Florence Not Done Yet: The ‘Worst yet to Come,’ Risks Include Flash Floods, Landslides, Tornadoes

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With at least 32 deaths linked to the flooding and high winds caused by Hurricane Florence and its aftermath, North Carolina remained in state of crisis Tuesday as officials tried to battle floodwaters that kept rising.

Wilmington, North Carolina, remained largely isolated by flooding, while more than half a million people were without power, CBS reported.

“Any direction you try coming into the city, from 20 to 40 miles out, roads are impassable,” Mayor Bill Saffo said, CNN reported. “Anyone trying to get in here — don’t try. You will be turned away. Highway Patrol won’t let you.”

“This a monumental disaster for our state,” said North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper. “In many parts of North Carolina the danger is still immediate.”

Cooper said that due to the days of rain dumped on the state, the “worst flooding yet” is still to come.

Cooper’s words echoed those of Mayor Mitch Colvin of Fayetteville, North Carolina, who on Saturday predicted, “The worst is yet to come,” The Guardian reported.

Some parts of North Carolina received almost three feet of rain.

Although the Carolinas were drenched by rain from the storm, its passage through Virginia was marked by tornadoes. One person was reported killed in the state.

“Flooding is still going to be a concern into the weekend and into next week,” said Hal Austin, a National Weather Service meteorologist, according to CNBC.

Austin said more rain may fall on the Carolinas Tuesday and Wednesday.

“No more water, not even a drop, please,” he said.

Florence left the Carolinas and Virginia behind Tuesday as it moved north.

The storm was expected to drop six inches of rain on parts of New England and the mid-Atlantic on Tuesday, with flash flood watches posted across parts of New England and New York. Parts of New York State’s Erie Canal were closed in anticipation of flooding, NYUpstate reported.

The storm’s impacts may be felt other places as well.

“Not only are you going to see more impact across North Carolina … but we’re also anticipating you are about to see a lot of damage through West Virginia, all the way up to Ohio as the system exits out,” Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator Brock Long said Sunday, according to Fox News. (For more from the author of “Florence Not Done Yet: The ‘Worst yet to Come,’ Risks Include Flash Floods, Landslides, Tornadoes” please click HERE)

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Democrats Refuse to Participate in Phone Call With Kavanaugh

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Democrats serving on the Senate Judiciary Committee reportedly refused to participate in phone calls with Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh and his sexual assault accuser Dr. Christine Blasey Ford on Monday.

In a statement released by the Senate Judiciary Committee, Chairman Chuck Grassley said, “Anyone who comes forward as Dr. Ford has deserves to be heard, so I will continue working on a way to hear her out in an appropriate, precedented and respectful manner.”

He continued, “The standard procedure for updates to any nominee’s background investigation file is to conduct separate follow-up calls with relevant parties. In this case, that would entail phone calls with at least Judge Kavanaugh and Dr. Ford. Consistent with that practice, I asked Senator Feinstein’s office yesterday to join me in scheduling these follow-ups.

“Thus far, they have refused. But as a necessary step in evaluating these claims, I’ll continue working to set them up.”

Later in the day, Grassley announced the committee would be holding public hearings Monday, Sept. 24, during which both Kavanaugh and Ford are slated to appear.

“As I said earlier, anyone who comes forward as Dr. Ford has deserves to be heard. My staff reached out to Dr. Ford to hear her account, and they held a follow-up call with Judge Kavanaugh this afternoon,” said Grassley.

“Unfortunately, committee Democrats have refused to join us in their effort. However, to provide ample transparency, we will hold a public hearing Monday to give these recent allegations a full airing,” he added.

President Donald Trump stated on Monday he wants Ford’s sexual assault allegation against Kavanaugh — stemming from the early 1980s, when the two were in high school — to receive “full process” in the U.S. Senate, but predicted it “will work out very well.”

“I wish the Democrats could have done this a lot sooner because they had this information for many months,” Trump told reporters at the White House. “They shouldn’t have waited until literally the last days. They should have done it a lot sooner.”

Nonetheless, the president said, “We want to go through a full process,” adding, “I have great confidence in the U.S. Senate and in their procedures and what they’re doing.”

Trump conceded a “little delay” might be needed to look into the allegation.

Asked if Kavanaugh should withdraw his name from consideration, the president called the question “ridiculous.”

Originally, a vote by the Judiciary Committee had been slated for this Thursday.

Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., who sits on the committee, told The Washington Post on Sunday, “I’ve made it clear that I’m not comfortable moving ahead with the vote on Thursday if we have not heard her side of the story or explored this further.”

“For me, we can’t vote until we hear more,” he said.

Feinstein, who is the ranking Democratic member on the committee, shared that view.

“I agree with Sen. Flake that we should delay this week’s vote,” she said. “There’s a lot of information we don’t know and the FBI should have the time it needs to investigate this new material.” (For more from the author of “Democrats Refuse to Participate in Phone Call With Kavanaugh” please click HERE)

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Amazon Investigating Claims of Employees Leaking Data for Bribes

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Amazon.com Inc (AMZN.O) said on Monday it was investigating suspected internal leaks of confidential information by its employees for bribes to remove fake reviews and other seller scams from its website.

Amazon employees are offering internal data and other classified information through intermediaries, to independent merchants selling their products on the site to help them boost sales in return for payments, the Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday, citing sources. . .

“We hold our employees to a high ethical standard and anyone in violation of our code faces discipline, including termination and potential legal and criminal penalties,” a company spokesperson told Reuters.

Brokers for Amazon employees in Shenzhen are offering internal sales metrics and reviewers’ email addresses, as well as a service to delete negative reviews and restore banned Amazon accounts in exchange for payments ranging from about $80 to more than $2,000, the WSJ report said. (Read more from “Amazon Investigating Claims of Employees Leaking Data for Bribes” HERE)

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President Trump Orders Declassification of Some FISA Court Documents, All Texts From Russia Investigation

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By Townhall. After months of requests, President Trump declassified a number of FISA court documents late Monday afternoon and directed the relevant government agencies to release them to the public.

“At the request of a number of committees of Congress, and for reasons of transparency, the President has directed the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Department of Justice (including the FBI) to provide for the immediate declassification of the following materials: (1) pages 10-12 and 17-34 of the June 2017 application to the FISA court in the matter of Carter W. Page; (2) all FBI reports of interviews with Bruce G. Ohr prepared in connection with the Russia investigation; and (3) all FBI reports of interviews prepared in connection with all Carter Page FISA applications,” White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders released in a statement.

President Trump also ordered the unredacted release of all text messages related to the Russia investigation from fired FBI Director James Comey, fired Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe, fired FBI agent Peter Strzok and FBI lawyer Lisa Page. (Read more from “President Trump Orders Declassification of Some FISA Court Documents, All Texts From Russia Investigation” HERE)

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Trump Orders Feds to Declassify Key Fisa Documents

By Fox News. President Trump on Monday ordered the declassification of several key documents related to the FBI’s probe of Russian actions during the 2016 presidential election, including 21 pages of an application for a renewed surveillance warrant against former campaign aide Carter Page, and text messages from disgraced FBI figures Peter Strzok and Lisa Page. . .

Trump also ordered the Justice Department to release text messages from a number of the key players in the Russia investigation “without redaction” — including Ohr, Strzok, Lisa Page, former FBI Director James Comey and former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe.

It was not immediately clear when or how the documents would be released. Congressional sources told Fox News that House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes, R-Calif., does not know how soon he will get the documents, but said Trump’s order covers “pretty much everything that he wanted … and the text messages are a bonus.” . . .

Earlier this month, 12 Republican members of Congress publicly asked Trump to declassify the June 2017 application for a warrant against Page as well as the FBI reports of interviews with Ohr, known in bureaucratic parlance as “Form 302s.” (Read more from “Trump Orders Feds to Declassify Key FISA Documents” HERE)

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NFL Player Shocks Team, Retires Mid-Game. Teammate Lets Him Know How He Feels About It.

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Buffalo Bills cornerback Vontae Davis, 30, announced during halftime of his team’s losing effort against the Los Angeles Chargers Sunday that he had decided to retire, right then — as in, he wasn’t going to play in the second half.

After 10 years in the league and having secured a one-year deal in February — that included a base salary of $2.25 million, a $1.5 million signing bonus, $2 million guaranteed and additional roster bonuses — Davis abruptly announced Sunday that he was done with football.

“This isn’t how I pictured retiring from the NFL,” he said in a statement he issued later Sunday. “But in my 10th NFL season, I have been doing what my body has been programmed to do: Get ready to play on game day. I’ve endured multiple surgeries and have played through many different injuries throughout my career and, over the last few weeks, this was the latest physical challenge. But today on the field, reality hit me fast and hard: I shouldn’t be out there anymore.” . . .

Though Davis said he meant no “disrespect” to his fellow players, some of one made clear that he didn’t interpret it that way. Linebacker Lorenzo Alexander, who told reporters about his former teammates’ mid-game retirement after the game ended, slammed the “completely disrespectful” move.

“Never have seen it ever,” said the linebacker. “Pop Warner, high school, college, pros. Never heard of it. Never seen it. And it’s just completely disrespectful to his teammates. … He didn’t say nothing to nobody. … I found out going into the second half of the game. They said he’s not coming out, he retired. That’s it.” (Read more from “NFL Player Shocks Team, Retires Mid-Game. Teammate Lets Him Know How He Feels About It.” HERE)

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Leftists in Complete Frenzy After Learning Trump Will Be Able to Message All Americans

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If you’re a cell phone owner — and I’m assuming that applies to most of you in 2018 — you’ve probably received one of those alerts on your phone about an abducted child or a possible weather emergency, or just the usual test message.

Well, now FEMA is about to conduct a national test of part of their alert system in which the president can notify the American people in the event of an emergency, which is something that has to be pretty uncontroversial, right? I mean, there’s absolutely no way that this could possibly be problematic. . .

So, here’s the occasion that has liberals all in a tizzy: “The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), in coordination with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), will conduct a nationwide test of the Emergency Alert System (EAS) and Wireless Emergency Alerts (WEA) on September 20, 2018,” the agency announced via a release.

“The WEA portion of the test commences at 2:18 p.m. EDT, and the EAS portion follows at 2:20 p.m. EDT. The test will assess the operational readiness of the infrastructure for distribution of a national message and determine whether improvements are needed.”

So far, so normal. The part they don’t like? “The EAS is a national public warning system that provides the President with the communications capability to address the nation during a national emergency,” the release reads.

(Read more from “Leftists in Complete Frenzy After Learning Trump Will Be Able to Message All Americans” HERE)

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Dan Bongino Explains the ‘One Key Thing’ the Declassified Carter Page FISA Application Will Reveal

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By Conservative Review. On Monday evening, President Donald Trump ordered the declassification of several pages of the June 2017 Carter Page FISA application and the public release of all text messages related to the Russia investigation from James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, and Bruce Ohr — without redaction.

“Ladies and gentlemen, here it comes,” Dan Bongino said, filling in for Mark Levin on the radio. The host of The Dan Bongino Show podcast predicted that the public release of these documents will show that the Russian collusion allegations made against Trump by the Democrats and the media are nothing but a hoax.

“You are going to see one key thing: that this entire case, from minute one, was based on one big, fat hoax perpetrated by people working for Hillary Clinton in the form of this filthy, disgusting dossier with not a scintilla of actual information.”

“If you believe in this, you’ve been hoaxed,” Bongino said. (For more from the author of “Dan Bongino Explains the ‘One Key Thing’ the Declassified Carter Page FISA Application Will Reveal” please click HERE)

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Carter Page Reacts to Calls to Declassify FISA Documents

By Fox News. Developing tonight, President Trump looks poised to finally declassify previously redacted sections of FISA applications against former Trump campaign associate, Carter Page. Joining me now with his very unique perspective on all of this including the Mueller investigation motivation behind it, former Trump campaign associate, Carter Page himself.

Your first visit on “Justice,” Carter, we are delighted to have you on. And so, I want to start and move very quickly through this. You have been through so much. We now know that liars and leaks and the liberals in the DOJ as well as the Department of the Justice want to frame Donald Trump in order to impeach him. . .

CARTER PAGE, FORMER TRUMP CAMPAIGN ASSOCIATE: It’s like I often say, Judge Jeanine, it’s not about me, it’s about fixing the disaster that this has created for our country. . .

PAGE: I have incredible support from people that have been doing a lot of work, including Tom Fitton and Judicial Watch. People in Congress like Chairman Nunes and Chairman Grassley that have been doing so much to try to get the truth out there, and you know, you and your team at Fox. It’s been incredible. . .

PAGE: Judge Jeanine, it’s funny. When I was – Devlin Barrett from The Washington Post had a report about me having various interviews with the FBI in March of 2017. The following months, they kept having these various leaks which you are referring to, and I actually told them similar to what Mr. Manafort’s attorney said yesterday. He had a lot of security threats in various – he’s concerned about his safety. That’s exactly what I told the FBI that month as well. (Read more from “Carter Page Reacts to Calls to Declassify FISA Documents” HERE)

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ACLU Admits Deported Illegals Are Separating Their Own Families

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The ACLU has admitted that migrant parents in the “family separation” furor are deliberately leaving at least 114 children in the United States, says a court filing by the federal government.

The acknowledged abandonment of the 114 children and youths — plus the de-facto abandonment of up to 232 others — undermines the progressives’ media-magnified claim that President Donald Trump maliciously separated victimized families as they fled from crime into the safety of the United States.

Instead, the migrants’ decisions to leave 114 children behind highlights the migrants’ rational and reasonable plan to use the border loopholes created by progressives to get themselves and their children — either separately or together — to the United States’ job opportunities, free education, peaceful streets, and anti-poverty programs. . .

The number of children who are left behind in the United States likely may climb well over 500 as federal officials gradually repatriate the migrant parents of 1,985 other children and youths who have been reunited with their parents. They were reunited with their parents following Trump’s June 20 decision to end the April policy of detaining and prosecuting all migrants while sheltering their children at facilities run by the Department of Health and Human Services. . .

Meanwhile, the ACLU continues to blame Trump for “family separation” issue and to use the theme as a fund-raising and activist tool. On Sept. 15, for example, the group tweeted the claim that “The immigrant children taken from their parents by the Trump administration could go through the rest of their lives with a deep-seated sense of vulnerability.” The ACLU has also pinned this emotional Tweet from August to top of their Twitter account:

(Read more from “ACLU Admits Deported Illegals Are Separating Their Own Families” HERE)

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This Is How Chuck Grassley Will Proceed With Kavanaugh’s Accuser

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By Townhall. Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley detailed how he will handle the situation and accusations made by professor Christine Blasey Ford in a statement Monday afternoon.

“Anyone who comes forward as Dr. Ford has deserves to be heard, so I will continue working on a way to hear her out in an appropriate, precedented and respectful manner.

“The standard procedure for updates to any nominee’s background investigation file is to conduct separate follow-up calls with relevant parties. In this case, that would entail phone calls with at least Judge Kavanaugh and Dr. Ford. Consistent with that practice, I asked Senator Feinstein’s office yesterday to join me in scheduling these follow-ups. Thus far, they have refused. But as a necessary step in evaluating these claims, I’ll continue working to set them up.

“Unfortunately, committee Republicans have only known this person’s identity from news reports for less than 24 hours and known about her allegations for less than a week. Senator Feinstein, on the other hand, has had this information for many weeks and deprived her colleagues of the information necessary to do our jobs. The Minority withheld even the anonymous allegations for six weeks, only to later decide that they were serious enough to investigate on the eve of the committee vote, after the vetting process had been completed.

(Read more from “This Is How Chuck Grassley Will Proceed With Kavanaugh’s Accuser” HERE)

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Grassley: Feinstein Refusing to Cooperate on Kavanaugh Accuser

By The Daily Caller. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley blasted ranking member Sen. Dianne Feinstein for her handling of high-school-era sexual assault allegations against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.

The allegations against Kavanaugh surfaced Sunday after his accuser, Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, granted an interview to The Washington Post. Ford detailed how she sent an anonymous letter to Feinsten regarding the alleged encounter months earlier. Feinstein said she forwarded Ford’s letter to the FBI for review but never made the allegations public until stories began to surface around the letter itself after Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearings ended. . .

The chairman explained that “the standard procedure for updates to any nominee’s background investigation file is to conduct separate follow-up calls with relevant parties. In this case, that would entail phone calls with at least Judge Kavanaugh and Dr. Ford,” adding, “I asked Senator Feinstein’s office yesterday to join me in scheduling these follow-ups. Thus far, they have refused. But as a necessary step in evaluating these claims, I’ll continue working to set them up.” (Read more from “Grassley: Feinstein Refusing to Cooperate on Kavanaugh Accuser” HERE)

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Lisa Page Bombshell: FBI Couldn’t Prove Trump-Russia Collusion Before Mueller Appointment

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By The Hill. To date, Lisa Page’s infamy has been driven mostly by the anti-Donald Trump text messages she exchanged with fellow FBI agent Peter Strzok as the two engaged in an affair while investigating the president for alleged election collusion with Russia.

Yet, when history judges the former FBI lawyer years from now, her most consequential pronouncement may not have been typed on her bureau-issued Samsung smartphone to her colleague and lover.

Rather, it might be eight simple words she uttered behind closed doors during a congressional interview a few weeks ago.

“It’s a reflection of us still not knowing,” Page told Rep. John Ratcliffe (R-Texas) when questioned about texts she and Strzok exchanged in May 2017 as Robert Mueller was being named a special prosecutor to take over the Russia investigation.

With that statement, Page acknowledged a momentous fact: After nine months of using some of the most awesome surveillance powers afforded to U.S. intelligence, the FBI still had not made a case connecting Trump or his campaign to Russia’s election meddling. (Read more from “Lisa Page Bombshell: Fbi Couldn’t Prove Trump-Russia Collusion Before Mueller Appointment” HERE)

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Paul Manafort Could Flip on a Big Fish — but That Might Not Be Trump

By NBC News. Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, pleaded guilty to two counts in his new Washington criminal case, and admitted guilt in the 10 counts outstanding from his earlier trial in federal court in Virginia. The shocking part is this: He agreed last week to cooperate with federal prosecutors. A more accurate statement would be that federal prosecutors have agreed to “cooperate” him. As with most cooperation agreements, Manafort will have to “come clean” and be completely forthcoming with documents and information, and voluntarily testify in court.

If Manafort gives the government substantial assistance, the sentencing benefits are significant. The government will file a motion for a “downward departure” from the sentencing guidelines for cooperation, and for an additional reduction (up to three “levels”) for “acceptance of responsibility.” These alone can reduce the sentence by decades.

Many are suggesting Trump should be worried about this situation, because Manafort very likely could have impressed special counsel Robert Mueller with what he knows about Trump. It’s also been suggested that Manafort has ended up in the worst situation by waiting so long to cooperate. (Read more from “Paul Manafort Could Flip on a Big Fish — but That Might Not Be Trump” HERE)

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