Having warned it would retaliate proportionately, this morning Russia did just that when it expelled 23 British diplomats – the same number as the UK kicked out a few days earlier as punishment for Moscow’s alleged poisoning of a former double agent. It also ordered the closure of the UK consulate in St Petersburg and the Moscow British Council, a cultural and educational organization.
Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs summoned the British ambassador to Moscow and told him that the measures are “in response to the provocative actions of the British side and the unsubstantiated accusations” against Russia, the ministry said. Russia gave the British diplomats one week to leave. “If further actions of an unfriendly nature are taken against Russia, the Russian side reserves the right to take other retaliatory measures,” the ministry said.
British ambassador to Russia, Laurie Bristow, attends a meeting at the Russian foreign ministry
A spokeswoman for the U.K. Foreign Office said that Britain had anticipated Moscow’s response.
“Russia’s response doesn’t change the facts of the matter—the attempted assassination of two people on British soil, for which there is no alternative conclusion other than that the Russian State was culpable,” the spokeswoman said but added that “we continue to believe it is not in our national interest to break off all dialogue between our countries but the onus remains on the Russian state to account for their actions.”
She said that the UK Foreign Office said the National Security Council would meet early next week to consider the next steps.
The order to close the British Council ends nearly 60 years of its work in Russia as the U.K.’s international organization for culture and education, Bloomberg reported. It opened offices in Moscow under a 1959 agreement with the Soviet Union and expanded to 15 Russian cities after the 1991 collapse of the Communist state. Its presence gradually reduced amid mounting political confrontation between the U.K. and Russia, which also disputed the legal basis for the council’s presence in the country. In 2008, Russia ordered the council to close all its offices except the Moscow headquarters as part of retaliation for the U.K.’s expulsion of diplomats over the radioactive poisoning of former security-service officer Alexander Litvinenko in 2006. A U.K. public inquiry concluded in 2016 that Putin “probably” approved the killing.
* * *
Diplomatic relations between London and Moscow collapsed to post-Cold War lows following the poisoning of Sergei Skripal, a former Russian military intelligence agent living in the UK, and his daughter Yulia earlier this month with a rare nerve agent manufactured during the Soviet era.
As reported last night, UK’s foreign secretary Boris Johnson escalated the diplomatic clash on Friday by accusing Vladimir Putin of personally ordering the poisoning. Boris Johnson said that it was “overwhelmingly likely” that the decision to carry out an assassination attempt was made by the Russian president.
Johnson said: “Our quarrel is with Putin’s Kremlin, and with his decision — and we think it overwhelmingly likely that it was his decision — to direct the use of a nerve agent on the streets of the UK, on the streets of Europe for the first time since the second world war.” The Kremlin responded that his comments were “unforgivable” and “shocking”, while Downing Street declined to remark on the direct accusation.
Russia has denied any involvement in the attack on Mr Skripal, who was convicted of spying for Britain, then sent to the UK in a prisoner exchange in 2010. But Russia has also sent unambiguous messages on state TV about the fate of traitors.
The Russian foreign ministry said the UK’s accusations of Russian state involvement in the poisoning groundless. It said Laurie Bristow, the UK Ambassador to Russia, had been told the expulsions were ordered “in response to the provocative actions of the British side and the unsubstantiated accusations” against the country.
On Thursday, the U.S. joined the U.K., France and Germany in condemning the attack as “an assault on U.K. sovereignty,” saying it constituted a breach of international law and calling on Russia to explain its role in the poisoning in Salisbury, England.
President Donald Trump, French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel shared the U.K.’s assessment that it was highly likely that Russia was responsible for the attack—the first use of a nerve agent in a North Atlantic Treaty Organization country. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg has condemned the use of the poison, saying it “has no place in a civilized world.”
* **
Saturday’s retaliation by Moscow also comes after the Trump administration issued its first sanctions against Russia for meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential elections, as well as for its role in the NotPetya cyberattack and in the nerve-agent poisoning.
Russia has denied any interference in the U.S. election, while Russian President Vladimir Putin, who runs for re-election Sunday, has steered an increasingly confrontational course with the West. The Kremlin previously expelled some U.S. diplomats in 2017 after Congress passed a Russian sanctions bill.
Moscow has yet to retaliate against the latest round of US sanctions.
After a long day of what seemed like the swamp protecting one of their dirtiest creatures, Attorney General Jeff Sessions fired former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, just over 24 hours before he was set to retire and claim his full pension benefits.
McCabe turns 50 on Sunday – the earliest he would have been eligible for his full retirement benefits.
Sessions noted that both the Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz as well as the FBI’s disciplinary office had found “that Mr. McCabe had made an unauthorized disclosure to the news media and lacked candor – including under oath – on multiple occasions.”
So, McCabe was involved in leaks and he lied under oath.
Horowitz found that McCabe had authorized two FBI officials to talk to then-Wall Street Journal reporter Devlin Barrett for a story about the case and another investigation into Clinton’s family foundation. Barrett now works for The Washington Post. –WaPo
“I have terminated the employment of Andrew McCabe effective immediately,” said Sessions, who said he based his decision on the findings.
While the move will probably cost McCabe a significant portion of his retirement benefits, he could challenge it in court. On Thursday he spent almost four hours at the DOJ to beg for his full retirement.
McCabe responded to his ouster, saying that his firing, along with negative comments by President Trump were meant to undermine Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, reported the New York Times.
“The idea that I was dishonest is just wrong,” said McCabe, adding, “This is part of an effort to discredit me as a witness.”
Mr. McCabe was among the first at the F.B.I. to scrutinize possible Trump campaign ties to Russia. And he is a potential witness to the question of whether Mr. Trump tried to obstruct justice. Mr. Trump has taunted Mr. McCabe both publicly and privately, and Republican allies have cast him as the center of a “deep state” effort to undermine the Trump presidency. –NYT
While McCabe’s firing is directly related to the disclosure of sensitive information to the media about the Clinton email investigation, the former Deputy Director took a leave of absence in January amid a heated controversy over the FBI’s conduct surrounding the 2016 election.
In December, The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee has discovered that edits made to former FBI Director James Comey’s statement exonerating Hillary Clinton for transmitting classified info over an unsecured, private email server went far beyond what was previously known – as special agents operating under McCabe changed various language which effectively decriminalized Clinton’s behavior.
McCabe’s team also conducted a counterintelligence operation to investigate the Trump campaign, in which they used an unverified dossier and were not forthright with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) over its political origins, in violation of FBI policy.
As revelations of FBI misconduct spiraled out of control last year, President Trump noted that McCabe was “racing the clock to retire with full benefits.”
FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe is racing the clock to retire with full benefits. 90 days to go?!!!
On Thursday, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said “We do think that it is well documented that he has had some very troubling behavior and by most accounts a bad actor.“
While “background conversations with reporters are commonplace in Washington,” notes the Washington Post, “McCabe’s authorizing such a talk was viewed as inappropriate because the matter being discussed was an ongoing criminal investigation.”
One wonders how long before McCabe writes his multi-million-dollar ‘tell-all’ book… or when he will start his new job? We hear the offers are pouring in…
There are roughly 36 million millionaires in the world.
That means if you meet someone from the global population at random, there’s a 1 in 200 chance that they could be a millionaire – this makes for surprisingly good odds.
However, as VisualCapitalist’s Jeff Desjardins notes, the billionaire on the other hand is a much rarer breed. According to Forbes, there are just over 2,000 billionaires in existence, making up just 0.00003% of the global population.
Where do these people live, and what countries have the highest concentrations of them as citizens?
25 COUNTRIES THAT ARE RICH IN BILLIONAIRES
Today’s infographic comes to us from TitleMax, and it shows the 25 countries with the most billionaires in them. It also covers the richest person in each of these countries, as well.
Here is the list of countries, sorted by the number of billionaires:
The United States has the most billionaires in total with 565.
In second place is China (319) – a country that is adding billionaires at a rapid pace, but also losing some of its ultra-rich population to capital flight.
BILLIONAIRE CONCENTRATION
Although the United States has the most billionaires by a large margin, the country ranks 6th in terms of billionaire concentration.
In the U.S., there is one billionaire for every 571,858 people, but it is beat out in this measurement by Hong Kong (110k), Switzerland (233k), Singapore (267k), Sweden (319k), and Israel (475k).
Hong Kong, which has the highest rate of billionaires in the world, boasts 67 billionaires in just one city of roughly seven million.
For comparison’s sake, if Mainland China could somehow have the same rate of billionaire occurrences as Hong Kong, the country would amass 12,575 billionaires – more than six times the total amount in the world that currently exist!
LOWEST BILLIONAIRE CONCENTRATIONS
With only roughly 2,000 billionaires scattered throughout the world, it’s estimated that there are over 100+ countries and dependencies that actually have zero billionaires as citizens. For example, Haiti, Lithuania, Ethiopia, Belarus, and Andorra are just a few places that have millionaires, but no billionaires.
As for countries that made the above list, India and Indonesia are pretty scarce in terms of their billionaire concentrations – if you were to hit the street in these countries, the odds are 1 in 13 million that a random person would be a billionaire.
Stephen Hawking, the visionary physicist who passed away this week at the age of 76, made five predictions about how and when mankind will face its doom.
In a week when geo-political tensions between the world’s two leading nuclear powers, Russia and the U.S. are worsening with the UK and U.S. accusing Russia of a nerve agent attack and imposing sanctions on Russia, it is a good time to consider and heed Hawking’s doomsday predictions or warnings, especially about nuclear war.
Below is an interesting article which looks at five of Hawking’s doomsday predictions as collated by Qt.com.au:
WE NEED an exit strategy. Fast.
From global warming to artificial intelligence, Professor Stephen Hawking made a number of terrifying predictions about the apocalyptic threats facing humanity.
The celebrated late scientist said humanity is at a “tipping point”, and that our best bet will be to leave Earth completely.
Here are five main factors he said are contributing to the end of the world.
NUCLEAR TECHNOLOGY
In 2007, Prof Hawking fronted a campaign to cancel Trident, Britain’s nuclear weapons deterrent.
“Nuclear war remains the greatest danger to the survival of the human race,” he said.
“To replace Trident would make it more difficult to get arms reduction, and increase the risk.
“It would also be a complete waste of money because there are no circumstances in which we would use it independently.”
Prof Hawking has also identified “aggression” as the human trait will destroy us all.
He warned it could lead to irrational actions, like sparking nuclear war.
Prof Hawking said nuclear war remains the ‘greatest danger’ to humanity’s survival.
“I fear evolution has in-built greed and aggression to the human genome,” he told the BBC. “There is no sign of conflict lessening, and the development of militarised technology and weapons of mass destruction could make that disastrous. The best hope for the survival of the human race might be independent colonies in space.”
DONALD TRUMP
Prof Hawking made it clear he was not a fan of Donald Trump.
He was particularly critical of the US President after he vowed not to sign the Paris Agreement on climate change.
“Climate change is one of the great dangers we face and it’s one we can prevent if we act now,” he told the BBC. “By denying the evidence for climate change and pulling out of the Paris Climate Agreement, Donald Trump will cause avoidable environmental damage to our beautiful planet, endangering the natural world, for us and our children.”
In a Skype talk delivered at the Starmus science and arts festival last year, he made his case more urgent.
“Unlike Donald Trump, who may just have taken the most serious and wrong decision on climate this world has seen, I am arguing for the future of humanity and a long-term strategy to achieve this,” Prof Hawking said.
“We have given our planet the disastrous gift of climate change … When we have reached similar crises there has usually been somewhere else to colonise … But there is no new world, no utopia around the corner. We are running out of space, and the only places to go to are other worlds.”
On ITV’S Good Morning Britain, Prof Hawking was asked to explain Mr Trump’s ascendancy to the White House.
“I can’t,” he responded. “He is a demagogue who seems to appeal to the lowest common denominator.”
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
In recent years, Prof Hawking had raised the alarm about the potential threat of artificial intelligence.
Speaking at the Web Summit in Lisbon in November, the famous physicist said AI has the potential to be the best or worst thing humanity has ever seen and the scary reality is we just don’t know which yet.
“We cannot know if we will be infinitely helped by AI or ignored by it and sidelined, or conceivably destroyed by it,” he said.
While AI could be hugely beneficial for reducing poverty, disease and restoring the natural environment, it’s impossible to predict “what we might achieve when our own minds are amplified by AI”.
“AI could be the worst invention of the history of our civilisation, that brings dangers like powerful autonomous weapons or new ways for the few to oppress the many.
“AI could develop a will of its own, a will that is in conflict with ours and which could destroy us. In short, the rise of powerful AI will be either the best, or the worst thing ever to happen to humanity.”
Hawking warned scientists and global governments needed to focus on maximising benefits for society rather than pure capability.
“We need to employ effective management in all areas of its development,” he said. “We stand on a threshold of a brave new world. It is an exciting, if precarious, place to be and you are the pioneers.”
DEATH BY FIREBALL
Overpopulation is going to turn our planet into a red-hot fireball.
Prof Hawking warned the Earth will be reduced to a ball of fire within 600 years when our energy consumption overloads.
In a video appearance at the 2017 Tencent WE Summit in Beijing, he said: “By the year 2600, the world’s population would be standing shoulder to shoulder, and the electricity consumption would make the Earth glow red-hot.”
To save ourselves, he said we must take a leaf out of Star Trek and “boldly go where no one has gone before”.The planet is eventually going to become one big, red-hot fireball.
He has also warned that over the next 100 years, we need to look to colonise Mars and other planets.
Speaking at the Starmus science festival in Norway last year, he said the Moon and Mars would be the best sites to begin new colonies, and said we could establish outposts on these sites within 30 and 50 years respectively, The Telegraph reported.
ASTEROID STRIKES
Prof Hawking has warned that if global warming doesn’t wipe us out, an asteroid strike will.
At the Starmus festival, he said it was only a matter of time before the Earth would be destroyed by either an asteroid, soaring temperatures or overpopulation.
“This is not science fiction. It is guaranteed by the laws of physics and probability,” he said.
“To stay risks being annihilated.
“Spreading out into space will completely change the future of humanity. It may also determine whether we have any future at all.”Prof Hawking warned that becoming a “cosmic sloth” was not an option.
“Wherever we go we will need to build a civilisation, we will need to take the practical means of establishing a whole new ecosystem that will survive in an environment that we know very little about and we will need to consider transporting several thousands of people, animals, plants, fungi, bacteria and insects.”
As the Ghouta campaign continues to unfold, we should expect that both politicians and mainstream media will give us – in the words of philosopher and theologian Reinhold Niebuhr – “necessary illusion and emotionally potent oversimplifications” intended to shape our perceptions of events.
It goes without saying that such “emotionally potent oversimplifications” on Syria have formed the dominant paradigm through which the American public has received its information over the past seven years of war. From the State Department officials to think tank “experts” to the Graham/McCain axis to CNN panelists to the neocon twitterati and all the usual interventionistas who cast everything in terms of Manichean good vs. evil, darkness vs. light, bloodthirsty tyrants vs. noble populace – we’ve had to endure and fight seven years of a constant stream of propaganda on Syria.
Image source: Thierry Ehrmann via Flickr
This worldview is what BBC filmmaker Adam Curtis accurately characterized as a ‘goodies and baddies’ dualistic vision of global events which keeps the Western public under the illusion that its own political leaders are perpetually driven by concern over human rights, defending the weak and oppressed, and spreading democracy over and against the unenlightened megalomaniac dictators of the world who are simply bent on brutalizing their own people.
The question at the heart of this whole story is – Who was the ventriloquist? And who was the dummy? Maybe we were the dummy? By allowing perception management with its simplifications, falsehoods and exaggerations to create a simplified vision of the world – we fell into a fake universe of certainty when really we were just watching a pantomime.
And now as the Arab Spring unfolds and reveals the true chaos and messiness of the real world – above all the horror of what is happening in Syria – we find ourselves completely unable to understand it or even know what to do. So those stories get ignored while we follow others with clearer and more simplified dramas which have what seem to be obvious goodies and baddies – thank god for Iran, North Korea and Jimmy Savile.
Although the Syrian war is almost over, many Americans still don’t understand what transpired over the last seven years, because the mainstream narrative has been an embarrassing mix of propaganda, half-truths and lies.
Once upon a time, a country called Syria was ruled by a ruthless dictator named Bashar Al-Assad. He was a cruel man who gassed his own people. His actions caused a civil war in Syria. America and Europe tried their best to stop the devastating civil war, and even generously accepted many Syrian refugees. Eventually America went to Syria, defeated ISIS, and is now trying to restore stability.
This above version is quite popular among many Americans and Europeans and the Western mainstream media.
* * *
High School Version
Oppressed by Assad’s brutal regime, the Syrian people longed for freedom and democracy. One day, people started protesting in a small city. In response, Assad killed many peaceful protesters. However, this backfired and the entire country was engulfed in protests. Soon a civil war broke out, which led to millions of refugees fleeing Syria.
America was appalled and, for humanitarian reasons, decided to help the Syrians who were fighting Assad. When Assad gassed his own people, America intervened and removed all his chemical weapons. Unfortunately, Assad managed to gas innocent civilians again after a few years. Then, America went to Syria, defeated ISIS, and is now trying to restore stability.
The above version is presented in most of the global mainstream media.
* * *
College Version
Simply put, the Syrian “civil war” is an illegal, proxy war waged against Syria. In defiance of international laws, many countries have been sending weapons and terrorist mercenaries into Syria for the last seven years (to gain a deeper understanding of who wants to topple Assad and why, please read: Chaos in Syria: Part 1 – Three Motives and Seven Countries).
2011
In early 2011, US/UK special forces used Jordan’s military base to assist protests against Assad in a border town called Daraa. With the Muslim Brotherhood’s organizational skills and Saudi Arabia’s deep pockets, violent protests spread thru Syria. Soon, an organized and armed militia known as Free Syrian Army (FSA) was created by the outsiders.
After the fall of Gaddafi in late 2011, the US State Department and US intelligence agencies organized the shipment of tons of deadly weapons such as Stinger missiles and Sarin gas from destroyed Libya to Syria, via Turkey. Even with all this help, the American proxy force known as the FSA couldn’t win the war. At this point, NATO and Neocons wanted to bomb Syria, but Russia and China vetoed the motion in the UN, so the imperial war by deception moved on to the next phase.
2012
In early 2012, someone dialed Al Qaeda (referred to as AQ or AQI in government documents). Zawahiri, AQ’s top leader, called for help and experienced Islamic terrorists from all over the world rushed into Syria by way of Saudi Arabia’s international jihadist recruitment agency. Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, received an email from her chief adviser, saying that “Al Qaeda is on our side” .
Al Qaeda rebranded itself as Al Nusra, and fearsome weapons such as grenade launchers, mortars, tanks and anti-tank missiles started pouring into Syria via Turkey and Jordan.
The CIA spent $100,000 to train each rebel. Billions of US taxpayers dollars were wasted once again on supporting the same terrorist groups that attacked the USA on 9/11 .
Watching the western media, the average person had no idea that we were supporting Al Qaeda or how heavily armed these “rebels” were.
Western media and politicians also stuck to their talking points and referred to all these fighters as “moderate rebels.” However, many of them are ruthless Islamists who use suicide bombers, behead even children, and commit unspeakable atrocities. They are also religious fanatics who seek out and kill Christians and Shiites. This is described in detail in the book, Deconstructing the Syrian War.
A Pentagon memo warned against this reckless policy and precisely predicted the rise of groups such as ISIS. Obviously the memo was ignored (or even happily accepted) by the White House and other officials.
2012 was also the year when the refugee crisis became a serious international problem. By the end of the year, almost 200,000 people had fled Syria. In the coming years, it would swell to five million.
2013
When FSA and AQ failed to oust Assad, the “powers that be” started recruiting Sunni extremists in Iraq. In April 2013, ISIS was officially established out of the AQI insurgency. In the next year, these barbaric mercenaries would capture much of eastern Syria.
This was also the year when Obama’s red-line was crossed – the use of chemical weapons by Assad. UN experts who went to the site soon found that it was actually the rebels who had likely used the chemical weapons. The report was quickly drowned by the western propaganda machine.
2014-2016
The next two years were just repetitions of the daily brutality of war, with ISIS making huge gains in the east. Whenever the rebels started to lose, either more weapons would flow in, or Israel would fly into Syria and bomb the Syrian army.
In late 2015, the Syrian government sought Russia’s help. Within a month, the Russian air force weakened ISIS by destroying most of the oil tankers that ISIS was using to transport oil to Turkey. By the end of 2016, the Syrian government had the upper hand – Aleppo was liberated from Al Qaeda, and ISIS was running out of cash and morale.
2017
2017 was turning out to be a great year for Assad. By March, ISIS had lost over three hundred towns to the Syrian army. Al Qaeda was facing a similar demise, losing one big city after another.
Furthermore, Trump had stopped arming the rebels in February. In late March, Trump and Tillerson dropped the slogan “Assad must go”.
This was the moment (when events had turned in favor of the Syrian government) that the alleged chemical attack occurred in an area controlled by the rebels in Idlib province. Plus it happened on the very day that the peace conference began.
Without any investigation, within an hour after the pictures and videos came out, Western warmongers declared that Assad was responsible. No independent doctors or experts were sent to the site. Anyone who took the time to critically analyze the situation could see that the chemical attack was likely either a hoax or a false flag attack.
2018
After Russia had effectively defeated ISIS, the US didn’t just leave Syria, since the real goal is to Balkanize Syria and prepare for a war against Iran. Thus the West is now trying to use Kurds as a proxy tool in this effort. It’s likely that the US will have military bases in Syria for a long time. As long as the US government can keep borrowing money, such wild adventures will continue.
In their quest for hegemonic geopolitical goals, the elites are sowing more chaos around the world and irreparably damaging the western moral compass. The global mafia’s rule seems to be this: if you play by our rules, we will be nice to you. If you don’t…
Those are the three versions of the Syrian civil war. Which one will Americans choose to believe?
* * *
P.S. Here are some links to read if you would like to gain a Ph.D. version of the Syrian conflict:
a. 1956: CIA plot to overthrow the Syrian government
b. 1983: CIA document on plans to obliterate Syria to enable an oil pipeline
c. 1986: CIA document on how to use Muslim Brotherhood to fuel a sectarian (Sunni v. Shiite) civil war in Syria
d. 2001: Wesley Clark told that USA will take out 7 countries in 5 years (Libya, Syria etc.)
e. 2005: CNN Interview. Christiane Amanpour tells Assad that the western governments are plotting a regime change in Syria
f. 2006: State Dept cable: Detailed discussion of various strategies to enable regime change in Syria
g. 2009: State Dept Email: Saudi Arabia is worried that a Shiite crescent is turning into a full moon (referring to a possible Iran-Iraq-Syria-Lebanon coalition)
h. 2009: State Dept Cable: Saudi Arabia is the #1 source of funding of terrorism worldwide
i. 2012 State Dept Email: Conquest of Syria means a weakened Iran and this is important for Israel
j. 2012: State Dept Email: Use Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey to arm/train rebels
l. 2015: Joe Biden says Saudi Arabia and Qatar arming/funding Al Qaeda in Syria
m. 2016: John Kerry in a leaked audio recording explains how the US trained/armed the opposition and was hoping to use ISIS to force Assad into negotiation
U.S. Capitol Police have arrested a Democrat staffer from the American Bridge political action committee (PAC) on Thursday for assaulting a female Interior Department communications official after a House budget hearing.
The suspect, whose name is currently withheld, reportedly shoved the woman to the ground while chasing down Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke following his testimony to the House Committee on Natural Resources on the department’s 2019 budget proposal, according to the Daily Caller‘s Michael Bastasch.
Interior officials filed a police report, The Daily Caller News Foundation has learned, but it has not yet been processed, police said. It will be made public in seven to 10 days once processed. American Bridge did not respond to TheDCNF’s request for comment. –Daily Caller
An officer told Politicothat they “arrested an adult male for simple assault against another individual outside room 1234 in the Longworth House Office Building,” adding “The suspect was transported to USCP Headquarters for processing.”
Interior communications director Laura Rigas told Politico she was “greatly alarmed and extremely irate that a female senior member of my DOI Communications team was physically assaulted today by a Democrat staffer from the PAC American Bridge.”
“We are appalled to hear of the events following yesterday’s hearing where a member of Secretary Zinke’s staff was victim to an assault,” committee spokeswoman Katie Schoettler told the Daily Caller News Foundation (DCNF).
“These actions are reprehensible and have no place in this body. We thank the U.S. Capitol Police for their quick response and professionalism,” Schoettler said. “The USCP is now handling the matter.”
American Bridge is a political action committee founded by Democratic operative David Brock in 2010 and funded in part by George Soros – who donated $2 million to the PAC in 2016. Their mandate is “holding Republicans accountable for their words and actions,” according to their website.
California high school history teacher Julianne Benzel is on paid suspension after engaging her students in a discussion where she shared her perspective on the politics of organized protests in anticipation of the National School Walkout, which took place on the morning of March 14.
“We had a dialogue in class about it in Thursday and Friday. And today I received the call. So I am aghast,” Benzel told CBS Sacramento.
Benzel said that she questioned her students as to the appropriateness of schools sanctioning a protest against gun violence and whether the school administration was willing to allow protests for other causes, but she noted that she never discouraged her pupils from taking part in the walkout.
“If you’re going to allow students to walk up and get out of class without penalty then you have to allow any group of students that wants to protest,” Benzel said.
“And so I just kind of used the example which I know it’s really controversial, but I know it was the best example I thought of at the time,” Benzel told CBS Sacramento.
“[If] a group of students nationwide, or even locally, decided ‘I want to walk out of school for 17 minutes’ and go in the quad area and protest abortion, would that be allowed by our administration?”
According to Benzel, her students understood the purpose of her discussion, but on Wednesday, she received notification that she was being placed on leave. While students were walking out of class, Benzel was informed she was being placed on paid administrative leave.
“I didn’t get any backlash from my students. All my students totally understood that there could not be a double standard,” she said.
School officials didn’t elaborate on the specific nature of the issue, but released a statement reading in part:
A Rocklin High School teacher has been placed on paid administrative leave due to several complaints from parents and students involving the teacher’s communications regarding today’s student-led civic engagement activities.
Benzel said that she hopes the national student walkout will facilitate broader discussion not focused entirely on second amendment gun rights, but also on free speech.
Student Nick Wade, who didn’t walk out, told CBS13 that he believes the politics behind the protest played a large role – and that protests related to a more “conservative” cause would likely be denied by school officials.
“I feel like if we were to go to school and say something like I want to walk out maybe for abortion rights, then you know they probably wouldn’t let us because that’s more of a conservative push. But someone wants to say let’s walk out for gun control then the school’s going to go with it because it’s more of a popular view,” said Wade.
Benzel told the news station that she acquired legal counsel and plans to meet with the school administration on Thursday.
White House Chief of Staff John Kelly told White House staff in a Friday meeting that there would be no more dismissals at this time, according to The Hill.
The news follows a wild week of firings and speculation over who’s neck is on the block – following the abrupt ouster of Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson and his assistant.
“The chief of staff actually spoke to a number of staff this morning, reassuring them that there were no immediate personnel changes at this time and that people shouldn’t be concerned, that we should do exactly what we do everyday, and that’s come to work and do the best job we can,” said White House press secretary Sarah Sanders.
“That’s exactly what we’re doing and exactly what we’re focused on.”
The Friday announcement comes on the heels of a report by the Washington Post late Thursday that Trump was firing national security adviser H.R. McMaster – and would reportedly be looking for a “soft landing spot” for the three-star general in a position where he could earn his fourth star.
Sanders tamped down that rumor at the Friday briefing, telling reporters “he president said that it was not accurate and he had no intention of changing and that they have a great working relationship and he looked forward to continuing to work with him.”
“Our focus is not on a lot of the news stories you would like us to be focused on,” Sanders told reporters. “We’re actually focused on what the American people want us to do. That’s to come here, to do our jobs. General McMaster is a dedicated public servant and he is here not focused on the news stories that many of you are writing but on some really big issues, things like North Korea, Russia, Iran. That’s what he’s doing. And that’s what we’ll continue to be focused on every single day we show up for work.”
Looks like that was fake news from WaPo
Is Trump a leaker?
Axios’ Jonathan Swan reports that John Kelly told reporters in an off-the-record briefing that President Trump is “likely speculating about staff moves to people outside the White House and that reporters are then talking to those people. And that’s how a good deal of news is likely being made about all the possible replacements.”
What we’re hearing:
Kelly acknowledged to the reporters it’s likely that Trump is talking to people outside the White House and that reporters are then talking to those people. Kelly cast Trump’s own conversations as a significant contributing factor to stories about the staff changes. (Kelly was making the point that he’s not around for a lot of Trump’s conversations so can’t be sure what he’s telling people over the phone.)
Kelly disputed the reports about H.R. McMaster imminently leaving the White House. He said there are no active plans to replace him, and added that it would be great if the Army gave McMaster a 4th star.
Kelly also defended HUD Sec. Ben Carson, who is under pressure for spending $31,000 on a furniture set. Kelly said $31,000 sounds like a lot of money, but to put it in context he asked a reporter how much they think the chair they’re sitting on costs. Kelly said it’s probably worth hundreds of dollars but it will last a long time. He rationalized Carson’s $31,000 outlay by saying the table could last for 80 or 100 years. Kelly was pressed on whether the President was going to fire Carson. He made a military analogy. He said whenever he makes a decision, he makes sure that it’s legally permissible and from that line he takes five paces back — to allow for optics, ethical and other considerations. Kelly said he wants all decision-making across government to be like that and the impression reporters were left with was that Carson is not going to be fired.
Kelly said he has been telling Trump that Jeff Sessions is doing a good job. Kelly went above and beyond to defend Sessions, and told the president that the press only reports about 3% of what he does.
He said Deputy A.G. Rod Rosenstein and FBI Director Chris Wray are also doing good jobs.
Kelly also said that Larry Kudlow’s past cocaine habit won’t be a problem for his security clearance, as it is public knowledge. Kelly joked that the 1990s were “a crazy time.” –Axios
It would seem counterintuitive for Trump to purposefully project an image of chaos within the White House. Then again, maybe it’s all part of the show.
Fordham University students protested against “white supremacy” Monday, specifically citing an incident in which conservative students tried to buy coffee while wearing MAGA gear.
Fordham Students United (FSU), “an intersectional coalition of student leaders, activists, faculty & alumni,” staged the March 12 protest in an effort to “bring social justice on campus,” writing on the Facebook page for the demonstration that “white supremacy” is present on campus but the administration has “failed to publicly denounce it.”
The Fordham Ram reports that the protest, clocking in at an hour and a half, consisted of students shouting chants of “hate speech is not free speech” and marching with signs stating that “Racism is a Social Sin” and “White Supremacy Kills.”
“Fordham’s policies and protection of white supremacy is putting people at risk,” one student shouted into a megaphone, with another claiming that the goal of the protest was to inspire a response from the administration.
“We just want to call on the school to directly address that there is a problem of white supremacy on campus, to denounce it, and to hold the people who are propagating this message accountable,” student Reyna Wang told the Ram, while another claimed that she is “literally scared” by the situation.
As evidence of the white supremacy on campus, the protesters referenced a recent incident in which the president of a student group that runs an on-campus coffee house was disciplined for demanding that members of the school’s College Republicans chapter leave because their pro-Trump apparel violated the shop’s “Safer Space Policy.”
Fordham, notably, sanctioned both the president of the coffee house as well as the student who recorded the encounter, but the FSU protesters were still disappointed in the outcome, saying the College Republicans demonstrated “threatening behavior” by showing up at the coffee shop in MAGA gear and expecting to be served like normal customers.
The group also argues in its Facebook page that the College Republicans “set her (the president) up to be a target of harassment by national right-wing news and its followers.”
Additionally, the Facebook page points to a a student’s social media post featuring the “flag of Kekistan,” an alt-right symbol, as further evidence of the need to protest white supremacy.
FSU contends that the alt-right flag, patterned on the Nazi German war ensign, is “a symbol of white nationalism,” but ignored the student paper’s discovery that nine of the 10 students pictured were unaware of what the flag was and what it stood for.
“Fordham’s response, or lack thereof, to these events shows that the only free speech Fordham is willing to protect is the violent and racist rhetoric that actively targets and threatens students of color, LGBTQ+ folks, immigrants, Muslims, Jews, and other minority groups,” the Facebook page for the protest concludes.
In response to the protests, Director of Communications Bob Howe told the Ram that as much as “the administration would like to protect the university community from hate speech, we are not insulated from the culture around us, a culture that is increasingly divisive and in some cases openly hateful.”
Virtually the entire media complex megaphoned a 2017 report by Soros-backed news outlet ProPublica, and to a lesser extent a similar report in the New York Times, claiming that Trump’s new pick to lead the CIA, Gina Haspel, oversaw a “clandestine base” in Thailand where she participated in, and mocked the torture of suspected al-Qaida leader Abu Zubaydah.
The claims were retracted by ProPublica in an embarrassing correction.
On Feb. 22, 2017, ProPublica published a story that inaccurately described Gina Haspel’s role in the treatment of Abu Zubaydah, a suspected al-Qaida leader who was imprisoned by the CIA at a secret “black site” in Thailand in 2002.
The story said that Haspel, a career CIA officer who President Trump has nominated to be the next director of central intelligence, oversaw the clandestine base where Zubaydah was subjected to waterboarding and other coercive interrogation methods that are widely seen as torture. The story also said she mocked the prisoner’s suffering in a private conversation. Neither of these assertions is correct and we retract them. It is now clear that Haspel did not take charge of the base until after the interrogation of Zubaydah ended.
Of note, the ProPublica article was published right after the Trump administration promoted Haspel to the CIA’s #2 job in early February, 2017 in what appears to be nothing more than a political hit piece.
ProPublica’s conclusion was drawn from “declassified agency cables” and CIA-reviewed books which referred to Haspel “chief of base.” The name of the official was redacted, as well as an online post from former CIA counterterrorism officer, John Kiriakous, who wrote “It was Haspel who oversaw the staff” at the Thai prison.
That’s it. Redacted cables and a book which did not state the name of the base chief, and an online post by a CIA counterterrorism officer saying it was Haspel is all it took to smear a woman placed in a top position within the CIA – weeks after the Trump administration gave the 30-year veteran the promotion.
The first clue that something was off in the report was the CIA’s statement to ProPublica for the original 2017 report in which an agency spokesperson said “Nearly every piece of the reporting that you are seeking comment on is incorrect in whole or in part.”
While Haspel – according to former colleagues, did run the Thai base – the New York Times published a recent piece placing her arrival in late 2002, after the waterboarding of Zubaydah.
And while the MSM glazed over the fact that Trump appointed the CIA’s first female director this week, the media ran with the torture narrative – hard. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) even demanded that the CIA declassify documents detailing Haspel’s ties to the torture program.
Abu Zubaydah’s lawyer, Joseph Margulies, penned an angry op-ed in TIME. “In short, all we know for sure is that Haspel was in charge of a site where torture took place,” Marguiles wrote. “And make no mistake: it was torture.”
The narrative is already out there. I doubt that MSNBC and CNN are going to go back and dedicate hours of time to undo the damage that you did. Almost like this was planned and intentional. https://t.co/JRiQUKlsy0
James Mitchell, the psychologist and CIA contractor who helped to direct the waterboarding of both suspects, said in a broadcast interview on March 14 that Haspel was not the “chief of base” whom he described in his book as making fun of Zubaydah’s suffering.
“That chief of base was not Gina,” Mitchell told Fox Business News. “She’s not the COB I was talking about.”
Mitchell’s book, “Enhanced Interrogation: Inside the Minds and Motives of the Islamic Terrorists Trying to Destroy America,” referred to the chief of base in Thailand as both “he” and “she.”
We erroneously assumed that this was an effort by Mitchell or the agency to conceal the gender of the single official involved; it is now clear that Mitchell was referring to two different people.
So in an effort to smear a Trump appointee that the MSM would be fawning over if Obama had appointed the first woman to lead the CIA, the entire mainstream media complex and Dianne Feinstein relied on a report from a Soros-backed news outlet and the New York Times, which both published hit pieces right after the Trump administration promoted her the first time, and were both wrong.
That said, the correction doesn’t completely excuse Haspel from her involvement in the program, as she still reportedly ran the base at which “enhanced interrogations” occurred, and advised her boss to shred 92 tapes of Zubaydah’s waterboarding, which he did. It also doesn’t take away from arguments against enhanced interrogations in general.
The CIA’s office of public affairs, meanwhile, praised Haspel’s service.
Dean Boyd, director of the CIA’s office of public affairs, praised Haspel’s 30 years of public service and said Thursday in a statement that her qualifications and capabilities would be evident in the hearing process.
“It is important to note that she has spent nearly her entire CIA career undercover,” Boyd said. “Much of what is in the public domain about her is inaccurate. We are pleased that ProPublica is willing to acknowledge its mistakes and correct the record regarding its claims about Ms. Haspel.”
This is some mistake …
… I and many others relayed this reporting, which has now been retracted. https://t.co/f6SA8vh9j5
ProPublica corrects the(ir) record: Gina Haspel never oversaw the waterboarding of Zubaydah and never taunted/mocked him. She only took command of the base after Zubaydah’s torture had ended.
I tweeted this story, only seems fair to tweet the retraction. Note that PP is not retracting the part of the story in which Haspel ordered the destruction of torture tapes. https://t.co/JimgEfdNKn
