September 11, 2001, was nearly 20 years ago, and after all this time, so many questions still remain about what exactly happened. It is not socially acceptable to question the official explanation that was given for the collapse of the towers and the other events of that day, but now these questions are being taken more seriously.
However, the rushed and poorly managed 9/11 commission report did not do an adequate job at investigating the crimes, which left experts in a variety of different fields with questions about the official story. Many of these professionals belong to an organization called Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth, who have been pushing for a new investigation into the attacks for many years.
This July, they announced a major breakthrough in their fight for a proper investigation. According to a press release published on the group’s website, New York Fire Commissioners who were closely involved with the events of that day, have called for a new investigation into the 9/11 attacks.
On July 24, the Franklin Square and Munson Fire Districts voted unanimously for a new investigation, citing “overwhelming evidence” that “pre-planted explosives . . . caused the destruction of the three World Trade Center buildings.”
The resolution was written by Commissioner Christopher Gioia, and received overwhelming support from Commissioner Dennis Lyons.
“We have a memorial — a piece of steel from the World Trade Center with 28 holes where the nuts and bolts used to go. Every year on the 11th, we put a rose in each hole for the 24 Nassau County firefighters and four Franklin Square residents who died on 9/11,” Commissioner Lyons said.
When the vote was passed, the families of 9/11 victims showed up in the audience to express their support for the cause and their gratitude to the departments for making this issue a priority.
Commissioner Gioia said that he expects support from other districts throughout the city, and hopes that they will be passing similar resolutions in solidarity.
“We were the first fire district to pass this resolution. We won’t be the last,” Gioia said.
This renewed interest in a proper investigation was sparked last year, when Geoffrey S. Berman, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, filed a petition on behalf of the Lawyers’ Committee for 9/11 Inquiry.
The petition highlighted a large body of evidence about the World Trade Center attacks, which was ultimately presented to a grand jury. Berman’s success through the courts gave many New York City firefighters hope that they could finally get to the bottom of what happened on that day, and find justice for the friends and loved ones who were lost.
Altria Shares Slide After Trump Plan To Ban E-Cigs
After 100s of mysterious lung-related injuries among the e-cig community, President Trump called vaping a "problem" and said that his health secretary would force companies to remove flavored vaping products from the market.
“Not only is it a problem overall, but really specifically with respect for children,” Trump told reporters at the White House after a meeting with advisers including Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar and Acting Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Norman Sharpless.
“We may very well have to do something very, very strong about it,” Trump said.
While Altria shares are down (which owns a 35% stake in Juul), it seems traders are not convinced...
Azar said the FDA would soon issue regulatory guidance allowing the agency to remove flavored vaping products that are believed to appeal to children.
Five million children are using e-cigarette products, Azar said, calling it an “alarming” trend.
We haven’t seen survey results like this since just before the last recession. Right now, 60 percent of Americans believe that a recession is “very or somewhat likely in the next year”, and the reason why that figure is so high is because there is already a tremendous amount of evidence that the economy is slowing down all around us. As I have been documenting repeatedly, U.S. economic performance has not been this dismal since 2008 and 2009, and the slowdown seems to be gaining pace as we move toward the end of 2019.
So it really shouldn’t be a surprise that a solid majority of the country thinks that the next recession will officially begin very soon. The following comes from ABC News…
Ratings of the U.S. economy overall, 56% positive, are down from 65% last fall in this poll, produced for ABC by Langer Research Associates. Most ominously, 60% see a recession as very or somewhat likely in the next year. That’s within sight of the 69% who said so in November 2007, in advance of the Great Recession.
But at the same time, U.S. consumers continue to pile up more debt at a frightening pace.
According to NBC News, total revolving credit shot up at an 11.25 annual pace during the month of July…
According to the Federal Reserve’s consumer credit tracker, revolving credit — a category in which credit card debt predominates — increased at an annualized rate of 11.25 percent in July, the most recent month for which data is available.
“In terms of revolving debt, we see spikes like this every so often, but they don’t jump by double digits all that much,” said Matt Schulz, chief industry analyst at CompareCards. Typically, big jumps occur around the holidays, though — not in July.
If a severe economic downturn really is coming, the smart thing to do would be to get out of credit card debt.
But these days Americans have been trained to be very short-term thinkers. And when things start to get tight, it is really easy to put expenses on a credit card and worry about them later. This is something that I did when I was a much younger man, and it is something that millions of American families all over the nation are doing right now.
When the money simply isn’t there, it is just so tempting to whip out a credit card. But credit card debt is one of the most insidious forms of debt because of the high interest rates most credit card companies charge. And at this moment credit card companies are jacking up rates to a degree that we haven’t seen in many years…
WalletHub says average credit card APRs for people with good credit and business credit cardholders — at 20.9 percent and 18.5 percent, respectively — are the highest they’ve been since it began tracking rates in 2010.
For people with less than stellar credit, even those rates might be out of reach, McClary said. For example, a new applicant with a credit score in the low 600s might be offered an APR of about 22 percent, he said.
Unfortunately, the more debt that you accumulate, the less likely it becomes that you will ever start building up substantial wealth of your own.
Today, tens of millions of Americans are deep in debt and are working exceedingly hard to make other people rich. And this is one of the biggest reasons why well over half the nation is currently living in “asset poverty”…
Many Americans claim they simply don’t earn enough money to build any type of savings account or amass any meaningful financial assets. Now, a troubling study out of Oregon State University finds some definite statistical truth to these sentiments, concluding that over 63% of American children and 55% of Americans live in “asset poverty.”
In other words, most Americans are living right on the edge financially, and that is a very dangerous place to be. If you are not familiar with the term “asset poverty”, the following is a pretty good definition…
Asset poverty means having few or no financial assets to fall back on in the event of a financial calamity, such as losing one’s job or encountering a medical crisis. Some examples of common financial assets are vehicles, houses, savings accounts, and investments. Without these assets, weathering a financial crisis is extremely difficult.
When you really don’t have any real wealth of your own, you are essentially living paycheck to paycheck, and a single major setback can be absolutely disastrous.
In America today, financial difficulties are one of the biggest reasons why so many of us are completely stressed out, and the next recession hasn’t even officially begun yet.
But with each day we continue to get more numbers that tell us that big trouble is on the way. For example, we just learned that the U.S. lost 4,500 trucking jobs last month…
The trucking industry has been battling challenging circumstances so far in 2019 – which includes the loss of thousands of positions last month.
According to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the industry lost 4,500 jobs between July and August.
And of course trucking companies continue to go bankrupt at a staggering pace. According to Business Insider, more than 600 trucking companies have already gone bankrupt so far this year…
Indicators from the trucking industry have been sour in 2019. In the first half of the year, around 640 trucking companies went bankrupt, according to industry data from Broughton Capital LLC. That’s more than triple the number of bankruptcies from the same period last year — about 175.
Sometimes people think that I exaggerate when I warn people about what is coming. But the truth is that I am not exaggerating at all. If anything, I feel frustrated that I am not able to effectively communicate how bad it will actually be when things start to get really crazy.
As a nation, we have been making incredibly bad decisions for decades, and we have been running in the exact opposite direction of where we should be headed as fast as we can.
In life, all decisions have consequences, and we are going to pay an extraordinarily high price for our exceedingly foolish decisions.
For the moment, things are relatively quiet. But that quietness will not last for much longer.
The NRA alleges that the city is violating its rights to free speech and is impeding on its mission by attempting to “blacklist anyone linked to the NRA."
Why would journalists supposedly concerned about the First Amendment ignore the case of David Daleiden, prosecuted by former California attorney general Kamala Harris?
CNBC host Jim Cramer gave Massachusetts Senator and Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren an unintentional boost when he said that Wall Street executives are privately telling him that “She’s got to be stopped!”
On Tuesday’s edition of CNBC’s Squawk on the Street, Cramer told co-hosts David Faber and Dominic Chu that Wall Street executives are quaking in their boots at the prospect of a Warren presidency.
He began by talking about Wells Fargo’s struggle to find a new CEO.
“I still wonder what it’s like to have no CEO. In the end, I know, Elizabeth Warren don’t listen, I favor CEOs,” Cramer cracked.
He went on to ask “how is it possible that this company cannot find a CEO? I mean, are they worried about Elizabeth Warren attacking…”
“Of course they are, of course they are, of course that person is. Why wouldn’t they be?” Faber said. “If she becomes president, what do you think’s going to happen to the banks?”
“Well it’s not, it would be a sub-optimal situation for the banks,” Cramer said.
He went on to add that “when you get off the desk and you talk to executives, they are more fearful of her winning,” and said those executives are telling him “Look, she’s gotta be stopped! She’s gotta be stopped!”
Faber concurred, telling Cramer “I hear it too, and it’s another reason why companies are being implored to do things now. If you want to get something done, M & A [mergers and acquisitions], or anything, think about doing it soon, because come early to mid-2020, if Elizabeth Warren is rolling along, everybody’s going to be like ‘That’s it.'”
“So you’re hearing it too,” Cramer said.
Warren gleefully took up the mantle, tweeting a clip of the segment along with the caption “I’m Elizabeth Warren and I approve this message.”
Right as Democratic Party congressional representatives are gearing up for the next phase in their impeachment proposals against President Donald Trump, various left-wing activist groups organized a pro-impeachment rally in the nation’s capital for this week. However, the event was a dud, as no one showed up for the scheduled rally. According to the Daily Wire, […]
Television personalities and politicians, from Tucker Carlson to Nancy Pelosi, are calling for changes to the law that has protected the internet since the '90s. But they don't seem to have a clue about what it actually says, or whom it really protects.
Section 230 is a portion of the 1996 Communications Decency Act. It has made the internet as we know it possible by establishing that tech companies are not responsible for what their users post on their apps, websites, and devices. Section 230 allows for the free exchange of ideas on the internet—and it may be just as important to online free speech as the First Amendment.
Section 230's most important sentence reads as follows:
No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.
Critics have come up with creative ways of distorting what the law says. Here are four myths to watch out for:
Myth 1: Tech Companies Must Be Neutral
"Neutrality" is not a condition of the law. Section 230 was designed in part so that internet companies could discriminate by filtering out content that's illegal, indecent, or otherwise objectionable. Before Section 230, online companies feared that any moderation would make them legally liable for user content. Section 230 explicitly says that's not the case—"good faith" and "voluntary" attempts to filter out unwanted posts and users are OK.
Without Section 230, it would be hard for companies to avoid lawsuits and criminal charges without either becoming cesspools of totally unmoderated speech or banning user-generated speech entirely.
Myth 2: Section 230 Makes a Distinction Between Platform and Publisher
There is no legal distinction in Section 230 between a "publisher" and a "platform." The word "platform" doesn't even appear. What matters for legal purposes is who is responsible for creating particular web content.
Judgment calls about user speech—however poorly executed, and whatever ideological biases are apparent—just don't affect whether a company is broadly protected by Section 230 or not.
Myth 3: Section 230 Shields Big Tech From Legal Liability
People like to pretend 230 created a legal "loophole," but the congress that passed Section 230 back in 1996 was explicit: Section 230 would not apply when it comes to federal criminal laws or intellectual property law. That means copyright violators and serious criminals do not get a free pass because of Section 230.
What the law does provide is limited protection from criminal charges brought by state or local law authorities and some immunity from getting sued in civil court.
This immunity is lost if a company:
Creates illegal content itself or edits content in a way that contributes to its illegality
Participates in illegal acts to obtain content
Engages in or profits directly from some illicit action
Section 230 is meant to leave room for holding online operators accountable for their own sins but not for those of their customers.
Myth 4: Section 230 Is Only for Large Tech Companies
Section 230 shields not just the providers of digital services from litigation but the users of these services, too. Without it, anyone could find themselves liable for retweeting, reblogging, or posting links to content that is later found to break the law.
Yet for all the protections it provides to readers, writers, academics, shitposters, entrepreneurs, activists, and amateur political pundits of every persuasion, Section 230 has somehow become a political pariah.
The political class wants everyone to believe that the way the U.S. has policed the internet for the past quarter-century has actually been lax, immoral, and dangerous.
Don't believe them. The future of free speech—and a lot more—may depend on preserving Section 230.
Written by Elizabeth Nolan Brown. Edited by Paul Detrick.
Giant by The Grand Affair is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
Source: https://www.youtube.com/audiolibrary_download?vid=46110e91d40fbb0c
Enlarge (credit: Institute of Archaeology, Russian Academy of Sciences)
Archaeologists excavated part of the old city center of Yaroslavl, Russia, between 2005 and 2010 as part of an effort to restore its cathedral. During the digs, they discovered nine medieval mass graves holding the remains of at least 300 people, dating from the sack of the city by Mongols. It took another several years for their bones, the ancient DNA preserved within them, and some centuries-old blowfly larvae, to reveal a family tragedy set against the wider backdrop of Mongol expansion.
Fire and bodies lying in the snow
In the first half of the 1200s, Mongol leader Batu Khan (the grandson of Genghis Khan) conquered parts of modern-day Russia, Eastern Europe, and the Caucasus, adding them to what became known as the Golden Horde. He swept westward with an army of 130,000 soldiers, and for the cities in his path, the only options were surrender or slaughter. Smolensk opted to surrender and pay tribute to the Khanate, but 18 other cities—including Moscow and the capital of the principality that, at the time, ruled Yaroslavl—fell to fire and the sword.
The Mongol army reached Yaroslavl in February 1238. Many of the people buried in the mass graves afterward had clearly died violently; their bones carried the marks of stabbing, cutting, and blunt trauma. Some of the bones also showed signs of having been burned, probably in the fire that accompanied the attack, according to historical documents and archaeological evidence. Several of the graves had been the basements of houses and outbuildings; after the buildings burned down in the fire, the survivors or the conquerors found the exposed basements convenient places to dispose of the dead.
Actor Jim Caviezel portraying Jesus in "The Passion of the Christ."
An ad created for Facebook by the Ariel Jewish Center to celebrate Rosh Hashanah, also known as the biblical Feast of Trumpets, and Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, wasn't too complicated.
"High Holidays. Rosh Hashanah: First Day – Mon., Sept. 30. Yom Kippur: Tues., Oct. 8 (night), Wed., Oct. 9 (day)," it said. "Register: 410-764-5000 or ARIELCenter.org/Services."
But it was way too much for Facebook, which responded with a censorship notice saying the "Ad Can't Run."
"This ad isn't running because it is sexually provocative or overly suggestive," the tech giant announced.
The center's rabbi, Rabbi Belinsky, wondered, "Does anyone see anything sexually explicit?"
He said, "Censoring innocuous Jewish causes and pro-Israel voices for that matter is nothing new on Facebook and social media in general."
He cited pro-Israel activist Zahava Englard Shapiro, who told the Jewish Press the site has barred her many times for allegedly offensive posts.
"The most outrageous time," she explained, "was when Facebook sent me a notice about a post I had written three years before where I referenced Arab Muslim terrorism, stating a factual account. They claimed it did not conform to community standards, which is the same type of message I receive each time I am banned."
Wednesday's news is that eight civic employees have been canned and another seven suspended following the probe's final report, which was presented to city's council executive policy committee.
A group of Buddhist hardliners in Thailand filed a police complaint against a young female artist on Wednesday over paintings that depict images of the Buddha as the 1960s Japanese superhero character Ultraman.
Actress and gun control activist Alyssa Milano revealed she has two guns in her home for self-defense during a debate Tuesday evening with Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX).
In a radio interview published on Sept. 10, Akon lambasted the perception that fiat currencies are any less vulnerable to this same critique, arguing that:
“Nothing backs the dollar. The U.S. doesn’t have natural resources that back the dollar. What they do have is the military.”
People give cryptocurrency value, not governments
Akon - who has twelve Billboard Top Ten Hits to his name, including the popular single “Smack That” - spoke out during the interview in favor of decentralization and trustless blockchain-based mechanisms that underpin the value of cryptocurrencies.
National fiat currencies have long ceased to be backed by physical commodities or natural resources, he noted, going on to argue that the United States dollar is ultimately sustained only by convention and military might.
He is bullish on cryptocurrency, he revealed, because it’s the people — not the vested interests of national governments — that wield control over their value.
The rapper’s comments come as his cryptocurrency project for a pan-African digital currency to replace fiat currencies, dubbed Akoin, gathers pace.
As Cointelegraph has previously reported, Akon had first revealed the initiative in the context of a Senegalese smart city project back in June 2018, arguing at the time that crypto can empower African citizens and bring security to the continent’s currency system.
A peace prize for Satoshi
Akon’s fresh endorsement of cryptocurrency chimes with the perspective of American investor Morgan Creek Digital Assets co-founder Anthony Pompliano, who recently argued that Satoshi Nakamoto should be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for inventing Bitcoin.
Pompliano said that with Bitcoin, we finally have “a currency that can assume global reserve status without anyone having to engage in violence.”
Russia on Wednesday condemned as lies and slander suggestions a suspected CIA mole in President Vladimir Putin's administration had handed over information to the United States about alleged Russian meddling in the U.S. presidential elections.
Curtis Whitson and his family were days into a scenic, Father's Day weekend trip in Pfeiffer Big Sur State Park back in June when they got trapped at the top of a ...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration warned Juul Labs Inc on Monday for marketing its e-cigarettes as safer than traditional cigarettes, the latest move by the agency to curb the use of vaping devices that have become extremely popular among teens.
Three U.S. House of Representatives committees said on Monday they had begun "a wide-ranging investigation" into reports that President Donald Trump, his lawyer Rudy Giuliani and possibly others pressured Ukraine's government to assist Trump's re-election campaign.
Michael Flynn Tells House Intel Democrats To Pound Sand Over Testimony And Documents
Former National Security adviser Michael Flynn is refusing to cooperate with the Democrat-controlled House Intelligence Committee's demand for testimony and documents, according to Politico, citing a Monday letter by Chairman Adam Schiff (D-CA).
Moreover, Flynn's new legal counsel, Sidney Powell, has been giving House Democrats the business.
"Notwithstanding repeated efforts by committee staff to engage with your counsel and accommodate your adjournment requests, you have, to date, failed to comply with the committee’s subpoena or cooperate with the committee’s efforts to secure your compliance," Schiff wrote to Flynn - demanding an appearance for testimony on September 25.
Of Powell, Schiff wrote that she "exhibit[ed] a troubling degree of unprofessionalism" during communications with committee staffers, which were outlined in the letter.
According to Schiff, Powell “refused to accept service” of the subpoena issued by the panel in June. Schiff indicated that Powell repeatedly sought deadline extensions for Flynn’s cooperation before ultimately ignoring phone calls attempting to arrange Flynn’s testimony for late July, just ahead of Congress’ six-week summer recess.
Schiff also said Powell told the committee that Flynn would invoke his Fifth Amendment rights and would not answer any questions other than confirming his name. -Politico
"The Fifth Amendment privilege must be invoked in response to specific questions or topics that might tend to incriminate you if answered truthfully," wrote Schiff. "Your counsel’s blanket invocation of the Fifth Amendment … is, therefore, inadequate."
Flynn pleaded guilty in December 2017 to laying about his interactions with Russia's ambassador prior to Trump taking office - denying a discussion of sanctions imposed by the Obama administration in retaliation for alleged election meddling in 2016.
Interestingly, Powell urged Flynn to withdraw his guilty plea - writing in a Daily Caller Op-Ed; "Extraordinary manipulation by powerful people led to the creation of Robert Mueller’s continuing investigation and prosecution of General Michael Flynn," adding "Notably, the recent postponement of General Flynn’s sentencing provides an opportunity for more evidence to be revealed that will provide massive ammunition for a motion to withdraw Flynn’s guilty plea and dismiss the charges against him."
Powell also claimed that Flynn's Constitutional rights were violated by his former legal team, arguing in March 2018: "[General] Flynn should be fully exonerated," adding "All charges against him should be dismissed for [egregious government misconduct] that infected the setup and prosecution of him from the beginning."
"There are also serious 4th Amendment violations," said Powell. "Did his legal team pursue a vigorous defense?"
As Politico notes, Powell has also been "intensely critical of Schiff and Mueller," while filing a brief last week with the court that spelled out a "litany of allegations of prosecutorial misconduct — much of which aligned with Trump’s unsupported allegations against Mueller and his team — and suggested that the government had withheld evidence from Flynn."
Prosecutors are aiming to sentence Flynn this fall.
A federal judge in California on Monday dealt a setback to a new Trump administration rule that sought to block almost all asylum applications at the border, ruling that an injunction against the rule should apply nationwide.
(SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST) -- A senior adviser to Hong Kong’s leader doubled down on a controversial claim she made on Monday that some young girls involved in the anti-government protest movement were offering free sex to frontline demonstrators.
Fanny Law Fan Chiu-fun, a member of Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor’s de facto cabinet, the Executive Council, said she knew for a fact that a 14-year-old schoolgirl had made such an offer.
“People are free to decide whether or not to believe it. Of course, I can trace the origin of the information through a trusted friend’s friend who knows the girl, but to reveal more details would be traumatic,” Law told the Post.
