CNN's "Journalist Of The Year" Committed Journalistic Fraud "On A Grand Scale" At Der Spiegel

German news magazine Der Spiegel has admitted that one of its top reporters has faked stories for several years.

Award-winning journalist Claas Relotius had "made up stories and invented protagonists" in approximately 14 out of 60 articles which appeared both in print and online editions. He had worked for Der Spiegel for seven years, winning numerous awards for his investigative journalism - including CNN's Journalist of the Year award in 2014, according to the Guardian.

Relotius, 33, tendered his resignation after admitting to the fraud.

Earlier this month Relotius won Germany's Reporter of the Year (Reporterpreis) honor for his story about a young Syrian boy. Since the report was written, it has emerged that all of the sources were hazy at best, and most of what he wrote was completely fabricated.

The falsification came to light after a colleague who worked with him on a story along the US-Mexican border raised suspicions about some of the details in Relotius’s reporting, having harboured doubts about him for some time.

The colleague, Juan Moreno, eventually tracked down two alleged sources quoted extensively by Relotius in the article, which was published in November. Both said they had never met Relotius. Relotius had also lied about seeing a hand-painted sign that read “Mexicans keep out”, a subsequent investigation found.

Other fraudulent stories included one about a Yemeni prisoner in Guantanamo Bay, and one about the American football star Colin Kaepernick. -Guardian

The Spiegel - which has an online readership of over 6.5 million and sells around 725,000 print copies per month, admitted to the fraud in a lengthy article in which they said they were "shocked" by the discovery - apologizing for anyone deceived by Relotius's "fraudulent quotes, made-up personal details or invented scenes at fictitious places."

The magazine added that Relotius had committed journalistic fraud "on a grand scale," and has described the incident as "a low point in Spiegel’s 70-year history."

Relotius worked for several other outlets, including Germany's taz, Welt and the Frankfurter Allgemeine's Sunday edition.

Relotius told Spiegel that he was deeply ashamed for his fabrications, claiming "I am sick and I need to get help."

Moreno, who has worked for the magazine since 2007, risked his own job when he confronted other colleagues with his suspicions, many of whom did not want to believe him. “For three to four weeks Moreno went through hell because colleagues and those senior to him did not want to believe his accusations at first,” Der Spiegel wrote in an apology to its readers. For several weeks, the magazine said, Relotius was even considered to be the victim of a cunning plot by Moreno.

“Relotius cleverly rebuffed all the attacks, all of Moreno’s well-researched pieces of evidence … until there came a point when that didn’t work any more, until he finally couldn’t sleep any more, hunted by the fear of being discovered,” the magazine wrote. -Guardian

After being confronted by a senior editor, Relotius finally caved and admitted to the fraud. In his confession, he said "It wasn’t because of the next big thing. It was fear of failing. My pressure to not be able to fail got ever bigger the more successful I became."

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-12-19/spiegel-journalist-who-faked-stories-committed-journalistic-fraud-grand-scale

NY federal judge blocks state opioid tax on manufacturers, distributors

A federal judge in New York blocked on Wednesday a unique law aimed at collecting $600 million from drug companies to be used to combat the opioid crisis.

U.S. District Judge Katherine Polk Failla ruled that the law, which would allow the state to extract payments from drug manufacturers and distributors, is a violation of the U.S. Constitution. A specific issue in the legal challenge is a provision that would have prevented opioid manufacturers from passing along the cost of the tax to consumers.

In her decision, Judge Failla ruled that this provision violated the Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution. She further ruled that this provision was not severable from the rest of the Act, meaning that the whole act had to be struck down.

The law was challenged by the generic drugmaker's group, Association for Accessible Medicines; Healthcare Distribution Alliance (a drug wholesale distributor group) and opioid generics maker Mallinckrodt PLC's unit SpecGx.

The recently enacted law, known as the Opioid Stewardship Act, established a "stewardship fund" to finance opioid addiction treatment and education programs in New York. The law would put the full expense on the manufacturers and distributors of opioids.

To fund the programs, the state would need to collect a total of $100 million each year from 2019 to 2024. Each company's payment would be based on its annual opioid sales.

The first payments were due on Jan. 1 and were calculated based on 2017 sales. Mallinckrodt's SpecGX said in court papers it owed $1.2 million.

The Association for Accessible Medicines told Reuters in a statement that the "legislative proposals must reflect an understanding of the pharmaceutical ecosystem and adhere to the tenets of the U.S. Constitution."

Several states have considered proposing similar laws, according to the report.

https://www.theblaze.com/news/federal-judge-blocks-opioid-tax

Turchynov Calls for New Kerch Strait Provocation With NATO Support

The secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, Oleksandr Turchynov, said that Ukraine plans to carry out a new passage of ships through the Kerch Strait with the involvement of international partners.

“This is, for us, fundamental. If we stop and retreat, Russia will actually fulfill its task of seizing the Sea of ​​Azov, presenting to the world certain new sea borders in the Black Sea, de facto legalizing the occupation of the Crimea,” he said in an interview with BBC Ukraine.

The secretary of the National Security and Defense Council stressed that this issue should not be delayed.

“We also offer our partners to take part in this passage from the Ukrainian Black Sea ports to the Ukrainian ports on the Azov coast,” added Turchinov.

According to him, Ukraine intends to invite representatives of the OSCE and other international organizations, including NATO, to take part in this passage.

“It would be very logical. That the NATO ships invited by us to the ports of the Sea of ​​Azov prove that Russia must reckon with international law. So far, our initiative has not received a response. But I hope that during the next passage of the Ukrainian warships through the Kerch Strait, they at least send their observers to us,” said Turchinov.

He also commented on the likelihood of Russia detaining representatives of NATO and the OSCE.

“When the attention of the leading countries of the world will be riveted on this issue, Russia will hold its tail and will not risk acting aggressively. But if we leave the situation that is unfolding around the Kerch Strait to the mercy of fate, if our sailors are not immediately released from captivity, then the civilized world will in fact recognize that Russia has the right to any aggression, to any changes in borders and will not be held responsible! ”, said Turchinov.

https://www.fort-russ.com/2018/12/turchynov-calls-for-new-kerch-strait-provocation-with-nato-support/

>>4380904

NOTABLE

Judges Quietly Dismiss More Than EIGHTY Ethics Complaints Against Brett Kavanaugh

A panel of federal judges has dismissed dozens of ethics complaints filed against now-Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, many of which were brought against the former federal judge during his confirmation hearings.

NPR reports that a special panel of judges was brought together to assess the claims, which "ranged from allegations that he had misled the Senate about some of his activities in the George W. Bush White House to his angry, partisan statements in denying charges of sexual assault in high school."

The panel reportedly concluded that while the complaints, many of which were leveled by leftist activists, are "serious," "there is no existing authority that allows lower court judges to investigate or discipline Supreme Court justices."

The panel considered 83 complaints in all.

The head of the panel, the Chief Circuit Court Judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit, wrote in his order that "the complaints must be dismissed because an intervening event — Justice Kavanaugh’s confirmation to the Supreme Court — has made the complaints no longer appropriate for consideration under the [Judicial Conduct and Disability Act]," according to CNBC.

"In the order, [the Chief Judge] said that most of the complaints include allegations of false statements under oath during Kavanaugh’s D.C. Circuit confirmation hearings in 2004 and 2006 as well as during his Supreme Court confirmation hearings earlier this year. Kavanaugh, President Donald Trump’s second nominee to the top court, was accused of sexual misconduct before he was confirmed. He emphatically denied the allegations," CNBC reported.

Kavanaugh, of course, fell under scrutiny during his Supreme Court confirmation hearings after a woman named Dr. Christine Blasey Ford alleged that Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her at a party when the pair were teenagers in suburban Washington, D.C.. The accusations led to a weeks-long investigation involving the FBI and the Senate Judiciary Committee.

During that time, at least two other women came forward with allegations against Kavanaugh, but evidence to support their claims never materialized.

Leftist groups, including the "Democratic Coalition Against Trump," run by longtime partisan operative Scott Dworkin, filed dozens of complaints against Kavanaugh during the two months he was under investigation, alleging that the judge did everything from sexually assault women to lie under oath about his role in the George W. Bush White House. At the time, media outlets called the complaints "specious," but leftists persisted, bringing full, completed documents to Kavanaugh's former bosses on the D. C. Circuit court and in various state courts.

After the complaints were received, they were consolidated and assigned to the specially selected panel, which released its final decision on Tuesday.

https://www.dailywire.com/news/39521/judges-quietly-dismiss-more-eighty-ethics-emily-zanotti

Lawmakers: Loretta Lynch Forthcoming in Closed-Door Interview – Answered More Questions Than Comey on Certain Topics

Former Attorney General Loretta Lynch finished up a 6-hour closed-door interview with lawmakers Wednesday evening.

Loretta Lynch arrived on Capitol Hill Wednesday morning as part of a joint investigation with the House Oversight and Government Reform Committees into the handling of the Clinton email investigation and her role in RussiaGate.

Lawmakers wanted to ask Loretta Lynch questions about her June 2016 tarmac meeting with Bill Clinton at the Phoenix International airport and Comey’s decision to usurp the DOJ when he gave a presser exonerating Hillary Clinton on July 5th.

Lynch, Obama’s corrupt Attorney General, was subpoenaed by the House Judiciary Committee on Thanksgiving along with the equally corrupt former FBI Director James Comey.

Comey testified twice to the Committees, including on Monday and refused to answer many questions.

According to lawmakers, Loretta Lynch was much more forthcoming about certain topics. Lynch and her lawyers weren’t raising objections to questions like Comey and his lawyers did on many topics.

CNN reported:

Leaving the interview, Democrats said there was nothing new to learn from Lynch, while Republicans pointed to her differences with Comey in the Clinton investigation and said there were still questions about her meeting with the former President in 2016.

Lawmakers said Lynch’s interview was less contentious than Comey, and she and her attorneys weren’t raising objections to questions like Comey did with certain topics.

[Republican Congressman] Issa said there were still questions over what happened with her tarmac meeting with Bill Clinton, suggesting that when Lynch met with him in 2016, Clinton could have helped the career of the nation’s top law enforcement officer.

Republicans waited too long to subpoena Loretta Lynch and James Comey; House Democrats will take back the gavel in about two weeks.

The House Judiciary will not release a transcript of Wednesday’s interview with Loretta Lynch. The panel will release a transcript of today’s interview as a part of its investigation report…alongside transcripts of 16 other interviews..by end of the year.

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2018/12/lawmakers-loretta-lynch-forthcoming-in-closed-door-interview-answered-more-questions-than-comey-on-certain-topics/

>>4381087

kek my takeaway to

KEK panic

>>4381127

Flynn hearing leaves the far right's conspiracy theorists wanting

As Mueller’s investigation has widened and ensnared more members of Trump’s team, conspiracy theories of Trump loyalists have been forced to contort in a variety of ways.

A year-old conspiracy theory simmering in both far-right message boards and mainstream conservative publications that predicted former national security advisor Michael Flynn would be exonerated fell apart on Tuesday at his sentencing hearing, leaving believers perplexed.

The rumors, which were pushed heavily by believers in the Qanon conspiracy theory in recent days, predicted that Judge Emmett Sullivan would throw out Flynn’s guilty plea and reprimand Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s team for nefarious investigating practices.

In reality, Sullivan excoriated Flynn, saying that “arguably, you sold your country out” by working as an unregistered foreign agent to Turkey while advising President Donald Trump during his candidacy and clarifying with Flynn that he did not wish to challenge the circumstances under which he was interviewed by the FBI. Flynn's defense attorneys suggested last week that he had somehow been entrapped into lying to the FBI.

“I was aware” that lying to the FBI was a crime, Flynn told Sullivan, adding that he accepted responsibility for his false statements.

Though Sullivan delayed sentencing Flynn for three months, noting that Flynn could cooperate further with Mueller’s team, he made it clear that a jail term for Flynn remains a possibility.

As Mueller’s investigation has widened and ensnared more members of Trump’s team, conspiracy theories of Trump loyalists have been forced into a variety of contortions to justify the belief that the special prosecutor’s actions are working in Trump’s favor or an abuse of prosecutorial power.

Many of those contortions relied on Flynn being let off by Sullivan, who on Tuesday made clear that would not be the case.

https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/internet/flynn-hearing-leaves-far-right-s-conspiracy-theorists-wanting-n949626

>>4381184

Copy that

Seems the FED is going to take down the market are you forcing their hand or were they co-opted?

>>4380902

>>4381312

>>4381389

last bit of Chad's tweet.

>>4381420

Hello Sir