First born, only child, middle child? What birth order reveals about you (and why you should care)

Which description is most like you?

1: A natural leader and perfectionist, you are logical, technical, well-organized, conscientious, a good reader, and a list-maker. You take life seriously and don’t like surprises.

2: Self-motivated, a voracious reader, and high achiever, you think in black and white and use always and never a lot. You complete every project thoroughly, expect a lot out of yourself and can’t stand the idea of failure.

3: Independent, sometimes secretive, and a diplomatic mediator, you go out of your way to avoid conflicts and often compromise to keep the waters of life smooth. At home, you never got much attention, so you developed a loyal friendship network.

4: Affectionate, charismatic, and a people person, you enjoy the limelight and surprises. You engage easily with strangers. Growing up, you were “cute” so you got away with everything.

If you picked 1, you’re either the first child born in your family or the first child of your gender born in your family.

If you picked 2, you’re an only child.

If you picked 3, you’re a middle child.

If you picked 4, you’re the baby of the family.

More

https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/first-born-only-child-middle-child-what-birth-order-reveals-about-you-and-why-you-should-care

Ginsburg’s Health Raises Frightening History Of Incapacity And Disability On The Supreme Court

Fervid speculation as to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s well-being was set off in December when the Supreme Court abruptly announced that she was being treated for lung cancer.

Though a positive prognosis has since allayed the worst fears of Ginsburg’s admirers, her continued struggles broach important but little-discussed questions about judicial fitness in an era when unprecedented longevity often entails sudden declines in mental and physical faculties.

Those questions are hardly theoretical: The modern history of the Supreme Court is replete with examples of real or perceived incapacity among the justices, who alone decide when to leave active service.

Ginsburg had two cancerous nodules removed from her lungs at the Sloan Kettering Memorial Cancer Center in December 2018, in a procedure called a pulmonary lobectomy. The cancerous growths were discovered when Ginsburg was hospitalized for rib fracturesresulting from a fall in her chambers at the high court.

More

Are the Democrats Bent on Suicide?

After reading an especially radical platform agreed upon by the British Labor Party, one Tory wag described it as "the longest suicide note in history."

The phrase comes to mind on reading of the resolution calling for a Green New Deal, advanced by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and endorsed by at least five of the major Democratic candidates for president.

The Green New Deal is designed to recall the halcyon days of the 1930s, when, so the story goes, FDR came to Washington to enact the historic reforms that rescued America from the Great Depression.

Only that story is more than a small myth.

More

ICE Arrests 200 After NC Counties Cut Ties with Officials

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents arrested 200 undocumented aliens in North Carolina after several counties moved to cut ties with ICE.

ICE Regional Director Sean Gallaghar said the raids were a direct result of the counties refusing to work with immigration officials.

“This is the direct conclusion of dangerous policies of not cooperating with ICE. This forces my officers to go out onto the street to conduct more enforcement,” Gallaghar said according to the Charlotte Observer.

More

Media Won’t Admit Walls Work—Study Shows Otherwise

They can't enjoy making President Trump's point by repeatedly telling us it's one of the safest cities in America. The Washington Post is eager to pull an Acosta, with its headline pronouncing "No Crisis Exists" where there is a border wall.

It's almost as if … walls work.

But not if Trump says they do. Crime has been falling for decades they say, and it has nothing to do with the fence separating it from Ciudad Juarez, which is not, how should we say, safe.

"Texas city U.S. safest, despite Mexico drug war next door," Reuters reported in December 2010,after new fencing was completed a year before.

Stray bullets from Mexican cartel gun battles did break a window in the El Paso mayor's assistant's office but the violence, where "more than 3,000 people have been tortured, shot and blasted to death in gang warfare," was contained in Ciudad Juarez.

More

Trump Suggests Increasing Legal Immigration at Expense of U.S. Workers

The sentiment for increasing legal immigration is a break from the president’s commitment to reduce overall immigration levels

President Trump on Tuesday suggested, again, increasing legal immigration levels beyond an already historically high rate that would pit more foreign competition against American workers and further depress U.S. wages.

During a meeting at the White House, Trump said he wanted “more people” coming to the U.S. than the already more than 1.2 million legal immigrants admitted every year to take American jobs that would otherwise go to citizens.

Trump said:

Speaking of jobs, we have to have more people coming into our country because our real number is about 3.6, 3.7. It took a little blip up during the shutdown and went up to 4. And 4 — any country would take a 4. But we’re about 3.7; probably going lower. We need people. So we want to have people come into our country, but we want to have them come in through a merit system, and we want to have them come in legally. And that’s going to be happening. We’re doing very well in that regard.

More

Louis DeBroux: Anti-Trump Press Spins Bigger Paychecks as a Bad Thing

Tax refunds may be smaller, but that's because we paid less in taxes all year.

A recent Washington Post headline perfectly captures the length the media and Democrats (but we repeat ourselves) will go to spin, distort, and lie in order to deny any positive coverage to President Donald Trump and Republicans.

The headline reads “Millions of Americans could be stunned as their tax refunds shrink,” which on its face seems a pretty damning indictment of President Trump’s signature legislative achievement of his first two years. After all, Trump and congressional Republicans touted tax reform as a huge victory for the American people, yet now we are learn millions of Americans are receiving lower tax refunds than expected? Have Republicans pulled a fast one on the American people and lied about the benefits of the tax cuts?

Hardly.

The Post, having done a masterful job of burying the lede, eventually gets to the truth … in paragraph 13. After noting the average tax refund is down 8% from last year (about $170) and quoting American workers angry and frustrated at smaller tax refunds (for which they blame Republicans), the Post finally drops this little nugget of truth:

More

TEN YEARS AGO TODAY: Democrat Rep. Ilhan Omar Marries Her Biological Brother from Somalia!

More

Americans continue their march to low-tax states

The United States Census Bureau released its annual state-by-state population estimates for 2018 in late December. It highlights migration trends across the states and sketches a picture of looming political changes that will take place after the complete census of 2020.

Idaho, Nevada, Utah and Arizona led the way this past year in overall population growth as a percentage of population.

More

McCabe: Rosenstein suggested John Kelly, Jeff Sessions might help remove Trump from office

Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe said in a spring 2017 memo that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein believed then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly could be recruited in an effort to remove President Trump from office.

In an explosive interview with CBS, an excerpt of which was aired Thursday, McCabe asserted Rosenstein did tell Justice Department officials about wearing a “wire” to record conversations with Trump and that he was recruiting Cabinet members to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove the president from office in the days after Trump fired FBI Director James Comey.

The New York Times reports that it obtained an excerpt from one of McCabe's contemporaneous memos on his interactions DOJ officials. He wrote "we discussed the president’s capacity and the possibility he could be removed from office under the 25th Amendment." He further noted that Rosenstein examined the issue and decided that a “majority or 8 of the 15 cabinet officials" would be needed to follow through.

More

Report: Jussie Smollett ‘Staged’ Attack With Help Of Extra From ‘Empire,’ Home Raided

All the Democratic front-runners and all the top Democrats went all in on this obvious hoax

Two adult brothers of Nigerian descent, one of whom appeared as an extra on the show Empire with Jussie Smollett, had their home raided by Chicago police Wednesday night for allegedly helping Smollett stage a fake hate crime against himself, according to a new report.

Both men reportedly left for Nigeria on the day of the attack, according to Charlie De Mar of CBS Chicago.

More

Uh Oh: Did Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Commit An Ethics Violation With Revelation Of Her Boyfriend’s Congressional Email Account

Well, social media was set ablaze when Luke Thompson, a political consultant, noticed that Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez’s (D-NY) boyfriend had a congressional email account. Is he on staff? And if he is, doesn’t that constitute an ethics violation? AOC’s staff vociferously denied that this was the case, calling out Thompson for lying, who was briefly suspended from Twitter (via NTK Network):

It appears Twitter locked out a user on Friday by the name of Luke Thompson after he pointed out that Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s (D-NY) boyfriend, Riley Roberts, has a Congressional email account.

Thompson tweeted a screenshot of Riley Roberts’ House email and alleged that Ocasio-Cortez had hired her boyfriend on her congressional staff.

The Guardians’ Ben Jacobs tweeted that Thompson’s account has “been locked by Twitter after noting Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s boyfriend has a House email address.”

More

It's All Good @ Caribbean Joe's

Illinois Lawmakers Pushed Back-Door Gun Control 7 Times — In Only 16 Days

The Illinois Legislature has only been in session for 16 days in 2019 — and already, the state has introduced seven measures designed to impose back-door gun control.

SENATE BILL 337

SB 337 was passed in the previous legislative session but was placed under a procedural hold to avoid a possible veto from outgoing Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner. It was signed into law by newly inaugurated Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker on January 17, 2019, in spite ofstudy data that suggested such a move might not even make the state safer.

What SB 337 does:

Requires all federally-licensed firearms dealers in the state of Illinois to also obtain a state license

Creates an electronic transaction history that can act as a de facto registry

Requires all licensed firearms dealers to submit to inspections

More

Four in five Catholic priests are gay, claims new book

‘In the Closet of the Vatican’ due to be released next week

A new book claiming that 80 percent of Vatican priests are gay is due to be published next week.

The Guardian reports that ‘In the Closet of the Vatican’ by French journalist Frédéric Martel details four years of reporting in a nearly 600-page book.

Bloomsbury, the publisher of the new book, promises a “startling account of corruption and hypocrisy at the heart of the Vatican” which reveals “a clerical culture of secrecy which starts in junior seminaries and continues right up to the Vatican itself.”

More

Gov’t Information Security Incidents Increased 1,121% in Decade

Federal agencies’ information at ‘high risk’

The majority of federal agencies have not addressed significant weaknesses in cyber security, as security incidents increased by more than 1,000 percent in less than a decade, according to the Government Accountability Office (GAO).

Federal employee and taxpayer information remains at "high risk," according to a new audit. The GAO reviewed the security systems of 24 federal agencies between last December and September 2015.

"Federal agencies’ information and systems remain at a high risk of unauthorized access, use, disclosure, modification, and disruption," the GAO said. "These risks are illustrated by the wide array of cyber threats, an increasing number of cyber incidents and breaches of PII [personally identifiable information] occurring at federal agencies."

The report said the number of security incidents across the federal government has skyrocketed in the past decade. In 2006, there were only 5,503 security incidents. Last year the number rose to 67,168—an increase of 1,121 percent.

The number of incidents that involved personally identifiable information (PII) has also increased, more than doubling from 10,481 in 2009 to 27,624 in 2014.

More

Jussie Smollett Assault: Oh, So The Suspects Aren't White, MAGA-Hat Wearing Racists

UPDATE: And now those two Nigerian persons of interest are now suspects (viaAssociated Press):

Chicago Police say the two men being questioned in the attack on “Empire” actor Jussie Smollett are considered suspects.

Department spokesman Anthony Guglielimi said Friday that the men are in custody and have been arrested based on probable cause that they may have been involved in a crime. But he says they have not been charged in the Jan. 29 attack.

Police have identified the men only as two Nigerian brothers.

ABC News added that the two men "have a relationship with Jussie."

More

Empire's Jussie Smollett accused of staging hate crime attack

Empire actor Jussie Smollet has been accused of staging last month's racist and homophobic attack by two local TV news stations - but police are pushing back at the claims calling them 'unconfirmed' and the sourcing 'uniformed and inaccurate'.

ABC Chicago and CBS Chicago both claimed that 'multiple sources' had said detectives were considering the possibility that Smollett - together with two male persons of interest brought in for questioning Wednesday night - had faked the story because Smollett was being written off of Empire.

CBS reporters claimed that police sources said Smollet 'potentially staged the attack' and said 'indicators point to Smollett orchestrating the event'.

The persons of interest are allegedly two former extras on Empire who are brothers and friends of Smollet - who traveled to Nigeria hours after the attack and returned on Wednesday when they were arrested at Chicago O'Hare airport.

Cops raided their home on Thursday and found numerous items including bleach and an Empire script.

Fox has now denied that Smollet was being written out of the show and Smollet has also repeatedly denied staging the attack.

In a statement Thursday evening, Chicago Police Department Chief Communications Officer Anthony Guglielmi tweeted: 'Media reports anout (sic) the Empire incident being a hoax are unconfirmed by case detectives.

'Supt Eddie Johnson has contacted @ABC7Chicago to state on the record that we have no evidence to support their reporting and their supposed CPD sources are uninformed and inaccurate.'

More

Tanzanian Refugees Arrested for Gang Rape of 18-Year-Old Idaho Woman!

Three men and a teenage boy were arrested for a gang rape in Kuna, Idaho.

The men face life in prison if convicted.

Iyombelo, Rashidi and Lupango are each refugees from Tanzania.

KTVB reported:

Three men and a teenage boy are in custody after police say they sexually assaulted an 18-year-old woman earlier this month.

Elias Lupango, 19, Rashidi Mulanga, 18 and Swedi Iyombelo, 18, all of Boise, were arrested on felony rape charges and booked into the Ada County Jail Thursday. The juvenile suspect, a 16-year-old boy whose name has not been released, was arrested Friday morning, and is held in Ada County’s Juvenile Detention facility.

Kuna Police began investigating the case Feb. 8. The victim told investigators that she had been with Iyolmbelo, who she had met recently, in a car in a Kuna neighborhood when he began to sexually assault her.

A short time later, she said, the other three suspects showed up, and also sexually assaulted her in the car.

Detectives investigated the case and conducted interviews, ultimately developing enough evidence to get arrest warrants for Lupango, Mulanga, Iyombelo, and the 16-year-old.

More

Life Is Good At Caribbean Joe's

Brian Mark Weber: No, Voter ID Laws Do Not Suppress Voting

Yet another study concludes that the leftist/media narrative has it all wrong.

Need to cash a check, board an airplane, or pick up a few beers for the weekend? Better bring along your ID. Need to vote in a presidential election? No worries. Heck, you can just pretend to be someone else. Even a dead person.

The good news is that more states are starting to jump on board with voter ID laws, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. But currently only seven states require a photo ID. Three states require identification without a photo. Another 25 states “request” an ID, but allow voters to cast a provisional ballot if they can’t provide one.

In other words, there’s inconsistency across the board when it comes to verifying the identity of voters. If nothing else, these new laws will make it easier to see just how pervasive the problem is.

More

Do The Math...

Dershowitz On Fox News: Andrew McCabe Attempted A ‘Coup D’Etat’

Harvard Law School professor Alan Dershowitz told Fox News on Thursday that former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe's having attempted to invoke the 25th Amendment to oust President Trump in concert with the Department of Justice (DOJ) amounts to a "coup d'etat."

Speaking with Tucker Carlson, Dershowitz said that if McCabe did indeed discuss the possibility of ousting President Trump with the DOJ, then the spirit of the Constitution was clearly violated.

"If [McCabe’s comments are] true, it is clearly an attempt at a coup d’état," Dershowitz said.

The Harvard Law professor went on to say that even in the worst case scenario — Trump committing treason — neither the DOJ nor the FBI Deputy Director would be within their rights to enact a coup against the President, given that Congress has the power of impeachment.

More

Britain and America Sign Deal on Post-Brexit Trade, Plan Huge Free Trade Agreement

The United Kingdom and the United States have signed a Mutual Recognition Agreement to ensure British-American trade continues seamlessly after Brexit, undercutting EU loyalists who claimed it would be damaged.

The United Kingdom trades with the United States, its largest single trade partner and number one source of inward investment, largely on World Trade Organization (WTO) terms — a so-called “No Deal” situation — as the European Union has failed to strike a bilateral agreement.

This WTO-based relationship is supplemented by a number of mini-agreements on things like regulatory standards, however, which Remainers had hitherto used to claim Brexit would deal a blow to British-American commerce.

More

Will Diversity Be the Death of the Democrats?

Both of America's great national parties are coalitions.

But it is the Democratic Party that never ceases to celebrate diversity -- racial, religious, ethnic, cultural -- as its own and as America's "greatest strength."

Understandably so, for the party is home to a multitude of minorities.

It is the domain of the LGBTQ movement. In presidential elections, Democrats win 70 percent of Hispanics, Jews and Asian-Americans, and 90 percent of African-Americans.

Yet, lately, the party seems to be careening into a virtual war of all against all.

Democratic Governor Ralph Northam and Attorney General Mark Herring of Virginia have both admitted to using blackface.

Northam imitated Michael Jackson's "moonwalk" in a 1984 dance contest. Herring, in 1980 at the University of Virginia, did a blackface impression of rap icon Kurtis Blow, who called it ugly and degrading.

More

Report: Mitch McConnell Told Trump No ‘Land Mines’ in Spending Bill, a ‘Win’ over Pelosi

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) reportedly gave President Donald Trump false information about legislation to prevent a second partial government shutdown, claiming the bill possesses no “hidden provisions” or “landmines.”

The Kentucky Republican also is said to have told the President that signing the bill into law would be a “win” over House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), who has long opposed any funding for a U.S.-Mexico border wall, having called the proposal “immoral.”

More

Let's Do $1.50 Tacos Again Today

'The market's been flooded.' Meth from Mexico takes hold as drug use shifts away from heroin

RICHMOND, Ind. — While opioids continue taking a deadly toll in Wayne County, another threat has taken hold in the area, as well.

Methamphetamine use has been climbing for more than a year, and, according to Lt. Scott Crull, supervisor of the Wayne County Drug Task Force, methamphetamine now has become prevalent. He said the area once saw crack cocaine as the primary drug, then transitioned to heroin for several years. Now, methamphetamine is popular.

"The meth is really starting to come out," said Crull, who was recently named Richmond Police Department's Supervisor of the Year because of his work with the task force and SWAT team. "We’re purchasing a lot more meth and investigating a lot more meth cases now than ever before.”

Crull said task force officers find two reasons methamphetamine use has grown.

More

Satanic Temple Loses Lawsuit To Overturn Pro-Life Law

The Satanic Temple in Missouri has once again lost a court battle to overturn a state law requiring abortion clinics to provide anti-abortion pamphlets to their patients.

Though Missouri has long been at the forefront of rolling back abortion, knocking the institution down to just one clinic in recent years, the practice saw a resurgence in the state in 2017, when a federal judge enjoined a law mandating that abortion providers get admitting privileges to nearby hospitals and retrofit their facilities to meet current surgical center standards. Multiple clinics opened up in the state as a result, giving the Satanic Temple a window of opportunity to attack two other anti-abortion provisions in the state: One requiring women to read anti-abortion pamphlets and another requiring them to wait 72 hours between their initial consultations and a second appointment, before the abortion can commence.

According to LifeNews, The Satanic Temple argued that the two laws violate their religious beliefs, because their religion "prizes rational, independent thought" which would be supplanted if they were forced to read anti-abortion pamphlets and "consider a religious proposition with which they do not agree" during the 72-hour waiting period.

More

Donald Trump Jr. Crushes 'Economics Genius' Ocasio-Cortez In One Tweet.

On Friday, Donald Trump Jr. took a moment out of his day to shred Economics Guru™ Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) for her ridiculous claim that New York could somehow invest the $3 billion Amazon would have gotten as a tax break for building in Long Island City, located in Ocasio-Cortez's 14th District of New York.

Trump Jr. tweeted, “Will someone please explain to me how it is possible for NYC to SPEND a $3 Billion tax break on anything? This is insanity.”

Trump Jr. was responding to the idiotic claim from Ocasio-Cortez that New York had given away $3 billion by letting Amazon come to New York, and thus could use that money to hire teachers and fix the subway.

More

President Tump???

Five State Legislatures Have Border Wall Funding Bills

Five state legislatures are considering bills that would provide additional funding for the southern border wall.

In the past month, funding bills have been introduced in the state legislatures of Texas, Montana, Arizona, West Virginia, and Tennessee.

On Friday, President Trump signed the budget deal that includes just $1.3 billion for border wall funding passed by the House and Senate on Thursday with veto proof majorities.

The bills proposed by the state legislators in these five states are designed to close the gap between the $25 billion total funding needed and the $1.3 billion now appropriated for border wall construction in FY 2019.

Of the five proposals currently or soon to be before state legislatures, only the proposal in Texas, one of four states that actually shares a border with Mexico, has the potential to make a significant dent in that shortfall, as Breitbart News reported:

More

McConnell Backed Emergency Declaration to Prevent Trump Veto of Flawed Border Security Bill

The GOP Majority Leader in the Senate persuaded President Donald Trump to not veto the GOP’s flawed border security bill by promising to back a national emergency construction of border walls, according to insider leaks to the establishment media.

The Washington Post reported that “Trump had been leaning against supporting the congressional spending bill but relented after several conversations with [Majority Leader Sen. Mitch] McConnell, who then announced his agreement to go along with an emergency declaration.”

One reason for Trump’s last-minute opposition is that congressional leaders conducted the negotiations without significant White House involvement. “The legislation was released just before midnight Wednesday, giving lawmakers and the White House very little time to review it before voting,” said the Post. “Lawmakers defended the rushed timeline because of the impending shutdown deadline.”

That closed process allowed pro-migration Democrats to include a wide variety of pro-migration policies and to give Texas Democrats a veto over wall construction until October 2019. The Democratic wins over passive GOP negotiators prompted a veto threat from Trump, which was averted when McConnell promise to support the controversial emergency declaration that he had earlier rejected.

Alabama Sen. Richard Shelby led the GOP negotiation effort and signed off on the various flaws in the bill.

Those flaws create a potentially giant amnesty for all illegals who agree to “sponsor” a teenager or child trafficked from Mexico. The plan creates a huge incentive for the growing number of Central American migrants in the United States to hire cartel-linked traffickers to deliver more children from Central America to U.S. border agencies. The loophole is so huge that it provides a legal shield against deportation to resident illegals who are “a sponsor, a potential sponsor, or member of a household of a sponsor or potential sponsor.”

NumbersUSA reported that Shelby and other GOP negotiators hid the traffickers’ amnesty from the President until the last moment.

Lots more details here

Judicial Watch: Docs Reveal FBI Cover Up of ‘Chart’ of Potential Violations of Law by Hillary Clinton

Judicial Watch announced that it received 186 pages of records from the Department of Justice that include emails documenting an evident cover up of a chart of potential violations of law by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Judicial Watch obtained the records through a January 2018 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit filed after the DOJ failed respond to a December 4, 2017 FOIA request (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Justice (No. 1:18-cv-00154)). Judicial Watch is seeking all communications between FBI official Peter Strzok and FBI attorney Lisa Page.

The newly obtained emails came in response to a May 21 order by U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton to the FBI to begin processing 13,000 pages of records exchanged exclusively between Strzok and Page between February 1, 2015, and December 2017. The FBI may not complete review and production of all the Strzok-Page communications until at least 2020.

Three days after then-FBI Director James Comey’s press conference announcing that he would not recommend a prosecution of Mrs. Clinton, a July 8, 2016 email chain shows that, the Special Counsel to the FBI’s executive assistant director in charge of the National Security Branch, whose name is redacted, wrote to Strzok and others that he was producing a “chart of the statutory violations considered during the investigation [of Clinton’s server], and the reasons for the recommendation not to prosecute…”

More here

Audit Finds Signs of Fraud in New Mexico House Race

An audit of absentee ballots suggests fraud may have occurred in one of the closest House races in the country, The Daily Signal has learned.

Democrat Xochitl Torres Small squeaked by Republican Yvette Herrell in the final results of the Nov. 6 election.

On election night, Herrell declared victory in the race to represent New Mexico’s 2nd Congressional District. But as more votes were counted, Torres Small secured the win.

The roughly 3,500-vote victory for Torres Small—out of about 200,000 cast in the southern New Mexico district—relied heavily on absentee ballots from Doña Ana County, the largest county in the district, including the Las Cruces area.

A new audit report obtained by The Daily Signal alleges a “concerted effort” to push for absentee votes where New Mexico voter ID laws are not enforced. It also points to potential fraud in applying for absentee ballots, and says a significant number of absentee ballots were time-stamped after the 7 p.m. deadline election night.

More here

FOIA Docs Reveal Obama FBI Covered Up "Chart" Of Potential Hillary Clinton Crimes

The top brass of the Obama FBI went to great lengths to justify their decision not to recommend charges against former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for mishandling classified information, according to Judicial Watch, which obtained evidence that the agency created a 'chart' of Clinton's offenses.

The newly obtained emails came in response to a court ordered Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request that the DOJ had previously ignored.

Via Judicial Watch (emphasis ours):
Three days after then-FBI Director James Comey’s press conference announcing that he would not recommend a prosecution of Mrs. Clinton, a July 8, 2016 email chain shows that, the Special Counsel to the FBI’s executive assistant director in charge of the National Security Branch, whose name is redacted, wrote to Strzok and others that he was producing a “chart of the statutory violations considered during the investigation [of Clinton’s server], and the reasons for the recommendation not to prosecute…”

[Redacted] writes: I am still working on an additional page for these TPs that consist of a chart of the statutory violations considered during the investigation

More

Rep. Ocasio-Cortez: 'I Don't Care' If a President Smokes Pot, 'It's Fine with Me

Although nearly all the major studies on habitual marijuana use show a strong link between its consumption and mental illness, including schizophrenia, and violence, House Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) said it's perfectly fine if a president of the United States smokes dope because "you're not hurting anybody." The 29-year-old self-declared socialist added, "yeah, I don't care."

At the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday, Feb. 12, TMZ caught up with Rep. Ocasio-Cortez and asked her about Democratic presidential candidates admitting to having smoked marijuana.

She said, “We just need to accept that there is nothing more inherently damaging about marijuana than, say, legal substances like alcohol or anything else."

"So, I’m glad that we’re moving towards a more just position as a party and that we’re moving to legalize marijuana," said the congresswoman, "but not just legalize marijuana but to really make up for the damages done by the war on drugs and the people that were unjustly incarcerated by the war on drugs.”

TMZ then asked, “Would it be okay to have a president that says they do smoke [marijuana]?”

More

Parking Fines Up, Revenue Down Slightly In Resort; Resort Officials Review New ‘Pay-By-Plate’ System

OCEAN CITY — Resort transportation officials this week reviewed the first year of the town’s new “pay-by-plate” parking system, which revealed revenue was generally down across the board although some areas did better than others.

Prior to the start of the last summer season, Ocean City transitioned from the old pay-and-display system to a new pay-by-plate system.

Under the old system, visitors and residents would pay at kiosks at the Inlet lot, the various municipal lots around town and in certain areas on public streets and display the receipts on their dashboards. Last year, however, the Mayor and Council approved the new system in all areas where paid parking was available. Residents and visitors pay for a certain amount of time at the new kiosks and the payment amount and time allotted are assigned to the vehicle’s license plate.

More

Judge Overturns $38 Million Wrongful Death Award In Korryn Gaines Case

BALTIMORE (WJZ) — A Baltimore County judge has overturned a $38 million wrongful death award to the family of Korryn Gaines.

Gaines was shot and killed by Baltimore County Police in 2016 during a six-hour standoff at her Randallstown apartment, after pointing a shotgun at officers trying to serve an arrest warrant.

Her family sued Baltimore County Police, claiming that officers used excessive force when they fatally shot her and injured her 5-year-old son, Kodi.

The jury sided with the family.

One year ago, Gaines’ family was awarded $38 million in damages, including $33 million to her son, Kodi, $4.5 million to her daughter, Karsyn, and $9,000 to her parents and estate.

More

High Court Asked To Hear OC Boardwalk Property Case

OCEAN CITY — Unwilling to let go of a fight asserting ownership of the iconic Dumser’s property on the east side of the Boardwalk, Ocean City officials this week filed an appeal to have the case heard by the state’s highest court.

Ocean City this week filed a petition for writ of certiorari with the Court of Appeals, essentially asking the state’s highest court to take up the case in which it had been defeated twice by the Court of Special Appeals. In late December, the Court of Special Appeals issued an opinion asserting the town of Ocean City had not presented sufficient evidence to prove ownership of the iconic building on the east side of the Boardwalk at South Division Street, which, for decades has been home to Dumser’s Dairyland.

The town quickly exercised its next possible remedy in the case with the filing of a motion for reconsideration of the Court of Special Appeals. However, moving in unusually quick fashion, the Court of Special Appeals denied the town’s motion for reconsideration, leaving the last resort for the town a request to ask the higher Court of Appeals take up the case.

More

Reverse Racism

THESE TWO BROTHERS .... as in "siblings," are now under arrest in the alleged Jussie Smollett attack. The men, Olabinjo and Abimbola Osundairo, are from Nigeria - and Chicago cops are now calling them suspects.

This raises a problem because Jussie initially said his attackers were white and yelled "MAGA country." Ola and Abel (their nicknames), have also been extras on Jussie's hit show, Empire.

Mooooo

FCC Taking Action on Robocallers

The FCC is going after robocalls and demanding wireless carriers adopt caller authentication procedures to alleviate the growing number of nuisance phone calls American consumers are receiving, agency Chairman Ajit Pai said Friday.

"I get those calls myself," Pai told Fox News' "America's Newsroom." "I don't answer the phone if I don't have the number programmed in my phone. We're going after the scammers."

The "biggest fines in the FCC's history" have been put on robocalls, said Pai, and the FCC is demanding caller ID authentication "to make sure the phone call won't be placed on your phone unless it's from a person who can legitimately call you."

Part of the issue is with technology that allows callers to easily spoof telephone numbers so that it appears calls are coming from legitimate numbers, said Pai.

"The technology is developed to the point it's easy to spoof a phone number calling from abroad," said Pai. "You can make it look like you have the same area code and first three numbers of somebody living in a small town in Iowa. That's why we're empowering phone companies to crack down and demand they adopt caller ID authentication."

More

Stacey Abrams’ Nonprofit Slapped With Its Seventh Tax Lien

A nonprofit founded by Georgia Democrat Stacey Abrams was slapped with three different tax liens over the past year, bringing the organization’s known total to seven.

Third Sector Development, a nonprofit started by Abrams that focuses on registering black voters, was hit with three separate tax liens in the past year for failing to pay state unemployment tax, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported Tuesday. The three tax liens, filed by Georgia state regulators, total roughly $3,500.

This isn’t the first time state regulators have targeted Abrams’ organization. The Georgia Department of Labor issued four tax liens worth $13,000 against Third Sector Development between 2014 and 2016, also citing unpaid employment contributions.

Abrams has blamed third-party clerical errors for all the issues.

More

Aurora workplace shooter was set to be fired by company, police chief says

The gunman in a deadly shooting spree at a manufacturing warehouse in Aurora, Ill., where five employees were killed and five officers were wounded Friday, was set to be fired by the company, Police Chief Kristen Ziman told reporters at a news conference Friday night.

The suspect, identified as Gary Martin, 45, of Aurora, used a handgun and had worked for the Henry Pratt Co. -- one of the largest makers of industrial water valves -- for 15 years, she said. He was killed at the scene. The attack lasted 90 minutes.

“We don’t whether he had the gun on him at the time or if he went to retrieve it,” Ziman said, adding that authorities were not sure if Martin planned the shooting. “We can only surmise with a gentleman who was being terminated that this was something he intended to do, I’m not sure.”

More

https://www.foxnews.com/us/aurora-workplace-shooter-was-set-to-be-fired-by-comapny

Disabled vets scammed in $2 million bribery scheme

A Veterans Affairs Department official steered disabled veterans to questionable schools in exchange for bribes from school officials, according to the Justice Department.

James King, the VA official in question, on Tuesday pleaded guilty to accepting about $160,000 in bribes. In return, law enforcement officials say, he directed participants in VA’s Vocational Rehabilitation and Employment program to Atius Technology Institute and Eelon Training Academy, generating more than $2 million in VA revenue for the schools.

Both schools were the subject of repeated complaints from veterans, who said they provided a poor-quality education, and both misled the VA about their costs and program details.

More

Trump Warns Maduro to Stop Blocking Humanitarian Aid

Colombian president: Obstructing aid is a 'crime against humanity'

President Donald Trump on Wednesday warned of U.S. action against the Maduro regime if he continues to block shipments of humanitarian aid and other assistance from the U.S. and other countries aimed at helping the Venezuelan people.

"I think he's making a terrible mistake by not allowing the aid to be delivered," Trump said Wednesday during an appearance with Colombian president Ivan Duque in the Oval Office.

"We're trying to get food to people [who] are starving. You have people starving in Venezuela, and it just shows what can happen with the wrong government. You have the wrong government, bad things happen."

Maduro's economic mismanagement has led to shortages of food, medicine, and other basic necessities, forcing hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans to seek refuge in neighboring Colombia over the last year and a half while others have joined massive protests across the country aimed at pushing Maduro out of power.

The Trump administration and many European countries want Maduro out of office and have formally recognized opposition leader Juan Guaido as Venezuela's legitimate leader.

While Trump did not say whether he would send U.S. troops into Venezuela, he said he is keeping all of his options on the table if Maduro does not leave office.

More

Martin Armstrong Slams Al Gore's Deliberate Global Warming Fraud To Increase Governmental Power

There is a serious question that no one wants to address. How did Al Gore create the global warming scare and earn hundreds of millions of dollars in the process?

Before Al Gore, science was worried deeply about what we are experiencing today - global cooling.

On April 28, 1975, Newsweek magazine published an article in which they sounded the alarm bell and proposed solutions to deliberately melt the ice caps:

“Climatologists are pessimistic that political leaders will take any positive action to compensate for the climatic change, or even to allay its effects. They concede that some of the more spectacular solutions proposed, such as melting thearcticc ice cap by covering it with black soot or diverting arctic rivers, might create problems far greater than those they solve. But the scientists see few signs that government leaders anywhere are even prepared to take the simple measures of stockpiling food or of introducing variables of climate uncertainty into economic projections of future food supplies.”

This sounds very similar to today’s proposed solution of putting particles in the atmosphere to deflect the sunlight to reduce global warming.

Indeed, TIME magazine’s January 31, 1977, cover featured the cover story, “The Big Freeze.” They reported that scientists were predicting that Earth’s average temperature could drop by 20 degrees fahrenheit. Their cited cause was, of course, thathumans created global cooling. Then suddenly the climate cycles shifted and it began to warm up.

More

SOME THINGS TO PONDER

Do twins ever realize that one of them is unplanned?

What if my dog only brings back my ball because he thinks I like throwing it?

If poison expires is it more poisonous or is it no longer poisonous?

Which letter is silent in the word "Scent," the S or the C?

Why is the letter W, in English, called double U? Shouldn't it be called double V?

Maybe oxygen is slowly killing you and it just takes 75-100 years to fully work.

Every time you clean something, you just make something else dirty.

The word “swims” upside-down and backwards is still "swims".

Intentionally losing a game of rock, paper, and scissors is just as hard as trying to win.

100 years ago everyone owned a horse and only the rich had cars. Today everyone has cars and only the rich own horses.

The doctors that told Stephen Hawking he had two years to live in 1953 are probably dead.

If you replace "W" with "T" in "What, Where and When", you get the answer to each of them.

Many animals probably need glasses, but nobody knows it.

If you rip a hole in a net, there are actually fewer holes in it than there were before.

100 years ago a Twenty Dollar bill and a Twenty Dollar gold piece were interchangeable. Either one would buy a new suit, new shoes and a night on the town.

The Twenty Dollar gold piece will still do that.

Voters Oppose Democrats' Stance on Abortion

New poll: 77 percent of voters back legislation to protect babies who survive abortions

An overwhelming majority of Americans support congressional action to protect children born alive through failed abortions and oppose efforts to expand late-term abortions.

A new poll released by Susan B. Anthony List on Wednesday indicated that 77 percent of voters favor legislation mandating that children who survive failed abortions are given the same medical treatment as babies born prematurely. The poll, which surveyed 1,000 likely general election voters between Feb. 6-10, also found 62 percent opposed legislation allowing late-term abortions even up to the point of labor.

Support was nearly uniform across gender and political lines, according to the results. Approximately 79 percent of men and 75 percent of women signaled their support for children born alive, while 59 percent of men and 65 percent of women said they were against loosening restrictions on late-term abortions.

Likewise, 86 percent of Republicans, 70 percent of Democrats, and 75 percent of independents endorsed protecting children who survive abortion. On the topic of late-term abortion, however, there was some division along partisan lines with 71 percent of Republicans, 48 percent of Democrats, and 70 percent of independents opposing efforts to make them more accessible.

More

Trump Demands Gavin Newsom Return $3.5 Billion for Canceled Bullet Train; Newsom: It's 'California's Money' Now

President Donald Trump demanded Wednesday evening that the State of California return $3.5 billion in federal funds after Gov. Gavin Newsom canceled most of the state’s high-speed rail project, saying it was too expensive.

“California has been forced to cancel the massive bullet train project after having spent and wasted many billions of dollars,” the president tweeted. “They owe the Federal Government three and a half billion dollars. We want that money back now. Whole project is a “green” disaster!”

More

What Caused The Recession Of 2019-2021?

The banquet of consequences is now being served, but the good seats have all been taken.

As I discussed in We're Overdue for a Sell-Everything/No-Fed-Rescue Recession, recessions have a proximate cause and a structural cause. The proximate cause is often a spike in energy costs (1973, 1990) or a financial crisis triggered by excesses of speculation and debt (2000 and 2008) or inflation (1980).

Structural causes are imbalances that build up over time: imbalances in trade or currency flows, capital investment, debt, speculation, labor compensation, wealth-income inequality, energy supply and consumption, etc. These structural distortions and imbalances tend to interact in self-reinforcing dynamics that overlap with normal business / credit cycles.

The current recession has not yet been acknowledged, but this is standard operating procedure: recessions are only declared long after they actually start due to statistical reporting lags. Maybe the recession of 2019-21 will be declared at some point in the future to have begun in Q2 or Q3, but the actual date is not that meaningful; what matters is what caused the recession and how the structural imbalances are resolved.

So what caused the recession of 2019-21? Apparently nothing: oil costs are relatively low, U.S. banks are relatively well-capitalized, geopolitical issues are on the backburner and stocks, bonds and real estate are all well-bid (i.e. there is no liquidity crisis).

More

Man releases giant rat inside NJ McDonald's, patrons go wild

Now that’s just nasty.

Police are searching for one young man who recently released a fat rat inside a New Jersey McDonald’s during peak dining hours, sending customers into chaos at the fast-food chain.

On Feb. 5, the unidentified man – who was accompanied by an young boy – charged into a Newark McDonald's at 772 Broad Street with a large, white rodent inside of a plastic container, NBC New York reports. Forty seconds of video footage of the scene, which appears to have been filmed by an unknown accomplice, has since gone viral on Facebook, with over 241,000 views.

WARNING: Footage contains graphic language.
More

New Study Finds 41% Increase In Cancer Risk From Roundup's Glyphosate

A comprehensive analysis of glyphosate - the most widely used weed-killing chemical in the world - reveals that those with the highest exposures to the popular herbicide have a 41% increased risk of developing non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) cancer.

The meta-analysis of six studies containing nearly 65,000 participants also looked at links between glyphosate-based herbicides and immunosuppression, endocrine disruption and genetic alterations.

The study authors said their new meta-analysis evaluated all published human studies, including a 2018 updated government-funded study known as the Agricultural Health Study (AHS). Monsanto has cited the updated AHS study as proving that there is no tie between glyphosate and NHL. In conducting the new meta-analysis, the researchers said they focused on the highest exposed group in each study because those individuals would be most likely to have an elevated risk if in fact glyphosate herbicides cause NHL. -The Guardian

"Together, all of the meta-analyses conducted to date, including our own, consistently report the same key finding: exposure to GBHs are associated with an increased risk of NHL," concludes the report.

The study, which looks at both human and animal studies also suggests that glyphosate "alters the gut microbiome," which could "impact the immune system, promote chronic inflammation, and contribute to the susceptibility of invading pathogens."

Furthermore, glyphosate "may act as an endocrine disrupting chemical because it has been found recently to alter sex hormone production" in both male and female rats.

More

How House Conservatives Are Planning to Force a Vote on Protecting Abortion Survivors

Conservative lawmakers in the House are trying to force a vote on a bill protecting babies born alive after abortion, after a Democrat in the Senate last week blocked Republicans in the upper chamber from passing similar legislation by unanimous consent.

“Protecting innocent life shouldn’t be a partisan issue and it shouldn’t be difficult,” House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., said in a statement provided to The Daily Signal.

“Infanticide is barbaric and the growing trend of Democrats advocating it is frightening,” he added. “Republicans are united in seeing that a bill protecting babies who survived an attempted abortion urgently receives a vote on the House floor. It already passed the House with Democratic support last Congress. But so far the new Democrat majority refuse to even consider the bill. But we will ask again. And again. And again, until this body speaks up for life.”

More