BLUF:
[Breitbart] The Post notes the informant’s role raises questions about how he first became involved in the case, the extent of the information he provided, the actions he took to obtain intelligence for the FBI, and whether his interaction with Page was for the FBI or for another agency, such as the CIA.
Details about the informant began leaking to the Times and the Post after House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes inquired about the informant last month.
Officials initially went to the White House to try to stop Nunes from receiving the information, according to the Post. After first denying his request, last week, Justice Department officials briefed Nunes and Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC). Emphasis added.
#1
....the actions he took to obtain intelligence for the FBI, and whether his interaction with Page was for the FBI or for another agency, such as the CIA.
The Director Central Intelligence Agency 'is' the national director of intelligence.
#2
Since opposition research is not illegal, even if with Russians, the 'spying' must have been part of a longstanding investigation of Trump-Russia financial dealings, or more likely, part of an investigation of Clinton security breaches. Trump is only at risk for false statements (on purpose or not) to the FBI.
[Al Jazeera] A 17-year-old boy armed with a shotgun and a revolver has shot up a school in the US state of Texas, killing at least 10 people and wounding 10 others, according to authorities. Yet another teenage dipshit whose life's accomplishment is to be dangerous. It's not a gun problem; it's a mental health problem.
The gunman, identified by police as Dimitrios Pagourtzis, was taken into custody on murder charges after the Friday morning attack at Santa Fe High School, located about 50km southeast of Houston,
Texas Governor Greg Abbott said the shooting, which took place shortly before 8am (13:00 GMT) was "one of the most heinous attacks that we've ever seen in the history of Texas schools".
"It's impossible to describe the magnitude of the evil of someone who would attack innocent children in a school," Abbott told news hounds on Friday afternoon.
"As of this time, there have been 10 lives that have been lost, and another 10 maimed," Abbott said.
"It's time in Texas that we take action to step up and make sure this tragedy is never repeated ever again in the history in the state of Texas," he added.
"One or two" other "people of interest" have been detained and are being questioned by officials, according to Abbott.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/19/2018 00:00 ||
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#1
It's not a gun problem; it's a mental health problem.
Of course it's a gun problem: bad guys have them and good guys don't.
Apparently Papa owns the guns legally, so as long as he did not say, “Here, son, go shoot up your classmates,” I don’t see how the conclusion follows.
The boy was on the freshman football team, went to church with his family... was a bit of a loner, but was still involved. According to reports he intended to commit suicide at the end of the planned adventure, but could not follow through. He probably hoped that shootings plus the bombs he’d scattered round the landscape would lead to a neat suicide by cop, taking the decision out of his hands.
#7
Hang him publicly, along with the Parkland shooter. Televise it and let any other copycat wannabe see them twitching at the end of that rope. Let that reality sink in a bit.
It’s one thing to consider shooting up a defenseless heard of your classmates like a video game, it’s another to see the end results of state administered punishment. These freaks should be given pause, and it guarantees no parole along with a modicum of justice to the families devastated by these actions.
#8
From USA Today: Two details set the Santa Fe shooting apart from other recent deadly attacks: explosives and the use of less-lethal weapons.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
05/19/2018 15:03 Comments ||
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#9
Fire up ol Sparky. This scumbag is not going to turn his life around.
Posted by: Regular joe ||
05/19/2018 16:24 Comments ||
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#10
Parent will go to jail. Texas has a law requiring parents to keep guns out of the hands of minors.
Tex. Penal Code § 46.13
IT IS UNLAWFUL TO STORE, TRANSPORT, OR ABANDON AN UNSECURED FIREARM IN A PLACE WHERE CHILDREN ARE LIKELY TO BE AND CAN OBTAIN ACCESS TO THE FIREARM.5
a person is criminally liable if he or she, “with criminal negligence:”
Failed to secure the firearm (i.e., to take steps a reasonable person would take to prevent the access to a readily dischargeable firearm by a child, including but not limited to placing a firearm in a locked container or temporarily rendering the firearm inoperable by a trigger lock or other means); or
Left the firearm in a place to which the person knew or should have known the child would gain access.
The penalty for a violation is significantly harsher if the child discharges the firearm and causes death or serious bodily injury to himself, herself or another person.
So for all those leftys that say "there ought to be a law", guess what, there is.
Criminals break laws. Thats what they do. Laws never stop the irrational people.
Its a lack of security, not of guns. This kid wounded the cops, critical condition for one of them. There needed to be strict control of the entry points so this nutbag never even got in the door. Metal detectors, single point of entry with controls and an armed presence right there.
[All Africa] Umguza Community Share Ownership Trust has dragged Home Affairs minister Obert Mpofu to court for allegedly grabbing borehole drilling equipment and accessories valued at US$600 000 from the trust.
Mpofu, regarded as an untouchable political godfather in the region, is accused of working with Matabeleland North Zanu PF chairman Richard Moyo and party activists to grab the equipment from the custody of the trust.
In an affidavit filed at the High Court in Bulawayo, Umguza scheme chairperson Felix Nhlanhla Ndiweni said the group of Zanu PF "thugs", operating under Mpofu's orders, had attempted to stop the trust's operations.
According to Ndiweni, the trust was carrying out a borehole drilling programme in the constituency. The programme had seen the trust drill 95 boreholes which benefitted clinics, an army base and schools.
"A few weeks ago, a group of thugs numbering 20 attempted to stop operations of the Applicant. They advised that they were under the instructions of the first respondent (Mpofu) and the second respondent (Moyo). They were chanting revolutionary songs and were visibly drunk and they were violent towards the Applicant's staff at the Umguza Rural District Council Reigate Depot," reads part of Ndiweni's affidavit filed by lawyer Dumisani Dube of Mathonsi Ncube Law Chambers.
Ndiweni added that in the midst of the commotion, the Zanu PF supporters grabbed keys to a drilling rig valued at US$500 000 as well as an assortment of equipment. "In the melee of the violence, they stole keys from a drilling rig that is used to drill boreholes rendering the rig which costs a sum of US$500 000 a non-runner," Ndiweni said.
"Further, they took keys for a single cab Toyota Hilux and one large truck on the instructions of the first and second respondents."
Ndiweni said the vehicle, registration number ADI 8492, was driven to Bulawayo and has been locked up at Mpofu's premises.
"More so, the respondents together in concert also took a PVC casing valued at US$4 150,12 drilling rods valued at US$18 000, a drum of compressor oil valued at US$1 000, a spare wheel valued at US$450, five hydraulic pumps valued at US$300, one borehole pump valued at US$2 200 and the Toyota Hilux valued at US$33 600.
"This was violently (done) after a meeting of the respondents at York House (Mpofu's offices) in Bulawayo had ad-hocly resolved to do so," Ndiweni wrote.
Ndiweni said the police had been reluctant to investigate the matter.
"Attempts to have the matter investigated by the Zim-bob-we Republic Police have yielded nothing as they keep stating that they need clearance to investigate the respondents who include the first respondent when the first respondent is the minister of Home Affairs," Ndiweni said.
"I submit that the applicant has been in peaceful, lawful, and undisturbed possession of the vehicles and equipment referred to above.
"(And) we have been advised that the only way of quickly gaining our possession and control of our equipment and vehicle is by way of an urgent application for a mandamen van spolie (spoliation order), especially since superintendent Mapiye and constable Makavu have advised our lawyers on the 16th of May by telephone that there is nothing they can do because of political pressure."
Posted by: Fred ||
05/19/2018 00:00 ||
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#1
Sounds like Atlanta, Chicago, or Baltimore politics. Perhaps someone can identify the common thread.
HAVANA (Reuters) - More than 100 people were killed in a fiery crash of a Boeing 737 passenger plane in Cuba on Friday, with just three seriously injured survivors in hospital after being pulled from the wreckage, officials and state media said.
The aircraft, on a domestic flight to Holguin in eastern Cuba, crashed shortly after taking off from Havana at 11 a.m. (1500 GMT). There were either 104 or 105 passengers, including five children, plus nine crew members, various state media said.
Five of the passengers plus the crew were foreign, media reports said. The Mexican government said Mexicans citizens were among the dead, without providing further details.
"We should expect that the news will not be good, as there are a high number of people who appear to have been killed," President Miguel Diaz-Canel said in broadcast comments.
The fire from the crash had been put out and authorities were identifying bodies, the president said. The cause of the crash was not immediately known and Diaz-Canel said authorities were investigating.
[Al Jazeera] Some say that Venezuelan presidential candidate Henri Falcon is attempting the political equivalent of climbing to the top of Mount Everest alone - and without oxygen.
Once a staunch supporter of deceased populist leader Hugo Chavez, the former Lara State governor broke with the Socialist party in 2010.
He is now promising to "save Venezuela from a dictatorship and economic ruin" if he is elected president on May 20.
Falcon is one of three outsiders in a race where the main opposition parties are conspicuously absent from the ballot. They are declaring the vote a "sham" and appealing to Venezuelans to stay away from the polls.
"On May 20, there are no elections," said Juan Pablo Guanipa, of the opposition Voluntad Popular Party. "We aren't talking about abstention or of not voting."
"We simply won't participate in a farce," he added. "We don't recognise the event that will take place as a legitimate election."
One the eve of the election, Maduro's Minister of Communications Jorge Rodriguez lashed out at domestic and international critics.
"It is very strange that the international community is declaring a fraud even before the election takes place," Rodriguez said.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/19/2018 00:00 ||
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#1
Harry Belafonte to the white courtesy phone please.
[KCNAWATCH.CO] (Rodong Sinmun) Some days ago, the U.S. House of Representatives shaped a bill on national defense right for fiscal 2019 which included the military budget to the tune of 717 billion U.S. dollars.
Such huge military spending is used to maintain the U.S. military bases and various types of military hardware deployed in all most of regions and continents and the Department of Defense and other mechanisms, form new armed forces and develop cutting-edge military technology, etc.
It shows that the U.S. is seeking to block multi-polarization of the world and keep the unipolar world at any cost.
The U.S. has not given up even a moment its wild design to change the world in its favor, dominating it single-handedly.
It regards military spending as the size of strength.
After the end of the Cold War, the U.S. military appropriation has always been many times higher than the world's second largest nation in military spending, which is much more than the military spending of major powers put together.
In the U.S., the military spending has been increased every year, though its economy has fallen into stagnation due to the swelling trade and financial deficits.
The U.S. is running high fever in military reinforcement to check the military influence of its potential rivals and their expansion of sphere of force in the Pacific, the Atlantic, the Indian Ocean, etc. and other regions and continents and establish its supremacy over this planet.
China, Russia and all other countries that challenge the unipolar world by the U.S. are regarded as targets of obstacle lying in the way of realizing "peace by strength".
The U.S. ambition to dominate the world with strength remains unchanged in any case.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/19/2018 00:00 ||
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#1
Well, we wouldn't have to spend that much on the military if you assholes weren't behaving like, you know, assholes.
#2
the military budget to the tune of 717 billion U.S. dollars.
How much of it is wasted defending West Europe from the bear they kept baiting for the last 20 years? While flooding their own countries with Muslim colonists.
[Al Jazeera] US President Donald Trump ...New York real estate developer, described by Dems as illiterate, racist, misogynistic, and what ever other unpleasant descriptions they can think of, elected by the rest of us as 45th President of the United States... offered North Korea's Kim Pudge Jong-un ...the overweight, pouty-looking hereditary potentate of North Korea. Pudge appears to believe in his own divinity, but has yet to produce any loaves and fishes, so his subjects remain malnourished... guarantees of staying in power if he abandons nuclear weapons, but warned he could end up like Libya's former leader if he doesn't.
In an effort to put his planned landmark summit with Kim back on track, Trump said on Thursday that North Korea "will get protections that will be very strong" if the meeting were to go ahead successfully.
"He'd be in his country and running his country. His country would be very rich," he told news hounds.
But the pledge came barbed with a warning that if talks fail, Kim could suffer the same fate as Libya's Muammar Qadaffy ...who single-handedly turned a moderately prosperous kingdom into a dictator's fantasyland and was then murdered by his indignant subjects 42 years later... , who was tossed by rebels and gruesomely killed.
The fate suffered by Libya shows "what will take place if we don't make a deal", the US president warned.
Trump's remarks came as Pyongyang threatened to cancel the historic summit, set for June 12 in Singapore, after blaming US demands for "unilateral nuclear abandonment".
Posted by: Fred ||
05/19/2018 00:00 ||
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#1
And now we have someone who speaks their language.
[DAWN] A suborbital rocket was launched into space on Thursday by a start-up in China’s burgeoning commercial aeronautics industry, as private firms snap at the heels of their dominant American rivals.
OneSpace, the Beijing-based company behind the launch, is one of dozens of Chinese rivals jostling for a slice of the global space industry, estimated to be worth about $339 billion by Bank of America Merrill Lynch and currently dominated by SpaceX and Blue Origin in the US.
Its nine-metre (30-foot) "Chongqing Liangjiang Star" rocket took off from an undisclosed test field in China’s northwest and reached an altitude of 273 kilometres before falling back to Earth, the company said in a statement. The launch aimed to demonstrate an early working model of the company’s OS-X series of rockets, designed to conduct research linked to suborbital flights.
By the end of the decade OneSpace expects to build 20 of the OS-X rockets, which would be capable of placing a 100-kilo (220-pound) payload into an orbit 800 kilometres from the Earth’s surface, said company front man Chen Jianglan.
The firm is also developing another type of rocket, the M-series, to compete in the growing microsatellite sector.
These small satellites are typically no larger than a shoebox and are used to monitor crops, weather patterns or disaster sites or used by universities for research purposes, according to Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/19/2018 00:00 ||
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[DAWN] North Korea said on Thursday it will not hold talks with Seoul under the current diplomatic situation, calling South Korean officials "ignorant and incompetent" a day after the hermit state abruptly cancelled planned inter-Korean discussions.
A high-level meeting between the two neighbours had been scheduled for Wednesday, but the North pulled out early that morning over joint military exercises between the US and the South.
The two-week "Max Thunder" drills started on May 11 and involve some 100 aircraft from the two allies, including F-22 stealth fighter jets.
"Unless the serious situation which led to the suspension of the north-south high-level talks is settled, it will never be easy to sit face-to-face again with the present regime of South Korea," the official KCNA news agency cited top negotiator Ri Son Gwon as saying on Thursday.
Pyongyang has also threatened to cancel a historic summit between US President Donald Trump ...New York real estate developer, described by Dems as illiterate, racist, misogynistic, and what ever other unpleasant descriptions they can think of, elected by the rest of us as 45th President of the United States... and North Korean leader Kim Pudge Jong-un ...the overweight, pouty-looking hereditary potentate of North Korea. Pudge appears to believe in his own divinity, but has yet to produce any loaves and fishes, so his subjects remain malnourished... in Singapore next month, following weeks of tentative rapprochement.
Ri, head of the North’s Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Country, described the South’s reaction to the meeting’s cancellation as a "confrontation racket", according to KCNA.
"On this opportunity the present South Korean authorities have been clearly proven to be an ignorant and incompetent group devoid of the elementary sense of the present situation," he added.
In Wednesday’s angrily worded statement, KCNA denounced the Max Thunder exercises as a "rude and wicked provocation", and Seoul said it had received a message cancelling planned high-level talks "indefinitely".
Posted by: Fred ||
05/19/2018 00:00 ||
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#1
‘ignorant and incompetent’? Insert nighttime picture of the Korean peninsula here.
#2
Could be a Pistole Parabellum or it could simply be a water gun. Providing actual proof of nuclear weapons (as has been requested by the POTUS negotiation team) may be a bridge too far.
How dare they freely will as if they actually owned themselves!
[DAWN] A newly-wed couple was rubbed out on Friday in Umerkot district allegedly by the woman's brother for contracting free-will marriage.
The Pithoro cop shoppe in Umerkot district have registered a first investigation report (FIR) against Adeel for killing his sister and her husband allegedly for contracting a free-will marriage.
According to Muhammad Hassan Rahimoo, the Station House Officer of Pithoro cop shoppe, Sonia, a 25-year-old woman, had eloped from Gujranwala to marry 35-year-old Rasheed Ali Rajput in Pithoro.
Earlier today, according to Rasheed's brother, Sonia's brother Adeel barged into their house and shot up the newly-wed couple. Rasheed's sister Razia was also maimed as she tried to resist the attack.
All three family members were rushed to the district hospital where the couple was pronounced dead.
Adeel has been named as the prime accused in the case, while four others ‐ namely Ikhtiar, Iqbal, Kubra, Ali Raza, Muhammad Asghar ‐ have been named accomplices in the FIR.
No arrests have been made in the case as yet.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/19/2018 00:00 ||
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And the femnazis love these miscreants (cause they both want power over all others)
[DAWN] Malaysian police seized 72 suitcases stuffed with cash and jewels along with scores of designer handbags in raids on luxury properties linked to ex-prime minister Najib Razak on Friday as a corruption probe gathered pace.
The discovery adds significantly to the peril faced by Najib, who just last week had seemed to be cruising toward an election victory, before he was unseated in a stunning upset.
A visibly shattered and anxious Najib declined to comment on the latest developments as he waded through a throng of media into a mosque for Friday afternoon prayers in the Moslem-majority country.
Asked to comment, Najib, 64, patted an AFP journalists' arm and said: "Later, later."
Police said that the sheer size of the trove of cash, jewels and 284 boxes containing Hermes, Birkin and Louis Vuitton handbags prevented them from immediately estimating the haul's value.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/19/2018 00:00 ||
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[San Diego U-T] A federal judge in California on Tuesday struck down the city of Oakland's ban on coal shipments at a proposed cargo terminal, siding with a developer who wants to use the site to transport Utah coal to Asia.
In a scathing ruling, U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria in San Francisco said the information the city relied on to conclude the coal operations would pose a substantial health or safety danger to the public was "riddled with inaccuracies, major evidentiary gaps, erroneous assumptions, and faulty analyses, to the point that no reliable conclusion about health or safety dangers could be drawn from it." "It's an emotional tantrum from virtue-signalling children"
The city attorney's office did not immediately have comment.
City leaders approved construction of a rail and marine terminal in 2013 as part of a larger makeover of an Army base that was shuttered in 1999.
The $250 million project in west Oakland ‐ a historically African-American neighborhood that is among the poorest and most polluted in the region ‐ was expected to bring thousands of construction and shipping jobs. Better to starve in poverty so the SJW can preen
Oakland officials said coal had never been mentioned as a possibility. Lawyers for the developers said city officials always knew there would be a mix of goods, including coal.
Concerned about air pollution caused by coal dust, the city moved in 2016 to ban shipments of coal and petroleum coke, a solid derived from oil refining. The decision came after Utah lawmakers approved a $53 million investment to help ship the state's coal through Oakland to Asia.
One of the developers of the project, Phil Tagami, sued for breach of contract. Tagami has deep ties to the city and California Gov. Jerry Brown , a former Oakland mayor.
Brown, whose environmental efforts have made him a global leader in the fight against climate change, has not spoken out publicly against the project.
Chhabria agreed with attorneys for the developers that the city relied on a flawed analysis to justify its ban. As an example, he said the city failed to factor in covers on the coal-carrying rail cars in its emissions estimates for the project.
It also had no meaningful assessment of how emissions would affect air quality in Oakland, he said.
The city's opposition to coal operations appeared to stem largely from concerns about global warming, but it was "facially ridiculous to suggest that this one operation resulting in the consumption of coal in other countries will, in the grand scheme of things, pose a substantial global warming-related danger to people in Oakland," the judge said.
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/19/2018 06:43 ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
North Korea
North Korea
[DAWN] A newly-wed couple was 
[San Diego U-T] A federal judge in California on Tuesday struck down the city of Oakland's ban on coal shipments at a proposed cargo terminal, siding with a developer who wants to use the site to transport Utah coal to Asia.
