Fernando, a hitman for a Swedish narcotics gang, checks his phone as it pings with his latest orders: collect the guns, go to the target’s front door and fire until he runs out of bullets.
“Yeah, I understand brother,” he replies casually. He collects two pistols, a Kalashnikov rifle and an accomplice, before hurrying to their target in a suburb of Stockholm.
But this is no ordinary gang hit. Fernando is 14, a teenage assassin who was playing the video game Fifa in his youth club when the orders arrived by text.
He is one among dozens of child contract killers in Sweden, recruited by gang middle-men on social media who pay as much as 150,000 kroner (£13,000) per job.
The number of murder cases involving child suspects in Sweden, which has the highest per capita rate of gun violence in the EU, has exploded over the past year. The figures rose from 31 counts in the first eight months of 2023 to 102 in the same period of this year, according to Sweden’s prosecution authority.
What has been happening in Sweden recently?
Swedish prosecutors and police say the use of children – many of them from an impoverished or foreign background – to commit murders on that scale is unprecedented. One recent case involved a boy of just 11 years old.
Children are the ideal catspaw for Sweden’s gangs: those aged under 15 are too young to be prosecuted, a quirk of Swedish law that critics say is in urgent need of reform.
Hmm, I guess they mean “most” if not all are imports to Sweden. Fernando isn’t exactly a Swedish name.
With each election cycle, the same old questions resurface: Who should lead the party? How can Democrats reconnect with voters in the heartland? And why does the party keep bleeding support among working-class Americans?
Last week, David Axelrod tossed a name into the ring for the next DNC chair: Rahm Emanuel. Predictably, this suggestion set off a firestorm—none louder than from Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, whose critique of the Democratic establishment feels more at home in a Tea Party playbook than in traditional Democratic discourse.
Ocasio-Cortez, better known as AOC, wasted no time attacking the idea of another Obama-era leader taking the reins of the Democratic National Committee.
Her argument? These establishment figures oversaw some of the party’s most devastating electoral losses. In fact, she called Emanuel and his ilk a “disease.”
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) launched a blistering critique of former Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel‘s potential bid for Democratic National Committee (DNC) chair, slamming the Democratic establishment’s donor-focused approach.
“There is a disease in Washington of Democrats who spend more time listening to the donor class than working people,” Ocasio-Cortez wrote on X, formerly Twitter. “If you want to know the seed of the party’s political crisis, that’s it.”
The sharp rebuke from the progressive congresswoman came after veteran Democratic strategist David Axelrod publicly pitched Emanuel, the current U.S. Ambassador to Japan, to lead the DNC when current chairman Jaime Harrison‘s term concludes in March.
And, honestly, she has a point. Under Barack Obama’s leadership, Democrats experienced some of their worst down-ballot performances in modern history. But is the party’s problem really the so-called Obama coalition, or is it AOC and her loud progressive faction that’s driving voters away?
The Ghosts of Obama’s Leadership
Let’s not sugarcoat it—Barack Obama was a political phenomenon. His 2008 and 2012 campaigns were masterclasses in coalition-building, bringing together young voters, minorities, and educated urbanites. But the success of Obama’s personal brand didn’t translate into lasting gains for the Democratic Party.
In fact, during his presidency, Democrats lost more than 900 state legislative seats, 13 governorships, 69 House seats, and 13 Senate seats. The working-class voters in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin who helped Obama win twice? Many of them jumped ship in 2016, frustrated by policies they felt prioritized elite academic interests over their needs.
Yet Democrats seem intent on avoiding this painful truth. Rather than reckoning with Obama’s shortcomings as a party leader, they continue to idolize his approach. The problem, though, is that the coalition he built wasn’t designed for longevity—it was built for Obama himself. His successors, from Hillary Clinton to Joe Biden, have struggled to revive that same magic, leaving the party floundering in its search for a winning strategy.
No Republican has ever done what Donald J. Trump has done. Not even close.
Simply because no Republican has ever won three presidential elections, just to officially win two!
Yes, Trump won the presidency three times.
And he did it up against the entire world! Trump had to beat the entire Democratic Party, the entire deep state and D.C. swamp, globalists, communists, fascists, pretty much every corporate CEO and billionaire on earth, the mainstream media, social media, Silicon Valley, Hollywood, Wall Street, the entire judicial system, the entire education system (from teachers unions, to public schools, to colleges), even the RINOS in his own party, and at times, even Fox News.
Holy cannoli!
Wait, it gets better. Superhuman Trump single-handedly defeated, knocked out of power and forced into early retirement the Clinton Crime Family, Biden Crime Family, Obama Crime Family, Harris Crime Family, Bush Crime Family, Cheney Crime Family, Romney Crime Family and McCain Crime Family.
Not to mention the humiliating beatings he’s given to Nancy Pelosi, Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell.
Holy crap!
These political brand names dominated and ruled America like royalty for decades. They ruled the Democratic Party and Republican Party. They took turns running the government. They dominated media headlines. They amassed power and wealth. Everyone bowed and genuflected in their presence.
And then along came Trump.
Trump vanquished every one of them. He slayed them like child’s play. He sent them packing. He left the most powerful, connected, vicious and cunning establishment “insiders” in history, sitting dumbfounded and speechless, on the outside looking in.
He made them so impotent, even Viagra couldn’t save this group from humiliation.
Now back to my contention that Trump won the presidency three times. Let’s actually look at what Trump accomplished in his three runs for president, because it’s crazy, wild and unimaginable! This guy is the G.O.A.T. (greatest of all time).
First, in 2016, Trump ran a long-shot campaign, with very little money or staff, against the most powerful, well-funded and famous brand name in U.S. political history – Hillary Clinton.
Liberals who are in the throes of capitulation and despair after Donald Trump’s crushing electoral and popular vote win can lay blame for their disastrous loss at the feet of one man: Barack Hussein Obama.
Obama built the Trump wave. His failure to live up to the promises of his populist 2008 run has cursed the Democratic Party, probably for a generation. The Washington DC establishment in just two short months is going to get “scholonged” by an angry and vengeful Trump, ready to rain executive hellfire on the bureaucrats and institutions that have spent the last nine years fighting him tooth and nail.
All of this could have been prevented. In 2008, Obama swept into power with a crushing electoral college and popular vote majority. He won Iowa, Florida, Ohio, and North Carolina. He even won Indiana. Democrats swept into power in Congress with a 74-seat lead in the House, nearly 59% of seats, and were gifted with a magical 60-seat filibuster-proof supermajority in the Senate.
This was a generational victory, a sign that voters were fed up with politics as usual and the failures of the GOP and the Washington and Wall Street establishment as such. This victory wasn’t just about electing the first Black president, though that was important: The policies and platform at stake appealed deeply to voters.
It is worth remembering what exactly those policies were.
Obama promised to end the war in Iraq, end the Afghanistan war with honor, help the economy by reducing health care costs (prioritizing “Main Street” over Wall Street), and bring about a new era of racial harmony. Moreover, Obama explicitly eschewed radical leftist politics. He explicitly defended traditional marriage. In his DNC nomination speech, he condemned employers who “undercut American wages by hiring illegal workers.”
Obama ran a campaign on bringing “change” to DC. He made much of his status as a newcomer who lacked the “typical pedigree” of a candidate for the nation’s highest office.
Put another way, Obama won a decisive victory in 2008 by campaigning as a Washington outsider bent on ending foreign wars, boosting the economy by helping ordinary people, and being a moderate on social issues like abortion and gay marriage. Does this message sound familiar? It should.
With Donald Trump’s explosive victory Nov. 5, there should no longer be any doubt: The Age of Obama is finally over. But it’s not just that his charm and influence have waned, as was evident in the almost unrecognizably grumpy old man who took the stage in the final days of the Harris campaign. The legacy of his entire political project has now been thrown in the ash heap of history.
Will Democrats learn their lesson? Color me doubtful. I don’t see how they can step it up much from the “Trump is literally Hitler” line of attack, but I trust they’re creative enough to figure it out over these next four years. At least we can now be quite certain that it won’t work; Obama’s poisonous legacy has finally met its rightful end. If your idea of “progress” requires aggressive censorship, fomenting racial hatred and tearing apart the fabric of society, perhaps you should consider that it’s you who is on the wrong side of history.
The biographer and historian added that he believes the disastrous election result for Democrats means they will no longer want the Obamas front and center in future campaigns.
‘The conclusion for Democrats is that they’ve got to dispense with these people from the past, including Hillary Clinton too, and move to a new generation of figures who are not in the AOC club at all,’ he said, referring to left-wing firebrand Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
But the writer predicted that Barack still has enough ‘star-power’ to pull in large speaking fees – such as the $400,000 he was paid for a single 2017 speech by Wall Street firm Cantor Fitzgerald, according to the New York Times.
‘I’m not sure that would necessarily decline. He still has the celebrity factor of being an ex-president,’ Garrow said.
The author said he expected the Obamas to ‘continue to hang out with celebrities and live on Martha’s Vineyard’, the millionaires’ playground island off the coast of Massachusetts.
‘I certainly expect them to be spending less time in Washington after early January,’ he said.
Garrow wrote the 2017 biography Rising Star: The Making of Barack Obama. He won his Pulitzer for an earlier book on Martin Luther King.
He predicted that the Obamas will now largely vanish from the political scene to hang out with celebrities on Martha’s Vineyard’.
Garrow said Tuesday’s electoral rout has left Obama, 63, ‘nervous’ about the impact Trump could have on how he is seen by future generations.
‘He has been and remains extremely concerned and nervous about his historical legacy,’ he said.
‘That has certainly taken a big hit with Trump once again triumphing.’
JOE ROGAN: OBAMA “STRAIGHT UP LIED”. You’ll have to click on the link as my X-Twitter fight to embed with WordPress continues, but it is a good piece of work.
Former federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy said Friday that Special Counsel Jack Smith proved the prosecutions of President-elect Donald Trump were intended as political weapons.
“They’re taking the position that the long-standing office of legal counsel guidance at the Justice Department [that] basically says that you can neither indict nor prosecute a sitting president,” McCarthy told “America Reports” co-host Sandra Smith. “They are conceding that President-elect Trump will be certified, that is, at the joint session of Congress which as we all know now, will be January 6th. His victory will be ratified, state-certified electoral votes will be ratified, he will for all intents and purposes be a sitting president as of January 20th. And they are taking the position that under those circumstances, the cases shouldn’t go forward.”
After dispatching the Clinton’s and Bush’s, Obama has almost self-destructed. After weaponizing the DOJ/FBI/CIA against Trump, he still couldn’t stop him and it has come back to haunt him. He’ll be known as the Marxist he really is and how he tried to destroy America through his and Biden’s terms.
Here’s How:
Obama’s biographer reveals ex-president fears for his legacy after ‘tone-deaf preaching’ harmed Harris campaign
Barack Obama and his wife Michelle have been slammed by his biographer for ‘talking down’ to voters in ‘tone-deaf and clueless’ preaching that harmed Kamala Harris‘ ill-fated presidential campaign.
The effect was so bad that – combined with Donald Trump‘s victory – it is likely to reduce the 44th president’s political relevance to ‘Bill Clinton levels’, David Garrow said in an exclusive interview with DailyMail.com.
‘People do not want to be talked down to, no matter who they are,’ the 71-year-old Pulitzer Prize winner said.
‘I thought it was tone-deaf and clueless for them to preach as they did,’ he told DailyMail.com.
‘I would expect that perception will be shared by lots of people. If so, I think it reduces their relevance to Bill Clinton territory.’
Barack Obama drew criticism for comments he made to a room of black men on October 11, saying he detected a lack of ‘energy’ that was ‘more pronounced with the brothers’ – and added that ‘it makes me think that, well, you just aren’t feeling the idea of having a woman as president’.
Michelle Obama gave a speech on October 27 railing against Trump’s stance on abortion, admonishing men considering voting for the former president that ‘a vote for him is a vote against us’.
Besides being the single greatest comeback story – political or otherwise – in American history, there are at least two other crucial takeaways from Tuesday’s romp.
First, it is evident that the 2008 Barack Obama Democratic Party intersectional coalition has died. It is not that the coalition is wounded or endangered; it is that it is dead. Trump made historic inroads with Hispanic voters, Black voters, young voters and other demographic subgroups that have been vital to the Democrats since 2008. Trump won the nation’s single most Hispanic county – 97% Hispanic Starr County, Texas – by 16%. Queens County, New York, famously one of the most ethnically and racially diverse counties in the country, moved over 20 points toward Trump from his 2020 performance. Overall, Trump won just under half the national Hispanic vote, and he made historic inroads with black men. Voters under the age of 35, such a core Democratic constituency in the not-so-distant past, are now a swing voting bloc.
Obamaism is dead. Trump was right. Americans don’t want Marxists or Commies.
The discussion is below, but from my point of view, it is having a terrible candidate, calling half of the voters names like Nazis and fascists, not using new media (X and Podcasts) that people listen to, and having an incompetent staff running things. Oh, let’s not forget that the 2 prior democratic regimes were Marxists who hated America. Letting in illegals that made the country unsafe and destroying a good economy didn’t help either.
They could have listened to the people and we would have told them, but the media don’t listen to anyone, to the point of irrelevance.
Being woke and bowing to the trannies being in the girls’ locker rooms and sports teams was a line voters drew in the sand.
Anyway, here is the analysis from those smarter than me.
In the wake of Donald Trump’s crushing presidential victory over Vice President Kamala Harris, the major media are indicting all the usual suspects, beginning with claimed “disinformation” from conservative sources. But these targets, though falsely accused, do point to the true culprits.
Morning Joe’s Scarborough, for example, blamed the failure to elect Kamala Harris on misogynistic black and Hispanic males. Other commentators claimed that it was the uneducated females who were not true to the cause. Sunny Hostin of The View noted that Trump’s victory was one of “cultural resentment,” because America could not elect a mixed-race female married to a Jewish man. David Axelrod said that racial bias and misogyny could not be ignored in this election.
The media have projected a dark turn for the country. The New York Times editorial board called the election result a “perilous choice,” with America on the “precipice” of an “authoritarian style of governance.” Historian John Meacham cited the treasonous attempted “coup” of January 6 as proving a fascist victory.
Now to more specific finger-pointing from the media. Many media commentators are criticizing Harris, citing her failure to name Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro as her running mate. Of course, Joe Biden hampered Harris, they write, by waiting so long to drop out, after stubbornly staying in a race he should not have entered to begin with. And don’t forget the awful performance of Tim Walz, an attractive target for many in the media.
In all of these discussions, the media do not point to a prominent element common to each of the perceived problems: the media themselves. Of course, the media were too compromised by partisan motives to report what they had known for most of Biden’s term: he clearly suffered from advanced dementia. As Axios political reporter Hans Nichols recently noted on Fox’s America’s Newsroom, the media came down hard on any reporter who proposed a well sourced story on Biden’s lack of acuity, because that would help Trump.
Publicizing this infirmity would have had several salutary results. Obviously, as all disappointed Democrats now appear to admit, Biden should have dropped out of the race earlier. But the same media relaying this judgment do not point a finger at themselves for aiding and abetting his clueless clinging to power.
Perhaps more significantly, there was no media voice questioning the president’s fitness for office per the 25th Amendment. This amendment was explicitly meant for the exact situation this country faced these past four years: presidential senility. This issue is important in a world exploding into war, from Ukraine to the Middle East to the Taiwan Straits. But the media put partisan politics above world peace and national security.
After Biden was forced to drop out of the race when Nancy Pelosi finally brandished the 25th Amendment, were the media truthful about their past dereliction? Of course not. A typical reaction is from MSNBC’s vaunted media guru, Brian Stelter. His apologia’s headline says it all: “Did the media botch the Biden age story? Asleep at the wheel? Complicit in a cover-up? The real story is more complicated — and more interesting.” Clearly, the media could not be honest even when their dishonesty was apparent to all.
When vaunted reporter Bob Woodward received undeniable evidence of Biden’s disturbing mental deficits in June 2023, clearly not a recent development, he refrained from publicizing his sources’ observations (which would have helped our country) so that he could instead monetize them in a bestseller, published only after Biden withdrew from the race.
The media did far more than hide Biden’s condition and thwart the Democrat primary process. They themselves became a big motive for the electorate to rebel against the conventional wisdom promulgated regarding Donald Trump. There can be no doubt that the partisan lawfare campaign against Trump, criminalizing political differences, can have caused its resonating backlash only if voters believed that the media were attempting to thereby “Watergate” Trump unfairly. Indeed, the Biden forces behind these charges would have made them only if they knew that the media would jump to magnify this thin gruel of questionable claims.
When the media rambled incessantly about Trump’s alleged criminality, they certainly provided talking points that cemented the opposition already disfavoring Trump. But to citizens of common sense, who do not wish to be told what to think, the media simply were revealing their true partisan colors. Most citizens are not so dumb as to fail to see through these weak charges, quickly realizing that snake oil was being sold to them. No one likes to be defrauded. No one wants to be insulted. And citizens who feel insulted and defrauded are highly motivated to vote.
The media could not be content with smearing Trump. Rather, they went so far as to shame his supporters. Not satisfied with Hillary Clinton’s slurring Trump-supporters as “deplorable,” the media in 2024 ratcheted up the defamation by comparing Trump and his supporters with Hitler and his Nazis. Three major left-leaning publications displayed covers with Trump’s countenance morphing into Hitler’s. Those attending a raucous, joyful Madison Square Garden rally were compared to Nazi enthusiasts at Nuremburg. As the New York Times put it, melodramatically, the voters gave “a permission slip” to an “authoritarian.”
The understandable gloating of Trump-supporters did not, interestingly, strongly focus on Kamala Harris or Joe Biden. There were numerous Trump voters, however, who delighted in the tearful recriminations of the televised media talking heads. Numerous Trump voters tuned in to The View just to watch the meltdown.
The media kept Biden on stage far beyond his shelf life. The media ridiculed Trump as Hitler. They falsely assured the country that Harris’s vacuous campaign was excellent, which served to convince her advisers that it needed no course correction. The Democrats, wishing future victories, will engage sincerely in soul-searching in hopes of improvement. But so long as the media do not act similarly, the Democrats will continue to deceive themselves in this postmortem.
America has decided. Maybe it was that they’d had enough. Maybe it was the Covid scam, the illegals, the democrat cities that have been run into the ground, or maybe a combination of the above.
America voted to Make America Great Again. To get gas and grocery prices down. To stop paying for non-Americans and helping victims of disasters like the recent hurricanes.
Either way, it was a decisive win. So much that they can’t cheat or pull some legal mumbo jumbo.
Also not really being talked about is that the Senate flipped. That means Trump can put in more judges who will be fair and stop the ruination of the legal system.
Most of all, I hope he can really drain the swamp. It started by getting rid of the Clinton and Bush dynasties and now the poison that was Obama. He probably was the puppeteer behind Biden and Kamala anyway. No one hated America more than Barry O and Big Mike.
What’s left now is to see the protests from the left and the liberal single women. We can now see who really is the problem with the country.
Vindication is indeed sweet. This is a complete and total rebuke of the failed Deep State, Joe Biden, Obama, social media censorship, the Fedsurrection op, mass immigration, and neocon foreign wars abroad.
President Trump should immediately pardon all political prisoners on Day One and send in the Feds to the swing states to arrest all of the 2020 riggers.
It is also now time to appoint another Supreme Court justice if the great Clarence Thomas retires.
The GOP will win the Senate, and they are now the slight favorite to win the House.
One of his biggest supporters was an African-American, Elon Musk. How ironic. He picked up a large portion of the black and hispanic vote, proving he’s not the racist that the real racists tried to make him out to be.
Mostly, Harris was a flawed and vapid candidate, kind of like Hillary in 2016. There was no Covid to hide behind and cheat with so America spoke that they are tired of woke.
Put another way, voters want a new economic policy that emphasizes smaller government, deregulation and lower taxes. They want the wall completed and illegal immigration eliminated as much as possible. And they want the crime problem addressed fundamentally and systemically.
The election results also suggest the limitations of the abortion issue as a motivating force. Put simply, the fact that the Democrats put virtually all their firepower behind the choice issue suggests the weakness of that appeal.
Discrimination based on skin color is racism. The color doesn’t matter.
Uh oh! 21 day panic! Time to promise voters everything in the world!
VP Kamala Harris unveiled the “Opportunity Agenda,” which proposes one million forgivable loans up to $20,000 for black entrepreneurs.
The agenda includes the following (emphasis mine):
(1) Providing 1 million loans that are fully forgivable to Black entrepreneurs and others to start a business. (2) Championing education, training, and mentorship programs that help Black men get good-paying jobs in high-demand industries and lead their communities, including pathways to become teachers. (3) Supporting a regulatory framework for cryptocurrency and other digital assets so Black men who invest in and own these assets are protected. (4) Launching a National Health Equity Initiative focused on Black Men that addresses sickle cell disease, diabetes, mental health, prostate cancer, and other health challenges that disproportionately impact them. (5) Legalizing recreational marijuana and creating opportunities for Black Americans to succeed in this new industry.
What about Asians? What about white people? Why only one color? Racism
She must be desperate with Blacks if she has to stoop to the same old buying votes. They promise it every 4 years, then don’t do squat for the Blacks. Maybe that is why they are supporting Trump. They are tired of being lied to by a Santa Claus promising candidate.
A new DNA study on the 500-year-old remains of Christopher Columbus has found that the controversial explorer was actually a Sephardic Jew from Western Europe.
Spanish researchers announced their findings in a new documentary, titled Columbus DNA: The True Origin, which aired on Spain’s national broadcaster TVE. Since 2003, scientists have tested samples of remains buried at Seville Cathedral in Spain, believed to be the final resting place of the 15th-century explorer.
In the documentary, Jose Antonio Lorente, a professor of forensic medicine, who led the research at the University of Granada, said his analysis revealed that Columbus’s DNA was “compatible” with his being of Jewish origin.
Throughout the 21-year investigation, DNA experts compared samples of the remains with those of Columbus’s known relatives and descendants. “We have DNA from Christopher Columbus, very partial, but sufficient. We have DNA from Fernando Colon, his son,” Professor Lorente said, per CNN. “And both in the Y chromosome (male) and in the mitochondrial DNA (transmitted by the mother) of Fernando, there are traits compatible with Jewish origin.”
Obama hated any Colonization because of his Kenyan roots. Hell, he wouldn’t even keep the bust of Winston Churchill, removing it on day one. But then he hates America and Jews, and did everything he could to ruin it from within. He’s always been a racist.
Harris said:
It is an honor, of course, to be with you this week as we celebrate Indigenous People’s Day as we speak truth about our nation’s history. Since 1934, every October, the United States has recognized the voyage of the European explorers who first landed on the shores of the Americas. But that is not the whole story.
That has never been the whole story. Those explorers ushered in a wave of devastation for tribal nations. Perpetrating violence, stealing land and spreading disease. We must not shy away from this shameful past, and we must shed light on it and do everything we can to address the impact of the past on native communities today.
Prominent black Trump booster Rob Smith has responded to the former president’s condescending screed over ‘brothas’ who are afraid to vote for Kamala Harris. In a now-viral reply, Smith tells Obama: “There is no amount of lecturing or bullying or shaming that you can do that is going to make me change that decision [to vote for Trump].
Sorry Obama!
I’m a BLACK MAN
I am voting for DONALD TRUMP on November 5th!
And NO amount of LECTURING or SHAMING is going to change that.
.@BarackObama should be ashamed for berating, rebuking and scolding Black men, because they won’t vote for Madam Lock Up A Brother…@KamalaHarris. As if we are too stupid to vote our interest and what best for ourselves and our families.
Having exhorted black men to embrace racism in the voting booth, Obama then suggested the same group’s sexism was at the heart of Harris’ problem with them:
“You’re coming up with all kinds of reasons and excuses, I’ve got a problem with that. Because part of it makes me think— and I’m speaking to men directly— part of it makes me think that, well, you just aren’t feeling the idea of having a woman as president, and you’re coming up with other alternatives and other reasons for that.”
“…And now, you’re thinking about sitting out or supporting somebody who has a history of denigrating you, because you think that’s a sign of strength, because that’s what being a man is? Putting women down? That’s not acceptable.“
Obama’s remarks seem to reflect a growing sense of desperation— and they seem likely to backfire. It’s bad enough for him to publicly spotlight Harris’ weakness compared to his own performance, but it’s even worse that he felt the best way to remedy the situation was to publicly shame black men — to the point of saying, “you’re lucky Michelle’s not here” — and to accuse black men of sexism.
Isn’t it strange how Barry and Michelle Obama are so closely tied—in friendship and lifestyle—to convicted rapists and accused slavemasters and traffickers? That’s the question many people are asking again as we witness the downfall of Obama’s good friend, Sean “Diddy” Combs.
After the U.S. Department of Justice announced the arrest and indictment of Sean Combs, also known as “Diddy,” the music industry has been rocked by a series of major resignations.
These departures are allegedly tied to claims that the infamous “freak offs” were actually organized and funded by some of the most powerful CEOs in the music world.
The truth is, Diddy was one of them—he was part of the Obama orbit, running in the same circles, befriending all the same people. Everyone knew who he was and what disgusting stuff he was up to. So, why did they decide to destroy him? Maybe Mr. Diddy fell off the progressive wagon or threatened to expose the wrong person in some misguided fit of rage. In the end, they likely decided it was safer to bring him down “Epstein-style” than let him keep his power. That’s likely what happened with Harvey Weinstein too, a convicted rapist who Michelle Obama called a “wonderful human being,” a “good friend,” and a “powerhouse.” He probably stepped out of line, and they had to take him down as well.
It’s just very curious how the Obamas were “good friends” with two of the most notorious woman abusers of all time, and they did nothing to stop it.
Even the liberal cat ladies over at Snopes couldn’t hide the truth about Michelle and Harvey.
No one is as much of an insider to Obama and the deep state as her. I can’t believe she’d say this as Biden’s agenda is such a sinking ship.
Anyway, here goes.
On MSNBC’s “Andrea Mitchell Reports” Tuesday, the host asked about Harris’ reported plans to highlight “unfinished pieces of Biden’s policies” as part of her campaign.
“How important is it for her to find a way to differentiate herself from aspects of the Biden agenda? Maybe move the ball, put an emphasis on other things? How does she do that and still be loyal to the fact that she worked with Joe Biden?” Mitchell asked.
“I think it’s very important to remember that this has been the Biden-Harris agenda. Kamala Harris has been an integral architect and executor of the policies of the Biden-Harris administration,” Rice said.
—
“So, there will be important, as there should be, aspects of continuity in many policy areas. But of course, the vice president will outline her vision and where she sees opportunities to advance their collective agenda, the Biden-Harris collective agenda, and take it further forward. I think we all look forward to hearing that.
More at the link above, but advancing his agenda would kill the nation. If I were Kamala, I’d run from his record as far as possible, but no, Susan Rice pins the tail on the donkey
‘An Inspiration to Me Always’: Meet Kamala Harris’s Radical Pastor
After President Joe Biden stepped aside on Sunday and Vice President Kamala Harris became the presumptive Democratic nominee, one of the first people she called was her longtime pastor, Amos Brown.
“She said to me, ‘Pastor, I called because I want you to pray for me … this country … and the race I am intending to run for president,’” Brown told the Christian publication Sojourners in an interview.
Harris and Brown, the longtime pastor of San Francisco’s Third Baptist Church, have known each other for nearly a quarter century, and the two have remained close throughout her vice presidency. In July of 2023, Harris posted a picture of the two to the vice president’s Instagram account and described Brown as “an inspiration to me always.”
Less well known, however, is Brown’s history of radical, anti-American remarks that have elicited blowback even from San Francisco Democrats, including former House speaker Nancy Pelosi.
At a memorial service for victims of the 9/11 terror attacks held just six days after al Qaeda murdered nearly 3,000 Americans, Brown used the occasion to point the finger at the United States in remarks that, according to the San Francisco Chronicle, “set a lot of people’s teeth on edge” and “left politicians stunned.”
“America, is there anything you did to set up this climate?” Brown asked the audience. “Ohhhh—America, what did you do?”
“America, what did you do two weeks ago when I stood at the world conference on racism, when you wouldn’t show up?” Brown continued, referring to his participation in the United Nations World Conference Against Racism, which the United States and Israel boycotted citing concerns about anti-Semitism.
The power play is acting out before our eyes for the Democrat Presidential nomination. While they pontificate about how important race is to the Obama’s, his actions don’t support that.
Sure, he divided everyone by race when we were all getting along, but that was so he could win an election and get rich (and drunk on power).
When it came time to back the black, Obama wouldn’t play. There is too much future money on the line. I guess he can be as racist as anyone else.
Radio host Charlamagne Tha God and political commentator Angela Rye criticized former President Barack Obama on Monday for not endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris after President Joe Biden dropped out of the race on Sunday.
Shortly after Biden’s announcement that he was withdrawing, he endorsed Harris to take his place atop the Democratic ticket. Charlamagne and Rye on “The Breakfast Club” radio show said they believe Obama declining to endorse Harris puts him on the “wrong side of history.”
'Wrong Side Of History': Charlamagne And Guest Unload On Obama For Not Endorsing Kamala Harris pic.twitter.com/pNomVyiG4n
“I’m still not that happy with Barack Obama because when he needed Kamala to campaign for him, she was right there. And I feel like he was trying to be in this role of, like, ‘Let’s let this process play out,’ and it’s like, no, bro, she’s on the ticket,” Rye said. “If she’s on the ticket, all of his pledged delegates now go to Kamala Harris. That’s the same thing that happened in the contested convention in 1968 with Lyndon B. Johnson dropping out after RFK challenged him.”
On May 16th, 2013, Barack Obama famously tweeted that “97% of Scientists agree: climate change is real, man-made and dangerous.” Every word of this tweet was a lie. The 97% Consensus figure came from a May 15th, 2013 study by John Cook – which Obama linked to in his tweet. If 97% of scientists really thought “climate change is real, man-made and dangerous” that would be quite troubling. But nowhere in the study was anything said about global warming being dangerous.
Additionally, while the 97% figure was widely quoted, the criteria by which Cook achieved his figure was totally lacking in scientific clarity – or honesty. To be counted as affirming the global warming consensus question, scientists only needed to agree that “carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas and that human activities have warmed the planet to some unspecified extent”. That’s it. If, as a scientist, you agreed that human activity had some portion – any portion – of responsibility for global warming you were included in the 97% consensus. We’re shocked the figure wasn’t 100% based on the actual questions.
Since the 1979 Iran hostage crisis, American policy against Iran was to treat it as an enemy. Its incessant support of terror attacks around the world, many targeting civilian Jews, resulted in its exclusion from normal diplomatic relations. It was — and remains to this day — the foremost state sponsor of terror. A pariah among nations.
The Obama Era
All of that changed with Barack Obama’s inauguration in 2009. His first major diplomatic act touched off the “Arab Spring”, a set of hardline revolts in many countries including Egypt, which had been the site of his first speech. Breaking with all American traditions, Obama slammed America’s foreign policies and sided with Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood political element, which had once aligned with Hitler’s Third Reich.
These people are conniving and evil. They made up the whole thing that they committed and lied about Trump. I don’t even wonder about justice because there are two sets of rules, one for politicians and one for the rest of the country.
Also, where was the media on this? In collusion or under instructions from the CIA.
“Former CIA Director John Brennan identified and presented the targets to the US’s intelligence-sharing partners in the so-called Five Eyes agencies — the intelligence-gathering organizations in the U.S., United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand — according to a report published Monday on Michael Shellenberger’s Public Substack.”
Here goes…..
There are people in the replies suggesting that "we already knew this."
No, we didn't. And no, you didn't. Only a tiny number of people knew about this until now.
And, as we note in our story, "If the top-secret documents exist proving these charges, they are potentially…
The U.S. government said in January 2017 that Russia favored Trump as president. But now, sources reveal for the first time that the CIA “cooked the intelligence” to hide that Vladamir Putin wanted Hillary Clinton, not Donald Trump, as president.
CIA “Cooked The Intelligence” To Hide That Russia Favored Clinton, Not Trump In 2016, Sources Say
The Russians didn’t fear a Hillary Clinton presidency. “It was a relationship they were comfortable with,” CIA analysts believed
It was all a lie.
The Trump-Russia scandal made its formal launch on January 6th, 2017, when the office of the Director of National Intelligence James Clapper published what’s called an “Intelligence Community Assessment,” or “ICA,” as it’s universally known in Washington.
Release of the ICA dominated headlines, fixed Donald Trump in the minds of millions of Americans as a Manchurian candidate controlled by Vladamir Putin, and upended his in-coming administration.
The report declared that Russia and Putin interfered in the 2016 presidential election to “denigrate” Hillary Clinton and “harm her electability,” thanks to their “clear preference for President-elect [Donald] Trump.”
It was powerful stuff. And it was dead wrong.
“They cooked the intelligence,” says a source close to a House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) investigation into the origins of the Trump-Russia scandal, whose full findings are being blocked from release. “They made it look like Putin supported Trump,” the source added. “The evidence points the other way.”
So, not only did Obama use the FBI spy on Donald Trump, but Obama through his henchman Brennan, leaned on foreign governments across the world to dig up dirt on The Donald. This makes Watergate — a failed attempt to have amateurs spy on the head of the DNC — look like the molehill it was.
The use of the intelligence agencies of the Anglosphere to try to tilt the election — and to cover up the FBI’s spying on Trump and 26 associates — is the scandal of the century as it obliterates the whole Russian Hoax and gives reason to believe that if they got away with using the FBI as Obama’s NKVD, then they had no reason to believe they could not get away with fixing the 2020 election.
So far, no airliner passengers have died from air traffic control DIE. But The New York Times has been running a long series of hair-rising articles about recent near misses due to bad air traffic control, such as:
How a Series of Air Traffic Control Lapses Nearly Killed 131 People
Two planes were moments from colliding in Texas, a harrowing example of the country’s fraying air safety system, a New York Times investigation found.
Why? There’s a shortage of air traffic controllers who make it through training, so the ones who do are overworked. The Timesreports:
Yet training is difficult; many aspiring controllers fail…. From 2011 to 2022, the number of fully certified controllers declined more than 9 percent, even though traffic increased. Based on targets set by the F.A.A. and the union representing controllers, 99 percent of the nation’s air traffic control sites are understaffed.
A lot of industries were getting by before Covid by keeping competent baby boomers employed into their dotage. But air traffic controllers have a mandatory retirement age of 56, so the oldest controllers are now Gen-Xers born in 1967. The coming Competence Crisis is on track to hit air traffic control earlier than many other professions.
But of course there’s no mention in the Times of how the Obama administration sabotaged the old test for selecting the most promising candidates for training in order to hire more blacks. That’s just too off-narrative for Times subscribers. They don’t pay good money to have their worldview about who are the Good Guys and who are the Bad Guys in any and all situations undermined.
Many naive people assume, after all these generations, that affirmative action doesn’t mean lowering standards, it just means what it was originally sold as in the mid-’60s: expanding recruitment to find nontraditional diamonds in the rough.
A fifth column is any group of people who undermine a larger group or nation from within, usually in favor of an enemy group or another nation. According to Harris Mylonas and Scott Radnitz, “fifth columns” are “domestic actors who work to undermine the national interest, in cooperation with external rivals of the state.” The activities of a fifth column can be overt or clandestine.
Here is what is going on. The facts below connect the dots as to who is trying to destroy America from within. Another country probably can’t destroy us yet, but they are doing everything they can to subvert us from within and buy off politicians to create destructive policies.
Yes, there are massive geopolitical interests at stake in the Hamas attack against Israel. Yes, there are layers and layers of massive multinational corporate investments into the process of energy control, capture and change that is driven by competing interests. Yes, those trillions at stake are playing out in the world from Iran to Israel, to Ukraine, to Russia, to Azerbaijan, to Turkey, to Africa, and beyond. {Go Deep}
Yes, all of the political and state actors are playing a role and using their military resources as part of the positioning process. China, Russia, Iran, The United States, Europe, NATO, etc, all positioning and in the background trillions upon trillions being discussed and fought for. Yes, the ultimate high stakes public-private partnerships are leveraging everything right now…..
The ideological interests behind the 2010/ ’11 “Arab Spring” uprising were the same ideological interests behind the 2020 “Black Lives Matter” protests/uprising. Not merely similar people, but the exact same people.
The exact same group of U.S. people who were promoting the Mid-East Arab Spring in 2010/’11, are the same people who promoted the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests. The same politicians, the same media voices, the same newspapers, the same social media activists. Almost every participant, and their support for the uprising ’10 -vs- ’20 was identical, including the platforms deployed.
The Brotherhood is essentially the umbrella organization for a multitude of Islamic factions. In essence, the Muslim Brotherhood represents political Islam. Similarly, if you look at the structure of Black Lives Matter, they too represent an umbrella-type structure for a network of individual political grievance groups.
Both groups, the Muslim Brotherhood (aka Hamas) and Black Lives Matter, represent a cultural revolution by the results of their activity.
It is not accidental that BLM brotherhood supports the Palestinian terrorist network represented by Hamas.
♦ In 2010, the Brotherhood had al-Qaeda and militant factions within ISIS. In 2020, BLM had the New Black Panthers and militant factions within Antifa.
♦ In 2010, the Brotherhood tore down statues and symbols they identified as culturally oppressive to their political views. In 2020, BLM tore down statues and symbols they identified as oppressive to their political views.
♦ In 2010, the Brotherhood burned books, destroyed history and removed their cultural opposition by force. In 2020, BLM promoted burning books, destroying history and cancelling their cultural opposition by force.
♦ In 2010, the Brotherhood used social media to organize their political activity, and Big Tech facilitated by setting up local networks for protest. In 2020, BLM used social media to organize their political media, and Big Tech facilitated by deploying all local networks to assist.
♦ In 2010, the Brotherhood attacked the police and framed their Islamist movement as oppressed by law enforcement. In 2020, BLM attacked the police and framed their movement as oppressed by law enforcement.
♦ In 2010, the Brotherhood destroyed the notions of secularism and viciously attacked any form of Christianity, including burning churches. In 2020, BLM advocated against secularism and viciously attacked Christianity – including the burning of churches, while conspicuously never criticizing any element of Islam.
♦ In 2010, the Brotherhood was very strategic, as they hoodwinked moderate Islamic supporters into voting them into power. Once in power, they removed all of the institutional systems, government offices, judges, constitutional balances, local elections, and anything that would impede their ultimate stranglehold on power. Sharia Law replaced common legislative law. As a result, the ordinary population was brutalized, property was taken by force; businesses were taken by force and the Islamic regime now controlled every element of their lives.
Next:
Biden sends Iran $6 Billion to show good faith. In reality, it is a weak government trying to buy off the terrorists. Nevertheless, look what the Iranians did in the background during the negotiations. They planned and funded the attack on Israel with that money
Happening now – Iran yelling “Death to America!” I guess $6 BILLION WASN’T ENOUGH! pic.twitter.com/6zmmYOhP7e
In Jerusalem, 2017 began with a terrorist ramming a truck into Israeli cadets who were getting off the bus. Four of the Israelis, three of them women, were killed, and over a dozen more were injured. Fadi al-Qanbar, the terrorist, was shot and killed by Israeli soldiers, but his widow was set to receive a lifetime monthly pension of 2,900 Israeli shekels from the Palestinian Authority for his crime.[i] The average salary in the West Bank is 1,720 NIS. Even though the terrorist had allegedly been inspired by ISIS,[ii] the Palestinian Authority media had described him as a “Shahid” or religious martyr for Islam.[iii] Despite this latest act, which demonstrated the linkage between our foreign aid to the Palestinian Authority, Islamic terrorism, even terrorism related to ISIS, and the murder of Israelis, the money kept coming. A few weeks after the mass murder of Israelis in Jerusalem, the Obama administration rushed to transfer $221 million in funds to the Palestinian Authority that Republicans had been blocking.[iv]
Hours before President Trump was inaugurated, Secretary of State John Kerry rushed the money to the terrorists. What kind of a difference would that $221 million make? The Palestinian Authority’s Martyrs Fund budget for 2017 allocated $153 million in salaries to terrorists who had been or were imprisoned by Israel and another $190 million to the families of the terrorists.[v] The $221 million amounted to a sizable percentage of the “Pay to Slay” budget that was used to incentivize murders like these. And it paid off. The number of Israelis killed in terrorist attacks increased in 2017.[vi] The number of lone wolf attack plots rose from 400 to 1,100. And the Martyrs Fund was a key mechanism for incentivizing these attacks, assuring surviving terrorists of a generous lifetime income and, in the event of their deaths, giving them the comfort of knowing that no matter what happens, their families will be very well taken care of.
In 2016, the Obama administration had illegally transferred $1.7 billion to Iran.[xi] The deputy chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) claimed credit for the ransom.[xii] The IRGC is a hub of Islamic terrorism in the region and was designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization by President Trump.[xiii] “We can always hand it over to someone who can hand it over to the IRGC,” State Department spokesman Mark Toner admitted.[xiv] Meanwhile the Obama administration had even tried to give Iran access to the United States financial system, converting billions into dollars and then euros.[xv] After the $1.7 billion payment, Iran increased its military budget by that same amount.[xvi] It’s been estimated that 65 percent of the military budget goes to the IRGC.[xvii]
And the IRGC funds, trains, and aids a variety of Islamic terrorist groups, including Hamas. That includes the missiles that Hamas has been firing at Israel and that have fallen on Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.[xviii] The billions in sanctions relief allowed Iran to increase its investment in conflicts in the region.[xix] In 2017, Hamas announced that it had resumed receiving aid from Iran.[xx] In 2019, Iran boosted aid to Hamas from $70 million a year to $30 million a month.[xxi] Beyond Hamas, Iran also backs Islamic Jihad (PIJ), which was at the center of the latest round of rocket attacks on Israel in the fall of 2019. These rockets were, like Hamas’s rockets, developed with the assistance of the Islamic Republic of Iran. The extent of Iran’s involvement in Islamic terrorism in Israel can be measured by an admission by Ali Akbar Velayati, foreign affairs adviser to the Supreme Leader of Iran that, “most of the weapons used by the Palestinians came from Iran, or that Iran help[ed] the Palestinians manufacture the weapons themselves.”[xxii]
The Biden administration is setting a booby trap in case a Republican wins the presidency in 2024.
On Friday, the White House unveiled a proposed rule that would make it even harder than in the past for an incoming Republican president to wrestle control of the left-leaning federal bureaucracy and actually implement the conservative policies promised to voters.
Of the 2.2 million federal civil workers, only 4,000 are presidential appointees. The rest stay in their jobs, from one administration to the next, protected by rules that make it nearly impossible to discipline or replace them.
They overwhelmingly favor the Left. A staggering 95% of unionized federal employees who donate to political candidates give to Democrats, according to Open Secrets. Only a tiny 5% support Republicans.
The bill’s summary claims it would end “school lunch shaming” and “provides an additional incentive for local food procurement.”
But the 47-page bill doesn’t explain how the government would pay for the program. How much does the program cost? How will the government offset the payments?
Oh, wait. These people think money grows on trees.
The 44th first lady (hard to type those words about an America hater) tried this as her signature program. It was a failure as the kids hated the meals so much that they wouldn’t eat the swill. A lot of “food” got thrown away. $500 million down the drain and it ended silently and thankfully.
Yet here we go again. Trying to force their opinions on others for conformity.
I had a friend who ate an oatmeal creme cookie and a lemonade from the snack machine. His dad was a university professor so they weren’t poor. He was saving up his money. He bought a Porsche before anyone in the class of 1100 that we graduated in.
I ate PB&J and loved it. The school meals were ok, but almost no one wanted or could eat them.
As many of you know, I have spent time researching and speaking about mass psychosis theory. Most of what I have learned has come from Dr. Mattias Desmet, who realized that this form of mass hypnosis, of the madness of crowds, can account for the strange phenomenon of about 20-30% of the population in the western world becoming entranced with the Noble Lies and dominant narrative concerning the safety and effectiveness of the genetic vaccines, and both propagated and enforced by politicians, science bureaucrats, pharmaceutical companies and legacy media.
What one observes with the mass hypnosis is that a large fraction of the population is completely unable to process new scientific data and facts demonstrating that they have been misled about the effectiveness and adverse impacts of mandatory mask use, lockdowns, and genetic vaccines that cause people’s bodies to make large amounts of biologically active coronavirus Spike protein.
These hypnotized by this process are unable to recognize the lies and misrepresentations they are being bombarded with on a daily basis, and actively attack anyone who has the temerity to share information with them which contradicts the propaganda that they have come to embrace. And for those whose families and social networks have been torn apart by this process, and who find that close relatives and friends have ghosted them because they question the officially endorsed “truth” and are actually following the scientific literature, this can be a source of deep anguish, sorrow and psychological pain.
WHAT SHE SAID
SOTOMAYOR: “Over 100,000 children” are hospitalized due to COVID, with “many on ventilators” BRET BAIER: “The number’s not 100,000. It’s roughly 3,500 in hospitals now?” WALENSKY: “Yes.” How did Sotomayor make it on the Supreme Court?
Justice Sotomayor falsely attests that COVID deaths and hospitalizations are at an all time high.
Justice Sotomayor during this oral arguments:
– Claimed covid deaths are at an all time high – Claimed that Omicron has been deadlier than Delta – Claimed 100K children are hospitalized with covid – Said OSHA’s regulatory authority is a federal “police power.”
Justice Breyer suggests vaccine and mask mandates would bring COVID-19 cases to zero, despite the data from so many countries making clear that these two “tools” do virtually nothing at all to stop the spread of COVID-19.
Of course if you look a couple of posts down, you see how stupid the Ivy League schools are making their students. I just thought that when these two went to school, the Ivy’s weren’t so bad. Turns out I was wrong.
After a career of working with these people, I knew that outside of Wall Street and Washington, they are fish swimming out of water.
How did these idiots get on the SCOTUS? Well, look who appointed them.
UPDATE: Gun ownership (as of 6/16) is at an all time high, but homicide rate is at an all time low.
Let’s explain this to Bloomberg, Holder, Rahm Emmanuel, Feinstein, the Prez.
It’s about enforcing existing laws, controlling the bad guys with guns and not banning self-defense against oppressiveness like the government and the UN.
Added bonus! Here are the 8 myths by the gun control grabbers debunked like women who carry, more gun control stops violence, the USA should adopt the Australian model of gun control, the AR-15 is a Military grade assault rifle, anyone can buy a gun and other tripe.
I dedicate this one to idiots like Thomas Woosley (tjawoolsey@gmail.com) from the UK who needs more education but would rather use mendacious ad-hominem attacks on me instead of facts. He clearly doesn’t understand the USA and guns and must live under a rock to make false assumptions about gun control the wanker. He also doesn’t understand the north vs the south when trying to call people names. At least educate yourself before putting out to the world how stupid you are.
Bonus Bonus! Below are the myths of gun control including the gun show loophole, that there are more murders than suicides (not by a long shot) and others for idiots like Tom :
Lesson #1:
U.S. Tax revenue: $2,170,000,000,000
* Fed budget: $3,820,000,000,000
* New debt: $ 1,650,000,000,000
* National debt: $14,271,000,000,000
* Recent budget cuts: $ 38,500,000,000
Let’s now remove 8 zeros and pretend it’s a household budget using the
Same numbers:
* Annual family income: $21,700
* Money the family spent: $38,200
* New debt on the credit card: $16,500
* Outstanding balance on the credit card: $142,710
* Total budget cuts so far: $385.00
Easier to understand ??…….OK now,
Lesson #2:
Here’s another way to look at the Debt Ceiling:
Let’s say, You come home from work and find
There has been a sewer backup in your neighborhood….
And your home has sewage all the way up to your ceilings.
What do you think you should do ……
Raise the ceilings, or remove the sewage?
Back in the 70’s, we had Watergate. Some people broke into an office of the opposing party and it was scandalous. People went to jail, a president resigned and we had morals.
Benghazi has happened and 4 people died despite prior attacks and cries for more protection before and during the attacks. It will probably be swept under the rug except for the sex scandal. Although people may go to jail it is unlikely. The president will be protected by the biased media and this will slide off of him like Teflon.
The attorney general who appears to be complicit in this and other scandals will also likely be untouched. The Secretary of State to whom the embassy reported to will also escape justice as she has in the other times she has broken the law (Whitewater, travelgate……)
For now, here is a collection of where we stand. Hopefully history will document the injustice that was done.
The veteran agent related to me that FBI agents assigned to the case were outraged by what were they were told by senior officials: The FBI was going to hold in limbo their findings until after the election.
“The decision was made to delay the resignation apparently to avoid potential embarrassment to the president before the election,” an FBI source told me. “To leave him in such a sensitive position where he was vulnerable to potential blackmail for months compromised our security and is inexcusable.”
On Saturday, The New York Times reported that House Majority Leader Eric Cantor spoke to an FBI whistle-blower two weeks ago who accused Petraeus of not only having an extramarital affair but potentially jeopardizing the security of classified information.
During the same university speech, Braodwell may have also divulged information that Petraeus knew “within 24 hours” of CIA annex’s request for reinforcements, reported Israel National News.
“The challenging thing for Gen. Petraeus,”she stated, “is that in his new position, he’s not allowed to communicate with the press. So he’s known all of this – they had correspondence with the CIA station chief in Libya, within 24 hours they kind of knew what was happening.”
Earlier she had said the military could have sent reinforcements.
“They were requesting the – it’s called the C-in-C’s In Extremis Force – a group of Delta Force operators, our very, most talented guys we have in the military. They could have come and reinforced the consulate and the CIA annex.”
Petraeus’ resignation follows an FBI investigation that, as Mitchell said, “morphed into an investigation about the possibility of national security secrets” as Petraeus’ alleged extramarital affair with biographer Paula Broadwell was revealed.
Officials tell NBC News that the affair was revealed because Broadwell sent anonymous, threatening emails to Jill Kelley, 37, described as a close friend of the Petraeus family. Kelley, who lives in the Tampa, Fla. area, was a volunteer social liaison to MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa.
Investigating who sent the emails to Kelley, the FBI discovered the connection between Petraeus and Broadwell, officials say.
As Mitchell summarized NBC News’ reporting on the relationship between Broadwell, Kelley, and Petraeus, Feinstein interrupted: ”Well, this is all news to me. We were not told this. This is the first time I’ve learned of this. This makes me think, ‘Well, how many other things are there, too?’”
According to reporting by NBC’s chief justice correspondent Pete Williams, a senior law enforcement official said a call to a congressional staffer came from an agent who was initially involved in the investigation but who was later removed from the case because he knew an associate of one of the people being investigated. The agent knew someone on the Hill and called that person, a Republican staffer, according to the official. But that phone call had no effect on either the course of the investigation, the involvement of Mueller — who was following it closely long before Cantor called him — or the decision to notify Clapper, the official says.
I checked in with KevinMD for this piece of helpful information. The free market will produce a better product than the government will ever be able to handle. Capitalism always provides competition which drives DOWN prices and drives UP services.
f you cannot measure it, you cannot improve it.
-Lord Kelvin
Asking science to explain life and vital matters is equivalent to asking a grammarian to explain poetry.
-Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Of course the quantified self movement with its self-tracking, body hacking, and data-driven life started in San Francisco when Gary Wolf started the Quantified Self blog in 2007. By 2012, there were regular meetings in 50 cities and a European and American conference. Most of us do not keep track of our moods, our blood pressure, how many drinks we have, or our sleep patterns every day. Most of us probably prefer the Taleb to the Lord Kelvin quotation when it comes to living our daily lives. And yet there are an increasing number of early adopters who are dedicated members of the quantified self movement.
They are an eclectic mix of early adopters, fitness freaks, technology evangelists, personal-development junkies, hackers, and patients suffering from a wide variety of health problems. What they share is a belief that gathering and analysing data about their everyday activities can help them improve their lives.
First, electronic sensors got smaller and better. Second, people started carrying powerful computing devices, typically disguised as mobile phones. Third, social media made it seem normal to share everything. And fourth, we began to get an inkling of the rise of a global superintelligence known as the cloud.
An investment banker who had trouble falling asleep worried that his concentration level at work was suffering. Using a headband manufactured by Zeo, he monitored his sleep quantity and quality, and he also recorded data about his diet, supplements, exercise, and alcohol consumption. By adjusting his alcohol intake and taking magnesium supplements, he has increased his sleeping by an hour and a half from the start of the experiment.
A California teacher used CureTogether, an online health website, to study her insomnia and found that tryptophan improved both her sleep and concentration. As an experiment, she stopped the tryptophan and continued to sleep well, but her ability to concentrate suffered. The teacher discovered a way to increase her concentration while curing her insomnia. Her experience illustrates a phenomenon that Wolf has noticed: “For many self-trackers, the goal is unknown … they believe their numbers hold secrets that they can’t afford to ignore, including answers to questions they have not yet thought to ask.”
Employers are becoming interested in this approach in connection with their company sponsored wellness programs. Suggested experiments include using the Jawbone UP wristband to see if different amounts of sleep affect work performance such as sales or using the HeartMath emWave2 to monitor pulse rates for determining what parts of the workday are most stressful.
Stephen Wolfram recently wrote a blog illustrating just how extensive these personal analytics experiments in self-awareness could become when coupled with sophisticated technologies. Wolfram shares graphs of his “third of a million emails I’ve sent since 1989” and his more than 100 million keystrokes he has typed.
Anyone interested in understanding just how far reaching this approach may become in the future should examine the 23 pages of projects being conducted by the MIT Media Center. My favorites from this fascinating list include automatic stress recognition in real-life settings where call center employees were monitored for one week of their regular work; an emotional-social intelligence toolkit to help autism patients learn about nonverbal communication in a natural, social context by wearing affective technologies; and mobile health interventions for drug addiction and PTSD where wearable, wireless biosensors detect specific physiological states and then perform automatic interventions in the form of text/images plus sound files and social networking elements.
It is easy to get caught up in the excitement of all this new technology and to start crafting sentences about how the quantified self movement will “transform” and “revolutionize” health care and spawn wildly successful new technology companies.
Jackie Fenn’s “hype cycle” concept has identified the common pattern of enthusiasm for a new technology that leads to the Peak of Inflated Expectations, disappointment that results in the Trough of Disillusionment and gradual success over time that concludes in the Slope of Enlightenment and the Plateau of Productivity. Fenn’s book, Mastering the Hype Cycle: How to Choose the Right Innovation at the Right Time can help all of us realize that not all new technologies becomes killer applications.
Jay Parkinson, MD has also written a blog that made me pause before rushing out to invest in quantified self companies or predict the widespread adoption of this approach by all patients. Parkinson divides patients into three groups. The first group is the young, active person who defines health as “not having to think about it until they get sick or hurt themselves.” The second group is the newly diagnosed patient with a chronic illness that will affect the rest of their lives. After a six month period of time coming to terms with their illness, Parkinson believes this group moves closer and closer to group one who do not have to think about their disease. The third group are the chronically ill who have to think about their disability every day. Parkinson concludes that “it’s almost impossible to build a viable social media business that focuses on health. It’s the wrong tool for the problem at hand.”
The quantified self movement should be closely monitored by all interested in the future of the American health care delivery system. The potential to improve the life of patients with chronic diseases is clearly apparent; whether most people will use the increasingly sophisticated tools being developed is open to debate.
UPDATE: Gun ownership (as of 6/16) is at an all time high, but homicide rate is at an all time low.
Delusions of Adequacy 