RTThu, 08 Nov 2018 16:26 UTC
© Sputnik/FSB
The Telegram messaging app acknowledges that thousands of its users are involved in terrorist activities, but still refuses to assist security services, Aleksandr Bortnikov, FSB head, said, calling the situation "paradoxical."
The owners of Telegram have "difficulties" understanding the need to facilitate the work of Russian government agencies, fighting against terrorism, Bortnikov said.
He reminded that the company refused to provide the Federal Security Service (FSB) with access to its encryption keys, saying that it would violate the rights of its clients and promising to delete illegal communications itself.
Telegram acknowledges that around 5,000 of its Russian users have acted in a way that revealed their affiliation to terrorist groups, Bortnikov said.
RTThu, 08 Nov 2018 11:57 UTC
At least twelve people, including an officer, have been killed after a gunman went on a shooting spree in a packed bar in Thousand Oaks, California. The suspect is also dead, police announced.
SWAT officers, FBI and ambulances rushed to the scene following the rampage. A bomb squad has been requested as well. It is understood that approximately 30 shots have been fired. Ventura County Sheriff's Dept. Sheriff Geoff Dean told a press conference that at least 12 victims have been confirmed killed by the gunman.
Among the dead was a 29-year police veteran, Ron Helus, who along with a Highway Patrol officer were the first responders to the scene. Dean said Helis was expected to retire in the next year.
Comment: UPDATE 8 NovemberRT
reports that local police have named the gunman as 28-year-old former US marine Ian David Long, an Afghanistan war veteran.
The Borderline Bar & Grill in Thousand Oaks, California, is known for its live country music and was packed that night with college students.
Long is reported to have opened fire there Wednesday night with a Glock 21 .45 caliber semi-automatic handgun.
The victims include a security guard outside the bar and a sheriff's deputy who was among the first to respond to the shooting. Long was also found dead at the scene, so it's assumed he killed himself before SWAT entered the building.
Police report that Long's firearm was legally purchased in Ventura County, although he "used an illegal extended magazine clip in order to carry more ammunition."
Law enforcement had several interactions with Long, most recently in April this year when police responded to a disturbance at his residence (which appears to be his mother's house).
Describing him as
"somewhat irate," and
"acting a little irrationally" at the time, the local sheriff said a mental health team was called to assess Long's mental health, but he was cleared and no further action was taken.
Previous incidents had included a minor traffic collision and in 2015, while Long was the victim of battery in earlier bar incident in Thousand Oaks.
UPDATES 9 NovemberThere are contradictory reports about the use of smoke bombs/flash grenades. The authorities have dismissed such reports twice now, though
eyewitnesses continue reporting that such were used...
John Hedge, who was standing at the front door with his stepdad at the time, said he saw the shooter "throwing smoke grenades all over the place."
Footage of the actual shooting:
A number of those in attendance
were also in attendance at last year's mass shooting at the Route 91 country music festival in Las Vegas:
As with so many other mass shootings in the USA, there's still no apparent motive, though it could have something to do with this:
Maidan
As fascist far-right nationalist groups regularly parade through the country demanding "Ukraine for Ukrainians," Ukraine faces a massive depopulation crisis. Millions of people of all ethnicities are leaving the country, fleeing poverty and war.
Since the restoration of capitalism in 1991,
the overall population of Ukraine has declined from just over 52 million to approximately 42 million today,
a decrease of nearly 20 percent. If the separatist-controlled provinces of the Donbass region and Crimea are excluded, it is estimated that just 35 million people now live in the area controlled by the government of Petro Porosehnko.
Ukrainian governments, including the current one, have been loath to carry out an official census, as it is widely believed that the population estimates reported by the country's State Statistics Service (SSS) are inflated by including deceased individuals. One aim of this is to rig elections.
An official country-wide census has not been held since 2001. In late 2015, the Poroshenko government postponed the 2016 census until 2020.
Public banking activists in Los Angeles
Last night, a national movement to create public banks had its eyes on the city of Los Angeles, where a down-ballot initiative, if passed, would have paved the way for the country's second-largest city to explore the creation of a municipal bank, which advocates say could save taxpayers money by
redirecting the interest the city pays to Wall Street bondholder to investments in infrastructure, housing and other local priorities.
But by a decisive 58 percent, L.A. city voted against
Measure B and decided against asking the city to amend its charter to allow it to operate a municipal financial institution. The bank proposal was billed by advocates as a socially and environmentally responsible alternative to the large banks whose risky investments contributed to the financial crisis in 2008.
Comment: The measure probably failed because people were not informed about it. It's not difficult to see why 'the system' would be reluctant for the idea to catch on. Public banking advocate Ellen Brown published this statement following the result:
I've gotten inquiries on the outcome of the Los Angeles ballot measure to approve a city-owned bank, so thought I would send a quick update. Unfortunately it did not pass, but it did get 42 percent of the vote. It was a remarkable outcome considering that the dynamic young Public Bank LA advocacy group effectively only had a month to educate 4 million voters on what a public bank is and why passing the measure was a good idea. If they had had another month, the bill could well have passed.
The City Council took supporters by surprise when it put the charter amendment on the ballot in July, leaving only four months to promote it. Passing a ballot measure typically takes a campaign war chest of $750,000 or more, and the all-volunteer PBLA group began with no funding and no formal group. The first challenge was clearing the legal requirement of forming a campaign committee, which itself takes funding and some expertise. The committee only began amassing campaign funds a month before the November 6 vote, after which it managed to bring in $60,000.
Most of the campaign, however, was conducted with sheer people power. According to PBLA political director Ben Hauck, in that short time the all-volunteer team managed to gain endorsements from over 100 organizations and community leaders, text message 350,000 voters, hand out over 50,000 flyers, reach over 500,000 voters through social media campaigns, get included in three mailers reaching over 1,200,000 voters, put up hundreds of yard signs and banners across L.A., talk with thousands of voters at events, universities, rallies and gatherings across the city, get featured in dozens of major news stories, articles and TV coverage, manage their own paid social media campaign, drive over 150,000 video views on a YouTube campaign, contact 200,000 voters via a robocall from the Chairman of the California Democratic Party, put on several significant campaign events, get featured in a press event with senatorial candidate Kevin de León and City Council President Herb Wesson, and create several featured videos, dozens of ads, and countless pieces of written content.
The PBLA team is pressing on undaunted. Leader Trinity Tran wrote after the vote, "Over a quarter million Angelenos voted in support of Measure B and the conversation on public banking has now been amplified across the country. This is just the beginning of the national movement. And it's a fight we are certain will be won."
We're hugely proud of the PBLA team! Their dramatic achievements in a very short time are a testament to the power of a committed group of volunteers working together at the local level for a cause they feel strongly about.
If you would like to follow the progress of the public banking movement across the country, please sign up for the Public Banking Institute newsletter, linked here.
Best wishes,
Ellen
EllenBrown.com
PublicBankingInstitute.org
RTFri, 09 Nov 2018 02:35 UTC
© Reuters / Jeenah Moon"No one is above the law" protest in New York City, November 8, 2018
Democrat activists groups have mobilized on short notice to hold rallies in cities across the US, demanding that the new acting head of DOJ recuse himself from overseeing special counsel Robert Mueller's "Russiagate" probe.
Mueller has been investigating Democrat allegations that Trump "colluded" with Russia during the 2016 presidential election, so far without any evidence to that effect. The probe was overseen by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, since AG Jeff Sessions had recused himself on account of being a part of Trump's campaign.
After Sessions
resigned on Wednesday, however, his chief of staff Matthew Whitaker was appointed as acting AG, prompting panic that Trump was moving to quash the Mueller inquiry.
Comment: Just when it couldn't get crazier.
RTThu, 08 Nov 2018 22:12 UTC
© Agence France-Presse / Mandel NganProtesters outside the White House in August
With the midterms over, the anti-Trump #resistance didn't have to wait long for its next extinction-level meltdown. Jeff Sessions' forced resignation gave protesters and celebrities the perfect excuse to plan a day out.
Sessions
resigned on Wednesday, at Trump's request, a move that came after months of speculation. Trump had publicly said several times that he was unhappy with Sessions' performance, and accused the former AG of failing to "take control" of the Justice Department.
The left's response was immediate. By Wednesday night, protests had been planned in 900 cities for the following day. MoveOn.org, a Democrat organization originally formed to oppose the impeachment of Bill Clinton in 1998, released a
statement saying "Trump putting himself above the law is a threat to our democracy, and we've got to get Congress to stop him."
Comment: Pretty rich coming from the people who flipped out when he was hired in the first place! How times have changed.
RTThu, 08 Nov 2018 22:32 UTC
© Ron Reynolds / FacebookTexas representative Ron Reynolds with former President Barack Obama
During a night of midterm election celebrations across the United States on Tuesday, one Texas state representative met the news of his reelection in a rather unusual location: a jail cell.
Ron Reynolds, a Democrat from Missouri City, claimed victory in Texas House District 27 after running (unopposed) from behind bars. Reynolds secured nearly 50,000 votes after being booked into the Montgomery County Jail on September 7.
The Democrat is serving a year-long sentence after being convicted in 2015 on numerous counts of 'barratry' - illegally soliciting clients for his law firm, more commonly known as 'ambulance chasing.'
RTThu, 08 Nov 2018 22:18 UTC
© Global Look Press/Stephen Lock
Roger Scruton
Calls to sack philosopher Sir Roger Scruton, from an unpaid government role, have grown after quotes stating there was "no such crime" as date rape were attributed to him.
Buzzfeed News unearthed that in a 2005 lecture, Scruton dismissed both date rape and sexual harassment, saying the latter was just "impoliteness," claiming that there was a
"huge injustice" against those accused.
During the lecture, titled: 'Sexual Morality for Heathens,' at Rice University in Houston, Texas, the philosopher said that women who made date rape allegations were withdrawing consent retrospectively, because
"the whole thing went too quickly."On Saturday, Housing secretary James Brokenshire announced that Scruton was appointed on the government's new buildings commission.
Comment: Outrage at comments from 13 years ago, but silence on present day support of Saudi atrocities in Yemen. These PC police need to get their priorities straight.
RTThu, 08 Nov 2018 22:09 UTC
© Reuters / Andrew YatesA member of the clergy holds a picture of Saffie Roussos at her funeral at Manchester Cathedral
An 'anti-Islamic' terrorist suspect was planning to blow up a mosque in response to the killing of an eight-year-old girl who died in the Manchester Area bombing in 2017, a court has heard.
Steven Bishop, 40, from Thornton Heath, south London, is accused of tampering with fireworks with the intention of setting them off with a detonator he purchased from the dark web, a collection of websites that operate on an encrypted network.
It is alleged that the south Londoner planned the attack to avenge the death of eight-year-old Saffie Roussos, the youngest victim of the 22 killed by the Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) bombing of an Ariana Grande concert, in the Manchester Arena, on May 22, 2017.
RTThu, 08 Nov 2018 19:42 UTC
© Global Look PressJordan Peterson in Stockholm, Sweden on November 6, 2018
Sweden's Foreign Minister has issued a rather undiplomatic request to Canadian academic and internet sensation Jordan B. Peterson, thrilling a Stockholm audience by expressing her desire to see him fade from the public eye.
Speaking on a
"pro-women" panel in Sweden's capital on Wednesday, Margot Wallström said that Peterson should
"crawl back under the rock he came from," adding that she
"can't grasp why people waste so much time on that man." The snide remarks were
reported by local media that covered the event.
Peterson recently visited Sweden to promote the international release of his new book,
'12 Rules For Life, an Antidote to Chaos.' The book has been slammed by the left as conservative snake oil and an affront to feminism.
Comment: Sweden is burning and ignoramuses like Wallström continue to pour gasoline on the fire.
Comment: UPDATE 8 November
RT reports that local police have named the gunman as 28-year-old former US marine Ian David Long, an Afghanistan war veteran.
The Borderline Bar & Grill in Thousand Oaks, California, is known for its live country music and was packed that night with college students.
Long is reported to have opened fire there Wednesday night with a Glock 21 .45 caliber semi-automatic handgun.
The victims include a security guard outside the bar and a sheriff's deputy who was among the first to respond to the shooting. Long was also found dead at the scene, so it's assumed he killed himself before SWAT entered the building.
Police report that Long's firearm was legally purchased in Ventura County, although he "used an illegal extended magazine clip in order to carry more ammunition."
Law enforcement had several interactions with Long, most recently in April this year when police responded to a disturbance at his residence (which appears to be his mother's house).
Describing him as "somewhat irate," and "acting a little irrationally" at the time, the local sheriff said a mental health team was called to assess Long's mental health, but he was cleared and no further action was taken.
Previous incidents had included a minor traffic collision and in 2015, while Long was the victim of battery in earlier bar incident in Thousand Oaks.
UPDATES 9 November
There are contradictory reports about the use of smoke bombs/flash grenades. The authorities have dismissed such reports twice now, though eyewitnesses continue reporting that such were used...
Footage of the actual shooting:
A number of those in attendance were also in attendance at last year's mass shooting at the Route 91 country music festival in Las Vegas:
As with so many other mass shootings in the USA, there's still no apparent motive, though it could have something to do with this: