Today's News: December 09, 2019

World News

Trump calls for World Bank to stop loaning to China
Reuters – U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday called for the World Bank to stop loaning money to China, one day after the institution adopted a lending plan to Beijing over Washington’s objections.
The World Bank on Thursday adopted a plan to aid China with $1 billion to $1.5 billion in low-interest loans annually through June 2025. The plan calls for lending to “gradually decline” from the previous five-year average of $1.8 billion.
“Why is the World Bank loaning money to China? Can this be possible? China has plenty of money, and if they don’t, they create it. STOP!” Trump wrote in a post on Twitter.
“World Bank lending to China has fallen sharply and will continue to reduce as part of our agreement with all our shareholders including the United States,” the World Bank said in an emailed statement to Reuters.
“We eliminate lending as countries get richer.”
Anne Frank Hoax Exposed
National Vanguard (18 January, 2015) – TUCKED AWAY ON pages 119 and 122 of the October 6 issue of Der Spiegel, a weekly German news magazine comparable to Time or Newsweek, was a news item of considerable significance: A scientific analysis of the manuscript purported to be the original diary of Anne Frank, a Jewish girl who died in a German concentration camp during the Second World War, has revealed that the manuscript could not have been written before 1951, six years after the end of the war. (ILLUSTRATION: Anne Frank. She died of typhus in 1945 — but she didn’t write a diary.)
The significance of Der Spiegel’s revelation of this fraud is twofold. First, the printing of the story in a mass-circulation publication constitutes a major break with past treatments of similar news. The German news media, though not under the Jewish monopoly control which blights the media in this country, generally follow a pro-Jewish line, a heritage from the immediate postwar years when the Allied occupation forces gave publishing licenses only to those Germans who had proved their disloyalty to their country during the war. Consequently, most news tending to cast doubt on Jewish stories about gas chambers and the like from the World War II era has either been blacked out altogether or downplayed and given very unsympathetic treatment. The present article, though accompanied by copious apologies and held back for six months after it became news, would not have been printed at all a year or two ago.
Beyond this, the exposure of the Anne Frank forgery is important because of the sheer magnitude of the fraud and the key role it has played in underpinning the entire Jewish scenario of the war. What is known as a fact is that one Otto Frank, a Jewish merchant, formerly of Frankfurt, who had been arrested in the Netherlands and interned in the Auschwitz concentration camp during the war, began visiting publishers in 1946 with what he claimed was a diary written by his young daughter during the time the Frank family was hiding from the German police in occupied Holland. The girl later perished at Auschwitz, Frank said.
The diary, filled with touching adolescent reveries and homely little anecdotes, was exactly what the Jewish “Holocaust” propagandists were looking for: a highly effective piece of ammunition to generate a maudlin, emotion-laden sympathy for the poor, persecuted Jews — as typified by Anne Frank — and generate hatred against the wicked Germans, who had killed her and six million other Jews.
Otto Frank cashed in on the diary in a big way. Not only did he find a publisher, but he found people hot to buy stage and film rights as well. Shortly after its appearance in book form, the diary had been translated into a score of languages and printed in millions of copies, from all of which Frank received royalties. The English version alone, under the title Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl, has sold more than 4,000,000 copies to date. A television dramatization based on the diary was aired in this country last month, accompanied by the usual ballyhoo.
Almost from the beginning there were charges that the diary was a hoax. Some of these charges were based on the gross inconsistencies between various translations and editions of the diary in book form; it was clear that the text had been heavily edited to help it sell well in different markets. Other charges were based on internal inconsistencies and credulity-straining elements in the diary itself.
And then there was the matter of the script for the film version of the diary: Otto Frank was sued by a New York scriptwriter, Meyer Levin, who claimed that Frank had taken large portions of a script he, Levin, had written and had not paid Levin for his work. The court ordered Frank to pay Levin $50,000. One can easily understand why some observers began to wonder how much, if any, of the content of the various Anne Frank books, films, and plays in circulation was actually written by a little Jewish girl named Anne Frank.
In Germany, however, it was not wise to speculate about such matters publicly. The line laid down by the government and the media is that Anne Frank is gospel, and anyone who suggests otherwise leaves himself open to criminal charges (“defaming the victims of Nazi persecution”) as well as to civil suits. Otto Frank himself made a regular habit of hauling Anne Frank detractors into German courts, which invariably decided in his favor — until recently, that is.
When Hamburg pensioner Ernst Roemer, 76, began spreading the accusation that Otto Frank had himself written what he was passing off as his dead daughter’s diary, Frank sued him. As usual, the court upheld the authenticity of the diary. Handwriting experts testified that the entire diary, including loose notes and insertions, had been written by the same hand, and that hand was Anne Frank’s.
Roemer appealed the court’s decision against him, and more handwriting experts were called in. Their conclusion was the same: Everything in the diary was in the same handwriting; there was no forgery.
Roemer appealed again, and this time the court asked for the technical services of the Federal Criminal Office (Bundeskriminalamt, similar to our FBI), which carried out a careful analysis of the original manuscript of the diary with microscope and ultraviolet illumination in order to confirm its authenticity — in particular, to determine when it was written.
The report of the technical experts was given to the court in April of this year, and it contained a bombshell: large portions of the alleged “diary” were written in ballpoint pen ink — which was not manufactured prior to 1951!
Were it not for the previous testimony of the handwriting experts that the entire diary, including the portions written with ballpoint pen, is in the same hand, the father might have claimed that he only “edited” his daughter’s work, “clarifying” passages here and there. But the evidence was quite unambiguous.
For example, the testimony of Hamburg graphologist Minna Bekker in an earlier trial was: “The handwriting of the diary in the three bound volumes — including all notes and additions on the glued-in pages as well as the 338 pages of loose material — including all corrections and insertions is identical . . .”
Otto should have been more careful in his choice of writing instruments. It is now quite clear that he finished hoking up the “original” of the diary after he had found a publisher for what, in 1946, was nothing more than some rough notes and an idea in his head which seemed to have prospects for making him a lot of money with little effort. First a typescript for the publisher, and then, as sales of the book began to mount, a completed handwritten “original” to show to doubters.
Just after the report of the Federal Criminal Office was given to the court, Otto Frank conveniently died — before he could be asked a number of very interesting questions. Meanwhile, the worldwide Jewish propaganda apparatus has continued its promotion of the Anne Frank myth as if nothing had happened. Der Spiegel seems to be the only mass-circulation news periodical to have exposed the fraud to date.

U.S. News, Politics & Government

House Dems refresh Nixon-era impeachment report for Trump
The report outlines the committee’s standard for what constitutes an impeachable offense.
Politico – The staff of the House Judiciary Committee on Saturday issued a historic report laying the groundwork to impeach President Donald Trump, outlining in constitutional terms what the panel believes amounts to an impeachable offense.
Chairman Jerry Nadler described the 55-page analysis as the heir to the only similar report produced by the Judiciary Committee, which was released during the impeachment proceedings against Richard Nixon. That document was updated during the Bill Clinton impeachment but not fully rewritten.
“The earlier reports remain useful points of reference, but no longer reflect the best available learning on questions relating to presidential impeachment,” Nadler writes in the report’s foreword. “Further, they do not address several issues of constitutional law with particular relevance to the ongoing impeachment inquiry respecting President Donald J. Trump.”
In the report — drafted entirely by Democratic staff, in contrast to the Nixon-era iteration, which featured a degree of bipartisanship — the committee has sought to rebut arguments that impeachable offenses must entail a violation of criminal law. They also sharply rebutted the notion that impeaching a president who has committed impeachable conduct amounts to reversing an election.
Only 19 Senators Are A “Firm No” Against Impeachment – And There Are Whispers Some Republicans May Turn On Trump
Michael Snyder – It has been widely assumed that the Democrats could never possibly get the votes that they need to remove Donald Trump from office in the U.S. Senate, and so therefore the outcome of this entire saga is already a foregone conclusion. But what if that is not true? In this article, you will see that only 19 members of the Senate are a “firm no” when it comes to impeachment, and 35 members have already publicly committed to convicting Trump. In the end, it is going to take 67 votes to remove Trump from office, and Democrats only control 47 seats. It was always going to be a monumental task to try to find 20 Republican members of the Senate willing to betray Trump, and it still doesn’t seem likely that we will get anywhere near that number. But there are whispers that at least some Republicans are currently very much up in the air regarding how they will vote.
On Friday, U.S. Senator Chris Murphy appeared on the “Morning Joe” program, and what he had to say is really shaking a lot of people up…
Murphy, a Democrat from Connecticut, told MSNBC’s Morning Joe program on Friday that he has spoken to GOP senators who are thinking of voting against Trump.
“It’s a small list on one hand,” Murphy said. “I don’t buy this secret ballot thing. If there was a secret ballot, there’d still be only a handful of them that would vote to impeach this guy.”
Up until now, most of us had assumed that Republicans in the Senate would unanimously stand behind Trump.
But according to Murphy, cracks are starting to form.
t is certainly possible that Murphy could be lying, but what purpose would he have for lying about these private conversations?
Of course we definitely are not talking about a long list of potential turncoats. In fact, he openly admitted that only a handful of Republicans are thinking this way…
When pressed, Murphy said that as it stands he thinks there are a maximum of five Republican senators willing to turn on the president: “I think that’s probably right.”
This is not a major crisis for the Trump White House yet, but it definitely has got to be alarming for any cracks to be forming at all at this stage.
So who specifically are we talking about here?
Well, it has been suggested that Susan Collins, Mitt Romney and Lisa Murkowski are all potential candidates to turn on Trump. In particular, Collins and Murkowski are essentially Democrats for all practical purposes, and so it wouldn’t be too much of a surprise if either one of them turned on Trump. In fact, they both have voted against Trump in a number of high profile votes in recent years.
For Romney, this could be an opportunity for sweet revenge. Trump and Romney have exchanged insults for years, and Romney has already publicly referred to Trump’s dealings with Ukrainian officials as “troubling in the extreme”…
He has called Trump’s prodding of Ukrainian officials to investigate Biden “troubling in the extreme.” When the president also called on China to investigate Biden, Romney blasted the move as “wrong and appalling.”
Romney, 72, is seen as having the most freedom to vote to convict, as he made his concerns about the president’s character known during the 2016 primary, when he excoriated Trump as “a phony” and “a fraud” in a last ditch effort to deprive him of the nomination.
Needless to say, President Trump is deeply concerned about what could potentially happen in the weeks ahead, and he has been working very hard to court the support of his fellow Republicans in Congress…
Since the fall began, Trump has hosted more than 40 Republican senators, primarily for weekly lunches. The White House has also hosted Republican House members for weekends at Camp David, and Trump has brought lawmakers to several sporting events, including to the World Series in Washington and the Ultimate Fighting Championship in New York City.
But despite all of that effort, the outcome of the upcoming Senate trial is still surprisingly up in the air. Just check out the following numbers from Politico…
A tracker by Politico, which is evaluating the current position of each of the 100 senators, estimates that there are only 35 firm votes to remove Trump from office. A further 10 are down as probably, five maybe, 31 probably not, and 19 a firm no.
Nadler: If Trump Is Not Removed From Office, He “Will Do Everything He Can To Make It Not A Fair Election”
Michael Snyder – One of the most important Democrats in Congress is warning that President Trump is likely to compromise the integrity of the 2020 election if he is not impeached and removed from office. Jerry Nadler is the chair of the House Judiciary Committee, and so that makes him an exceedingly powerful man right now. Articles of impeachment are being drafted at this moment, and they will soon be approved by his committee. In fact, Nadler told “Meet the Press” on Sunday that it is likely that the final articles of impeachment will be unveiled by his committee “at some point later in the week”…
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler said Sunday that his panel will “presumably” present articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump this week.
“We’ll bring articles of impeachment presumably before the committee at some point later in the week,” Nadler, D-N.Y., said in an interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
Yes, this is actually happening.
And not only that, Reuters is reporting that there could actually be a committee vote on those articles of impeachment within the next 7 days…
Democratic lawmakers could vote this week on articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump, the House Judiciary Committee chairman said on Sunday as lawmakers sharpened their focus on charges of wrongdoing in his dealings with Ukraine.
U.S. Representative Jerrold Nadler said the panel will not decide on the specific articles until after a hearing on Monday to consider evidence gathered by the House Intelligence Committee in its investigation of the Republican leader.
Personally, I sort of doubt that things will move that rapidly. Congress rarely does anything at an efficient pace, and more testimony is scheduled for Monday.
But we’ll see. The Democrats are absolutely obsessed with impeaching Trump, and they are definitely making this their top priority.
And if you listen to Nadler, he makes it sound like it could be the end of our political system if Trump is not impeached and removed from office. Here is more from what Nadler told “Meet the Press” on Sunday…
When asked whether the 2020 election would be conducted fairly if Trump was ultimately acquitted, Nadler replied, “I don’t know.”
“The president, based on his past performance, will do everything he can to make it not a fair election.”
Could you imagine how the mainstream media would have reacted if a Republican had said the exact same thing about Obama while he was still in the White House?
They would have blown it up into a massive national scandal.
This is an extremely serious accusation, and Nadler should not have made it lightly.
Looks Like Trump Could Get His Space Force in Deal for Paid Family Leave
Slate – President Donald Trump looks closer than ever to turning his idea of a Space Force into a reality. Congress and the White House appear to have reached a tentative agreement to authorize 12 weeks of paid parental leave for all federal workers in exchange for establishing the Space Force as a separate military service under the Department of the Air Force. News of the deal that was made as part of negotiations for the defense authorization bill was first reported by the Wall Street Journal but later confirmed by others.
Democrats have long been proponents of paid leave for federal workers. But the White House has also been pushing the move with Ivanka Trump making it it one of her priorities. “As the country’s largest employer, the United States Government must lead by example. After 3 years of relentless advocacy, the passage of the NDAA will secure Paid Parental Leave for ALL federal employees,” Ivanka Trump said in a statement. “This will mark a HUGE step forward towards making paid leave a reality for all Americans. This new policy represents another incredible win for millions of hard-working American families courtesy of President Trump!” Under current law, military members get 12 weeks of paid family leave to take care of a new child, while civilians get 12 weeks leave without pay although they can get paid using accumulated annual or sick leave.
R.I. sued over lack of civics education in schools
Providence Journal – In a lawsuit with national implications, a lawyer for a group of youth argued that Rhode Island students are being denied their constitutional rights to a robust civics education.
U.S. District Court Judge William Smith heard oral arguments Thursday on the state’s motion to dismiss the suit, filed by Michael Rebell on behalf of 14 students.
The case, believed to be the first of its kind in the United States, names as defendants Gov. Gina Raimondo, the state Department of Education, the leaders of the General Assembly and the Council on Elementary and Secondary Education.
“Nothing is more deeply rooted in our democracy than preparing students to participate in that democracy,” Rebell told the court. “Education plays a fundamental role in maintaining the fabric of our society.”
Rhode Island, he said, is failing its students by not instructing them in the values needed to participate in a democratic society. Rebell said the state does not mandate civics, doesn’t train teachers in this subject, and does not measure students on their knowledge of civics.
Rebell is the executive director of the Center for Education Equity at Teachers College, Columbia University. The suit was also filed by the Rhode Island Center for Justice, a nonprofit law firm in Providence.
The arguments revolved around a 1973 case before the U.S. Supreme Court in which students from a poor school district in Texas argued that they were denied the right to an adequate education.
The Rhode Island Department of Education, represented by Anthony Cottone, argued that the high court, in ruling against the Texas students, found that there is no constitutional right to an education.
Smith pressed Cottone: Would students have a right to appeal to the federal courts if a state abolished public education?
Cottone agreed that in such an extreme case, they would have that right.
Cottone also argued that teaching civics falls squarely within the purview of the state department of education and local school districts.
Pointing to the fallout from Brown vs. the Board of Education, the landmark desegregation case, Cottone said that if the federal courts got involved in mandating civics education, school districts would be embroiled in years of litigation.
Smith, quoting Gordon Wood, a retired Brown University historian, questioned whether the democratic experiment would survive without an educated citizenry.
“In a democracy like ours, if only 15 percent [of students] can distinguish between what is fact and what is fiction, can one say something has failed?”
Cottone said, “The solution is not likely to come out of litigation.”
Mayors Ask Trump to Import More Refugees to U.S. for ‘Cultural Diversity’
Breitbart – Nearly 100 mayors across the United States are begging President Trump to import as many refugees to the country as possible in order to “bring cultural vibrancy and diversity” to American communities.
In a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo last month, about 88 mayors — from Denver, Colorado to Columbia, South Carolina — urged Trump to end his latest executive order that gives American communities more veto power over whether they want refugees resettled in their communities.
The mayors said that more refugees are needed to bring about “cultural vibrancy and diversity” to their often small towns, though they admit refugees are an initial tax burden on their taxpayers. According to the letter:
We write to urge the Administration to rescind the September 26 executive order and return this year’s refugee admissions to previous annual levels. [Emphasis added]
…
U.S. cities have long benefited from the annual arrival of refugees. Once they are resettled, refugees learn the new language, adjust to the different culture, and strive to establish a new life. In the process, they also enrich and bring cultural vibrancy and diversity to their local communities. [Emphasis added]
Refugees contribute meaningfully to our economy as earners and taxpayers. While they receive initial assistance upon arriving in the United States, they see significant income increases in subsequent years. [Emphasis added]
As Breitbart News reported, Trump is set to continue cutting refugee admissions next year by reducing former President Obama’s refugee inflow by at least 80 percent. This reduction would mean a maximum of 18,000 refugees can be resettled in the U.S. between October 1, 2019, to September 30, 2020. This is merely a numerical limit and not a goal federal officials are supposed to reach.
The mayors join the national security establishment, Republican and Democrat lawmakers, as well as the Koch brothers‘ network of GOP donors to demand that Trump increase refugee resettlement to the country.
Reports: Saudi Shooter Got Gun Legally
Obtained a license and bought weapon from local dealer
Infowars – Multiple reports are indicating that the Saudi student who shot up the Naval Air Station in Pensacola Friday morning, killing three and wounding more acquired the weapon he used legally from a local dealer.
Mohammed Saeed Alshamrani, a second lieutenant in the Saudi Air Force who was in the US as an aviation student, was able to buy a gun despite the fact that “nonimmigrant aliens” are not permitted to do so, according to NBC News.
The BATF notes that anyone admitted to the US under a nonimmigrant visa is typically “prohibited from shipping, transporting, receiving, or possessing a firearm or ammunition,” however, those with a valid hunting license or permit, and those who were admitted for “lawful hunting or sporting purposes” are able to purchase firearms.
Alshamrani was able to get such a license, according to sources cited by NBC, allowing him to undergo a background check, which in Florida involves a three-day waiting period, per state law.
The Washington Post further notes that another ATF regulation allows non-citizens to possess firearms if they’re from “a friendly foreign government entering the United States on official law enforcement business.”
The development is even more remarkable given that the shooter had a twitter page that reportedly featured anti-American posts and glorified quotes from Osama Bin Laden, according to The SITE Intel Group.
While investigations are still ongoing into whether the attack was “terrorism”, it has been reported that the gunman hosted a “dinner party” prior to the attack, where guests watched mass shooting videos.
Further details that emerged over the weekend suggest that one of the victims, Joshua Kaleb Watson, 23, a recent graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, acted heroically by making it outside the air station and informing the first response team where the shooter was, despite being gravely injured by at least five gunshots.
Texans on southern border promise to fight Trump’s efforts to take their homes for border wall
WP – Salvador Castillo was yearning for tranquility when he became enchanted by a one-acre homestead close — but not too close — to the city, a place where cows graze beneath whispering mesquite trees on the property’s edge.
This was Texas living, the Afghanistan war veteran thought, not the thin-walled apartment and constant din that aggravated the emotional scars of his work providing security for Air Force operations. Castillo and his wife bought the home using military benefits and grew their family into their new neighborhood — about half a mile from a bend in the Rio Grande, near where it ends its journey through mountains and deserts and the valley, spilling into a sandy delta at the sea.
They never imagined a border wall could dissect their property someday. But the first letter, stamped with an official government seal, arrived about a year ago. Their neighbors, the Carrascos and Trevinos, got them, too.
The United States wanted permission to enter and survey their land — three homes targeted in two neighboring U-shaped Texas subdivisions — in preparation for construction of the Trump administration’s new border wall system.
“We were astonished,” Castillo said, noting that the government letter basically sought unlimited access to his family land with no preclusions. His wife, Yvette Arroyo, threw the first letter away, but the lawsuit that came next was a bit more intimidating. “We were like, ‘Hell no!’ We don’t like this. It’s very intrusive.”
President Trump aims to build 166 miles of border barrier in Texas, almost all of it slated to go on private land that the government has yet to acquire — thousands of parcels along the river, an unknown number of them occupied by their owners, including churches and single-family homes. No new border wall has been built on private land in Texas since the president took office, but land acquisition in the Rio Grande Valley is about to enter a new phase this week, as U.S. attorneys began filing initial petitions in court while making cash offers to property owners, according to Justice Department officials with knowledge of the process.
On Friday, the federal government filed its first land acquisition case to condemn nearly 13 acres of private property in the Rio Grande Valley, a parcel near the river levee in Hidalgo County. The owner was offered $93,449 in compensation for the land.
Former Miami detective claims Jeffrey Epstein’s co-pilot disclosed details of his flights
Fox – Private investigator Mike Fisten claimed one of Jeffrey Epstein’s former co-pilots disclosed to him alleged details about trips on the disgraced money man and sex offender’s private jet.
Mike Fisten, a former police detective in Miami-Dade, Fla., said in an exclusive interview with Jesse Watters on “Watters’ World” on Saturday that the co-pilot was not allowed to leave the cockpit during flights but noticed some peculiar things.
“His first pilot, who’s his most dedicated pilot, wouldn’t talk to us,” the investigator said. “But we were able to find [Epstein’s] co-pilots.”
Fisten said he was able to meet with a co-pilot at the man’s home. The co-pilot, Fisten said, lived in an upscale Florida community.
“I’ll never forget sitting in this guy’s living room up in this really nice area of Wellington, Florida, and talking to him,” he told Watters. “And he’s telling me, ‘I can’t tell you anything. I really want to, but I can’t.’” Fisten said that at that point he noticed a photo of the man with his daughters.
“I said, ‘Look at your daughters. They could have been victims.’ And the guy started tearing up and he started talking,” the investigator said.
The co-pilot claimed he flew “all over the world” with Epstein, and alleged that the financier employed very young stewardesses and had “bedrooms” in the back of the plane, according to Fisten. The co-pilot described the stewardesses as appearing to be minors dressed in outfits as that of “candy stripers,” he said.
The co-pilot also told Fisten that former President Bill Clinton flew on the plane “numerous times,” he said.
“Twenty-six times, I believe,” Fisten claimed
“Hillary [Clinton] never flew on the plane — that we knew of,” he added, recalling what the co-pilot claimed to him during the visit. “She was never recorded going on the plane and no one’s ever seen her on the plane. [Chelsea Clinton] was never with him.”
Fisten had been hired by Epstein victims’ attorney Brad Edwards in 2009 to investigate the New York City native, who was found dead this past August in his prison cell while awaiting trial on federal sex-trafficking charges.
The billionaire had owned an island near St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands called Little St. James.
The Supreme Court just handed the Trump administration a rare rebuke
Attorney General Bill Barr suffers a loss in a death penalty case.
Vox – The Supreme Court handed down a brief order Friday evening saying that the Trump administration may not bypass the ordinary legal process governing appeals if it wants to execute four men.
The case, Barr v. Roane, arises from the administration’s effort to revive the federal death penalty.
The federal government has not executed anyone since 2003; last July, however, the Justice Department announced that it planned to resume executions, and it named five men that it intended to execute in the coming months.
A federal district court blocked four of these executions shortly before Thanksgiving.
The legal dispute between these four men and the Justice Department is very narrow. None of the four men challenge their conviction, and none of them claim that they were unlawfully sentenced to die. Instead, the district court determined that the Justice Department planned to violate a federal law governing how federal inmates may be executed.
As Judge Tanya Chutkan explained in her opinion, the Federal Death Penalty Act (FDPA) provides that federal death sentences must be conducted “in the manner prescribed by the law of the State in which the sentence is imposed.” Yet, the Justice Department plans execute the four men using “a single procedure for all federal executions rather than using the FDPA’s state prescribed procedure.” That, she held, is not allowed.
Ordinarily, if a party loses in a federal trial court, they may appeal that decision to an appeals court and then, if the justices decide to hear the case, to the Supreme Court. The Trump administration, however, asked the Supreme Court to let it bypass this ordinary process. It sought a stay of Judge Chutkan’s order from the justices.
As a practical matter, such a stay would have been the end of the case because the men would have been executed while the stay was in effect, mooting the case in the process.

Economy & Business

Mexico president says senators accepted changes to USMCA trade pact
RT – Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said on Monday that the country’s senators have accepted proposed changes to the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement as US lawmakers mull ratifying the trade pact.
Lopez Obrador told reporters that he “respectfully requests” that US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi make a decision about the trade agreement.
The deal was struck more than a year ago but must be ratified by legislators in the three countries before it goes into effect.
“It’s the time, it’s the moment,” Reuters quoted Lopez Obrador as saying. “I am optimistic, very optimistic, that we can achieve this agreement.”
BREAKING: Drudge Report Appears to Have Been Sold
Sparta Report : It’s no surprise to conservatives that Drudge Report has been a little different these past few months. The front page news site has taken a decidedly nevertrumper turn with extremely slanted coverage of President Trump and spreading “doom porn” for Republicans who still go to the site.
Rasmussen Reports stated this morning that there are rumors that Matt Drudge has sold the site and is in final stages of the sale.
Well Matt Drudge seems to have confirmed it with his Twitter account homepage. Pay close attention to his bio:
“The DRUDGE REPORT was a U.S. based news aggregation website run by Matt Drudge(@DRUDGE).”
The drug-pricing deal that got away
Axios – Neither Congress nor the Trump administration is likely to get much done this year on drug prices, despite the clear political upside to doing so.
Between the lines: Polls consistently show that drug prices are a top concern for voters. President Trump and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi also seem to agree a lot on the policy. But a deal keeps getting further away.
Where it stands: The House is set to vote on Pelosi’s bill next week, though if push ever comes to shove, she has a small and diminishing incentive to help Trump claim a big victory right before his reelection campaign.

The White House has thrown its weight behind a bipartisan bill in the Senate, but leadership has never been particularly warm to that effort, and rank-and-file Republicans have also backed away from parts of the plan.

The big picture: The pharmaceutical industry almost always gets its way in Washington.

The industry’s top two trade organizations, together, spent more than $35 million on lobbying in 2018, more than they’ve ever spent before.
That doesn’t include individual companies’ contributions, nor does it include any of the industry’s campaign contributions, which are substantial.

Trump’s regulatory agenda on drug prices isn’t faring much better. The administration has abandoned several of its ideas.

It’s now working on a proposal to tie Medicare’s payments to the prices European countries pay, but Trump would probably need a second term in order to see that one through.

And prices keep going up. The most expensive drug in the world — a gene replacement therapy that treats spinal muscular atrophy — came to market earlier this year, with a sticker price of $2.1 million in the U.S.

That drug is a groundbreaking new therapy, but prices also continue to rise for old, familiar products that people depend on every day — most notably, insulin.

Science & Technology

Bioscience Company Aims To Save The French Fry, Make Potatoes More Robust And Nutritious
Forbes – Panic is setting in about a potential french fry shortage in the near future, due to a poor potato harvest in the United States and Canada. Headlines speculate that people will need to find new sides to go with their burgers.
Dr. Oliver P. Peoples, a professed french fry lover, is more optimistic. He’s president and CEO of Yield10 Bioscience, which just signed a research agreement with the J.R. Simplot Co., the pioneer of the frozen french fry. The aim is to use artificial intelligence and gene editing to develop a more robust potato, with a higher yield and (down the line) other positive attributes.
“We’ll all experience a bit of price pressure, but I think we’ll still be able to go to our favorite burger place and get a burger and fries,” Peoples predicts.
Yield10, an agricultural bioscience company based in Woburn, Massachusetts, uses technology that mines scientific data to come up with a prioritized list of gene targets to improve different aspects of crop production. The technology is called GRAIN, short for gene ranking artificial intelligence network.
“This is a very exciting time to be in the agricultural sector in terms of innovation in particular,” Peoples says. “We’ve reached a sort of bottleneck of what the old technologies (like breeding) can do.”
A recent report from United Potato Growers of Canada says many areas of the U.S. were affected by adverse harvesting conditions this year, resulting in one of the lowest crops on record. Bloomberg notes that wet, cold weather damaged crops in Idaho, Manitoba and Alberta, and potato processors are rushing to buy supplies and keep french fries on the menu.
Aerial radar turns up a Viking ship in a farmer’s field
The ship is one of only a handful of such graves ever found mostly intact in Norway.
Ars Technica – Ground-penetrating radar recently revealed a Viking Age ship hidden beneath the topsoil of a farm near the former town of Edøy in western Norway. The ship would have held the body of an ancient Norse leader along with weapons, loot, and other items. Nearby, the remains of postholes mark the ghostly outlines of two longhouses. The find could offer a wealth of information about ancient shipbuilding and Norse burial rites.
A forgotten grave
The outline of the ship shows up clearly in the radar images, circled by the remains of a ditch that once surrounded a burial mound. “This is a very common trait for grave mounds,” archaeologist Dag-Øyvind Solem, of the Norwegian Institute for Cultural Heritage Research (NIKU), told Ars. “In addition to having a potentially symbolic meaning, it is thought that [ditches] have the very practical function of making the mounds seem bigger than they really were.”
Farmers’ plows destroyed the burial mound centuries ago, and soil eventually filled in the surrounding ditch. But that looser soil holds more moisture than the adjacent ground and reflects radar differently. In radar images, the result is an accidentally perfect logo for Viking Age archaeology: the hull of a ship in a circle. The largest Norse ship burial ever found—the Gjellestad ship—stood out in a 2018 radar survey with the same distinctive outline.
Both ends of the ship seem to have suffered damage, probably from a thousand years’ worth of plowing. But most of the hull seems intact. The radar images are detailed enough for archaeologists to recognize the keel (a long wooden timber that forms the backbone of a ship) and the first two planks on either side. Based on the length of the keel, the ship was probably between 16 and 17 meters (52 to 55 feet) long.
The find was a stroke of luck, since the site wasn’t even in the team’s original survey area. “We had actually finished the agreed-upon area, but we had time to spare and decided to do a quick survey over another field,” archaeologist Manuel Gabler of NIKU said in a press release. “It turned out to be a good decision.”
It probably came as a surprise to farmer Per Hassle, too, but he’s taking the discovery in stride. “The burial is indeed located on a working farm, but we couldn’t have wished for a more agreeable landowner,” Solem told Ars. “He is very interested in history, especially local history, and is very enthusiastic about the project.”

Health

FDA Testing Levels of Carcinogen in Diabetes Drug Metformin
Newsmax – Levels of possible cancer-causing chemicals in metformin diabetes medications are under investigation by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
Metformin is a prescription drug used to control high blood sugar in patients with type 2 diabetes.
Over the past year and a half, several types of drugs — including angiotensin II receptor blockers (ARBs) used for high blood pressure and ranitidine (Zantac) for heartburn — have been found to contain small amounts of genotoxic substances called nitrosamines, such as N-nitrosodimethylamine (NDMA). A genotoxic substance is something that harms the genetic material in a cell.
Never Trumper Rick Wilson Suggests Putting Anti-Vaxxers in “Re-Education Camps”
And taking their children.
Infowars – Neo-Con Republican strategist and Never Trumper Rick Wilson has suggested that anti-vaxxers should be put in re-education camps and have their children taken away.
Yes, really.
Wilson was responding to an NBC News story about how people who question the safety of vaccines are now taking their fight “offline” due to mass censorship by the likes of Facebook and are “harassing doctors and private citizens.”
“Anti-vaxxers are a scourge and a strong argument for re-education camps, the immediate seizure of their property, and putting their children into protective custody,” responded Wilson.
The tweet received nearly 8,000 likes.
One could make the argument that anti-vaxxers are pushing harmful misinformation, but to suggest they should have their kids seized and put in gulags is clearly demented.
Respondents to the tweet were not impressed.
“Like China is doing to the Uyghur?” asked one.
“You should definitely visit the @AuschwitzMuseum because a place like that was only possible thanks to people who think like you,” remarked another.
While Wilson purports to be a conservative, he is in reality a deep state neo-con who has trashed President Trump for 3 years solid.
The Real Crisis in Samoa
Vaxxter – The speed at which the pro-vaccine forces are working to stomp out freedom of speech, freedom to learn, and freedom of choice is simply staggering. Hijacking the mainstream media and censoring all social media platforms to take complete control of the message shows how far they are willing to go to censure information not in lockstep with the Healthy People 2020 agenda. The plan is to vaccinate everyone, with few exceptions, and to eliminate even the difficult to obtain medical exemptions.
Samoa, known as Western Samoa until July 4, 1997, is a country consisting of two main islands and four smaller islands. Samoa is a sovereign state and a member of the Commonwealth of Nations and is a member of the UN. As of fall 2019, the population of Samoa is approximately 197,500 people.
For those who have – or have not – been following the travesty happening in Samoa, here is a timeline that captures the measles hysteria occurring in these far off islands:

July 2018: Two infants died immediately after receiving the MMR vaccine
- Instead of examining the faulty vaccine or seeking to understand why the babies died, two nurses were blamed and charged with manslaughter
- They were later sentenced to five years in jail for negligently preparing the vaccines, using a muscle relaxant instead of water to reconstitute the shots
- After the incident, WHO and UNICEF estimated the Samoan vaccination rate for measles and overall immunization coverage fell from 74% to 31%
April 2019: Samoa reinstitutes MMR vaccination
June 2019: Robert Kennedy Jr. and Taylor Winterstein, the wife of an Australian rugby player, met in Samoa, just months before the outbreak begins
by Oct 1: UNICEF had delivered 115,500 doses of measles vaccines and diluents
Mid-Oct: First child reported to have died from measles
Nov 15: The Government of Samoa officially declares a state of emergency over measles
Nov 26: A national Measles Vaccination Campaign begins, using mobile outreach vaccination teams and special vaccine booths
Nov 30: An additional 100,000 doses of MMR shipped from New Zealand.
Dec 1: Facilitated via social media, 200 packages of vitamins, probiotics, and superfoods are sent to Samoa. Individuals given “alternative” treatment of vitamin C and vitamin A recover.
Dec 5-6: Door-to-Door vaccination begins. Every man, woman, and child was ordered to receive an MMR vaccination, regardless of previous infection or vaccination status. Only the police and mobile vaccination teams were allowed on public roads.
Dec 5: The UN calls for more social media censorship to “protect the public.”
Dec 6: Those who voiced an anti-vax sentiment or wished to provide holistic care were threatened or jailed.
- Samoa’s most prominent activist, Edwin Tamasese, was arrested by police for discouraging conventional medical treatments such as antibiotics and paracetamol (a Tylenol-equivalent).
Dec 6: The Prime Minister requested US$10.7 million from the UN for training and surveillance against future measles outbreaks.

So, let’s sum up and review this timeline. There are certainly unanswered questions:
According to ReliefWeb, UNICEF delivered a total of 115,500 doses of measles vaccines to Samoa since October 1, including the required diluent, syringes and safety boxes, as well as sufficient supplies of Vitamin A. Vaccinations started, with the first death from measles occurs on October 15. Within a month, hundreds of cases of measles were reported and the government declared an emergency on November 15, leading to mass vaccination of everyone, irrespective of age, vaccination status or previous recovery. And then, the government requested USD$10.7M from the UN to prevent “future outbreaks.”
What? Wait.

Now that everyone has been vaccinated, or revaccinated, including adults, another outbreak should not happen for at least the next ten or so years, right?
And why did they need 215,000 doses of measles vaccine when the entire population of the country is less than 198,000 and the population of Samoan children, aged 0 to 5 years (which would be given two doses of MMR) is only 22,555?
And why do they need all that money after-the-fact?

The book, Rules for Radicals: A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals written by Saul Alinsky, was published in 1971. The 10 rules he puts forth for ‘community activism’ have been used by many modern politicians to guide their socialist aspirations. Alinsky’s Rule #9 is “The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself.”
Capitalizing on this rule in 2011, Obama’s chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, expanded on this premise by saying, “First of all, what I said was, never allow a good crisis to go to waste when it’s an opportunity to do things that you had never considered, or that you didn’t think were possible.”
Could armies of vaccinators have been mobilized to innoculate an entire country over two days if were it not for instituting an overwhelming fear of measles?
Certainly, measles is being portrayed as an infection more deadly than rabies. Much has been written about how measles went from a common, rite-of-passage infection to an uncommon rash and fever after the introduction of the MMR vaccine in 1963.
Healthy People 2020 and the Decade of Vaccines
Vaxxter – While it appears that the recent measles hysteria pushed a button that rocketed nearly all 50 states to introduce vaccine bills simultaneously, calling to restrict and/or remove vaccine exemptions for children, the plan has actually been evolving for a long time. The flurry of legislative actions is rooted in the Healthy People guidelines which began 35 years ago.
In 1976, Congress created The Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion (ODPHP) to coordinate disease prevention and health promotion efforts across the United States. Three years later, Surgeon General Julius B Richmond chronicled the state of health in America, then defined five quantitative goals for public health. The document came to be referred to as Healthy People. With the help of Assistant Surgeon General Michael McGinnis, the formal publication was released in 1979. In 1980, a companion piece written by the Institutes of Medicine – Promoting Health/Preventing Disease: Objectives for the Nation – set forth 226 specific, measurable health objectives. This was the action plan for the Healthy People goals. These two documents, considered to be “landmarks” in the history of public health, became Healthy People 1990.
Lofty goals were put forth for many areas of health, but some of the first directives for mass vaccination were established in Healthy People 1990. For example, one goal was to achieve at least a 60% influenza vaccination rate among high-risk populations. Another was to fully vaccinate all children with MMR, polio and DTP by two years of age.
The goals were meant to be national in scope. But 1980s were long before the age of instant internet communication and social media. Few of the objectives were met in the time span between 1980 and 1990. Therefore, planning the objectives for the next decade began in 1987, engaging broad-based input from public health officials across the country.
By the time Healthy People 2000 was released in 1990, more than 7,000 persons and public health organizations at the local, state, and national levels had participated in the development of 22 topics with 312 objectives. Included in Healthy People 2000 were goals to ensure all children were fully vaccinated with the three approved vaccines – DTP, polio and MMR – and all older adults were vaccinated with both influenza and pneumonia vaccines.
In 2010, the next generation of guidelines were released, framed as Healthy People 2020. The current recommendations are vast in scope and include government intrusion into nearly ever conceivable area of personal life and health. What started out as 15 topics and 226 objectives in 1990 has grown to 42 topics and more than 1,200 objectives for 2020.
Representatives from more than 50 Federal Agencies helped develop the Healthy People 2020 topics. Representatives from each agency also worked with the Federal Interagency Workgroup (FIW), a task force that includes, among others, the Departments of Agriculture, Education, and Transportation. The massive efforts were coordinated by The Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion (ODPHP), in conjunction with the Department of HHS. All agencies drew on the expertise of the Assistant Secretary’s extensive Advisory Committee on National Health Promotion and Disease Prevention. The Assistant Secretary of Health, who reports directly to the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HSS), has direct oversight of ODPHP activities. HSS has more than 77,000 employees. Thousands of people participated in the development of Healthy People 2020 and have a stake in its implementation.
U.S. National Vaccine Plan
In 2010, partners from all over the world came together with a global commitment to vaccination, declaring 2010 to 2020 as the Decade of Vaccines. American children today receive 49 doses of 16 different vaccines before 5 years of age. There is no end in sight with at least 300 vaccines in the current developmental pipeline.
The National Vaccine Plan, developed by the U.S. Department of Human Services (HSS), is the roadmap for a “21st century vaccine and immunization enterprise.” It lays bare the incestuous public-private relationship between the pharmaceutical vaccine manufacturers, the U.S. government, and the World Health Rulers. The plan includes specific outlines and strategies for advancing vaccine R&D in conjunction with the NIH and FDA; calls for U.S. government guaranteed financing, supply, and distribution of vaccines; and requests funding for new, pro-vaccine information pieces to be distributed consumers and all health care providers.
The National Vaccine Implementation Plan was designed to coordinate with Healthy People 2020. This plan outlines the goals and objectives to achieve increase vaccination over a 10-year period, with action steps, processes, and measurable outcomes to be achieved between 2012 and 2015. The implementation plan includes five broad objectives:

Develop new and improved vaccines
Enhance the vaccine safety system
Support communications to enhance informed vaccine decision-making
Ensure a stable supply of, access to and better use of recommended vaccines
Increase global prevention through vaccination

In December 2014, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation released a special report called Outbreaks: Protecting Americans from Infectious Diseases. The first 10 pages discuss Ebola, superbugs, tuberculosis, pandemic flu and mosquito-borne diseases, the major infectious disease threats seen today. The document then transitions to a lengthy discussion about vaccines and the major risk of infection for unvaccinated children.
Concordia professor condemns HPV vaccine after winning $270K federal grant to study it
National Post (October 8, 2015) – A Montreal social scientist and the federal agency that awarded her almost $300,000 to study the HPV vaccine are facing criticism after the professor condemned the vaccine and called for a moratorium on its use.
Concordia University’s Genevieve Rail also said there is no proof that the human papillomavirus directly causes cervical cancer, though a German scientist was awarded the Nobel Prize five years ago for discovering the link.
Experts say Rail’s public attacks are seriously misinformed and risk undermining an important public-health program — and they question why the Canadian Institute for Health Research (CIHR) would fund her work.
The $270,000 that Rail — who has a doctorate in kinesiology — received is to examine HPV vaccination “discourses” and their effect on teenagers, using in part interviews and drawings.
“This is akin to funding research that purports to show tobacco smoking does not cause lung cancer,” charged Eduardo Franco, head of cancer epidemiology at McGill University. “And that tobacco cessation, rather than helping reduce risk, is actually causing harm … CIHR would not fund such a study, would it?”
Marc Steben, a Montreal family doctor and chair of the Canadian Network on HPV Prevention, was more blunt.
“I don’t know who was on her (grant awarding) jury,” he said. “Someone was really sleeping.”
California Mom Wins Second Big Settlement Against CPS for Seizing, Vaccinating Son Without Warrant
PJ Media – Excerpts:
Rachel Bruno, the mother at the center of a civil rights battle in Orange County, California, has been awarded another big settlement against social services and Children’s Hospital of Orange County (CHOC) after they took her 20-month-old son and ran unauthorized medical tests on him and injected him with a dozen vaccinations at the same time.
Bruno was just given a half-million-dollar settlement from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department for their role in violating her Fourth Amendment rights of due process by carrying out an unwarranted seizure of her 20-month-old son, David.
One of the most shocking revelations in the Bruno case is the fact that the Orange County CPS caseworkers used an outdated general warrant to order the medical testing, which was dated 2008, seven years before the tests were performed. The county offered no explanation, time travel or otherwise, to account for how they got a warrant signed in 2008 for an incident that occurred in 2015.
This warrant from the distant past was used to do invasive medical procedures on a traumatized baby who had been ripped from his family just hours before. David’s pediatrician was also not contacted by Orange County Social Services before they vaccinated him to “catch up” to the current schedule.
David had been vaccinated according to his pediatrician’s recommendations at a slower pace because of a troubling reaction to Prevnar. At the physician’s direction, his vaccination schedule had been altered to slow it down to avoid more reactions. Orange County Social Services vaccinated him with seven shots containing twelve viruses at once, disregarding his medical history and without parental consent.
“By the grace of God, David is okay,” Bruno told PJ Media. But the psychological damage he suffered from the unlawful separation and time in a foster group home lingered. “It took a while for him to stop rejecting me,” said Bruno. “He believed I had left him.” Bruno is now reunited with her family and the baby has recovered from his head injury, which remains unexplained.
Bruno has posted her attorney’s depositions where he interrogates the police officer and social worker involved in this case of clear constitutional violations.

Extra News

Why Sexual Morality May be Far More Important than You Ever Thought
One winter afternoon I was relaxing with a half-dozen fellow graduate philosophy students discussing theories of law and punishment. About an hour into the discussion, it occurred to me that some moral laws might limit pleasure and enjoyment in the short term but in the long term minimize suffering and maximize human fulfillment.
A few days ago I finished studying Sex and Culture for the second time. It is a remarkable book summarizing a lifetime of research by Oxford social anthropologist J.D. Unwin.[1] The 600+ page book is, in Unwin’s words, only a “summary” of his research—seven volumes would be required to lay it all out.[2] His writings suggest he was a rationalist, believing that science is our ultimate tool of inquiry (it appears he was not a religious man). As I went through what he found, I was repeatedly reminded of the thought I had as a philosophy student: some moral laws may be designed to minimize human suffering and maximize human flourishing long term.
Unwin examines the data from 86 societies and civilizations to see if there is a relationship between sexual freedom and the flourishing of cultures. What makes the book especially interesting is that we in the West underwent a sexual revolution in the late 1960’s, 70’s, and 80’s and are now in a position to test the conclusions he arrived at more than 40 years earlier.
Unwin’s cultural categories
Unwin described four “great patterns of human culture” and degrees of flourishing measured in terms of architecture, art, engineering, literature, agriculture, and so forth. The primary criterion for classification was how they related to the natural world and the forces it contains.[3]

zoistic: Entirely self-focussed on day-to day-life, wants, and needs, with no interest in understanding nature. Described as a “dead culture” or “inert”.
monistic: Acquire superstitious beliefs and/or special treatment of the dead to cope with the natural world.
deistic: Attribute the powers of nature to a god or gods
rationalistic: Use rational thinking to understand nature and to make day-to-day decisions.

Unwin’s degrees of sexual restraint
Degrees of sexual restraint were divided into two major categores—prenuptial and postnuptial. Prenuptial categories were:[4]

Complete sexual freedom—no prenuptial restraints at all
Irregular or occasional restraint— cultural regulations require an occasional period of abstinence
Strict Chastity —remain a virgin until married

Postnuptial categories were:[5]

Modified monogamy: one spouse at a time, but association can be terminated by either party.
Modified polygamy: men can have more than one wife, but a wife is free to leave her husband.
Absolute monogamy: only one spouse permitted for life (or until death in some cultures)
Absolute polygamy: men can have more than one wife, but wives must “confine their sexual qualities (i.e., activity) to their husband for the whole of their lives.”