Tuesday, October 24, 2017
Fusion GPS Says Subpoena For Its Bank Records Will ‘Ruin’ Its Business, Endanger Its Clients
The opposition research firm behind the Trump dossier says that a House Intelligence Committee subpoena seeking its bank records has a good chance of “ruining” its business, as well as of putting its clients’ safety at risk.
The firm, Fusion GPS, also argued in a late-night court filing that the subpoena, issued earlier this month for TD Bank, will have a “chilling” effect on the First Amendment and privacy rights of it and its clients.
“In short, compliance with this subpoena will not only harm Plaintiff’s business, it has a high likelihood of ruining it,” reads one of the arguments presented by Fusion GPS in court papers filed in federal court in Washington, D.C.
Fusion’s argument is part of a mad dash effort to prevent the House committee from finding out who hired the firm to investigate Trump. That question has remained a closely-held secret ever since the dossier, written by...
Algebra and Geometry perpetuate white privilege, math professor says
Rochelle Gutierrez, a professor at the University of Illinois, made the claim in a new anthology for math teachers, arguing that teachers must be aware of the “politics that mathematics brings” in society.
“On many levels, mathematics itself operates as Whiteness. Who gets credit for doing and developing mathematics, who is capable in mathematics, and who is seen as part of the mathematical community is generally viewed as White,” Gutierrez argued.
Gutierrez also worries that algebra and geometry perpetuate privilege, fretting that “curricula emphasizing terms like Pythagorean theorem and pi perpetuate a perception that mathematics was largely developed by Greeks and other Europeans.”
Math also helps actively perpetuate white privilege too, since the way our economy places a premium on math skills gives math a form of “unearned privilege” for math professors, who are disproportionately white.
“Are we really that smart just because we do mathematics?” she asks, further wondering why math professors get more research grants than “social studies or English” professors.
Further, she also worries that evaluations of math skills can perpetuate discrimination against minorities, especially if they do worse than their white counterparts.
“If one is not viewed as mathematical, there will always be a sense of...
The 90 Miles Mystery Box: Episode #54
You have come across a mystery box. But what is inside?
It could be literally anything from the serene to the horrific,
from the beautiful to the repugnant,
from the mysterious to the familiar.
If you decide to open it, you could be disappointed,
you could be inspired, you could be appalled.
This is not for the faint of heart or the easily offended.
You have been warned.
Monday, October 23, 2017
Blogs With Rule 5 Links
These Blogs Provide Links To Rule 5 Sites:
The Other McCain has: Late Night With Rule Five Tuesday: Rebel Girls
Proof Positive has: Best Of Web Link Around
The Woodsterman has: Rule 5 Woodsterman Style
The Right Way has: Rule 5 Saturday LinkORama
The Pirate's Cove has: Sorta Blogless Sunday Pinup
The shells from an allied creeping bombardment on German lines, 1916
More Great Photos:
Hot dog stand - Chicago 1962
Equality Of Opportunity Is Freedom...
Equality Of Outcome Is Tyranny...
Equality Is A False God...
More On Egalitarianism...
Egalitarianism Is A Fools Game..
Egalitarianism Is Evil And Helps No one..
Egalitarianism Is Slavery...
NEW YORK’S COMMUNIST MAYOR DEBLASIO IGNORES ICE HOLDS AND RELEASES SEX OFFENDERS, DRUG DEALERS
DeBlasio is in violation of federal law and is putting the residents of his own city, whom he is sworn to protect, at great risk.
What follows are a few recent arrests made directly by ICE after NYC officials refused to do their jobs…
Breitbart recently reported:
–Gurnam Singh, a 21-year-old illegal alien from India, who is accused of assault, forcible touching, harassment and sexual abuse. Singh was first arrested by New York law enforcement in December 2016. After being released, Singh was re-arrested days later, but released on bond shortly after. In June, Singh was arrested for a third time by New York law enforcement on assault and harassment charges but was quickly released again. ICE officials say that because New York City shut down the...
When Rioting Becomes Sedition..
se·di·tion
səˈdiSH(ə)n/
noun
- conduct or speech inciting people to rebel against the authority of a state or monarch.
synonyms: rabble-rousing, incitement to rebel, subversion, troublemaking, provocation; More
Jimmy Carter Unleashed: Russians Didn't Alter Election, Obama Didn't Deliver, We Didn't Vote For Hillary
The former president sat down with The New York Times recently and chatted about all kinds of subjects. The Times decided to play up the fact that Carter — one of the worst presidents in U.S. history — would love to go over to North Korea as an envoy.
But the Times is steadily proving how out of touch it is, and how it no longer seems to actually "get" what real news is.
Here are some major highlights from the interview:
1. The Russians didn't steal the 2016 election.
Carter was asked "Did the Russians purloin the election from Hillary?"
"I don’t think there’s any evidence that what the Russians did changed enough votes — or any votes," Carter said.
So the hard-left former president doesn't think the Russians stole the election? Take note, Capitol Hill Democrats.
2. We didn't vote for Hillary.
Carter and his wife, Roselyn, disagreed on the Russia question. In the interview, she "looked over archly [and said] 'They obviously did'" purloin the election.
“Rosie and I have a difference of opinion on that,” Carter said.
Rosalynn then said, “The drip-drip-drip about Hillary.”
Which prompted Carter to note that during the primary, they didn't vote for Hillary Clinton. "We voted for Sanders.”
3. Obama fell far short of his promises.
Barack Obama whooshed into office on pledges of delivering "hope and change" to the country, spilt by partisan politics.
He didn't. In fact, he made it worse.
"He made some very wonderful statements, in my opinion, when he first got in office, and then he reneged on that," he said about Obama's action on the Middle East.
4. Media "harder on Trump than any president."
A recent Harvard study showed that 93% of new coverage about President Trump is negative.
But here's another shocker: Carter defended Trump.
"I think the media have been harder on Trump than any other president certainly that I've known about," Carter said. "I think they feel free to claim that Trump is mentally deranged and everything else without hesitation."
5. NFL players should "stand during the American anthem."
Carter, who joined the other four living ex-presidents on Saturday for a hurricane fundraiser, put his hand on his heart when the national anthem played — and he has a strong opinion about what NFL players should do, too.
"I think they...
Japanese defense minister sounds alarm on North Korea
The minister, Itsunori Odonera, said that this rising threat means his country, along with South Korea and the United States, have to collectively take what he called "different responses."
His comments, made through an interpreter, came at the outset of a meeting in the Philippines with U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and South Korea's defense minister, Song Young-moo.
Onodera noted that North Korea has recently launched ballistic missiles that have overflown Japanese territory and said it cannot be ruled out that a recent underground nuclear test by North Korea was a...
LONDON IS FALLING: UK Capital Now More Dangerous than NYC… More Rape, More Robbery, More Violence
Released Thursday, the new crime statistics showed plainly the astonishing rise of offences, with an overall rise of 19 per cent of violence against the person, and a 19 per cent rise of sexual offences.
Yet these numbers hide the even steeper ascent of particularly serious crimes, including a 22 per cent rise in rape, a 26 per cent rise in knife crime, and perhaps most amazingly of all — considering the United Kingdom’s draconian gun laws — a 27 per cent rise in gun crime. These increases compound another significant rise from the year before.
While these figures cover the whole of England and Wales, much of these crime surges are concentrated in the capital, London, which is experiencing an unprecedented surge in acid attacks, which comes on top of the more familiar stabbings and shootings.
Now an analysis of crime figures from London and New York by the Daily Telegraph show some parallels between the cities, as well as some shocking divergences which may leave British taxpayers asking what has gone so wrong in policing the capital.
While the sizes of population, numbers of police officers, and even police force budgets of the two cities are strikingly similar, the analysis reveals there are three times more reported rapes in London, and “you are almost six times more likely to be...
The 90 Miles Mystery Box: Episode #53
You have come across a mystery box. But what is inside?
It could be literally anything from the serene to the horrific,
from the beautiful to the repugnant,
from the mysterious to the familiar.
If you decide to open it, you could be disappointed,
you could be inspired, you could be appalled.
This is not for the faint of heart or the easily offended.
You have been warned.
Sunday, October 22, 2017
Terrorism-Related Cases In Germany Quadruple In One Year
Prosecutors have opened more than 900 cases so far this year, compared to 240 throughout 2016. Just 80 cases related to terrorism reached the courts in 2013.
The federal prosecutors office can’t keep up with the increase and nearly 300 cases have been transferred to the state level. Not all cases involve plans to carry out attacks. Migrants from Syran, Iraq and Afghanistan have been tried over alleged membership in terror groups without being suspected of planning attacks on European soil.
Germany’s federal police (BKA) estimates 705 Islamist extremists are willing to carry out terror attacks, up from 600 during an estimate in February. Germany’s domestic intelligence agency (BfV) recently said around 24,400 Islamists are active in the country but most of them don’t pose an immediate terror threat.
BKA chief Holger Münch told daily newspaper Frankfurter Rundschau in July that the danger from the far-right and far-left is minor compared to threats posed by...
Fired Venezuela Prosecutor Leaks Video Implicating Maduro In Taking $35M Bribe
Venezuela’s ousted chief prosecutor Luisa Ortega published on her blog a video last week that showed an executive of the scandal-hit Brazilian firm Odebrecht claiming he had paid a huge bribe to the nation’s president.
Euzenando Prazeres de Azevedo was filmed speaking with Brazilian prosecutors in December 2016. He appears to confess that Nicolas Maduro’s middleman solicited a large contribution from Brazilian business to his 2013 presidential campaign.
“HE ASKED FOR US$50 MILLION, BUT I AGREED TO PAY US$35 MILLION,” THE EXECUTIVE SAID IN A TESTIMONY. AZEVEDO ADDED HE HAD RECEIVED ASSURANCES THAT MADURO WOULD PRIORITIZE ODEBRECHT PROJECTS IF HE WERE TO WIN THE VENEZUELAN PRESIDENCY.
The recording was said to have been made by Brazilian prosecutors last December.
The president’s office made no immediate comment Thursday about the accusation, and state television did not mention it.
Vladimir Aras, a senior Brazilian prosecutor who until recently led the attorney general’s international cooperation office, said that the recording was authentic. According to Mr. Aras, it was among the pieces of evidence that the Brazilian authorities shared with Ms. Ortega earlier this year after they grew convinced that she was intent on holding people suspected of being complicit in the bribes in Venezuela accountable.
The investigation into Odebrecht, a construction giant, has become the biggest corruption scandal in Latin America. The company is accused of paying millions in bribes to...
A top investigator at Judicial Watch is warning…
Chris Farrell, Director of Investigations and Research at the watchdog group, addressed the explosive developments and revelations pouring forth regarding the Obama administration, Hillary Clinton’s State Department and Eric Holder’s Department of Justice and their deep collaboration with the Russian government and business entities.
“People said, ‘Hey, where’s the Department of Justice investigation? Where’s the FBI?’ Half of the time, they’re complicit.”
Farrell addressed the dangerous nature of the on-going ‘Russian collusion’ witch hunt targeting the Trump administration, as it is essentially an inversion of justice that should have been exacted upon Obama administration officials, who have been embroiled in a scandal of epic proportions via the sale of 20% of US uranium to Russia in a deal involving mass-scale bribery and money laundering – and likely more serious crimes such as espionage and treason, which the Sessions DOJ is now reportedly investigating.
“This is evidence that we are becoming a failed state, and I’m not exaggerating when I say that,” Farrell said. “We have a paralyzed Justice Department and FBI, we have key leaders either unwilling to do anything or they themselves are personally compromised – these are all symptoms or evidence of a failed state. That’s where we’re going, and we’re doing it fast.”
“This level of corruption… this is not an exaggeration – we are at the edge of becoming a...
University teacher brags about policy to always call on white men last … and only if she has to
The open “war on white men” in post-Obama America is personified in the classroom of Stephanie McKellop, a graduate instructor at the University of Pennsylvania.
McKellop, a self-described “queer disabled feminist,” took to social media recently to say that she actively discriminates by calling on white male students last in her class room, if at all.
“I will always call on my Black women students first,” the teacher tweeted. “Other POC get second tier priority. WW come next. And, if I have to, white men.”
Not having the courage of her convictions, McKellop would delete the tweet when she faced heavy criticism, but it’s well known by now that the internet is forever:
This open discrimination — see racism — is called “progressive stacking,” which the left calls “revolutionary.”
Of course, if you are familiar with the failed Occupy Wall Street movement, the use of “progressive stack” was the norm during general assemblies where anyone could speak, with white males relegated to the back of the line, speaking after women and other minority groups.
McKellogs, a poster-child for eschewing a college education, clarified in a follow up tweet that only “white nationalists and Nazis” would be upset about this practice — she has since..
Mueller team criticized by fellow attorneys for history of questionable tactics
As the investigation heats up and key players like former White House chief of staff Reince Priebus and press secretary Sean Spicer are interviewed by investigators, several attorneys with experience in federal cases spoke out with their concerns this week.
Harvey Silverglate, a criminal defense attorney in Massachusetts, wrote an opinion piece accusing Mueller of once trying to entrap him when Mueller was acting U.S. attorney in Boston.
“I have known Mueller during key moments of his career as a federal prosecutor,” Silverglate wrote for WGBH News. “My experience has taught me to approach whatever he does in the Trump investigation with a requisite degree of skepticism or, at the very least, extreme caution.”
According to Silverglate, Mueller once sent someone into Silverglate's office offering to give false testimony for a client. Silverglate said he turned the offer down and noticed the man was wearing a wire.
“Years later I ran into Mueller, and I told him of my disappointment in being the target of a sting where there was no reason to think that I would knowingly present perjured evidence to a court,” Silverglate wrote. “Mueller, half-apologetically, told me that he never really thought that I would suborn perjury, but that he had a duty to pursue the lead given to him.”
A spokesman for the special counsel’s office declined to comment.
Sidney Powell, a former federal prosecutor, also took aim at Andrew Weissmann, the prosecutor tapped by Mueller to help lead the investigation, in a piece this week titled, “Judging by Mueller's staffing choices, he may not be very interested in justice.”
Powell accused Weissmann, once the director of the Enron Task Force, of “prosecutorial overreach” in past cases and said it could signal what’s to come for President Trump and his associates in the Russia probe.
“What was supposed to have been a search for Russia’s cyberspace intrusions into our electoral politics has morphed into a malevolent mission targeting friends, family and colleagues of the president,” Powell wrote in The Hill. “The Mueller investigation has become an all-out assault to find crimes to pin on...
The 90 Miles Mystery Box: Episode #52
You have come across a mystery box. But what is inside?
It could be literally anything from the serene to the horrific,
from the beautiful to the repugnant,
from the mysterious to the familiar.
If you decide to open it, you could be disappointed,
you could be inspired, you could be appalled.
This is not for the faint of heart or the easily offended.
You have been warned.
Saturday, October 21, 2017
Muslim migrant mobs turn violent, riot, attack German popular folk fair
GERMANY: MIGRANT GANGS TURN VIOLENT, DISRUPT POPULAR FAIR
All attackers were “immigrants or German citizens of immigrant-background.”
As Germany marks the second anniversary of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s fateful decision to open the country’s border to more than a million ‘refugees.’ gangs of migrant men rioted and disrupted a German popular folk fair, the “Fellbacher Herbst,” near the German city of Stuttgart.
“More than 60 youths aged between 15 and 19 planned beforehand to riot on Sunday and Saturday evening” reported the local German-language newspaper Stuttgarter Nachrichten on Wednesday. The rioting led to several injuries and at least one person was hospitalized after being attacked by a “dangerous instrument,” the newspaper revealed.
According to the local police, the violent mob was “exclusively” comprised “of immigrants or German citizens of immigrant-origin.” The media reports did not comment on the nationalities or the actual motives of the rioters.
The folk festival Fellbacher Herbst is regarded as the largest autumn and wine festivals in southern German state of Baden-Württemberg. Stuttgarter Nachrichten reported the incidents that took place last weekend:
Two gangs of youth from Fellbach and the surrounding areas had “planned beforehand to carry out the riot,” the officials from the mayor’s office and Fellbach Police said in a statement concerning [the event] over the weekend. Especially noticeable was the fact that the violent gang was made up of very young men. Around 60 young men between the ages of 15 and 19 clashed with each other. According to information provided by the police, they were all “exclusively German citizens of migrant-origin or migrants”.
The teens managed to evade the police and build small groups, forcing the police to...
Miami man inspired by ISIS arrested on charge of trying to blow up a bomb at Dolphin Mall
Vicente Solano, who acted alone, was communicating with a confidential informant who tipped off the FBI-led Joint Terrorism Task Force about his alleged plot to carry out a weapons of mass destruction attack on the sprawling mall in Doral, according to authorities.
Before the planned bombing attack, Solano made pro-Islamic State videos, authorities said. But there is no indication he was directed by ISIS terrorists.
When he was arrested, Solano planned to detonate the WMD, which was a sham bomb that he acquired from FBI undercover agents — a strategy deployed in previous counter-terrorism probes in South Florida.
Solano will have his first appearance in Miami federal court on Monday, when a criminal complaint and affidavit will be filed that charge him with attempting to blow up a WMD.
The FBI’s undercover operations have become textbook procedures in the post-9/11 era. Agents rely on confidential informants to bring them suspicious information, so they can engage a suspect plotting to use a WMD and thwart the plan before it happens. Informants routinely work with undercover agents while recording conversations with the suspect.
In recent years, the U.S. attorney’s office in Miami has obtained convictions against Harlem Suarez, a Key West man who plotted to blow up a bomb on a public beach while supporting a foreign terrorist organization, and James Medina, a Hollywood man who tried to bomb a synagogue in Aventura. Suarez, 25, was sentenced to...
MALKIN: Beware The Rape Allegation Bandwagon
Count me out.
It's one thing to break down cultural stigmas constructively, but the #MeToo movement is collectivist virtue signaling of a very perilous sort. The New York Times heralded the phenomenon with multiple articles "to show how commonplace sexual assault and harassment are." The Washington Post credited #MeToo with making "the scale of sexual abuse go viral." And actress Emily Ratajkowski declared at a Marie Claire magazine's women's conference on Monday:
"The most important response to #metoo is 'I believe you.'"
No. I do not believe every woman who is now standing up to "share her story" or "tell her truth." I owe no blind allegiance to any other woman simply because we share the same pronoun. Assertions are not truths until they are established as facts and corroborated with evidence. Timing, context, motives and manner all matter.
Because I reserve the right to vet the claims of individual sexual assault complainants instead of championing them all knee-jerk and wholesale as "victims," I've been scolded as insensitive and inhumane.
"TIMING DOES NOT MATTER," a Twitter user named Meg Yarbrough fumed. "What matters is what is best for EACH INDIVIDUAL victim. You should be ashamed of yourself."
CNN anchor Jake Tapper informed me, "People coming forward should be applauded." But applauding people for "coming forward" is not a journalistic tenet. It's an advocacy tenet. Tapper responded that he was expressing the sentiment as a "human being not as a journalist." Last time I checked, humans have brains. The Weinstein scandal is not an excuse to turn them off and abdicate a basic responsibility to assess the credibility of accusers. It's an incontrovertible fact that not all accusers' claims are equal.
Some number of harrowing encounters described by Weinstein's accusers and the #MeToo hashtag activists no doubt occurred. But experience and scientific literature show us that a significant portion of these allegations will turn out to be half-truths, exaggerations or outright fabrications. That's not victim-blaming. It's reality-checking.
It is irresponsible for news outlets to extrapolate how "commonplace" sexual abuse is based on hashtag trends spread by celebrities, anonymous claimants and bots. The role of the press should be verification, not validation. Instead of interviewing activist actresses, reporters should be interviewing bona fide experts.
Brent Turvey, a forensic scientist and criminal profiler who heads the Forensic Criminology Institute, is author or co-author of 16 criminal justice books, including textbooks on rape investigation, crime reconstruction, behavioral evidence analysis and forensic victimology.
Turvey's most recent book, written with retired NYPD special victim squad detective John Savino and Mexico-based forensic psychologist Aurelio Coronado Mares, is "False Allegations: Investigative and Forensic Issues in Fraudulent Reports of Crime."
Based on their review of decades of scientific literature, Turvey and his colleagues explode the "2 percent myth" peddled by politicians, victims' advocates and journalists "claiming that the nationwide false report rate for rape and sexual assault is nonexistent." In fact, the statistic was traced to an unverified citation in a 1975 book by feminist author Susan Brownmiller.
"This figure is not only inaccurate," Turvey and his co-authors conclude, "but also it has no basis in reality."
Published research has documented false rape and sexual assault rates ranging from 8 percent to 41 percent. Savino notes that in his NYPD's Manhattan Special Victim Squad, "our false report rate was in the double digits during all of my years. Sometimes, it was as high as 40 percent." Turvey, Savino, and Mares make clear to students that based on the evidence...
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