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An Italian archbishop close to Pope Benedict XVI has claimed that the It is “no coincidence” that some Catholic groups “have asked President Trump to open a commission of inquiry to investigate whether the administration of Barack Obama exerted pressure on Benedict,” said Archbishop Luigi Negri in an interview Monday, citing other revelations by Wikileaks regarding efforts by the Democratic Party to sway the direction of the Catholic Church in the United States. “It remains shrouded in mystery for now,” he said to news outlet Rimini 2.0, “but I am sure that those responsible will be found out.” The archbishop...

If patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel then it has become a all-inclusive resort for Obama appointees.This would have been the big story earlier in the week had the Washington Post not launched a feeding frenzy on Jeff Sessions’s tangential contacts with the Russian ambassador to the United States. From the New York Times in a story headlined Obama Administration Rushed to Preserve Intelligence of Russian Election Hacking. In the Obama administration’s last days, some White House officials scrambled to spread information about Russian efforts to undermine the presidential election — and about possible contacts between associates...

On his way out the door, Obama also rewrote the line of succession in cases where the AG recuses himself. (I didn't know there was such a previously-planned chain of succession.) He specifically wrote one senior guy out of the succession, and re-routed the succession to go right to his friendlies. Amid Thursday;s over-hyped brouhaha about Jeff Sessions meeting with the Russian ambassador, a curious detail emerged. In Sessions's recusal memo, it was explained who at the Justice Department would be handling any investigations into the Trump campaign's alleged ties to Russia. "Consistent with the succession order for the Department...

Canada’s fiercely anti-Russian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland says her Ukrainian grandfather struggled “to return freedom and democracy to Ukraine,” but she leaves out that he was a Nazi propagandist justifying the slaughter of Jews. On Jan. 10, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau replaced Foreign Minister Stephane Dion with Chrystia Freeland, a former journalist proud of her Ukrainian roots and well-known for her hostility toward Russia. At the time, a big question in Ottawa was why. Some analysts believed that Trudeau’s decision may have started when it still seemed likely that Hillary Clinton would become the new U.S. president and a...

Washington (CNN)Several US officials told CNN Thursday that the US is now taking action to locate and monitor hundreds of people or "contacts" found as part the intelligence retrieved during the deadly raid last month in Yemen targeting al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. Some of these people are believed to be in the West, but not in the United States. The government is taking action to find and monitor these AQAP-linked individuals because of the threat they may pose to Europe, the officials added. The fact that officials said they are actively pursuing leads uncovered from the raid indicates...

An unemployed Davis resident has been arrested and charged with vandalizing the Davis Islamic Center last month in what both state and federal prosecutors are calling a hate crime.

Just days before leaving office Loretta Lynch secretly signed an order to allow any branch of government, including local law enforcement, access to the NSA’s data mine on the American people. She created a mechanism by which the Fourth Amendment can be circumvented by law enforcement agencies of any type and description, foreign and domestic, in the area of digital information.

Early Friday morning, President Trump tweeted, “Iran is playing with fire — they don’t appreciate how ‘kind’ President Obama was to them. Not me!” Earlier in the week, both the president and National Security Advisor Mike Flynn said they were putting Iran “on notice,” without defining what that notice meant. Mr. Trump likes to keep our adversaries guessing, and that’s a good thing, if he actually does it. More definitively, a statement by Flynn said, “The days of turning a blind eye to Iran’s hostile and belligerent actions toward the United States and the world community are over.” For the...

Between Jan. 23 and 27, 2017, there were reports that Syrian president Bashar Al Assad had suffered a stroke and had to be hospitalized. The usually pro-Assad British newspaper The Independent claimed that the Syrian president was suffering serious psychological strain. Allegations of a president’s poor health take on extra significance in a Russian proxy state. During the Cold War, the Soviets frequently cited allied leaders’ purported medical and psychological problems when launching military interventions — takeovers, essentially — in the countries of the supposedly-ailing heads of state.

I get the first part of this story, not so much the second. The bit about Obama alumni targeting Flynn? Highly plausible if not likely. Flynn was a harsh Obama critic ever since O fired him from his position as DIA, and Flynn more than anyone else in the administration seemed prepared to guide Trump towards detente with the same Putin regime that had tried to sink Democrats’ chances during the campaign with the DNC and Podesta hackings. Flynn is also famously an Iran hawk, something which the Obama administration was, er, not. Did Team O have the means...

Italian police have uncovered a major international computer-hacking operation that compromised private communications at the Vatican. Police in Rome announced the arrest of two engineers who are suspected of illicitly obtaining “information relative to state security.” The hackers, who were not identified, were described as London residents in their 40s. They had reportedly gained access to computer servers operated by Italian government leaders and European banking officials. The operation also penetrated the Vatican, police reported. Hackers gained access to computers used by Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, at the Pontifical Council for Culture. They also hacked into computers at a Vatican guest...

There was always something fishy about the outbreak of "spontaneous" protests at airports around the country in the immediate wake of President Trump's executive order pausing visas and refugees from terror-prone countries. Not that you'd suspect anything from the way they were covered. Nearly every story published over that weekend stated without equivocation that the protests were an unplanned and visceral reaction to Trump's executive order. Examples: "Spontaneous Protests Hit Airports Across America Following Trump's Executive Order" "Protest Grows 'Out of Nowhere' at Kennedy Airport" "The senseless cruelty of the executive order has led to spontaneous protests at many of...

Muslim activist Linda Sarsour was one of four main organizers of the successful Women’s March on Washington. She’s received negative press in the past, but now that her profile’s raised she’s under heavier scrutiny for her alleged ties to terrorism, affinity for Sharia law, and past statements. Her defenders claim the recent attacks on Sarsour are designed to discredit the march or an expression of Islamophobia. Her detractors feel she’s an Islamist who’s trying to hijack a women’s movement that Donald Trump’s misogyny has helped revitalize. The question now: Is Sarsour viciously and unfairly targeted because she’s a Muslim, as...

While President Donald Trump’s executive order on immigration has left families wondering when they will see their loved ones again, drawing condemnation from leaders around the globe, the administration’s actions have also impacted another group: career U.S. officials working on asylum and refugee cases as well as foreign policy. "There are people literally crying in the office here," said a senior U.S. immigration official who spoke to The Intercept on condition of anonymity.

Revealed: Who Obama Gave $400K Grant To In Last Week of Presidency by Dean Daniels/ February 2, 2017/ POLITICS It’s been unveiled that President Obama and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) awarded a $400,000 grant to a radical anti-Trump organization just a week before the transition of presidencies. On Jan. 13, Obama and the DHS handed out $400K to the ‘Life After Hate’ group, claiming it was a grant designed to fight the concept of radical Islam. Christian Picciolini, co-founder and chairman of the organization, has been more than just a vocal opponent of the current president, Donald...

"(Abdelkhaliq said) he was an Arab and he was going to kill all officers," the police report said. Abdelkhaliq "screamed that the Orlando massacre was going to be nothing compared to what he was getting ready to do" and that he had access to AK-47s and all types of weapons, the report said. Police said Abdelkhaliq was arrested and "kept making threats" to kill the officers as he was being taken to jail.

full title...........BREAKING NEWS: Trump names Neil Gorsuch as his Supreme Court nominee - firing starting gun on bitter battle with Democrats.........................President Donald Trump announced his appointment tonight of Neil Gorsuch, a U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit judge, to the Supreme Court. If confirmed by the Senate, Gorsuch will fill the vacancy created by the February 2015 death of Antonin Scalia. Republicans must rally eight Democrats to cross party lines in order for the appointment to clear a legislative hurdle known as cloture that takes 60 votes.

A Texas mosque has received nearly $1m in donations after it was destroyed in a fire over the weekend. More than $900,000 had been raised to rebuild the Islamic Center of Victoria as of Monday afternoon, according to a GoFundMe page. Texas officials have yet to determine the cause of the blaze, which happened in the early hours of Saturday.

Democrats know they need someone to lead them out of the wilderness. But, they say, that someone is not David Brock. As David Brock attempts to position himself as a leader in rebuilding a demoralized Democratic Party in the age of Trump, many leading Democratic organizers and operatives are wishing the man would simply disappear. Many in the party—Clinton loyalists, Obama veterans, and Bernie supporters alike—talk about the man not as a sought-after ally in the fight against Trumpism, but as a nuisance and a hanger-on, overseeing a colossal waste of cash. And former employees say that he has hurt...

One of the wonderful Liberal Guest Speakers at the Women's March,Donna Hylton, was convicted as an accessory to murder in the 1985 torture/murder of Thomas Vigliarole. Donna and her friends. stuck a three foot metal rod up his behind, squeezed his testicles with a pair of pliers, burned him, beat him and starved him.