Top Mueller Officials Coordinated With Fusion GPS Spouse

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A senior Department of Justice official says he repeatedly and specifically told top officials at the FBI and DOJ about dossier author Christopher Steele’s bias and his employer Fusion GPS’ conflicts of interest, information they kept hidden from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. These conversations involved high-level officials, including some who are now senior officials in the special counsel probe. And the conversations began taking place in the earliest days of August 2016, much earlier than previously revealed to congressional investigators seeking to learn the facts about the FBI’s decision to spy on the Trump campaign.

Testimony from Bruce Ohr, the demoted associate deputy attorney general at Justice, informs a years-long partisan debate about the role he played in funneling information to the FBI from the terminated source.

Republicans on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, led by Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., expressed concern in February 2018 about Ohr’s role in their memo warning about abuses of the process by which the federal government spied on Trump affiliates. They claimed the high-ranking Justice official was in contact with Steele after the foreign actor had supposedly been terminated with cause as the primary source of negative and outlandish information on Trump.

They also said Ohr, whose wife worked for the very same information operation that Steele did, had shared critical information about the source that did not appear in the applications to spy on Carter Page. Finally, they claimed that Ohr funneled to the FBI his wife’s opposition research, which had been secretly bought and paid for by the Democratic National Committee and the Hillary Clinton Campaign. . .

Meanwhile, Democrats on the committee, led by Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., said the Republican majority overstated Ohr’s role. They claimed Steele’s conversations with the FBI “occurred weeks after the election and more than a month after the Court approved the initial FlSA application.” (Read more from “Top Mueller Officials Coordinated With Fusion GPS Spouse” HERE)

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No, Forever War in Syria Won’t Protect the United States

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Army Chief Warrant Officer Jonathan R. Farmer, 37, of Boynton Beach, Florida. Navy Chief Petty Officer Shannon M. Kent, 35, of Pine Plains, New York. Defense Intelligence Agency civilian Scott A. Wirtz, 42, of St. Louis, Missouri. Interpreter Ghadir Taher, 27, from East Point, Georgia.

The bodies of the four Americans from four separate parts of the country—victims of a January 16 Islamic State suicide bombing near a popular restaurant in the Syrian city of Manbij—made their final return home to Dover Air Force Base on January 19. It was a vivid and graphic reminder to the American people that U.S. forces remain very much in harm’s way.

To the politicians back home, the deaths of four Americans in a Syrian town few in the United States could find on a map is a sign of ISIS’s sudden resurgence. The American people have been led to believe that President Trump’s decision to withdraw U.S. troops from Syria is emboldening the enemy. Sen. Lindsey Graham, the interventionist who has never seen a world problem that couldn’t be solved through military force, even suggested that Trump’s decision may have laid the groundwork for the bombing in Manbij. Sen. Jack Reed said the attack is proof the administration needs to “reevaluate” a troop departure. . .

First, the Islamic State’s territorial “caliphate” is for all intents and purposes destroyed. At the height of its power in 2014, ISIS managed to control land roughly equivalent to the size of the United Kingdom. ISIS fighters were present from the northern outskirts of Baghdad to the rural towns of northwestern Syria. Approximately eight million people in Iraq and Syria were under ISIS’s thumb, a valuable financial asset the group fully exploited through a system of taxation. . .

Those who say U.S. forces should remain in eastern Syria even after their primary mission is over are moving the goal-posts in a frantic attempt to justify a continued U.S. military presence in a country that is strategically unimportant to U.S. national security interests in the region. Don’t be fooled: the commentators, ex-officials, and lawmakers who oppose a U.S. troop withdrawal today are in essence arguing for another indefinite U.S. deployment in the Middle East. (Read more from “No, Forever War in Syria Won’t Protect the United States” HERE)

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Here’s How Major News Outlets Updated Their Stories About the Covington Controversy

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Some prominent media outlets had to update their stories on a video that showed a Native American activist’s encounter with a group of high school boys wearing “Make America Great Again” hats.

A short video and picture of the incident were initially described as the boys antagonizing and mocking the Native American veteran, Nathan Phillips, but a longer video shows that Phillips approached the boys and played a drum in front of one of them, now identified as Nick Sandmann, while the boy looked on and smiled.

. . .

The New York Times initially led with a “Boys in ‘Make America Great Again’ Hats Mob Native Elder at Indigenous Peoples March” story but added a note to it.

. . .

“Interviews and additional video footage have offered a fuller picture of what happened in this encounter,” they wrote, “including the context that the Native American man approached the students amid broader tensions outside the Lincoln Memorial. Read the latest article here.”

However, they later added updates providing Sandmann’s side of the story and changed the headline to “Teen in confrontation with Native American elder says he was trying to defuse the situation.” (Read more from “Here’s How Major News Outlets Updated Their Stories About the Covington Controversy” HERE)

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Planned Parenthood’s New Annual Report Shows Increase in Abortions, Taxpayer Funding, and Excess Revenue

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Planned Parenthood released its annual report for the 2017-2018 fiscal year quietly over the weekend. The report revealed that the number of abortions the group did this past year increased by over 11,000 from 321,384 in 2016 to 332,757.

Another number that increased in their annual report was the amount of federal funding the nation’s largest abortion provider received. The group received $543.7 million in taxpayer funding in 2016 and that number increased by $20 million to $563.8 million in 2017-2018.

While the number of abortions and the amount of taxpayer dollars the abortion group received both increased, almost every other category of the group’s services went down. . .

While the number of patients is the same, the organization’s excess of revenue over expenses continued its dramatic increase and more than doubled from $77.5 million in 2015 and $98.5 million in 2016 to a whopping $244.8 million in 2017. . .

A notably absent element of the report was any mention of their sponsorship of the Women’s March which was prominently featured in the 2016-2017 report. While the abortion group did sponsor the march this past weekend, it was despite a controversy over anti-Semitism from the Women’s March leaders that caused previous partners, including the DNC and the SPLC, to remove their support. (Read more from “Planned Parenthood’s New Annual Report Shows Increase in Abortions, Taxpayer Funding, and Excess Revenue” HERE)

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Israel, in Rare Move, Announces Attacks on Iranian Targets

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Israel confirmed early Monday that its military attacked Iranian targets in Syria, in a rare statement on such an operation.

“We have started striking Iranian Quds targets in Syrian territory,” the military statement said. “We warn the Syrian Armed Forces against attempting to harm Israeli forces or territory.” . . .

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently confirmed that Israel had struck hundreds of targets in Syria linked to Iran and the Lebanese Hezbollah militant group, including a weapons facility two weeks ago. Iran and Hezbollah are allied with the Syrian government in the civil war.

Two hours after the reports that Israel’s Iron Dome intercepted a rocket fired toward the Golan Heights, Netanyahu, who currently is on a visit to Chad, said in a statement: “We have a defined policy: to harm Iranian entrenchment in Syria and to harm anyone who tries to harm us.”

Earlier Sunday, a roadside bomb went off south of Damascus; the extent of the damage and any possible injuries was unclear. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which closely monitors Syria’s war, said the bomb targeted the vehicle of a “security personality” that it did not identify. The Observatory’s chief, Rami Abdurrahman, said it was unclear whether the individual was killed or wounded. “It was not a random act,” he added. (Read more from “Israel, in Rare Move, Announces Attacks on Iranian Targets” HERE)

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Trump’s Not Kidding When He Promises ‘Cutting-Edge’ Missile Defense

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Thursday at the Pentagon, President Trump released his administration’s long-awaited Missile Defense Review (MDR). In his announcement, Trump promised “nothing less for our nation than the most effective, cutting-edge missile defense systems.” Indeed, the steps called for in this review will go a long way to toward employing new technologies to address next-generation threats and strengthening U.S. and allied security.

The missile threats to the United States and its allies have significantly increased in recent years. North Korea may now be able to reach the continental United States with a nuclear-tipped ballistic missile. Despite the curbs on Iran’s nuclear program, Tehran’s missile program continues to advance, making it the most sophisticated in the Middle East. . .

To these ends, the new MDR promises to beef up the number of radars and interceptors for existing U.S. missile defense systems. Most importantly, however, it also promises to pursue next-generation technologies. You cannot hit what you cannot see, and a new space-based sensor layer will allow the United States to track new enemy cruise and hypersonic missiles (President Obama published a “Ballistic” Missile Defense Review, but this document drops the first word in recognition of the broader array of missile threats now facing the United States).

Existing missile defenses use ground-based missiles to intercept an incoming enemy missile. It is like hitting a bullet with a bullet. But Trump’s new missile defense review calls for exploring directed energy interceptors. The idea would be for drones armed with lasers to hover in international airspace. If Pyongyang, for example, launches a missile in the future, drones will zap it with a laser in its most vulnerable boost phase. . .

The U.S. test record across all missile defense systems since 2001 is 86 successful intercepts in 105 attempts. New technologies such as lasers promise to drastically reduce the cost per shot of future defenses. Finally, the greatest threat to international security is not U.S. defenses, but Russian and Chinese efforts to tear down the U.S.-led international order. Putting Moscow and Beijing on notice will bolster, not undermine, global stability. (Read more from “Trump’s Not Kidding When He Promises ‘Cutting-Edge’ Missile Defense” HERE)

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Watch: Shapiro Smashes Pro-Abortion Arguments at March for Life

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Festivities for the 2019 March for Life kicked off Friday with a live broadcast of “The Ben Shapiro Show,” which the popular conservative commentator devoted to an overview of the case against abortion and common “pro-choice” arguments.

After taking the stage to enthusiastic cheers, Shapiro noted that this was the first time both at the March and doing a full hour themed around a specific issue, then quoted several pro-abortion statements from former President Barack Obama, including that God should “bless” Planned Parenthood.

“I know the March for Life has gotten a lot of flack for allowing me to broadcast from this stage because I’m a political partisan, because I don’t hide the fact that I’m conservative,” he said. “But the fact is that the pro-life position does not have to be a partisan issue. The only reason that so many folks believe it to be a partisan issue is because, unfortunately, one party in this country has decided to embrace the full-on abortion-till-point-of-birth position.” . . .

The “viability” argument, that preborn babies don’t have a right to the life if they can’t live on their own “obviously doesn’t hold,” he said, because infants and many elderly are dependent on others, as well. As for the notion that the difficulty of parenting justifies abortion, Shapiro noted that raising children was difficult “because it’s the most important thing we do […] there is nothing moral about the idea that you think you’ll be a bad parent so you get to kill the child.” (Read more from “Watch: Shapiro Smashes Pro-Abortion Arguments at March for Life” HERE)

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China Trying to Rewrite the Bible

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The Chinese government is supervising a five-year plan to make Christianity more compatible with socialism in which there will be a “rewrite” of the Bible, a prominent religious freedom activist has told Congress.

The Rev. Bob Fu, a former Chinese house church leader who immigrated to the United States in 1997 and founded the persecution watchdog organization China Aid, provided great detail during a House hearing Thursday about a plan enacted by leading state-sanctioned denominations in China to “Sincize” Christianity.

As China’s crackdown on religion has seen many house churches demolished and thousands of crosses removed from churches nationwide, Fu warned upfront that what is happening right now in China represents the highest degree of persecution for independent faith groups the country has seen in decades. . .

In a written testimony, Fu said that under the new regulations religious activity sites will “accept the guidance, supervision, and inspection of relevant departments of the local people’s government regarding the management of personnel, finances, assets, accounting, security, fire protection, protection of relics, health and disease prevent and so forth.” . . .

“There are outlines that the new Bible should not look westernized and [should look] Chinese and reflect Chinese ethics of Confucianism and socialism,” Fu told The Christian Post after the hearing. “The Old Testament will be messed up. The New Testament will have new commentaries to interpret it.” (Read more from “China Trying to Rewrite the Bible” HERE)

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Pope Francis Knew About Argentina Bishop’s Sexual Misconduct Prior to Vatican Promotion

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Pope Francis promoted one of his protegés within the Vatican, Argentine bishop Gustavo Oscar Zanchetta, despite the Vatican having received evidence prior to the bishop’s promotion of sexual misconduct, which included accusations of “sexual harassment” of adult seminarians, taking “nude selfies,” and exhibiting “obscene” behavior.

The Rev. Juan José Manzano, the former general vicar of Zanchetta in Argentina, told these facts to Associated Press, which released its report today. He stated that already in 2015, and then in 2017, Pope Francis spoke with Zanchetta twice about his misconduct.

The news comes on the heels of the Vatican announcing earlier this month that Zanchetta was under investigation for sexual abuse and had been removed from his post. Vatican press speaker Alessandro Gissoti said at the time that “there had been no accusation of sexual abuse” against the bishop after he resigned from his diocese of Oran in 2017.

“No charges of sexual abuse had arisen at the time of appointment as advisor [to the Administration of the Patrimony of the Holy See, which oversees the various real estate and other properties of the papacy]. The accusations of sexual abuse date back to this fall,” he stated.

As the Miami Herald reports today, the Rev. Manzano – who is now a parish priest – said that he started to “raise alarm” already in 2015 about his superior who had even taken “nude selfies.” Manzano is one of three diocesan officials who at the time contacted the Vatican, first sending in some nude “selfies” of Zanchetta. In 2017, these officials made a second complaint to the Vatican “when the situation was much more serious,” not only because of the sexual abuses, but also because the “diocese was increasingly heading into the abyss.” (Read more from “Pope Francis Knew About Argentina Bishop’s Sexual Misconduct Prior to Vatican Promotion” HERE)

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Judge Demolishes Leftist Theory That Climate Change Is to Blame for Deadly California Wildfires

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By The Blaze. As massive wildfires ravaged dense areas of California last autumn, progressives and liberals alike placed blame for the tragedy on climate change. . .

The Washington Post dedicated an entire story to debunking claims made by President Donald Trump in which he blamed “forest mismanagement” for the deadly fires. That’s false, the Post declared, identifying climate change as the fire antagonist. . .

U.S. District Court Judge William Alsup ruled last Thursday that California utility company Pacific Gas and Electric was “the single most recurring cause” that contributed to devastating wildfires that burned millions of acres and led to the deaths of dozens of California residents. . .

Scott McLean, deputy chief of communication for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, told NBC the state determined PG&E was liable for 12 of 17 wildfires during the 2017 season, but has yet to rule on last year’s fires, including the Camp Fire, which killed 88. (Read more from “Judge Demolishes Leftist Theory That Climate Change Is to Blame for Deadly California Wildfires” HERE)

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Judge says uninsulated power conductors caused California fires

By NBC News. A federal court in San Francisco tentatively found that equipment owned by Northern California utility Pacific Gas and Electric was “the single most recurring cause” in deadly wildfires that have plagued the state since 2017.

U.S. District Court Judge William Alsup made the finding Thursday in a case related to PG&E’s response to the deadly 2010 San Bruno gas pipeline explosion.

“The Court tentatively finds that the single most recurring cause of the large 2017 and 2018 wildfires attributable to PG&E’s equipment has been the susceptibility of PG&E’s distribution lines to trees or limbs falling onto them during high-wind events,” his order in the case reads.

“The power conductors are almost always uninsulated,” Alsup wrote. “When the conductors are pushed together by falling trees or limbs, electrical sparks drop into the vegetation below. During the wildfire season when the vegetation is dry, these electrical sparks pose an extreme danger of igniting a wildfire.” (Read more from “Judge Says Uninsulated Power Conductors Caused California Fires” HERE)

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