Corrupt U.S. Drugs Agents Boasted of Using Prostitutes on ‘World Debauchery Tour’

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Corrupt US drugs enforcement agents boasted about being on a “world debauchery tour” of “boozing and whoring”, leaked conversations show.

Officers traded lurid sexual images, discussed hiring prostitutes and joked about rape in WhatsApp messages obtained as part of an FBI criminal misconduct investigation.

The group chat from 2017 included five Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agents, one of whom remains with the agency today.

The agents in the group chat led a undercover money laundering operation codenamed Whitewash, criticised in a blistering internal audit after it was shut down in 2017.

The audit found the agents’ visiting of bars, strip clubs and hotels in Paris, Madrid and the Caribbean was “unacceptable” and rife with corruption. (Read more from “Corrupt U.S. Drugs Agents Boasted of Using Prostitutes on ‘World Debauchery Tour’” HERE)

Trump Backs Out of Harris Debate as Team Says Democrats Want to Install Someone ‘Better’

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GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump’s campaign team backed out of a debate with Vice President Kamala Harris, saying it wouldn’t commit to debate details until the Democratic Party chooses its nominee.

“Given the continued political chaos surrounding Crooked Joe Biden and the Democrat Party, general election debate details cannot be finalized until Democrats formally decide on their nominee,” the former president’s campaign spokesman, Steven Cheung, said in a statement on Thursday.

“There is a strong sense by many in the Democrat Party,” Cheung said, highlighting former President Barack Obama specifically, “that Kamala Harris is a Marxist fraud who cannot beat President Trump, and they are still holding out for someone ‘better.’”

The Trump campaign’s announcement comes two days after the former president said he “absolutely” wanted to debate Harris at some point. At the time, he clarified that while he had previously agreed to debate then-presumed nominee President Joe Biden, he hadn’t agreed to anything debatewise with Harris. (Read more from “Trump Backs Out of Harris Debate as Team Says Democrats Want to Install Someone ‘Better’” HERE)

Photo credit: Gage Skidmore via Flickr

Cheap Daily Supplement Seems to Boost Brain Function in Older People

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What’s good for your aging gut may also be good for your aging brain. The first study of its kind in twins has found that taking daily protein and prebiotic supplements can improve scores on memory tests in people over the age of 60.

The findings are food for thought, especially as the same visual memory and learning test is used to detect early signs of Alzheimer’s disease.

The double-blinded trial involved two cheap plant fiber prebiotics that are available over the counter in numerous nations around the world. Prebiotics are non-digestible consumables that help stimulate our gut microbes.

One is called inulin, and it is a dietary fiber in the class fructan. Another is called fructooligosaccharides (FOS), and it is a plant carbohydrate often used as a natural low calorie sweetener.

To test the effect of these supplements on the aging brain, researchers at King’s College London enrolled 36 pairs of twins over the age of 60. Each duo was randomly split so that one twin was assigned a daily prebiotic in a protein powder and the other was assigned a daily placebo in a protein powder. (Read more from “Cheap Daily Supplement Seems to Boost Brain Function in Older People” HERE)

California’s $20 Minimum Wage Leads 89% of Fast-Food Restaurants to Reduce Hours

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The minimum wage for fast-food workers in California jumped to $20 an hour on April 1, a $4 pay bump for 553,000 fast workers.

However, restaurant chain owners raised concerns that the minimum wage increases would hurt their bottom line, and owners have cut workers’ hours, raised food prices, and even shut down some locations.

In June, Rubio’s Coastal Grill announced it was closing 48 restaurants and filed for bankruptcy, citing the minimum wage increase as one of the reasons for its financial troubles.

Now, more than a month after the Mexican restaurants’ announcement, the Employment Policies Institute published a report revealing that 67% of fast-food restaurants said the minimum wage increase will cost $100,000 per location every year. One in four owners said it would cost more than $200,000 per year.

The survey was filled out by 200 business owners across the Golden State. (Read more from “California’s $20 Minimum Wage Leads 89% of Fast-Food Restaurants to Reduce Hours” HERE)

Report: Barack Obama to Endorse Kamala ‘Soon’ — ‘Thinks She’s Been Off to a Great Start’

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Former President Barack Obama will endorse Vice President Kamala Harris for president “soon,” four people familiar with discussions of the matter told NBC News.

The sources contradict a Wednesday report that Obama does not believe Harris can beat former President Donald Trump in the general election and has not endorsed her for that reason.

Obama, however, “fully” supports Harris, will endorse her soon after being “in close touch since she announced her presidential candidacy Sunday,” and offered to counsel Harris on setting up a campaign. “‘He has been in regular contact with her and thinks she’s been off to a great start,’” one of them said,” according to NBC News.

Sources told the outlet:

The people familiar with the discussions didn’t know the precise timing of his endorsement. One of them said Obama didn’t want it to overshadow President Joe Biden’s moment, particularly his Oval Office address to the nation Wednesday night.

Another person familiar with the discussions said Obama and Harris, who is seeking to maintain the momentum her campaign has enjoyed among Democrats since she entered the race, wanted his endorsement to stand as its own moment.

(Read more from “Report: Barack Obama to Endorse Kamala ‘Soon’ — ‘Thinks She’s Been Off to a Great Start’” HERE)

Photo credit: Flickr

Crowdstrike Disaster Foreshadows Potential for Cyber Apocalypse

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Cyber attacks have truly become the digital equivalent of natural disasters—sudden, catastrophic, and terrifyingly inevitable. The recent CrowdStrike update debacle, which triggered a global meltdown affecting multiple critical sectors, was a glaring example of this modern reality.

Imagine hospitals unable to access patient records, emergency services offline, airports grounded, and banks in utter disarray. This isn’t the plot of a dystopian novel but the grim reality faced over the weekend by the world following the compromised CrowdStrike update. Reports on the ground detailed a scene of unprecedented chaos that unfolded as critical sectors went dark.

Experts suggest that the catastrophe likely stemmed from skipped checks during the update process—a simple oversight with disastrous consequences. It’s a scenario eerily reminiscent of the infamous SolarWinds hack, where the attackers exploited the software update mechanism to infiltrate numerous high-profile organizations, including U.S. federal agencies.

To truly grasp the magnitude of the CrowdStrike incident, we must revisit the SolarWinds attack. Both breaches leveraged the Achilles’ heel of modern IT infrastructure: the software update. In the SolarWinds case, the attackers injected malware into a routine software update, enabling them to access the networks of thousands of customers over several months. The CrowdStrike update, albeit less sophisticated, achieved a similar level of disruption by bypassing critical internal security checks.

Both incidents highlight the vulnerability of software updates in even the most robust cybersecurity systems. No matter how fortified your digital fortress is, if the keys to the kingdom are handed over through a trusted update, all bets are off. (Read more from “Crowdstrike Disaster Foreshadows Potential for Cyber Apocalypse” HERE)

These Important Election Integrity Initiatives Might Be on Your 2024 Ballot

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While most political pundits are focused on the pending matchup between former President Donald Trump and (presumably) Vice President Kamala Harris, a major facet of the 2024 contest that’s not getting enough attention is the election-related policy proposals appearing on state ballots across the country.

From voter ID requirements to expanding mail-in voting, these proposed statutory and constitutional changes could significantly alter the way states administer their elections. Here are the biggest ones you need to know about.

Ranked-Choice Voting

Often referred to as “rigged-choice voting” by its critics, ranked-choice voting (RCV) is an elections system in which voters rank candidates of all parties in order of preference. If no candidate receives more than 50 percent of first-choice votes in the first round of voting, the last-place finisher is eliminated, and his votes are reallocated to the voter’s second-choice candidate. This process continues until one candidate receives a majority of votes.

The system has largely been pushed by Democrats as a way of winning traditionally Republican seats and has regularly produced inaccurate election results and discarded ballots. While 10 states have prohibited RCV in recent years, that hasn’t stopped its proponents from attempting to trick voters into adopting the system via the ballot amendment process.

In Idaho, where Republicans passed a law barring the practice last year, RCV supporters reportedly submitted enough signatures earlier this month to have a top-four RCV initiative appear on the state’s November ballot. According to Ballotpedia, the initiative would change state law to require the use of ranked-choice voting in congressional, gubernatorial, and state and county elections.

(Read more from “These Important Election Integrity Initiatives Might Be on Your 2024 Ballot” HERE)

Whistleblower: Secret Service Repeatedly Rejected Offers to Use Drones at Deadly Trump Rally

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A whistleblower is alleging that the U.S. Secret Service declined to use drones at the deadly Pennsylvania rally for former president Donald Trump on July 13, even though the technology was repeatedly offered by local law enforcement, Republican Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley said on Thursday.

The Secret Service has fallen under intense scrutiny for failing to prevent a gunman from opening fire and attempting to assassinate Trump at the July 13 rally. Amid a series of reported operational failures, Hawley revealed in a letter to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on Thursday that a whistleblower had told him that the Secret Service repeatedly rejected offers from law enforcement in Pennsylvania to utilize drones for security purposes.

“The night before the rally, U.S. Secret Service repeatedly denied offers from a local law enforcement partner to utilize drone technology to secure the rally. This means that the technology was both available to USSS and able to be deployed to secure the site. Secret Service said no,” Hawley wrote in his letter to DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on Thursday. “The whistleblower further alleges that after the shooting took place, USSS changed course and asked the local partner to deploy the drone technology to surveil the site in the aftermath of the attack.”

Hawley wrote in the letter that the whistleblower also told him that the drone technology that was allegedly offered to the Secret Service had the capability to “neutralize” potential threats as well as monitor them.

“It is hard to understand why USSS would decline to use drones when they were offered, particularly given the fact USSS permitted the shooter to overfly the rally area with his own drone mere hours before [the] event,” Hawley wrote in the letter. The gunman, 20-year-old Thomas Crooks, flew a drone over the rally site hours before the event began to scope out the area. (Read more from “Whistleblower: Secret Service Repeatedly Rejected Offers to Use Drones at Deadly Trump Rally” HERE)

Chinese and Russian Bombers Seen Off Coast of Alaska

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On Wednesday, Chinese and Russian nuclear-capable bombers ventured into the Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) off the coast of Alaska. This marked the first known incursion by Chinese H-6 bombers into this strategic buffer zone, prompting a swift response from both the United States and Canada.

According to the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), the simultaneous appearance of Chinese and Russian bombers in the Alaskan ADIZ is a significant development. While the ADIZ itself is not sovereign airspace, and such incursions do not constitute an act of war, they are provocations that necessitate a robust defensive posture.

NORAD’s command reported intercepting and tracking two Russian TU-95 bombers and two Chinese H-6 bombers. U.S. forces deployed F-16 and F-35 fighters to monitor the situation, while Canada responded with its CF-18 fighters.

While the Russian bombers have entered the Alaskan ADIZ before—most recently in May—this incident stands out as it involved a Chinese military presence. The joint patrol of Russian and Chinese bombers, which was confirmed by Chinese Defense Ministry spokesman Col. Zhang Xiaogang, marks the eighth such strategic air patrol between the two nations since 2019. Zhang emphasized that the patrol was designed to enhance coordination between the two air forces.

China’s increasing assertiveness in the Arctic region has been a point of contention for several years. Declaring itself a “near-Arctic state,” China has sought to expand its influence and involvement in Arctic affairs, often using terms like “polar Silk Road” to describe its ambitions. This effort aligns with Beijing’s broader strategy to secure access to Arctic resources and integrate the region into its global infrastructure initiatives.

The Pentagon has expressed growing concern over the expanding cooperation between China and Russia in the Arctic. A recent Department of Defense report highlighted the increasing alignment of these two major powers in the region as a significant strategic challenge:

While significant areas of disagreement between the PRC and Russia remain, their growing alignment in the region is of concern

House Passes Resolution Condemning Kamala Harris’s ‘Failure’ as ‘Border Czar’ With Support From Six Democrats

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The House passed a resolution introduced by Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) that condemns Vice President Kamala Harris’s “failure” as what they referred to as “border czar” with support from all Republicans and six Democrats.

On Thursday, 214 House Republicans as well as six House Democrats voted to condemn Harris’s “failure” in the role given to her by President Joe Biden in March 2021, when he asked her to help stem “the migration to our southern border.”

However, 196 House Democrats voted against the resolution.

“The House of Representatives strongly condemns the Biden Administration and its Border Czar, Kamala Harris’s, failure to secure the United States border,” the resolution reads.

Those six House Democrats who voted for the resolution are:

Rep. Yadira Caraveo (D-CO)
Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-TX)
Rep. Don Davis (D-NC)
Rep. Jared Golden (D-ME)
Rep. Mary Sattler Peltola (D-AK)
Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-WA)

(Read more from “House Passes Resolution Condemning Kamala Harris’s ‘Failure’ as ‘Border Czar’ With Support From Six Democrats” HERE)

Photo credit: Gage Skidmore via Flickr