Today's News: March 26, 2018

World News

No more Mr or Mrs: Canadian state agency to use gender-neutral ‘parent’ instead of father or mother
RT – A Canadian government agency has issued new guidelines telling staff to use gender-neutral terms instead of “father” or “mother” when talking to clients. The move by the agency has been heavily criticized.
The directive by Service Canada, an agency tasked with delivering government services and programs to the citizens, says staff should use gender-neutral honorifics in order to avoid “portraying a perceived bias” towards a particular sex or gender.
Honorifics such as mister, missus or miss “can be seen/perceived as gender specific by a client,” according to the document seen by French-speaking broadcaster Radio Canada and Huffington Post Canada. Instead, Service Canada’s employees should address citizens by full names or use their preferred way of naming themselves.

Trump expels Russians, closes consulate in response to poison attack in Great Britain
USA Today – President Trump has expelled 60 Russian diplomats and suspected spies and closed the Russian consulate in Seattle over the poison attack in Great Britain, the administration said Monday.
“The United States takes this action in conjunction with our NATO allies and partners around the world in response to Russia’s use of a military-grade chemical weapon on the soil of the United Kingdom, the latest in its ongoing pattern of destabilizing activities around the world,” Sarah Sanders said in a statement.

U.S. News, Politics & Government

Motion reveals Pulse gunman’s father was FBI informant
Click Orlando – Attorneys for Noor Salman are calling for a mistrial after they say new details from prosecutors reveal that Pulse gunman Omar Mateen‘s father was an FBI source and is currently under a criminal investigation.
According to a motion filed by the defense, prosecutors sent an email on Saturday that stated Seddique Mateen was a confidential FBI source from 2005 through June 2016.
The email also stated that Seddique Mateen is being investigated for money transfers to Turkey and Pakistan after documents were found in his home on the day of the Pulse attack.
Salman’s attorneys claim the late disclosure of the information prevented them from exploring whether or not Seddique Mateen knew of his son’s plans to attack the nightclub on June 12, 2016.

The Second Amendment rights of more than 4 million Americans are at risk thanks to Republicans in Congress
Fox News – Congressional Republicans are jeopardizing the Second Amendment rights of 4.2 million senior citizens. At the same time, they have voted to funnel tens of millions of dollars to gun control organizations and support other actions that Democrats will love.
All of this is wrapped up in the giant $1.3 trillion spending bill that the House of Representatives approved Thursday on a 256-167 vote and sent to the Senate.
Just before President Obama left office, his administration finalized new regulations banning Social Security recipients from buying a gun if they have trouble managing their finances.        About 10 percent of all people 65 and older risked being classified as “financially incompetent” – about 4.2 million in all.
Using the Congressional Review Act, Republicans and two Democrats passed a bill overturning the regulation. But the bill did more than that. It also prevents any future president from reinstituting the ban without new legislative authorization from Congress.

I Refuse to Lose My Mind Over the Omnibus Fiasco, and So Should You
Townhall – Remember the Kobayashi Maru scene in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan? Sometimes, you end up with no good options. Donald Trump just had that happen to him with the omnibus abomination, though don’t be fooled by the passive voice – he deserves some blame for letting it come to this. The absolutely essential military spending was wrapped in a fat suit of glistening, rancid pork, and the congressional rats had already abandoned ship and fled out of town when it was dumped on his desk. So he had a stark choice. Trump could sign it, and enrage his base but ensure our military could prepare for the wars looming on the horizon. Or he could veto it, and launch a government shutdown with about 0% of succeeding in getting a significantly better deal. Trump chose the least worst of two bad options, and I, for one, refuse to lose my Schiff over it.

Obama LIED again – more people mass murdered by Knife attacks in China than with Guns in America
Prepared Gun Owners News – Obama essentially admitted during his January 5, 2016 speech outlining his executive orders that none of his gun control measures would help save lives nor prevent mass killings by psychos.
He then told a huge whopper of a lie, essentially stating that even if Gun Control doesn’t stop mass killings — it will help save lives because the killers will be using knives instead of using guns.
Here is the exact quotes from a transcript of Mr. Obama’s speech:
“Each time this comes up, we are fed the excuse that common-sense reforms like background checks might not have stopped the last massacre, or the one before that, or the one before that, so why bother trying. I reject that thinking. (Applause.) We know we can’t stop every act of violence, every act of evil in the world. But maybe we could try to stop one act of evil, one act of violence.
   “Some of you may recall, at the same time that Sandy Hook happened, a disturbed person in China took a knife and tried to kill — with a knife — a bunch of children in China. But most of them survived because he didn’t have access to a powerful weapon. We maybe can’t save everybody, but we could save some. Just as we don’t prevent all traffic accidents but we take steps to try to reduce traffic accidents.”
Obama Told a Half Truth, Then A Blatant Lie …
The Truth Is That Mass Killings Happen In China Using Knives.
Here’s a partial list off mass killings at schools in China (source).
Obama Lied – Knives Have Killed More People In A Single Mass Murder Than A Single Mass Murder With Any Type of Gun
The Virginia Tech shooting (also known as the Virginia Tech massacre) occurred on April 16, 2007, on the campus of Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Virginia. Seung-Hui Cho, shot and killed 32 people and wounded 17 others in two separate attacks, approximately two hours apart, before committing suicide.

Thousands Lose Right to Vote Under ‘Incompetence’ Laws
The PEW Charitable Trusts – Like many people with autism, Greg Demer is bright but has difficulty communicating.
His mother, Linda Demer, worried that he wouldn’t be able to make complicated decisions about his finances and health care once he turned 18. So, in 2005, a judge in Los Angeles, where they live, granted her conservatorship over Greg.
“I wanted to protect him,” she said of her son, who is now 31.
But in the conservatorship process, the judge also stripped away Greg’s right to vote. He was not only unfit to make decisions about his health care and finances, the judge ruled, but he also was unfit to participate in the democratic process.
In being declared “mentally incapacitated,” he joined tens of thousands of Americans with disabilities who every year lose their right to vote during guardianship proceedings, according to the California-based Spectrum Institute, an advocacy group for people with disabilities.
Laws in 39 states and Washington, D.C., allow judges to strip voting rights from people with mental disorders ranging from schizophrenia to Down syndrome who are deemed “incapacitated” or “incompetent.” Some of those states use archaic language like “idiots” or “insane persons” in their statutes.
The states that do not have similar restrictions are Colorado, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Maine, Michigan, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Vermont.

EXPOSED: Hidden Camera Reveals Dem Delegates Want To Ban ALL Guns (Video)
Louder With Crowder – This undercover report where James O’Keefe gets a Democrat delegate to admit what “common sense” gun legislation actually means needs to be spread far and wide…
“Saying you want to ban guns altogether, that’s going to piss everybody off. You have to take that sort of moderate… ‘We just wanna have common sense legislation so our children are safe!’ You say s— like that, and then people will buy into it.”
These bleeding heart leftists who’ve never pulled a single trigger, know any stack of paper they can pass which reads “gun control” on it in fine print leads to another more invasive stack of paper reading “gun control” on it in fine print. That’s why they try to trick people by claiming everything they want to pass is “common sense.” How can you oppose common sense?

Texas teen was beaten, had hot cooking oil poured on her after refusing arranged marriage: police
Fox News – Parents of a Texas high school student who was reported missing in late January had abused their daughter after she refused an arranged marriage, leading her to run away from home until she was found in mid-March, police said.
Maarib Al Hishmawi, 16, was reported missing on Jan. 30 after she was last seen leaving Taft High School in Bexar County. She was located in mid-March when she was taken in by an organization that cared for her after she ran away, KSAT reported.
Authorities on Friday said Al Hishmawi’s parents — Abdulah Fahmi Al Hishmawi, 34, and Hamdiyah Saha Al Hishmawi, 33 — had allegedly beaten their daughter with a broomstick and poured hot cooking oil on her when she refused to marry a man in another city. The parents reportedly agreed to the arranged marriage in exchange for $20,000.

Video of Vegas Shooter Finally Released, Showing How He Brought In the Guns
Activist Post – In spite of the dozens of Freedom of Information Act requests by local media and lawsuits demanding the release the surveillance footage, somehow The New York Times was able to obtain the exclusive footage allegedly showing Paddock inside the hotel.
In the chilling video, we see Paddock alone and blending in, never looking suspicious and even raising his hands in delight when he won $1,000 while gambling and eating sushi.
However, behind the scenes, Paddock was filling his room with dozens of weapons and thousands of rounds of ammunition.
The questions as to how Paddock was able to get this small arsenal in his room now appear to be answered thanks to the video—Paddock had the hotel staff load them up for him.
However, upon the release of this video, another question remains. How, exactly, did hotel staff not find bags with hundreds of rounds of ammunition—that would be far heavier than any clothing bags—suspicious?
Also, how, exactly Paddock managed to conceal the small arsenal of weapons from housekeeping is just as big of a mystery as to how he got them in the room in the first place without the staff noticing the weight of the bags.

Economy & Business

Gun maker Remington files for bankruptcy
Fox News – Firearms manufacturer Remington Outdoor Company has filed for bankruptcy protection in the face of falling sales and lawsuits stemming from the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, the Wall Street Journal reported Sunday night.
According to the Journal, Remington announced that it would file for Chapter 11 last month but the actual filing was delayed after the Feb. 14 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla. that killed 17 people.
The paper reported that Remington officials plan to hand over the reins to its creditors in exchange for writing off most of the company’s debt. Cerberus Capital Management LP bought Remington for $118 million in 2007, assuming $252 million in debt in the process.

Citi Seeks to Restrict Gun Sales by Its Retail Clients
Newsmax – Citigroup Inc. added restrictions on firearms sales for new retail-sector clients, the Wall Street bank said on Thursday, the strongest move to date by a major U.S. lender following last month’s high school shooting in Florida.
In an e-mailed statement Citi said it will require those clients only sell firearms to customers who have passed a background check, restrict sales of firearms for people under 21 years of age, and not sell so-called “bump stocks” or high-capacity magazines.

Dutch Court Finds Bitcoin A Legitimate “Transferable Value”
Cointelegraph – A Dutch court classifies Bitcoin as a “transferable value” after the court ruled in favour of a plaintiff who was owed 0.591 Bitcoins (BTC), according to a court document published March 20.
The claim was filed in a Dutch court by Mr. J.W. de Vries on 2 February 2018 against Koinz Trading BV, a non-public company, which was previously ordered by a lower court of Midden-Nederland to pay mining proceeds in the amount of 0.591 BTC owed to the petitioner, or a penalty payment up to a €10,000 maximum.

Hyundai union head fears GM-like crisis; says electric cars destroy jobs
Reuters – Hyundai Motor’s (005380.KS) union chief warned its workers may face a similar crisis to the one hitting General Motors’ (GM.N) South Korean unit as sales in key markets slide, adding that electric cars were ‘evil’ and will destroy jobs.

Energy & Environment

World’s largest collection of ocean garbage is twice the size of Texas
USA Today – The world’s largest collection of ocean garbage is growing.
The Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a collection of plastic, floating trash halfway between Hawaii and California, has grown to more than 600,000 square miles, a study published Thursday found. That’s twice the size of Texas.

Like ‘skiing on Mars:’ Orange snow blankets Eastern Europe
USA Today- Sure, we’ve all been warned about yellow snow, but what about orange snow?
Thanks to dust blowing in from the Sahara Desert, folks in several Eastern European countries this weekend were surprised to see their snow turn a weird orange color.
Skiers and snowboarders saw orange snow in at least four countries, including Russia, Bulgaria, Ukraine and Romania
“We’re skiing on Mars today,” exclaimed one social media user as he skied down the slopes, according to CNN.

Science & Technology

Self-taught rocket maker shoots himself 1,875 feet to prove Earth is flat
Fox News – A self-taught rocket scientist who believes the Earth is flat and wants to run for California governor shot himself up about 1,875 feet in the air in his homemade rocket on Saturday.
“Mad” Mike Hughes, a 61-year-old limo driver, promised last year to propel himself up in the air and snap a photo proving that astronauts conspired to fabricate the shape of the planet. The stunt was supposed to be the first phase of the flat-Earth space program and received backing from flat-Earth groups.
He told a flat-Earth group last year that th

e project will “shut the doors on this ball Earth,” but has since backtracked on the claims that his mission will prove the Earth is flat.
“Do I believe the Earth is shaped like a Frisbee? I believe it is,” he said on social media. “Do I know for sure? No. That’s why I want to go up in space.”
Video: Mad Mike Hughes (RUFF) blasts off 03-24-18

CONFIRMED: Algorithm Change Causes POTUS Trump’s Facebook Traffic to Plummet 45% – Sanders, Warren Traffic UNCHANGED!
The Gateway Pundit – A recent algorithm change has caused President Donald Trump’s engagement on Facebook posts to plummet a whopping 45%.
The change announced earlier this month has severely hurt Facebook traffic at top conservative sites – including this one.
However, liberal websites are reportedly not seeing a drop in traffic!

Health

Link Found Between Antibiotics and Heart Deaths
RT – New research finds that, for women over 60, there’s a link between long-term use of antibiotics and heightened odds for heart-linked death.
But the study of more than 37,000 U.S. women couldn’t prove that the bacteria-fighting meds were the cause of the troubling trend, or whether the culprits were the illnesses the antibiotics were intended to fight.
The study of women age 60 or older found those who took antibiotics for at least two months were 27 percent more likely to die from all causes over a period of eight years, and they had a 58 percent greater risk of dying from heart disease, specifically.

UK Doctors Used Stem Cells to Restore Eyesight in Two People
Newsmax – British doctors have taken a huge step towards curing a common form of age-related chronic eye condition.
Two elderly patients with macular degeneration at Moorfields Eye Hospital in London were given a cutting-edge stem cell therapy as part of a small trial to improve vision for people with sudden and severe loss of vision caused by what’s known as “wet” macular degeneration, in which abnormal blood vessels grow under the retina and macula in the eye. “Wet” macular degeneration is less common than “dry” macular degeneration, but it is a more severe form of the disease that occurs as “dry” macular degeneration progresses. It rarely causes total blindness, but it can cause blurriness and blind spots that make it hard to see clearly. The idea was to replace those diseased eye cells using stem cells that were derived from a human embryo and then inserted into the back of the eye.

Babies born by Caesarean likely to suffer from diabetes or obesity
Daily Mail – Babies born by caesarean are almost three times more likely to suffer from metabolic disorders, like diabetes or obesity, according to a new landmark study.
The research, a collaborative effort between universities in Australia, the Netherlands, Ireland and UK, studied the health of woman and their children over a period of thirteen years.
They found babies delivered with any means of intervention, whether caesarean or by induction, were more likely to experience health problems, including respiratory, metabolic issues, or conditions like eczema.