There are few people in this world more odious than French President Emmanuel Macron after his behavior this week. I’m sure there are child molesters who are worse. But as a man who is pivotal in the future of hundreds of millions of people, his decision to order the French military to quell the Yellow Vests protests with live ammunition is simply vile.

Pushing back against a law that allows the government to censor speech it finds distasteful or immoral, The Rutherford Institute has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to strike down a federal statute that allows the government to reject trademark applications for “scandalous” brand names that some might find offensive. In this particular case, the government rejected as immoral or scandalous a trademark application for streetwear brand “FUCT” (an acronym for “FRIENDS U CAN’T TRUST”) that serves as artist Erik Brunetti’s commentary on the need to challenge government authority and societal assumptions. In an amicus brief filed with the Court in Iancu v. Brunetti, Rutherford Institute attorneys contend that the statute violates the most fundamental First Amendment guarantees by investing the government with the power to act as an arbiter of good taste and censor speech it finds offensive or with which it disagrees.

n comments that are likely exactly what the US wants to hear, Iraqi President Barham Salih claimed that he sees no “serious” opposition to US troops staying in Iraq, and believes there is a general consensus that the US can stay “as long as it is necessary.”

This would be good news for the Pentagon, where officials want to stay in Iraq effectively forever. Is it true though? Not from the comments coming out of materially every other major Iraqi official.

MPs from every major Shi’ite political bloc in parliament have demanded a timeline for the US troop withdrawal, and with the US pushing for action against Shi’ite militias, they’ve got grudges with most of the key factions now.

nitially announced as a total withdrawal from Syria by President Trump, the administration has backpedaled repeatedly, to the point where a large portion of US forces will be remaining on the ground in Syria, and about 1,000 or the current 2,000 are liable to spend the bulk of 2019 in Syria.

Officials say the current plan, such as it is, would be to draw down to about 1,000 by early May, and then “pause” for about six months. Then, there would be a consideration of withdrawing some more troops, perhaps getting down to 400.

This is why there were reports the US intends to keep 1,000 troops in Syria, because they do, and why the administration’s objections, and arguments that the plan is still 400, is highly misleading, as that’s now a best-case scenario.

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This weekend the New York Times breaks one of the biggest taboos, describing the responsibility of Jewish donors for the Democratic Party’s slavish support for Israel. Nathan Thrall’s groundbreaking piece repeats a lot of data we’ve reported here and says in essence that it really is about the Benjamins, as Rep. Ilhan Omar said so famously.

The donor class of the party is overwhelmingly Jewish, and Jews are still largely wed to Zionism– that’s the nut.

Though that party is breaking up. Thrall’s labors are minimized by the New York Times with the headline “The Battle Over B.D.S.,” but his message is that the progressive base has a highly-critical view of Israel that the leadership has refused to reflect, and that’s about to change. We’re inside the tent. The party is going to have to reflect pro-Palestinian positions. Ben Rhodes tells Thrall that the moment of overcoming the fear of the pro-Israel lobby (as the Cuba fear was overcome) is about to happen.

The Drug Enforcement Administration skirted numerous legal checks on a trio of bulk data collection programs dating back to the early 1990s, according to an internal watchdog.

In a heavily redacted, 144-page report published Thursday, the Justice Department Inspector General revealed the administration failed to fully assess the legal basis for three massive international surveillance operations that ran largely unchecked from 1992 to 2013. Two of the programs remain active in some form today.

Under one initiative, which investigators called “Program A,” the administration used “non-target specific” subpoenas to force multiple telecom providers to provide metadata on every phone call made from the U.S. to as many as 116 countries with “a nexus to drugs.” Investigators found some companies also provided the officials with data on all calls made between those foreign countries.

US President Donald Trump said he may discuss the situation in Venezuela with Russian President Vladimir Putin soon, Reuters reported on Saturday.

"We will probably be talking at some point," the US leader told reporters at his estate in Florida. "I’ll be talking to a lot of people - perhaps President Putin, perhaps President Xi of China."

US national security adviser John Bolton said on Friday that Trump was set to talk with Putin by phone soon. He also said his country viewed the deployment of other states’ troops in Venezuela as a threat to the region.

Marines from the U.S. and Ukraine standing together after a company-level attack during the land portion of Exercise Sea Breeze, Saturday, July 14, 2018. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said NATO allies could take additional steps when allies convene next week to help Ukraine defend against Russia.

IRmep has filed a 39-page federal lawsuit (PDF) challenging the secrecy of a gag order—WNP-136 (PDF)—that forbids all U.S. government agency employees and contractors from discussing Israel's nuclear weapons program.

The classification bulletin, which took effect on September 6, 2012, forbids covered persons from making any comment on U.S. government information or information in the public domain about Israel's nuclear weapons program. The classification bulletin's first known use was against former Los Alamos National Laboratory nuclear policy specialist James Doyle after he wrote the following sentence in an article titled "Why Eliminate Nuclear Weapons?" which had been security cleared by his employer and published by the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

The harrowing accounts and chilling examples highlighted in the United Nations Human Rights Council annual reports as regards Human rights violations in the United States are a disturbing read for any conscious human being.

A 10-year-old girl has died two days after she was injured in a fight with a fellow pupil at her primary school.

RaNiya Wright was found unresponsive by staff at the Forest Hills Elementary School in the South Carolina of Walterboro, after she got into an altercation with another Year 5 student on Monday.

They called the emergency services and RaNiya was taken to hospital where she remained alive, until she passed away on Wednesday.

The other student involved in the fight, who has not been identified, has been suspended from the school, according to NBC News.

“Because this is an ongoing investigation, we ask that the community understands that the information we can share is limited,” district officials said in a statement.

The top US commander in South Korea told Congress Wednesday that US forces on the peninsula wouldn’t be ready if diplomacy between the US and DPRK suddenly collapsed and the military standoff returned. His fears reflected a Western belief that Pyongyang is withdrawing from denuclearization plans, but in Korea, the situation isn’t so clear.

US Army Gen. Robert Abrams, the commander of US Forces Korea, told the House Armed Services Committee Wednesday that, so long as the diplomatic push for denuclearization on the Korean Peninsula continues, his forces have enough intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance resources to maintain an adequate defense of South Korea and detect an attack from the North. However, if things got worse and the atmosphere suddenly returned to the hostile tension of the past, "then our stance, our posture is not adequate to provide us an unblinking eye to give us early warning and indicators."

Now that the Mueller investigation is over and his report has shown that there was absolutely no collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian government, the focus is rapidly turning to those that endlessly propagated extremely damaging conspiracy theories about the president of the United States. For 675 days, CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS and NBC engaged in a fake news binge unlike anything that we have ever seen before in all of U.S. history. They relentlessly pushed out news story after news story touting that we would soon have “evidence” that Trump had colluded with the Russians when there was no evidence at all. They kept telling us that “indictments are coming”, that “the noose is tightening” and that “the walls are closing in on this administration” when none of that was ever true.

Is Venezuela heating up again or is this just more desperation setting in for the Juan Guaido-led opposition after recent failed efforts to gem up popular support for an anti-Maduro coup?

The US recognized "Interim President" has announced plans for his supporters to launch "tactical actions" starting next week as part of his "Operation Freedom" to overthrow President Nicolas Maduro. The opposition is now telegraphing their regime change maneuvers, in what appears more of a desperate strategy to maintain external and international pressure and visibility on the continuing political crisis in the country, lately felt in a series of major nation-wide electricity outages.

Guaido said via Twitter that such tactical actions are to begin April 6, which will involve "freedom cells" set up across the country rising up in mass protest when the order is given.

Chandler, Arizona, cops broke through the door of a family's home in the middle of the night, stormed in, pointed their guns, handcuffed the father, and watched as the state's Department of Child Safety (DCS) took custody of the parents' three kids—all because mom had decided her toddler's fever was not serious enough to merit a trip to the hospital.

This directive is about promoting the interests of multinational corporations and maximizing their profits. It is also about controlling and shutting down free speech and dissent not approved of by the media and political establishments. Dissenting voices are already being de-platformed and de-monitzed and this will institutionalize censorship.

THE DEMOCRATIC CONGRESSIONAL Campaign Committee warned political strategists and vendors Thursday night that if they support candidates mounting primary challenges against incumbent House Democrats, the party will cut them off from business.

The news was officially announced Friday morning, paired with a statement on the committee’s commitment to diversity in consulting — “which, obviously, is just to give themselves cover,” a Democratic political consultant who learned of it Thursday told The Intercept. The consultant asked for anonymity given their relationship with the DCCC, and the party organization’s professed strategy of blacklisting firms that don’t fall in line.

Days of protests in America against Trump’s entry into America order smack of dark forces manipulating and agitating against him no matter what he does or doesn’t do.

Denigration of Muslims is longstanding in America, taken to a fever pitch post-9/11, wrongfully portraying them as gun-toting terrorists, using them as a pretext to smash one country after another, responsible for appalling levels of carnage and human misery?

Where’s the outrage over an issue dwarfing all others? Why aren’t people furious about imperial madness, possible nuclear war if not curbed?

Why aren’t they protesting against bloated military spending and America’s empire of bases – used as launching pads for more wars?

Where’s the outrage over mega-corporations ruling the world, exploiting it for profits, harming millions, despoiling the environment?

When President Donald Trump moved the US embassy to occupied Jerusalem last year, effectively sabotaging any hope of establishing a viable Palestinian state, he tore up the international rulebook.

Last week, he trampled all over its remaining tattered pages. He did so, of course, via Twitter.

Referring to a large piece of territory Israel seized from Syria in 1967, Trump wrote: “After 52 years it is time for the United States to fully recognize Israel’s Sovereignty over the Golan Heights, which is of critical strategic and security importance to the State of Israel and Regional Stability.”

At a meeting between Netanyahu and Trump in Washington on Monday night, the president converted his tweet into an executive decree.

At the end of nearly 1,000 yards of newly-grown spring grassy turf, a renewed barbed-wire border fence rises three meters up, in anticipation of a million person march next week between Gaza protesters and their well-known antagonist snipers.

A week before the first anniversary of the great March of Return, organizers have pledged larger than usual demonstrations. However, their preparations appeared powerless in yesterday’s renewed protests at Malaka, eastern Gaza City, when hails of Israeli live ammunition and gas canisters killed two Palestinian men and wounded 26 others taking part in weekly demonstrations along the fortified Israel-Gaza border.

With 43 people already executed in Saudi Arabia in the first few months of 2019, the kingdom is well on its way to setting a new record for the greatest number of executions in a year, according to reports.

Of the 43 executed so far, 21 were beheaded for drug offenses, while the remainder were put to death for crimes including treason, renouncing Islam, adultery, murder, burglary, rape, espionage and terrorism, according to the Gulf Times.

Should the Riyadh maintain its present rate, experts have projected that a whopping 172 executions will have taken place by the end of 2019 — the highest total recorded in Saudi Arabia since human rights groups first began tracking the data in the early 2000s.

?According to Business Insider, the 43 recorded executions in 2019 took place between January 1 and March 13, with the most recent beheading involving a Syrian man who was condemned to death for smuggling amphetamine pills.

In a dramatic escalation of the Trump administration's legal battle against President Obama's health care law, Justice Department lawyers now say the entire Affordable Care Act should be struck down.

Having previously argued, under AG Jeff Sessions, that only the law's pre-existing condition protections should be struck down, DoJ lawyers told a federal appeals court Monday it thinks the whole of ObamaCare is unconstitutional, siding with a Texas district court ruling that found Obamacare unconstitutional.

In a letter Monday night, the administration said "it is not urging that any portion of the district court's judgment be reversed."

"The Department of Justice has determined that the district court's comprehensive opinion came to the correct conclusion and will support it on appeal," said Kerri Kupec, spokesperson for the Justice Department.

The United States on Monday accused Russia of “reckless escalation” of the situation in Venezuela by deploying military planes and personnel to the crisis-stricken South American nation that Washington has hit with crippling sanctions.

The Russian planes and military personnel arrived outside the Venezuelan capital Caracas on Saturday, according to local media reports, two months after the Trump administration disavowed President Nicolas Maduro.

IN SEPTEMBER 2017, Aileen Black wrote an email to her colleagues at Google. Black, who led sales to the U.S. government, worried that details of the company’s work to help the military guide lethal drones would become public through the Freedom of Information Act. “We will call tomorrow to reinforce the need to keep Google under the radar,” Black wrote.

According to a Pentagon memo signed last year, however, no one at Google needed worry: All 5,000 pages of documents about Google’s work on the drone effort, known as Project Maven, are barred from public disclosure, because they constitute “critical infrastructure security information.”

One government transparency advocate said the memo is part of a recent wave of federal decisions that keep sensitive documents secret on that same basis — thus allowing agencies to quickly deny document requests.

According to the Saudi-backed Yemeni government, a series of Saudi-led airstrikes targeted the Maarib Province on Monday, killing at least 50 members of the Shi’ite Houthi movement.

The attacks centered on Serwah District, the last district in oil-rich Maarib that is under the control of the Houthis. It’s unclear who the targeted Houthis were, and there is no report of substantial fighting in Maarib recently.

This once again reflects the general Saudi military strategy in Yemen, which is to fall back heavily on an air war. Using airstrikes anywhere and everywhere has often meant a substantial increase in civilian casualties.

A bipartisan group of senators questioned the Justice Department this week regarding how the government’s treatment of cellphone-generated location data in national security cases has changed in lieu of the Supreme Court decision in Carpenter v. United States last June.

The Carpenter case addressed the application of the Fourth Amendment to cell-site location information, or CSLI, which are geolocation records produced by users’ cell phones communicating with cell towers and stored by wireless providers. The court held that because CSLI provides “an intimate window into a person’s life,” police must obtain a warrant to collect it.

Over the last decade, Amazon has gained a near-total monopoly over Internet book sales, and late last month, we saw the dangerous consequences of such intellectual control as the company suddenly banned dozens of books, many of them of excellent scholarly quality. Apparently, activist organizations such as the ADL and the SPLC had succeeded in pressuring the company to ban those works to avoid any risk that American readers might become “confused” on certain controversial historical matters.

Beijing is already threatening retaliation over Washington's expected sale of dozens of F-16s and tanks to Taiwan. But as if ties between the world's two largest economies hadn't already been sufficiently strained, the Navy and Coast Guard again provoked the Chinese leadership on Sunday when they sailed two ships - identified as the Navy destroyer Curtis Wilbur and the Coast Guard cutter Bertholf - through the Strait of Taiwan.

According to Reuters, the gesture, which is part of a redoubled US effort to flex its muscles near Chinese waters, should be interpreted - like other 'freedom of navigation' operations before it - as a sign of support for Taiwan, which is struggling with an increasingly threatening Beijing. The Chinese military has been holding more military drills and missions around the island, as President Xi has made bringing the wayward province back under Beijing's thumb a top priority for his rule.

Offering one of the most scathing responses to the Mueller report summary released Sunday night, Glenn Greenwald, a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and founding editor of the Intercept, appeared on Democracy Now! Monday, where he lambasted the mainstream press for helping to perpetuate the "total fraud" that was the Russia collusion narrative.

"This is the saddest media spectacle I have ever seen since I began practicing journalism in 2005 and what makes it even sadder is to watch all the people who invested their journalistic credibility into what proved to be a complete and total fraud and scam continue to try and cling to some vestige of credibility by continuing to spin conspiracy theories that are even more reckless and more unhinged than those we've been subjected to for the past three years."

The last few days have seen Boeing shares roller-coaster on market swings and idiosyncratic headlines (as Garuda started the worrying trend of canceling airplane orders). Today, Boeing shares slipped after Bloomberg reported that Airbus has secured a long-awaited aircraft order from China.

The confirmation reportedly occurred during a state visit by Xi Jinping to the French capital, according to a person with knowledge of the matter.

The deal is due to be announced as soon as Monday afternoon in Paris, said the person, who asked not to be identified discussing non-public information.

While no details were immediately available of the deal, Bloomberg reports that the deal was initially touted more than one year ago by the French government as being valued at as much as $18 billion.

Senate Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said in a Monday press conference that he's going to get to the bottom of "unprofessional conduct" and "shady behavior" by the Justice Department and the FBI surrounding the 2016 US election, and will call on Attorney General William Barr to appoint another Special Counsel "that would look into what happened with the FISA warrant," and "what happened with the counterintelligence investigation."

As we predicted a number of times before, a proxy war between Russia and the United States appears now heating up in Venezuela — this after over the weekend Russia sent a military transport plane filled with Russian troops commanded by First Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the Land Forces of Russia Gen. Vasily Tonkoshkurov, which landed in Caracas Saturday. We also reported the major development this morning that new satellite images reveal a major deployment of S-300 air defense missile systems to a key airbase south of Caracas.

Russia's highly visible deployment of a small troop contingency along with a reported 35 tons of cargo has resulted in a direct and firm response from Washington as on Monday morning the US Secretary of State called on Russia to “cease its unconstructive behavior”.

According to Reuters Pompeo conveyed the message directly via a phone call with his Russian counterpart Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

New Zealanders are debating the limits of free speech after their chief censor banned the 74-page manifesto written and released by the man accused of slaughtering 50 people at two mosques in the city of Christchurch.

The ban, issued Saturday, means anybody caught with the document on their computer could face up to 10 years in prison, while anyone caught sending it could face 14 years. Some say the ban goes too far and risks lending both the document and the gunman mystique.

At the same time, many local media organizations are debating whether to even name the Australian man charged with murder in the March 15 attacks, 28-year-old Brenton Tarrant, after New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern vowed she would never mention him by name.

In some ways, Tarrant’s manifesto provides the greatest insight into his character and thinking, with neighbors and those he met in a gym in the sleepy seaside town of Dunedin recalling nothing particularly remarkable about him.

At a high-level meeting in Rome this week, it seems that Russia reiterated a grave warning to the US – Moscow will not tolerate American military intervention to topple the Venezuelan government with whom it is allied.

Meanwhile, back in Washington DC, President Donald Trump was again bragging that the military option was still on the table, in his press conference with Brazilian counterpart Jair Bolsonaro. Trump is bluffing or not yet up to speed with being apprised of Russia’s red line.

The meeting in the Italian capital between US “special envoy” on Venezuelan affairs Elliot Abrams and Russia’s deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov had an air of urgency in its arrangement. The US State Department announced the tête-à-tête only three days beforehand. The two officials also reportedly held their two-hour discussions in a Rome hotel, a venue indicating ad hoc arrangement.

Authored by Wayne Madsen via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

Under the directorship of torture and black site maven Gina Haspel, Donald Trump’s Central Intelligence Agency has returned to its traditional roots of conducting “black bag” operations and disrupting electrical grids through cyber-attacks.

Authored by Caitlin Johnstone via Medium.com,

Well the worst Putin Puppet of all time is at it again, this time tweeting that the US must recognize the Golan Heights as part of Israel despite the fact that the Israeli occupation of that Syrian land is illegal under international law.

“After 52 years it is time for the United States to fully recognize Israel’s Sovereignty over the Golan Heights, which is of critical strategic and security importance to the State of Israel and Regional Stability!”, Trump’s tweetreads.

Russian parliament member Oleg Morozov made a statement in response to Trump’s proclamation, saying that “Russia will never agree to recognize Israeli sovereignty in the Golan. Trump is damaging the international community and the Arab world”.

Serious concerns have arisen over how New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has handled the recent Christchurch mosques massacre. And they don’t just involve her calls for stricter gun control and decision to ban all semi-automatic rifles.

In the wake of the attacks, the prime minister promised to keep the murderer “nameless,” and the internet promptly obliged by flushing the perpetrator’s identity down the memory hole. New Zealanders’ access to online material about him was blocked. In what has become standing operating procedure after mass attacks, social media accounts connected to the perpetrator disappeared. Internet service providers in New Zealand blocked access to sites like 4chan, 8chan, LiveLeak, and the file-sharing site Mega if the sites did not take down material related to the shooting.

Theresa May may have days, if not hours, left as prime minister of the UK following a full-blown cabinet coup on Saturday night as senior ministers moved to oust the UK prime minister and replace her with her deputy, David Lidington.

According to the Sunday Times, following a "frantic series of private telephone calls", senior ministers agreed the prime minister must announce she is standing down, warning that she has become a toxic and “erratic” figure whose judgment has "gone haywire."

The plotters reportedly plan to confront May at a cabinet meeting on Sunday and demand that she announces she is quitting. If she refuses, they will threaten mass resignations or publicly demand her head. The "conspirators" were locked in talks late on Saturday to try reach a consensus deal on a new prime minister so there does not have to be a protracted leadership contest.

Authored by Matt Taibbi, excerpted from his serial book Hate Inc.,

The Iraq war faceplant damaged the reputation of the press. Russiagate just destroyed it...

Note to readers: in light of news that Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller’s investigation is complete, I’m releasing this chapter of Hate Inc. early, with a few new details added up top.

Nobody wants to hear this, but news that Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller is headed home without issuing new charges is a death-blow for the reputation of the American news media.

As has long been rumored, the former FBI chief’s independent probe will result in multiple indictments and convictions, but no “presidency-wrecking” conspiracy charges, or anything that would meet the layman’s definition of “collusion” with Russia.

With the caveat that even this news might somehow turn out to be botched, the key detail in the many stories about the end of the Mueller investigation was best expressed by the New York Times:

The US government is withholding US $5 billion which was meant for the purchase of medicines and raw materials used in medical production, President Nicolas Maduro claimed Wednesday.

Speaking from Miranda State, Maduro denounced that US authorities “have ‘kidnapped’ US $5 billion [in] one of the most criminal, brutal, fascist economic measures which has been seen in the economic history of the world.” “Trump is the person responsible,” he added.

This article was produced in partnership with the South Bend Tribune, a member of ProPublica’s Local Reporting Network in 2018.

A federal grand jury has indicted two Elkhart, Indiana, police officers on civil rights charges for repeatedly punching a handcuffed man last year, U.S. prosecutors announced Friday.

Elkhart County prosecutors had originally charged the two officers, Cory Newland and Joshua Titus, with misdemeanor battery in November, after the South Bend Tribune and ProPublica learned of the incident and requested video.

As the drama over Brexit continues to reach new heights, the U.K. government has raised eyebrows by announcing that it will host 10,000 foreign troops for a massive military exercise beginning the day after Brexit had been set to take place.

The announcement of the exercise has raised the specter of a post-Brexit “martial law” scenario, given that the Theresa May-led government has been examining the possibility of declaring martial law in the country in the event of a no-deal Brexit since at least this January.

According to a government press release, the NATO-affiliated military exercise known as “Joint Warrior” will take place from March 30 until April 11 and will see the U.K. host 10,000 soldiers as well as 35 warships, five submarines, and 59 aircraft and helicopters. Thirteen countries will participate, including the United States, France and Germany, and the exercise will occur in areas spaced throughout Scotland, Wales and England.

The decision to buy new Boeing F-15s reflects the Pentagon’s desire to keep two American companies making fighter jets into the next decade — and not the acting defense secretary’s ties to the company, a senior defense official said Friday.

The 2020 budget request contains $1.1 billion to buy eight F-15X jets, a new variant of an aircraft the Air Force last bought nearly a decade ago. The twin-tailed plane was chosen over Lockheed’s cheaper single-engine F-16 in part to keep a second U.S.manufacturer in the tactical-jet business as the Pentagon begins exploring new technologies for a new generation of warplanes, the official said.

The Southern Poverty Law Center - the "vicious left-wing attack dog" used by the likes of Facebook, Twitter, Google and Amazon to identify "hate groups" - is unraveling.

A week after co-founder Morris Dees was ousted over sexual misconduct claims - with two dozen employees signing a letter of concern over "allegations of mistreatment, sexual harassment, gender discrimination, and racism," the head of the SPLC, Richard Cohen, as well as the organization's legal director, Rhonda Brownstein, resigned on Friday.

FEMA mishandled the personal information of 2.3 million people driven out of their homes by wildfires in 2017 and hurricanes, an Inspector General report released Friday found.

During our ongoing audit of the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) Transitional Sheltering Assistance (TSA) program, we determined that FEMA violated the Privacy Act of 19741 and Department of Homeland Security policy by releasing to [contractor] the PII and SPII of 2.3 million survivors of hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria and the California wildfires in 2017.

A bill filed in the Oregon House would establish limited state-chartered banks to serve the cannabis industry. Final passage of this legislation would remove a major federal roadblock in front of the developing industry in the state and further nullify federal prohibition in practice.

Rep. Pam Marsh (D) and Rep. Ken Helm (D) introduced House Bill 3169 (HB3169) on Feb. 28. The legislation would create a self-contained, state chartered banking system for the cannabis industry in Oregon.

A 61-year-old man is dead after he was shot by an officer trying to enforce Maryland’s new ‘red flag’ law in Ferndale Monday morning.

Anne Arundel County Police confirmed the police-involved shooting happened in the 100 block of Linwood Avenue around 5:17 a.m.

According to police, two officers serving a new Extreme Risk Protective Order (Red Flag Law), a Maryland protective order to remove guns from a household, shot and killed the man listed on that order.

I’ve asked dozens of friends and acquaintances if there is any limit on how much federal, state and local governmental entities can take from their citizens. Most look at me with a blank stare. Most have never given it a thought.

Clearly the thought has not crossed the minds of many in Congress. We hear some, those that are proudly labeling themselves as “socialists,” righteously telling us the rich need to pay their “fair share.” The most vocal are calling for a 70% to 90% tax rate on the “rich.”

These pontificating self-righteous paragons of nothing certainly have not considered the question of whether there is a limit on how much government can take from its citizens.

Prior to 1913 the limit on the federal government was effectively set by denying it most tools for taking citizens’ earnings. America’s first totalitarian socialist president, Woodrow Wilson, pushed through the 16th Amendment to the Constitution. This allowed the Feds to tax our individual income.

Kiwi workers have been fired for watching the Christchurch shooter's livestream at work and sharing it with colleagues.

That's according to Cyber Research, which monitors internal computer use for around 50 companies - which include some of our biggest corporates.

At least one person has been fired for watching the video while other employees were around - while others have been let go for sharing it with workmates.

Be that as it may, if there were a modern version of the Rothschild comment it might go something like this: “Give me control of the internet and no one will ever more know what is true.” The internet, which was originally conceived of as a platform for the free interchange of information and opinions, is instead inexorably becoming a managed medium that is increasingly controlled by corporate and government interests. Those interests are in no way answerable to the vast majority of the consumers who actually use the sites in a reasonable and non-threatening fashion to communicate and share different points of view.

US military's presence in Iraq falling out of favor across several political blocs.

In the wake of the ISIS War in Iraq, Pentagon officials will tell you what they’ve been saying all along, that America’s intention is to stay in Iraq, and that there is no consideration being given to leaving. It’s not clear the US has spoken to the Iraqi government about this, however.

While many Iraqis accepted the offer of help in the more desperate moments of the ISIS War, the US military has quickly worn out its welcome. Across a number of major political blocs in Iraq, there is growing consensus that the US, and indeed all foreign military forces, need to go.

This has been brewing for months. The Iraqis saw Trump’s visit to Iraq, during which he didn’t meet the Iraqi PM, as a sign of disrespect. That the Pentagon keeps insisting they’re staying in Iraq, without asking the Iraqis, only adds to the sense that the US isn’t really an invited guest in any real sense.

President Donald J. Trump will host Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House next week, displaying a significant shift in policy from President Obama.

Netanyahu will join Trump for a working meeting on March 25 during which they will “discuss their countries’ shared interests and actions in the Middle East,” according to the White House press release Wednesday. The U.S. President will then host Netanyahu at a dinner on March 26. This will be Netanyahu’s third visit to the Trump White House.

After nearly three years and millions of tax dollars, the Trump-Russia collusion probe is about to be resolved. Emerging in its place is newly unearthed evidence suggesting another foreign effort to influence the 2016 election — this time, in favor of the Democrats.

Ukraine’s top prosecutor divulged in an interview aired Wednesday on Hill.TV that he has opened an investigation into whether his country’s law enforcement apparatus intentionally leaked financial records during the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign about then-Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort in an effort to sway the election in favor of Hillary Clinton.

Ukraine Prosecutor General Yurii Lutsenko’s probe was prompted by a Ukrainian parliamentarian's release of a tape recording purporting to quote a top law enforcement official as saying his agency leaked the Manafort financial records to help Clinton's campaign.

Beto O’Rourke denied on Tuesday that donations from supporters of Israel had influenced his approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and denounced Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in stark terms, saying that Israel’s leader had “openly sided with racists.”

Beto taking the gloves off against Bibi… pic.twitter.com/QJascMyILA

— Jacob Kornbluh ? (@jacobkornbluh) March 20, 2019

As the Texas Tribune correspondent Patrick Svitek reported, the comments came during an event at Keene State College in New Hampshire, after O’Rourke was asked about rumors that he had taken “pro-Israel lobbyist money” during his failed Senate run in 2018.

O’Rourke explained that, in fact, he had taken no money from political action committees in that race — although J Street, a pro-Israel lobbying group that aids candidates who favor a two-state solution and oppose the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, helped solicit $170,000 in individuals donations to his campaign.

The banning of four Nation of Islam Black history books by Amazon, the largest bookseller in the world, provides a perfect opportunity to examine the wickedly racist ways Jewish power is wielded in America. Amazon provided no warning, no reason, no hearing, and no opportunity to respond—it was a blatant mockery of Amazon founder Jeffrey Bezos’s own creed, “Democracy Dies in Darkness.” It is, however, perfect proof of what The Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad said: the mental resurrection of Black people will anger our oppressors and cause them to react punitively and viciously.

Tension between South Beach spring breakers and older, whiter, richer, and stodgier residents has been leading up to this moment for years.

But yesterday's revelation was still shocking. Miami Beach officials announced that for the rest of spring break, 25-member teams of police in riot gear will patrol Ocean Drive and the beaches. And the city will park police vans, ATVs, and barricades on the beach to chuck noncompliant visitors into paddy wagons and cart them off to jail.

After an emergency commission meeting yesterday, police spokesperson Ernesto Rodriguez confirmed roving bands of cops will be "wearing protective gear, helmets, and will be equipped with shields." He added police vans will be parked "on the sand" to rapidly detain misbehaving revelers. The news was disclosed midway through a Miami Herald article about spring break.

Two days after Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido's "government-in-waiting" forcibly took possession of three diplomatic facilities in the United States with the blessing of Washington, and following what many observers speculate are a series of US aggressive maneuvers paving the way for military intervention, Maduro's security forces have begun arresting members of Guaido's staff.

According to Reuters Venezuelan intelligence agents have arrested and detained Guaido's own chief of staff, Roberto Marrero, as well as opposition legislator Sergio Vergara.

Though Facebook's AI-powered censors managed to "mistakenly" flag Zero Hedge as a repeat violator of the social network's "community standards", when it comes to livestreamed videos depicting horrific and extreme violence, the company is still working out some kinks in its ability to immediately identify and remove livestreams depicting horrific acts of terror and violence like the video published Friday by the Christchurch Shooter.

In a blog post mea culpa published Thursday, Facebook's VP of Integrity Guy Rosen explained why the company failed to immediately remove the horrifying livestream of the attacks that the shooter, a 28-year-old Australian who also published a manifesto laying out his violent, islamophobic ideology, posted to Facebook Live, and which was viewed 4,000 times before being taken down.

The two doomed Boeing 737s which crashed under similar conditions lacked optional safety features that the aircraft manufacturer will now make standard, according to the New York Times.

For Boeing and other aircraft manufacturers, the practice of charging to upgrade a standard plane can be lucrative. Top airlines around the world must pay handsomely to have the jets they order fitted with customized add-ons.

Sometimes these optional features involve aesthetics or comfort, like premium seating, fancy lighting or extra bathrooms. But other features involve communication, navigation or safety systems, and are more fundamental to the plane’s operations.

Many airlines, especially low-cost carriers like Indonesia’s Lion Air, have opted not to buy them — and regulators don’t require them. -New York Times

“When the president does it, that means that it is not illegal.” — Richard M. Nixon (1913-94)

Legal scholars have been fascinated for two centuries about whether an American president can break the law and remain immune from prosecution. During the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln ordered troops to arrest, without warrant, and incarcerate, without due process, many peaceful, law-abiding journalists and newspaper editors — and even a member of Congress — in the Northern states. Wasn’t that kidnapping?

During World War I, Woodrow Wilson ordered federal agents to arrest people who sang German beer hall songs or read aloud from the Declaration of Independence in public. Wasn’t that infringing upon the freedom of speech?

During the Great Depression, Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered banks to confiscate gold from Americans who had purchased and possessed it lawfully. Wasn’t that theft?

The recent release of hundreds of heavily redacted court records regarding the federal investigation into Michael Cohen, US President Donald Trump's former longtime lawyer, offers a concerning glimpse into the police state atmosphere in the nation's capital, author and journalist Daniel Lazare told Sputnik.

"To me what's really important is that the FBI and the special prosecutor had access to Cohen's emails at a time when he was intimately involved in the Trump administration's inner workings," Lazare told Radio Sputnik's Loud & Clear on Tuesday.

"Now, we know that the federal prosecutor or the FBI or both had access to [Trump's] closest adviser's personal emails, therefore were scrutinizing… the most intimate communications between [Cohen] and the Oval Office. To me this is very, very dangerous… [a] very worrisome example of the kind of police state atmosphere that we increasingly seem to have in Washington."