Attorney General William P. Barr Announces Publication of Cryptocurrency Enforcement Framework
https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/attorney-general-william-p-barr-announces-publication-cryptocurrency-enforcement-framework
Former Intel Officials Scramble To Downplay Ratcliffe's Russiagate Releases
US Intelligence officials were quick to speak through their stenographers in the media to downplay the contents of a memo released last week by Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe about the origins of Russiagate. The memo made an explosive claim: Russian intelligence assessed that Hillary Clinton approved a campaign in July 2016 to link Donald Trump to Russia’s alleged hacking of the DNC to distract from Clinton’s email scandal.
After a week of sanctimonious statements from former intelligence officials, who according to Politico, were "aghast" with Ratcliffe’s decision to declassify the intelligence, the DNI declassified documents that showed the claim was not as "unverified" as these spooks would like the American people to believe.
In the memo released last week, Ratcliffe said handwritten notes from former CIA director John Brennan indicated that Brennan briefed President Obama on Clinton’s alleged plot. On Tuesday, Ratcliffe declassified those notes.
"We’re getting additional insight into Russian activities from [REDACTED]," Brennan’s notes read. "CITE [summarizing] alleged approved by Hillary Clinton a proposal from one of her foreign policy advisers to vilify Donald Trump by stirring up a scandal claiming interference by the Russian security service,"
Speaking with CNN after his notes were released, Brennan confirmed that he briefed Obama on this allegation.
"These were my notes from the 2016 period when I briefed President Obama and the rest of the national security council team about what the Russians were up to and I was giving examples of the type of access that the US intelligence community had to Russian information and what the Russians were talking about and alleging," Brennan said.
Before Brennan’s admission, the former CIA chief denounced Ratcliffe’s move to declassify the information and said the DNI is "is anything but an intelligence professional" and said Ratcliffe’s "selective declassification of information" was done to help President Trump. While Ratcliffe’s move was undoubtedly politically motivated, Brennan is in no position to judge anybody’s professionalism.
Brennan, who landed a job as an analyst for NBC in 2018, has used his prominence as a former CIA chief to make wild accusations about President Trump and Russia. After the 2018 Helsinki Summit, Brennan took to Twitter to accuse Trump of "treason" and said the president is "wholly in the pocket of Putin." In August 2018, Brennan penned an Op-Ed for The New York Times that said President Trump’s claims of no collusion are "hogwash." After Robert Mueller found no collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian government, Brennan changed his tune and said he must have received "bad information." Whoops.
Ratcliffe also released a declassified CIA memo from September 2016 addressed to former FBI Director James Comey and then-Deputy Assistant Director of Counterintelligence Peter Strzok as part of the Crossfire Hurricane investigation into Trump campaign officials’ alleged ties to Russia.
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/former-intel-officials-scramble-downplay-dni-ratcliffes-russiagate-releases
NO! Kamala and China Joe – Stop Carrying Water for China! US Economy Was ON FIRE While China Was Imploding Due to President Trump’s Trade Deal
Last night Senator Kamala Harris in a debate with Vice President Mike Pence pushed a bogus and unsubstantiated estimate that the US lost 300,000 manufacturing jobs to China due to President Trump’s trade deal with the ChiComs.
This was a massive lie:
We previously reported over the past two years how China’s economy is collapsing.
You could see it and there were many signs of China’s pending economic collapse.
The BBC reported in January before the China coronavirus spread around the world that official China figures were scary:
China’s economy grew last year at the slowest pace in almost three decades.
Official figures show that the world’s second largest economy expanded by 6.1% in 2019 from the year before – the worst figure in 29 years.
The country has faced weak domestic demand and the impact of the bitter trade war with the US.
The government has been rolling out measures over the past two years in an attempt to boost growth.
It comes after almost two years of trade tensions with the US – although hopes of a better relationship with America have seen improvements in manufacturing and business confidence data.
We’ve reported for months that President Trump had the US in the position that it could only win in a deal with China. The US economy was on fire – more Americans were working than ever before, unemployment was at 50 year lows, wages were way up and the stock market was at record highs. But China was moving in the opposite direction.
The problem for China was that its economy helped the CCP regime stay in power and it was collapsing. China needed a deal with the US. China had invested millions in deals around the world and it had overbuilt at home. Then President Trump came and slowly moved business from China to other countries through various actions including tariffs.
China’s GDP was reduced to almost half of that of the US and it was in real economic trouble.
As we reported in a post in August 2019, President Trump recognized that China was in an all out war with the US in regards to information and economics. For years Western leaders did nothing but negotiate into weak positions, never standing up to the Communist Chinese regime. Former US Presidents treated China like they did Russia 50 years ago, as their superior, always giving them what they wanted and never standing up to their abuse and criminal acts.
President Trump knew that China needed the US but the US didn’t need China.
President Trump preached manufacturing in the USA and trade deals that made sense.
More
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/10/no-kamala-china-joe-stop-carrying-water-china-us-economy-fire-china-imploding-due-president-trumps-trade-deal/
get these fuckers out of my computer please
US-China standoff creating conditions similar to pre-WWI Europe, Kissinger warns
The US needs to rethink its hegemony and talk to China about imposing limits on their competition, because the alternative is the creation of conditions similar to those that preceded World War I, Henry Kissinger has warned.
“Our leaders and their leaders have to discuss the limits beyond which they will not push threats, and how to define that,” said Kissinger, a top diplomat during the Nixon administration, who is credited with orchestrating US rapprochement with China.
“You can say this is totally impossible, but if it is, we will slide into a situation similar to World War I,” he warned.
The development of technology like artificial intelligence (AI) has ushered a leap forward possibly unlike any other since the introduction of the printing press, making the world too complex for unilateralism, Kissinger said.
Washington needs “a new way of thinking” that would acknowledge that today no country is able to “achieve such a unilateral superiority in both strategy and economics that nobody will be in a position to threaten” it, he added.
“This is a big challenge for any administration, and it’s not a partisan challenge, it’s a historic challenge because we can’t review it every four to eight years, and if we cannot get clear in our own country about this, we can’t deal with other countries.” Kissinger suggested that the proposed talks with China should be conducted over many years to transcend partisanship in the US.
"We need dialogue," Kissinger tells us. "I applied that principle very much to Europe, where I grew up." #ECNYKissingerpic.twitter.com/nyCmLXbc9C
— The Economic Club NY (@EconClubNY) October 7, 2020
The former diplomat issued his warning on Wednesday during a virtual event hosted by the Economic Club of New York. Economist John Williams, who chairs the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, was the other guest at the discussion.
The Trump administration has pursued confrontation with China on several fronts. Among other things, it imposed tariffs on Chinese exports to the US, pressured Chinese tech and communications companies out of American markets, and attempted to blame Beijing for the damage caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.
Anti-Chinese rhetoric was somewhat adopted by his Democratic rival in the presidential election, Joe Biden, who once championed Chinese accession to the World Trade Organization. The broad promise to be tough on China, contrary to how the Trump campaign depicts him, may or may not translate into policy, in the event that Biden wins the presidency in November.
https://www.rt.com/news/502945-kissinger-world-war-china/
COVID-19 Is 'Unrestricted Bioweapon': Whistleblower Releases Second Paper Alleging 'Large-Scale, Organized Scientific Fraud'
Li-Meng Yan, A Chinese virologist (MD, PhD) who worked in a WHO reference lab and fled her position at the University of Hong Kong, has published a second co-authored report, alleging that SARS-CoV-2, the virus which causes COVID-19, was not only created in a Wuhan lab, it's an "unrestricted bioweapon" which was intentionally released.
"We used biological evidence and in-depth analyses to show that SARS-CoV-2 must be a laboratory product, which was created by using a template virus (ZC45/ZXC21) owned by military research laboratories under the control of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) government," reads the paper.
SARS-CoV2 is a product of laboratory modification, which can be created in approximately six months using a template virus owned by a laboratory of the People's Liberation Army (PLA). The fact that data fabrications were used to cover up the true origin of SARS-CoV 2 further implicates that the laboratory modification here is beyond simple gain-of-function research.
The scale and the coordinated nature of this scientific fraud signifies the degree of corruption in the fields of academic research and public health. As a result of such corruption, damages have been made both tot he reputation of the scientific community and to the well-being of the global community.
The report also claims that the RaTG13 virus which Wuhan "Batwoman" Dr. Zhengli Shi and colleagues say they obtained in bat feces in 2013 (and which is 96% identical to SARS-CoV-2), is fraudulent and also man made.
Since its publication, the RaTG13 virus has served as the founding evidence for the theory that SARS-CoV-2 must have a natural origin. However, no live virus or an intact genome of RaTG13 have ever been isolated or recovered. Therefore, the only proof for the “existence” of RaTG13 in nature is its genomic sequence published on GenBank.
The report goes on to say that the RaTG13 genome could easily be fabricated, and that "an entry on GenBank, which in this case is equivalent to the existence of an assembled viral genomic sequence and its associated sequencing reads, is not a definitive proof that this viral genome is correct or real," and that the process for sequencing DNA itself "leaves room for potential fraud."
If one intends to fabricate an RNA viral genome on GenBank, he or she could do so by following these steps: create its genomic sequence on a computer, have segments of the genome synthesized based on the sequence, amplify each DNA segment through PCR, and then send the PCR products (may also be mixed with genetic material derived from the alleged host of the virus to mimic an authentic sequencing sample) for sequencing.The resulted raw sequencing reads would be used, together with the created genomic sequence, for establishing an entry on GenBank. Once accomplished, this entry would be accepted as the evidence for the natural existence of the corresponding virus. Clearly, a viral genomic sequence and its GenBank entry can be fabricated if well-planned.
The paper concludes: All fabricated coronaviruses share a 100% amino acid sequence identity on the E protein with ZC45 and ZXC21
https://www.zerohedge.com/medical/covid-19-unrestricted-bioweapon-whistleblower-releases-second-paper-alleging-large-scale
The 2nd Yan Report
https://www.scribd.com/document/479227984/The-2nd-Yan-Report#from_embed
FBI Stonewalls Over Hunter Biden; Refuses To Provide Congress Answers On Burisma, China
The FBI is stonewalling a congressional inquiry into Hunter Biden's overseas business activity described in a Senate report last month which chronicles the Biden family's international conflicts of interest, as well as potentially criminal business activity, according to The Federalist.
The Senate report detailed Hunter's financial dealings with Ukrainian, Chinese and Russian businesses created potential "criminal financial, counterintelligence and extortion concerns," and alarmed US officials who perceived an ethical conflict of interest and flagged potential crimes ranging from sex trafficking to bribery.
Last week, in response to the report, Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan (R) - the ranking member on the House Judiciary Committee, demanded answers from the FBI over what actions it's taken, if any, regarding 2015 reports from the DOJ, that the owner of Ukrainian energy giant Burisma paid a $7 million bribe to government officials to shut down an investigation while Hunter sat on its board.
"The report by Chairman Johnson and Chairman Grassley shows that the FBI has been aware of some alleged misconduct for years," Jordan wrote to FBI Director Christopher Wray.
Jordan also highlighted concerns raised within the Obama State Department regarding Biden’s lucrative board position with Burisma. He raked in upwards of $50,000 a month despite his lack of experience while his father, Joe Biden, served as the administration’s “public face” of White House policy towards the Eastern European ally.
“The report detailed widespread concern within the Obama-Biden Administration about Hunter Biden’s role on the board of Burisma Holdings, a Ukrainian company founded by Mykola Zlochevsky,” Jordan wrote. “The Chairmen noted that they had asked the FBI about its actions in response to these allegations, but have received no answer from you.” -The Federalist
The FBI, meanwhile, is stonewalling. In response to Jordan's letter demanding answers obtained by The Federalist, the agency has refused to acknowledge any investigation of Hunter Biden's overseas conduct.
"Consistent with longstanding Department of Justice and FBI policy and practice, however, the FBI can neither confirm nor deny the existence of any ongoing investigation or persons or entities under investigation," reads the letter, adding that Sens. Jordan and Grassley, the authors of the Senate report, received the same non-answer.
Why is Chris Wray stonewalling on Hunter Biden’s behalf? https://t.co/XUF50UvTOq
— House Judiciary GOP (@JudiciaryGOP) October 8, 2020
And as The Federalist's Triastan Justice notes, the FBI was happy to weigh in on the Russiagate scandal when former Director James Comey confirmed that President Trump was under investigation for suspected ties to the Kremlin - a smear campaign which Hillary Clinton allegedly approved and US intelligence agencies willingly participated in.
What's more, CIA Director Gina Haspel has reportedly been stonewalling as well - as senior US intelligence tell The Federalist that she's deliberately blocking the release of central Russiagate documents in the hope that Trump loses the November election.
In a Wednesday letter, Johnson and Grassley demanded that Haspel comply with their request for records following a two-month delay.
"The American people have a right to know the full extent of official action taken by federal officials during the 2016 campaign, the presidential transition, and into the Trump administration," wrote the Senators. "The information that has already been made public reveals what might be the most outrageous abuse of power in U.S. history against a presidential candidate and sitting president. Unfortunately, many of the puzzle pieces remain hidden, and some of that information rests within your agency."
“Many of the people blocking these documents are likely implicated by them. You have these career bureaucrats whose careers may be destroyed by the facts within them,” Davis said. https://t.co/I58LLxRsWG
— The Federalist (@FDRLST) October 1, 2020
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/fbi-stonewalls-over-hunter-biden-refuses-provide-congress-answers-over-burisma-china
Vatican Used Donation Money To Fund Extremely Risky Bet On Hertz Credit Derivatives
A couple of weeks after Cardinal Angelo Becciu, second-in-command of the Vatican's powerful Secretariat of State, resigned amid burgeoning financial scandals, another scandal has emerged, this time it involves the Vatican using some donation money, intended to help the working poor, to bet on the creditworthiness of now bankrupted US rental car company, Hertz.
FT broke the story on Thursday, citing documents, shows how the Vatican, under Becciu's management, used donation money to purchase structured notes linked with credit default swaps as part of a gambling bet Hertz wouldn't default by April 2020. Hertz filed for bankruptcy on May 22, due to the economic downturn spurred by the virus pandemic, which allowed the Vatican to "narrow escape on the investment, which paid out in full," FT said.
In 2018, the Pope, highly critical of global capitalism or mostly unfettered capitalism, warned about the dangers of the CDS market, and its role in the 2008 financial crisis. He specifically warned about the bundling and re-bundling of CDS products into structured debt.
"It is obvious that the uncertainty surrounding these products . . . makes them continuously less acceptable from the perspective of ethics respectful of the truth and the common good, because it transforms them into a ticking time bomb ready sooner or later to explode, poisoning the health of the markets," Pope Fancis said in a 2018 statement.
FT said there was no evidence that suggests the Pope knew about the Hertz investment, which was held in an account in Switzerland and made by a third-party. This comes after Becciu resigned from his position last month following an allegation of "misappropriation".
The Pope was out last Sunday, blasting trickle-down economic policies, raising the alarm over the rapidly increasing inequality crisis that has been exacerbated by the virus-induced global recession.
"The marketplace, by itself, cannot resolve every problem, however much we are asked to believe this dogma of neoliberal faith," the Pope said in a letter to church leaders. "Whatever the challenge, this impoverished and repetitive school of thought always offers the same recipes."
Before bashing financial markets, maybe the Pope should review the Vatican's portfolio before making statements about credit and debt products.
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/vatican-used-donation-money-fund-extremely-risky-bet-hertz-credit-derivatives
Cambridge Analytica neither misused data to influence the Brexit referendum nor colluded with Russia, watchdog finds
Infamous now-defunct data-mining firm Cambridge Analytica did not directly misuse data to shift votes in the Brexit referendum, nor did it work with Russia to meddle in the vote, a three-year UK investigation has found.
The lengthy investigation by the UK Information Commissioner’s office released its findings on Wednesday, concluding that Cambridge Analytica had broken no laws, either involving data misuse or collusion with alleged Russian influence efforts, with its activities during the Brexit campaign. Indeed, the commission found no evidence the company had actively engaged with the vote at all.
The report also concluded that the data-miner’s vaunted psychological micro-targeting capabilities, based on an Orwellian database supposedly containing “5,000+ data points per individual,” appeared to be “an exaggeration” for marketing purposes. Most of the company’s tactics employed “well-recognized processes using commonly available technology,” it continued.
Elizabeth Denham has blogged about the conclusion of the investigation into Cambridge Analytica and the use of personal data in political campaigning.You can read her thoughts here:https://t.co/nexje9rMcrpic.twitter.com/egIGaUsegC
— ICO (@ICOnews) October 6, 2020
The ICO analyzed 42 computers, 700 terabytes of data, 31 servers, and over 300,000 documents in the course of the three-year probe. While they essentially came up empty-handed, commissioner Elizabeth Denham warned of “systemic vulnerabilities in our democratic systems” in a letter to MPs.
While acknowledging that investigating alleged Russian election interference was outside the scope of the investigation, Denham stated that the commission had not turned up “any additional evidence” Russia meddled with the Brexit vote in the course of digging through Cambridge Analytica’s data. No evidence of successful Russian interference in the UK referendum has yet been found elsewhere, either, as a long-delayed report on the subject finally released in July admitted.
https://www.rt.com/uk/502870-cambridge-analytica-ico-brexit-russia/
CEO of Global Food Distribution Company Arrested for Child Sex Trafficking
Newport Beach, CA — Ian Charles Schenkel, 59, is the CEO of Haliburton International Foods, a global food distribution company worth billions. This week, Schenkel was arrested on accusations that he engaged in child prostitution and human trafficking. A 26-year-old woman is also accused of aiding Schenkel in child trafficking.
According to Newport Beach prosecutors, Schenkel was arrested and faces seven felony and two misdemeanor allegations involving intercourse and lewd acts with two underage victims, according to a criminal complaint filed Tuesday Sep. 29. He is suspected of abusing his victims at least 7 times between Jan. 27, 2019 and Oct. 8, 2019.
Prosecutors also allege that Amanda Emilia Perez, 22, helped set up the meetings between the millionaire CEO and his victims. Perez now faces six felony charges for trafficking the underage girls.
According to the OC Register, Newport beach police began investigating after a man reported in October 2019 that his daughter had sexual contact with Schenkel, Orange County District Attorney’s officials said in a news release. The girl told authorities Perez introduced her to the CEO and other men, then took a portion of the money clients paid to have sex with the teen.
The media is referring to Schenkel’s abuse of the two underage girls as “child prostitution” which is inaccurate. Because a child cannot consent to sex with an adult, the term child prostitute is as horrific as it is incorrect. Even in instances in which a child is paid to have sex with an adult, the fact that they are underage, makes them a victim and not a “prostitute.”
Obviously age of consent laws vary from state to state, but the two girls who have accused Schenkel of the abuse were far below the age of consent in California, which is 18.
If Schenkel is convicted on all counts, he faces a maximum sentence of eight years in state prison and 728 days in county jail. Perez faces a maximum sentence of 14 years and eight months in state prison if she is similarly convicted on all charges.
Authorities are urging anyone with information about additional potential victims to call Newport Beach police at (949) 644-3790.
This incident highlight the fact that there is an epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse in the land of the free. According to many experts, child sexual abuse is likely the most prevalent health problem children face with the most serious array of consequences. It is so rife that it is estimated that about one in 10 children will be sexually abused before their 18th birthday.
This year alone, there will be about 400,000 babies born in the U.S. that will become victims of child sexual abuse unless we do something to stop it. Thousands of child predators are nabbed every year and for every one caught, there are likely 10 others who remain free. Sadly, police appear to be more interested in kidnapping and caging drug users and dealers than keep children safe.
https://thefreethoughtproject.com/ceo-food-distribution-child-trafficking/
Senators Say CIA Director Is Withholding Trump-Russia Intel
Two Senate Republicans have accused CIA Director Gina Haspel of withholding documents regarding intelligence the spy agency provided the FBI in its investigation of the Trump campaign.
In a letter to Haspel, Sens. Ron Johnson and Chuck Grassley said that CIA officials have refused to schedule a phone call to discuss the document request.
“More than two months later, we still have not received any of the requested records that we detailed in that letter,” Johnson and Grassley, the chairmen of the Senate Homeland Security and Senate Finance Committees, respectively, wrote to Haspel on Wednesday.
The letter is a follow up to one the senators sent Haspel on July 28 requesting any CIA documents provided the the FBI as part of Crossfire Hurricane, the bureau’s investigation of Trump associates’ possible links to Russia.
The senators had also asked Haspel to provide any CIA documents related to dossier author Christopher Steele, FBI source Stefan Halper, and Trump campaign aides Carter Page and George Papadopoulos.
They also sought any records of contacts the CIA had with Michael Sussmann and Marc Elias, two lawyers for the firm that represented the Clinton campaign and DNC during the 2016 campaign.
Haspel assumed office on May 21, 2018. She previously served as CIA station chief in London.
The senators said they have met with Haspel’s staff only once to discuss the requests but that “CIA has not produced a single document in response.”
“Moreover, your agency has ignored multiple requests to schedule a phone call to discuss our oversight letter,” they said in the letter.
It is still not entirely clear what role the CIA played in collecting intelligence on Trump associates in 2016.
https://dailycaller.com/2020/10/08/cia-gina-haspel-trump-russia-chuck-grassley-ron-johnson/
Donald Trump: Sen. Kamala Harris a ‘Monster’ and a ‘Communist’
President Donald Trump warned Thursday that Sen. Kamala Harris was a communist who would quickly seize power if former Vice President Joe Biden was elected president.
The president praised Vice President Mike Pence’s performance in the vice presidential debate on Wednesday in an interview with Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo on Thursday morning.
“I thought that wasn’t even a contest last night, she was terrible,” Trump said. “I don’t think you could get worse. And totally unlikable. And she is. She’s a communist. She’s left of Bernie.”
Trump warned Biden was mentally declining and would not be president for long if he was elected.
“Biden won’t be president for two months, he’s not mentally capable of being president, everybody knows that … and this monster that was on stage with Mike Pence who destroyed her by the way … everything she said was a lie,” Trump said.
The president reminded the audience that Harris was rated further left than self-described Democrat socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders.
“She’s a communist, she’s not a socialist, she’s well beyond a socialist,” Trump said.
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/10/08/donald-trump-sen-kamala-harris-a-monster-and-a-communist/
Nancy Pelosi Hints at Plot to Remove Trump from Office Before Election: ’25th Amendment’
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) hinted at a plan Thursday to remove President Donald Trump from office using the 25th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
“Tomorrow, by the way, tomorrow — come here tomorrow. We’re going to be talking about the 25th Amendment,” she told reporters during her weekly press briefing, as she fielded questions about negotiations on coronavirus relief funds.
Democrats — and a few Never Trump Republicans — have long talked about using the 25th Amendment to remove Trump from power, ever since Trump first took office in 2017.
The text of the 25th Amendment reads:
Section 1.
In case of the removal of the President from office or of his death or resignation, the Vice President shall become President.
Section 2.
Whenever there is a vacancy in the office of the Vice President, the President shall nominate a Vice President who shall take office upon confirmation by a majority vote of both Houses of Congress.
Section 3.
Whenever the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that he is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, and until he transmits to them a written declaration to the contrary, such powers and duties shall be discharged by the Vice President as Acting President.
Section 4.
Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.
Thereafter, when the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that no inability exists, he shall resume the powers and duties of his office unless the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive department or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit within four days to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office. Thereupon Congress shall decide the issue, assembling within forty-eight hours for that purpose if not in session. If the Congress, within twenty-one days after receipt of the latter written declaration, or, if Congress is not in session, within twenty-one days after Congress is required to assemble, determines by two-thirds vote of both Houses that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall continue to discharge the same as Acting President; otherwise, the President shall resume the powers and duties of his office.
Last week, social media accounts were abuzz with the suggestion off using the 25th Amendment to remove Trump from office, given his coronavirus diagnosis.
Though the president was discharged from Walter Reed National Military Medical Center on Monday, and appears to be recovering rapidly, Pelosi evidently has decided to elevate social media chatter to a plan of action.
Last year, Pelosi led the House in impeaching President Trump. He was acquitted in a subsequent trial in the Senate.
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/10/08/nancy-pelosi-hints-at-plot-to-remove-trump-from-office-before-election-25th-amendment/
Scotland Bans Sale of Alcohol Inside Pubs; UK Pub Closures, Job Losses Loom
Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has announced that pubs, restaurants, and licenced cafes will be banned from selling alcohol inside for more than two weeks.
The measures will come into effect from Friday until at least the 25th of October, with establishments only allowed to sell non-alcoholic drinks and food from 6 am to 6 pm. Outdoor hospitality venues may, however, continue to serve alcohol until the later 10 pm curfew.
Further restrictions have been put in Ayrshire and Arran, Forth Valley, Greater Glasgow and Clyde, Lanarkshire, and Lothian, where all alcohol-licenced premises must shut completely, according to The Mirror. Scots in these areas have been asked to avoid using public transportation “unless absolutely necessary”.
South of the border in England, Prime Minister Boris Johnson had imposed a 10 pm curfew on hospitality venues like pubs and restaurants last month. Critics have said that not only will the curfew kill jobs in the hospitality industry but forces all patrons out onto the street and public transport at the same time, doing little for government-mandated social distancing.
Given Chance to Oppose Drastic Curbs on Freedom, Just 12 Tories Rebel https://t.co/8NQvqV4M5p
— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) October 7, 2020
Mr Johnson had ordered the early closure following a rise in reported coronavirus cases; however, recent figures suggested that pubs, bars, and restaurants were responsible for only 3.2 per cent of new outbreaks.
Also on Wednesday, the UK’s biggest brewer and pub operator Greene King, founded in 1799, announced that it was going to temporarily close 79 pubs and restaurants, with around one-third of those closures expected to be permanent. They are also going to make some 800 staff redundant. The cutbacks come as a result of the fall in trade due to the government’s coronavirus restrictions.
The boss of the UK’s oldest brewery, Shepherd Neame, said last week that redundancies “look inevitable”. While budget beer chain Wetherspoons, owned by Brexiteer Tim Martin, announced late last month that it would be cutting around half of the 1,000 jobs at venues in six British airports. Whitbread is also cutting 6,000 jobs.
Pub chains Young’s and Fuller’s are also considering job cuts, with the latter saying that the government’s call for people to work from home will result in the company letting go of ten per cent of their staff — around 500 people.
On Friday, the British Beer & Pubs Association predicted 291,000 job losses, a third of the entire sector, as a result of coronavirus restrictions, with the data suggesting that 25 per cent of the country’s pubs could close.
https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2020/10/08/scotland-bans-sale-alcohol-inside-pubs-two-weeks-redundancies/
Delingpole: NATO’s New Mission – Saving the World from ‘Climate Change’
NATO has a new mission. Defending the West from the Russians is so last century: now it wants to save the world from ‘Climate Change.’
According to an op-ed, written by NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg:
Climate change is making the world more dangerous. NATO’s task is to preserve peace and keep us safe. So to fulfil our main responsibility, NATO must help to curb climate change for our security today and for the security of future generations.
There are lot of heroic assumptions in that paragraph. Perhaps it was written in the hope that Joe Biden will be America’s next President. Certainly, there’s no chance that President Trump would be swayed by such a flimsy argument nor approve of such mission creep. As far as Trump is concerned, NATO is a military defensive alliance, not another tentacle of the polar-bear-hugging, virtue-signalling green blob.
Almost none of the global warming ‘facts’ cited by Stoltenberg in his op-ed is accurate. Stoltenberg begins with some hokey autobiography by trying to claim that recent temperatures in Svalbard in his native Norway are a dread harbinger of climate change.
But as Paul Homewood points out, this is nonsense:
Let’s start with this claim:
Growing up in Norway, I learnt in school that temperatures in Svalbard, arctic home of the polar bear, would hardly ever rise above freezing. But this year, thermostats in Svalbard reached a record 21.7 degrees.
They obviously did not teach him very well then! Summer temperatures in Svalbard hit the mid teens every year. Although this year hit a record of 21.7C, it was only slightly warmer than the previous highest temperature of 21.3C, set in 1979. Hardly an excuse to turn NATO upside down!
Deported Child Sex Offender Arrested Moving Around Texas Checkpoint
Rio Grande Valley Sector Border Patrol agents arrested a previously deported child sex offender. The arrest occurred as the criminal alien attempted to sneak around the Falfurrias checkpoint in Brooks County, Texas.
Falfurrias Station Border Patrol agents patrolling ranches in Brooks County came upon a group of seven migrants. Human smugglers routinely march groups of migrants through the ranches to circumvent the interior immigration checkpoint located on U.S. Highway 281, according to information obtained from Rio Grande Valley Sector Border Patrol officials.
The agents transported the migrants to a processing area where they identified one of the men 32-year-old Angel Cardenas-Oliver, a Mexican national.
All migrants apprehended by Border Patrol agents undergo a criminal background investigation. In this case, a database search uncovered a criminal conviction in Harris County (Houston), Texas. Records obtained from the Texas Department of Public Safety reveals that the criminal district court in Houston convicted Cardenas-Oliver in December 2015 for the sexual assault of a 15-year-old girl. The court sentenced the Mexican national to four years in prison and ordered him to be on the registered sex offender list.
Following his release from a Texas prison, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Enforcement and Removal Operations officers deported the man to Mexico.
Cardenas-Oliver will now face federal prosecution by the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Texas for illegal re-entry after removal as a child sex offender. If convicted on the charge, the Mexican national could face up to 20 years in federal prison.
Officials processed the other six migrants under current federal guidelines.
https://www.breitbart.com/border/2020/10/08/deported-child-sex-offender-arrested-moving-around-texas-checkpoint/
UNICEF raises eyebrows with praise for Saudi ‘humanitarian’ role in Yemen
The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has in a controversial move praised what it called Saudi Arabia’s “humanitarian” role in Yemen, closing its eyes to years of atrocities committed by Riyadh and its allies against the civilian population there, leaving a large number of children dead, maimed and malnourished.
Executive Director of the world body Henrietta Fore, in a letter sent to the so-called King Salman Humanitarian Aid and Relief Center (KSRelief), lauded Saudi Arabia over what she described as the kingdom's “generous support” for the projects of the United Nations Humanitarian Response Plan in Yemen 2020.
Fore went on to say that UNICEF will use the financial support to help Yemeni children and their families in different fields, including health, nutrition, water, sanitation and education.
The UNICEF’s praise for Saudi Arabia follows a decision by the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on June 15 to remove the Saudi-led coalition engaged in an atrocious military campaign against Yemen from a blacklist, several years after it was first named and shamed for killing and injuring children in the impoverished country.
The move prompted immediate protests from human rights groups worldwide.
Jo Becker, the advocacy director of the children’s rights division at Human Rights Watch, argued at the time that Guterres was “adding a new level of shame to his list of shame by removing the Saudi-led coalition and ignoring the UN's own evidence of continued grave violations against children.”
Adrianne Lapar, director of Watchlist on Children and Armed Conflict, also said by removing the Saudi-led coalition “the secretary-general sends the message that powerful actors can get away with killing children.”
https://www.presstv.com/Detail/2020/10/07/635836/UNICEF-turns-blind-eye-on-Saudi-aggression,-lauds-kingdom-humanitarian-missions-in-Yemen
The Biden Doctrine: Cheerlead Wars, Feign Ignorance Later
If we look at the track record of Joe Biden during his political career first as a senator and then as Obama’s vice president, he is a typical establishment Democrat who has played into the hands of the US national security establishment like Bill Clinton and Barack Obama before him.
But considering his hawkish record in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, supporting the Yugoslav wars during the Clinton presidency in the nineties, voting in favor of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars in the Bush tenure and being a vocal proponent of the purported “humanitarian intervention” in Libya and the proxy war in Syria as Obama’s vice president, the Biden presidency would risk plunging the world into many more devastating conflicts.
As head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Biden said in 2002 that Saddam Hussein was a threat to national security and there was no option but to "eliminate" that threat. In October 2002, he voted in favor of the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq, approving the US invasion of Iraq.
More significantly, as chair of the committee, he assembled a series of witnesses to testify in favor of the authorization. They gave testimony grossly misrepresenting the intent, history of and status of Saddam and his Baathist government, which was an openly avowed enemy of al-Qaeda, and touting Iraq's fictional possession of weapons of mass destruction.
Writing for The Guardian’s “Comment is Free” in February, Mark Weisbrot contends [1] that Joe Biden was at the forefront of mustering bipartisan support for the illegal Iraq War and it would come back to haunt him in the forthcoming presidential elections like the criminal complicity of Hillary Clinton in lending legitimacy to the Bush administration’s unilateral invasion of Iraq had thwarted her presidential ambitions, too, in the 2016 presidential elections.
Weisbrot observes: “When the war was debated and then authorized by the US Congress in 2002, Democrats controlled the Senate and Biden was chair of the Senate committee on foreign relations. Biden himself had enormous influence as chair and argued strongly in favor of the 2002 resolution granting President Bush the authority to invade Iraq.
“’I do not believe this is a rush to war,’ Biden said a few days before the vote. ‘I believe it is a march to peace and security. I believe that failure to overwhelmingly support this resolution is likely to enhance the prospects that war will occur …’
“But he had a power much greater than his own words. He was able to choose all 18 witnesses in the main Senate hearings on Iraq. And he mainly chose people who supported a pro-war position. They argued in favor of ‘regime change as the stated US policy’ and warned of ‘a nuclear-armed Saddam sometime in this decade.’ That Iraqis would ‘welcome the United States as liberators’ and that Iraq ‘permits known al-Qaida members to live and move freely about in Iraq’ and that ‘they are being supported.’”
When the ill-conceived invasion and occupation of Iraq didn’t go as planned and the country slipped into myriad ethnic and sectarian conflicts, in November 2006, Biden and Leslie H. Gelb, President Emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, released a “comprehensive strategy” to end sectarian violence in Iraq. Rather than continuing the previous approach or withdrawing the US forces, the plan called for "a third way": federalizing Iraq and giving Kurds, Shiites, and Sunnis "breathing room" in their own regions.
https://www.blacklistednews.com/article/78189/the-biden-doctrine-cheerlead-wars-feign-ignorance.html
WHO (Accidentally) Confirms Covid is No More Dangerous Than Flu
Head of Health Emergencies Program “best estimates” put IFR at 0.14%
The World Health Organization has finally confirmed what we (and many experts and studies) have been saying for months – the coronavirus is no more deadly or dangerous than seasonal flu.
The WHO’s top brass made this announcement during a special session of the WHO’s 34-member executive board on Monday October 5th, it’s just nobody seemed to really understand it.
In fact, they didn’t seem to completely understand it themselves.
At the session, Dr Michael Ryan, the WHO’s Head of Emergencies revealed that they believe roughly 10% of the world has been infected with Sars-Cov-2. This is their “best estimate”, and a huge increase over the number of officially recognised cases (around 35 million).
Dr. Margaret Harris, a WHO spokeswoman, later confirmed the figure, stating it was based on the average results of all the broad seroprevalence studies done around the world.
As much as the WHO were attempting to spin this as a bad thing – Dr Ryan even said it means “the vast majority of the world remains at risk.” – it’s actually good news. And confirms, once more, that the virus is nothing like as deadly as everyone predicted.
The global population is roughly 7.8 billion people, if 10% have been infected that is 780 million cases. The global death toll currently attributed to Sars-Cov-2 infections is 1,061,539.
That’s an infection fatality rate of roughly or 0.14%. Right in line with seasonal flu and the predictions of many experts from all around the world.
0.14% is over 24 times LOWER than the WHO’s “provisional figure” of 3.4% back in March. This figure was used in the models which were used to justify lockdowns and other draconian policies.
In fact, given the over-reporting of alleged Covid deaths, the IFR is likely even lower than 0.14%, and could show Covid to be much less dangerous than flu.
None of the mainstream press picked up on this. Though many outlets reported Dr Ryan’s words, they all attempted to make it a scary headline and spread more panic.
Apparently neither they, nor the WHO, were capable of doing the simple maths that shows us this is good news. And that the Covid sceptics have been right all along.
https://off-guardian.org/2020/10/08/who-accidentally-confirms-covid-is-no-more-dangerous-than-flu/
Microsoft cloud outages continue as Office and Outlook customers report problems
Microsoft's cloud services problems are continuing this week with more Azure and Microsoft 365 services issues for some customers. Here's what's happened and why.
Last week, a major Azure Active Directory authentication issue affected users worldwide. A follow-up Exchange/Outlook issue later in the week affected European and Indian Office 365/Microsoft 365 customers. This week, Microsoft's cloud services issues are continuing, affecting a number of Exchange, Outlook, Teams and SharePoint users.
Microsoft was still warning some Office 365/Microsoft 365 customers as this week kicked off of some possible residual Exchange/Outlook issues, including problems accessing the admin center and syncing issues between Outlook mobile and desktop. I asked Microsoft if these issues were related to last week's Azure Active Directory authentication problems, but was told the company had no comment. (I am hearing the issues were likely not interrelated, for what it's worth.)
On October 7, users, primarily in the U.S., began reporting in the afternoon ET they were having issues accessing their admin center dashboards. Around 2:30 p.m. ET, users took to Twitter and other social channels to report they were unable to access Microsoft 365 services, including Teams, Exchange Online, Outlook.com, SharePoint Online and OneDrive for Business. At the same time, warnings of issues with Azure Active Directory and Azure Networking services popped up on the Azure status page.
Around 4:00 p.m. ET, some Office 365/Microsoft 365 customers began reporting their services were recovering. (For my part, I still cannot access my M365 Admin Center, even as of 5:00 p.m. ET.)
The Azure team also posted a preliminary root cause analysis around the same time on the issues users experienced accessing Microsoft or Azure services. In that report, Microsoft said between roughly 2 p.m. ET and 3:40 p.m. ET a subset of customers encountered issues connecting to resources that leveraged the Azure network infrastructure across regions. ("Resources with local dependencies in the same region should not have been impacted," according to company officials.)
Microsoft identified "a recent change (that) was applied to WAN (wide-area-networking) resources causing connectivity latency or failures between regions" as the cause. To mitigate, the Azure team rolled back the recent change to a healthy configuration.
On October 7, the Azure team also noted that some subset of customers experienced traffic routing to "unhealthy backends" with Azure Front Door. Microsoft attributed that issue to a "configuration change (which) was deployed causing the incorrect routing of traffic" and reverted the change to fix the issue.
The Microsoft 365 team, for its part, attributed the inability to access services to a "network infrastructure change" which may have impacted multiple Microsoft 365 services, including Teams, Outlook, SharePoint, OneDrive for Business and Outlook.com. That same team also said it added this afternoon additional capacity to handle "an observed spike in admin center traffic caused by actions to mitigate a prior incident with similar impact."
After last week's Azure AD issue caused by the faulty testing of a change, coupled with a rollback failure this week's outage is not a good look for the Microsoft cloud.
https://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-cloud-services-outages-continue-into-week-two/?ftag=TRE-03-10aaa6b&bhid=21735961543072688253262375158449&mid=13097239&cid=717936240
Vote counting for the presidential race begins! Maryland becomes first state to start tallying mail-in ballots as bipartisan pairs use five-step process to ensure votes are not fraudulent
Canvassers in Maryland became the first in the country to begin processing the droves of mail-in ballots that have arrived across the state, working in bipartisan pairs to get them counted.
Ballot canvas for mail-in and absentee ballots began on October 1 in the state, the earliest in the United States.
Each ballot will go through a five-step process before they are open and tabulated. The extensive process is aimed at avoiding fraud.
'The canvassing process, getting the ballots ready, it's like a conveyer belt. It goes from one stage to the other,' said David Garreis, deputy director of the Anne Arundel County Board of Elections, WBAL reports.
Working in bipartisan pairs, canvassers process mail-in ballots in a warehouse at the Anne Arundel County Board of Elections headquarters on October 7
http://www.yourdestinationnow.com/2020/10/vote-counting-for-presidential-race.html
GOP Representative Gooden Asks EPA and DOJ to Investigate China Funneling Donations to Biden Through ‘Green Groups’
Why do China Joe and Kamala Harris not address China’s role in COVID, its stealing of intellectual property and its actions to subvert our election?
Lance Gooden, U.S. Congressman for Texas’s 5th Congressional District, shared on Twitter moments ago:
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/10/breaking-gop-representative-gooden-asks-epa-doj-investigate-china-funneling-donations-biden-green-groups/
FBI Refuses to Provide Answers to Congressional Inquiries Related to Hunter Biden’s Criminal Activities Revealed in Bombshell Senate Report
The FBI is once again stonewalling Congressional oversight on Hunter Biden’s criminal overseas activities.
A couple weeks ago Congressman Jim Jordan (R-OH) sent Director Wray a letter demanding answers on whether the FBI is investigating Hunter Biden’s crimes.
The Senate Finance and Homeland Security Committees released a devastating report on Hunter Biden, Burisma and corruption Wednesday morning.
The crooked Biden family enriched themselves and Barack Obama knew.
According to the senate report:
Hunter Biden received $3.5 million in wire transfers from Elena Baturina, the wife of former mayor of Moscow, Yuri Luzhkov (a known Putin associate)
Hunter Biden reportedly paid “thousand of dollars” to individuals involved in human trafficking and prostitution, including non-resident alien women in the US who are citizens of Russia or Ukraine!
Hunter Biden had business associations with Ye Jianming, Gongwen Dong, and other Chinese nationals linked to the Communist government and the People’s Liberation Army. Those associations resulted in millions of dollars in cash flow
Jim Jordan asked Director Wray if the FBI is investigating Hunter Biden’s crimes and corruption.
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/10/fbi-refuses-provide-answers-congressional-inquiries-related-hunter-bidens-criminal-activities-revealed-bombshell-senate-report/
The CIA and the Media: 50 Historical Facts the World Needs to Know
Since the end of World War Two the Central Intelligence Agency has been a major force in US and foreign news media, exerting considerable influence over what the public sees, hears and reads on a regular basis. CIA publicists and journalists alike will assert they have few, if any, relationships, yet the seldom acknowledged history of their intimate collaboration indicates a far different story–indeed, one that media historians are reluctant to examine.
When seriously practiced, the journalistic profession involves gathering information concerning individuals, locales, events, and issues. In theory such information informs people about their world, thereby strengthening “democracy.” This is exactly the reason why news organizations and individual journalists are tapped as assets by intelligence agencies and, as the experiences of German journalist Udo Ulfkotte (entry 47 below) suggest, this practice is at least as widespread today as it was at the height of the Cold War.
Consider the coverups of election fraud in 2000 and 2004, the events of September 11, 2001, the invasions Afghanistan and Iraq, the destabilization of Syria, and the creation of “ISIS.” These are among the most significant events in recent world history, and yet they are also those much of the American public is wholly ignorant of. In an era where information and communication technologies are ubiquitous, prompting many to harbor the illusion of being well-informed, one must ask why this condition persists.
Further, why do prominent US journalists routinely fail to question other deep events that shape America’s tragic history over the past half century, such as the political assassinations of the 1960s, or the central role played by the CIA in international drug trafficking?
Popular and academic commentators have suggested various reasons for the almost universal failure of mainstream journalism in these areas, including newsroom sociology, advertising pressure, monopoly ownership, news organizations’ heavy reliance on “official” sources, and journalists’ simple quest for career advancement. There is also, no doubt, the influence of professional public relations maneuvers. Yet such a broad conspiracy of silence suggests another province of deception examined far too infrequently—specifically the CIA and similar intelligence agencies’ continued involvement in the news media to mold thought and opinion in ways scarcely imagined by the lay public.
The following historical and contemporary facts–by no means exhaustive–provides a glimpse of the power such entities possess to influence, if not determine, popular memory and what respectable institutions deem to be the historical record.
https://alethonews.com/2016/04/10/the-cia-and-the-media-50-historical-facts-the-world-needs-to-know/
=All convicted paedophiles’ names, pictures and addresses are publicly released in Kazakhstan, prompting fears of vigilante attacks
Victims ages and details of the crimes of 234 paedophile's are also now public
Parents can use the map and database to check if there is a paedophile nearby
Some have criticised the naming and shaming, saying it could lead to vigilantism
Kazakhstan introduced tough new laws like chemical castration for paedophiles
A country that chemically castrates paedophiles has gone one step further by publishing pictures, names and addresses of all convicted child sex attackers after their release from jail.
Kazakhstan also mentions the age of the victim in these publications, in a move intended to shame the criminals and protect children from future attacks.
A web map and data from the country's general prosecutor's office shows the location of 234 'potentially dangerous paedophiles' after their release.
It is officially called 'Map of individuals convicted for committing crimes against the sexual integrity of the underaged'.
A linked database gives details of these child sex attackers now living in the community - including a gruesome gallery of their pictures.
The aim is to allow parents to check if a convicted paedophile is living nearby.
Some 1,600 convicted paedophiles are serving jail sentences in Kazakhstan, official figures show.
Since 2018 the country has carried out chemical castration on 11 newly convicted child sex abuses, with injections intended to continue for life.
The moves have seen the ex-Soviet republic gain a reputation as one of the toughest countries for punishing such criminals.
A government website from the Committee on Legal Statistics states: 'In recent years, the problem of sexual violence has sharply exacerbated.
'The facts of such violence against children are especially terrible.
'The reasons and conditions are caused by a number of problems of a moral and legal nature.
'In this regard, the state has taken measures to reduce this type of crime.'
MORE
http://www.mr-mehra.com/2020/10/all-convicted-paedophiles-names.html
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