Democrats Press Judicial Nominee About Knights Of Columbus Membership

Two Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee are pressing a nominee for the Nebraska federal trial court about his membership in the Knights of Columbus, a fraternal service organization of the Catholic Church.

Democratic Sens. Mazie Hirono of Hawaii and Kamala Harris of California submitted written questions in December to Brian Buescher, an Omaha lawyer nominated to the U.S. District Court for the District of Nebraska, proposing that he resign his affiliation with the knights, which they call an “all male society” that “has taken a number of extreme positions” on social questions.

The Catholic News Agency was first to report on Hirono and Harris’ questions respecting the Knights of Columbus.

Buescher leads the agribusiness litigation practice at Kutak Rock LLP, where he has practiced since graduating the Georgetown University Law Center in 2000. President Donald Trump nominated him to the federal bench on Oct. 10 at the recommendation of GOP Sens. Debra Fischer and Ben Sasse of Nebraska.

Lawmakers did not question Buescher about his enrollment in the knights during his Nov. 28 confirmation hearing, though he listed his association with the group in a questionnaire he returned to the Judiciary Committee prior to his appearance. The issue was only raised in a series of follow-up questions Democrats transmitted to Buescher on Dec. 5. Senators often submit written questions to nominees following a confirmation hearing, though they generally escape public notice.

Christian leaders have previously criticized Judiciary Committee Democrats for perceived anti-Catholic bias. Hirono was among the Democratic lawmakers who expressed concern that Judge Amy Coney Barrett’s religious convictions would impede the discharge of her judicial duties during Barrett’s confirmation hearing for the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in September 2017.

Like Buescher, Barrett is a Catholic. She is considered a serious contender for the Supreme Court, should another vacancy arise during the Trump administration. (RELATED: Roberts Joins Liberals, Thwarts Trump Attempt To Enforce New Asylum Rules)

Among other items, Harris asked Buescher if he was aware that the leadership of the knights opposes gay marriage, while Hirono asked whether he can assure litigants that he will fairly judge matters relating to reproductive rights.

https://dailycaller.com/2018/12/22/harris-hirono-knights-of-columbus/

Sweden: Female left-wing politician sentenced for having sex with a refugee child

A 45-year-old female Social Democrat politician in Alingsås has been sentenced to six months in prison for sexual exploitation of a dependent person.

This after the woman repeatedly had sex with a 16-year-old Afghan at the refugee centre she worked in.

According to the judgment, she had sex with the Afghan on at least 10 different occasions in 2017, both at the centre and in her home.

On the first occasion, the boy had helped her carry a massage table home. She began to massage him and according to the boy, then initiated sex with him.

She also bought the Afghan an expensive cell phone, alcohol and cigarettes and explained that she would “get him a passport”.

The Afghan claims that the 45-year-old insisted on unprotected sex because she wanted to get pregnant with him.

In addition to her political commitment, she is also an officer in the Armed Forces. The Afghan says that she showed him her uniform and gun, and that he was afraid something would happen if he told someone what had happened.

According to the Afghan, the 45-year-old initiated the sex.

The woman, on the other hand, claimed that she was indeed interested in a relationship with the Afghan, but that it was “entirely” he who took the initiative.

According to the District Court, it is “obvious” that the 16-year-old has been dependent on the woman. Though the exact age of the refugee child has not been established.

She was therefore sentenced to six months in prison. And will also pay €8,000 in damages to the Afghan.

https://voiceofeurope.com/2018/12/sweden-female-left-wing-politician-sentenced-for-having-sex-with-a-refugee-child/

300 Migrants Apprehended in Arizona Desert in 24 Hours

Tucson Sector Border Patrol agents apprehended two large groups of Central American migrants who illegally crossed the Mexican border into Arizona. The groups consisted mostly of family units and unaccompanied minors. At least five of the migrants required medical assistance.

Agents assigned to the Ajo Border Patrol Station came upon a group of 242 migrants while they were patrolling the border on December 19 about 15 miles west of Lukeville, Arizona, according to information obtained by Breitbart News from U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials. The following morning, Casa Grande Station agents came upon a group of 64 migrants while patrolling the border in the Tohono O’odham Nation. Both groups of migrants surrendered to the agents without incident, officials stated.

The agents reported both groups consisted mainly of family units — including juveniles and pregnant women. The groups came to the U.S. mainly from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras. Officials did not say if these groups broke away from or were connected to the so-called caravan migrants.

Border Patrol agents carried out initial screenings with the migrants which included an interview to determine if any of the migrants were experiencing health of safety-related issues. During that screening process, agents identified five people — one pregnant woman and four juveniles who required immediate medical assistance. Agents arranged transportation for those file migrants to a hospital in Goodyear, Arizona. Doctors treated the migrants and released them to Ajo Station agents for processing.

Agents at the Tucson station identified nine additional juveniles displaying flu-like symptoms The juveniles who ranged in age from one to thirteen were taken to a local hospital for evaluation and treatment, officials reported.

“Border Patrol agents save people every year who are overcome by the elements, including people found suffering from dehydration, heat stroke, hypothermia, drowning in the river, injuries, and left for dead by smugglers in some of the most remote areas of the desert when they enter the country illegally,” Tucson Sector officials said.

Agents processed the remaining migrants for immigration violations according to Tucson Sector protocols.

https://www.breitbart.com/border/2018/12/23/300-migrants-apprehended-in-arizona-desert-in-24-hours/

Elites United in Panic Over Syria Pullout, Afghanistan Drawdown

Sen. Graham urges Congressional hearings on war changes

Open-ended war continuation has so much momentum in the US that President Trump’s announced pullout from Syria shocked the nation. Followed up the same week with a drawdown from Afghanistan, the mainstream is now completely apoplectic.

On the left and right, comfort with the status quo was virtually uniform. The arguments behind condemning the drawdowns vary depending on the side of the aisle the commenter is on, but the message is uniform opposition to ending a war Congress never authorized in the first place.

Conservative hawks are playing the usual fear-mongering about threats that have been ongoing since 2001, with suggestions that either not being in Syria, or being in Afghanistan but at a lower troop number, will lead to “the next 9/11.”

Perma-hawk Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) has never seen an escalation he didn’t like, and he is demanding Senate hearings on Trump’s troop level changes. It’s not clear such hearings will happen, however.

In Afghanistan, this is hardly the first drawdown the US has done, and despite Graham opposing them all, they’ve generally just happened. It’s also not clear the Senate has any say in how the Syrian War is being engaged in, or not engaged in, as the Senate has consistently refused to vote on the question of authorizing the US to be in Syria in the first place.

Others were quick to call Trump’s policy in Syria “Obama-like,” even though Obama is the one who sent troops to Syria in the first place, and Trump campaigned in 2016, at least at times, on the idea of eventually withdrawing. Eventually withdrawing works as a campaign slogan, but clearly officials never expected it to happen as a real policy.

Among Democrats, the argument is a bit more confused but no less shrill, as they’ve attacked Trump’s hawkish impulses, but are now accusing him of acting hastily and arbitrarily in ending the war. That Russia has not favored the US presence in Syria is only riling up the argument that Putin is driving US policy as well.

Yet the arguments for staying in Syria, or Afghanistan, aren’t particularly strong, and it is only that both parties’ leadership have so consistently balked at exploring the question that seems to have left many with the impression that the very question was off the table.

The American public, however, seems to broadly support Trump’s decision to withdraw from Syria, and to bring some troops home from Afghanistan. The White House switchboard is laden with calls of support.

https://news.antiwar.com/2018/12/21/elites-united-in-panic-over-syria-pullout-afghanistan-drawdown/

Project fear returns: Gov’t and NHS health chiefs announce “war room” for no deal Brexit

The UK Government and NHS health chiefs quietly announced a new Operations Response Centre or “war room” set to deal with a No Deal Brexit. Crisis plans and warning doctors could have to cancel holiday for fear expats could have to return to the UK.

The 34-page plan was “sneaked out” days before Christmas, yesterday, while MPs are on holiday. The plan suggests that doctors and nurses will need to cancel holidays as hospitals and surgeries “battle” to cope with a No Deal Brexit come 29 March.

NHS staff “directed” to make certain patients do not stockpile medicines at home which could cause shortages throughout the system.

No 10 has increased preparations for the UK to “crash out” of the EU without a pact at 11 pm on 29 March 2019.

Does this all sound a bit ‘Y2K’ish to you? We asked our own political correspondent and Member of the European Parliament MEP Janice Atkinson about this Brexit panic.

With more than 61 per cent of Britains wanting a No Deal Brexit it leaves one to ask, is there really a cliff edge? Is there really this much to fear?

Mrs. Atkinson rightly says:

“War room nonsense, stockpiling drugs and food? What will May stoop to next? Everyone has had 2.5 years to plan for Brexit, there is no excuse. This is ramping up Project Fear nuclear style.

“The largest manufacturers of drugs are outside EU – India, US, Switzerland and … UK. This nuclear Project Fear is to frighten MPs and the people to support her Remain deal.

“Polls show people want to leave without a deal. May’s legacy will be the woman that lied, tried to stoke up fear in the vulnerable and didn’t believe in Britain”.

https://voiceofeurope.com/2018/12/project-fear-returns-govt-and-nhs-health-chiefs-announce-war-room-for-no-deal-brexit/

Swedish Journalist Gets to Keep Job After People Smuggling Conviction

Swedish journalist Fredrik Önnevall, an employee of public broadcaster SVT, has been convicted of human trafficking after bringing a migrant to Sweden but will still get to keep his job.

Önnevall, along with members of his crew, was found guilty this week in Sweden’s supreme court of people smuggling, Nyheter Idag reports.

While on assignment for the broadcaster in Greece in 2014, he smuggled a 15-year-old Syrian boy across multiple European countries and into Sweden.

“The transport from Greece to Sweden went through several countries where the refugee had been able to seek asylum. In addition, some planning took place during the journey,” the court wrote in its judgement and sentenced all involved to fines and conditional sentences.

The journalist and his crew were initially found guilty in a district court and the supreme court ruling ends their appeals against the initial verdict. But despite this, the public broadcaster has said that Önnevall will be welcome to continue on in his role at the company.

“SVT agrees with the team that they abandoned their journalistic mission in this case, but they ended up in a difficult situation and acted on humanitarian grounds and not for their own gain,” wrote Sabina Rasiwala, HR and Communications Director at SVT, in a press release.

Rasiwala also added that the broadcaster would be paying for the legal fees of those involved if need be saying, “We have a responsibility to them because we chose to broadcast the series of programmes where they portrayed what happened. It is not, therefore, that SVT takes a stand in the debt issue, but that we take responsibility for broadcasting the programme.”

The case also comes only days after Sweden’s largest human trafficking case in which six Bulgarian nationals were convicted of smuggling migrants into Sweden and forcing them to beg on the streets. The Bulgarians, who were all related, managed to send millions of euros home to Bulgaria as a result of their operations.

https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2018/12/23/swedish-journalist-gets-keep-job-people-smuggling-conviction/

Resurgent al Qaeda Plotting Attacks on Airports, Planes, UK Minister Warns

The UK’s security minister has warned that a resurgent al Qaeda is seeking to carrying out fresh terror attacks on airplanes, using drone technology and jihadist sleeper agents working at airports.

Ben Wallace MP told The Sunday Times that with Islamic State on the decline, al Qaeda was regrouping and had already made grounds in Syria, Afghanistan, Yemen, and Libya under the organisaton’s spiritual leader and Osama bin Laden’s inheritor Ayman al Zawahiri.

“The aviation threat is real,” Mr Wallace told the newspaper of record.

“Aviation is still a blue riband event for these terrorists. Al-Qaeda are resurgent. They have reorganised. They are pushing more and more plots towards Europe and have become familiar with new methods and still aspire to aviation attacks.”

“Al-Qaeda sat quietly in the corner and tried to work out what the 21st century looked like, while Isis became the latest terrorist boy band, but they have not gone away — they have reorganised. You’re seeing al-Qaeda appear in areas we thought were dormant,” he added.

https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2018/12/23/resurgent-al-qaeda-plotting-terror-attacks-airports-planes/

Harvard Researchers Begin Work on Bill Gates-Funded Project to Block Out the Sun with Geoengineering

As the world continues to grapple with the consequences of an ever-changing planet, scientists have continued to work on projects aimed at manipulating and shaping the world in unexpected ways.

The most controversial and hotly debated of all these topics (aside from climate change itself) has been that of geoengineering, a topic many news sites dare not breach for fear of being labeled as conspiracy theorists.

But now, the cat is officially out of the bag, as even Forbes just dropped a bombshell on its website: a new plan from Harvard scientists to “tackle climate change through geoengineering by clocking out the sun,” an admission that strangely enough has managed to stay off the radar screens of most major online media publications.

Gates-Funded Project to Block Out the Sun

Mimicking the effects of a huge volcano eruption, the $3 million Harvard plan, which will be partly funded by Bill Gates, is called the Stratospheric Controlled Perturbation Experiment (ScoPEx).

The experiment will release launch small particulars of calcium carbonate in the air sometime in spring 2019, and is based on the effects of large volcanic eruptions and their effects on the planet’s temperature, the Forbes article said.

One example is the 1991 eruption of Mt. Pinatubo in the Phillippines, which released 20 million tons of sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere. The resulting effect was a cooling of the entire planet by .5 degrees Celsius for a year and a half.

In this case, the Gates-Funded Harvard team will use a balloon suspended 12 miles above the Earth to spray the tiny chalk particles across a kilometer-long area, which the goal of reflecting the Sun’s rays away from the planet, The Independent reported.

These scientists contend that mimicking such an effect on a planet-wide scale could save the planet from global warming and stop sea ice from melting.

Critics of the plan argue that it could potentially have devastating effects on food crops, however.

But team member and research David Keith disagreed saying the benefits may outweigh the potential negative impacts.

“Despite all of the concerns, we can’t find any areas that would be definitely worse off,” he told Nature.

“If solar geoengineering is as good as what is shown in these models, it would be crazy not to take it seriously.”

Can We Really Trust Bill Gates With the Health of Our Planet?

But to some, the plan sounds eerily reminiscent of a famous episode of The Simpsons in which local billionaire and nuclear power plant owner C. Montgomery Burns (aka Mr. Burns) causes darkness to envelope the town of Springfield, which the famous family of Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa, Maggie and a host of others call home.

“You must be very proud,” Burns’ assistant Waylon Smithers asks in the video clip below from the show.

“No, not while my greatest nemesis still provides our customers with free light, heat and energy. I call this enemy, the sun,” Burns says.

https://govtslaves.info/2018/12/23/harvard-researchers-begin-work-on-bill-gates-funded-project-to-block-out-the-sun-with-geoengineering/

Spontaneous Yellow Vests movement’s domain name was registered a year before in May 2017

The Yellow Vests movement is a mass movement that began online in France in May 2018 as a protest against a gas tax hike (of about 25 cents a gallon). The movement quickly metamorphosed beyond the internet when protesters, wearing yellow vests as a symbol, took to the streets rioting against high taxes, eroding living standards, and what many see as the government’s indifference to the concerns of France’s regions and ordinary people.

Note: Since 2008, all motorists in France are required by law to have high-visibility yellow vests in their vehicles when driving, as a safety measure should the driver be required to exit the vehicle on the roadside.

The movement has spread beyond France to Belgium and the United Kingdom.

“Yellow vests” is gilets jaunes in French. We are told that the Yellow Vests or Gilets Jaunes movement is a spontaneous popular uprising, so it is most curious that a Frenchman who calls himself Jean L. discovered that the internet domain name www.giletsjaunes.com had been registered on May 15, 2017 — a full year before the Gilets Jaunes movement actually began.

See Jean L, “Yellow Vests – Color Revolution Gone Awry?,” henrymakow.com, Dec. 21, 2018.

More curious still, the giletsjaunes.com domain name was registered in Denver, Colorado. Below is the domain’s registrar information from NameBright.com:

Registrar Level Whois

Domain Name: GiletsJaunes.com

Registry Domain ID: 2124542527_DOMAIN_COM-VRSN

Registrar WHOIS server: whois.NameBright.com

Registrar URL: http://www.NameBright.com

Updated Date: 2018-11-23T00:00:00.000Z

Creation Date: 2017-05-15T18:13:42.000Z

Registrar Registration Expiration Date: 2020-05-15T00:00:00.000Z

Registrar: DropCatch.com 1428 LLC

Registrar IANA ID: 3637

Registrar Abuse Contact Email: abuse@NameBright.com

Registrar Abuse Contact Phone: +1.7204960020

Domain Status: clientTransferProhibited https://www.icann.org/epp#clientTransferProhibited

Registry Registrant ID: Not Available From Registry

Registrant Name: Private Registration

Registrant Organization:

Registrant Street: 2635 Walnut Street

Registrant City: Denver

Registrant State/Province: CO

Registrant Postal Code: 80205

Registrant Country: US

Registrant Phone: +1.7204960020

Registrant Phone Ext:

Registrant Fax:

Registrant Fax Ext:

Registrant Email: GiletsJaunes.com@NameBrightPrivacy.com

Registry Admin ID: Not Available From Registry

Admin Name: Private Registration

Admin Organization:

Admin Street: 2635 Walnut Street

Admin City: Denver

Admin State/Province: CO

Admin Postal Code: 80205

Admin Country: US

Admin Phone: +1.7204960020

Admin Phone Ext:

Admin Fax:

Admin Fax Ext:

Admin Email: GiletsJaunes.com@NameBrightPrivacy.com

Registry Tech ID: Not Available From Registry

Tech Name: Private Registration

Tech Organization:

Tech Street: 2635 Walnut Street

Tech City: Denver

Tech State/Province: CO

Tech Postal Code: 80205

Tech Country: US

Tech Phone: +1.7204960020

Tech Phone Ext:

Tech Fax:

Tech Fax Ext:

Tech Email: GiletsJaunes.com@NameBrightPrivacy.com

Name Server: brianna.ns.cloudflare.com

Name Server: pete.ns.cloudflare.com

DNSSEC: unsigned

URL of the ICANN WHOIS Data Problem Reporting System:

http://wdprs.internic.net

Last update of WHOIS database: 2018-12-22T02:50:38.995Z

The address of the domain name’s registrant — 2635 Walnut St., Denver, CO 80205 — is an office loft that LoopNet says is both “for lease” and “off market”. Here’s a street view of the building (I painted the yellow circle around the “For Lease” sign):

https://govtslaves.info/2018/12/23/spontaneous-yellow-vests-movements-domain-name-was-registered-a-year-before-in-may-2017/

Swedish Broadcaster Guest Compares Pro-Life Christians to ISIS, Nazis

Swedish public broadcaster SVT has been criticised for not challenging a guest on one of its programmes who compared pro-life Christians to Islamic State fighters and Nazi Germany.

The criticism comes after the broadcaster aired its Current News programme which was on the topic of Islamic State radicalism within families and featured Islamologist Mohammad Fazlhashemi, Swedish newspaper Världen Idag reports.

Mr Fazlhashemi commented on a recent video which emerged in Sweden showing Swedish Islamic State supporters interacting with their children urging them to say “Allah hu Akbar” and another describing to his children how he had killed an “unbeliever.”

When asked if he saw any resemblance in the behaviour to other extremist ideologies, Fazlhashemi said, “Yes, violent ideologies. From Nazism to Christians who kill abortionists. They all think the same way.”

Programme host Jon Nilsson was slammed by the newspaper, which has a Christian leaning, for allowing the point to go unchallenged noting that fewer than ten Christians had been convicted for murdering abortion doctors compared with the millions of deaths under Nazism and untold thousands under the oppressive yoke of the Islamic State.

Frida Mörtsell from SVT’s press office claimed the comments were directed at Christians who killed abortion doctors and not Christians in general, while Fazlhashemi himself clarified his words saying, “The difference may lie in the scope, but the mindset is the same: to have the right to violate others because they ‘do not think as we do’.”

While the programme was slammed by the Christian-leaning newspaper, it is unlikely to have caused much in the way of controversy across Sweden, where the exceedingly liberal state church is losing members every year and some are predicting it will lose as many as a million members in the next ten years.

According to a report released earlier this year, the number of baptisms has also fallen sharply, from 73 per cent of Swedish children being baptised into the Church of Sweden in 2000, to only 43 per cent in 2017, largely due to the recent mass influx of migrants.

https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2018/12/23/swedish-broadcaster-guest-compares-isis-nazis-pro-life-christians/

>>4439934 Democrats Press Judicial Nominee About Knights Of Columbus Membership

>>4439943 Sweden: Female left-wing politician sentenced for having sex with a refugee child

>>4439944 Macron knocks Trump’s Syria decision: ‘An ally should be dependable’

>>4439957 Indonesia pop band Seventeen's members dead or missing after tsunami

>>4440000 Gov’t and NHS health chiefs announce “war room” for no deal Brexit

>>4440124 Harvard Researchers Begin Work on Bill Gates-Funded Project to Block Out the Sun

EPA Plans to Allow Unlimited Dumping of Fracking Wastewater in the Gulf of Mexico

Environmentalists are warning the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that its draft plan to continue allowing oil and gas companies to dump unlimited amounts of fracking chemicals and wastewater directly into the Gulf of Mexico is in violation of federal law.

In a letter sent to EPA officials, attorneys for the Center for Biological Diversity warned that the agency’s draft permit for water pollution discharges in the Gulf fails to properly consider how dumping wastewater containing chemicals from fracking and acidizing operations would impact water quality and marine wildlife.

The attorneys claim that regulators do not fully understand how the chemicals used in offshore fracking and other well treatments — some of which are toxic and dangerous to human and marine life — can impact marine environments, and crucial parts of the draft permit are based on severely outdated data. Finalizing the draft permit as it stands would be a violation of the Clean Water Act, they argue.

The EPA is endangering an entire ecosystem by allowing the oil industry to dump unlimited amounts of fracking chemicals and drilling waste fluid into the Gulf of Mexico,” said Center attorney Kristen Monsell. “This appalling plan from the agency that’s supposed to protect our water violates federal law, and shows a disturbing disregard for offshore fracking’s toxic threats to sea turtles and other Gulf wildlife.”

The Center has a history of using legal action to stop polluters and challenge the government to enforce environmental regulations, so the letter could be seen as a warning shot over the EPA’s bow. Earlier this year, lawsuits filed by the Center and another group won a temporary moratorium on offshore fracking in the Pacific Ocean, and the groups are currently preparing to challenge fracking in the Santa Barbara Channel under the Endangered Species Act.

Offshore fracking involves pumping water, chemicals and sand at extremely high pressure into undersea wells to break up rock and sand formations and clear pathways for oil and gas. Offshore drillers also treat wells with corrosive acids, such as hydrochloric acid, in a process known as “acidizing.”

The technologies have been used hundreds of times to enhance oil and gas production at hundreds of Gulf wells in recent years, and environmentalists say use of the technology could increase in the future as the industry seeks to maximize production in aging offshore fields. Still, little was publicly known about these “well treatments” until Truthout and environmental groups began filing information requests with federal regulators.

Regulators and the fossil fuel industry say offshore fracking operations have a good safety record and tend to be smaller in size compared to onshore operations, but environmentalists continue to worry about the chemicals used in the process because many of them are known to harm marine wildlife. Plus, dolphins and other species in the Gulf are still suffering from the lingering effects of the 2010 BP oil spill.

https://www.wakingtimes.com/2018/12/22/epa-plans-to-allow-unlimited-dumping-of-fracking-wastewater-in-the-gulf-of-mexico/

https://www.theepochtimes.com/indonesia-tsunami-outrcy-over-early-warning-system-as-843-injured-and-222-killed_2746852.html

>>4440548

I think he was cut free on certain things but not others. It seems he's just realized he's going to get busted for the war crimes he was involved in.

>>4440124

>>4440596