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Comment: See: The cost of war: The so-called 'war on terror' has killed over 801,000 people and cost taxpayers $6.4 Trillion
While the U.S. House of Representatives played domestic politics with the first open impeachment inquiry hearing last Wednesday, a new veteran's organization, Bring Our Troops Home, held its first conference in Washington, DC. After a series of panels and speeches, 120 veterans traveled to Capitol Hill to lobby lawmakers to repeal the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Force and end the "forever wars."
George W. Bush's War on Terror began eighteen years ago, with no initiative on the part of the U.S. government to bring it to a conclusion. In those two decades, Americans have spent $6.4 trillion and lost seven thousand soldiers. Polling this year indicates that a majority of War on Terror veterans now feel that it, and its military interventions in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya, were not worth fighting at all.
New York Times best-selling author Doug Wead told Secrets that the threats also targeted his children and warned that the family will be "bathed in blood" if his new book, "Inside Trump's White House: The Real Story of His Presidency," goes on sale as planned Nov. 26.
"I've never been threatened," said Wead, well-known for a previous book about presidential children, All the Presidents' Children: Triumph and Tragedy in the Lives of America's First Families.
But after receiving the emailed threats, some of which he shared with Secrets, he said, "I feel responsible ... I don't care about myself because I'm 73, but I worry about my kids."
Wead has informed the FBI, the local police, and his publisher, Hachette Book Group, and imprint Center Street.
He said that the FBI and law enforcement sources told him that the threats under investigation could be from "left wing activists who are politically motivated" against Trump.
Hachette Editorial Director Kate Hartson told Secrets,
"Doug Wead has received threats tied to the publication of his upcoming book. As Doug's publisher, we take these threats very seriously and are pleased that he is working with law enforcement on this. It's imperative that the authors we publish are able to express their opinions freely, without fear of intimidation."
The Student Senate at Grand Valley State University has voted to stop reciting the Pledge of Allegiance at its meetings, with some arguing it's non-inclusive and represents an oppressive government.
Last week's vote was 22 in favor, 10 opposed, with 10 abstentions, said Dorian Thompson, a student senator, in a telephone interview Saturday with The College Fix.
"The arguments to remove it were to create an inclusive environment, that it represented an oppressive government, and that there are international students that we should be representing," Thompson told The Fix.
Comment: The argument that the US is an oppressive government is valid when it comes to its historical foreign policy, but the claim falls flat when it comes to so called 'progressive' issues. It's pretty audacious for progressives to be crying 'social victim' when Additionally, provoking discord by attempting to stamp out a nation's culture is a pretty bad idea. If these students actually studied history and movements like Mao's Cultural Revolution, then they might gain some insight on what they are doing.
© ReutersThe Big Four
The Big Tech behemoths responded to written questions sent by the House Judiciary Committee - one of several antitrust probes targeting the four companies - with concerted efforts to tone down their monopolistic image - no easy feat for two trillion-dollar companies and two more that are approaching that figure. Answers were shared with reporters on Tuesday, according to Reuters.
Google claimed that because "the vast majority" of clicks generated by a Google search go to websites not owned by Google, its near-complete hold on the search market - as a portal for 90 percent of all internet searches, its name has become a literal synonym for "to search the internet" - left plenty of room for competition. Google denied favoring its own services, such as YouTube, over rivals' in searches, though one would be hard-pressed to find another video platform's links under a Google video search.
© Juozas Šalna/Flickr/CC BY 2.0
U.S. authorities are investigating whether Swedbank's Baltic unit allowed transactions that breached U.S. sanctions against Russia, Swedish public broadcaster SVT reported.
SVT's investigative program Uppdrag Granskning has uncovered transactions between Russian weapons maker Concern Kalashnikov and Kalashnikov USA, a company in Pompano Beach, Florida, that produces guns based on the Russian design, according to a report on Wednesday.
As they took place after the U.S. imposed sanctions on Russia following its annexation of Crimea in 2014, they could constitute a breach of sanctions, according to SVT.
In total, some 10 million Swedish krona ($1 million) was sent as a loan from major shareholders of Concern Kalashnikov in Russia to key people within Kalashnikov USA, SVT says. Neither Concern Kalashnikov or Kalashnikov USA responded to questions from SVT.
© Zbigniew Bzdak/Chicago TribuneOver one and a half school years, workers at Braun Educational Center in Oak Forest isolated students nearly 500 times, records show. About 150 students with disabilities attend programs at Braun
But shut inside them, in public schools across the state, children as young as 5 wail for their parents, scream in anger and beg to be let out.
The students, most of them with disabilities, scratch the windows or tear at the padded walls. They throw their bodies against locked doors. They wet their pants. Some children spend hours inside these rooms, missing class time. Through it all, adults stay outside the door, writing down what happens.
In Illinois, it's legal for school employees to seclude students in a separate space — to put them in "isolated timeout" — if the students pose a safety threat to themselves or others. Yet every school day, workers isolate children for reasons that violate the law, an investigation by the Chicago Tribune and ProPublica Illinois has found.
FBI's Peter Strzok texted Lisa Page suggesting the CIA was "leaking like mad." And he wrote colleagues of his concern the agency was deceiving both the bureau and the public.
The DOJ was seeking to dismiss Strzok's lawsuit claiming he was unfairly fired and deserves to be reinstated as chief of the counterespionage division at the FBI. In its filing, the DOJ included an August 2018 letter to Strzok from the DOJ's Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR), which said in part that Strzok had engaged in a "dereliction of supervisory responsibility" by failing to investigate the potentially classified Hillary Clinton emails that had turned up on an unsecured laptop belonging to Anthony Weiner as the 2016 election approached.
Gopstein, the head of Lehava group, made his remarks at a panel discussion for Jewish yeshiva students when asked by a fellow panellist if he believed burning down churches in Israel was justified.
"Did the Rambam [Maimonides] rule to destroy [idol worship] or not? Idol worship must be destroyed. It's simply yes - what's the question?" Gopstein told the panel.
His comment alarmed his questioner Benny Rabinovich, a journalist, who told him: "Benzi, I must say I'm really shocked by what you're saying here. You are essentially saying we must go out and burn down churches. You're saying something insane here."
Told by another panellist, Moshe Klein, that the discussion was being filmed and that his remarks could lead to his arrest, Gopstein answered: "That's the last thing that concerns me. If this is truth, I'm prepared to sit in jail 50 years for it."
Comment: Gopstein is a remarkable brigand, disciplined in his traditions and firm in his convictions. Yet what is the seed around which his personality has crystallized? The delusional mental excretions of a whole history of doctrinaire madmen convinced their exercises in 'reasoning' amount to more than a flea taking up residence on the ear end of an elephant. If he's prepared to sit in jail for 50 years on account of such beliefs, by all means; at least he goes willingly.
Gopstein later tried to evade accusations of inciting his followers to fire-raise, saying it was the government's responsibility to carry out what he presented as a religious teaching of the 12th century Jewish philosopher, Maimonides.
© Adolphe Pierre-Louis/JournalFabian Gonzales in District Court in September 2018.
Legal analysts and law enforcement experts reacted with shock on social media when a judge allowed Fabian Gonzales, 34, to walk free on Wednesday, 20 November.
Gonzales was one of a group of drug addicts who were there on the night of 23 August 2016 when Victoria Martens - who had turned 10 the day before - was injected with meth, raped, strangled and then dismembered in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
The case has shocked residents in Albuquerque, a city which became synonymous with methamphetamine after it was used as the location for the hit TV show Breaking Bad.
Comment: Gonzales is charged with raping and dismembering Victoria Martens after she was murdered, and yet Judge Brown let's him walk free ahead of trial because he doesn't consider such extreme criminal depravity to be a threat to the community.
Outraged community members are planning to protest the ruling:
Gutierrez-Baca has been following the case since the beginning, from the brutal murder to the plea deals given to Michelle Martens and Jessica Kelley to the announcement of a fourth, unidentified suspect.
But she said it was when Judge Charles Brown ruled Gonzales should be released that they decided to hold a protest.
"He's letting him out, saying he's not a threat to society. We're talking about a horrific murder. He's definitely a threat to society," Gutierrez-Baca said.
And while Gonzales is not charged in the murder, Gutierrez-Baca said the current public safety assessment for pretrial release and detention -- known as the Arnold Tool -- does nothing to keep the most dangerous people behind bars.
"I hope that people can come out and show our elected officials enough is enough," Gutierrez-Baca said.
Comment: Good on these devoted men and women for having the courage to speak out against what is probably the biggest crime of this or any other generation: the 'war on terror'.