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The FISA court's top judge wrote in a secret ruling on January 7 that at least two of the four spy warrants against Carter Page were invalid and not lawfully authorized. Authority granted to the federal government to secretly wiretap and spy on former Trump affiliate Carter Page was “not valid,” the nation’s top spy court noted in a secret ruling penned earlier this month. The order from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), which was created and authorized by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), was initially signed and issued on January 7, 2020, but was not declassified and...

More than 65,000 people gathered in Las Vegas, Nevada this week for the nation’s largest annual gun industry convention, SHOT Show 2020. Organized by the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF), SHOT Show brings together the world’s best in shooting sports, law enforcement, hunting, and armed forces to share their products and businesses, but more importantly, to shoot the globe’s latest and greatest firearms in the Nevada desert. With more than 2,000 exhibiting manufacturers and companies crammed into the 13-acre Sands Convention Center, it’s physically impossible for a single visitor to see everything. But after just two days of being tightly...

Clips tagged #Swamp Laura Ingraham shows emails tying alleged Ukraine whistleblower to Obama White House meeting on Burisma Fox News host Laura Ingraham reported Wednesday evening that she obtained a chain of State Department emails stemming from a standard request for comment from New York Times journalist Ken Vogel, whose reporting helped generate scrutiny of Hunter Biden's ties to Ukrainian gas company Burisma. Cyber expert behind report on Saudi Arabia's alleged Bezos hack was paid $4mn to verify Steele dossier One of the experts who spearheaded a forensics report alleging Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman hacked Amazon CEO Jeff...

Billionaire George Soros said he will commit $1 billion to start a global university to fight authoritarian governments and climate change, calling them twin challenges that threaten the survival of our civilization. The Open Society University Network will offer an international platform for teaching and research, the 89-year-old said Thursday at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. The university will be launched through a partnership of the Soros-backed Central European University and Bard College. “As a long-term strategy our best hope lies in access to quality education, specifically an education that reinforces the autonomy of the individual by cultivating...

Left-wing billionaire George Soros on Thursday reportedly warned that the 2020 election will determine the “fate of the world” and lashed out at President Donald Trump during a private dinner event at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Soros, the 89-year-old founder of the progressive advocacy organization Open Society Foundations, accused the president of being a “con man” and a “narcissist” who wants the world to “revolve around him,” according to CNBC. “When his fantasy of becoming president became a reality,” his ego swelled, Soros said, adding: “This has turned his narcissism into a malignant disease.” Soros, who has...

The cabernet sauvignon, enough to fill eight large tanker trucks, spilled at the Rodney Strong Vineyards in Healdsburg Wednesday after a door near the bottom of a large blending tank popped open, spilling all of the wine it was holding into a sanitary sewer system on the property, the Press Democrat reported. The wine spilled into a drainage ditch that feeds into Reiman Creek and eventually made its way to the Russian River. According to the Governor’s Office of Emergency Services, which was notified of the accident on Wednesday, about 20% of the 97,112 gallons spilled were contained. Estimates showed...

CNN anchor Chris Cuomo was quick to defend climate activist Greta Thunberg from "Trumpers" who mocked her on Thursday but was quickly reminded about the settlement his network recently made with Covington Catholic High School student Nick Sandmann. At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin was asked by reporters about Thunberg's call for countries to divest from fossil fuels, which he didn't exactly take too seriously. “Is she the chief economist? Who is she? I’m confused,” Mnuchin jokingly replied. "After she goes and studies economics in college, she can come back and explain that to...

Republican Rep. Mark Meadows, a member of President Trump's impeachment team, argues the Democrats' case is 'built on a corrupt foundation.'

Today's Quotefall Puzzle features a quote by Ted Cruz. Click puzzle (or click here) for full size rendition, then use your browser's print command to print puzzle. Ted Cruz is a conservative senator from Texas. He is one of the most accomplished debaters and is a staunch defender of the US Constitution in the country's history. All hints, along with the answer, are provided in the first reply comment below, using filtered font to prevent accidental spoilers. Please refrain from disclosing the full answer in comments to prevent spoilers.To solve the puzzle: Enter the letters in the top half (letter columns) of...

Emerging data on the new virus circulating in China adds to evidence there is sustained human-to-human transmission in the city of Wuhan, and that a single case was able to ignite a chain of other infections. The World Health Organization reported Thursday that there have been at least four generations of spread of the new virus, provisionally called 2019-nCoV, meaning a person who contracted the virus from a non-human source — presumably an animal — has infected a person, who infected another person, who then infected another person. It’s not clear from a WHO statement whether transmission petered out after...

In an exclusive interview, Matteo Salvini, head of Italy's right-wing Lega party, says the EU has a long way to go to effectively fight anti-Semitism and pledges that when he is elected as prime minister, Italy will recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital. These are tumultuous days for Matteo Salvini, head of Italy's right–wing Lega party. Recent polls have projected that were elections in Italy held at this time, he would be elected as prime minister, but his political opponents are trying to strip him of his immunity so they can bring charges against him for alleged misconduct when he was...

The future envisaged by the 3% may yet condemn the 97% to death A “novel coronavirus” dubbed 2019-nCoV belonging to the same family as severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) has, over the last six weeks, taken China by storm, and spread to Thailand, Hong Kong, Japan and now the US. There is no need – yet – to turn this drama into a crisis: the mutation is nowhere near as deadly as SARS: the outbreak began at the Huanan Seafood Market in the Chinese city of Wuhan, and it took scientists only a couple...

CNN canceled its upcoming town halls featuring Democrat presidential candidates slated for next week due to the ongoing Senate impeachment trial, the outlet reported on Thursday. CNN was slated to hold a two-day town hall event for the Democrat presidential candidates at Drake University on Tuesday, January 28, and Wednesday, January 29, just days before the February 3 Iowa caucuses. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Andrew Yang (D), Tom Steyer (D), Pete Buttigieg (D), Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), and Joe Biden (D) were expected to attend. However, the ongoing impeachment trial in the Senate will make it...

Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign in South Carolina contacted law enforcement officials on Thursday after undercover journalists with James O’Keefe’s Project Veritas pressed the campaign to answer questions about violent remarks made by a paid Sanders campaign staffer. The move by the Sanders campaign to call the police on reporters for asking them tough questions comes after Project Veritas released video earlier this week that allegedly showed Sanders field organizer Martin Weissgerber saying he wanted to kill wealthy people and throw Republicans into camps. The police officer who responded told Project Veritas, “They said they are going to have no comment....

A Chinese woman who knew she was infected with the deadly coronavirus has disguised her symptoms by deliberately taking antipyretics and successfully boarded a plane to France. She then bragged about her actions online in photographs with friends she met on arrival, according to Chinese media sources. Users of Chinese social media site Weibo were shocked and angry at the reckless and potentially deadly actions of the woman. One said: “This kind of person is the most shameless”. Another posted: “She is now a time bomb.” As the deathtoll hits 17 the "infected" woman posted about her "escape" from Wuhan...

"Republicans have boasted of increased fundraising in the wake of the impeachment inquiry announcement. Officials said the Trump campaign, along with the RNC, brought in $5 million in the 24 hours after Pelosi’s announcement. National Republican Congressional Committee officials also said its online fundraising soared by 608 percent on the day Pelosi announced the inquiry."

The FISA court officially acknowledged Thursday that the FBI submitted false information when obtaining warrants to surveil Trump campaign aide Carter Page. Therefore, the FISA warrants that were issued are invalid. "Thanks in large part to the work of the Office of the Inspector General, U.S. Department of Justice, the Court has received notice of material misstatements and omissions in the applications filed by the government in the above-captioned dockets. See Docket No. Misc. 19-02, Order (Dec. 17, 2019; DOJ PIG, Review of Four FISA Applications and Other Aspects of the FBI's Crossfire Hurricane Investigation (Dec. 2019)," the court released...

As a cord cutter of many years, I have little first-hand knowledge of how the TV networks are covering the impeachment trial. I've been accessing C-Span online and catching little parts, or as much as I can stomach.

THE White House has livestreamed a church service which saw the US vice-president speak and a bishop claim “the devil” causes homosexuality. After Mike Pence addressed the congregation in Tennessee, the preacher took to the pulpit to talk about same-sex relations in a sermon still available on the administration’s YouTube channel. “It is a demonic spirit that causes a woman to want to live with another woman,” he said. “It is a demonic spirit that causes a man to be attracted to another man.” The preacher, who has been named as Bishop Jerry Wayne Taylor, claimed the “devil” was trying...

Prof. Jonathan Turley on CBS News said that Rep. Nadler made a “major blunder” by insulting the Senators. He prefaced the mention of a blunder by saying he teaches his law students not to do what Nadler had just done during the impeachment trial…Nadler had “insulted” the Republican Senators listening to the impeachment of President Trump. Nadler said the Senate could be engaged in a cover-up. One key Senator spoke out to say she was offended. Senator Lisa Murkowski, a moderate Republican, said she was offended by House manager Nadler’s claim that because Republican members voted against allowing new testimony...