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Saturday, November 18, 2017

Having Children Is a Sin Against Liberalism

Liberalism starts from the assumption that we are bad. Americans are bad. White people are bad. Capitalists are bad. The First World is bad. You don’t have to extend the mentality far to reach the logical conclusion that human beings are bad. If the human race is the problem, the solution is simple: don’t have babies. NBC takes the leap:

A startling and honestly distressing view is beginning to receive serious consideration in both academic and popular discussions of climate change ethics. According to this view, having a child is a major contributor to climate change. The logical takeaway here is that everyone on Earth ought to consider having fewer children. …

Several years ago, scientists showed that having a child, especially for the world’s wealthy [i.e., white people], is one of the worst things you can do for the environment.

That means that in the liberal religion, having children is a mortal sin.

[W]e need to stop pretending the decision to have children doesn’t have environmental and ethical consequences.

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Country Music Singer EVISCERATES NFL Anthem-Kneelers

Is Neal McCoy a true American patriot? He says his new song says something about where he stands on the issue of kneeling during the national anthem that has plagued the NFL for the last 18 months. Mr. McCoy says that he “respects the flag and the country,” and for that has debuted the song, “Take a Knee … My Ass!” during his Christmas tour in in Branson, Missouri.

It has skyrocketed to the No. 1 country music song download on Amazon and has been viewed more than 3 million times on his Facebook page.
Gloria Baron, who is a friend of McCoy’s heard the song and told him he ought to record it during a time like this.

“She said, ‘I know where you stand on things and you love this country and respect our flag, and I think you ought to hear the song,'” McCoy said. “This is not a money grab for me — this is how I feel. The American flag is on the side of my bus, and so is the Pledge of Allegiance.”

I don’t know if you heard, but GQ announced Colin Kaepernick as the “Citizen of the Year,” whatever that means. I’m not sure how much more of an anti-citizen Kaepernick could have been this past year. Does anyone even read GQ anymore? Does anyone read any magazine anymore? Wait, Colin is going to be featured in the African-American history museum in the Smithsonian?

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Gun-Toting Sarah Palin Reveals The Epic Way She’s Kept Sexual Harassers At Bay

With so many allegations of sexual harassment running rampant over the last few months, including the newest allegations against Roy Moore and Al Franken, I’m beginning to wonder exactly how small the group of people who have NOT sexually harassed a woman is.

Equally small, I imagine, is the group of women who have not been in some way victimized by a man who can’t seem to keep him hands to himself. At least that’s the way it seems, thanks to the blood-thirsty, over-zealous media who feel the need to over-hype every story and drain every little drop of attention they can from it before moving on to the next scandal of the century.

But you know who hasn’t been touched against her will?

Sarah Palin.

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Black Lives Matter DELETES Trump Twitter Poll After They Get Result They Never Saw Coming

And on today’s episode of “WHOOPS! You Won’t Do That Again,” we have a Black Lives Matter-affiliated Twitter page posting a poll that they were later forced to remove after being embarrassed by the results.

Apparently they got salty that Trump was quoting a recent poll about his support numbers (oh the HORROR) and they decided to do one of their own, no doubt for their followers to use as a (heehee) “Trump” card during some argument or another. But that’s not exactly how it turned out.

“Since @realDonaldTrump bragged about the results of a twitter poll, let’s try this again!” Black Lives Matter tweeted. “Do you approve or disapprove of President Trump’s job performance? Do vote and retweet.”

44,447 votes (and what I’m sure was a WHOLE lot of time giggling) later, the approval rating for Trump was at 67% and the poll was pulled from their page.

Of course, that might have more to do with large conservative pages sharing the poll around and ginning up some support for the President.

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Three Generations Of Actresses Reflect On Hollywood, Harassment — And Hitchcock

In 1963, Alfred Hitchcock had a huge amount of power in Hollywood. That's when he plucked actress Tippi Hedren from relative obscurity to star in his new movie, The Birds. It was a big break for Hedren.

But she says that over the course of making that film — and another movie, Marnie — Hitchcock repeatedly harassed her. She writes in her memoir Tippi that he tormented her; he would drive by her house at all hours, stare at her, and send her baskets of food when he worried she was losing weight. He threatened to ruin her career, keeping her under contract and refusing to let her work.

"Nobody had any real answer for how I was going to solve the problem," Hedren says. "Alma, his wife, she said 'I'm so sorry you have to have to go through this. I said, 'Well, can't you stop it?' I was angry, and I was hurt that I had nobody to say OK, we'll help you."

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Lord & Taylor closing Annapolis store

The Lord & Taylor in Annapolis, one of two of the luxury department store chain's remaining locations in the Baltimore area, plans to close next year.

The closure of the store at the Westfield Annapolis shopping mall will result in the loss of 141 jobs, according to the state's labor department and the company. The store will shutter between April 15-28.

"Through the regular course of business we continually evaluate opportunistic transactions with our real estate assets and, from time to time, may determine it necessary for the overall business to close a store," Lord & Taylor's parent company, Hudson Bay Co., said in a statement. "These decisions are never easy, but they are prudent for the company, strategically and financially, and we are committed to offering support and assistance to our team affected by the closing."

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SpaceX Is Launching a Secret Zuma Payload

SpaceX plans to launch a secret payload known as Zuma on Thursday evening (Nov. 16), from NASA's Kennedy Space Center (KSC) on Florida's Space Coast.

And when I say secret, I mean secret; everybody involved with the mission is pretty tight-lipped about it. Here's a brief rundown of what we know. (Spoiler alert: It isn't much.)

Zuma is a U.S. government payload

Aerospace and defense company Northrop Grumman has confirmed that it procured Zuma's launch atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket for the U.S. government. But it's unclear which agency is in charge of the Zuma project. [The Rockets and Spaceships of SpaceX (Photos)]

Such secrecy is atypical, even if Zuma happens to be a sensitive national-security satellite. (And we don't know that it is; Northrop Grumman has simply described Zuma as a "restricted payload.")

For example, SpaceX has two national-security launches under its belt, and in both cases basic details about the mission were announced. One flight, in May 2017, lofted a satellite for the National Reconnaissance Office, which builds and operates the nation's fleet of spy satellites. The other, which launched in September, launched the robotic X-37B space plane for the U.S. Air Force.

More here

[UPDATE: SpaceX Launch of Mysterious Zuma Spacecraft Delayed Until Friday]

The Moment Gary Cohn Realized His Entire Economic Policy Is A Disaster

Ever since 2012 (see "How The Fed's Visible Hand Is Forcing Corporate Cash Mismanagement") we have warned that as a result of the Fed's flawed monetary policy and record low rates, corporations have been incentivized not to invest in growth and allocate funds to capital spending (the result has been an unprecedented decline in capex), but to engage in the quickest, and most effective - if only in the short run - shareholder friendly actions possible, namely stock buybacks.

We got a vivid confirmation of that recently when Credit Suisse showed that the only buyer of stock since the financial crisis has been the corporate sector', i.e. companies repurchasing their own shares...

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IG aims to complete probe of James Comey's handling of Hillary Clinton by spring

The inspector general looking into the FBI and Justice Department’s handling of investigations during last year’s presidential election said Wednesday he hopes to have the probe done by next spring.

Michael Horowitz, the inspector general at the Justice Department, also said the investigation is moving quickly.

“We’ve interviewed dozens of people. We’re not at the hundreds yet, but we’re in the dozens range,” he told the House Oversight Committee, in response to questions by Chairman Trey Gowdy. Mr. Horowitz said they’d also reviewed 1.2 million records in the investigation.

He said they are aiming for a report to be done by March or April, though he said that timeline could slip if new issues pop up. He also said that with classified information involved — presumably in the form of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s emails — ex-government employees and their lawyers need to be re-checked for security clearances.

The inspector general is looking into whether the Justice Department’s policies were followed by then-FBI Director James B. Comey when he led the probe into Mrs. Clinton’s secret email account.

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Alabama Pastor Rips Republicans for Abandoning Roy Moore - 'What a Bunch of Sissies'

An Alabama pastor is not pleased with the way some Republicans have publicly reacted to a Washington Post report published last week that accused Moore of engaging in inappropriate conduct with four teenage girls more than 34 years ago.

In an interview with Mobile, AL FOX affiliate WALA, Dr. David Gonnella, pastor of Magnolia Springs Baptist Church in Theodore, AL, remains a supporter of Moore despite allegations in the Post’s report. He suggested it was part of an effort to damage Moore’s bid to win the special election for the U.S. Senate seat formerly held by Jeff Sessions.

“I don’t desert my friends just on mere accusations. I require evidence,” Gonnella said.

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Judge Andrew Napolitano: The incredible new chapter in the Hillary Clinton chronicles

The Department of Justice will soon commence an investigation to determine whether there should be an investigation (you read that nonsense correctly) of a scandal involving the Clinton Foundation and a company called Uranium One. It appears that FBI decisions made during the time that Hillary Clinton was being investigated for espionage will also be investigated to see whether there should be an investigation to determine whether she was properly investigated. (Again, you read that nonsense correctly.)

Only the government can relate nonsense with a straight face. Here is the back story.

When President Donald Trump fired FBI Director Jim Comey last spring, the attorney general’s stated purpose for recommending the firing was Comey’s dropping the ball in the investigation of Clinton's email when she was secretary of state. After a year of investigating her use of her own computer servers to transmit and store classified materials instead of using a government server to do so -- and notwithstanding a mountain of evidence of her grossly negligent exposure of secret and top-secret materials, which constitutes the crime of espionage -- the FBI director decided that because no reasonable prosecutor would take the case, it should be dropped. Weeks later, the DOJ ratified Comey’s decision.

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http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2017/11/16/judge-andrew-napolitano-incredible-new-chapter-in-hillary-clinton-chronicles.html

CTE, or chronic traumatic encephalopathy, confirmed in living, ex-NFL player

For the first time, doctors have accurately diagnosed severe brain damage in a living former NFL player, opening new avenues for detecting and treating chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a degenerative disorder caused by multiple concussions.

“This is a major milestone,” said lead researcher Dr. Bennet Omalu, the Nigerian-born pathologist who discovered the first case of CTE in a former NFL player in 2005.

In 2012, former Minnesota Vikings linebacker Fred McNeill participated in Dr. Omalu’s study, in which he was injected with the experimental drug FDDNP and then had his brain scanned. CTE was diagnosed in the scans but could only be confirmed in an autopsy after his death. While not named in the study, McNeill’s family confirmed his identity to the Chicago Tribune.

McNeill died in 2015. A postmortem examination of his brain confirmed the researchers’ findings in his living scans.

“The comparison is validating that FDDNP is doing what we believe it should be doing in the brain,” Dr. Omalutold The Washington Times. “So this is now encouraging us to take it to the next level, which is the clinical phase trial. This is not an end; this is just a milestone.”

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Bannon: America's Elite Benefitted from China's Rise, Working and Middle Classes Were Set Back

Breitbart News Executive Chair and former White House Chief Strategist Stephen K. Bannon said at a conference in Japan on Tuesday there will be some “additional information” on the Section 301 investigation the United States has initiated into Chinese intellectual property theft in the days and weeks ahead.

“In the coming days and weeks ahead you will see Preident Trump and the administration put out additional information about this 301 report and what actions are going to have to take place,” he said Tuesday at the 12th InterEthnic/InterFaith Leadership Conference in Tokyo.

The investigation was launched in August, to look into Chinese laws, policies, and practices that are harming American intellectual property rights, innovation, or technology development. The move angered Chinese leaders that saw it as a unilateral act of aggression outside the framework of the World Trade Organization.

Bannon, in his speech in Tokyo, said China has taken $3.5 trillion dollars in forced technology transfers from the U.S., in exchange for market access. He said:

It’s taken what is the flower of the liberal democratic free market system. And that is our innovation. America’s been powerful because America can innovate. The West has always been the leaders in innovation. And what the Chinese demanded in order to get access to their markets was that our companies basically had to give over it’s technology, basically they had to give over its innovation.

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Melanie Morgan: After TV appearance, Al Franken harassed me too

Exclusive to the Media Equalizer
With additional reporting from Martin Walsh

Immediately raising questions about double-standards in the media and on Capitol Hill, a Los Angeles radio news anchor today accused Senator Al Franken (D-MN) of sexually assaulting her.

Now, Media Equalizer Co-Founder Melanie Morgan has come forward as well, recounting her own experience with the onetime comedian, liberal radio host and activist. Morgan’s disturbing encounter was sparked by daring to disagree with Franken during an August, 2000 edition of ABC’s Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher.

Earlier, a bombshell report published by KABC on-air personality Leeann Tweeden accused Franken of kissing and groping her without her consent while she was asleep.

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Al Franken pitched SNL skit about raping Leslie Stahl

Democratic Senator Al Franken - who has been accused of kissing a woman without her consent and pretending to grope her in a photo - once pitched an SNL sketch about raping a journalist, it has emerged.

The remarks were made in 1995, when Franken and other writers on the show were working up a sketch about then-60 Minutes host Andy Rooney finding a bottle of pills in his desk, New York Magazine reported at the time.

As the team batted ideas around, Franken suggested that the pills might be used by Rooney to drug Lesley Stahl at which point he would 'take her to the closet and rape her'.

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Breaking News: One of AC/DC's co-founders has died

Mr. Young and his brother Angus created AC/DC and played their debut show at a Sydney, Australia, club on New Year’s Eve in 1973. His family confirmed the death in a statement, adding that Mr. Young had been living with dementia for several years.
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Stepson of Roy Moore Accuser: Accusations ‘One Hundred Percent a Lie’

Darrel Nelson, the stepson of Republican senatorial candidate Roy Moore accuser Beverly Young Nelson, claims that his stepmother’s accusations are “one hundred percent a lie.”

“I know for a fact that there is a lot that that woman does not tell the truth on,” Nelson claimed in an in-person interview with Breitbart News. “Do I think that Beverly is trustworthy? No, I really don’t. Could I see her making it up? …The odds are in that favor.”

Beverly Nelson, 55, gave a press conference earlier this week at which she claimed that Moore sexually assaulted her in a car in December 1977 or early January 1978 when she was a 16-year-old high school student. Nelson said the alleged assault took place outside a restaurant in Gadsden, Ala., where she says that she worked as a waitress. Nelson is being represented by controversial attorney and women’s rights advocate Gloria Allred.

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Hannity: Alabama Voters Will Decide on Moore, Not Me or Anyone Else

On Wednesday’s broadcast of the Fox News Channel’s “Hannity,” host Sean Hannity responded to the open letter Alabama Republican Senate nominee Judge Roy Moore wrote him in response to the ultimatum Hannity gave Moore on Tuesday to either clear up the “inconsistencies” in his response to the accusations against him within 24 hours or withdraw from the race by saying Moore’s letter did respond to Hannity’s specific questions, and the voters in Alabama will ultimately decide what happens to Moore.

After reading Moore’s letter in full, Hannity stated that Moore answered the specific questions that Hannity asked and the voters of Alabama need all the facts.

More here with video

Mitch McConnell Calls for Review of Franken Allegations, No Call for His Removal

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) called for the Senate Ethics Committee to investigate sexual assault allegations against Senator Al Franken (D-MN) on Thursday. Unlike the recent allegations targeted towards Alabama Judge Roy Moore, McConnell did not call for Franken to “step aside.”

In a statement, McConnell called the allegations against Franken “credible”, yet did not name Franken by name or call for the senator to resign:

“As with all credible allegations of sexual harassment or assault, I believe the Ethics Committee should review the matter."

More here

Hispanic Caucus denies membership to Republican Curbelo

The Congressional Hispanic Caucus on Thursday denied Republican Rep. Carlos Curbelo’s membership bid, the latest volley in a nasty dispute between the Florida lawmaker and some members of the all-Democratic caucus.

The group voted to oppose Curbelo’s bid to join after weeks of back-and-forth between him and some members of the group who have questioned whether his intentions to join the CHC were politically motivated.

Curbelo represents a Latino-heavy district in Miami that is a top target for Democrats in 2018.

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Toxic algae: Once a nuisance, now a severe nationwide threat

Competing in a bass fishing tournament two years ago, Todd Steele cast his rod from his 21-foot motorboat — unaware that he was being poisoned.

A thick, green scum coated western Lake Erie. And Steele, a semipro angler, was sickened by it.

Driving home to Port Huron, Michigan, he felt lightheaded, nauseous. By the next morning he was too dizzy to stand, his overheated body covered with painful hives. Hospital tests blamed toxic algae, a rising threat to U.S. waters.

“It attacked my immune system and shut down my body’s ability to sweat,” Steele said. “If I wasn’t a healthy 51-year-old and had some type of medical condition, it could have killed me.”

He recovered, but Lake Erie hasn’t. Nor have other waterways choked with algae that’s sickening people, killing animals and hammering the economy. The scourge is escalating from occasional nuisance to severe, widespread hazard, overwhelming government efforts to curb a leading cause: fertilizer runoff from farms.

Pungent, sometimes toxic blobs are fouling waterways from the Great Lakes to Chesapeake Bay, from the Snake River in Idaho to New York’s Finger Lakes and reservoirs in California’s Central Valley.

More here

Rep. Mark Meadows pushes for a special counsel

Rep. Mark Meadows said Thursday that a special counsel is needed to look into Hillary Clinton’s role in the Trump dossier.

“You know, this dossier that Fusion GPS did — actually we know that Hillary Clinton and the DNC hired a firm — Perkins Coie actually hired them to do the dossier,” Mr. Meadows, North Carolina Republican, said on Fox News. “But there’s other disturbing information that would suggest that the Obama campaign, the same month that she did that, paid another $900,000 to the same law firm.”

Mr. Meadows was referring to the dossier that contained some unsubstantiated and salacious information about President Trump during the 2016 election. Republicans have expressed concern that the information was used to obtain a FISA warrant on Trump aides, which allowed the government to gather surveillance on them, despite the unverified claims.

More here

Iran Turns Down Offers of Earthquake Aid, Including From Israel

(CNSNews.com) – Survivors of an earthquake near Iran’s border with Iraq – the deadliest in the world so far this year – have been calling for more help than they’re getting, but their government says it doesn’t need help from abroad.

A day after Sunday’s 7.3 magnitude earthquake killed more than 500 people in Iran and injured more than 8,000 in Iran and Iraq, Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif tweeted, “We are grateful for global expressions of sympathy and offers of assistance. For now, we can manage with our own resources.”

But days later, victims are still asking for help, sleeping in the rubble of tens of thousands of destroyed homes and, according to an AP report, “saying authorities haven’t delivered enough tents ahead of the fast-approaching winter.”

On Tuesday, Iranian officials called off searches in the rubble of destroyed homes, saying there was little chance of finding anyone left alive.

About half of the fatalities are reported to have occurred in the minority Kurdish town of Sarpol-e-Zahab in Kermanshah province, about ten miles from the Iraq border.

In a tweet directed at Zarif, U.K.-based Kurdish affairs scholar Dana Nawzar Jaf, said Thursday, “you told the world not to send aid because you had enough – for now – and yet it is the poor Kurdish villagers who do all the help. Where is your government in all of this and why do you refuse to accept international aid?”

In a separate tweet, he said, “Amid Iranian government’s reluctance to help, many Iranian Kurdish citizens have mobilized to provide food and shelter to the earthquake victims.”

One unlikely offer of aid came Wednesday from Israel, a country that has world-leading disaster rescue and emergency field hospital capabilities, but is loathed by the regime in Tehran.

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Al Franken's days are numbered

Sen. Al Franken, who was just outed on a photograph wearing a big smile and groping the chest of a journalist while she slept, is now facing growing calls — many, from within his own liberal-minded ranks — to resign.

This, as Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Minority Leader Charles Schumer both agreed to put Franken before the ethics committee fires for review.

His days are numbered.

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Public School Worker Told She Could Be Fired for Expressing Her Faith

It was a small sentence—“I will pray for you”— but it meant big trouble for Cony High School technician Toni Richardson. When Richardson offered that comfort to another Christian on staff in private, she was hauled before school officials and warned not to utter a word about her faith again.

District officials kicked off the controversy last year by telling Richardson that she could “face discipline or dismissal in the future” if she expressed her faith so openly again. “I was shocked that my employer punished me for privately telling a co-worker I would pray for them,” she told reporters at the time.

First Liberty Institute’s Jeremy Dys, who filed a complaint on Richardson’s behalf, explained that it had been a hard 12 months for Richardson since then. “This entire year Toni has had to self-censor herself, making sure she’s not using religious language. … She’s even had to refrain from wearing jewelry that has a cross on it, because if someone were to overhear this private conversation or see that religious imagery round her neck, then she could face discipline or even be terminated.”

Fortunately, after a yearlong clash over religious freedom, school officials have apparently had second thoughts about their attacks. Late last week, our friends at First Liberty proclaimed victory, announcing that the district had officially walked back its threat to Richardson and issued a new memorandum giving her and others the right to make faith-based statements—without fear of school discipline.

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Gropergate is crime of our century

When I was a young reporter on a certain newspaper in the South, fresh on a new job, I took a fancy to a sweet and pretty young woman (that’s how we talked in those days) working on what newspapers quaintly called “the Society pages.”

One day one of the older reporters, eager to be helpful, stopped by my desk. “It’s none of my business,” he said, “but the managing editor regards your young lady as his private stock.”

Perhaps the managing editor only wanted to inspire the object of my affections to a great career in journalism. But managing editors were fearsome beasts in those days and I knew how to take a well-meant tip. I soon moved on to Washington — I heard later that the young lady married a lawyer — and in the nation’s capital I found out (newspapermen being quick learners) that senators are not the masters from Olympus they think they are, and are in fact a lot like managing editors, accumulating and cultivating private stock.

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COULTER: Immigration Is Turning the Country Blue

Virginia election a glimpse of future for entire US

Hey, Republicans! Did you enjoy Election Night last week? Get ready for a lot more nights like that as immigration turns every last corner of the country blue.

When Ed Gillespie lost in Virginia, liberals crowed about how they’re winning the war of ideas. The country has thoroughly, emphatically rejected Trumpism!

Republicans, being idiots, played along, arguing only about whether Gillespie’s problem was that he didn’t embrace Trump enough or embraced him too much.

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Retired FBI Agent Accuses 9/11 Commission of Lying About Saudi Connections

Sworn testimony from a former FBI investigator claims the 9/11 Commission lied to the American public regarding the relationship between the hijackers and Saudi Arabia.

The question over exactly what role the Saudi Kingdom played in the terror attacks of September 11, 2001 is once again a hot topic. The Saudi Kingdom has long been suspected of financing the 9/11 hijackers. A fourteen-year-old lawsuit brought forth by the “9/11 Families and Survivors United for Justice Against Terrorism” seeks to hold the Saudi Kingdom accountable for the attacks. Meanwhile, the Saudi government continues to deny any involvement and calls for the lawsuit’s dismissal.

Now, The Florida Bulldog reports that a new sworn statement from a former FBI agent has once again called attention to the involvement of the Saudi Kingdom. In a six-page statement provided as part of the lawsuit against Saudi Arabia, retired FBI agent Stephen K. Moore says the 9/11 Commission has provided the American public with incorrect statements regarding the FBI’s investigation. Moore is a 25-year veteran of the FBI who retired in 2008. He also led the FBI’s PENTTBOM, or “Pentagon/Twin Towers Bombing Investigation,” a 400-member task force responsible for investigating the 9/11 attacks.

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Married Ohio rep steps down due to 'inappropriate behavior'

A married Ohio state lawmaker who has said multiple times he believes in a 'natural marriage' between a man and a woman resigned Wednesday amid allegations of inappropriate behavior with another man in his office.

Republican state Representative Wes Goodman, from Cardington, didn't comment on the details about the actions that prompted his sudden departure.

The only existing details about the behavior are that it included a male in a consensual situation, and took place several weeks ago in his state-provided office.

That man was not employed by the legislature.

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Congress Discloses Complete Number, Amount Of Harassment Settlements In Past 20 Years

While it's not surprising that 2007 - the year when spirits were high, housing prices had just hit a record and the financial bubble was about to burst but not yet- was a "swinging one" on the Hill, with a whopping 25 sexual harassment settlements, the most in the past 20 years, we wonder what happened in 2002 when only 10 settlements led to a near record $4 million in awards. This question was prompted by the first ever release of Congressional harassment records, unveiled yesterday for the first time by the Congressional Office of Compliance.

Above is the breakdown of settlement number by year since 1997...

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Why America's Retail Apocalypse Could Accelerate Even More In 2018

Is the retail apocalypse in the United States about to go to a whole new level?

That is a frightening thing to consider, because the truth is that things are already quite bad. We have already shattered the all-time record for store closings in a single year and we still have the rest of November and December to go.

Unfortunately, it truly does appear that things will get even worse in 2018, because a tremendous amount of high-yield retail debt is coming due next year.

In fact, Bloomberg is reporting that the amount of high-yield retail debt that will mature next year is approximately 19 times larger than the amount that matured this year…

Just $100 million of high-yield retail borrowings were set to mature this year, but that will increase to $1.9 billion in 2018, according to Fitch Ratings Inc. And from 2019 to 2025, it will balloon to an annual average of almost $5 billion. The amount of retail debt considered risky is also rising. Over the past year, high-yield bonds outstanding gained 20 percent, to $35 billion, and the industry’s leveraged loans are up 15 percent, to $152 billion, according to Bloomberg data.

Even worse, this will hit as a record $1 trillion in high-yield debt for all industries comes due over the next five years, according to Moody’s.

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Two prominent Minnesota Democrats call on Al Franken to resign

Two prominent members of Minnesota's Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party are calling on Sen. Al Franken to resign his Senate seat following allegations of sexual misconduct.

Although many other Democrats have called the former comedian's actions disturbing, state auditor Rebecca Otto and Megan Thomas, president of the party's official Feminist Caucus, say he should leave office.

The allegations were made Thursday morning by radio host Leeann Tweeden, who said Franken harassed her during a 2006 USO trip to the Middle East, before he was elected to the Senate in 2008.

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Dems’ ‘reckoning’ with Bill’s sexual offenses is the final nail in the Clintons’ coffin

I arrived at the Barnes Noble just as “An Evening With Bernie Sanders” was drawing to a close, and while browsing, I couldn’t help but notice: The twentysomethings filing out of the event with the senator were reacting as if they’d just met The Beatles.

This was Nov. 14, 2016 — less than a week after Election Day. The corpse of Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign was still warm. Sanders was 75 years old, but no matter: He was the future of the Democratic Party — or at least his ideas were, and the enthusiasm with which he shepherded his flock to them.

So the recent wave of liberals “reckoning” with Bill Clinton’s sexual offenses should be put into proper context. It is not the beginning of the end for the Clintons atop the Democratic Party. It’s just the end.

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NY Post: Sessions’ Justice Department Must Investigate the Clintons’ Russian Uranium One Scandal

The New York Post Editorial Board argues that Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ Justice Department has a duty to investigate the troubling circumstances surrounding the Obama administration’s approval of the sale of Uranium One to a Russian state-owned firm and the role then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her family’s foundation played in this deal, which was first uncovered by Peter Schweizer in his bestselling exposé Clinton Cash.

From the New York Post op-ed:

If crimes were committed to further Russia’s nuclear goals here, Americans need to know. And if Team Obama suspected that but still OK’d the Uranium One sale to a Russian firm, Americans deserve an explanation of that, too.

Yet Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ orders to prosecutors merely to see if a probe —perhaps headed by a special counsel — is warranted has critics in a lather.

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7 of 10 Richest Members of Congress Are Democrats

(CNSNews.com) - Seven of the ten richest members of Congress are Democrats while only three are Republicans, according to a recently published analysis done by the Center for Responsive Politics.

The analysis was based on the financial disclosure forms that members of both the House and Senate filed in 2016 and cover their assets and liabilities through 2015.

Rep. Darrell Issa, a Republican from California, was the richest member of Congress, according to the CRS analysis. His estimated wealth was $330,050,015.

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Looks like it’s Menendez’s turn to skate on corruption charges

The mistrial declared Thursday in the case against Sen. Bob Menendez sends an alarming message: that it’s virtually impossible to send a corrupt politician to jail.

That will just embolden crooked pols — and further erode public confidence in America’s political system.

Think about it: If prosecutors couldn’t win a guilty verdict against the New Jersey senator, just who could they win one against?

Both sides in the Menendez case agreed on the facts: That he took extensive gifts, including free vacations at lavish resorts and $750,000 in campaign donations, from Solomon Melgen, a wealthy eye doctor.

And that he interceded on Melgen’s behalf in a multimillion-dollar Medicare billing dispute, as well as a security contract with the Dominican Republic. He also arranged visas for several of the doctor’s young female “friends.”

But the senator denied there was any quid pro quo, claiming Melgen’s gifts were based on their 25-year friendship and that he only provided the kind of constituent service he’d give to anyone.

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Papa John’s Surrendered To The Left This Week

A business owner expressing concern that left-wing activism hurts the company’s earnings is apparently a grave offense nowadays.

Papa John’s issued a lame apology Tuesday after the pizza chain was criticized for its CEO, John Schnatter, claiming the NFL national anthem protests were hurting his company’s sales. Papa John’s is a major sponsor of the football league, and that designation has come with consequences.

“The NFL has hurt us,” Schnatter said during an earnings call earlier this month. “We are disappointed the NFL and its leadership did not resolve this. Leadership starts at the top, and this is an example of poor leadership.”

That simple assertion drew intense criticism from left-wing media outlets and activists.

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Roy Moore Gives Gloria Allred 48 Hours to Release Yearbook, Demands Evidence Be Preserved

An attorney for senatorial candidate Roy Moore has given lawyer and activist Gloria Allred forty-eight hours to release to the custody of an independent examiner the original copy of a yearbook that contains the only piece of physical evidence to be presented in the cases of numerous women who have gone public with stories alleging inappropriate conduct between Moore and teenage girls.

The letter to Allred was dated yesterday and obtained by Breitbart News. Attorney Trenton R. Garmon, who represents Moore and his wife, Kayla, further requested that Allred take steps to ensure the “immediate and professional preservation of the yearbook.”

The letter demanded that Allred and her client, accuser Beverly Young Nelson, issue a “full and fair public retraction” of all “false statements” concerning Moore.

The letter stated:

Gloria Allred: 'I Haven't Asked' Beverly Young Nelson If She Saw Roy Moore Sign Her Yearbook

Thursday on MSNBC’s “MTP Daily,” celebrity attorney Gloria Allred, who is representing Roy Moore accuser Beverly Young Nelson, said she had not asked her client if she saw Moore sign her yearbook.

Questions had been raised by the Moore campaign a day earlier at a press conference in Birmingham, AL about the authenticity of the signature, which Allred had held up as evidence to bolster Young’s claim against Moore.

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Media nervous about Clinton special counsel

Many in the national news media are worried about the idea of a special counsel to investigate Hillary Clinton, even though Attorney General Jeff Sessions indicated this week he is not prepared to establish one to examine her possible role in allowing Russia to buy a Canadian uranium company.

During his Tuesday testimony on Capitol Hill, Sessions seemed to suggest it was unlikely he would appoint a special counsel to probe the 2010 deal. Some Republicans claim Clinton played some role in the sale, and have noted that the Canadian company, Uranium One, once gave money to the Clinton Foundation.

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NFL fights tax cut bill with no stadium bond breaks

The NFL has come out against House Republicans’ tax cut bill, putting the league out on a political limb even as it deals with the fallout from national anthem protests.

Other big pro sports leagues are staying out of the fight, but a spokesman for the National Football League said teams don’t want to lose a special tax break that allows them to use tax-free bonds to build stadiums.

The NFL says it deserves the break because new stadiums create jobs.

“You can look around the country and see the economic development that’s generated from some of these stadiums,” Joe Lockhart, a former press secretary for President Clinton and now an NFL spokesman, told reporters on a conference call last week, according to Reuters.

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LEGENDARY COMMENTS BY GEORGE CHEVALLIER 11-18-17

THE EARLY YEARS

When my grandfather ran away from home in 1905, he ended up in Pee Dee, SC. He found work in one of the many lumber camps that were sprinkled throughout South Carolina. I’m sure that every job he had at first was manual in nature and hard. But, if he was anything like he was all the years I knew him, hard work was just something to do, not fret about.

His prime mode of transportation in those years was the railroad. He was quick to point out that he was a hobo – and not a bum. He said that a hobo would work for his keep and a bum just rode the rails and bummed around.

Two things were begun during his five years on the road that would never change during his entire life. The first was the growing of a mustache. He told me he grew it to look older and to my knowledge it was only removed once in his life. A nurse at Peninsula General Hospital in Salisbury removed it when she shaved him. He was at the end of his life and was in no condition to have a say in the matter. And, I guess at that point, it really didn’t matter.



The second was the beginning of his lifelong association with Prince Albert tobacco. He didn’t have much money in those days and, when a salesman gave him a free sample, he showed his gratitude by using a can of it every day for the rest of his life. I never saw my grandfather that he didn’t have a can of Prince Albert stuck in his hip pocket. In his latter years when he could afford them, he showed the same loyalty to Dunhill pipes. When he was finished smoking a bowl full, he would empty the bowl of burnt ashes by beating the pipe against the nearest hard object, usually the brick wall of whatever he was building. It didn’t matter whether the pipe was new or old, it received the same whack. One time, he broke a quarter-sized piece off the bowl and, since the pipe was fairly new and they were expensive, he decided to have it repaired. Not just any repair but an Albert Disharoon production. He put a little glue on the broken piece and reattached it to the bowl. He then took it to a jeweler and had him fashion a sterling silver band about ¾ inches wide, complete with his initials, to encircle the bowl, thus holding everything in place. He was so proud of that pipe until he lit it for the first time and it became red hot. It looked good, but he could never smoke it again.

Mall of America ‘looks like Somalia’

Famous actor tweets video amid new charges of Muslim mischief

Actor James Woods has a special knack for riling up Democrats and he has done it again with a tweet in which he posted a video of Muslims filing into the Nickelodeon Universe at the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota.

The tweet, which included a video of hundreds of Somali Muslims inside the mall in brightly colored robes and hijabs, comes on the heels of a vicious knife attack by a Muslim at the same mall on Sunday night.

Mahad Abdiaziz Abdirahaman, 20, has been charged with two counts of first-degree assault after he stabbed two brothers – Alexander and John Sanchez – because the brothers tried to stop him from stealing clothes from a store at the Mall of America.

He was allegedly caught red-handed in the middle of a robbery in the dressing room at Macy’s, and one of the brothers nearly paid with his life for trying to stop the heist. Abdirahaman used an 8-inch blade to cut 19-year-old Alexander Sanchez “to the bone,” leaving a wound that required dozens of stitches and a blood transfusion to save Sanchez’s life, the Star-Tribune reported.

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First Lady Melania Trump The First Year

US cripples ISIS with savage airdrop of PowerPoint presentations

RAQQA, Syria — The reign of ISIS will soon be at an end, thanks to the latest overwhelming and decisive tactic employed by the US military: An airdrop of hundreds of laptops loaded with 130-slide PowerPoint presentations.

“They’re not even password-protected,” said Adm. Michael S. Rogers, commander of US Cyber Command. “We want them to get in. As every staff officer and senior staff non-commissioned officer knows, lengthy PowerPoint presentations can be fatal.”

According to a communications officer who did not want to speak on the record for fear of losing job security, the laptops were loaded with Windows 7 so the terrorists would first need to update the devices before accessing the presentations. Then they would need to contact a system administrator to enable the Flash plug-in, before resetting the password 72 times, once for each virgin.

Once ISIS hackers access the system and update to the latest version of PowerPoint, they will be subjected to a barrage of presentations with titles such as “Tobacco Cessation and the Healthy Soldier,” “Terrorism Awareness,” “Navy Uniforms Through the Ages” and “Alcohol Awareness, or Why Your CO Drinks So Heavily.”

(Enjoy the rest here..)

Westside Vol. Fire Dept. Today


Zimbabwe's despised Gucci Grace 'flees to Namibia'

Zimbabwe's dictator Robert Mugabe is likely to be forced to hand power to his sacked vice president in a few weeks to make today's coup appear legal, experts have claimed.

The 93-year-old's grip on the country appears over after he was detained in his own home when the military seized control in what it described as a 'bloodless correction' overnight.

His wife, dubbed Gucci Grace for her love of shopping, is believed to have fled to Namibia having been allowed to leave the country last night, opposition MP Eddie Cross told the BBC. Her location has not yet been confirmed.

Deposed vice-president Emmerson Mnangagwa, 75, a veteran of Zimbabwe's 1970s liberation wars who was sacked by Mugabe earlier this month, is believed to have returned from exile.

The dismissal of Mnangagwa, nicknamed the Crocodile, had left Grace Mugabi, 52, in prime position to succeed her husband as the next president - a succession strongly opposed by senior ranks in the military.

Derek Matyszak, an analyst at the Pretoria-based Institute for Security Studies, said he believes the army will now be in negotiations with both Mugabe and Mnangagwa.

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YES, VIRGINIA, IMMIGRATION IS TURNING THE COUNTRY BLUE

Hey, Republicans! Did you enjoy Election Night last week? Get ready for a lot more nights like that as immigration turns every last corner of the country blue.

When Ed Gillespie lost in Virginia, liberals crowed about how they're winning the war of ideas. The country has thoroughly, emphatically rejected Trumpism!

Republicans, being idiots, played along, arguing only about whether Gillespie's problem was that he didn't embrace Trump enough or embraced him too much.

Gillespie's campaign was fine. No cleverer arguments, community outreach or perfectly timed mailings would have changed the result. Contrary to The New York Times' celebratory article in last Sunday's magazine, "How the 'Resistance' Helped Democrats Dominate Virginia," it wasn't Democratic operative Kathryn Sorenson's savvy use of Facebook, Google and Eventbrites that carried the day. "The Resistance" didn't win.

What happened was: Democrats brought in new voters. In 1970, only one out of every 100 Virginians was foreign-born. By 2012, one in nine Virginians was foreign-born.

The foreign-born vote overwhelmingly, by about 80 percent, for Democrats. They always have and they always will -- especially now that our immigration policies aggressively discriminate in favor of the poorest, least-educated, most unskilled people on Earth. They arrive in need of a LOT of government services.

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Holiday Parties

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Pete Richardson Auction TODAY At 8 AM In Willards

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Grandpa Isn't Playing Around!

Free youth drop-in basketball program starts Nov. 27

SALISBURY, Md. – Middle and high school students can spend time with their friends while working on their basketball skills at Wicomico Recreation & Parks' Youth Drop-In Basketball nights.

The free program is held Monday and Wednesday nights from 6-8 p.m. at the Salisbury Middle School gymnasium. The school is located at 607 Morris St. in Salisbury. The first drop-in night is Nov. 27, and the program will run through March 7, excluding Dec. 20-Jan. 3.

It is for middle school students in grades 6-8 and high school students in grades 9-12. Students must show a student ID if they have one.

Registration is available on-site. Contact Derek Jarmon at 410-548-4900 x113 or djarmon@wicomicocounty.org.

Poplar Hill Mansion hosts Yuletide Open House Dec 3

Come to Poplar Hill Mansion for our Yuletide Open House on December 3, 2017 from 1:00-4:00 and get in the holiday spirit. See the beautiful floral decorations by the Four Seasons Garden Club, visit the second floor to see a Christmas Village and our Nutcracker Nursery, enjoy live Christmas music with local harpist Kara Dahl Russell and light refreshments. Please consider bringing a non-perishable item for Joseph House. This is a free event, but donations are greatly appreciated and all proceeds go towards the preservation of Salisbury's Oldest House, Poplar Hill Mansion, a 501(c)-3. This event is made possible, in part, by a grant from the Salisbury Wicomico Arts Council, awarded by the Maryland State Arts Council and the National Endowment for the Arts. Call 410-749-1776 for more information.

Biden: Man who Stopped Texas Church Shooter Should Not Have Had Weapon

“First of all, the kind of gun being carried he shouldn’t be carrying…”

The man who stopped the Texas church shooting using an AR-15 rifle should not have been allowed to carry the firearm, Former Vice President Joe Biden said on The Today Show Monday.

Asked how the Democrat party reconciles the fact that the same rifle was used to stop Sutherland Springs shooter Devin Kelley, the Obama-era figurehead offered up a somewhat non-sensical answer.

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Broken heart can cause same type of long-lasting damage as a heart attack

Severe emotional stress can prompt a sudden heart condition that poses the same sort of long-term damage as a heart attack, new research has found.

Takotsubo cardiomyopathy – or “broken heart syndrome” - affects at least 3,000 people in the UK and is typically triggered by traumatic life events such as bereavement.

During an attack, the heart muscle weakens to the point where it can no longer function as effectively.

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Arkansas Gun Battle

A suspect was shot and killed when he tried to rob an 81-year-old man at gunpoint outside of the man’s home in Genoa, Arkansas, on Thursday afternoon.

Buddy Cates told KSLA that he walked outside of his home around 1:30 p.m. and came face to face with the suspect, who authorities are still working to identify.

Cates said the suspect was holding a “big pistol,” but Cates also had his hand in his pocket, gripping his own gun.

“The battle was one,” Cates recalled, noting that, between the two, at least a dozen shots were fired.

“Whoever got the biggest gun and fastest will be boss when it is all said and done,” Cates said. “In this case, it was me.”

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