https://twitter.com/DonaldJTrumpJr/status/1219016591364542464
Donald Trump Jr.
Verified account @DonaldJTrumpJr
OMG this is real! It’s not that he molested children that got CNN to pay attention it’s that he didn’t have high regard for the environment! WTF CNN?!?
Jeffrey Epstein's disregard for environmental protections showed his disrespect for the law - CNN
‘Profiles in Corruption’ Contains 1,126 Endnotes, No Unnamed Sources
The forthcoming bombshell investigative book Profiles in Corruption: Abuse of Power by America’s Progressive Elite contains 1,126 endnotes totaling 83 pages of source material, Breitbart News has learned.
In addition, the book contains no unnamed sources. Instead, it is based on hard evidence and documents, including: foreign and domestic corporate and legal records, tax liens, lobbyist disclosures, property records, White House visitor logs, federal bankruptcies, and federal criminal trial records.
Publishing giant HarperCollins has kept Profiles in Corruption under a strict embargo. The book will reportedly expose how five members of Joe Biden’s family—the “Biden Five”—scored “tens of millions of dollars” in taxpayer money and guaranteed loans. In addition, the book is said to contain never-before-reported bombshell revelations about Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, Amy Klobuchar, Cory Booker, Sherrod Brown, and Eric Garcetti.
Last week Amazon named the book its “most anticipated” nonfiction book based on pre-sale volume. Ten days before the book’s January 21 release, it had already hit #1 on Amazon across all book genres.
The book’s writer, Government Accountability Institute President and Breitbart News senior contributor Peter Schweizer, is a five-time New York Times bestseller author who penned Clinton Cash and Secret Empires. According to Axios, Schweizer and his GAI team of investigators spent a year and a half researching Profiles in Corruption: Abuse of Power by America’s Progressive Elite.
Sean Hannity will kick off the book’s official launch on Monday.
https://www.breitbart.com/the-media/2020/01/19/profiles-in-corruption-contains-1126-endnotes-no-unnamed-sources/
Huge Pay-For-Play Scandal Embroils Oregon Democrats, As Big Donor Law Firms Are Awarded State Contracts
The corruption is running so deep in Oregon that even NPR affiliate Oregon Public Broadcasting is calling out the democrats. Left-oggling OPB can usually be counted on to protect and make excuses for the democrats, but reporter Dirk VanderHart has uncovered an elaborate pay-for-play scandal involving several law firms from across the country who get contracts with Oregon agencies after contributing large sums of money to the politicians.
From the OPB article:
To get out his campaign pitch, [state treasurer Tobias] Read will have help in the form of tens of thousands of dollars from out-of-state law firms. As of early December, more than 40% of the money the treasurer reported raising in 2019 came from big-time firms headquartered in places like New York City, Washington, D.C., and Wilmington, Delaware.
That in itself is notable, but the donations come with a further wrinkle: Nearly all are being made by lawyers who seek work from the state of Oregon — work that Read’s office can help provide. A 12-year-old state law gave firms a chance to make millions of dollars if they are picked to work one of the potentially lucrative lawsuits that Oregon files against powerful corporations.
The result is a torrent of outside money to state candidates, much of it solicited by Oregon treasurers and attorneys general — the same elected officials whose offices decide which firms get the work.
Read’s just one recipient of the largesse, albeit a dramatic one. Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum and an array of past treasurers and attorneys general have been helped by the same lawyers.
Legal experts and campaign finance watchdogs say this is a system that smacks of self-dealing, giving influential politicians a stable of moneyed and motivated campaign supporters while law firms get a shot at making millions.
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/01/huge-pay-for-play-scandal-embroils-oregon-democrats-as-big-donor-law-firms-are-awarded-state-contracts/
1/2
The interest in those two positions is not a coincidence.
The Oregon Department of Justice, overseen by the attorney general, selects which law firm will get the contract for a given case. To make that decision, it relies on a short list of firms pre-cleared to work for Oregon — a list that DOJ lawyers create with input from the Oregon Treasury Department.
Firms on this short list have the ear of state officials. They can monitor lawsuits and news reports nationwide, and pitch the state on companies it might sue.
And often, while they’re vying for that work, law firms are writing checks.
Ted Wheeler [yes, that Ted Wheeler who is now "mayor” of vichy Portland], who became treasurer in 2010, took at least $33,000 in contributions from class-action firms or their individual attorneys. Attorney General John Kroger, who pursued lead status in seven class actions while in office, received more than $115,000 in contributions affiliated with law firms, three of which were tapped to represent the state under his watch.
The most recent duo with oversight over class actions have benefited from more generous giving than any of their predecessors.
Rosenblum has accepted at least $141,000 from plaintiffs firms since her first attorney general race in 2012. As of early December, about 18% of the money the attorney general’s reelection campaign reported collecting in 2019 came from out-of-state firms interested in class actions.
Read, meanwhile, has enjoyed more support from firms in the business of class-action suits than any other Oregon elected official. As of Dec. 3, he had reported more than $104,000 from class-action law firms in 2019, accounting for 41% of the $250,418 his campaign had taken in for the year.
In 2018, the same year the state began updating the list of firms eligible to handle cases on Oregon’s behalf, Read accepted $55,000 from many of the same entities — a full 30% of his contributions.
In total, Read has received more than a quarter-million dollars from firms or attorneys with an interest in class-action work, state records show. None of them contributed money to Read’s campaigns in his previous role as a state representative.
2/2
*paper life
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/massive-dust-clouds-turn-day-into-night-in-central-nsw-20200120-p53sut.html
Weather warfare goes on in Australia
Puerto Rico Governor Fires Emergency Services Director After Aid Found Sitting in Warehouse
A video showing disaster aid from the federal government for Puerto Rico sitting in a warehouse went viral on social media this past week, forcing Governor Wanda Vázquez Garced to fire her emergency services director.
Some of the aid was earmarked for victims of Hurricane Gloria, which devastated the island in 2017.
https://pjmedia.com/trending/puerto-rico-governor-fires-emergency-services-director-after-aid-found-sitting-in-warehouse/
==A third of Israeli youth do not enlist in IDF
New data shows that 32.9% do not enlist at all and another 15% do not complete their military service.==
Nearly half of Israeli youth do not start or finish their military service, with at least a third of males getting exemptions for mental health reasons.
The alarming figure based on IDF data, first published by Yediot Aharonot, shows that 32.9% of men will receive an exemption from the army. With an average of 15% dropping out during their service, nearly half of men (47.9%) do not complete their military service.
The disturbing trend is even more severe for women, with 44.3% being exempt from their military service.
According to the report in Yediot, the figures show a clear downward trend in IDF enlistment among both sexes. For example, in 2007 a quarter of males did not enlist in the IDF, and in 2015 the figure rose to 26.9% for men and 30% last year.
In addition to the skyrocketing increase in medical exemptions for mental health reasons, the general recruitment figures for combat units have also seen a general decline over the past decade, to less than two-thirds (65%) in 2018 from four-fifths (81%) in 2011.
With thousands not enlisting, the figure is not marginal for the IDF.
While the Manpower Directorate has pointed to a range of circumstances behind the increase in exemptions, a large number is said to be because of recruits coming in with medical documents claiming they have mental illnesses preventing them from serving.
But the directorate is said to believe that the trend is not due to a sudden increase in mental illness, but rather to a decrease in motivation to serve in the army, leading youth to fake mental illness to avoid military service.
In November, a report by The Jerusalem Post’s sister publication Maariv found that, relative to the number of potential secular recruits being exempt from the military due to mental illness, the number of ultra-Orthodox (haredim) being exempted is higher.
For example, the data for two years show that while the number of mental illness-related exemptions among secular citizens rose 29% to 2,097 exemptions per year from 1,625, it rose 49% to 391 among religious men from 262.
According to the data, of the 4,500 who received exemptions, 44.7% were haredim, 46.6% secular and another 8.7% are religious Zionist.
Exemption from military service is covered by the Defense Service Law, which allows recruits to be exempt on grounds of medical or psychological reasons as well as pregnancy, religion (those studying in a yeshiva and observant women), as well as conscientious objection.
https://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Half-of-Israeli-youth-do-not-enlist-in-IDF-614604
Hmmmmmm
Sara Gideon Raked in Nearly $20,000 From Lobbyists Before Pushing New Anti-Lobbyist Pledge
Sara Gideon, the Democratic challenger to Sen. Susan Collins (R., Maine), vows to combat lobbyists in a newly released campaign finance reform plan, but her campaign has accepted nearly $20,000 from more than two dozen lobbyists.
Between April 1 and Sept. 30, 2018, the Gideon campaign raked in $18,310 from 28 individuals who work directly with special interest groups or at firms that spend big on lobbying activities, filings show. A majority of the donations came from individuals in the Washington, D.C., metro area.
Gideon’s reform agenda, released Wednesday, seeks to counter lobbyists' influence. Gideon, who is currently the speaker of Maine's House of Representatives, promises to refuse gifts, meals, and trips from anyone working on behalf of special interests. Her plan also rejects corporate PAC money, calls for the disclosure of dark money donors, and backs a lifetime ban on former members working as lobbyists once they’re out of office.
"Washington is clearly broken—politicians are too responsive to their wealthy donors and corporate special interests, promoting their agendas over the people they were elected to represent," Gideon's plan states. "Lawmakers and staff in Washington frequently skirt the rules to rub elbows with powerful lobbyists. No one should be evading ethics rules to attend lavish receptions held to sway elected officials."
While Gideon pledges to steer away from special interests, her campaign has already collected thousands of dollars from lobbyists.
Two lobbyists from Gideon's state who donated to the campaign, Richard Trahey and Ann Mitchell, have both lobbied on several bills in the state legislature while Gideon has been in office. Trahey has lobbied on acts to authorize tribal gambling and to restore revenue sharing, while Mitchell has lobbied on acts in relation to hiring immigrants through flexible certification and regulating employee benefit excess insurance, among many other bills.
Gideon's new reform plan also calls for overturning the Citizens United Supreme Court case, which allows corporations and labor unions to spend unlimited sums on political advertisements.
Gideon is rejecting corporate PAC donations and plans to make it a central issue in the race. The Collins campaign has hit Gideon over hypocrisy on the issue, saying that she has already accepted such donations through Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer's (D., N.Y.) PAC. Gideon also received money directly from corporations and corporate PACs through her state-level PAC.
The plan also touts Gideon's support of the DISCLOSE Act, which would "crack down" on dark money groups by requiring them to disclose their donors.
Gideon, however, has received outside help from Maine Momentum, a dark money group working to oust Collins from office. Maine Momentum has topped $2 million in spending so far. Majority Forward, also a dark money group that is closely tied to the Senate Majority PAC, which works to elect Democrats to the Senate, has spent at least $750,000. The race is expected to be one of the most expensive in the country.
Gideon's campaign did not respond to requests for comment.
https://freebeacon.com/politics/sara-gideon-raked-in-nearly-20000-from-lobbyists-before-pushing-new-anti-lobbyist-pledge/
Doug Collins: House Democratic leader's remark about letting Trump 'prove innocence' should alarm Americans
House Judiciary Committee ranking member Doug Collins, R-Ga., said Democrats are exposing their true contempt for the Constitution and the individual rights therein with how they are conducting the impeachment of President Trump.
In an interview airing Sunday at 8 p.m. ET on "Life, Liberty & Levin," Collins said Trump was overtly denied the same due process afforded to every other American under the Constitution, adding that House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., made an alarming statement to that effect.
Hoyer, the number-two Democrat in the House, defended the House's impeachment inquiry last month by remarking that Trump was afforded "every opportunity to prove his innocence."
"Instead, he ignored Congressional subpoenas for documents and for testimony by White House officials and ordered his subordinates not to cooperate. This itself is unprecedented," Hoyer claimed.
Collins told host Mark Levin that no American has to prove their innocence – in fact, the burden of proof falls on the opposite party.
"Mr. Hoyer from Maryland … made a very revealing statement for anybody who's concerned about Constitutional rights – and especially for me – even those of my Democratic counterparts who worry about their communities, where they discuss police action and rights being violated," he said.
"It's amazing to me how they're willingly setting that aside to come up to this – Steny Hoyer actually said 'we allowed him every opportunity to come prove his innocence,'."
Collins said the comment was mindblowing in that it seemed that Congress must have "taken a vacation and le[ft] the United States."
https://www.foxnews.com/media/trump-impeachment-doug-collins-mark-levin-steny-hoyer-innocence
>BO, checking bakers again seems like a good idea.
fuck off Francis
Assange helped our police catch child pornographers
February 12, 2011
IT HAS been revealed in a Melbourne court that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange once helped Victoria Police in two investigations into child pornography.
He provided expert technical advice and support to assist in the prosecution of people suspected of involvement in pornography offences on the internet.
The Saturday Age can now report this after a judge yesterday revoked a suppression order she imposed last month, partly out of concern for Assange's safety.
Judge Jeanette Morrish last month suppressed a portion of a transcript of Assange's court appearance in 1996 when he admitted computer hacking offences.
The paragraph included his lawyer stating that in 1993 Assange had provided assistance to police authorities but he could not elaborate.
A week ago, when The Saturday Age appeared before Judge Morrish to apply for the order to be lifted, Assange's Melbourne lawyer, Grace Morgan, said he did not consent to or oppose its revocation.
Ms Morgan, of Robert Stary Lawyers, passed a handwritten note to the judge that elaborated on Assange's assistance. Judge Morrish then said the contents of the redacted paragraph, if unexplained, are apt to be utterly misleading and dangerous because they convey the impression that Mr Assange is an informer and he's not.
This week Assange has been fighting moves in London to extradite him to Sweden to face sex claims.
Ms Morgan yesterday read the following clarifying statement to the court on Assange's behalf: ''In 1993, when Mr Assange was in his early 20s, he provided assistance to investigators from the Victoria Police child exploitation unit.
''My client assisted in relation to two investigations. His role was limited to providing technical advice and support [and] to assist in the prosecution of persons suspected of publishing and distributing child pornography on the internet.
''Mr Assange's participation was concluded in the mid-90s. He is not aware of the ultimate outcomes of the operations, but understands that his technical expertise was of value to the investigations.
Mr Assange received no personal benefit from this contribution and was pleased to be in a position to assist.
Judge Morrish's original concerns related to prejudicing the administration of justice or endangering the physical safety of any person.
Before Assange's position was clarified, she asked last week, How long would he last if he had a reputation of being an informer?
https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/assange-helped-our-police-catch-child-pornographers-20110211-1aqnl.html
'Doesn't know what's going on': PM savages NSW Environment Minister
Prime Minister Scott Morrison has widened the split with the NSW government in issuing a savage rebuke to the state's Environment Minister over claims senior Coalition members are privately pushing for more ambitious emission reduction targets.
Speaking on ABC's AM program, Mr Morrison said Environment Minister Matt Kean "doesn't know what he's talking about" and that "most of the federal cabinet wouldn't even know who Matt Kean was".
Mr Kean, who has publicly linked Australia's ongoing bushfire crisis to climate change, previously said the Prime Minister was under pressure from his own ministers for greater action on emissions.
"He doesn't know what's going on in the federal cabinet," Mr Morrison said. "We are dealing with our climate policies in the same way as we took them to the election. We will meet and beat our emissions reduction targets."
Mr Morrison also defended embattled Nationals deputy leader Bridget McKenzie on Monday morning for her role in allocating $100 million in community sports grants.
An independent review released last week found the Morrison government used the sports grants program as a virtual slush fund for its re-election efforts, overlooking projects approved by an independent panel in favour of splashing cash in "targeted" seats.
"Every single one of the projects approved was eligible, every rule followed in relation to the program. The rules were followed. We are looking closely at the report," Mr Morrison told Seven's Sunrise on Monday, following calls for Senator McKenzie to resign.
The damning review has drawn widespread comparisons to the "sports rorts affair" of 1993-94, when an audit condemned the Keating government's distribution of sports grants to marginal electorates under a $30 million scheme.
https://www.theage.com.au/politics/federal/morrison-stands-by-mckenzie-in-grants-furore-20200120-p53sv9.html
Climate change is bullshit
Supreme Court to Hear Appeal by Little Sisters of the Poor on Contraception Mandate
WASHINGTON—The Supreme Court has agreed to hear an appeal from Little Sisters of the Poor, a Roman Catholic order of nuns, regarding its objection on religious grounds to having to provide health insurance that covers birth control, sterilization, and abortifacients for its employees under the Obamacare law.
The case, cited as Little Sisters of the Poor v. Pennsylvania, is the latest in a series of lawsuits. The Supreme Court granted certiorari Jan. 17, agreeing to review a ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit.
The Little Sisters of the Poor, a religious order and charity that operates facilities nationwide, describes itself on its website as “an international congregation of Roman Catholic women … founded in 1839 by Saint Jeanne Jugan … [that] serve the elderly poor in over 30 countries around the world. … [Offering] the neediest elderly of every race and religion a home … ”
“It is disappointing to think that as we enter a new decade, we must still defend our ministry in court,” Mother Loraine Marie Maguire of the Little Sisters of the Poor said in a statement.
“We are grateful the Supreme Court has decided to weigh in, and hopeful that the Justices will reinforce their previous decision and allow us to focus on our lifelong work of serving the elderly poor once and for all.”
The Obama-era contraception mandate has been a source of controversy since it surfaced in 2011, spurring more than 100 lawsuits from private individuals, religious groups, state governments, and businesses that objected to it on religious grounds. In October 2017, the Trump administration issued a regulation that exempted religious groups from complying with the Obamacare mandate.
The government said it had been wrong to try to compel the Little Sisters and others to provide services such as the week-after pill in their health plans because doing so violated their religious beliefs.
President Donald Trump signed Executive Order 13798 on May 4, 2017, in which he took steps to protect Americans’ fundamental rights of conscience and religious liberty.
EO 13798 states it “shall be the policy of the executive branch to vigorously enforce Federal law’s robust protections for religious freedom” because our “Founders envisioned a Nation in which religious voices and views were integral to a vibrant public square, and in which religious people and institutions were free to practice their faith without fear of discrimination or retaliation by the Federal Government.”
The order directs “[all] executive departments and agencies … to the greatest extent practicable and to the extent permitted by law, respect, and protect the freedom of persons and organizations to engage in religious and political speech.”
Pennsylvania, which doesn’t have a state-level contraceptive mandate, sued the Trump administration to take away the religious exemption after acknowledging it already has many of its own government programs that provide contraceptives to women who seek them. Pennsylvania’s position is that the Little Sisters have to comply with the federal mandate or pay tens of millions of dollars in fines.
A lower court blocked the new rule and ruled against the Little Sisters in January 2019. In July that year, the 3rd Circuit also ruled against the charity. In October, the Little Sisters asked the Supreme Court to review the decision and on Jan. 17, it agreed to do so.
“Pennsylvania needs to give it a rest,” said Mark Rienzi, president of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, a public-interest law firm that represents the Little Sisters.
“Why is Pennsylvania still trying to fight tired and unnecessary culture wars that were settled years ago? There are plenty of ways to provide people with contraceptives without forcing Catholic nuns to participate.
https://www.theepochtimes.com/supreme-court-to-hear-appeal-by-little-sisters-of-poor-on-contraception-mandate_3209270.html