Thursday, May 31, 2018

SHOCK: University of Illinois Professor Says Trump Supporting Student Is ‘Lucky I Didn’t Flatten His Ass’



SHOCK: University of Illinois Professor Says Trump Supporting Student Is ‘Lucky I Didn’t Flatten His Ass’



University of Illinois Professor Tariq Khan (right) confronts student Joel Valdez.
An ongoing battle between the University of Illinois and an outspoken Trump-supporting student has reached new heights today.
“He’s lucky I didn’t flatten his ass out on the ground for talking about my children,” said U of I professor and Ph.D candidate Tariq Khan at a panel for leftist activist professors.
Khan was referring to conservative student Joel Valdez.
Valdez, a rising sophomore, has been embattled with the university for nearly his entire time there. In November, he was assaulted and his phone was destroyed by Khan when he and some conservative friends counter-protested an on-campus Antifa rally led by Khan.
Trending: Here’s Why Obama Clearly Ordered The Spying on Trump
Valdez, who did not know Khan at the time, questioned how Khan had time to protest, asking if he “had anything better to do,” and if he “had kids.” Khan took the question as a threat. The assault was captured on video:
WATCH:

The university, though, sided with Khan. Valdez and his two co-defendants were issued no-contact orders by the administration, meaning that they had to avoid Khan or be disciplined.
In response, Valdez and two other students filed suit against the university.
“A few days ago, the university rejected a generous settlement offer by us and we will be proceeding to federal court,” Joel Valdez told Big League Politics. “The university is buying as much time as they can to prevent acknowledging that they violated our constitutional rights.”
According to Valdez’s attorneys, Khan began taking advantage of the no-contact orders, targeting the students for “violating the orders whenever [Khan] or his wife was in the same place with one of [the students] on campus.” This, Valdez’s lawyers say, amounts to depriving Valdez of “journalistic and expressive liberties without notice or an opportunity to be heard.”
Meanwhile Khan, who has now assaulted, destroyed the property of, and threatened Valdez is registered to teach a class at U of I in the fall semester. He will be teaching Global Capitalism in History.
“[The university has] enabled his unhinged behavior when they disciplined us instead of him,” said Valdez. “No parent would feel comfortable with their children in the same room with Tariq Khan, a man that attacks freshman students.”
Big League Politics reached out to the university for comment.
“This isn’t an official university statement, but I think the university would say that free speech stands,” said a public affairs employee at the university without a hint of irony.
The employee passed along BLP’s contact information for an official spokesperson to reach out, but nobody from the university reached out in time for publication.

Surprise: Watchdog Group Discovers Secret Iranian Missile Site Hidden in Remote Desert Location

Surprise: Watchdog Group Discovers Secret Iranian Missile Site Hidden in Remote Desert Location

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Posted: May 30, 2018 10:45 AM
Surprise: Watchdog Group Discovers Secret Iranian Missile Site Hidden in Remote Desert Location
This story broke before the long weekend, but because the corresponding news cycle was fraught screaming about NFL anthem kneeling regulations, it largely got lost in the culture war cacophony.  One of the fundamental flaws of the Iran nuclear deal -- from which President Trump has withdrawn the United States, correctly, in my view -- is that the regime in Tehran simply is not a reliable partner.  Even if they were to technically abide by every one of the West's temporary restrictions (it must be noted that they have not done so scrupulously, and provably lied from the very beginning), the Iranians would emerge from their decade-plus stay in the global penalty box as a cash-flush threshold nuclear-armed power, thanks to the accord's extraordinary and lopsided concessions.
President Obama has effectively admitted as much, just as he's allowed that the regime has almost certainly exploited its new financial windfall to finance terrorism, and has breached the "spirit" of the agreement through its ongoing pursuit of technology to deliver the nuclear weapons they continue to covet.  And now we can add even more clandestine treachery to the rap sheet, via the New York Times:
When an explosion nearly razed Iran’s long-range missile research facility in 2011 — and killed the military scientist who ran it — many Western intelligence analysts viewed it as devastating to Tehran’s technological ambitions. Since then, there has been little indication of Iranian work on a missile that could reach significantly beyond the Middle East, and Iranian leaders have said they do not intend to build one. So, this spring, when a team of California-based weapons researchers reviewed new Iranian state TV programs glorifying the military scientist, they expected a history lesson with, at most, new details on a long-dormant program. Instead, they stumbled on a series of clues that led them to a startling conclusion: Shortly before his death, the scientist, Gen. Hassan Tehrani Moghaddam, oversaw the development of a secret, second facility in the remote Iranian desert that, they say, is operating to this day...

For weeks, the researchers picked through satellite photos of the facility. They found, they say, that work on the site now appears to focus on advanced rocket engines and rocket fuel, and is often conducted under cover of night. It is possible that the facility is developing only medium-range missiles, which Iran already possesses, or perhaps an unusually sophisticated space program...But an analysis of structures and ground markings at the facility strongly suggests, though does not prove, that it is developing the technology for long-range missiles, the researchers say...If completed, [an Iranian long range missile program] could threaten Europe and potentially the United States...Five outside experts who independently reviewed the findings agreed that there was compelling evidence that Iran is developing long-range missile technology.
The online version of the Times' story links to this 2017 report in which Iranian leaders are quoted swearing up and down that they had no interest in long-range missile technology: "Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said his country will not develop ballistic missiles with a range exceeding 2,000 kilometers, reinforcing prior statements by officials and military leaders about missile range limitations," it reads. This regime does not tell the truth.  More:
[United Nations] Resolution 2231 only “called” on Iran to refrain from ballistic missile activities, including development and testing, there is a clear prohibition on transfers or exports of ballistic missiles and related technologies without advance approval from the UN Security Council. A similar process is required for a range of armaments. Yet, a U.S. statement tying a missile fired on Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, to Iran raises concerns that Iran may have violated the restriction prohibiting transfers. The Saudi military intercepted a missile from Yemen targeted at Riyadh’s international airport on Nov. 4. Air Force Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Harrigan, head of U.S. Air Force Central Command in Qatar, said on Nov. 10 that there have been Iranian markings on missiles used by the Houthis against Saudi and Saudi-backed forces in the war in Yemen. He said the markings “connect the dots to Iran.” Other countries, including Saudi Arabia and France, also linked the missile to Iran in earlier statements.
Again, Iran is either directly violating international law, or at least thumbing its nose at the clear "spirit" of the international nuclear pact to which it has ostensibly agreed. Defenders of that deal will eagerly point to this detail: "Such a program would not violate the international deal intended to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon."  It's true: In a major eleventh-hour giveaway to Tehran, the Obama administration caved to Iranian demands that the West also ease sanctions against its illicit ballistic missiles program, and lift the existing international weapons embargo.  The fact that the discovery of a (growing) secret desert facility designed for the development of long-range missiles (the pursuit of which Iranian leaders have denied), largely operating in the dark of night, would not constitute a violation of the Iran deal is not a compelling defense of the Iran deal.  It is a devastating indictment of it.
Speaking of which, one word that does not appear anywhere in the New York Times piece (which is worth a thorough read for a summary of multiple incriminating details) is "inspections."  It may be too late by now, but shouldn't the West be able to gain virtually instant access to this compound to determine its purpose and examine its progress?  Maybe not.  For all of the "echo chamber's" bragging about robust inspections, military sites are off limits, according to the Iranians.  And as the deal makes clear, Iran is in the driver's seat, happy to exploit the rest of the vaunted "international community" desperation to maintain their precious agreement.  Fortunately, the Trump administration has not been nearly as enthralled with this reckless legacy project.  In case you missed it, I'll leave you with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's forceful speech on Iran's path forward from last week -- with five key takeaways from the address enumerated in a Jerusalem Post column:


Editor's Note: The satellite image attached to this post is via the Center for Nonproliferation Studies.

Documents: Federal Prosecutors Misled Judge in Pursuit of Prison Time For Dinesh D'Souza

Documents: Federal Prosecutors Misled Judge in Pursuit of Prison Time For Dinesh D'Souza

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Posted: Sep 23, 2014 7:00 AM
Documents: Federal Prosecutors Misled Judge in Pursuit of Prison Time For Dinesh D'Souza
According to court documents, federal prosecutors working on behalf of Attorney General Eric Holder and the Department of Justice misled U.S. District Court Judge Richard Berman in the case against conservative filmmaker and author Dinesh D’Souza during their pursuit of 10-to-16 months of prison time for a federal felony charge.
In a reply sentencing memo submitted to the Court on behalf of D'Souza last week, his counsel argues federal prosecutors excluded and misrepresented the facts of “similar” cases in the Government's sentencing proposal to Judge Berman, leaving out crucial facts key to fair and equal sentencing for D’Souza compared to other cases. The prosecution has a duty to present comparable cases and crimes when arguing for a prison sentence. In their presentation of “similar” cases to the Judge for consideration during his deliberation, the prosecution ignored all truly similar cases without prison time but did present cases that included prison time without a full set of facts to justify sentencing.
“The Government, in this case, has chosen to consciously omit from its submission critical facts from most of the cases they cite which make it clear that those cases are substantially distinguishable from the facts in D’Souza’s prosecution,” the memo states. 

D’Souza’s counsel provided the court with a chart detailing “the 'limited’ facts from each case that the Government highlights” and then provided the missing facts the Government failed to include in order to avoid undermining their own argument against a prison sentence. With all the facts in place, the Government doesn’t have a case that adds up to a sentence that includes imprisonment.
In the chart submitted to the Judge by D’Souza’s counsel, you’ll notice the “facts” on the left submitted to the Judge by the Government to be used for sentencing consideration. On the right, you’ll find the full facts of the case the Government deliberately failed to include. Below are three of eight examples provided. You can read the rest here.




The prosecution's distortion of the facts in "similar cases" backs up long held suspicions that D’Souza was selectively prosecuted by the Department of Justice for political purposes and shows deceitful, malicious tactics being used to impose an unjust sentence.
“To be candid, counsel were surprised to see that in the Sentencing Memorandum, the Government cavalierly treats and then distorts critical issues so important to the Court’s decision. In doing so, to the Government ironically provides further support for more vigorous prosecution and now, for more severe punishment than virtually any other defendant whose crime is ‘similar’ to that of Mr. D’Souza’s, especially when his case is devoid of any element of corruption or personal greed that is at the heart of every case the Government cites,” the memo states. “Indeed, so determined is the Government in its effort to convince your Honor to imprison Mr. D’Souza, that they supplied the Court with a list of cases in support of their argument on sentence parity, but did so in a manner that was disingenuous. When one carefully examines the facts in each and every one of the case cited by the government in support of their sentence parity argument, it soon becomes clear that prison was imposed in each of those cases for a variety of aggravating factors that have nothing whatsoever to do with the prosecution of Mr. D’Souza."
The government failed to present any case, all facts included, comparable to D’Souza’s which involved illegally using two straw donors to donate a total of $20,000 to an ill-fated campaign. Back in May, D’Souza pled guilty to one count on federal charges detailed in an indictment accusing him of violating campaign finance laws and making false statements. D'Souza admitted in front of the Court that he did in fact ask two people to make contributions in their name and later reimbursed them, knowing it was not proper under the law. D'Souza submitted a plea deal on May 19 and the charge of making false statements was dropped. D’Souza’s defense team has argued that although criminally culpable, their client should not be imprisoned.
“After studying the chart and cases cited, we respectfully ask that the Court completely reject the Government’s argument that sentence parity supports a prison sentence for Mr. D’Souza. Simply put, their argument on this issue must be rejected because it is not sound,” D’Souza’s counsel argues in the document. “A good man who is 53 years old, with no criminal record and a genuine scholar, should not be sent to prison for a non-violent technical violation of the Federal Election Law where he was not trying to obtain an advantage or any personal benefit and where the case is devoid of any corruption whatsoever.”

D’Souza’s counsel has asked for a sentence of probation and community service. D'Souza is set for sentencing in the U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, today at 9 a.m. ET. Judge Berman said earlier this year he will consider D'Souza's character and history in his sentencing.

Susan Rice tried to ‘unmask’ Trump associates in intelligence reports

Susan Rice tried to ‘unmask’ Trump associates in intelligence reports


Former President Barack Obama’s national security adviser tried on dozens of occasions to learn the identities of Trump transition officials whose conversations with foreign officials were “incidentally” collected by US intelligence, it was reported Monday.
The names Susan Rice asked to “unmask” were found in raw intelligence documents with summaries of monitored conversations between Trump associates and foreign officials discussing the then-president-elect’s transition, Bloomberg News reported.
Normally, the names of American citizens collected in such a manner are redacted.
But after being “unmasked,” the identities of the Trump officials became known.
Top government officials can ask for the hidden names to be released if they are of “foreign intelligence value,” Bloomberg reported.
Rice’s requests to identify Trump transition staffers were uncovered in February during a National Security Council review and were reported to the White House General Counsel’s Office.
The revelation adds insight to the actions of Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), the chair of the House Intelligence Committee, who met with sources on White House grounds to view documents related to surveillance of Team Trump.
The Bloomberg report said it appears Nunes viewed NSC logs of Rice’s requests to unmask the names.
The next day, March 22, Nunes held a news conference to announce he had received information that showed members of the Trump transition team were caught up in “incidental collection” after the election.
The data included sensitive information about who the president’s associates were meeting, their views on foreign policy issues and further transition plans.
Nunes told reporters last month he briefed Trump on the documents because of concerns that Americans who were caught on routine surveillance were being “unmasked” for no reason.
The Obama administration shared the intelligence with officials throughout government because it feared the information would be covered up in a Trump White House.
Once the information was widely distributed, “intelligence officials” began leaking it and some of it appeared in media reports, including conversations fired National Security Adviser Mike Flynn had with the Russian ambassador to the United States.
Rice did not respond to an e-mail seeking comment, Bloomberg said.
But during an appearance on “PBS NewsHour” on March 22, she was asked about whether Trump transition officials were swept up in incidental eavesdropping.
“I know nothing about this,” she said at the time.
On Monday, Rice retweeted former Hillary Clinton aide Jennifer Palmieri, who wrote: “Here’s what’s happening. Trump NSC staff cherry picks intel which appears to back up Trump and leaks it to Fox so Trump can tweet it.”
White House spokesman Sean Spicer declined to go into details of Rice’s behavior at his press briefing Monday.
“I will say . . . there’s a troubling direction some of this is going in, but we’re going to let this review go on,” he said.
“I am not going to comment on this any further until [congressional] committees have come to a conclusion.”
Besides Nunes’ House committee, the Senate Intelligence Committee is also looking into Russia’s involvement in the US election and whether Trump associates had any contact with the Kremlin during that time.
The FBI also is investigating Russia’s interference.
Trump set off the controversy on March 4 when he claimed in a tweet that Obama “had my ‘wires tapped’ in Trump Tower,” but did not offer proof.
Rice has stirred controversy before. As the US ambassador to the United Nations, she appeared on Sunday news shows to defend the administration’s claim that the Sept. 11, 2012, attacks on the US consulate in Benghazi, Libya, were triggered by an Internet video. That claim was later widely debunked.
Rice also told ABC in 2014 that Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl “served the United States with honor and distinction” and that he “wasn’t simply a hostage; he was an American prisoner of war captured on the battlefield.”
Bergdahl is currently facing court-martial on charges of desertion and misbehavior before the enemy for allegedly walking off his post in Afghanistan.

Fresh evidence the Russia ‘scandal’ is a Team Obama operation

Fresh evidence the Russia ‘scandal’ is a Team Obama operation

Fresh evidence the Russia ‘scandal’ is a Team Obama operation


Do you suspect that the noise over Trump campaign contacts with the Russians is just a political hit arranged by Obama insiders before they left? You got fresh evidence of that Monday, with news that then-national security adviser Susan Rice was behind the “unmasking” of Trumpites in transcripts of calls with Russian officials.
Again, nothing on the public record so far shows that anyone on Team Trump said anything improper on those calls.
It’s no surprise that US spooks intercept foreign officials’ calls. But intelligence community reports don’t disclose the names of US citizens on the other end. To get that info, a high official must (but rarely does) push to “unmask” the Americans’ names.
Bloomberg’s Eli Lake now reports that Rice started doing just that last year.
That was perfectly legal. But we also know that the Obama administration later changed the classification of the “unmasked” transcripts, and other similar material, in order to spread the information as widely as possible within the government.
The motive for that was (supposedly) to prevent Team Trump from burying it all once it took over. But the result was that it made it relatively safe for someone (or someones) to leak the info to the press.
Which made it likely somebody would leak. So Team Obama’s “spread the info” initiative certainly broke the spirit of the laws.
Those leaks have produced a nagging political sore for the new administration — leading to the ouster of national security adviser Michael Flynn, helping to drive down President Trump’s approval ratings and making it harder for him to push his program through.
Rice certainly wasn’t politically naive about the political uses of intelligence information. She was, after all, the Obama official who famously made the rounds spouting the false “Our intel says it was about the video” line on the Benghazi attack back during the 2012 campaign.
All of this puts the actions of House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes in clearer perspective. After viewing the Rice requests at the White House, he disclosed that Trump officials had been caught up in incidental surveillance.
All of which is a reminder that two issues are in play here: Russian meddling in the election, about which the nation already knows plenty — and the Obama team’s efforts to sabotage Team Trump.

Monday, May 28, 2018

The List of Clinton Associates Who’ve Died Mysteriously. Check It Out

The List of Clinton Associates Who’ve Died Mysteriously

This is a message that began being forwarded via email in the mid-1990s of various Bill and Hillary Clinton associates alleged to have died under mysterious circumstances. This conspiracy theory continued to resurrect itself during Hillary Clinton’s 2008 and 2016 presidential bids.

THE CLINTON DEAD POOL
1- James McDougal – Clintons convicted Whitewater partner died of an apparent heart attack, while in solitary confinement. He was a key witness in Ken Starr’s investigation.
2 – Mary Mahoney – A former White House intern was murdered July 1997 at a Starbucks Coffee Shop in Georgetown .. The murder …happened just after she was to go public w:th her story of sexual harassment in the White House.
3 – Vince Foster – Former White House counselor, and colleague of Hillary Clinton at Little Rock’s Rose Law firm. Died of a gunshot wound to the head, ruled a suicide.
4 – Ron Brown – Secretary of Commerce and former DNC Chairman. Reported to have died by impact in a plane crash. A pathologist close to the investigation reported that there was a hole in the top of Brown’s skull resembling a gunshot wound. At the time of his death Brown was being investigated, and spoke publicly of his willingness to cut a deal with prosecutors. The rest of the people on the plane also died. A few days later the Air Traffic controller commited suicide.
5 – C. Victor Raiser, II – Raiser, a major player in the Clinton fund raising organization died in a private plane crash in July 1992.
6 – Paul Tulley – Democratic National Committee Political Director found dead in a hotel room in Little Rock , September 1992. Described by Clinton as a “dear friend and trusted advisor”.
7 – Ed Willey – Clinton fundraiser, found dead November 1993 deep in the woods in VA of a gunshot wound to the head. Ruled a suicide. Ed Willey died on the same day his wife Kathleen Willey claimed Bill Clinton groped her in the oval office in the White House. Ed Willey was involved in several Clinton fund raising events.
8 – Jerry Parks – Head of Clinton’s gubernatorial security team in Little Rock .. Gunned down in his car at a deserted intersection outside Little Rock Park’s son said his father was building a dossier on Clinton He allegedly threatened to reveal this information. After he died the files were mysteriously removed from his house.
9 – James Bunch – Died from a gunshot suicide. It was reported that he had a “Black Book” of people which contained names of influential people who visited prostitutes in Texas and Arkansas
10 – James Wilson – Was found dead in May 1993 from an apparent hanging suicide. He was reported to have ties to Whitewater..
11 – Kathy Ferguson – Ex-wife of Arkansas Trooper Danny Ferguson, was found dead in May 1994, in her living room with a gunshot to her head. It was ruled a suicide even though there were several packed suitcases, as if she were going somewhere. Danny Ferguson was a co-defendant along with Bill Clinton in the Paula Jones lawsuit Kathy Ferguson was a possible corroborating witness for Paula Jones.
12 – Bill Shelton – Arkansas State Trooper and fiancee of Kathy Ferguson. Critical of the suicide ruling of his fiancee, he was found dead in June, 1994 of a gunshot wound also ruled a suicide at the grave site of his fiancee.
13 – Gandy Baugh – Attorney for Clinton’s friend Dan Lassater, died by jumping out a window of a tall building January, 1994. His client was a convicted drug distributor.
14 – Florence Martin – Accountant & sub-contractor for the CIA, was related to the Barry Seal, Mena, Arkansas, airport drug smuggling case. He died of three gunshot wounds.
15 – Suzanne Coleman – Reportedly had an affair with Clinton when he was Arkansas Attorney General. Died of a gunshot wound to the back of the head, ruled a suicide. Was pregnant at the time of her death.
16 – Paula Grober – Clinton’s speech interpreter for the deaf from 1978 until her death December 9, 1992. She died in a one car accident.
17 – Danny Casolaro – Investigative reporter, investigating Mena Airport and Arkansas Development Finance Authority. He slit his wrists, apparently, in the middle of his investigation.
18 – Paul Wilcher – Attorney investigating corruption at Mena Airport with Casolaro and the 1980 “October Surprise” was found dead on a toilet June 22, 1993, in his Washington DC apartment had delivered a report to Janet Reno 3 weeks before his death.
19 – Jon Parnell Walker – Whitewater investigator for Resolution Trust Corp. Jumped to his death from his Arlington ,Virginia apartment balcony August 15, 1993. He was investigating the Morgan Guaranty scandal.
20 – Barbara Wise – Commerce Department staffer. Worked closely with Ron Brown and John Huang. Cause of death: Unknown. Died November 29, 1996. Her bruised, naked body was found locked in her office at the Department of Commerce.
21 – Charles Meissner – Assistant Secretary of Commerce who gave John Huang special security clearance, died shortly thereafter in a small plane crash.
22 – Dr. Stanley Heard – Chairman of the National Chiropractic Health Care Advisory Committee died with his attorney Steve Dickson in a small plane crash. Dr. Heard, in addition to serving on Clinton ‘s advisory council personally treated Clinton’s mother, stepfather and brother.
23 – Barry Seal – Drug running TWA pilot out of Mena Arkansas, death was no accident.
24 – Johnny Lawhorn, Jr. – Mechanic, found a check made out to Bill Clinton in the trunk of a car left at his repair shop. He was found dead after his car had hit a utility pole.
25 – Stanley Huggins – Investigated Madison Guaranty. His death was a purported suicide and his report was never released.
26 – Hershell Friday – Attorney and Clinton fundraiser died March 1, 1994, when his plane exploded.
27 – Kevin Ives & Don Henry – Known as “The boys on the track” case. Reports say the boys may have stumbled upon the Mena Arkansas airport drug operation. A controversial case, the initial report of death said, due to falling asleep on railroad tracks. Later reports claim the 2 boys had been slain before being placed on the tracks. Many linked to the case died before their testimony could come before a Grand Jury.
THE FOLLOWING PERSONS HAD INFORMATION ON THE IVES/HENRY CASE:
28 – Keith Coney – Died when his motorcycle slammed into the back of a truck, 7/88.
29 – Keith McMaskle – Died, stabbed 113 times, Nov, 1988
30 – Gregory Collins – Died from a gunshot wound January 1989.
31 – Jeff Rhodes – He was shot, mutilated and found burned in a trash dump in April 1989.
32 – James Milan – Found decapitated. However, the Coroner ruled his death was due to natural causes”.
34 – Richard Winters – A suspect in the Ives/Henry deaths. He was killed in a set-up robbery July 1989.
THE FOLLOWING CLINTON BODYGUARDS ARE ALSO DEAD
35 – Major William S. Barkley, Jr.
36 – Captain Scott J . Reynolds
37 – Sgt. Brian Hanley
38 – Sgt. Tim Sabel
39 – Major General William Robertson
40 – Col. William Densberger
41 – Col. Robert Kelly
42 – Spec. Gary Rhodes
43 – Steve Willis
44 – Robert Williams
45 – Conway LeBleu
46 – Todd McKeehan
And the most recent, Seth Rich, the DC staffer murdered and “robbed” (of nothing) on July 10. Wikileaks found Assange claims he had info on the DNC email scandal.
Not Included in this list are the 4 men killed in Benghazi.
Not the kind of person I want in charge of my country.
GOD BLESS THE USA.

God may have put you in a lonely place for an incredible reason

God may have put you in a lonely place for an incredible reason 

God may have put you in a lonely place for an incredible reason

Cigna released their U.S. Loneliness Survey this month and reported that loneliness among Americans has reached "epidemic levels." Their survey of over 20,000 Americans found that nearly half reported sometimes or always feeling alone (46 percent) or left out (47 percent). The survey used a 20-item questionnaire that assesses subjective feelings of loneliness and social isolation.
The potential effects of loneliness on health are well established. A 2013 study on loneliness showed elevated levels of stress hormones and inflammation, which can increase the risk of heart disease, dementia, and Type 2 diabetes and suicide attempts.
Loneliness is prevalent in society. The rising numbers of single adults, the breakdown of the family and the loss of neighborhood and community have all contributed to an immense sense of loneliness in many people's lives.
Dr. Julianne Holt-Lunstad, professor of psychology at Brigham Young University reports loneliness peaks in adolescents and young adults, then again in older adults. She says, “Older adults should not be the sole focus of the effects of loneliness. We need to address this for all ages.”
Tom Wolfe the great American novelist who just recently passed away wrote, "Loneliness, far from being a rare and curious phenomenon, peculiar to myself and a few solitary men, is a central and inevitable fact of human existence."
If you feel lonely remember God cares for you. He knows about loneliness. Jesus experienced the greatest loneliness of all when the Father forsook him on the cross. God knows and cares.
The response to loneliness may be to take up a new hobby, make more time for friends or get a pet. Loneliness is seen as something bad and we must take action to overcome it. But God can help transform it into something beneficial for us.
Loneliness can cause us to seek God in a deeper way
We are so busy we often leave little time for God. When we are alone God has the opportunity to speak to us and receive our undivided attention. Nine times in the gospels we are told that Jesus went away to a lonely place to be with the father. Jesus sought out solitude so he could seek the father's will for his life.
Many of the early church fathers were called desert fathers because they sought out the desert as a lonely place to find God. In fact, the Hebrew word for lonely can also be translated as solitude or desert.
When we are alone and seek after God we will be rewarded. He will give us increased discernment so desperately needed today. This kind of guidance and wisdom does not come without setting apart time to be with God.
Sometimes God causes us to seek him by driving us to him through the loneliness we experience. We can get angry, depressed or we can see it as a gift. Loneliness is a great benefit if we have drawn closer to Christ.
Loneliness can be used by God to develop our character
In loneliness God reveals our weaknesses and works on changing them. God will test and even increase our patience while we wait in our loneliness. Our deficiencies, insecurities and defense mechanisms are revealed in our aloneness, which God can then use to strengthen our character.
Paul knew the power of weaknesses becoming strengths when he said, "When I am weak then I am strong." When we are alone our commitment is tested and our true character shines through. Being faithful alone gives us confidence we can be faithful in community.
Amy Carmichael knew about loneliness. She was a missionary to India for 55 years and twice because of accidents had to spend months alone. In her solitude she wrote many books.
In one of her books, “Gold By Midnight,” there is a boy who takes a walk in the woods and in the deepest, darkest place finds a patch of lovely orchids. In that lonely place God brought forth great beauty. And God can cultivate beauty in your character through loneliness.
Loneliness can inspire us to greater creativity
Carl Sandburg wrote, "Shakespeare, Leonardo de Vinci, Benjamin Franklin and Abraham Lincoln never saw a movie, heard a radio or looked at a TV. They had loneliness and knew what to do with it. They were not afraid of being lonely because they knew that then the creative mood in them would work."
Creative problem solvers are needed in our world. Imagine the great things God would do if we could tap into His creativity for us. I recently spent five days alone writing. I had so many insights and got so much more done alone than I could when I am around people.
In "Life Together" Dietrich Bonheoffer wrote about the need for community and solitude. He said, "If you refuse to be alone you are rejecting Christ's call to you and you can have no part in the community of those who are called." He wrote such strong words because he knew the importance of time alone with God.
God wants to give us dreams and visions of what can be done through us and that can come through aloneness. Your greatest achievement may be birthed out of your loneliness.
Loneliness can create in us a desire to serve
When we are away from people we can come to appreciate humanity more. What we learn in our loneliness can give us a heightened sensitivity to others. There is a time apart and there is also a time to be in community.
True community involves our serving one another in love. Sometimes the very fact of our loneliness results from our sitting instead of serving.
A boy once asked a lonely old man, "What is life's heaviest burden?" The man responded by saying, "To have nothing to carry." We are needed to do a work no one else but us can do.
In our loneliness we can see what needs there are and then determine how God can use us to meet them. There is so much to be done and God may have to put us in a lonely place for a season so that we can get a greater burden to serve.
God makes a home for the lonely. It is a place where he can work in us it is a place that can be very beneficial for us. It is not a place to avoid for we are never alone. God will never forsake us, but he will transform us.

Newt Gingrich: Why the Mueller probe is really five scandals, not one

Newt Gingrich: Why the Mueller probe is really five scandals, not one |

Newt Gingrich: Why the Mueller probe is really five scandals, not one

The current Robert Mueller-Justice Department-Russia mess is almost impossible to understand because it is made up of five parallel scandals.
For months, as I wrote my new book, “Trump’s America,” I tried to better understand news as it emerged from the Justice Department – and I still am trying. There are so many moving parts, personalities and dates that it is difficult to track. However, as a trained historian, I began creating an orderly outline for people, dates and events.
I realized that the scandal is so big, so complex, and involves so many people with power that codifying it really required me to draw from my experience writing novels. There are so many egos and there is so much manipulative behavior, dishonesty (and dishonesty about the dishonesty) that it is very difficult to explain it as a straightforward history. It could be more easily explained as a narrative of ambition, illegality and criminal plotting. Finally, it hit me that the real problem is that there are five parallel and often interlocked scandals going on in concert:
1.      The Clintons have been breaking the law and getting away with it at least since Hillary Clinton made nearly $100,000 from a $1,000 investment in cattle futures in 1978-1979. For 40 years the Clintons have acted as though there were no laws that applied to them. They have surrounded themselves with lawyers and simply muscled their way through every scandal. The scale of Clinton illegal activity is so large and so widespread that no one has been able to fully describe it – although Peter Schweizer made a pretty good start with his book “Clinton Cash.”

2.      The extraordinary deep state defense of Hillary Clinton, combined with the systematic avoidance of exposing and dealing with her illegal behaviors while protecting her staff members when they support and participate in her illegality, is beyond anything we have seen in American history.

The reason for this deep state resistance is simple. Transparency is going to get a lot of people in trouble – and it goes to the very top.
3.      The calculated effort to undermine and discredit then-candidate and now-President Donald Trump is actually a continuation of a deep anti-Republican bias in the Justice Department. This Justice Department tradition is well catalogued in Sidney Powell’s stunning book, “Licensed to Lie: Exposing Corruption in the Department of Justice.”
If you have any illusions about the Justice Department’s objectivity, keep in mind that employees of this department gave 97 percent of their 2016 campaign donations to Hillary Clinton – while the department was supposedly investigating her for illegally using a private email server to send and receive classified information as secretary of state. With each passing week, we are learning more about the extraordinary abuses of power designed to undermine President Trump and punish his supporters (a direct contrast to the treatment of Clinton and her staff). The aggressive abuse of power has led both Alan Dershowitz and former Clinton adviser Mark Penn to warn that limitless police power is a danger to all of us.

4.      The scandal of the deep state resistance to accountability and transparency has also been astounding. As a career deep state member, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein has consistently resisted inquiries by Congress. Documents requested by the Senate Judiciary Committee were heavily redacted for supposed national security reasons – which turned out to have nothing to do with national security (including the fact that the FBI had spent $70,000 on a conference table).
Meanwhile, more than 1 million documents were withheld from the House Judiciary Committee for so long that the committee had to issue a subpoena. The reason for this deep state resistance is simple. Transparency is going to get a lot of people in trouble – and it goes to the very top. When Lisa Page wrote Peter Strzok in September 2016, “POTUS wants to know everything,” there is good reason to believe President Obama was the one she was referring to as POTUS. If President Obama wanted to know everything, given the way his White House worked, it is very likely his senior adviser Valerie Jarrett knew everything. The more we learn, the bigger the scandal web gets.

5.      Panic is breaking out among senior people who engaged in illegal activities because they thought President Hillary Clinton would protect them. Suddenly, they find themselves in danger of criminal charges. That is why people like former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and former CIA Director John Brennan grow increasingly hysterical in their TV appearances.
I did my best to succinctly capture this moment in American history in “Trump’s America,” but each one of these five scandals is worthy of its own detailed book. Taken together, they are a mound of illegalities, abuses, dishonesty, and manipulation – on a scale that has never before occurred in America.
I suspect when all these scandals are unraveled, a political and cultural reckoning in Washington will follow.

Sunday, May 27, 2018

Real Reason why Earth got a Little Bit Warmer?

Real Reason why Earth got a Little Bit Warmer?

Real Reason why Earth got a Little Bit Warmer?

Written by www.spaceweather.com

Strange but true: You can learn a lot about Earth’s climate by watching a lunar eclipse. This week at the 46th Global Monitoring Annual Conference (GMAC) in Boulder, CO, climate scientist Richard Keen of the University of Colorado announced new results from decades of lunar eclipse monitoring.
“Based on the color and brightness of recent eclipses, we can say that Earth’s stratosphere is as clear as it has been in decades. There are very few volcanic aerosols up there,” he explains. This is important, climatologically, because a clear stratosphere “lets the sunshine in” to warm the Earth below.
To illustrate the effect that volcanic aerosols have on eclipses, Keen prepared a side-by-side comparison (above) of a lunar eclipse observed in 1992 after the Philippine volcano Pinatubo spewed millions of tons of gas and ash into the atmosphere vs. the latest “all-clear” eclipse in January 2018.
“Compared to the murky decades of the el Chichon and Pinatubo, the clear stratosphere since 1995 has allowed the intensity of sunlight reaching the ground to increase by about 0.6 Watts per square meter,” says Keen. “That’s equivalent to a warming of 1 or 2 tenths of a degree C (0.1 C to 0.2 C).”
“In other words,” he adds, “over the past 40 years, the decrease of volcanic aerosols and the increase of greenhouse gases have contributed equally to the total warming (~0.3 C) observed in global satellite temperature records.”
Total lunar eclipses happen somewhere on Earth typically once or twice a year. Keen is looking forward to the next one on July 27, 2018, which will be the longest lunar eclipse of the century. The Moon will pass almost directly through the middle of Earth’s shadow, remaining inside for 1 hour and 43 minutes. That’s just a few minutes shy of the theoretical maximum.
“This will give us plenty of time to measure the color and brightness of Earth’s shadow and, thus, the aerosol content of the stratosphere,” says Keen.
For more information about lunar eclipses and climate change, check out Keen’s poster from the GMAC.
Read more at www.spaceweather.com

Climate Fraud Exposed: CO2 doesn't rise up, trap and retain heat

Climate Fraud Exposed: CO2 doesn't rise up, trap and retain heat 

Climate Fraud Exposed: CO2 doesn’t rise up, trap and retain heat

Written by John O'Sullivan

We have been lied to: Carbon dioxide (CO2) is an alleged ‘well-mixed gas’ also alleged to reside in sufficient quantities high in the atmosphere to cause global warming (via the so-called greenhouse gas effect). But as President Trump looks to help dismantle the hoax there is much inconvenient science at hand to help his administration discredit this ‘theory’ beloved by climate alarmists.
The first damaging fact to the theory: CO2 is actually a heavy gas. It is not ‘well mixed’ in the air as per the glib claim.  Just check out the NASA image (above) showing widely varying carbon dioxide concentrations. Indeed, schoolchildren are shown just how heavy CO2 is by way of a simple school lab experiment. This heavy gas thus struggles to rise and soon falls back to earth due to its Specific Gravity (SG). Real scientists rely on the SG measure which gives standard air a value of 1.0 where the measured SG of CO2 is 1.5 (considerably heavier). Thus,  in the real world the warming theory barely gets off the ground.

As shown  in Carbon Dioxide Not a Well Mixed Gas and Can’t Cause Global Warming the same principle applies to heat transfer: the Specific Heat (SH) of air is 1.0 and the SH of CO2 is 0.8 (thus CO2 heats and cools faster).  Combining these properties allows for thermal mixing. Heavy CO2 warms faster and rises, as in a hot air balloon.  It then rapidly cools and falls. Once it falls it loses any claimed climate impact.
You see, so much of what we have been told about the greenhouse gas mechanism is false. James Moodey wrote an excellent debunk of CO2 pseudo-science. He tells us:
“Proponents [of the greenhouse gas theory] point to scientist John Tyndall for postulating what we now call global warming in his 1861 paper published in “Philosophical Transactions.” Tyndall’s experiments methodically measured with an electronic galvanometer, the relative heat absorption of various gases, gas vapors and even a few solids. He proved that they absorb heat in the order listed.
Generally, the larger the gas molecule (compound gases), the more heat they absorb with the most heat absorbed by olefiant gas (ethylene). Although he does not mention carbon dioxide, it might absorb about a third of that amount. He discovered that that these gases absorb less heat as their pressure rises, so he measured at extreme low pressures.
At one point, he generalizes that gas vapors, such as aqueous vapor, absorb roughly 13 times more than dry gases. Solids absorb even more heat. He notes that gases cool in proportion to the absorption with large molecule gases taking longer to cool. Tyndall leaps a bit with this concept when he hypothesizes the affect on our atmosphere by stating, “to account for different amounts of heat being preserved to the earth at different times” – which we attribute to global warming.”
There is no doubt what he measured exists, but nowhere in John Tyndall’s paper does he add the element of time. Yes, some gases absorb heat, but for how long? If you ask any climate ‘scientist’ how long CO2 traps heat they are unable to tell you. They certainly can’t claim Tyndall “settled” it. Instead you will find airy-fairy, hand-waving pronouncements like this peach:
“As humans emit greenhouse gases like CO2, the air warms and holds more water vapor, which then traps more heat and accelerates warming.”
You see, they want to convince you that CO2 is trapping heat (like a greenhouse) but then don’t tell you how much and for how long. In fact, the only scientist to test CO2 absorption/emission in the open atmosphere is Professor Nasif Nahle (Monterrey, Mexico) in his peer-reviewed paper, ‘Determining the Total Emissivity of a Mixture of Gases Containing Overlapping Absorption Bands.’ [1]
By performing his experiments in the open atmosphere Professor Nahle found:
“Applying the physics laws of atmospheric heat transfer, the Carbon Dioxide behaves as a coolant of the Earth’s surface and the Earth’s atmosphere by its effect of diminishing the total absorptivity and total emissivity of the mixture of atmospheric gases.” [emphasis added]
So much for that ‘greenhouse effect’! Unlike academics playing with computers, applied scientists like Nahle and measurement engineers, who must be correct or buildings would catch fire, use four aspects of physics to measure gases: Pressure (Boyles Law), Temperature (Charles Law), Super-compressibility and Specific Gravity. Charles Law and Specific Gravity should be at the center of any analysis of Global Warming.
But take a look at any climate ‘science’ publication explaining how they quantify and explain their  mechanism of carbon dioxide’s ‘heat trapping’ in the climate and you will only read about radiation effects, nothing at all on those essential laws that chemical science experts rely on. Anyway, a greenhouse works by blocking out cooling convection, not by trapping radiation.
And the greenhouse gas theory is all about radiation. But radiation is not the principle method of heat transport in a gaseous environment like earth’s atmosphere. Here. it is convection and conduction that carry heat around the system. No wonder climate computer models fail.
So, does carbon dioxide trap and retain heat? No, although it cools more slowly than some other gases, it absorbs some amount of heat and quickly cools the same amount when the heat source is removed. Does it rise up in the atmosphere? No, it does the opposite. It sinks.
It is well known that CO2 pools in the lower atmosphere – it is heavy and sinks to the ground where it forms large concentrations (e.g as carboniferous limestone). Geologists know this all too well. They can point us to innumerable examples e.g. those prehistoric limestone deposits on ocean beds which gave the south coast of Britain it’s marvelous white cliffs of Dover (see image).

As Moodey goes on to tell us:
Charles Law precisely quantifies the volume expansion of gas when heated at each degree of temperature. Likewise, as gas cools its volume shrinks precisely the same. Our modern instruments measure instantaneous changes in volume and temperature. This does the same as John Tyndall’s instrument, except we can measure a slight change in volume with each degree of temperature. By my experience with this, I estimate that gases lose the absorbed temperature very rapidly when the heat source is removed.
Specific gravity is the weight of a gas compared with air. Carbon Dioxide has a specific gravity of 1.52. It is about one and a half times heavier than air. It is the same weight as propane and anyone who uses propane knows it to be very heavy. Carbon dioxide sinks into our storm drains and into the ground like a puddle of water.
Now back to some Geology:
And we know carbon dioxide forms into insoluble carbonates that will eventually be washed into the ocean and settle on the ocean floor. Just as well it does. A high carbonate content in the ocean has been a godsend to life. Dissolved carbonates in seawater provide an efficient chemical buffer to various processes that change the properties of seawater. For instance, the addition of a strong acid such as hydrochloric acid (naturally added to the ocean by volcanism), is strongly buffered by the seawater carbonate system. Marine biologists and oceanographers, unlike most climate ‘scientists’, know that Phytoplankton have always sucked CO2 out of the sky, then dumps to ocean floor. [2]
This is the carbon cycle in operation – heavier organic carbon settling down to intermediate and deep waters. Earth’s oceans and rains serve as a go-between to transport the carbon back … and free the CO2 gas which makes its way back up to the surface through volcanoes. [3]
It is sensible to see dispersion of CO2 via volcanic eruptions (and the very tiny human emissions of CO2) as fertilization of the land fauna and flora. The inconvenient truth for global warming alarmists is that NASA finds that the rise in atmospheric CO2 over the last 35 years “represents an increase in leaves on plants and trees equivalent in area to two times the continental United States.” [4]
If NASA is correct, then we need more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, not less. Check the graph below and follow the blue line to see that life on earth has thrived on CO2 concentrations at 3,000 ppm, far higher than today’s levels of about 400 ppm (circled):

And if you think like a geologist and not like a climate ‘scientists’ and look back in the history of time you see the atmosphere had very large amounts of carbon dioxide in it. Today we have got less than 0.4%. So where did that carbon dioxide go to? It went into limestone, chalk, shells and life. All land-based lifeforms have been sequestering carbon for ONLY two and a half billion years. And all that CO2 that is supposed to turn the oceans more acidic? Pure nonsense because even NOAA scientists admit in private that they can’t name any place affected by ocean acidification. And more than 99% of earth’s FREE CO2 is already in the ocean waters.
If only those self-absorbed climate ‘scientists’ would speak to chemical scientists. All that Calcium Carbonate comes from the precipitation reaction of Calcium Hydroxide in the ocean with CO2 using the reaction Ca(OH)2 + CO2 -> CaCO3 + H20. For example, shellfish need CO2 from the ocean to make their shells and control the conditions for PH, Temperature and Ion Concentration and they bind the crystals that form in a protein matrix for strength. Shellfish are utterly unaffected by the piddling change in the ocean from being a base of 8.3 to being a base of PH 8.29 that might happen due to manmade CO2
Our planet has been degassing carbon dioxide since it first formed four and a half billion years ago and now we are at a dangerously low level.  The dumbest thing nations can do is permit scrubbing CO2 from the air (carbon sequestration).
As Professor Nahle found with his open air experiments:
“The general conclusion is that by adding any gas with total emissivity/absorptivity lower than the total emissivity/absorptivity of the main absorber/emitter in the mixture of gases makes that the total emissivity/absorptivity of the mixture of gases decreases. In consequence, the carbon dioxide and the oxygen at the overlapping absorption spectral bands act as mitigating factors of the warming of the atmosphere, not as intensifier factors of the total absorptivity/emissivity of the atmosphere.”
Indeed, even with some slight cooling observed, the affect of carbon dioxide on the temperature of our atmosphere is not even measurable as the content is so tiny.  Note that during our most dramatic industrial growth from 1950 to 1980, our atmosphere cooled. In fact putting co2 into the air is  saving the planet. If the industrial age did not occur for another 100 million years, what would the co2 ppm in air be then? The danger is without humans taking steps to put more carbon dioxide into the air then life as we know it could end.
*****
[1]  Nahle, N., ‘Determining the Total Emissivity of a Mixture of Gases Containing Overlapping Absorption Bands,’ http://www.biocab.org/Overlapping_Absorption_Bands.pdf
[2] Lionel Guidi, et al x 64 names  (2015)  Plankton networks driving carbon export in the oligotrophic ocean. Nature, 2016; DOI: 10.1038/nature16942
[3]  ‘Marine barite: Recorder of variations in ocean export productivity‘ page 698, Fig 6).
[4] Samson Reiny, ‘Carbon Dioxide Fertilization Greening Earth, Study Finds,’ https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2016/carbon-dioxide-fertilization-greening-earth (accessed online: January 30, 2017)

This Could Be The Real Reason Why North Korea Stopped Its Nuclear Missile Tests

This Could Be The Real Reason Why North Korea Stopped Its Nuclear Missile Tests

This Could Be The Real Reason Why North Korea Stopped Its Nuclear Missile Tests
, Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own.
Shutterstock
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un
North Korean president Kim Jong-un recently announced his country has halted its nuclear testing program. While it is unclear whether this is a political move in preparation for meeting with the United States president Donald Trump, recent evidence suggests the country may have been forced to halt testing.
A recent study by a group of geologists discovered that the mountain used by North Korea for its nuclear bomb testing has collapsed as a result of the explosions. The collapsed mountain is raising concerns about radioactive fallout, which could make its way into China.
Scientists from the University of Science and Technology of China believe this could be the true reason North Korean President Kim Jong-un announced the halt of their nuclear testing program.
The collapse of Mount Mantap was a result of five recent nuclear blasts at the Punggye-ri nuclear test site in northwest North Korea. The recent nuclear tests tore open a hole in the mountain, causing it to collapse and creating a pathway for radioactivity to escape from the mountain.

A man watches a TV news program reporting North Korea's nuclear test at Seoul Railway Station in Seoul, South Korea. North Korea has conducted five nuclear tests, the first in 2006. All were conducted in the depths of Mount Mantap, a nondescript granite peak in the remote and heavily forested Hamgyong mountain range about 80 kilometers (50 miles) as the crow flies from Chongjin, the nearest big city. Since North Korea is the only country in the world that still conducts nuclear weapons tests, its Punggye-ri site on - or mostly under - Mount Mantap is also the world’s only active nuclear testing site. The letters on the screen read: "Hydrogen bomb test." (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon, File)
The team of Chinese geologists believes the collapse was a result of the detonation of North Korea's most powerful nuclear warhead last fall. The nuclear bomb was detonated about 2,300 feet beneath the mountain's peak, causing aftershock earthquakes and collapse of the mountain.
The research, which will be published next month in the peer-reviewed journal Geophysical Research Letters, examines satellite imagery before and after the nuclear tests. There is ongoing concern that the collapse ejected radioactive dust, which could make its way into China and other neighboring countries.
The first four underground nuclear tests last year did not produce visible structural damage to the mountain as detected through satellite imagery. However, the 5th nuclear test, a 100-kilotonne nuclear bomb that was detonated on September 3rd caused significant structural damage to the mountain.
The bomb likely vaporized the surrounding rock and blew a hole in the side of the mountain according to Wen Lianxing, the lead geologists on the project from the State University of New York at Stony Brook. After analyzing satellite imagery and the response from seismic stations, the research team concluded that the blast caused a large section of the mountain to collapse on itself.
The United States Geological Survey reported a magnitude 6.3 earthquake, followed by a second 4.6 magnitude earthquake shortly afterward coinciding with the detonation of the September nuclear test.
Evidence of the collapse of Mount Mantap suggests it could be the underlying cause of North Korea halting its nuclear tests. Time will show whether the recluse country will develop a new nuclear test site or whether this marks the end of nuclear testing by North Korea.

Colorado sues Trump administration over census citizenship question

Colorado sues Trump administration over census citizenship question

Colorado sues Trump administration over census citizenship question

Governor says every person must be counted, regardless of citizenship status