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The Houston narcotics officer at the center of an internal police investigation — as well as an FBI civil rights probe — into a botched January raid that left two people dead has retired, his lawyer confirmed Friday. Officer Gerald Goines retired Friday afternoon while under investigation following the Jan. 28 shooting deaths of two residents during a “no-knock raid” of a Pecan Park residence in south Houston. The Harris County District Attorney’s Office is reviewing more than 1,400 criminal cases that Goines worked on over the course of his 34-year career. ...Goines’ retirement came a day after Houston Police...

A grand jury's decision to indict Jussie Smollett on 16 felony counts was "outrageous," the defense lawyer for the "Empire" actor said Friday. Such charges have never before been filed on a "victim of a hate crime," attorney Mark Geragos told anchor Anderson Cooper on CNN's "AC360." “What is happening here is, frankly, a media gangbang of this guy of unprecedented proportions," Geragos said. "And that’s the reason I got into this. I’ve never seen a media pendulum swing more quickly and viciously and rob somebody of their presumption of innocence like this case. It’s startling the way people assume...

Sen. Kamala D. Harris, California Democrat and 2020 presidential hopeful, appears to have fibbed during an interview Monday about smoking marijuana in college while listening to music by Snoop Dogg and Tupac Shakur. ...Neither of the future rap legends had released music by the time Ms. Harris completed graduate school, however.

Chelsea Clinton on Tuesday called out Vice President Mike Pence for saying that Rep. Ilhan Omar’s apology for earlier Twitter posts called anti-Semitic was "inadequate," and blasted President Trump for peddling hate. Clinton, who was critical of Omar's tweets, posting that "we should expect all elected officials, regardless of party, and all public figures to not traffic in anti-Semitism," but said on Tuesday that Trump is a "far more powerful person" and has never apologized "for his embrace of white nationalism & anti-Semitic & Islamophobic hate." Omar said she had no intention of offending anyone, including Jewish Americans, when she...

Rep. Ilhan Omar (D.-Minn.) said in a Thursday morning hearing of the House Education and Labor Committee that the Chief Executive Officer of McDonald’s gets paid $21.8 million a year while the median earnings for workers at the restaurant chain “who put in 40 hours a day” is $7,000 per year.The hearing was examining the possibility of lifting the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour. On Thursday evening, Omar tweeted out a video clip of her talking at the hearing about McDonald’s workers who put in “40 hours a day.” Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D.-Mich.) then retweeted Omar’s tweet. …

By now you have all seen the images and read about the controversy surrounding the encounter at a rally in Washington, D.C. involving some high school students and a Native American – Nathan Phillips. Nathan is a tribal elder and has often been put forth as a Marine Corps Vietnam veteran. We have filed for his military records but the point of this article is that there are stories all over the place about what Phillips’ status is and to do this right takes time. But in the media’s rush to get a story out — what “facts” rise to...

BREAKING NEWS: Nancy Pelosi says Trump is accused by his own State Department of putting lives of members of Congress and U.S. TROOPS at risk by revealing her plans to lead delegation to Afghanistan when he canceled military jet President Trump cancelled Nancy Pelosi's government-funded trip abroad She asked him Wednesday to postpone his Jan. 29 State of the Union Cited security concerns amid the partial government shutdown White House official said it had nothing to do with her demand that he give his address in the Oval Office or after the shutdown ends Trump informed Pelosi via a letter...

Former FBI Director James Comey is challenging a subpoena from House Republicans for his closed-door testimony in federal court. Court records show that Comey filed a motion in federal court in Washington, D.C., on Thursday to quash a subpoena from the House Oversight and Judiciary Committees for his testimony on Dec. 3. Comey has previously said that he would welcome testifying in public but would fight the subpoena for a closed-door appearance

Something old, something new, something borrowed, something filled with the coagulating blood of one’s enemies. The Trump household apparently wasn’t content turning the White House into a dark alternate dimension where all hope dies for just one year—this house of horrors has now become an annual holiday tradition. The White House has shared an official look at First Lady Melania Trump’s latest holiday decor at the White House. Last year, Mrs. “Be Best” turned the hallways of the presidential residence into a living nightmare straight out of Get Out or Voldemort’s bathroom. Shadowy branches crept over the walls, reaching forth...

Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren, of Massachusetts, is projected to win a second term in the Senate, defeating Republican state lawmaker Geoff Diehl.

A former security director for the Senate Intelligence Committee (James Wolfe) has pleaded guilty to one count of giving a false statement to FBI agents looking into leaks of national security information to several reporters, the Justice Department announced Monday. ...Wolfe had been scheduled to appear for a routine status hearing, before prosecutors announced that "substantial" negotiations had produced a guilty plea.

ORIGINAL SOURCE ARTICLE Here is the graphic that makes it easy to understand:

Key GOP Senators who have tried to give Christine Blasey Ford the benefit of the doubt are losing patience. She keeps moving the goalpost concerning what she wants done about her claim that SCOTUS nominee Brett Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her 36 years ago. In fact, her July letter to Democrat Dianne Feinstein outlining her accusations has yet to be shared with Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley. He issued yet another formal request yesterday. But Senator Feinstein and Dr. Ford have been playing games from the start and aren’t likely to stop. When they finally revealed the existence of the letter...

Full Title: FBI Vault Release – FBI Requested Data Forensics on Huma Abedin/Clinton Laptop AFTER the 2016 Election, Not Before… FBI Vault Release – FBI Requested Data Forensics on Huma Abedin/Clinton Laptop AFTER the 2016 Election, Not Before… Posted on August 3, 2018 by sundance A new release from the FBI Vault on the Hillary Clinton email investigation reveals the Anthony Weiner/Huma Abedin laptop containing Clinton emails (350,000) and Blackberry communications (344,000) was never reviewed for intrusion prior to the 2016 election. Here’s how we discover. However, first, the frustrating context: From the Boston Marathon bombing investigation through the San...

Sen. Elizabeth Warren — the subject of “Pocahontas” taunts from President Trump due to her once-claimed Native American ancestry — is looking to turn a weakness into a strength. As part of a prospective 2020 presidential run, she hopes to present herself to the American electorate as a champion of Native Americans and the unique issues affecting them.

Oliver North called America’s new youth gun-control activists “civil terrorists”; the movement’s public face trolled back Thursday with an Iran-Contra joke. David Hogg took to Twitter to mock Mr. North, the new president of the National Rifle Association as someone who knows all about terrorism. Mr. Hogg retweeted a Salon article commenting on an interview with The Washington Times in which Mr. North said of the Florida school-shooting victims such as Mr. Hogg, “They’re not activists — this is civil terrorism.” The teenager replied: “#OnTheContra you would know about terrorism, wouldn’t you?”

...The woman, who is a local pro-choice advocate, said a man threw a bucket of red paint at her face outside the Charles and Borden Tim Hortons, and yelled "murderer" before walking away last month. ...

Former top FBI official Andrew McCabe, who was fired late Friday night by Attorney General Jeff Sessions two days before becoming eligible for full pension benefits, said in an extraordinary statement that he was targeted because President Donald Trump wants to destroy him as part of his "war" against special counsel Robert Mueller. "This attack on my credibility is one part of a larger effort not just to slander me personally, but to taint the FBI, law enforcement and intelligence professionals more generally," McCabe said in a statement released shortly after Sessions announced his decision. "It is part of this...

<p>WASHINGTON — Andrew McCabe, the former FBI deputy director and a frequent target of President Donald Trump’s scorn, was fired Friday after the Justice Department rejected an appeal that would have let him retire this weekend.</p> <p>McCabe promptly declared that his firing, and Trump’s persistent needling, were intended to undermine the special counsel’s investigation in which he is a potential witness.</p>

McCabe hit back in a fiery response of his own. "This attack on my credibility is one part of a larger effort not just to slander me personally, but to taint the FBI, law enforcement, and intelligence professionals more generally," McCabe said. "It is part of this Administration’s ongoing war on the FBI and the efforts of the Special Counsel investigation, which continue to this day. Their persistence in this campaign only highlights the importance of the Special Counsel’s work."