US Urges Americans To "Reconsider" China Travel As New Cases Emerge From Scotland To Singapore
Update (1130ET): As the number of confirmed coronavirus cases nears 650 (the latest count put the number at 647), the US State Department has decided to reassure Americans that they are 'safe' from the virus.
More
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/china-quarantines-second-city-experts-warn-its-already-too-late-stop-virus
Could this all be a staged FF?? and no one actually sick?
WTH? Lindsey Graham Congratulates Adam Schiff: “Good Job, You’re Very Well Spoken”
The Democrat House Managers for the Senate impeachment trial of President Trump had senators in “agony” and “bored out of their minds” during the proceedings on Wednesday. Many senators
were nodding off, walking around and even leaving the chamber for extended periods of time according to reports.
The boredom was exacerbated by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) forcing debates and votes on eleven doomed motions that dragged out Tuesday’s opening session until almost 2 a.m. EST.
But at least one Republican was impressed with Schiff’s speech.
NBC News reporter Frank Thorp V saw Lindsey Graham congratulating serial liar Adam Schiff following his 2.5 hour marathon snoozer.
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/01/wth-lindsey-graham-congratulates-adam-schiff-good-job-youre-very-well-spoken/
Ghislaine Hacked: Jeffrey Epstein's Alleged Madam Claims Email Server 'Breached'
British socialite and former Jeffrey Epstein fixer Ghislaine Maxwell claims that her email server was hacked after a court unsealed approximately 2,000 pages of documents last August, according to the Daily Mail.
The extent of the intrusion is unknown, including whether her emails were obtained - which might include embarrassing or evidentiary details concerning Epstein's alleged victims, co-conspirators or other participants in his underage sex trafficking operation
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/ghislaine-hacked-jeffrey-epsteins-alleged-madam-claims-email-server-breached
In its obsession with Russia, Polish government now rushes headlong into disgusting Holocaust revisionism
The Polish-Russian war of words over World War II has taken an ugly turn, with the Polish president refusing to attend a Holocaust memorial in Israel and his PM accusing the Soviet Union of delaying the liberation of Auschwitz.
President Andrzej Duda has refused the invitation to the World Holocaust Forum at Yad Vashem on Thursday, in protest over Russian President Vladimir Putin being invited to speak at the event while he was not. Instead, Duda will preside over the memorial ceremony in Auschwitz on Monday – to which his government deliberately did not invite Putin.
International Holocaust Memorial Day is marked on January 27 because on that date in 1945 the Red Army troops liberated the notorious Nazi death camp at what is now called Oswiecim. Yet the current Polish government has refused to give the Soviet Union any credit for liberating Auschwitz – or Poland, for that matter – insisting instead that their country was a purely innocent victim of Nazis and Soviets in equal measure.
Duda’s Law and Justice (PiS) party even lobbied the EU to declare this as a historical fact in a parliamentary resolution – to the fury of Moscow, which considers this to be spitting on the graves of almost 27 million Soviet citizens who died in the war against Hitler’s regime, and some 600,000 soldiers who perished to liberate Poland in particular.
Warsaw has gone so far as to completely ignore the 75th anniversary of its liberation from the Nazis, describing it instead as the beginning of “occupation” by the USSR. However, the new low was surely the op-ed published in Politico this week, in which Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki argued that the Soviets deliberately halted their advance in the summer of 1944, instead of pushing on to liberate Warsaw or Auschwitz.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova described Morawiecki’s diatribe as a “real suicide,” noting that “in those four pages, the Polish PM killed his own humanity.”
https://www.rt.com/op-ed/478936-poland-russia-holocuaust-auschwitz/
Rudy Fires Warning Shot – Going to Release Evidence on the Biden’s Millions in Corrupt Deeds!
President Trump’s personal attorney and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani dropped a bomb this morning warning that he is going to start revealing documents related to the Biden Family’s corrupt and criminal dealings in the Ukraine and elsewhere around the world.
Rudy tweeted:
Everything I tried to tell the press last March is now coming out, and more. I will now start to reveal the evidence directly to you, the People. The Biden Family Enterprise made millions by selling public office. Then when Joe was Obama’s Point Man, they ALL made millions.
It’s time to take these criminals from the Obama Administration to task. The Bidens, Obamas and the Clintons were criminal enterprises.
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/01/rudy-fires-warning-shot-going-to-release-evidence-on-the-bidens-millions-in-corrupt-deeds/
Watch ECB's Christine Lagarde Explain How Greenwashing Central Bank Policy Will Save Europe
Having kept rates unchanged and done nothing to signal a slowdown in money-printing malarkey, most investors eyes and ears will be glued to ECB President Lagarde's 'strategic review' and how her new-found focus on virtue-signaling climate change management will affect the European Central Bank's mandate.
As Bloomberg notes, her efforts to modernize the ECB include potentially resetting the inflation goal of “below, but close to, 2%,” studying alternative measures of price growth, and assessing its policy tools. She’s benefiting from signs that a deep manufacturing slump in the 19-nation economy is bottoming out before it causes greater harm to the labor market and consumer spending. That should allow policy makers to focus on the review, which will last most of the year and also tackle issues including financial stability, climate change and communication.
The ECB press conference is due to start 0830ET:
https://www.zerohedge.com/economics/watch-live-ecbs-christine-lagarde-explain-how-greenwashing-central-bank-policy-will-save
Nolte: Hillary Complains There Are Not Enough Democrats in the News Media
Hillary Clinton told the far-left Hollywood Reporter she doesn’t believe there are enough Democrats in the news media.
“How can the left combat Fox News?” she was asked by the sycophants at the Hollywood Reporter.
Hillary’s answer is high-larious:
It’s really a shame that all the people who support progressive politics and policies haven’t understood that that’s exactly the right question to ask. We do have some well-off people who support Democratic candidates, there’s no doubt about that, but they’ve never bought a TV station. They’ve never gobbled up radio stations. They’ve never created newspapers in local communities to put out propaganda. That’s all been done not just by Murdoch and Fox, but by Sinclair and by the Koch brothers and by so many others who have played a long game about how we really influence the thinking of Americans.
Jeff Bezos. Jeff Zucker. Carlos Slim. Phil Griffin. Just to name a few.
Has Hillary never heard of the New York Times, the Washington Post, CNN, MSNBC, NBC, PBS, NPR, ABC, CBS, or, say, the Hollywood Reporter?
Not to mention Deadline, Variety, Entertainment Weekly, People, Politico, BuzzFeed…
What about the Los Angeles Times, Charlotte Observer, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution…
And let’s not forget Facebook, Apple, Netflix, Hulu, Twitter, and Google.
Democrats own all of the establishment media, all of Hollywood, all of academia, all of social media, and Hillary and the Hollywood Reporter are STILL crybabying about a dinghy in this ocean of left-wing media called Fox News?
Does Hillary honestly believe one more CNN or ten more CNNs, or 100 more CNNs will change anything?
Arguing more Democrats in the media will change everyone’s mind is like Brian Stelter arguing one more pound will make him attractive and smart.
Here’s what the left refuse to grasp in their ongoing whining about Fox News and conservative media outlets like Breitbart News….
We are vastly outnumbered, but we are still powerful for the following reasons… Our ideas are more appealing, our arguments are more sound, and we’re mostly happy warriors.
Just for starters, we can tell the difference between a boy and a girl.
We are also the ones fighting for freedom, fighting for free speech and artistic expression.
We have science on our side, we have right and wrong on our side, and we have history on our side.
The corporate media is backed, literally, by trillions of dollars. You have trillions of literal dollars propagandizing for the left through the echo chamber of news outlets and the blacklists created by content distributors like Facebook. There is no amount of power that can be added to that.
Fox News and Rush Limbaugh and Breitbart can’t touch that, can’t even come close.
No, our power comes only from the appeal of our ideas and the fact that we’re having more fun. And no increase in the number CNNs will ever change that fact.
https://www.breitbart.com/the-media/2020/01/23/nolte-hillary-complains-there-are-not-enough-democrats-in-the-news-media/
Just 3% of What the US Spends Destroying Countries Could End Starvation—On the Entire Planet
It was reported this week that the Pentagon made $35 trillion — with a ‘T’ — in accounting adjustments in 2019 alone. That number is larger than the entire U.S. economy and is up from $30.7 trillion in 2018. The figure also dwarfs the Congressional approved military budget of $738 billion. Naturally, no one cares and Pentagon officials dismiss this black hole of spending as accounting errors.
“Within that $30 trillion is a lot of double, triple, and quadruple counting of the same money as it got moved between accounts,” said Todd Harrison, a Pentagon budget expert with the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
The “combined errors, shorthand, and sloppy record-keeping by DoD accountants do add up to a number nearly 1.5 times the size of the U.S. economy,” said Representative Jackie Speier, who asked the Government Accountability Office to investigate. The report shows the Pentagon “employs accounting adjustments like a contractor paints over mold. Their priority is making the situation look manageable, not solving the underlying problem,” she said.
This problem is only getting worse too. As Bloomberg reported, the Defense Department acknowledged that it failed its first-ever audit in 2018 and then again last year, when it reviewed $2.7 trillion in assets and $2.6 trillion in liabilities. Despite the shame of failing—twice—the accounting “errors” have grown.
Imagine running a company in which you accounted for spending like they do at the Pentagon. If you were the CFO, you’d be fired, if and only if the entire business didn’t already collapse. However, because these morons have an unlimited pool of tax revenue and Federal Reserve dollars from which to draw resources, they are allowed to continue down this unaccountable path toward unsustainable debt and spending.
In the meantime, Democrats and Republicans alike remain silent as questioning the military industrial complex is akin to a thought crime. The war machine must go on and continue to expand or else they’ll find themselves out of a job. The majority of Americans follow the same code of silence when it comes to military spending. Boobus Americanus sits back in his recliner as his grandchildren’s future is squandered by mass murderers dropping million dollar bombs on people living in tents on the other side of the planet — for ‘freedom’ — of course.
Despite audits and scrutiny from those paying attention, the Pentagon has only continued to lose money by the trillions since 9/11, and a report analyzing the budgets of the Department of Defense (DoD) and the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) shows that the total is more than $21 trillion.
The report attributes the missing funds to a series of “unsupported journal voucher adjustments” made to the departments’ budgets. These adjustments are not tied to specific accounting transactions, but they are often included in account summaries to cover for balances between systems that cannot be reconciled.
https://thefreethoughtproject.com/just-3-of-what-the-us-spends-destroying-countries-could-end-starvation-on-the-entire-planet/
Report: Hunter Biden Prepping for Impeachment Testimony, ‘Going Over Every Fine Detail’
Hunter Biden, the youngest son of former Vice President and presidential candidate Joe Biden, is reportedly “prepping” at his Hollywood Hills residence for potential testimony in the Senate’s impeachment trial.
“Hunter is taking no chances, he knows that he could get called as a witness any day so he wants to be fully prepared, he’s going over every fine detail,” a source told the Daily Mail on Wednesday.
“He’s taking the trial very seriously and wants to make sure he’s ready for whatever the Republicans throw at him,” the source added.
Biden, whose business activities in Ukraine are at the center of the impeachment trial, has been floated as a possible witness in exchange for former Trump National Security Advisor John Bolton, according to The Washington Post. However, Democrat leaders poured cold water on the idea yesterday, arguing that the younger Biden is not a material witness.
“I think that’s off the table. First of all the Republicans have the right to bring in any witness they want. They haven’t wanted to and that trade is not on the table,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) told reporters when asked about a Biden-Bolton swap.
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-CA) echoed Schumer’s remarks, scoffing: “This isn’t like some fantasy football trade. This isn’t we’ll offer you this, if you give us that.”
Additionally, Sen. Christopher Coons (D-DE) told CNN that a deal “would mean trading a relevant witness who should be testifying for a witness who has nothing to do with the charges against the president.”
“There was some mistake in reporting in another news outlet that suggested somehow, I was part of a group that was trying to cut some deal… I’m not involved in a conversation like that,” he added.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) launched a formal impeachment inquiry into President Trump after a partisan CIA officer claimed in a whistleblower report that the president suggested to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that he look into allegations of corruption against Joe and Hunter Biden in exchange for U.S. military aid. Reports indicate the young Biden was compensated up to $83,000 monthly by energy giant Burisma Holdings while his father was vice president — despite a lack of expertise in the energy sector. Both President Trump and Zelensky have denied any pressure was applied to probe the Bidens and the White House released a transcript of their July 25 telephone call as evidence that no wrongdoing occurred.
Last month, a senior Zelensky adviser confirmed that the eastern European country never believed that U.S. aid was linked to any investigations into the Biden family.
“We never had that feeling,” Andriy Yermak told TIME magazine. “We had a clear understanding that the aid has been frozen. We honestly said, ‘Okay, that’s bad, what’s going on here.’ We were told that they would figure it out. And after a certain amount of time the aid was unfrozen. We did not have the feeling that this aid was connected to any one specific issue.”
A subpoena to appear before the Senate would only add to Biden’s mounting legal woes.
On Monday, an Independence County, Arkansas Circuit Judge signed an “Order to Appear and Show Cause” against Biden after he failed to submit financial documents as part of a paternity case.
In May, a 28-year-old stripper Lunden Alexis Roberts sued Biden, alleging that he is the father of her 16-month-old baby and requested that he pay child support and cover her lawyer fees. According to court documents filed by Roberts, the pair met at a Washington, D.C., strip club where she was previously employed.
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/01/23/report-hunter-biden-prepping-for-impeachment-testimony-going-over-every-fine-detail/
‘You Can’t Make This Stuff Up’: CNN Analyst Says After Going Viral For Making Up A Story About Republicans
CNN political analyst Joe Lockhart experienced backlash Wednesday after he posted a “convo between two Republican Senators” on Twitter that he later claimed was “satire.”
“Overheard convo between two Republican Senators who only watch Fox News,” Lockhart, a former White House press secretary under former President Bill Clinton, wrote during Wednesday’s impeachment hearings. “‘[I]s this stuff real? I haven’t heard any of this before. I thought it was all about a server. If half the stuff Schiff is saying is true, we’re up shit’s creek. Hope the White House has exculpatory evidence.'”
Minutes later, Lockhart tweeted that he had “made up” the conversation, but insisted everyone knows “that’s exactly what they’re thinking.”
“You can’t make this stuff up. Actually they can and continue to make up stuff every day,” Lockhart tweeted after his “made up” conversation, referring to a different tweet about the president being out of the country.
More
https://dailycaller.com/2020/01/22/joe-lockhart-cnn-republicans-twitter/
Fake news
Large Explosions Rock Apartments in Swedish No-Go Suburbs
A large-scale blast rocked an apartment in the no-go Stockholm suburb of Husby early Tuesday morning along with another explosion taking place just 500 metres away.
One person was taken to the hospital after suffering injuries from one of the blasts, but the injuries were only determined to be minor. A total of 50 residents were evacuated from their homes following the blasts as police and bomb technicians examined the area, SVT reports.
Anna Wästberg of the Stockholm Police commented on the two explosions saying that police were investigating a potential connection to the large blast that occurred last week in Östermalm, which led Moderate Party leader Ulf Kristersson to claim the government had lost control of the country.
“We are looking at connections to other ongoing preliminary investigations on blasts and this is included in Östermalm. It is too early to say whether there is a connection at present,” Wästberg said.
Henrik Östmark, an explosive expert at the Total Defence Research Institute, added that the recent explosions are worrying and said: “No prior knowledge is really needed to achieve this type of detonation. What is needed is explosives and an ignition system.”
Newspaper Aftonbladet spoke to several local residents including a man named Johan who said the load-bearing wall in his apartment suffered a major crack after the explosion and said: “It was a powerful bomb, no doubt!”
Johan said he did not want to return to his apartment saying: “I don’t really know what to do in this town. I have never been worried about living in Kista or in other vulnerable areas, never ever. But now that it happens so often.”
Over the last year, Sweden has seen at least 230 bombings and explosions across the country, with some claiming that police have been reclassifying some detonations and that the true figures could be even higher.
https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2020/01/23/large-explosions-rock-apartments-in-swedish-no-go-suburbs/
U.S. Treasury Secretary: Post-Brexit Trade Deal to Be Inked by End of Year
The Treasury Secretary of the United States, Steve Mnuchin, said that the Trump administration expects to sign a post-Brexit trade deal with the United Kingdom by the end of this year.
At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Mr Mnuchin said that an Anglo-American trade deal is “an absolute priority” for President Donald Trump, further cementing Boris Johnson’s negotiating position with the European Union.
“What I saw coming out was that they wanted to accomplish both these deals in 2020. That’s obviously an aggressive timetable,” the Treasury secretary said per the BBC.
“That’s an absolute priority of President Trump and we expect to complete that with them this year, which we think will be great for them and great for us,” he added.
His comments were echoed by Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross who said at the same Davos event that signing a trade deal with the United Kingdom will be “much easier mechanically” than with the European Union.
President Trump also criticised the EU this week, saying that the bloc has not “treated us right”, adding: “They have trade barriers where you can’t trade, they have tariffs all over the place. They make it impossible. Frankly, they are more difficult to do business with than China.”
A possible stumbling block in trade talks with the United States is the issue of a proposed tech-tax on American digital companies such as Facebook, Amazon, and Apple, which is set to be implemented in April.
Chancellor of the Exchequer Sajid Javid said that the United Kingdom will not back down from its planned multibillion-pound tax on American tech firms.
“We think the digital tax is discriminatory in nature… if people want to arbitrarily put taxes on our digital companies we’ll consider arbitrarily putting taxes on car companies,” said Secretary Mnuchin in response.
France has suspended a similar tech-tax, following threats from the U.S. to impose tariffs on wine and cheese.
President Donald Trump struck an optimistic tone in Davos, however, saying that he is looking forward “to negotiating a tremendous new deal with the United Kingdom” and praising the UK’s “wonderful new Prime Minister”.
A free trade agreement between the United States and the UK is seen as a key pillar of Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s post-Brexit strategy, following Britain’s exit from the European Union at the end of this month. Should a deal be signed with America, the United Kingdom will be able to demonstrate the bright future of its economic independence, thereby gaining leverage over the bloc in future trade negotiations.
https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2020/01/23/us-treasury-secretary-post-brexit-trade-deal-inked-end-year/
Mexico Rules Out Both Potential Cases of Chinese Coronavirus in Border State near Texas
Mexican health officials ruled out a second case of Chinese Coronavirus in the border city of Reynosa. The announcement comes one day after health officials announced that a scientist and companion returned from Wuhan presenting suspicious symptoms.
On Wednesday morning, Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador revealed that health officials had two possible cases, but already ruled out one. Soon after, the Tamaulipas Health Secretariat confirmed that the pending case, Breitbart Texas reported.
On Thursday morning, Tamaulipas Health Secretary Gloria Molina Gamboa announced that a series of tests confirmed the patient suffered from a common cold.
The quarantined patient was described as a 57-year-old college professor of Asian descent who lived in Reynosa and traveled to China to visit relatives over the Christmas holidays. The professor stayed in the Wuhan province, a large population center considered the epicenter of the pandemic.
Even after ruling out the virus, Molina Gamboa asked locals to exercise good hygiene and avoid physical greetings due to the current spike in upper respiratory infections.
https://www.breitbart.com/border/2020/01/23/mexico-clears-both-cases-of-chinese-coronavirus-in-border-state-near-texas/
Queen Elizabeth II approves British govt’s Brexit bill
Queen Elizabeth II on Thursday formally approved the law facilitating Britain’s departure from the European Union at the end of this month, AFP reports.
“Her Majesty the Queen has now granted Royal Assent to the Brexit Bill which therefore becomes the Brexit Act,” Brexit Secretary Steve Barclay tweeted. “Enshrined in law, this enables the UK to leave the EU on 31st January.”
The Brexit bill passed its final hurdle in Parliament on Wednesday after the House of Lords abandoned attempts to amend it. The bill was approved by Parliament’s upper chamber after the House of Commons overturned changes to the government’s Brexit bill made a day earlier by the unelected House of Lords.
The bill was to become law when it received royal assent from the queen, which was seen as a formality and was expected on Thursday.
https://www.blacklistednews.com/article/76072/queen-elizabeth-ii-approves-british-govts-brexit.html
Prince Charles’ visit to Palestine helps us focus on resolving the conflict
It is with great pride and much excitement that Palestine will tomorrow receive His Royal Highness, Charles, the Prince of Wales.
Prince Charles will be the most senior British royal to visit the occupied Palestinian territories when he goes to Bethlehem, where he will be met by His Excellency, President Mahmoud Abbas.
He is the second senior royal to do so in just two years. His son, Prince William, visited Palestine in 2018, a visit that left a lasting impression, with Prince William telling Palestinians that “you have not been forgotten.”
The visit of Prince Charles underscores this message and it comes at a historic moment in the UK’s relationship with Palestine and the rest of the world.
In 2016, the people of the United Kingdom took the decision to leave the European Union, a decision that was reaffirmed in the last general election.
Among the many consequences of that decision is the question of what role the UK will forge for itself in the international arena after Brexit.
With a historic global role that spans centuries, countries everywhere have come to expect of London a certain cool, level-headed handling of world affairs and an innate sense of fairness.
These attributes have never been more important.
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20200123-prince-charles-visit-to-palestine-helps-us-focus-on-resolving-the-conflict/
Turkey to debate new ‘marry your rapist’ law in parliament
A new law allegedly allowing men accused of abusing women under the age of 18 to avoid punishment if they marry their victims is set to be debated in the Turkish parliament.
The “marry your rapist” bill, which has not been passed yet, is being introduced into the Turkish parliament in preparation for MPs to debate at the end of January. The proposal has drawn widespread and international criticism, with opponents accusing it of legitimising rape, the marriage of minors and normalising child abuse and sexual exploitation.
The United Nations has spoken out against the bill, warning that it could lead to the increased confidence of rapists without fear of punishment and consequences to their crimes. It has also been denounced by opposition MPs from parties such as the People’s Democratic Party (HDP) which has urged the government to block it from being debated, primarily over fears that it could be used by some to force girls and minors into unwanted marriages.
A similar bill was presented to the Turkish parliament back in 2016, it had proposed the same for rape cases in which “force, threat, or any other restriction on consent” was not used. It was dropped by the ruling AKP government following global outrage.
Turkey has long been subject to scrutiny over the presence of alleged child marriage within the country and its proposed marriage laws. Although the legal age of consent in the Republic is 18, an estimated 482,908 child marriages took place over the past ten years, according to a government report published in 2018.
In 2017, another law was introduced – which was passed – allowing Islamic muftis and scholars to conduct civil marriage ceremonies, resulting in a barrage of criticism due to the perception that it undermines the country’s secular constitution and would allegedly open the way for more child marriages.
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20200123-turkey-to-debate-new-marry-your-rapist-law-in-parliament/
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