Bomb Threat Empties Sandy Hook School on Attack Anniversary

NEWTOWN, Conn.—A bomb threat forced the evacuation of the Sandy Hook Elementary School on Dec. 14, a day of memorial services and moments of silence to mark the sixth anniversary of the massacre of 20 first-graders and six educators.

Teachers and students at the school were sent home for the day after the threat was called in around 9 a.m., and police did a sweep of the building. But they said they did not believe the threat was credible. Authorities said it specifically referenced the anniversary.

“Obviously there’s a heightened level of anxiety,” police Lt. Aaron Bahamonde said. “It’s not unexpected that these anniversary dates bring out the evil in some people.”

Bahamonde said police were trying to determine who made the threat. It wasn’t immediately clear if it was related to bomb threats made nationwide Thursday.

A 20-year-old gunman shot his way into the school on the morning of Dec. 14, 2012, and killed the 26 victims before fatally shooting himself. The school building where the shooting happened was razed and a new one was built at the same site.

Church bells in Newtown chimed in the morning, and all town offices were closed from 9:30 a.m. to 9:45 a.m. To honor the shooting victims, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy ordered all state and U.S. flags in Connecticut to remain at half-staff, where they have been in honor of the late President George H.W. Bush.

“The unthinkable tragedy that occurred on this day will forever have an impact—not only here in Connecticut, but throughout the entire nation,” Malloy said in a statement. “I think about these innocent, young children and generous, kindhearted educators every single day. I will always keep them in my prayers.”

https://www.theepochtimes.com/bomb-threat-empties-sandy-hook-school-on-attack-anniversary_2739459.html

Looming Brexit Betrayal – It’s Even Worse than You Feared…

I have some inside dirt on the ongoing betrayal of Brexit by our liberal elite Establishment. The news is not good. Here is what I hear:

European Research Group — hoist by their own petard.

Remainers have been having an absolute field day crowing about the failure of Brexiteer Tory MPs to unseat Theresa May in Wednesday’s confidence vote. Why on earth did they time it so badly — submitting those 48 letters at a moment when they were almost certain to lose the vote? The story I hear is that they didn’t. The timing was decided for them by none other than May’s hamster-faced Chief of Staff Gavin Barwell who, it is said, deliberately released some of the 48 letters which had previously been withheld in order to force the issue.

Remainers are on serious manoeuvres

Gavin Barwell, in cahoots with fellow Remainer David Lidington (Minister for the Cabinet Office), is holding talks with Labour MPs regarding their preferred — and the most likely — option at this stage: a Second Referendum. The terms of this referendum will, of course, be so rigged as to divide the Brexit vote and secure something much closer to Remain and many miles from the Brexit that the majority voted for in June 2016.

Meanwhile, Cabinet Office lawyers are busy working on ways to revoke Article 50 (Britain’s exit from the European Union). Furthermore, Lidington, Amber Rudd, Philip Hammond, and the rest of the Remainer Conservative cabal are plotting a series of free votes in Parliament (the deal, no deal, Norway, second referendum), confident that the second referendum is the only thing Parliament will go for…

Tony Blair’s filthy paw prints are all over this…

“The pretty straight kind of guy”, friend to sleazy billionaire global despots, and as-yet-unconvicted war criminal has persuaded the European Commission that No Deal is not a viable option for the UK and will never happen. He has told them that the public is against Brexit and that a second referendum will deliver a Remain result. For this reason, the EU’s negotiators are in no hurry to offer Theresa May any kind of improvement on their current deal offer: they think she’s stuck with it regardless.

Labour’s strategy — devised by Jeremy Corbyn’s sinister puppet master, Wykehamist Stalinist Seumas Milne

Labour is content largely to watch while the Tory party destroys itself. They are hoping for a No Deal, which they see as the best hope of delivering Brexit chaos followed — they are calculating — by a General Election which they will win. They don’t want to push for a second referendum themselves because they fear a backlash from their working class Brexit-supporting voters. However, while they will not initiate a second referendum, their shadow Chancellor John McDonnell has argued they should support one if it comes along.

It’s becoming increasingly clear, isn’t it, that all the events leading up to Brexit referendum vote in June 2016 were completely irrelevant. Worse, the victory won by the 17.4 million people who voted Brexit, was an illusory triumph. So busy were the Brexiteers celebrating and imagining that they had won that they didn’t notice the galvanising effect this had on the Remainer Establishment — which only redoubled its efforts to make sure Brexit never happened.

https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2018/12/14/delingpole-looming-brexit-betrayal-its-even-worse-than-you-feared/

The Totalitarian Fantasy That Is the SDNY's Campaign Finance Investigation of Trump

I’m going to have to stop reflexively making fun of people who make slippery-slope arguments.

I admit to smirking at activists who warned that Title IX would lead to sex-specific bathrooms being declared discriminatory, transitioning men participating in women’s sports, and mere accusations of sexual assault against men being proof of guilt—no matter how vague the definition.

Now federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York are making the case that anything that happens to a candidate in his personal life—good or bad—is a possible campaign contribution, even if no campaign funds were spent.

But hey, if a tax cut—government not taking your money—can be called a giveaway…

You can find lots of discussion as to the technical aspects of why Michael Cohen arranging hush money for Trump’s bad behavior with sketchy women is not a campaign finance violation (the best of which was written by the great Hans von Spakovsky) and we will touch on some of those. But the frightening thing about the SDNY charging Michael Cohen is that it is a massive expansion of federal power into personal matters.

As Boston lawyer Harvey Silverglate explains in his fine book, Three Felonies a Day: How the Feds Target the Innocent, the complexity of federal law means the feds can target pretty much any ordinary citizen and find something to charge him with (as the Mueller probe seems determined to prove).

If the SDNY’s creative interpretation of campaign finance law is allowed to stand, the Justice Department will have the power to take down pretty much any major candidate they do not like.

In free countries, we investigate crimes. In authoritarian countries, they investigate individuals.

If there is any doubt that the Mueller investigation ceased being a counter-intelligence operation and became a criminal investigation with a specific target in search of a crime, this tangent in the Cohen probe (which was handed to the SDNY by the special counsel) offers absolute proof.

Here’s how insidious this is: In order for Cohen to get a break on his fraud and tax evasion charges, he pled guilty to something that isn’t even a crime—and for which he’s not getting additional jail time—in order to name Donald Trump as a co-conspirator in that “crime.”

https://pjmedia.com/election/the-totalitarian-fantasy-that-is-the-sdnys-campaign-finance-investigation-of-trump/

Polish PM: Federal EU Superstate ‘Not What Europeans Desire’

Emmanuel Macron’s dream of a federal EU is “far from” what ordinary Europeans desire, the Polish prime minister has said, declaring that “the only realistic solution is to build a Europe of nations”.

In an interview with Le Figaro this week, Mateusz Morawiecki told the French newspaper that their president’s vision of a Brussels-run federal EU superstate is “far from what the peoples [of Europe] desire” and is “detached from reality”.

Highlighting another difference in outlook between the governments in Paris and Warsaw, Morawiecki said he failed to grasp what Macron meant when he asserted last year that “there is no French culture”.

“I do not agree with this, and I think — on the contrary — that the culture of France is one of the greatest in the world,” the Polish leader stated, going on to highlight wider cultural differences between the continent’s west and east.

“Although Western Europe is becoming less and less Christian, the religion is flourishing and teeming with life in the east of the continent — especially in Poland,” Morawiecki said, stressing that “only by protecting our cultures can we enrich the EU”.

Acknowledging the existence of a number of “misunderstandings” between Poland and France, the Law and Justice (PiS) premier suggested that Macron’s having “offended the countries of eastern and central Europe” with his repeated attacks on nationalism, was rooted in the western states not having experienced decades of “enslavement” under Communism.

The Poles are “realists”, and as such recognise that “the differences of languages ​​and of interests on the continent mean that we will never be able to become the United States of Europe”, Morawiecki said, asserting that the “universal European values” spoken of by proponents of a federal EU do not exist.

“There is no doubt that we see the future of Europe differently … We have to return to the Europe of nations [model] which respects the interests of all of its members,” insisted the prime minister.

Noting that accepting mass immigration from the third world has not proved popular amongst European electorates, Morawiecki said that Poland proposes to “solve the problem in a different way”, by sending funds to conflict regions.

Poland has been one of the biggest contributors to the EU Economic Resilience Initiative (ERI), donating 50 million towards building hospitals and schools in Lebanon, which hosts a large number of refugees, he pointed out.

“This is a much more effective way to reduce tension around the EU. Our approach is quite different from the one taken by [German Chancellor] Angela Merkel,” Morawiecki told journalist Isabelle Lasserre.

https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2018/12/14/poland-eu-superstate-detached-reality/

Policing For Profit: How Civil Asset Forfeiture Funds Law Enforcement

Picture this: You’re driving home from the casino and you've absolutely cleaned up – to the tune of $50,000. You see a police car pull up behind you, but you can’t figure out why. Not only have you not broken any laws, you’re not even speeding. But the police officer doesn’t appear to be interested in charging you with a crime. Instead, he takes your gambling winnings, warns you not to say anything to anyone unless you want to be charged as a drug kingpin, then drives off into the sunset.

This actually happened to Tan Nguyen, and his story is far from unique. It’s called civil asset forfeiture and it’s a multi-billion dollar piggybank for state, local and federal police departments to fund all sorts of pet projects.

With its origins in the British fight against piracy on the open seas, civil asset forfeiture is nothing new. During Prohibition, police officers often seized goods, cash and equipment from bootleggers in a similar manner to today. However, contemporary civil asset forfeiture begins right where you’d think that it would: The War on Drugs.

In 1986, as First Lady Nancy Reagan encouraged America’s youth to “Just Say No,” the Justice Department started the Asset Forfeiture Fund. This sparked a boom in civil asset forfeiture that’s now become self-reinforcing, as the criminalization of American life and asset forfeiture have continued to feed each other.

In sum, asset forfeiture creates a motivation to draft more laws by the legislature, while more laws create greater opportunities for seizure by law enforcement. This perverse incentive structure is having devastating consequences: In 2014 alone, law enforcement took more stuff from American citizens than burglars did.

The current state of civil asset forfeiture in the United States is one of almost naked tyranny. Don’t believe us? Read on.

The Origins of Civil Asset Forfeiture

Civil asset forfeiture has a deep history in maritime law. In many cases, it just wasn’t practical to bring owners of vessels carrying contraband in front of an American court. So customs enforcement would simply seize the contraband. But in practice, seizure of assets was rare and generally required a felony conviction in court. Often times these convictions were obtained in absentia, but the point is that there was a criminal proceeding and due process.

During the Civil War, as part of sweeping attacks on liberty that included Lincoln suspending habeas corpus and obtaining an arrest warrant for the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, supporters of the Confederacy had their property confiscated without due process. Civil asset forfeiture was used during the Prohibition Era to seize assets from bootleggers and suspected bootleggers. Even innocent owners had no defense during Prohibition if their property was used in violation of the Volstead Act.

In 1984, civil asset forfeiture entered a new phase. The Comprehensive Crime Control Act, championed by then-President Ronald Reagan, allowed for police agencies to keep the assets they seized. This highly incentivized the seizure of assets for the purpose of funding police departments rather than pursuing criminal charges. However, the game changed completely in 1996 – the year of the landmark Supreme Court decision Bennis v. Michigan(516 U.S. 442). This ruling held that the innocent owner defense was not sufficient to recover assets seized during civil asset forfeiture.

The plaintiff, Tina Bennis, was the joint owner of a vehicle with her husband John. The latter was arrested by Detroit police when caught with a prostitute on a street in Detroit, and the car was seized as a public nuisance. The court found that despite having no knowledge of the crime, there was no violation of either her property rights or her right to due process. Michigan’s law was specifically designed to deter people from using their assets in criminal activity, which the Supreme Court found to be Constitutional in a 5-4 decision. The Supreme Court likewise found that there was no right to compensation for Bennis.

https://www.blacklistednews.com/article/69756/policing-for-profit-how-civil-asset-forfeiture-funds-law.html

1/2

>>4311530

2/2

How to Protect Yourself

You might think there’s nothing you can do to protect yourself against civil asset forfeiture. However, this is not the case. While there is no 100-percent guarantee against civil asset forfeiture, there are some things you can do to provide yourself with some level of protection:

Establish innocent ownership. If you rent property, include a clause stating that illegal behavior is prohibited on your property.

Be careful who you rent your property to. If you don’t trust someone completely, don’t let them borrow your car or house sit for you.

Keep your LLC property on the up and up. It’s increasingly common for people to own property through an LLC. If you do this, make sure that all the legal i’s are dotted and t’s are crossed in terms of establishing your ownership.

Exercise dominion over your property. You can protect your rental property by regularly visiting it and documenting these visits.

Obtain fresh notes for any large amounts of cash. Nearly all circulated currency has drug residue on it, which is often used as evidence of criminal wrongdoing in civil asset forfeiture suits. You can protect yourself by requesting fresh notes when you go to the bank.

Show that you have taken active steps to prevent illegal activity on or with any property that you own, rent or lend. It won’t protect you completely, but it will give you a legal leg to stand on if you ever end up on the wrong side of a greedy police department.

While civil asset forfeiture is certainly scary to anyone who values liberty and property, much like the War on Some Drugs, the tide seems to be turning in favor of liberty and against those who wish to take it.

Japan Finalises EU Deal: No Backstop, No Free Movement, No £39bn Bill

Japan has finalised a long-delayed free trade agreement with the European Union — without having to join the bloc’s Customs Union, submit to its Free Movement immigration regime, or pay it tens of billions of euros.

While the EU has long since moved on from the days when it was supposed to be “trade bloc” — for example, by taking control of national fishing grounds and forming joint police, intelligence, and military bodies — it is still at root a Customs Union.

The bloc levies a Common External Tariff on all countries it has not negotiated a trade pact with, either individually or through organisations such as the European Economic Area (EEA), and forbids member-states from striking their own bilateral agreements or even casting independent votes on world trade bodies such as the WTO and UNECE.

https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2018/12/14/japan-finalises-eu-deal-no-backstop-no-free-movement-no-39bn-bill/

Elizabeth ‘Pocahontas’ Warren Admits She Is “Not a Person of Color”

On Friday, fake Indian Elizabeth Warren admitted she is “not a person of color,” despite claiming for decades to be Native American in order to advance her career.

When pandering speaking at Morgan State University, a historically black institution, Warren showed her white guilt and admitted she is indeed white.

“As a country, we need to stop pretending that the same doors open for everyone, because they don’t. I’m not a person of color. And I haven’t lived your life or experienced anything like the subtle prejudice, or more overt harm, that you may have experienced just because of the color of your skin,” Warren said during a commencement speech.

Elizabeth Warren claimed she was a minority “Native American” to get ahead in her career.

Warren made up all kinds of elaborate stories in an effort to bolster her claims she is Native American.

The Massachusetts Senator even claimed her parents had to elope because her father’s parents were racist and didn’t approve of their son’s Cherokee girlfriend.

Senator Warren also previously claimed her Pawpaw’s high cheekbones were proof she is of Native American descent.

In 1996 the Harvard Crimson identified Elizabeth Warren as a woman of color and Native American.

In 1998 Harvard bragged Elizabeth Warren, “who is Native American”, was their only minority tenured woman on staff.

A 1997 article in the Fordham Law Review described Warren as a Harvard law school’s “first woman of color.”

In October, Elizabeth Warren released a DNA study that claimed she is 1/1,024th Native American.

Now all of a sudden she’s a white lady who doesn’t know what it’s like to be discriminated against.

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2018/12/elizabeth-pocahontas-warren-admits-she-is-not-a-person-of-color/

BC Claims Chemical Weapons Helped Assad But Fails to Explain How | New Eastern Outlook

The BBC published an article in October titled, "How chemical weapons have helped bring Assad close to victory" in which it claims chemical weapons have been "crucial" to Syrian President Bashar Al Assad's "war-winning strategy."

Superficially - the article appears impressive - loaded from top to bottom with colorful charts, graphs, and photographs of supposed victims in gas masks, expended munitions, and craters.

However, never once does the BBC provide an actual explanation as to how chemical weapons brought Damascus closer to victory. Even at face value, the article's entire premise is challenged in each paragraph by the statistics and events the article itself presents.

Alleged Chemical Weapon Casualties are a Drop in the Ocean

The article begins by claiming (emphasis added):

After seven devastating years of civil war in Syria, which have left more than 350,000 people dead, President Bashar al-Assad appears close to victory against the forces trying to overthrow him.

Yet further down in the article under a graph titled, "Estimated number of casualties in the 106 attacks by location 2014-18," the BBC admits that only 55 of the supposed 106 attacks the BBC accuses Syria's government of carrying out even resulted in any casualties at all, and admits that "it was not possible to verify that the casualties reported were the result of exposure to chemicals."

The BBC would also admit that:

Although chemical weapons are deadly, UN human rights experts have noted that most incidents in which civilians are killed and maimed have involved the unlawful use of conventional weapons, such as cluster munitions and explosive weapons in civilian populated areas.

Thus, the BBC itself is undermining the entire premise of its own article - admitting that conventional weapons - not chemical weapons - are by far more effective and that its investigation makes it impossible to even determine if chemical weapons claimed any casualties at all.

But does the BBC try to convince readers chemical weapons still somehow played a role in Damascus' victory?

"Cheap and Convenient" Chemical Weapons?

The BBC cites Dr. Lina Khatib, head of the Middle East and North Africa program at corporate-financier-funded think tank - Chatham House.

Dr. Khatib would claim:

Sometimes the regime uses chemical weapons when it doesn't have the military capacity to take an area back using conventional weapons.

She would also claim:

Chemical weapons are used whenever the regime wants to send a strong message to a local population that their presence is not desirable.

In addition to chemical weapons being the ultimate punishment, instilling fear in people, they are also cheap and convenient for the regime at a time when its military capacity has decreased because of the conflict.

There's nothing that scares people more than chemical weapons, and whenever chemical weapons have been used, residents have fled those areas and, more often than not, not come back.

https://www.blacklistednews.com/article/69755/bbc-claims-chemical-weapons-helped-assad-but-fails-to-explain-how–new-eastern.html

>>4311670

US Special Counsel Defends FBI Interview of Michael Flynn

The Federal Bureau of Investigations did not cause former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn to "make false statements to the FBI," the special counsel's office, charged with investigating allegations of collusion between members of the Trump campaign and the Russian government, argued in a filing on Friday.

https://sputniknews.com/us/201812141070703700-Special-Counsel-Defends-FBI-Flynn/

>>4311766

>>4311599

Facebook announces latest security breach — an estimated 6.8 million users impacted

A so-called bug may have exposed the photos of millions of Facebook users without their permission, the social media giant announced Friday.

How many people are impacted?

As many as 6.8 million Facebook users may be impacted by a bug affecting 1,500 apps built by 876 developers, according to a blog post from one of Facebook's directors.

Users' photos were exposed over a 12-day period in September, according to the post. Although users granted permission to the apps to access their photos, this would have included even pictures that were set to private. The post explains:

"When someone gives permission for an app to access their photos on Facebook, we usually only grant the app access to photos people share on their timeline," Bar wrote. "In this case, the bug potentially gave developers access to other photos, such as those shared on Marketplace or Facebook Stories. The bug also impacted photos that people uploaded to Facebook but chose not to post. For example, if someone uploads a photo to Facebook but doesn't finish posting it - maybe because they've lost reception or walked into a meeting - we store a copy of that photo so the person has it when they come back to the app to complete their post."

CNN Business asked Facebook why it waited so long to make the announcement.

"We have been investigating the issue since it was discovered to try and understand its impact so that we could ensure we are contacting the right developers and people affected by the bug," a Facebook spokesperson told CNN. "It then took us some time to build a meaningful way to notify people, and get translations done."

In the blog post, Facebook indicated it will notify people who were impacted. The company continues to face scrutiny for how it handles information given to third-party application developers.

Anything else?

Earlier this year, Facebook faced backlash when it was revealed that Cambridge Analytica used an app to gather information on tens of millions of Americans.

Facebook faced a fine in the U.K. that was equal to about $630,000 U.S. dollars for two breaches of the Data Protection Act. The fine was the maximum amount possible, The Guardian reported. The Information Commissioner's Office decided that Facebook failed to safeguard its users' information and also was not transparent in how the data was harvested by others.

https://www.theblaze.com/news/facebook-announces-another-security-breach-this-time-its-photos

FUCKBOOK

>>4311838

Kek this is why I just post content and avoid chat and bantz during the day

Western Powers Collapsing One After Another

What Lies Behind the Malaise of the West?

By Patrick J. Buchanan

Is it coincidence or contagion, this malady that seems to have suddenly induced paralysis in the leading nations of the West?

With lawyer-fixer Michael Cohen’s confession that he colluded with Donald Trump in making hush money payoffs to Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal, America’s stage is set for a play that will run two years.

As Democrats test the waters for a presidential run by savaging Trump, the establishment Trump detests and defeated in 2016 will use every weapon in its considerable arsenal to break and bring him down, as it did half a century ago to Richard Nixon.

By spring 2019, Americans will be unable to escape the vitriol on cable and social media. And the outside world will see America again as a house divided. Our politics will be even more poisonous than now, and it is not easy to see what would bring our warring tribes together again.

Consider, then, the situation of our old ally Great Britain.

Prime Minister Theresa May was just forced to pledge that she would not lead her party in the next election — to survive a no-confidence vote in Parliament. A third of all Tory members voted to throw her out.

The no-confidence vote was called after May had to cancel a vote on the Brexit plan she had negotiated with the EU, when it was evident that a coalition of Tories and Labor would vote to kill her plan.

May has been humiliated. Yet her humiliation solves nothing. The clock is running toward a March deadline for concluding a Brexit deal. And no plan acceptable to both Parliament and the EU is on the table.

The possibility exists that Britain could simply crash out of the EU, causing severe economic damage to both.

Realizing this, Brussels has left the door open if Britain should vote in a second referendum to remain in the EU. But calling and carrying out that referendum would be a betrayal of the 52 percent of the British people that voted to restore full national independence.

While London wanted to stay in the EU in 2016, England voted to leave. Northern Ireland wanted to stay, as did Scotland, though 45 percent of Scots had earlier voted to declare their own independence from Great Britain.

In France, after four Saturdays of anarchy, arson, looting and vandalism of her national monuments, President Emmanuel Macron capitulated to the rioters. He withdrew the fuel tax that triggered the uprisings. He agreed to have his government add $113 a month to those earning the minimum wage, and to let workers get overtime pay and Christmas bonuses tax-free, and to revoke higher social charges on modest pensions.

https://buchanan.org/blog/what-lies-behind-the-malaise-of-the-west-130792