t Mueller stop the deal?  Shipp says,

“Mueller is either a complete moron, which he is not, or he overlooked the biggest counterterrorism cases in U.S. history.  It involved Hillary Clinton, the Clinton Foundation, Uranium One and, of course, the destruction of all the emails and evidence and her secret server, and on and on and on it goes, and he (Mueller) ignored it all.” 

How did she get away with obvious crime?  Shipp says,

“The most bizarre thing is the people who protected her from clear felonious activity and violations of the Espionage Act.  James Clapper, Director of National Intelligence, was protecting her and leaking things to the media and lying.  You had John Brennan, Director of the CIA, protecting her by starting a false investigation (on Trump) and stirring things up with this (false/unverified) dossier.  You had James Comey, Director of the FBI, protecting her...

Then, you’ve got Peter Strzok protecting her, and now it appears the United Kingdom GCHQ was using NSA information to target Donald Trump and protect Hillary Clinton.  You have to ask yourself what kind of power or connections does this woman have to get all of these members of the Deep State, Shadow Government to risk their own criminal penalties to protect her and try to get her elected?  That is the Shadow Government.  That is the Deep State.  That is what is so chilling about this whole thing...

This is deep.  This is dark.  This is as dark as it gets, and this is the biggest espionage case involving government officials in the history of this country.” 

Shipp also points out that, this time, it will not be business as usual for the “Deep State and Shadow Government.”  They are going to be brought to justice because Shipp says, “indictments are coming because of Donald Trump coming into the White House from the outside.  Trump cannot be bribed.”    

Join Greg Hunter as he goes One-on-One with former CIA Officer Kevin Shipp ofForTheLoveofFreedom.net. 

(To Donate to USAWatchdog.com Click Here) 

There is free information on Kevin Shipp’s website ForTheLoveofFreedom.net.  You can also order his book there on the homepage, and help him get his message out by sending him a donation.

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Facebook – The Anti-Social Network

ORIGINAL LINK

Authored by Tom Luongo,

“I thought we were gonna get television. The truth is… television is gonna get us.”
—Dick Goodwin, Quiz Show

When Mark Zuckerberg went to Capitol Hill earlier in the year I knew Facebook was in serious trouble.

Ostensibly, he was there to apologize to us about how Facebook used customer data so cavalierly.

But, really he was there to explain how everything had gone so wrong.

Facebook was designed to be the enforcer of social norms pushed by the political and corporate establishment.

It was built with Wall Street’s decade-long access to cost-free money to invest in the technologies to create a voluntary layer of social control.

The Fed is pulling back the punchbowl and Wall St. already cashed out most if its chips, leaving the retail “muppets” holding the bag.

Facebook, along with Twitter and Google, were outsourced by the real power brokers to erect a web of censorship platforms which circumvent the 1st amendment, because they are ‘private’ companies.

Like Alex Jones or hate him, he brings a lot of traffic to Facebook.  Traffic the company doesn’t want, apparently.

It doesn’t need people who like Alex Jones…

But they still want your data.  

Just like the payment processors Stripe, PayPal and VISA are all private companies which can kick you off their platform and deny you a business and a livelihood because you’re not ‘woke’ enough.

The blockchain will fix this in the future, but right now things are dicey at best.  People like me are very vulnerable to running afoul of these people.

But, like I told my subscribers last fall, the moment of Peak Facebook would arrive soon enough.

Why?

Because it’s all fake interactions by increasingly fake personas we have to erect lest we get shouted at by someone looking for a dragon to slay to bring meaning to their otherwise pointless lives.

And sometimes those people are our very best friends.

Facebook was built on the false premise that we want to be in contact with all of the people we ever met ALL THE TIME.  But no, we really don’t.  We all, as T.S. Eliot put it, “prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet.”

And once the bloom is off the digital rose, once the social environment becomes toxic, what’s left to do on Facebook?

Cat videos, Huskies arguing with their owners (my personal favorite) and food porn.

So, it came as no shock to me that Facebook finally hit the earnings wall in Q2.

And the shock was immense.

And it gutted the stock 20% to hit short-term support.

But, the big damage was done back in Q1, with the blow to Facebook’s credibility.

Most people don’t want to believe in ‘conspiracy theories.’  Their default position is to put themselves in the shoes of the person or group and project their behavior onto them.

And, that’s why when Zuckerberg spoke to Congress and came off like a stiffer version of Data from Star Trek, millions of people finally figured out what was happening.

You can’t fake body language for very long.  Mark Zuckerberg isn’t a psychopath, he’s a just a creepy, stalker kid, way out of his depth with an over-inflated sense of his importance.

In short, he’s a bad liar.

And that’s why Facebook is where it is.

And why, in my mind, the stock will drop further this week as it targets medium-term support near $150.

The pump and dump on Facebook by Wall Street began at the beginning of the year.

They could see the numbers then, the chart spells it out candle by candle.

I’d almost go so far to say that once Cambridge Analytica’s malfeasance got out, Zuckerberg was thrown to the wolves.

So far, he got himself a $3.5 billion golden parachute, selling that much stock after those hearings.

And to give you an idea of how much he cares about his company he had Facebook buy back $3.2 of his stock at now 20% over the market price.

This is the essence of insider-trading.  Publicly selling billions in stock while operating a stock buyback program with company money at prices you know will be lower once earnings come out?

It’s the essence of dishonest.  I told you Zuckerberg was a bad liar.

It only makes the case against Facebook that much stronger.

And don’t get me started on what’s wrong with Twitter!

*  *  *

I go over Facebook’s chart, along with Gold and Bitcoin in this week’s Market Report for subscribers.  15 Minutes of news and technical analysis every Wednesday and Sunday. Click here to join Patreon and get this Market Report for just $4/month.

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A Fork-In-The-Road Approaches: 95 Revelations From July, 2018

ORIGINAL LINK

Authored by Doug "Uncola" Lynn via TheTollOnline.com,

Beginning in May of this year (for April), this blogger had the idea to track linked internet headlines from various link-aggregating websites as documented transitions and arrange them into catalogued anthologies. The goal was to map a veritable road, if you will, on the way toward future revelations.

Beyond that, the series of encyclopedic atomization was meant for posterity, a means to compare tracking from previous months, and assembled in outright defiance against increasing internet censorship and memory-holed search engine results.

Predictably, like dots formulated into patterns on a grid, or in a matrix, so too have trends come into better focus as we continue our monthly trek toward the 2018 Midterm Elections.

As stated by this blogger before, President Donald Trump is the manifestation of one of the following three possibilities:

A.) The Real Thing

B.) Serving the agenda of the global financial elite unwittingly

C.) Controlled opposition as a Judas Goat or Trojan Horse

If B or C, he was installed to bleed the remaining air out of the brake-lines before the big stop; a last gasp, if you will.  America’s death rattle.

If A – then Trump is truly at war against the Financial-Military Industrial Complex, and if he loses, then the musical artist Frank Zappa described what will happen next:

The illusion of freedom will continue as long as it’s profitable to continue the illusion. At the point where the illusion becomes too expensive to maintain, they will just take down the scenery, they will pull back the curtains, they will move the tables and chairs out of the way and you will see the brick wall at the back of the theater.

– Frank Zappa

Therefore, if the war in government is real, the midterm elections would represent a fork-in-the road, so to speak.  If the Republicans do well, Trump could (possibly) be provided some breathing room to continue with his professed agenda.  If, on the other hand, the Democrats win big – it would be perceived as a mandate against Trump, and ensure a further loss of support for the President in the GOP; even as congressional impeachment proceedings commence in the House.

In any case, while traveling toward the approaching fork-in-the-road, it should be no surprise that July was a very eventful month.  In fact, the overall itemized compilation was likely too sizable (over 8,000 words) for most web surfers to process adequately and enjoyably during the course of their busy day.

Consequently, and with that in mind, the FULL LIST for July 1-31, 2018 was compiled and placed right here  should anyone wish to take the time to read it all through.

Accordingly, the items below represented what I consider to be the most identifiable 95 signposts on our mid-summer’s journey to either making America Great Again or into a neo-Orwellian hell on earth.

Again, for the reader’s convenience, the revelations are sorted into the same category headings that were utilized last month and the month prior.  For those blog-rolling on a breakneck blitz and wanting to bypass the piddling incidentals, there are some concluding comments and questions at the very end:

The American Experiment

(Short List # / Full List #)

1 / 4.)  Two days prior to the Fourth of July, vandals threw a brick through the window of the Nebraska Republican Party’s headquarters in Lincoln, Nebraska and spray-painted “ABOLISH ICE” in blood-red capital letters there.

2 / 7.) In the Democratic National Committee’s annual Fourth of July statement, chairman Tom Perez said “our most fundamental values are under attack” and lamented the “problems” of low-paying jobs, health care, immigration, injustice to people of color and members of the LGBTQ community, a recent Supreme Court decision on public unions,  and the retirement of Justice Anthony Kennedy. He also expressed concerns that “thousands of children have been separated from their parents at our southern border,” and added:

At our highest court, workers’ rights are being taken away, voting rights are under assault, Muslim Americans are being discriminated against for their faith, and women’s right to choose is under threat like never before.

3 / 9.) In the aftermath of Rep. Maxine Waters calling for unwarranted harassment of Trump administration officials,  nearly 200 black female leaders and allies wrote a letter to House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer excoriating them for their “failure” to protect Rep. Maxine Waters from “unwarranted attacks from the Trump administration and others in the GOP”.

4 / 11.) A Reuters/Ipsos opinion showed immigration as a top issue for U.S. voters, with the economy as a close second.

5 / 14.)  Texas land owners reported receiving letters from the government notifying them that their land will be surveyed for “tactical infrastructure, such as a border wall”.

6 / 15.) As President Trump nominated U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Brett Kavanaugh for the Supreme Court who believes judges must “interpret the U.S. Constitution as written” and “not make law”, the Democrats, in turn, vowed “the fight of a lifetime” to keep Kavanaugh off the Supreme Court.  Senate Democrats later conspired in a plan to stall Kavanaugh’s nomination process.

7 / 18.) Republican alarm bells were sounded upon reports of Democrats having registered 12 million more voters.

8 / 19.)  It was reported that a huge child-sex-trafficking ring was exposed by Trump’s enforcement of the Zero-Tolerance border policy.

9 / 24.) Non-citizens legally registered to vote in San Francisco school elections as Republicans pushed back against the “noncitizen voting push in liberal jurisdictions”.

10 / 26.) July was revealed to have been a “busy month for illegal immigrants committing heinous crimes” as “an illegal immigrant who had been deported eleven times attacked his wife with a chainsaw in front of their children, another got charged with a series of violent rapes and dozens were arrested for operating a major human and drug smuggling enterprise in a major U.S. city”.

11 / 27.) Authorities in Sioux Falls, South Dakota arrested a 43-year-old man after they found explosive devices at his residence, as well as ammonium nitrate, aluminum powder, firearms, and multiple items related to the anti-fascist militant group, Antifa.

12 / 28.) Students at Lee University in Tennessee petitioned to override Vice President Mike Pence’s First Amendment right because they perceived his political views as being “at odds with Christian values” and accused Pence of “outright bigotry against the working and poor classes, the LGBTQI+ community, immigrants, and the black community”.

13 / 30.) A report from the Migration Policy Institute  found that 22% of the U.S. population does not speak English at home.

14 / 32.)  Donald Trump’s star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame was destroyed with a pickaxe.  The stars of Harvey Weinstein, Bill Cosby, and Kevin Spacey were not damaged in the least.

15 / 33.) As California Rep. Maxine Waters said that Americans should be “out in the streets screaming” about President Trump, a Marine veteran and a man wearing a Trump shirt were violently attacked in Los Angeles.

16 / 35.) According to a new analysis by David Wasserman of the Cook Political Report, the Democrats “remain substantial favorites for House control” because “Republicans are defending 42 open or vacant seats, a record since at least 1930”.

17 / 36.) President Trump tweeted that he would be willing to “shut down” government if the Democrats did not give Republicans the votes for Border Security, which includes the Wall.  He added:

Please understand, there are consequences when people cross our Border illegally, whether they have children or not – and many are just using children for their own sinister purposes. Congress must act on fixing the DUMBEST & WORST immigration laws anywhere in the world! Vote “R”

18 / 37.) Speaker of the House Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell saidborder “wall funding looked unlikely to be included in the current legislation”.

19 / 39.) There were reports of a violent Portland, Oregon Antifa cell planning a “direct confrontation” with participants of an upcoming pro-Trump rally.

20 / 40.) Republican strategists claimed President Trump’s approval was sinking “in some educated, affluent congressional districts with lots of independent voters the party needs to hold the House”.  The “current anguish” of the Republican strategists was due to the fact they have swallowed hook-line-and-sinker the Mainstream Media’s false narratives of “Trump’s decision to separate families crossing illegally into the United States” and “his performance at the Helsinki summit”.

Capitalism & Marxism

21 / 44.)  Democratic National Committee (DNC) chairman, Tom Perez, declared the Socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez  to be the future of the Democratic Party.

22 / 50.) The Census Bureau released data showing the U.S. merchandise trade deficit with China set a record through May, hitting $152,237,500,000 for the first five months of 2018.

23 / 56.) The new darling of the Democratic Party, Socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, said: “Capitalism will not always exist”.

24 / 58.) The Wall Street Journal reported expectations by the Trump administration for annual budget deficits to rise nearly $100 billion more than previously forecast in each of the next three years, pushing the federal deficit above $1 trillion starting next year.

25 / 59.) After President Trump Tweeted that “China, EU are manipulating their currencies” and that “Fed “tightening now hurts all that we have done”, the U.S. dollar tumbled; because truth should be seen but not heard.  Trump also added that “the U.S. should be allowed to recapture what was lost due to illegal currency manipulation and BAD Trade Deals” and said:

Debt coming due & we are raising rates – Really?

26 / 60.)  As the Associated Press (AP) reported that Democratic socialism was surging in the age of Trump, former FBI Director, James Comey, implored his perceived saviors in the Democrat Party to “dump the Socialist Left” because “America’s great middle wants sensible, balanced, ethical leadership”.

27 / 61.) In an interview on CNBC, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass) said that Democrats will end the Trump tax cuts if they take power in November and also promoted a 50% tax hike on American earners.

28 / 64.)  Facebook stock entered bear market territory, losing 20 percent off its 52-week highas the company’s daily active users declined and its worldwide daily user growth slid for its sixth straight quarter.  The more than 100 billion dollar rout was reported as the biggest loss in stock market history.

29 / 65.) Unsurprisingly, The New York Times blamed Russian fake news and the political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica (i.e. alleged scandal of data-harvesting on behalf of Donald Trump) for Facebook’s stock rout instead of the company’s increasingly Orwellian inclinations.

30 / 68.) As America’s second-quarter Gross Domestic Product (GDP) jumped 4.1%, The New York Times warned its readers:  “don’t expect the boom to last” because the growth was skewed by “a surge in soybean shipments” in advance of “President Trump’s trade policies”.

Global Geopolitics

31 / 75.) European Union leaders announced that officials from the EU and China were coming together to strengthen and protect their international trade relations from Trump’s “America First” agenda.

32 / 77.) At the NATO Summit in Belgium on July 11, 2018 President Trump told the Secretary General of NATO that it was “totally unfair to the American taxpayer to have to pay to defend Germany from Russia, only to have Germany turn around a pay billions for fuel to Russia and that “something’s got to be done about this”.

33 / 81.) The New York Times admitted that: “Trump Got From NATO Everything Obama Ever Asked For”.

34 / 83.) In an interview with CBS Evening News anchor Jeff Glor in Scotland, President Trump named the European Union his “biggest foe globally right now”.

35 / 87.)  Knife attacks, gun attacks, rape attacks, and homicide, continued to rapidly rise in England; quite possibly due in part to “Leftist London Mayor Sadiq Khan” doing everything in his power to cut “police stop and search tactics” that have “unfairly targeted minority ethnic groups” before “reversing his stance as crime began to surge”.

36 / 88.) In response to Iranian President Rouhani’s warning to U.S. President Donald Trump that hostile policies could lead to the “mother of all wars”, Trump Tweeted back in all capital letters that Rouhani better stop the threats or suffer historic consequences;  as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, lowered the boom on Putin and put Iran on notice.

37 / 89.)  Two days after he sent an all-caps warning of future conflict with Iran, President Donald Trump “tempered his threatening rhetoric” and said “his administration stands ready for Iran to come back to the negotiating table”.

38 / 91.) The EU chief caved-in to Trump’s art of the deal and pledged to lower trade barriers with the US.

Sex Crimes

39 / 95.)  It was reported that “President Donald Trump’s longtime lawyer, Michael Cohen, secretly recorded a conversation with Trump two months before the presidential election in which they discussed payments to a former Playboy model”.  In response, Trump waived his attorney-client privilege on the secret recordings and Tweeted that he “did nothing wrong”.   It was later reported that U.S. Prosecutors were reviewing 12 audio recordings seized in the April 2018 raid of Cohen’s home, office and hotel room.

40 / 96.) CNN broadcast an audio recording of Presidential Candidate Donald Trump discussing with his attorney Michael Cohen how they would buy the rights to a Playboy model’s story about an alleged affair Trump had with her years earlier.

The President & the Porn Star

41 / 97.) In the investigation of President Trump’s former attorney, Michael Cohen, it was revealed that federal prosecutors had 1.3 million of Cohen’s files.

42 / 98.) President Donald Trump’s longtime lawyer Michael Cohen hired Lanny Davis who once served as special counsel to former President Bill Clinton.

43 / 99.) President Trump’s attorney and spokesman, Rudy Giuliani, said Trump’s former attorney Michael Cohen should cooperate with federal investigators.

The President, Lawyers, Spies, & Media Lies

44 / 101.) Ten days after Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC) told Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein to release whatever evidence he had in the Russia investigation and “finish it the hell up because this country is being torn apart”, Special Counsel Robert Mueller tapped even more prosecutors to help with his growing Trump probe.  According to Bloomberg’s update on the inquisition of Trump’s suspected treason with Russia:

…more money is being spent on work done by permanent Department of Justice units than on Mueller’s own dedicated operation. The DOJ units spent $9 million from the investigation’s start in May 2017 through March of this year, compared with $7.7 million spent by Mueller’s team.

45 / 103.) In apparent “violation of Justice Department policies and, perhaps, legal prohibitions on disclosure of grand jury secrets”, claims were bolstered that AP reporters and FBI agents colluded in a conspiracy  against Trump’s former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort.

46 / 106.) During Peter Strzok’s testimony to Congress, Jim Jordon (R-Ohio) got the former FBI agent to admit that the FBI received the Hillary Clinton Funded “Golden Shower” dossier on Trump from the FBI’s Bruce Orr (whose wife worked for Fusion GPS) – which was an astounding admission on internal collusion – before Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) interrupted the exchange.

47 / 107.) Republican Rep. Louie Gohmert of Texas said during the hearing with former FBI official, Peter Strzok, that the Inspector General discovered that nearly all of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s emails were sent to a foreign entity and that the FBI didn’t follow-up on that finding.

48 / 108.) Furthermore, it was revealed that Strzok, himself, actually knew Clinton’s emails were in the hands of a foreign entity, that a whistleblower from the State Department tried delivering significant evidence in the Clinton email investigation which went nowhere, and that Inspector General, Michael Horowitz, was called four times from someone wanting to brief him about this, and he never returned the call.

49 / 109.) In an effort to divert publicity away from the Capitol Hill testimony of disgraced FBI agent Peter Strzok, and to subvert President Trump’s efforts toward peace with Russia, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein announced the Mueller Investigation’s single indictment of Twelve Russian intelligence officers for alleged election hacking under President Obama’s watch; even though, according to Rosenstein , “no American was a knowing participant” in the Russian efforts to influence the 2016 election and there was “no allegation in the indictment of any effect on the outcome of the election” .

50 / 110.) Regarding the Russia indictment, President Trump Tweeted questions as to “why didn’t Obama do something”, especially when it was reported that President Obama was informed by the FBI in September [2016], before the election”.  Trump also Tweeted these questions:  “Where is the DNC Server, and why didn’t the FBI take possession of it? Deep State?

51 / 111.) In the wake of Robert Mueller’s 29-page (evidence free) indictment of 12 Russians for election hacking, some in the media once more began to question the extent of American involvement.

52 / 112.) The veteran GOP political operative, Roger Stone, said he was the ‘US person’ mentioned in the Mueller indictment of the 12 Russians.

53 / 113.) Initial  claims were made that Republicans were preparing to impeach Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein because they felt Rosenstein had “continually stonewalled their investigation into corruption at the FBI” but Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) later ruled out the possibility of impeaching Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, saying there was “not enough support for his ouster”.

54 / 114.)  In the aftermath of FBI agent Peter Strzok’s appearance before Congress, the full Editorial Board of The Wall Street Journal said: “President Trump will have to declassify a host of documents if he wants Americans to learn the truth about what happened in 2016”.

55 / 120.) In the press conference following the Trump-Putin meeting in Helsinki, Trump shocked the Mainstream Media by again raising legitimate (and still unanswered) questions regarding the Democratic National Committee’s missing server and Hillary Clinton’s missing emails; as Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed U.S. intelligence agents funneled $400 Million to the Hillary Clinton Campaign.

56 / 121.) The AP later reported on Trump’s “week of walk-backs” on Russia and the Federal Reserve and cited the Russian general prosecutor’s office retraction of Vladimir Putin’s claims of his Helsinki reference to $400 million being funneled to Hillary Clinton because, according to the AP:  “The notion of a $400 million donation to the Democrat’s campaign would be out of the question”.

57 / 122.)  In the immediate aftermath of the Trump-Putin meeting, the Obama Administration’s CIA director, John Brennan, charged that President Trump’s post-summit press conference with Russia President Vladimir Putin was an act of treason; as disgraced former FBI Director, James Comey, called for a coup against the sitting president by means of patriots standing up and rejecting Trump’s behavior.

58 / 123.) In a continuing effort to demonstrate his unquestionable professionalism and complete lack of bias, former FBI Director, James Comey, also Tweeted that “anyone voting Republican this fall is un-American”.

59 / 125.) “Just days after special counsel Robert Mueller charged 12 Russian intelligence officials with directing a sprawling hacking effort aimed at swaying the 2016 election” and “just hours after President Donald Trump met with Russian President Vladimir Putin”, federal prosecutors charged an alleged Russian agent and “Gun Rights Activist”, named Maria Butina, for using the National Rifle Association (NRA) as a conduit to influence members of the Republican Party.  It was later discovered that Butina had high-level contacts in Washington DC; even taking part in 2015 meetings between a visiting Russian official and two senior officials at the U.S. Federal Reserve and Treasury Department.

60 / 126.) In the wake of the Trump-Putin meeting, Russia’s elite and media celebrated the meeting as victory for Putin and “an end to the West’s attempt to isolate Russia”, as U.S. cable news networks saw “the apocalypse”, Trump as a worse-case-scenario Russian mole, and Trump’s performance as an act that will ‘Live in Infamy’ as much as Pearl Harbor or Kristallnacht.

61 / 132.) During a Q&A with CNN’s Lester Holt at the Aspen Security Forum, FBI Chief Christopher Wray threatened to quit if Trump invited Russian agents to the U.S. and said:

I do not believe Special Counsel Mueller is on a witch hunt. I think it is a professional investigation conducted by a man I’ve known to be a straight shooter.

62 / 137.) As it was announced that Special Counsel Robert Mueller would give Democratic lobbyist, Tony Podesta, immunity to testify against Trump’s former campaign chair, Paul Manafort, claims were made that the Deep State was “using the Mueller probe to protect Clinton insiders from criminal investigation”.

63 / 139.) An author by the name of Tim Wiener, who won the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award for reporting and writing on American intelligence, wrote the following in a Reuters commentary:

…Trump has made real enemies in the realm of American national security. He has struck blows against their empire. One way or another, the empire will strike back.

64 / 140.) The Wall Street Journal identified former CIA Director John Brennan as an “Obama-Clinton partisan” who “was pushing information to the FBI and pressuring it to act” and who “then took the lead on shaping the narrative that Russia was interfering in the election… which quickly evolved into the Trump-collusion narrative”.

65 / 141.) Former Director of National Intelligence (DNI) James Clapper admitted in a CNN interview that former President Obama instigated the ongoing investigations into Donald Trump and those in his orbit.

66 / 142.)  In an example of apparent selective cooperation, the Department of Justice released a heavily redacted copy of the Carter Page FISA warrant application and several renewals to The New York Times, which accused Page of being a Russian spy; even though Page hasn’t been charged in the nearly two years since the application was filed with any of the allegations contained therein.

67 / 143.) The National Review’s Andrew McCarthy described why the FISA applications on Carter Page confirmed the FBI’s reliance on the unverified Steele Dossier.

68 / 145.) As the DoJ released the redacted FISA applications on former Trump aide Carter Page, President Trump Tweeted that it was “Looking more & more like the Trump Campaign for President was illegally being spied upon (surveillance) for the political gain of Crooked Hillary Clinton and the DNC”, before Republican Senator Marco Rubio refuted Trump’s contentions by telling CBS’s “Face the Nation” that he “wouldn’t consider that spying on a campaign”.  Rubio’s soundbite refutation was then conveniently proliferated all throughout the mainstream media to counter the reporting of Trump’s Tweet on Spygate.

69 / 146.) Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) said during a Fox News Sunday interview that President Donald Trump’s advisers should consider leaving the White House if Trump “continues to publicly disparage the nation’s intelligence community and cast doubt on the evidence that Russia interfered in the 2016 election” before saying:  “if there were any evidence that President Trump committed any crime with regard to Russia, [the Ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee] Adam Schiff would have leaked it”.

70 / 147.)  It was reported that President Trump was looking into revoking the security clearances of several top Obama-era intelligence and law enforcement officials, including former FBI Director James Comey, former Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe, former CIA Director John Brennan, former National Security Adviser Susan Rice and former Director of National Security Michael Hayden (who worked under President George W. Bush).  Of course, Congress pushed back against revoking the clearances.

71 / 149.) The New York Times reported that Special Counsel Robert Mueller was now examining President Trump’s tweets in a wide-ranging Obstruction of Justice inquiry.  But the times did not identify Mueller in that article as the man who delivered highly enriched stolen uranium to Russia in 2009 on behalf of Hillary Clinton.

72 / 150.)  Pursuant to # 53 / 113 above, Republicans began impeachment proceedings against Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein before backing down once again; this time saying “contempt charges will do”.

73 / 153.) As the New York Times publisher A.G. Sulzberger warned President Trump about his “divisive but increasingly dangerous” language that could generate “potential” violence against reporters, it was reported that The New York Times had ignored over 538 violent attacksagainst Trump supporters since the 2016 election season.

74 / 154.) In another Tweetstorm, President Donald Trump challenged Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s “conflicts of interest” and questioned why Mueller wasn’t “looking at all of the criminal activity & real Russian Collusion” by the Democrats.

Guns R Us

75 / 157.) Just as a headlined-link on The Drudge Report revealed porn websites as dominating online traffic rankings for all internet categories in United States, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared sex addiction a mental-health disorder termed ‘compulsive sexual behaviour’.

76 / 158.) It was reported that the United States, under United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley, had signed on to a measure to track every gun in America.

77 / 159.) Ontario police identified the man responsible for a shooting rampage in Toronto’s Greektown as Faisal Hussain. The Islamic State (ISIS) claimed responsibility for the shooting.  In response to the shooting, Toronto Mayor John Tory told reporters the city has a gun problem, with weapons too readily available to too many people.

78 / 160.) Since the tragic shooting in Parkland Florida in February 2018, the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence has tracked and recorded a whopping 55 new gun control measures in 26 states.

Big Brother Cometh

79 / 162.) Because a Democratic Party caucus server was replaced by a look-alike, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) stated there was “no evidence” that house computer systems were compromised by Pakistani-American information technology worker Imran Awan.  The judge presiding over the case was Tanya Chutka, who was appointed by Obama after years of contributing to him, was a partner at a very Clinton-friendly law firm, and her husband was also appointed by Obama to the D.C. Superior Court in 2011.

80 / 163.) On July 4th, 2018 it was reported that a Facebook algorithm flagged the Declaration of Independence as hate speech. Ten days later, Facebook’s non-biased algorithms also censored a new gospel song, entitled “What Would Heaven Look Like”, for political content.

81 / 165.) It was revealed that Facebook uses foreign state-run news outlets to online fact-check U.S. “conservative sites into oblivion”.

82 / 167.) In the aftermath of Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) claiming that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein had “personally redacted information and threatened House Intelligence Committee staffers” and Republican Texas Rep. Louie Gohmert telling a TV morning show that he believed government personnel working for Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein were spying on his office, NBC News reported the following:

Powerful GOP Rep. Jim Jordan accused of turning blind eye to sexual abuse as Ohio State wrestling coach

“It’s sad for me to hear that he’s denying,” said one former wrestler. “I don’t know why he would, unless it’s a cover-up.”

83 / 168.)  It was later reported that the law firm investigating the accusations against Jim Jordan were also involved in the FISA abuse scandal by assisting both the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee to fund the now discredited Steele Dossier.

84 / 173.) After the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics announced that Hispanic unemployment in the United States had reached its lowest level ever, in the 45 years since the agency first started keeping records on the statistic, the findings were ignored by the Spanish television networks, Univision and Telemundo.

85 / 179.) Jack Burkman, a Washington-based attorney and lobbyist who has worked with a private investigative team to find the killer of DNC staffer, Seth Rich, claimed to have found a “credible” witness who will identify the murderers as “a current DEA (Drug Enforcement Administration) agent” and a “current ATF (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives) agent”.

86 / 186.) Lawmakers clashed during a contentious hearing over claims that social media platforms and tech companies are biased against conservative viewpoints.

87 / 188.)  Rick Newman, a Senior Columnist for the Finance Division of 5th most visited online platform in the world said President Trump made “Hillary Clinton and her husband Bill look like ethical exemplars” and lamented “Trump’s knifing of American law-enforcement agencies, while on a podium at the Helsinki “summit” with American enemy Vladimir Putin”.

88 / 190.) Just two days after Twitter told Congress that they aren’t politically biased when censoring content, the online social media platform was caught censoring conservative journalists with site-wide shadowbans.

89 / 191.) Days later, it was again reported that Twitter was shadow-banning prominent Republicans including the RNC chair and Trump Jr.’s spokesman.

90 / 192.) President Donald Trump accused Twitter regarding the company’s “discriminatory and illegal practice,” and vowed in a tweet to “look into” the matter and Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA), the Chair of the House Intelligence Committee, said he was looking at “legal remedies” to deal with Twitter’s censorship of conservatives.

91 / 193.)  A study for the House Judiciary’s Constitution & Civil Justice Subcommittee showed that Facebook has eliminated 93% of traffic to top conservative websites since the 2016 election.

92 / 195.) In early July, “it came out that among Facebook’s myriad algorithmically induced advertising categories was an entry for users whom the platform’s data mining systems believed might be interested in treason against their government”, causing a contributor writing for Forbes Magazine to question if Facebook was the “ultimate government surveillance tool”.

93 / 196.) New York Governor Andrew Cuomo revealed that facial recognition camerasinstalled at bridge and tunnel toll plazas across New York City were scanning every driver’s face and feeding them into a massive database.

94 / 198.)  A study revealed that immigration had received more airtime on the three broadcast evening news shows than any other policy topic during the 18 months of the Trump presidency with 92% “relentlessly hostile to the administration” and “just 8% positive” while all networks “virtually ignored law enforcement or anyone harmed by illegal immigration”.

95 / 208.) Twitter hired academics from institutions including Oxford University and the University of Amsterdam to study the spread of “hate speech” and combat “intolerant discourse”. Of course, the woman selected to help Twitter develop the algorithm which will target the “hate speech” was reported as a hardcore leftist who hates President Donald Trump.

Conclusion

America continues to break apart as the Political Left grows increasingly unhinged and, now, more violent.  Immigration and the battle for the Supreme Court further divide the country just as Socialism now threatens a burgeoning rift within the Democratic Party.

On the economic front, interest rates continued to rise as deficits soared and rumors of trade wars, and threats of literal wars, created a sense of impending unease around the world.

As the Political Left leveled accusations against Trump for alienating allies while coddling to Russia’s Putin, Trump’s domestic battle raged on across many fronts – from Cohen and sex crimes, to the ongoing work of Special Counsel Robert Mueller and Attorney Rod Rosenstein as they continue to fabricate a political gallows and knot an imaginary rope into a legal noose around the President’s neck.

Nevertheless, as the nation divides in two like Sean Hannity’s and Rachel Maddow’s childhood friends at a junior high dance, Big Brother runs forward, unencumbered, and with ever-accelerating  speed; in an obvious race to the inevitable finish-line at the end of nowhere good.

In the full compilation of 209 transitional revelations for July, and according to this blogger, 28 could be considered making America (and/or the world) great again, with 27 as being neutral or questionable, and 154 as representing the ever-accelerating slide into Orwellian hell.  These counts were 32, 8, and 104 last month and 40, 8, and 75, respectively, the month prior.

Does it appear the nation is transitioning in the right direction?  Or is it too soon to tell?

Can even a fork in the road make a difference at this point for good or bad?

We’re about to find out.

In the meantime, prepare to round the next corner toward the midterm elections in a final thrust.

It’s August.

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US Tech Giants Are Too Big, Too Powerful, & Now Are Running Into Serious Trouble

ORIGINAL LINK

Within Google, knowledge about Dragonfly has been restricted to just a few hundred members of the internet giant’s 88,000-strong workforce, said a source with knowledge of the project. The source spoke to The Intercept on condition of anonymity, as they were not authorized to contact the media. The source said that they had moral and ethical concerns about Google’s role in the censorship, which is being planned by a handful of top executives and managers at the company with no public scrutiny.

“I’m against large companies and governments collaborating in the oppression of their people, and feel like transparency around what’s being done is in the public interest,” the source said, adding that they feared “what is done in China will become a template for many other nations.”

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We're to forgive Moonves but crucify Trump?

ORIGINAL LINK

A cadre of former Trump haters was recently asked about the president’s past sins, which include allegations of sexual improprieties, one-night stands and/or affairs with women. To this House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi replied (parentheses mine):

“I do not believe that it is my place to question the accounts put forth by the women, but I do find myself asking that if we are examining (his) industry (building & entertainment) as it existed decades before through the lens of 2018, should we also discuss a path to learning, reconciliation and forgiveness?”

Rep. Maxine Waters chimed in:

“To reach a point where we can accept some space between zero accountability and complete destruction, we must first grapple with the issue of equivalency. If we paint episodes of vulgar and deeply regrettable behavior from (a decade or more) ago with the same brush as serial criminal behavior, we will never move forward and, more importantly, we eschew the complicated nuances of context for the easier path of absolutes.”

“The View’s” Joy Behar summed things up:

“Outrage is a valuable commodity … but its usefulness can be diminished by overuse. And understanding and learning from the past is the only way towards a future that reflects real change.”

These calls for civility, forgiveness and understanding for a man accused of sexual harassment over a decade ago, but who has been a champion of women, promoting them in a field that had previously barred them from holding positions of power and influence, unfortunately were not made in reference to Trump.

No! All of the above was in a statement from CBS Films President Terry Press in defense of CBS Corporation chairman and CEO Les Moonves who was accused of sexual misconduct by six women. It followed even more forceful statements of support by CBS executives, ad sales chief Jo Ann Ross and head of daytime Angelica McDaniel.

This was not unlike the statements of support from females in Congress and other positions of influence for Bill Clinton after he was impeached for charges related to his sexual involvement with an intern, no less, in the hallowed Oval Office.

Clinton was viewed by his supporters as just too valuable to the country, in general, and the women’s movement, in particular, to be hoisted on his own petard.

Isn’t it a shame that our current president, who has done so much to turn this country around, while taking no salary for his work as the nation’s chief executive, isn’t given the same consideration? After all, the charges against him are at least a decade or more old and don’t involve the workplace.

Men like Moonves, post-Clinton, probably will not survive. Some shouldn’t. However, to allow Moonves to be forgiven would, indeed, be viewed as a double standard for those who hate Trump so much that they now believe any past sexual sins should disqualify him from holding the highest office in the land. They want Trump impeached so badly many seem willing to believe any charge, no matter how spurious, how ludicrous or how old, just to justify their claim against the president’s legitimacy.

Trump, like Moonves, is from another era, where men often measured their manhood against their ability to seduce women. Even if they had no intention of doing anything improper, they were often guilty of bragging about this ability to other men. Some of these men actually viewed making suggestive remarks or flirting as a way to give a woman a compliment. I’ve encountered my share. Smart women either changed jobs, ignored these clumsy advances or found a way to let a man know this was not acceptable while letting him keep his dignity.

However, none of the women who claim Trump had affairs with them or one-night stands or gave them unwanted attention were his employees as was the case with Moonves. In fact, many sought his attention.

Trump is well-known for promoting women in his industry, like Louise Sunshine who rose to executive vice president of the Trump organization. Sunshine worked for Trump for 15 years and has admitted that he often chided her about her appearance. However, she wasn’t offended. She said, “It was a reminder that I wasn’t perfect. … It was just his way.”

They and the others who were promoted by Trump defend him to the hilt and forgave him for his imperfections. Isn’t it time the rest of the country took a deep breath and did the same?

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Ralph Peters: Trump's Treatment of Press Akin to Goebbels, Stalin

ORIGINAL LINK
Tuesday, on CNN’s “Anderson Cooper 360,” author and former Fox News Strategic Analyst Lt. Col. Ralph Peters (Ret.) likened President Donald Trump’s treatment of the press to how Joseph Stalin and Joseph Goebbels attacked the press. “Anderson, consider what a brilliant move it is to attack the press as the ‘enemy of the people,'” Peters told host Anderson Cooper. “Instead of having the spotlight on Trump and his alleged misdeeds — on his daily misdeeds against this country, it turns against the press, the ‘lügenpresse,’ as Goebbels would have said, or the ‘enemy of the people.’ ‘Enemy of the people’ is a loaded term. It does go back to Roman times. But in the modern era, the first person I can find that really used it was Robespierre in the French Revolution, master of the guillotine.” He continued, “Under Stalin, during the purges, if you were called an enemy of the people, it was a death sentence. And given all of Trump’s other ties to Russia and things Russian and people associated with Russia, it hardly seems a coincidence that he calls our press the ‘enemy of the people.'” Follow Trent Baker on Twitter @MagnifiTrent

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The Number Of Americans Living In Their Vehicles “Explodes” As The Middle Class Continues To Disappear

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If the U.S. economy is really doing so well, then why is homelessness rising so rapidly?  As the gap between the rich and the poor continues to increase, the middle class is steadily eroding.  In fact, I recently gave my readers 15 signs that the middle class in America is being systematically destroyed.  More Americans are falling out of the middle class and into poverty with each passing day, and this is one of the big reasons why the number of homeless is surging.  For example, the number of people living on the street in L.A. has shot up 75 percent over the last 6 years.  But of course L.A. is far from alone.  Other major cities on the west coast are facing similar problems, and that includes Seattle.  It turns out that the Emerald City has seen a 46 percent rise in the number of people sleeping in their vehicles in just the past year…

The number of people who live in their vehicles because they can’t find affordable housing is on the rise, even though the practice is illegal in many U.S. cities.

The number of people residing in campers and other vehicles surged 46 percent over the past year, a recent homeless census in Seattle’s King County, Washington found. The problem is “exploding” in cities with expensive housing markets, including Los Angeles, Portland and San Francisco, according to Governing magazine.

Amazon, Microsoft and other big tech companies are in the Seattle area.  It is a region that is supposedly “prospering”, and yet this is going on.

Sadly, it isn’t just major urban areas that are seeing more people sleeping in their vehicles.  Over in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, many of the homeless sleep in their vehicles even in the middle of winter…

Stephanie Monroe, managing director of Children Youth & Family Services at Volunteers of America, Dakotas, tells a similar story. At least 25 percent of the non-profit’s Sioux Falls clients have lived in their vehicles at some point, even during winter’s sub-freezing temperatures.

“Many of our communities don’t have formal shelter services,” she said in an interview. “It can lead to individuals resorting to living in their cars or other vehicles.”

It is time to admit that we have a problem.  The number of homeless in this country is surging, and we need to start coming up with some better solutions.

But instead, many communities are simply passing laws that make it illegal for people to sleep in their vehicles…

A recent survey by the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty (NLCHP), which tracks policies in 187 cities, found the number of prohibitions against vehicle residency has more than doubled during the last decade.

Those laws aren’t going to solve anything.

At best, they will just encourage some of the homeless to go somewhere else.

And if our homelessness crisis is escalating this dramatically while the economy is supposedly “growing”, how bad are things going to be once the next recession officially begins?

We live at a time when the cost of living is soaring but our paychecks are not.  As a result, middle class families are being squeezed like never before.

A recent Marketwatch article highlighted the plight of California history teacher Matt Barry and his wife Nicole…

Barry’s wife, Nicole, teaches as well — they each earn $69,000, a combined salary that not long ago was enough to afford a comfortable family life. But due to the astronomical costs in his area, including real estate — a 1,500-square-foot “starter home” costs $680,000 — driving for Uber was a necessity.

“Teachers are killing themselves,” Barry says in Alissa Quart’s new book, “Squeezed: Why Our Families Can’t Afford America” (Ecco), out Tuesday. “I shouldn’t be having to drive Uber at eight o’clock at night on a weekday. I just shut down from the mental toll: grading papers between rides, thinking of what I could be doing instead of driving — like creating a curriculum.”

Home prices are completely out of control, but that bubble should soon burst.

However, other elements of our cost of living are only going to become even more painful.  Health care costs rise much faster than the rate of inflation every year, food prices are becoming incredibly ridiculous, and the cost of a college education is off the charts.  According to author Alissa Quart, living a middle class life is “30% more expensive” than it was two decades ago…

“Middle-class life is now 30% more expensive than it was 20 years ago,” Quart writes, citing the costs of housing, education, health care and child care in particular. “In some cases the cost of daily life over the last 20 years has doubled.”

And thanks to the trade war, prices are going to start going up more rapidly than we have seen in a very long time.

On Tuesday, we learned that diaper and toilet paper prices are rising again…

Procter & Gamble said on Tuesday that it was in the process of raising Pampers’ prices in North America by 4%. P&G also began notifying retailers this week that it would increase the average prices of Bounty, Charmin, and Puffs by 5%.

P&G is raising prices because commodity and transportation cost pressures are intensifying. The hikes to Bounty and Charmin will go into effect in late October, and Puffs will become more expensive beginning early next year.

I wish that I had better news for you, but I don’t.  We are all going to have to work harder, smarter and more efficiently.  And we are definitely going to have to tighten our belts.

Many middle class families are relying on debt to get them from month to month, and consumer debt in the United States has surged to an all-time high.  But eventually a day of reckoning comes, and we all understand that.

The U.S. economy is not going to be getting any better than it is right now.  So it is time to be a lean, mean saving machine, because it will be important to have a financial cushion for the hard times that are ahead of us.

Michael Snyder is a nationally syndicated writer, media personality and political activist. He is publisher of The Most Important News and the author of four books including The Beginning Of The End and Living A Life That Really Matters.

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