Kamala Harris: 'Not bullshitting you', focus not on 2020

Sen. Kamala Harris says she's not "bullshitting" when she insists she's not focused on 2020. The California Democrat, in Wisconsin on Sunday to help campaign for fellow Democrats, brushed off talk about what the 2018 midterm elections might teach Democrats for when they seek to challenge Trump in two years, "I'm not bullshiting you," she said, according to CNN's Dan Merica. She then reportedly turned to nearby student journalists to say, "Excuse my language." "I don’t know what this all means for 2020. It's really is far off," she added.

Harris is considered a top contender to vie for the Democratic nomination in a presidential election cycle that will effectively begin next year. However, so far she has only teased interest in a run. Harris did concede that she was witnessing a more engaged base for Democrats that she hopes will feed into 2020 enthusiasm, according to Merica. "We have seen people decide that they are going to take the reins and they are going to be leaders," she said.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/kamala-harris-not-bullshitting-you-focus-not-on-2020

Byron York: End could be near for House investigation of Trump-Russia investigators

Republicans on Capitol Hill have added enormously to the public's understanding of what happened in the Trump-Russia investigation. They're still doing it. But it will come to a screeching halt if the GOP loses control of the House in next month's midterm elections. The driving force behind the revelations is House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes. But a number of other Republicans in the House, including Reps. Trey Gowdy, John Ratcliffe, Bob Goodlatte, Jim Jordan, Mark Meadows, and others have also played critical roles. (In the Senate, Judiciary Committee Chairman Sen. Chuck Grassley has done key work, but the most progress has been made in the House because House rules make it easier for the majority to work around minority opposition.)

Among the things Americans know about the conduct of the Trump-Russia probe that they would not have known had Nunes and his colleagues not tackled the subject:

1) The important role that the incendiary allegations in the still-unverified Trump dossier played in the FBI's investigation of the Trump campaign. 2) The fact that the dossier was commissioned and paid for by the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic Party. 3) The unusual circumstances surrounding the formal beginning of the FBI's counter-intelligence investigation into the Trump campaign. 4) The troubling deficiencies in the FBI's application for a warrant to wiretap onetime Trump campaign figure Carter Page. 5) The anti-Trump bias of some of the top officials in the FBI investigation. 6) The degree to which the dossier's allegations spread throughout the Obama administration during the final days of the 2016 campaign and the transition. 7) Obama officials' unmasking of Trump-related figures in intelligence intercepts. 8) The fact that FBI agents did not believe Michael Flynn lied to them in the interview that later led to Flynn's guilty plea on a charge of lying to the FBI. 9) The role of the opposition research firm Fusion GPS in the Trump-Russia probe.

And more. Nunes and his colleagues learned these things, and told the public about them, over the determined opposition of the FBI, the Justice Department, and Democrats, both on the Intelligence Committee and in the larger House. In fact, it would not be an overstatement to say the FBI and Justice Department fiercely resisted the investigation. They withheld materials, dragged their feet, and flat-out refused to provide information to which congressional overseers were clearly entitled. Sometimes disputes were settled by the intervention of House Speaker Paul Ryan on Nunes' behalf. Sometimes they weren't.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columnists/byron-york-end-could-be-near-for-house-investigation-of-trump-russia-investigators

>>3558436

I agree, think the mind numbing is really going to be a problem for some..will it prevent them from going to the ballot box…remains to be seen.

Jordan cancels part of peace agreement with Israel

Jordan's King Abdullah II on Sunday said he has decided not to renew parts of his country's landmark peace treaty with Israel. Abdullah released a statement that he intends to pull out of two annexes from the 1994 peace agreement that allowed Israel to lease two small areas, Baqura and Ghamr, from the Jordanians for 25 years. The leases expire next year, and the deadline for renewing them is Thursday. The lands were leased to Jewish farmers early last century, but then became part of Jordan after the kingdom gained independence in 1946. Baqura, in the northern Jordan Valley, was captured by Israel in 1950. Ghamr, near Aqaba in southern Jordan, was seized in the 1967 Mideast War. Under their peace agreement, Jordan agreed to grant Israeli farmers and military officers free access to the enclave.

Abdullah said he informed Israel of his decision. "We are practicing our full sovereignty on our land," he said. "Our priority in these regional circumstances is to protect our interests and do whatever is required for Jordan and the Jordanians." Abdullah did not give a reason for his decision, but he has faced escalating domestic pressure to end the lease and return the territories to full Jordanian control. Last week, demonstrators demanding an end to Israeli ownership of the lands marched in Jordan's capital of Amman last week.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday that "Jordan reserved the right to receive the territory," but said he expected to enter negotiations with Jordan "about the possibility of extending the existing agreement." Netanyahu said the "accord as a whole is an important thing," and called the peace deals with Jordan and Egypt "anchors of regional stability." He spoke at a memorial for the late Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, who signed the peace deal with Jordan.

Israel's former ambassador to Jordan, Oded Eran, said he was not surprised by Jordan's decision, and said there was still time for the two countries to re-negotiate the agreement. He dismissed the possibility that Jordan might pull out of other parts of the broader peace treaty. "For its own interests, the continuation of the adherence to the peace treaty is in Jordan's interest as indeed it is in the interest of Israel," Eran added.

Tensions between Israel and Jordan have mounted in recent months over such issues as the contested status of Jerusalem and its holy sites, stalled Mideast peace talks, and last year's shooting of two Jordanian citizens by an Israeli embassy guard in Amman, which ignited a diplomatic crisis. Relations thawed after Israel replaced its ambassador to Amman and Netanyahu met with Abdullah last summer to stress the importance of economic and security cooperation between the two countries.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/jordan-cancels-part-peace-agreement-israel-121121484.html

>>3558525

I agree with that too, maybe a should have phrased my statement with "few" instead. Too many who are sick and tired of the status quo.

>>3558596

That was my thought, couldn't stir up the pot enough with the Saudi/Turkey mess, so plan b..enacted.

>>3558613

Absolutely, I have just moved to another state and 1st thing I did was register to vote..

Facebook's New Troll-Crushing "War Room" Confirms Surveillance By Corporation Is The New America

Facebook on Wednesday briefed journalists on its latest attempt to stop fake news during the election season, offering an exclusive tour of a windowless conference room at its California headquarters, packed with millennials monitoring Facebook user behavior trends around the clock, said The Verge. This is Facebook's first ever "war room," designed to bring leaders from 20 teams, representing 20,000 global employees working on safety and security, in one room to lead a crusade against conservatives misinformation on the platform as political campaigning shifts into hyperdrive in the final weeks leading up to November's US midterm elections. The team includes threat intelligence, data science engineering, research, legal, operations, policy, communications, and representatives from Facebook and Facebook-owned WhatsApp and Instagram. "We know when it comes to an election, every moment counts," said Samidh Chakrabarti, head of civic engagement at Facebook, who oversees operations in the war room. "So if there are late-breaking issues we see on the platform, we need to be able to detect and respond to them in real time, as quickly as possible."

This public demonstration of Facebook's internal efforts comes after a series of security breaches and user hacks, dating back to the 2016 presidential elections. Since the announcement of the Cambridge Analytics privacy scandal in March, Facebook shares have plunged -14.5% It seems the war room is nothing more than a public relations stunt, which the company is desperately trying to regain control of the narrative and avoid more negative headlines. The war room is staffed with millennials from 4 am until midnight, and starting on Oct. 22, social media workers will be monitoring trends 24/7 leading up to the elections. Leaders from 20 teams will be present in the room. Workers will use machine learning and artificial intelligence programs to monitor the platform for trends, hate speech, sophisticated trolls, fake news, and of course, Russian, Chinese, and Iranian interference. Nathan Gleicher, Facebook's head of cybersecurity, told CNBC the company wants fair elections, and that "debate around the election be authentic. … The biggest concern is any type of effort to manipulate that."

In the first round of presidential elections in Brazil, Facebook's war room identified an effort to suppress voter turnout: "Content that was telling people that due to protest, that the election would be delayed a day," said Chakrabarti. "This was not true, completely false. So we were able to detect that using AI and machine learning. The war room was alerted to it. Our data scientist looked into what was behind it and then they passed it to our engineers and operations specialist to be able to remove this at scale from our platform before it could go viral." The war room has been focused on the US and Brazilian elections because it says misinformation in elections is a global problem that never ends. Gleicher warns that Facebook is observing an increased effort to manipulate the public debate ahead of US midterms. "Part of the reason we have this war room up and running, is so that as these threats develop, not only do we respond to them quickly, but we continue to speed up our response, and make our response more effective and efficient." Gleicher adds that it is not just foreign interference but also domestic "bad actors" who are hiding their identity, using fake accounts to spread misinformation. "This is always going to be an arms race, so the adversaries that we're facing who seek to meddle in elections, they are sophisticated and well-funded," said Chakrabarti. "That is the reason we've made huge investments both in people and technology to stay ahead and secure our platforms." Big Brother is watching you: surveillance by corporations is the new America.

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-10-19/facebook-built-war-room-counter-sophisticated-trolls

"Largest Ever Ponzi Scheme In Maryland" Rocks Investors, $345 Million Vanishes

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced last month the indictment and arrests of three people, including a Baltimore man, involved in the largest-ever Ponzi scheme in Baltimore-Washington metropolitan area.

More than 230 people have been taken for a financial rollercoaster as three men ((Kevin B. Merrill ("Merrill"), Jay B. Ledford ("Ledford"), and Cameron Jezierski ("Jezierski") raised $345 million, more than $90 million was invested by over 200 individual investors (including small business owners, restauranteurs, construction contractors, retirees, doctors, lawyers, accountants, bankers, talent agents, current and former professional athletes, and financial advisors); approximately $52 million by family officers; and nearly $203 million from feeder funds, said the SEC. According to an indictment from Federal prosecutors in Baltimore, Merrill and Ledford touted their experience in collecting on and reselling consumer debt to investors, with the promise of significant profits. The pair operated a web of companies they owned and/or controlled, including Defendants Global Credit Recovery, LLC; Delmarva Capital, LLC; Rhino Capital Holdings, LLC; Rhino Capital Group, LLC; DeVille Assets Managment LTD; and Riverwalk Financial Corporation, which they then sold securities to investors. Merrill and Ledford used the corporate entities and 55 bank accounts to shift investor money, deceive investors, and continue their Ponzi scheme that only survived with the influx of greater and greater investor cash inflow.

Here is how the Merrill - Ledford scheme worked: Documents show the men used a web lies, forgeries, and fake documents to conduct the fraud since 2013, using investor money for exotic cars, high-end real estate, private jets, private clubs, casinos, and funding their lavish lifestyles. "We allege defendants engaged in a brazen fraud, deceiving investors to perpetuate their wrongdoing and line their pockets with ill-gotten gains," said Kelly Gibson, the associate regional director of the SEC's Philadelphia office. The SEC stated approximately $200 million of the money was used to pay prior investors and deceive current investors that their money was generating high returns. Merrill owned five mansions, 25 exotic cars – including Bugattis, Ferraris, and Rolls Royces – private jets, powerboats, and more, according to filings. If Merrill, Ledford, and Jezierski are convicted, their assets, will be seized by the U.S. Government. In the latter stages of a credit cycle, fraud schemes are usually not sustainable and go bust – an ominous sign that an economic downturn is nearing.

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-10-21/largest-ever-ponzi-scheme-maryland-rockets-investors-345-million-vanishes