Who’s Behind the Green New Deal? Big Money Backs Ocasio-Cortez Socialist Dream Project

The Green New Deal blueprint introduced by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was crafted by three far-left organizations and is being pushed by a coalition of well-funded professional progressive groups and known leftist agitators.

Some of the organizations helping to promote the Green New Deal have ties to financing from billionaire George Soros and trace their roots to such radical groups as Occupy Wall Street and Black Lives Matter.

Earlier this month, Ocasio-Cortez posted an 11-page Google document in the form of a nonbinding legislative resolution that has become the most authoritative version of the Green New Deal, a broad outline for the current conception of the socialist-style plan.

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/02/19/whos-behind-the-green-new-deal-big-money-backs-ocasio-cortez-socialist-dream-project/

UK Parliament Calls Mark Zukerberg and Facebook ‘Digital Gangsters’

The corporate culture at Facebook created by its founder Mark Zuckerberg, is likened to ‘digital gangsters’ who see themselves as above the law. Regulation will follow. ⁃ TN Editor

Facebook deliberately broke privacy and competition law and should urgently be subject to statutory regulation, according to a devastating parliamentary report denouncing the company and its executives as “digital gangsters”.

The final report of the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport select committee’s 18-month investigation into disinformation and fake news accused Facebook of purposefully obstructing its inquiry and failing to tackle attempts by Russia to manipulate elections.

“Democracy is at risk from the malicious and relentless targeting of citizens with disinformation and personalised ‘dark adverts’ from unidentifiable sources, delivered through the major social media platforms we use every day,” warned the committee’s chairman, Damian Collins.

https://www.technocracy.news/uk-parliament-calls-mark-zukerberg-and-facebook-digital-gansters/

Watch the water

US Supreme Court Takes Up Clean Water Act Dispute

The U.S. Supreme Court will decide whether or not the Ninth Circuit appeals court erred in a Clean Water Act (CWA) case that petitioners say would dramatically expand the law’s reach.

The case, County of Maui, Hawaii, v. Hawaii Wildlife Fund, centers around whether or not the CWA requires permits for “nonpoint” sources of pollution that travel through regulated waterways.

Maui’s attorneys argue the Ninth Circuit’s “radical expansion of point source permitting” goes beyond the CWA’s scope by applying its case-by-case test that expanded what projects require CWA permits.

Petitioners also argue the decision would subject taxpayers to costly permits and fines. The Ninth Circuit ruling could also mean property owners with, say, septic tanks could be looped into a new regulatory scheme. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) oversees CWA permits, but the agency often delegates implementation to states — though EPA does issue CWA permits for Hawaii.

https://dailycaller.com/2019/02/19/supreme-court-clean-water/

Italy Senate blocks investigation into Salvini for holding migrants on ship

ROME (Reuters) - An Italian Senate committee voted on Tuesday to block an investigation into accusations of kidnapping against Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini over his decision to hold 150 migrants on board a ship for five days last August.

The committee voted 16 to 6 to stop the investigation into Salvini, who is also interior minister and the leader of the hard-right League party which rules in a coalition with the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement.

The case has sown division within the government and in particular within 5-Star, which has built its support on pledges to bring transparency to Italian politics and has harshly criticized past parliamentary maneuvering to halt judicial proceedings against lawmakers.

Prosecutors in Sicily have sought permission to investigate Salvini for abuse of power and kidnapping over the case of migrants held on board the Diciotti coast guard ship.

When Salvini took office in June of last year, he blocked humanitarian ships carrying rescued migrants from Italy's ports and said he would allow migrants on shore only if other European partners agreed to take them.

In the case of the Diciotti, migrants rescued at sea were allowed to disembark when Albania and Ireland offered to accept some of them and Italy's Catholic Church agreed to take responsibility for the rest at no cost to the taxpayer.

http://www.foreigndesknews.com/news/politics/italy-senate-blocks-investigation/

Rand Corporation Wants to Bring our Fear of Extremists to Every Community

Rand Corporation’s Homeland Security Operational Analysis Center (HSOAC) no longer uses the term “Countering Violent Extremism” (CVE) — it has been replaced with “Terrorism Prevention.”

Let that sink in for a moment; a private company with strong ties to DHS and law enforcement is in charge of Terrorism Prevention!

What could possibly go wrong?

The RAND Corporation’s 259-page report titled, “Practical Terrorism Prevention” boasts that their federally funded research will help law enforcement determine who is an extremist

The report presents a framework to consider different facets of terrorism prevention policy, issues with measurement and assessment, analysis of past CVE and current terrorism prevention funding in the United States and internationally, and assessments of current efforts and future options for each component of terrorism prevention.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security Office of Policy asked the HSOAC to examine the current state of terrorism prevention (superseding the programs and activities previously known as countering violent extremism, or CVE) in the United States and to develop policy options for this area.

Think about what that means; the RAND Corporation is profiting from helping law enforcement determine who is and who is not an extremist.

A Google search for “Rand Corporations close ties to DHS and law enforcement” returned close to 3 million hits. So any report or recommendations they make should be met with skepticism.

Rand wants to take violent extremism mainstream

Some of HSOAC’s key findings include things like improving risk-assessments, creating community “Terrorism Prevention” groups, expanding corporate roles in assessing Americans.

https://www.activistpost.com/2019/02/rand-corporation-wants-to-bring-our-fear-of-extremists-to-every-community.html