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CIA Ex-Director Brennan’s Perjury Peril By Paul Sperry

Posted By on February 13th, 2018

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes next plans to investigate the role former CIA Director John Brennan and other Obama intelligence officials played in promoting the salacious and unverified Steele dossier on Donald Trump — including whether Brennan perjured himself in public testimony about it.

In his May 2017 testimony before the intelligence panel, Brennan emphatically denied the dossier factored into the intelligence community’s publicly released conclusion last year that Russia meddled in the 2016 election “to help Trump’s chances of victory.”

Brennan also swore that he did not know who commissioned the anti-Trump research document (excerpt here), even though senior national security and counterintelligence officials at the Justice Department and FBI knew the previous year that the dossier was funded by the Hillary Clinton campaign.

Last week, Nunes (R-Calif.) released a declassified memo exposing surveillance “abuses” by the Obama DOJ and FBI in their investigation of Trump’s ties to Russia. It said the agencies relied heavily on the uncorroborated dossier to take out a warrant to secretly surveil a Trump adviser in the heat of the 2016 presidential election, even though they were aware the underlying “intelligence” supporting the wiretap order was political opposition research funded by Clinton allies — a material fact they concealed from FISA court judges in four separate applications.
Rep. Devin Nunes.
AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File

Nunes plans to soon release a separate report detailing the Obama State Department’s role in creating and disseminating the dossier — which has emerged as the foundation of the Obama administration’s Russia “collusion” investigation. Among other things, the report will identify Obama-appointed diplomats who worked with partisan operatives close to Hillary Clinton to help ex-British spy Christopher Steele compile the dossier, sources say.

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Vanessa Trump Taken to Hospital After Opening Envelope with Mystery Powder “How disturbed must a person be to do what they did to a mother of five young children?” Mark Tapson

Posted By on February 13th, 2018

Vanessa Trump, wife of Donald Trump, Jr. was taken to the hospital earlier today after opening an envelope filled with a suspicious powder, according to ABC News. She was examined at New York Presbyterian-Weill Cornell Medical Center as a precaution, where she was tested and released. She and two others were also decontaminated at her apartment before being taken to the hospital.

The envelope was sent from Boston and addressed to Mrs. Trump’s husband, Donald Trump Jr. It included what sources describe as a threatening letter describing Trump Jr. as a terrible person and indicating that the sender was angry.

NYPD spokesman J. Peter Donald said:

“The substance was deemed to be nonhazardous and is being transported to a lab in New York City for further analysis.”

More specifically, the substance was identified as cornstarch.

The Secret Service also weighed in:

“The Secret Service and our law enforcement partners in New York City are investigating a suspicious package addressed to one of our protectees received today in New York, New York. This is an active investigation and we cannot comment any further.”

The Left, of course, found the targeting of Donald Trump, Jr.’s wife to be nothing more than a setup for jokes or even a right-wing conspiracy. Witness a few of the reactions on Twitter, courtesy of Paul Joseph Watson at InfoWars:

President Trump’s personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, said: “How disturbed must a person be to do what they did to a mother of five young children? This dangerous and reckless act goes beyond political differences.”

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The Fake National Security Behind Obama’s Watergate What the fake claims of national security are really hiding.Daniel Greenfield

Posted By on February 13th, 2018

Before the Nunes memo was released, Democrats, the media and its intelligence sources insisted that it would undermine national security, reveal tradecraft secrets and even get agents killed.

Senator Cory Booker warned that it might be treasonously “endangering fellow Americans in the intelligence community.” It was, but not in the way that he meant. The memo didn’t have anything resembling classified information it. Neither did the Grassley-Graham criminal referral which was heavily redacted to screen out all the “classified information.” What did the classified information consist of?

The Grassley-Graham criminal referral went through two FBI redactions. Julie Kelly at American Greatness compared the two versions to see what was hidden.

Most of the redactions in the first version, that were exposed in the second version, involved the problems with the FISA warrant application’s reliance on Christopher Steele. The references to the FISA warrant, which is classified, allowed figures in the FBI to redact it. But none of the references reveal anything damaging to our national security. They do raise serious questions about the FBI’s actions.

The FBI redacted the fact that the FISA warrant was thoroughly based on the Clinton-Steele dossier. Even if the FISA application is classified, Clinton opposition research isn’t. The FBI redacted the accusation that the FISA warrant had failed to state that Steele had been working for the Clinton campaign. That certainly isn’t classified information though it took a lot of work to expose.

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IMMIGRATION ANARCHISTS’ LIES DEBUNKED It’s as easy as child’s play. Michael Cutler

Posted By on February 13th, 2018

So much of what has come to pass for “common knowledge” is actually an example of how the principle of “The Big Lie” can alter the public’s understanding of critical issues. Immigration has proven to be particularly vulnerable to this tactic.

Under that principle, officials intentionally concoct falsehoods and repeat them at every possible opportunity to convince the masses that the lies are the truth. This principle was adopted by Nazi Germany in order to con the German populace into accepting the unfathomable depravity of the Third Reich.

Because humans think with words, control of language ultimately results in control of thought. This was the underlying principle of my recent article, Language Wars, The Road to Tyranny is Paved With Language Censorship.

Today the attention span of most Americans can be measured in minutes, if not seconds, further exacerbating the susceptibility of folks to fall victim to language manipulation tactics. The tactics employed by the open-borders/immigration anarchists to further their cause are so easy to disprove that even a child could see through their warped logic.

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Cuba Claims Justin Trudeau Is Fidel Castro’s Son

Posted By on February 13th, 2018

The suicide note left by Fidel Castro’s eldest son has rocked the Cuban nation this week, with the most astonishing revelation being the claim that Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was his half-brother and the son of the late Fidel Castro.

The handwritten note left by Fidel Castro Diaz-Balart, 68, the eldest of Fidel Castro’s children, appears to confirm the longstanding rumor in Cuba that Fidel Castro fathered Justin Trudeau after a public tryst with Margaret Trudeau in 1970.

“Castro Diaz-Balart, who had been attended by a group of doctors for several months due to a state of profound depression, committed suicide this morning,” Cubadebate website reported.

The death of the high-profile government nuclear scientist, also known as “Fidelito”, or Little Fidel, because of how much he looked like his father, stunned the nation, however it is his “explosive” suicide note that has set tongues wagging in Havana.

Amid a wide-ranging barrage of complaints, the note suggests Fidelito was angry with his late father, the revolutionary Cuban dictator. Fidelito wrote that his father, Fidel Castro, was “always comparing me unfavorably with Justin” and “dismissing my achievements in comparison to his success in Canada.“

“But what was I to do? I am Cuban. My brother is Canadian. If he was born and raised in Cuba, he would have lived in our father’s shadow forever just like me.”

While Justin Trudeau is famously known as the son of Canada’s liberal former Prime Minister, Pierre Trudeau, comparison images of Pierre, Justin and Fidel suggest there may be something to the Cuban claims.

Strong physical resemblance aside, the Cuban rumors are also backed up by historical fact.

While Justin Trudeau’s birthplace of Ottawa, Canada may be a long way from Havana, his mother Margaret Trudeau visited Cuba nine months before Justin was born, and there are photographs of her socializing with Fidel Castro.

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Israel innovation makes up half of Merck healthcare revenue, top official says Kai Beckmann, CEO of Performance Materials at Merck, says ‘our collaboration has deep roots’ as the German pharma and chemical giant expands Jerusalem lab By Shoshanna Solomon

Posted By on February 12th, 2018

Israeli innovation is behind almost half of the healthcare revenues of the 350-year-old German pharmaceutical and chemicals firm Merck, Kai Beckmann, CEO of Performance Materials at the firm, said in an interview on Tuesday.

“Roughly almost half of (our) healthcare revenue is based on innovation stemming from Israel,” Beckmann said. “This tells us a lot of the story of how important” Israel is to Merck.

The Rebif drug marketed by Merck to help decrease the frequency of relapse symptoms of multiple sclerosis had sales of some 1.7 billion euros in 2016, while the Erbitux drug for patients with cancer of the head and neck, also based on Israeli technology, had global sales of around €1 billion, he said.

Merck’s range of products includes biopharmaceutical therapies for cancer and MS, and liquid crystals for smartphones and LCD televisions. The founding family remains the majority owner of the publicly listed corporate group, which was established in 1668.

Beckmann spoke with The Times of Israel as the German giant, which employs 52,000 employees globally and had total sales of €15 billion in 2016, inaugurated on Tuesday a new technology innovation laboratory at its subsidiary, Qlight Nanotech in Jerusalem, which it bought in mid-2015 to boost its expertise in liquid crystal display materials and OLED materials.

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Peter Smith We All Have Skin in the Immigrant Game

Posted By on February 12th, 2018

Our prosperous and free Western societies can absorb large numbers of those with different outlooks on work and life. But there are limits. Only the terminally daft believe, let alone advocate, that an open borders approach to immigration will produce anything but discord, division and woe.

Nancy Pelosi set some kind of record for talking in the US House of Representatives. Over eight hours straight apparently, reading letter after letter from illegal immigrants. I’ll venture a guess that she didn’t read anything from the many American parents who have lost a child to the activities of illegals. Mind you, she has to be congratulated for staying awake, on her feet in high heels, while all those about her succumbed to dozing off.

This comment from her marathon performance took the cake.

“I’m reminded of my own grandson. He is Irish, English, whatever, whatever, and Italian-American, he is a mix. But he looks more the other side of the family, shall we say. And when he had his sixth birthday… he had a very close friend whose name is Antonio, he’s from Guatemala. And he has beautiful tan skinned, beautiful brown eyes, and this was a proud day for me, because when my grandson blew out the candles on his cake, they said did you make a wish?

He said yes, he made a wish. What is your wish? I wish I had brown skin and brown eyes like Antonio.

So beautiful. So beautiful. The beauty is in the mix. The face of the future for our country is all-American. And that has many versions.”

Leave aside the fact that Pelosi’s mind is unfathomable. I’d like to mess with her story.

I want little Antonio to wish that he were white and blue-eyed, just like Ms Pelosi’s grandson. Now that’s a story she could have conjured with. White envy. Inferiority complexes among the brown young. Yet more evidence of white supremacism insidiously infecting the very young.

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Turkey’s Operation in Northern Syria by Sirwan Kajjo

Posted By on February 12th, 2018

The evolving U.S.-Kurdish partnership has alarmed Turkey. Ankara fears that establishing a Kurdish-led entity on its southern borders would empower its restive Kurdish population, particularly PKK fighters.

Washington needs to ensure that its Kurdish partners on the ground are protected and not distracted from the main mission, which is defeating terror in Syria.

Turkey’s offensive against Syrian Kurds will serve only to aggravate the multi-layered conflict in Syria, making it even harder for international interlocutors to bring an end to the seven-year civil war and secure a much-needed political settlement for the country.

A Turkish assault against Kurdish forces in Syria, such as the ongoing one, was expected by everyone, including the U.S.

Now, three weeks into its controversial offensive against a Kurdish enclave in northern Syria, Turkey’s military is facing fierce resistance from the U.S.-backed Kurdish fighters in the city of Afrin.

Observing the daily operations since they began on January 20, it is noticeable that the Turkish military and its allied Syrian rebels, backed by Turkish air support, have made little progress in taking control of Kurdish-held territory — the main objective behind Ankara’s decision to launch the offensive in Syria.

So far, Turkey’s advances have not gone beyond seizing a number of villages along its border with Syria, according to local sources.

Since mid-2012, the Afrin region in northwestern Syria has been controlled by the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG). That occurred after the withdrawal of Syrian regime troops, which then began to focus on fighting rebel forces elsewhere in the country.

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Death of Democracy? – Part II by Denis MacEoin

Posted By on February 12th, 2018

The irony, of course, is that so many people, have adopted a way of interpreting human rights and liberal values in a manner that often undermines them.

It is time for some home truths. Islam has been at war with the West for some 1,384 years, with very little respite. When Muslim Arab armies invaded Syria in 634, went on to destroy all but a rump of the Christian Byzantine empire (which it finally defeated when the Ottoman Turks conquered Constantinople in 1453), took control of Spain, Portugal, Sicily and other lands on the north Mediterranean coast, it was the start of endless jihad wars.

Most importantly, we seem unable to understand that Islam is, above all else, a totalitarian project covering all aspects of human life from the spiritual to the material, from law to government to clothing to food to sex to taxation and more. This totalitarianism rejects democracy in the most basic way, as having come from mere humans rather than divinely, from Allah.

Unfortunately, concluding that modern terrorism “has nothing to do with Islam” or that “Islam is a religion of peace” visibly contradicts the historical record.

Much of the weakness we have identified in so many modern European states comes, ironically, from many of our strengths. We have much to be proud of. However imperfectly at times, we have replaced tyranny with democracy, guaranteed freedom of speech and the press, ensured rights for all citizens, provided legal and political foundations for the growing empowerment of women, struggled against racist and religious bigotry, brought homosexual men and women out of the closet, given protections to the environment and wildlife, extended healthcare provision to most people, abolished the death sentence in all European countries (and Israel), and instituted regulations to block and punish crimes such as people trafficking, slavery, and drug smuggling.

The best example of what this means is to be found in the state of Israel. It is precisely because Israel and a majority of Israelis have, from the beginning, combined Jewish ethical values with Western Enlightenment beliefs, that makes it stand out so sharply against all its neighbours. Human rights abuses in Iran, the Arab states, Turkey, and beyond guarantee that Israel, however much abused by international bodies and media, and however flawed, is, in fact, a bastion of democracy, human rights, equality under the law and the positive values that go with them.

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Republican Embarrassments By Victor Davis Hanson

Posted By on February 12th, 2018

Free-marketers are right that tax cuts stimulate economic growth that in turn lead to expanding production and eventually more federal tax revenue.

But the problem traditionally has been that to obtain tax reductions, Republicans also have had to sign on reluctantly to larger expenditures. Or, worse, they willingly believed they could spend more, simply because more money poured into the federal treasuries.
https://amgreatness.com/2018/02/11/republican-embarrassments/

George W. Bush doubled the national debt. After running against Bush profligacy (remember the Chinese credit card trope), Barack Obama doubled it again by doubling Bush’s levels of borrowing. Conservatives blasted Obama for his even greater lack of thrift. The Tea Party movement emerged in reaction to reckless expenditures and borrowing to fund Obamacare.

Now Donald Trump is caught in the same old matrix. His deregulation, tax cuts, and energy expansion will likely increase federal revenue. But his various budget concessions and his own proposed increases in defense spending and infrastructure would likely bleed the budget at a far greater rate than the growing federal revenue.

Once again, new spending will discredit conservative vows of budget prudence and supply-side economics. (Budget-wise, what good does it do to expand the economy if the political price is acquiescence to ever greater and costlier government?)