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After NBC News published a hit piece on news outlet the Epoch Times and its association with the Falun Gong, a spiritual movement persecuted by China’s government, the Wikipedia page for the outlet was vandalized and filled with attacks sourced to the piece. One editor involved has a history of attacking Falun Gong and defending Chinese communist figures such as Mao Zedong. The editor also contacted an Antifa-supporting socialist editor with a similar history, which included downplaying the oppression of Uyghur Muslims in China’s Xinjiang province. Other Wikipedia articles associated with Falun Gong have also been subject to smears from...

With so many rats running for president in 2020 it's hard to keep up with who's in and who's out. Hopefully, this post will help. Below is a list of declared candidates, their occupation, the date they dropped from the race (if they did) and misc. notes.This thread will be reposted each week, likely on Monday, with the dropouts from the previous week and newly declared candidates noted. The dust biter(s) from last week: Seth Moulton (h/t rightwingintelligentsia). Newly declared candidates from last week: None, thankfully.Please let me know via FReepmail if you find errors. Thanks! upchuck Nbr Name Occupation...

California’s got the most gun control laws in the country. It’s also trying to win the race on bad legislative ideas, too. California’s Assemblywoman Sydney Kamlager-Dove (D-Los Angeles) is pushing a resolution that California would use its economic might to nudge banks and lending institutions away from doing business with federally licensed law abiding firearms manufacturers and retailers if they have open accounts with the Golden State. Assembly Concurrent Resolution 115 would “encourage” six lending institutions to cut all business ties with America’s firearms manufacturers. The goal, according to Kamlager-Dove, is eliminate the production of firearms and the means to...

The UM News Service has reported that I filed a complaint against the Rev. Anna Blaedel for violating the UMC’s longstanding prohibition of “self-avowed practicing homosexual” clergy, and that the Iowa Conference Committee on Investigation (COI) has certified a bill of charges. Those interested in a three-minute summary of my perspective can scroll down to the italicized text, which I read at the COI hearing earlier this month. But there is a bit more background. I am grateful for the professional, non-partisan manner in which the COI completed its work. I am disappointed that Blaedel has since painted a misleading...

STARR COUNTY, Texas – (Yesterday, Mon, August 26, was) the last chance for public comments regarding the proposed border wall construction in Starr County (actually, almost the whole Rio Grande Valley)... The proposed action is to construct a border wall system... (which) would consist of 30-foot tall steel posts and enforcement zones with gates and surveillance technology.

Jesuit Priest Blesses Gay Man Just Before His Assisted Suicide Abp. Terrence Prendergast: 'We cannot be forgiven pre-emptively for something we are going to do' SEATTLE (ChurchMilitant.com) - Days before a Seattle man planned to marry his same-sex partner and kill himself, a Jesuit priest led the entire parish in a final blessing of him. After a diagnosis of cancer in 2018 and one round of chemotherapy, Robert Fuller picked May 10, 2019, as the day he was going to die and began planning a party where he would marry his same-sex partner then kill himself. An Associated Press report chronicling...

Radical Democrat congresswoman Rashida Tlaib was denied access to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) contracted facility earlier this month after she failed to request a tour. Tlaib then created a public relations spectacle, claiming she was unfairly barred despite showing up to the facility without notice.Earlier this month, Tlaib stormed the Calhoun County jail in Michigan with two members of her staff, two immigration attorneys, and a reported group of eight or nine people. Calhoun County jail has contracts with ICE.Tlaib tweeted that she was “denied access to tour the facility,” and received nearly 12,000 “likes” on Twitter.“If they...

Alabama Republicans are urging lawmakers to remove Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn. from Congress after a series of controversial statements, including remarks about Israel and her support of economic boycotts against that country. The state GOP passed a resolution last weekend at the party's summer meeting in Auburn calling on its congressional delegation to “proceed with the expulsion process” against the first-term congresswoman. “Representative Omar has engaged in rhetoric that explicitly runs counter to American values and patriotism by falsely accusing U.S. armed forces of committing war crimes while on mission to liberate her home country of Somalia,” the resolution said....

BREATHITT COUNTY, Ky. (LEX 18) — The County Judge Executive for Breathitt County was arrested on Tuesday on 18 felony counts. These recent charges are separate from the charges that Jeff Noble was indicted for at the beginning of August. Noble was arrested on Tuesday for allegedly spending $986.08 on diesel for his personal vehicle. Noble had charged the County Road Department and Breathitt County General Fund for the diesel. According to the arrest citation, Noble filled his personal vehicle's tank with diesel on 16 separate occasions.

2020 Democratic presidential candidate and tech entrepreneur Andrew Yang scored a major endorsement this weekend from fellow tech entrepreneur Elon Musk, the founder of PayPal who now leads SpaceX and Tesla. “I support Yang,” Musk tweeted in response to another tweet commenting on a post from Yang urging voters to have an open mind. Elon Musk ✔ @elonmusk I support Yang 101K 11:16 AM - Aug 10, 2019 Twitter Ads info and privacy 21.8K people are talking about this Musk’s tweet was a welcome endorsement for Yang, who has struggled to garner support in the crowded field of candidates in...

Not Authorized: The Untold Story of the Death of the Old Mass Introduction: A Time of Confusion Although it is now frequently claimed that the traditional Latin Mass (TLM) was never abrogated (totally abolished) following the Second Vatican Council, this position is squarely at odds not only with the lived experience of several generations of Catholics, but with the rapid and near total disappearance of the TLM within a brief period of time. For many years after 1970, there was considerable confusion about the legal and sacramental status of the TLM following the publication of the new Missale Romanum of...

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) took aim at fellow presidential candidate Andrew Yang’s (D) proposal for universal basic income, telling Hill.TV that a federal jobs guarantee is preferable because “people want to work.” Yang – who saw a spike in Emerson Polling’s recent survey (4 percent support) and qualified for September’s Democrat presidential debate – has touted his universal basic income plan, promising to give U.S. citizens $1,000 a month. “Americans will work even harder when they get the resources in place to actually get ahead. This is the trickle up economy from our people, families and communities up,” Yang told...

“For us, the elephant in the room is what happened to our client,” Epstein lawyer Reid Weingarten told Berman. “The court should make an inquiry.” . . . But his lawyers questioned that ruling, with Weingarten claiming that broken bones in Epstein’s neck were “far more consistent with assault than suicide.”

The battle over immigration through the southern border of the United States came to the Supreme Court today (Monday, 26 Aug). The federal government asked the justices for permission to enforce a new rule that would bar most migrants from seeking asylum in this country if they pass through another country before arriving in the United States... The government’s request went to Justice Elena Kagan, who handles emergency requests from the 9th Circuit. Although Kagan could rule on the request herself, she is more likely to refer it to the full court. Kagan has first called for the groups to...

Voters may finally get a chance to see a Democratic debate take place on the same stage on the same night, as 10 candidates have qualified for the ABC-sponsored Sept. 12 showdown in Houston. Democratic presidential candidates have until the end of Wednesday to get at least 2 percent in four qualifying polls as well as have donations from at least 130,000 unique donors. Polling Threshold. Candidates must receive 2% or more support in at least four polls (which may be national polls, or polls in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, and/or Nevada) meeting the following criteria (“Qualifying Poll Criteria”):...

<p>CHICAGO (AP) — Cook County State's Attorney Kim Foxx says the work of a special prosecutor investigating why her office dropped charges against Jussie Smollett accusing the actor of staging an attack on himself has begun.</p> <p>Her remarks to reporters Tuesday were her first extensive comments since a judge Friday appointed former U.S. Attorney Dan Webb as special prosecutor.</p>

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President Trump on Tuesday officially nominated longtime labor lawyer Eugene Scalia to be secretary of Labor. Trump said back in July that he planned to tap Scalia, who is the son of late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, for the post days after Alexander Acosta resigned as Labor secretary. Scalia served as the top legal officer at the Department of Labor during the George W. Bush administration and previously was a special assistant to Attorney General William Barr during his first stint as the top law enforcement officer under the George H.W. Bush administration. Scalia, currently a partner at law...

Also, a pu**y, but we'll get to that. A twitter rando, apparently a professor, made a minor joke at Bret Stephens' expense. Noting that the New York Times had an infestation of bedbugs, he wrote, "The bedbugs are a metaphor. The bedbug is Bret Stephens." Well, Bret Stephens had a meltdown that could be considered "Jake Tapper-like." A few hours later, Karpf [the professor] posted 'This afternoon, I tweeted a brief joke about a well-known NYT op-Ed columnist. It got 9 likes and 0 retweets. I did not @ him. He does not follow me. He just emailed me, cc'ing...

Ann, My husband and I have been in the SCA for many years and have been re-thinking our membership lately for a number of reasons. You are absolutely correct, the SCA is a cult, but it is a very subtle one. First, I must point out (and this isn’t meant as a blanket defense of the SCA) there are plenty of conservative folks in the organization, like my husband and myself. I read your post about the SCA after seeing a near-hysterical rant about it on FB from a lady who, to my knowledge, is not a swinger; there are...