INCREDIBLE PHOTOS: Major 7.0 Magnitude Earthquake Strikes Anchorage, Alaska, Felt Statewide; Massive Damage

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(Image credit: Facebook) According to the United States Geological Service, Anchorage was struck by a major 7.0 magnitude earthquake. The epicenter was just a little less than 8 miles to the north of Anchorage and was relatively shallow, less than 20 miles down.

A tsunami warning also issued for the Kenai and other areas on the coast, but was subsequently canceled.

(Facebook)

On Facebook, longtime Alaskans are reporting that this was the worst-felt earthquake since the gargantuan 9.2 magnitude, 1964 earthquake that struck the 49th state.

(Facebook)

Some say it was almost as bad as ’64: “Folks this shaker was like the one in 64. Just not as long. Stay safe.”

(Facebook, Anchorage)

One lifetime Alaskan from Anchorage reported, “Prayers would be much appreciated. We just experienced the worst earthquake of my life and our house is trashed. We have 4 little very scared kids, too …”

(Facebook, Wasilla)

One Alaskan from Wasilla said, “Checking in after the biggest earthquake I’ve ever felt. All of my children are also safe. Power is out, broken stuff every where at home, I’m sure it’s the same at the shop and at the market we’re setting up for the weekend. I’ve heard most people have property damage and there’s a tsunami warning as well as aftershocks.”

(Facebook, Anchorage)

The quake was so intense, many Alaskans feared for their lives: “It’s been about 20 minutes since we experienced the biggest earthquake in my memory and I’m still sitting under my desk with three terrified boys. Not gonna lie – I wasn’t sure we’d all make it. But we did and now waiting to see what the tsunami warning turns into. Hope you all are ok!”

(Joe Miller’s nephew at his school in Anchorage)

Damage reports are also pouring in: “7.2 magnitude earthquake in AK. Broken pipes, bridges, no power… Praying for everyone there!!!!”

(broken water main, Anchorage)

Another Alaskan exclaimed, “Holy Moly … that was the biggest quake we’ve ever experienced…. the house is a mess with all the things that fell. Everyone safe out there?”

(Facebook, Carrs grocery, Anchorage)

Major aftershocks are continuing to rock the area, with a 5.8 hitting two miles from Anchorage, and a series of 4+ magnitude quakes hitting north of Alaska’s biggest city.

(Editor’s note: The United States Geological Service initially pegged the earthquake at 6.7, and an Australian station marked it at 7.2. USGS has since confirmed that it was a 7.0 magnitude earthquake.)

(Facebook, Eagle River)

What Caused a Mysterious Seismic Wave to Wash Over Our Whole Planet?

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Back on Nov. 11, seismographs from around the world registered a mysterious tremor that encompassed the planet. As of right now, scientists still don’t know what caused it, reports National Geographic.

It’s not just the source of the rumble that remains mysterious, it’s also the form of the wave, which was characterized as a monotone, low-frequency “ring,” and which was registered by instruments but felt by no one. . . .

The biggest clue we have so far is an ongoing seismic swarm that has been occurring just offshore from the archipelago of Mayotte, which sits about halfway between Africa and Madagascar. The Nov. 11 wave looks to have originated from around there. The only problem is, the Mayotte seismic swarm is also something of a mystery.

The swarm is composed of hundreds of tremors that began around May 10th and have yet to disappear. While they are numerous, they aren’t particularly large events; the largest quake of the bunch came in at a 5.8 magnitude. It’s not exactly something you might expect to cause a seismic wave that’s measured around the world. It’s worth noting, however, that the 5.8 quake was the largest ever recorded in the region. . .

One thing we know is that tectonic activity alone probably can’t account for the wave; it probably came from some combination of tectonic and volcanic processes, and possibly other deep Earth processes. It also might be that a new center of volcanic activity is developing off the Mayotte coast, a shift in a nearby magma reservoir, which would make these events a fascinating opportunity for research. (Read more from “What Caused a Mysterious Seismic Wave to Wash Over Our Whole Planet?” HERE)

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The Latest Russia Collusion ‘Bombshells’ Are Big, Fat Duds

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A recent blitz of “bombshell” headlines initially appear to show there might actually have been some collusion between the 2016 Trump presidential campaign and Russia. First, there was The Guardian claiming that Paul “Manaford” (oops, the source meant Manafort) met with Julian Assange of WikiLeaks in spring 2016, with the obvious implication that it was done to plan or coordinate WikiLeak’s Hillary Clinton email dump.

Mollie Hemingway ably pointed out holes in the story by mentioning, among other issues, that Manafort would have entered the Ecuadorian embassy to meet Assange in the heart of London, which is blanketed by the most robust network of video cameras in the world. There would be video and it would have leaked. It hasn’t.

Margot Cleveland followed up with a nice article showing that The Guardian’s anonymous sourcing doesn’t pass muster against on-the-record denials from both Assange and Manafort, especially in light of the pattern of the media’s several false starts with other competing collusion theories.

We can now add NBC News, which just published a very misleading piece that incorrectly appears to be another “smoking gun” gotcha of Russia collusion. The first sentence reads, “Two months before WikiLeaks released emails stolen from the Clinton campaign, right-wing conspiracy theorist Jerome Corsi sent an email to former Trump campaign advisor Roger Stone anticipating the document dump.” . . .

On July 21, 2016, Heavy reported that Assange would release the new emails as part of “a series,” which strongly suggests Assange planned to time the releases for maximum effect in the presidential election. On July 27, 2016, The New York Times noted that Assange was timing his email releases for maximum political damage, releasing one batch for the Democratic National Convention. Following the July, 2016 release of documents, Assange publicly announced that his website might have “a lot more material” relevant to the U.S. electoral campaign. (Read more from “The Latest Russia Collusion ‘Bombshells’ Are Big, Fat Duds” HERE)

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Radio Station Bans Classic Christmas Song Because It Allegedly Promotes Date Rape

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. . .The classic seasonal song “Baby It’s Cold Outside” has now been banned by a Cleveland radio station after listeners complained it allegedly promotes date rape, according to CBS News.

“Star 102 Cleveland listeners raised concerns about the lyrics of the song ‘Baby It’s Cold Outside,’ with some saying the words send the wrong message in the era of the #MeToo movement,” reports the outlet.

On Tuesday, radio host Glenn Anderson wrote how the station came to the decision to ultimately kick the classic song off its Christmas music roster. “We used to play the song ‘Baby It’s Cold Outside,’ but you’re the Christmas Executive Officer at Star 102 and you told us it’s no longer appropriate,” he said. “I gotta be honest, I didn’t understand why the lyrics were so bad…Until I read them.” . . .

“Now, I do realize that when the song was written in 1944, it was a different time, but now while reading it, it seems very manipulative and wrong,” Anderson wrote. “The world we live in is extra sensitive now, and people get easily offended, but in a world where #MeToo has finally given women the voice they deserve, the song has no place. What do you think?”

As anybody who has ever heard “Baby Its Cold Outside” can attest, the song is a flirtatious duet between a man and a woman in a cozy cabin on a cold winter’s night. As the woman prepares to leave, the man attempts to charm her into staying, using the snowy weather as an excuse. Those who claim the song promotes date rape overlook the part where the woman sings “Baby, it’s cold outside” in unison with her male partner, signifying that the two were always in synch. CBS profiled how the song morphed from a flirtatious song in the 1940’s to some sort of date rape anthem in the #MeToo era. (Read more from “Radio Station Bans Classic Christmas Song Because It Allegedly Promotes Date Rape” HERE)

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Watch: Ocasio-Cortez Compares Election Victory to Something out of This World – Literally

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Democratic Socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez rambled on Friday that her election victory was on par with the United States landing on the moon, something that she falsely thinks was a political victory for the Democrats over the Republicans.

Ocasio-Cortez made the remarks at a press conference for the far-left Sunshine Movement in Washington where she made incoherent statements. . .

“Because in every moment when our country has reached the depths of darkness, in every moment when we were at the brink, at the cusp of an abyss and we did not know if we would be capable of saving ourselves, we have,” Ocasio-Cortez continued. “We’ve done it. We’ve dug deep and we’ve done what we thought was impossible.” (Read more from “Watch: Ocasio-Cortez Compares Election Victory to Something out of This World – Literally” HERE)

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Watch: Democrat Rep Calls for Death of GOP Rep’s Family

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An Illinois state Democratic lawmaker is facing increasing pressure to resign after she called for the deaths of a Republican lawmaker’s family during a floor speech this week.

Democrat Rep. Stephanie Kifowit said she wanted to pump a “broth of Legionella” into Republican Rep. Peter Breen’s water system so his wife and children would “be infected” and “ultimately die.”

“I would like to make him a broth of Legionella and pump it into the water system of his loved ones so that they can be infected, they can be mistreated, they can sit and suffer by getting aspirin instead of being properly treated and ultimately die,” Kifowit said in a fit of rage.

Kifowit’s horrifying remark “came just before the Illinois House voted 71-36 to override Gov. Bruce Rauner’s amendatory veto of a bill to increase the cap the state pays in civil litigation cases from $100,000 to $2 million,” The Chicago Sun-Times reported.

“How dare you concoct up some sort of story about brewing up some batch of Legionella and having him feed it to his family,” [Republican Rep. Jeanne] Ives fired back. “How dare you take the discussion and the debate about a very serious bill that has a huge cost consequence on both sides, both for the victim and the state taxpayers. How dare you take an honest debate about an issue and then wish death on my colleague Peter Breen, his wife and his two adopted kids.”

(Read more from “Watch: Democrat Rep Calls for Death of GOP Rep’s Family” HERE)

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The GOP Congress Could Respond to Airbnb’s Anti-Israel Move, but Probably Won’t

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A recent move by Airbnb to block Jews in the West Bank from using its listing services has sparked policy action from the incoming governor of Florida and the outgoing governor of Illinois, but not so much from the outgoing Republican Congress.

CR foreign policy correspondent Jordan Schachtel reported earlier this week:

Florida Governor-elect Ron DeSantis has also pledged to take legal action, if necessary, to stop Florida government employees from using Airbnb, should the policy continue.

Outgoing Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner is also looking into taking potential action against Airbnb.

In the Washington Free Beacon report, reporter Adam Kredo noted that the situation could potentially lead to a renewed push for anti-boycott legislation on Capitol Hill. There’s one anti-BDS bill in the Senate and another in the House, each with bipartisan support. These would be updates to 1977 anti-boycott provisions signed by President Carter.

Will legislation make it to the president’s desk before Christmas?

I asked the offices of several pro-Israel members of both chambers whether or not the Airbnb news would lead to an end-of-year push on anti-boycott legislation. “Not that I know of,” one senior GOP aide told me.

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, is vocal about his interest in using the power of Congress to address anti-Semitism. “This kind of persecution has no place in any society and must end,” Cruz told the Free Beacon. “Airbnb should reverse its decision, and I will continue to work with my colleagues to combat anti-Semitism here and abroad.”

Other offices did not respond in time for publication. If responses are received, CR will update this article.

Absent any movement next week, it seems unlikely that we’ll see any progress on this front before Democrats take over the House in January. Sure, this would have been an easy last-minute messaging win for the GOP, but if Republicans were good at picking up the easy wins, they might not have lost the House earlier this month. (For more from the author of “The GOP Congress Could Respond to Airbnb’s Anti-Israel Move, but Probably Won’t” please click HERE)

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The Democrats Still Can’t Prove Their Trump-Russia Theories

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Democrats have the House majority they need to impeach President Trump in 2019, but they still don’t have something very important to the equation: hard evidence of an impeachable offense.

Friday evening on the radio, LevinTV host Mark Levin, pointed out that there’s a lot of speculation flying around about what Trump supposedly did, but there’s not a whole lot of evidence behind any of it.

Levin played recent television appearances by Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md., Rep. Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., and Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., in which each speculated about the president’s supposed dealings with Moscow or the status of special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation. Levin then went on to highlight the lack of proof to support the various Russia theories.

“They’re just trying to create this narrative,” Levin concluded. “It’s the big lie, and they’re good at it. They repeat it and repeat it and repeat it, and the media help them.”

(Read more from “The Democrats Still Can’t Prove Their Trump-Russia Theories” HERE)

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Google Employees Debated Burying Conservative Media in Search

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Google employees debated whether to bury conservative media outlets in the company’s search function as a response to President Donald Trump’s election in 2016, internal Google communications obtained by The Daily Caller News Foundation reveal. . .

Communications obtained by TheDCNF show that internal Google discussions went beyond expressing remorse over Clinton’s loss to actually discussing ways Google could prevent Trump from winning again.

“This was an election of false equivalencies, and Google, sadly, had a hand in it,” Google engineer Scott Byer wrote in a Nov. 9, 2016, post reviewed by TheDCNF.

Byer falsely labeled The Daily Caller and Breitbart as “opinion blogs” and urged his coworkers to reduce their visibility in search results.

“How many times did you see the Election now card with items from opinion blogs (Breitbart, Daily Caller) elevated next to legitimate news organizations? That’s something that can and should be fixed,” Byer wrote. (Read more from “Google Employees Debated Burying Conservative Media in Search” HERE)

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74-Year-Old Kansas Woman Shoots and Kills Home Intruder, Suffers Heart Attack, Won’t Face Charges

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A 74-year-old Kansas woman who shot and killed a man reportedly attempting to burglarize her home will not face charges, authorities said Thursday.

Ralph Byrd Jr., 41, was fatally shot after entering the home of the unnamed woman last Saturday. The woman reported the shooting to police, who arrived at the scene and found Byrd Jr. inside the home with a gunshot wound, the Leavenworth Times reports.

The elderly woman sustained a heart attack shortly after police began to investigate and was taken to a hospital. She is expected to survive.

Leavenworth County Attorney Todd Thompson said that the woman will not be prosecuted. “For our understanding, she wouldn’t know whether he’s armed or unarmed and within the statute that allows her to be able to defend herself and defend her home,” Thompson said.

A similar incident happened in Kentucky Thursday when a man shot and killed a home invader and caused his two accomplices to flee after they threatened the man’s family with firearms.

That’s twice in one week the Second Amendment and stand your ground policies protected Americans from home invaders. And that’s just the ones we know about. (For more from the author of “74-Year-Old Kansas Woman Shoots and Kills Home Intruder, Suffers Heart Attack, Won’t Face Charges” please click HERE)

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