Jared Kushner: Mueller Investigation Had ‘Harsher Impact’ on U.S. than Russia’s ‘Facebook Ads’

President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner fired back at the media narrative surrounding Russia’s disinformation efforts in the 2016 election on Tuesday.

“I thought the whole thing was kind of nonsense, to be honest with you,” he said.

Kushner rarely does media interviews, but he spoke at a Time 100 event in New York City in an interview with TIME reporter Brian Bennett.

“Now the media spent so much time focusing on it and quite frankly the whole thing’s just a big distraction for the country,” Kushner said.

He dismissed the notion that Russia swayed the election by spending $160,000 on Facebook ads, noting that the Trump campaign spent that much in just a few hours.

“It’s a terrible thing, but I think the investigations and all the speculation that has happened for the last two years has had a much harsher impact on our democracy than a couple of Facebook ads,” he said.

Kushner said that the Trump campaign was more focused on running their own operations than whether the Russians were trying to help them.

“The notion of what they were doing didn’t even register to us as impactful,” he said.

He appeared relieved by the end of the Mueller investigation, noting that he cooperated extensively with the investigation.

“I think that everything I said has now proven to be true and very, very thoroughly investigated,” he said.

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/04/23/jared-kushner-mueller-investigation-had-harsher-impact-on-u-s-than-russias-facebook-ads/

Putin & Kim set to meet in Vladivostok, Russia on April 25

Vladimir Putin and his North Korean counterpart Kim Jong-un will meet in Vladivostok, in Russia’s Far East, on April 25. It will be the first meeting of the two heads of state.

The leaders will hold talks on Thursday, Putin’s foreign policy aide, Yuri Ushakov, confirmed. He called Kim’s visit to Russia “the key event” in the recent history of Moscow-Pyongyang relations.

It is crucial in terms of assisting the political and diplomatic efforts to resolve the [North Korean] nuclear issue.

Earlier reports suggested that the leaders will hold talks on Russky Island near Vladivostok.

A short time ago a video appeared that shows a large motorcade, including two unidentified black limos, arriving through a checkpoint. The footage published on YouTube shows the main entrance to the campus of the Far Eastern Federal University (FEFU) on Russky Island.

The Putin-Kim talks are due to take place amidst a breakdown in Pyongyang’s negotiations with Washington. Earlier this month, the North Korean leader gave the US until the end of 2019 to change its “posture” if it wants to make another summit between him and President Donald Trump possible.

Kim also expressed dissatisfaction with the negotiation style of US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, saying that he should be excluded from future talks.

But Washington insisted on keeping Pompeo on the team.

Russia welcomed face-to-face talks between the US and North Korea but opposed the use of ultimatums and stressed that sanctions alone can’t resolve the situation.

While it’s Kim’s first visit to Russia, Putin visited North Korea in 2000 back when the nation was ruled by Kim Jong-il, the father of its current leader. Kim Jong-il paid a return visit the following year, travelling to Moscow in his famous armored train. His two other visits were in 2002 and 2011, but neither had the Russian capital as the destination.

https://www.rt.com/news/457316-putin-kim-meet-25-april/

US Navy Ship Quarantined at Sea for Vaccine Preventable Virus, Despite 100% Vaccination Rate

A US Navy ship has been quarantined at sea for months due to a mumps outbreak. This is in spite of a 100% percent vaccination rate against it.

The USS Fort McHenry, a dock landing ship, has been stuck at sea for months, along with hundreds of Marines and sailors aboard after dozens of crew members contracted mumps. The ship remains quarantined as officials with the Navy and Marines Corps Public Health Center conduct an in-depth epidemiological investigation.

The cases began to surface in December after the ship departed Mayport Naval Station in Florida. Although that was the last time at port, “the point of origin has not yet been determined,” the Fifth Fleet noted.

The Navy’s Bureau of Medicine and Surgery (BUMED) explained to Business Insider that “based on clinical presentation and laboratory testing, these cases are currently classified as probable cases of mumps,” one of a number of illnesses that all US military personnel are vaccinated against.

Every single person aboard the USS Fort McHenry has been vaccinated against this virus, yet dozens have been infected. Even after more booster vaccines were administered, more cases of the vaccine-preventable virus appeared.

“Since the onset of the first case, the ship’s medical department has implemented health protection measures, provided an additional outbreak-specific dose of vaccine to the crew, and managed patients to stop the spread of the illness,” BUMED explained.

However, after all the cases appeared to be over in March, several new cases began surfacing toward the end of last month. Luckily, all of the service members have made a full recovery and returned to normal duty.

“The health and welfare of our Sailors and Marines is paramount,” the Navy said, “Our servicemembers are receiving the best care to treat this illness and prevent it from spending to others.”

“The Navy’s position is that vaccines are effective at reducing the incidence and severity of vaccine-preventable diseases,” BUMED told BI. Unfortunately, “the mumps portion of the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine is the least effective of the three components, providing 88% effectiveness after completion of the two dose series.”

According to BI, for the mumps, the incubation period is 25 days, so it will be another 50 days after the last affected service member recovers before the Navy can declare the situation under control.

The ship has been at sea now for several months without making a port call. As a former Marine, I can attest to the frustration and morale killer that this prolonged deployment with no outside contact can foster. It’s like being in a prison.

https://thefreethoughtproject.com/us-navy-ship-quarantined-sea-vaccination/

Is this man the puppet master of Ukraine’s new president or an overhyped bogeyman?

It doesn’t actually matter if Ukrainian-Israeli billionaire Igor Kolomoisky is the real power behind Volodymyr Zelensky – the president elect has to get rid of the oligarch if he is to make a break with the country’s corrupt past.

The plots, deceits and conflicts of interest in Ukrainian politics are so transparent and hyperbolic, that to say that novice politician Zelensky was a protégé of his long-time employer was not something that required months of local investigative journalism – it was just out there.

Zelensky’s comedy troupe has been on Kolomoisky’s top-rated channel for the past eight years, and his media asset spent every possible resource promoting the contender against incumbent Petro Poroshenko, a personal enemy of the tycoon, who hasn’t even risked entering Ukraine in the past months.

Similarly, the millions and the nous needed to run a presidential campaign in a country of nearly 50 million people had to come from somewhere, and Kolomoisky’s lieutenants were said to be in all key posts. The two issued half-hearted denials that one was a frontman for the other, insisting that they were business partners with a cordial working relationship, but voters had to take their word for it.

https://www.rt.com/news/457321-kolomoisky-zelensky-ukraine-oligarch-puppet/

UK Archbishop Calls for Recognition of ‘Anti-Christianism’ After Sri Lanka Attacks

The Coptic Archbishop of London has called for acknowledgment that “anti-Christianism” is as real a phenomenon as anti-Semitism and Islamophobia following the horrific Easter massacre of Sri Lankan Christians.

“It is time for us all to #StandTogether and recognise #Antichristianism as much a real phenomenon and epidemic as #Antisemitism and #Islamophobia and deal with it as such,” wrote Archbishop Angaelos in a tweet Monday.

“Only when we consider an attack on ANY of us as one on ALL of us can we go some way towards healing our world,” he added.

The head of the Coptic church in the UK launched his appeal after Islamic terrorists slaughtered over 300 people in coordinated suicide bombings of churches and luxury hotels in Sri Lanka on Easter Sunday, the most important Christian holy day of the year.

The chairman of the British Pakistani Christian Association, Wilson Chowdhry, said that the United Nations (UN) and world leaders needed to do more to prevent violence against Christians, noting that the Sri Lankan bombings follow the pattern of Islamic State satellite groups.

“The targeting of Christians on Easter Day is very intentional and is based on a desire to frighten worshippers from practising their faith and sowing seeds of division amongst communities,” Mr. Chowdhry said.

Pakistan itself was the site of the massive 2016 Easter massacre that claimed the lives of 72 victims, mostly women and children, along with more than 320 injured.

On that occasion, an Islamist suicide bomber blew himself up in an attack on Christians in a large park in Lahore, where hundreds of families had gathered to celebrate the feast of Easter.

The bomber was 28-year-old Yousuf Farid, a member of the radical Islamist group Jamat ul Ahrar, a branch of the Taliban (JuA).

In case there was any doubt regarding the religious motivation behind the attack, a JuA spokesman declared that the intended target of the bombing was “Christians.”

“The target was Christians,” said JuA spokesman, Ehsanullah Ehsan, adding that the jihadists wanted to send a message to Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif “that we have entered Lahore.”

Mr. Chowdhry said Monday that in the case of the Sri Lanka attacks, “the targeting of high-end hotels which are frequented by westerners is simply a clear hatred for all that is not Islamic [and] a clear indication that fundamentalist ideology is radicalising the Muslims of Sri Lanka.”

“Innocent lives have been lost and those killed join a growing list of Christian martyrs in a world where intolerance towards our faith has seen exponential growth,” he said.

Chowdhry added that “governments and International bodies like the UN must do more to eradicate extremism and terrorism, especially towards Christians who are experiencing unprecedented levels of persecution.”

https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2019/04/23/uk-archbishop-calls-for-recognition-of-anti-christianism-after-sri-lanka-attacks/

Simultaneous Notre Dame/Al-Aqsa Fires: Coincidence or Conspiracy?

Sri Lankan Massacre Part of the Same Terror Campaign?

In 1988 and 1989 I lived in the heart of Paris, on Boulevard Henri IV just a few minutes’ walk from the Notre Dame cathedral—the best known and most-visited Catholic monument this side of St. Peter’s Square. Dedicated to the Holy Virgin Mary, beloved by both Christians and Muslims, Notre Dame is a product and symbol of the period some consider the high point of Western civilization, the 12th and 13th Christian centuries. Those were the years when long-lost knowledge filtered into Europe from Byzantium, the Holy Land, and Muslim Spain, triggering an amazing burst of spiritual, artistic, intellectual, and technological creativity. Among the most impressive products of that astonishing period were the great Gothic cathedrals.

On 15 April 2019, around 18:45 CEST, fires simultaneously broke out in the Christian and Islamic world’s greatest iconic monuments, Notre Dame cathedral and the al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem. The Notre Dame fire did the most damage and grabbed headlines.

It is easy to see why the world paid more attention to the Paris tragedy. Images of Notre Dame in flames, its roof and spire collapsing, inspired shock and dread—not unlike the explosive “collapses” on September 11, 2001. And it wasn’t just humans, who are capable of feeling emotions including shock and dread, that noticed the resemblance. YouTube’s conspiracy filter algorithm misfired by defacing videos of the Notre Dame inferno with a pop-up summarizing the official story of 9/11. The YouTube algorithm, which apparently is not very artificially intelligent, mistook news videos of the cathedral fire for scientific documentaries about the explosive demolition of the World Trade Center. Conclusion: If the YouTube whizzes are stupid enough to insist on defacing scientific documentaries with annoying pop-ups shoving the absurd and thoroughly-discredited official story of 9/11 down our throats, whatever “Artificial Intelligence” they create will probably be at least as dumb as they are. (Only a paranoid conspiracy theorist would suspect that the 9/11 OCT tags were intentionally inserted to cue a subliminal Islamophobic subtext to the Notre Dame fire. Right?)

It wasn’t just AI (Artificial Idiocy) that vaguely sensed some obscure connection between the Notre Dame blaze and the events of 9/11. Many of us who felt shock and dread on September 11, 2001 later discovered that our emotions had been manipulated by the neocon-Zionist operatives who engineered that false flag spectacle. So whenever we start to feel similar emotions while watching a superficially similar televised spectacle, we ask ourselves: Are we being manipulated yet again?

http://www.unz.com/kbarrett/simultaneous-notre-dame-al-aqsa-fires-coincidence-or-conspiracy/

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US threatens to veto UN resolution on rape as weapon of war, officials say

Exclusive: US warns it will reject measure over language on sexual health in latest example of hardline abortion stance

The US is threatening to veto a United Nations resolution on combatting the use of rape as a weapon of war because of its language on reproductive and sexual health, according to a senior UN official and European diplomats.

The German mission hopes the resolution will be adopted at a special UN security council session on Tuesday on sexual violence in conflict.

But the draft resolution has already been stripped of one of its most important elements, the establishment of a formal mechanism to monitor and report atrocities, because of opposition from the US, Russia and China, which opposed creating a new monitoring body.

Even after the formal monitoring mechanism was stripped from the resolution, the US was still threatening to veto the watered-down version, because it includes language on victims’ support from family planning clinics. In recent months, the Trump administration has taken a hard line, refusing to agree to any UN documents that refer to sexual or reproductive health, on grounds that such language implies support for abortions. It has also opposed the use of the word “gender”, seeing it as a cover for liberal promotion of transgender rights.

“We are not even sure whether we are having the resolution tomorrow, because of the threats of a veto from the US,” Pramila Patten, the UN special representative on sexual violence in conflict, told the Guardian.

In cases of disagreement in the security council, member states often fall back on previously agreed text, but the US has made it clear it would no longer accept language from a 2013 resolution on sexual violence.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/apr/22/us-un-resolution-rape-weapon-of-war-veto