Steve Cohen wrongly predicted Donald Trump Jr. and Jared Kushner would be indicted by special counsel Robert Mueller as part of his investigation into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia during the 2016 presidential election.
Appearing November 5th, 2017, on MSNBC, former Gov. Howard Dean (D-VT) wrongly predicted special counsel Robert Mueller would indict President Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner for money laundering.
The Home Office has rejected the asylum application of a Christian convert from Iran who said they had been drawn to the faith by its peaceful nature, due to a Government official ruling that Christianity is not peaceful at all.
Hundreds of thousands of people opposed to Britain's withdrawal from the European Union marched through central London on Saturday to demand a new referendum as the deepening Brexit crisis risked sinking Prime Minister Theresa May's premiership.
A 22-year-old man will appear in a New Zealand court today following a Friday arrest for allegedly distributing the live stream of the Christchurch mosque shootings, reports RNZ.
Police said he was arrested during the initial stages of the investigation on Friday.
He has been charged under the Films Videos and Publications Classification Act and will appear in Christchurch District Court.
Police said they did not believe he was directly involved in the attacks. -RNZ
🚨IT'S HAPPENING 🚨
"A 22-year-old man will appear in court today accused of distributing the live stream of the Christchurch shootings."
Brenton Tarrant, 28, used Facebook Live to broadcast the first 17 minutes of his attack on the Al Noor Mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand at approximately 1:40 p.m. on Friday - the first of two mosque attacks which left 50 dead and 50 injured.
As we noted yesterday, New Zealand authorities reminded citizens over the weekend that they face up to 10 years in prison for simply downloading and storing the video, and up to 14 years for distributing it (h/t Nick Monroe).
Meanwhile, the New Zealand police have sent notice to the owner of the Kiwi Farms internet message board demanding the preservation of IP addresses and email addresses associated with posts related to the Christchurch shootings.
While we suggested earlier that New Zealand authorities could simply be trying to investigate whether Tarrant had online accomplices - it's clear from the arrest and prosecution of the 22-year-old man that authorities are actively pursuing people who had nothing to do with the attack, for exchanging information.
Interest in the video ranges from morbid curiosity to a desire to analyze it to determine Tarrant's motives, methods, possible accomplices and whether or not it was a "false flag" - as was floated on Friday by Rush Limbaugh.
And while Kiwi Farms owner Joshua Moon told New Zealand authorities that he doesn't "give a single solitary fuck what section 50 of your faggot law say about sharing your email," adding "Fuck you and fuck your shithole country," it should be noted that New Zealand is part of the "five eyes" intelligence alliance with Canada, Australia, the UK and the United States - which means that in addition to the sharing of investigatory and surveillance information between countries, Moon may be subject to extradition - if not by treaty, by a stroke of the pen from Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
More scrubbing
Following the shooting, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and Scribd quickly removed uploads of Tarrant's livestreamed attack.
In the first 24 hours we removed 1.5 million videos of the attack globally, of which over 1.2 million were blocked at upload...
🚨OVER REACH🚨
“Out of respect for the people affected by this tragedy and the concerns of local authorities, we’re also removing all edited versions of the video that do not show graphic content” pic.twitter.com/idSpuORfKq
YouTube, meanwhile, is now banning the song "REMOVE KEBAB" from its platform, which had more than nine million views, for "violating YouTube's policy on hate speech."
"REMOVE KEBAB (perfect loop)" was a YouTube uploaded JULY 30th 2012. Had 9 million, 259 hundred thousand views. No problems with it being on YouTube for ALMOST SEVEN WHOLE YEARS.
Are they also going to disable the @RT_com YouTube comment section of the video of Putin playing the piano with the same song? pic.twitter.com/W6YXK2GVnz
Twitter has admitted to shadowbanning a tweet by The Federalist co-founder Sean Davis in order to "keep people safe."
Tweeting a passage last week from former FBI attorney Lisa Page's Congressional testimony discussing the FBI's rush to find connections between the Trump campaign and Russia, Davis pointed out the irony of Hillary Clinton's campaign employing former UK spy Christopher Steele, a foreign national, "working with Russians to obtain damaging information about Donald Trump."
Of note, the dossier Steele compiled which was subsequently used to obtain a warrant to spy on a Trump adviser (and later smear Trump) relied on a "senior Russian Foreign Ministry figure" and "a former top level intelligence officer still active in the Kremlin," according to Vanity Fair.
Following his March 12 tweet, Davis wondered if Twitter was experimenting with "shadow bans" - as he could only see his tweet if he was logged in, meaning nobody else could see it.
Is @Twitter experimenting with shadow bans by deleting tweets so others can't see them, but keeping them visible to you while you're logged in? I had to re-publish my original Lisa Page transcript tweet because it was disappeared to everyone but me. pic.twitter.com/RugtpK2MYn
Six days later, Twitter confirmed with Davis that they had deliberately shadow-banned his tweet in order to "keep people safe."
Titter claimed in its e-mail to me that it "mistakenly remove[d]" a completely anodyne tweet about public congressional testimony, but didn't explain why it left the tweet--and metrics showing no engagement--visible to me when logged in. Is conning users a bug, or a feature? pic.twitter.com/bqtc8Klcam
"Twitter gave me no notice or explanation when it shadowbanned one of my Tweets about Russian interference in our elections," wrote Davis, adding "But what's worse is how Twitter apparently gives its users the fraudulent impression that their tweets, which Twitter secretly bans, are still public."
Twitter gave me no notice or explanation when it shadowbanned one of my Tweets about Russian interference in our elections. But what's worse is how Twitter apparently gives its users the fraudulent impression that their tweets, which Twitter secretly bans, are still public.
In short, Twitter did not want the public to consider the irony of Hillary Clinton's campaign paying for a foreign national to collude with Russians against Donald Trump, while the FBI scrambled to prove the Trump campaign did.
Unreal.
In other censorship news, ZeroHedge is now banned in New Zealand andmuch of Australia following our reporting on the Christchurch terror attacks.
Sorry citizen, some facts are just too dangerous for your own good.
In the early days of February, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and his allies publicly theorized about how the National Enquirer acquired racy sexts and dick pics he sent his girlfriend, Lauren Sanchez.
Speculation was rife with some suggesting the Saudis, others that it was the brother, and the mainstream media hinting that it was The White House.
Well we have the answer now - and it's way more obvious than the intrigues suggested at the time... crushing another resistance-supporting, anti-Trump, deep-state-sponsored, Washington Post-fantasized 'fake' story...
On February 8th, WaPo reporter Manuel Roig-Franzia appeared on MSNBC and said that Bezos's security consultant Gavin de Becker believes that National Enquirer obtained text messages from Bezos through inappropriate means.
Washington Posts @RoigFranzia says Bezos' team thinks it's possible that the text leaks were politically motivated and that a "government entity" accessed the Bezos texts and hoo boy that's certainly something pic.twitter.com/MQuzNFbCed
"They have begun to believe, the Bezos camp, that this publication by the National Enquirer might have been politically motivated,” Roig-Franzia said Thursday.
“Gavin de Becker told us that he does not believe that Jeff Bezos’s phone was hacked, he thinks it’s possible that a government entity might have gotten hold of his text messages,” he added, strongly hinting that the administration may have been instrumental in the leak of the embarrassing text messages.
The inside scoop from WSJ explains it all - and removes all the farcical Trump-related drama that the liberal media was hoping for (via WSJ):
Mr. Sanchez, a talent agent who has managed television pundits and reality-show judges, has long been a source for the Enquirer and its top editor, Dylan Howard, the people familiar with the matter said. He has supported President Trump on Twitter and has ties to conservative activists.
Mr. Sanchez began conversations last fall with the tabloid about his sister’s relationship with Mr. Bezos, the people said. The Enquirer by then had already been investigating whether Mr. Bezos and Ms. Sanchez were having an affair, people familiar with the matter said.
...
As the tabloid publisher began negotiations to buy the materials from Mr. Sanchez in October, Mr. Pecker expressed reservations about publishing a story, the people familiar with the matter said. He was concerned Mr. Bezos would sue...
...
Mr. Pecker was told by one of his advisers that publishing the story might make it appear he was doing so on behalf of Mr. Trump, who has criticized Mr. Bezos in connection with the Washington Post’s coverage of his administration, one of the people said.
...
But, despite his qualms, Mr. Pecker approved the $200,000 deal with Mr. Sanchez that had been negotiated by American Media’s chief content officer, Mr. Howard; its general counsel for media, Cameron Stracher; and others, said people familiar with contract. The amount - higher than the company typically pays sources - reflected the significance American Media placed on Mr. Sanchez’s information.
Of course, as one would suspect, Mr. Sanchez said he didn’t want to “dignify” the Journal’s reporting on the contract he struck. He described the reporting on the contract as “old rumors” from anonymous sources. A spokesman for Jeff Bezos declined to comment. Lauren Sanchez didn’t respond to requests for comment sent through an employee at her company and an Amazon spokesman.
We look forward to a Trump tweet reaction to all of this.
"...as far as I'm concerned, it's just a statement of fact and for some reason I have upset a lot of people..."
This was the response from Queensland Senator Fraser Anning a day after a teenage protester had egged him for his recent statement implying that Muslim immigration was a reason behind Friday’s mass shooting in New Zealand.
Stating that he was opposed to “any form of violence,” Anning claimed that the atrocity highlighted the “growing fear over an increasing Muslim presence,” in both New Zealand and Australia.
The comment prompted an avalanche of criticism, and, as RT reports,at his Saturday press conference in Melbourne, a young protester attacked him with an egg.
Footage of the incident shows the teen standing quietly beside the politician. He then pulls up his cellphone before slapping the egg on the back of Anning’s head. The senator then turns to the young man before swinging two punches at his face.
Someone has just slapped an egg on the back of Australian Senator Fraser Anning's head, who immediately turned around and punched him in the face. The same Senator who blamed Muslim Immigrants for #NewZealandTerroristAttack#Christchurchpic.twitter.com/srRTywhRmm
The teen is then tackled to the ground and held in a headlock while Anning is led away. People can be heard saying “pick him up and get him out,” and “get the cops.”
Of course, since the attack, support for the boy (no, not the senator who was attacked) has flooded in on social media, with many hailing him a “hero” and calling for him to be given awards and medals for his actions.
A Change.org petition calling for him to be kicked out of the Senate had racked up over one million signatures as of Monday.
"There is no place in Australian government for Neo-Nazis. There is no place for bigotry. There is no place for hate speech," it states.
However, refusing to bow to social justice warrior demands, RT reports thatAnning continued to stand his ground on Sunday, telling a specially arranged press conference that while media had "twisted" his initial statement, he did not feel the need to apologize for what many decried as an ill-timed diatribe.
"What people took out of context I think was that in the same press release I said that the countries that allow a large-scale Muslim immigration invariably have escalations in crime, violence and terrorist attacks," Anning said Sunday.
"Now, as far as I'm concerned, it's just a statement of fact and for some reason I have upset a lot of people, including Mr Morrison," the independent senator said, effectively doubling down on his previous remark that landed him in hot water.
Anning argued that Australia is on course to repeat the fate of European countries like France, Belgium, the UK and Germany, which underwent a spell of terrorist attacks inspired by radical Islam, if it does not stop"Muslim immigration."
Asked whether he regrets the timing of his statement, Anning said he did not regret "anything."
Starting in 2021, Americans will require permission to visit Europe... technically the 26 borderless countries within Europe’s Schengen area.
The process will start out simple enough, taking about ten minutes to complete and costing around $8.
The EU estimates it will grant about 95% of the Americans who apply three years of access to the region.
But what if you are part of that unlucky 5%?
Over 12 million Americans travel to Europe each year. So upwards of 600,000 Americans could have trouble entering the EU starting in 2021.
That’s if everything goes according to plan...
But if these Americans had a passport from within the region– like Italy or Spain for example, then they wouldn’t have to rely on chance.
And having a second passport would help them from some potential serious issues at home, too.+
For instance, last year the US government cancelled 362,000 passports, all from people who they believed owed some back taxes.
I say ‘believed’ because they don’t actually have to prove it.
There’s very little due process – they don’t have to go in front of a of judge and provide evidence to an objective, independent third party.
Instead, revoking a passport is a simple administrative procedure.
Aside from taxes, the government can also deny or revoke a passport if you owe (or if they believe that you owe) more than $2,500 worth of child support.
That’s how it is now. But with the rise of so many socialist politicians, who knows what excuse they might come up with next to cancel a passport.
Having multiple passports is a great insurance policy.
It means that you’ll always have a place to go, where you can live, work, invest, bring your family, etc.
And it also means you have the ability to move and travel.
If you only have one passport and some bureaucratic blunder causes yours to be revoked or frozen, your whole life can be turned upside down.
Fortunately there are a number of simple, cost effective ways to obtain a second passport (which, by the way, is 100% legal).
If you’re part of what I call the lucky bloodline club, you could qualify for a second citizenship and second passport, just for having ancestors in countries such as these:
Armenia
Germany
Greece
Hungary
Ireland
Israel
Italy
Latvia
Lithuania
Luxembourg
Poland
Portugal* (see note below)
Romania
Spain* (see note below)
United Kingdom
Ancestry is generally the easiest and cheapest way to get foreign citizenship. But it can take time.
The process usually involves contacting your nearest consulate and setting up an appointment… which might take months depending on the consulate.
But that will give you time to gather all the necessary documents proving your line of ancestry—things like your grandparents’ birth, death, and marriage certificates.
*Then there’s an ancestral quirk that could qualify you for a second citizenship in Spain or Portugal. Both countries brutally expelled all Jewish residents around 500 years ago. And now they offer amends in the form of citizenship for the descendants of “Sephardic” Jews.
And by the way, all passports aren’t equal. Many countries on this list are among the top ranked passports according to our Sovereign Man Global Passport Ranking.
For instance, a German passport is ranked 7th best in the world, because it gives you visa free access to 158 countries which cover almost 60% of the Earth’s surface, and account for 77% of the world’s GDP (Gross Domestic Product).
Italy is ranked 8th, and Luxembourg, UK, Hungary, and Greece are all in the top 16.
And for as little as $100,000 you can expedite the process and obtain a second citizenship by investing in a country. Many Caribbean countries offer this deal, and so do European countries like Austria, Bulgaria, and Malta.
The Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Trump administration Tuesday, allowing federal officials to detain and deport illegal immigrants after they have served their time in the U.S. for other crimes.
It was a 5-4 decision that reversed the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which restricted when the immigrants could be deported. For example, the 9th Circuit ruling stated that Immigration and Custom’s Enforcement would have to detain the illegal immigrants immediately or they would exempt from ever being detained.
The court’s majority opinion was delivered by Justice Samuel Alito.
Alito wrote that in the past, the court has "held time and time again, an official's crucial duties are better carried out late than never."
He also rejected the argument from lawyers representing the immigrants involved in the case that they are subject to mandatory detention only if they are arrested "on the day he walks out of jail," giving the example that state and local officials "sometimes rebuff the government's request that they give notice when a criminal alien will be released."
Alito was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, and Brett Kavanaugh, according to the Associated Press.
Justices Steven Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan dissented.
Reading his dissent from the bench, Breyer warned the "greater importance in the case lies in the power that the majority's interpretation grants to the government."
"It is a power to detain persons who committed a minor crime many years before. And it is a power to hold those persons, perhaps for many months, without any opportunity to obtain bail," he wrote.
An off-duty pilot hitching a ride in the cockpit jumpseat of a doomed 737 Max 8 last October reportedly saved the plane just one day before it crashed off the coast of Indonesia while being operated by a different crew, killing 189 onboard.
According to Bloomberg, the 'dead-head' pilot on the earlier flight from Bali to Jakarta was able to explain to the crew how to disable a malfunctioning flight-control system by cutting power to a motor driving the nose of the plane down.
The previously undisclosed detail supports the suggestion that a lack of training is may be at least partially to blame in the March 10 crash of another 727 Max 8.
The previously undisclosed detail on the earlier Lion Air flight represents a new clue in the mystery of how some 737 Max pilots faced with the malfunction have been able to avert disaster while the others lost control of their planes and crashed. The presence of a third pilot in the cockpit wasn’t contained in Indonesia’s National Transportation Safety Committee’s Nov. 28 report on the crash and hasn’t previously been reported. -Bloomberg
As we noted last week, several pilots had repeatedly warned federal authorities of the Max 8's shortcomings, with one pilot describing the plane's flight manual as "inadequate and almost criminally insufficient."
"The fact that this airplane requires such jury-rigging to fly is a red flag. Now we know the systems employed are error-prone — even if the pilots aren't sure what those systems are, what redundancies are in place and failure modes. I am left to wonder: what else don't I know?" wrote the captain.
After the Lion Air crash, two U.S. pilots’ unions said the potential risks of the system, known as the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System, or MCAS, hadn’t been sufficiently spelled out in their manuals or training. None of the documentation for the Max aircraft included an explanation, the union leaders said. -Bloomberg
"We don’t like that we weren’t notified," said Southwest Airlines Pilots Association president Jon Weaks in November. "It makes us question, ‘Is that everything, guys?’ I would hope there are no more surprises out there."
In the Lion Air crash, a malfunctioning sensor is believed to have tricked the plane's computers to force the nose of the plane down to avoid a stall. Following the March 10 crash less than six months later - which followed a "very similar" track to the Lion Air flight, All Boeing 737 Max 8s were grounded by US regulators following dozens of countries and airlines doing so first.
"After this horrific Lion Air accident, you’d think that everyone flying this airplane would know that’s how you turn this off," said former FAA accident investigation division director Steve Wallace.
Meanwhile, investigators are now looking into how the new 737 model was approved. The Transportation Department's inspector general has begun an inquiry into the plane's certification, while a grand jury under the US DOJ is also seeking records in a possible criminal investigation of the plane's certification.
"We will fully cooperate in the review in the Department of Transportation’s audit," said Boeing spokesman Charles Bickers.
New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said on Thursday that military style semi-automatics and assault rifles will be banned under stronger new gun laws following the killing of 50 people in the country's worst mass shooting.
New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced Wednesday that the country would ban the sale of all assault rifles and semi-automatic guns, less than a week after a shooter opened fire at two mosques in Christchurch,...
Hollywood supports 2.6 million jobs, dishes out $177 billion in wages and directly employs more people across the country than the commodities and energy industries, said the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) in a report published Monday.
Jobs directly related to producing, marketing, and manufacturing motion pictures, television shows, and video content, employs more people in 34 states than industrial jobs in mining, oil & natural gas extraction, crop production, utility system construction, and rental & leasing services.
Bloomberg says MPAA's report shows how broadly the U.S. entertainment industry has expanded beyond California. Direct wages in television and film account for $76 billion, with salaries that are 47% higher than the national average. The industry also supports 93,000 small business in total, located in every state in the country.
The industry has a trade surplus of $10.3 billion, 4% of the country’s total surplus in services, the report showed. The industry exports more than telecommunications, transportation, mining, legal insurance, information, and health-related services, the MPAA said.
“The impact of the U.S. film and television industry reaches far beyond well-known creative hubs, such as Los Angeles, New York City and Atlanta,” said MPAA chair Charles Rivkin. “This industry supports jobs and businesses in all 50 states and is also highly competitive globally – generating $17.2 billion in exports and a positive balance of trade in every major market in the world.”
The use of taxpayer funds has been widely used throughout California to support the industry. Some states have removed or recently revised these tax incentive programs. Meanwhile, California re-upped its subsidies for film and television to draw back film production to the state.
Besides directly employing 927,000 people, the industry has made $44 billion in payments to local businesses, supporting an additional 2.6 million indirect jobs, a move that has Hollywood making jobs great again.
New Zealand police have sent notice to the owner of the Kiwi Farms internet message board demanding the preservation of IP addresses and email addresses associated with posts related to the Christchurch shootings, believed to have been committed by 28-year-old Australian Brenton Tarrant.
Tarrant used Facebook Live to broadcast the first of two Friday attacks on local mosques that left 50 dead and 50 injured, which was rapidly disseminated across various file hosing platforms and websites, including Kiwi Farms - which received the preservation request on Saturday.
"At around the time of the shooting there were a number of posts and links posted on kiwifarms.net relating to the shooting and TARRANT," reads the letter from Senior Sergeant New Zealand Police detective John Michael. "We would like to preserve any posts and technical data including IP addresses, email addresses etc linked to these posts pending a formal legal request."
"Could you please advise what legal process you require for this request and also confirm preservation of the data requested pending legal process," the letter concludes.
Responding to the preservation request, Kiwi Farms owner Joshua Moon - a US citizen living abroad, asked "Is this a joke? I'm not turning over information abouit my users. The person responsible for posting the video and manifesto PDF is myself."
Tell your superiors they're going to make the entire country and its government look like clowns by trying to censor the Internet. You're a small, irrelevant island nation barely more recognizable than any other nameless pacific sovereignty. You do not have the clout to eradicate a video from the Internet and you do not have the legal reach to imprison everyone whose posted it. If anyone turns over to you the information they're asking for they're not only cowards, but they're fucking idiots.
...
If you're wondering, no. Kiwi Farms has nothing to do with New Zealand. Our name is a pointed jab at some of the mushmouthed autistic people we make fun of. Absolutely nothing about our community is NZ oriented.
Prior to the attack, a message was posted 8chan /pol/ message board linking people to a 74-page manifesto and Tarrant's Facebook Live stream. 8chan has agreed to cooperate in the investigation, while Zealand authorities have warned residents that the mere possessionof the video could result in prison time.
After the shooting, a person believed to be Moon said in a Saturday 4chan post that he was the operator of an "autistic shitposting forum," and had recorded and uploaded footage of the shooting. After several takedown requests and a flood of users downloading the video leaving "not enough bandwidth to go around," the users says they created peer-to-peer trackers for people to access the footage.
Since receiving the letter, Moon has posted this warning to users at the top of Kiwi Farms:
If you are from New Zealand, your government is hunting you. Read this letter from NZ Police, then change your email address if you're using a personal account. Start using a VPN everywhere. I'm setting data retention to zero for the immediate future. Warrant canary is in the footer.
Given that there were three other people arrested in addition to Tarrant (although police now say they don't think any of them are thought to have been involved in the shootings), perhaps authorities suspect there were online accomplices who distributed information to message boards in order to maximize its exposure.
On the other hand, New Zealanders who had nothing to do with the attack and did not conceal their IP address via technical means (and/or used an identifying email address) could soon find themselves prosecuted for doing nothing more than accessing or exchanging information.
Hope Hicks will comply with a House Judiciary Committee to turn over documents for its probe into President Donald Trump and his administration.
