- Will Missing Texts Save Manafort From Mueller's Probe?
Some have suggested that the FBI losing five months of text messages between anti-Trump investigators is a coverup of an “insurance policy” to smear Donald Trump with claims of Russian collusion in the event of a win. Others have suggested it’s simply bureaucratic incompetence. Paul Manafort’s attorneys, on the other hand, are likely chomping at the bit see if they can argue for a dismissal of the federal charges against their client due to Robert Mueller’s increasingly tainted probe.
Look for Paul Manafort to jump all over this. He’s already fighting his indictment, claiming that Mueller is overstepping his authority and shouldn’t be running the investigation. Throw in this evidence that the investigation may have been tainted before Mueller even took over, and that the DOJ could be covering up damaging information, and a motion to dismiss alleging prosecutorial misconduct is a near certainty.
FBI Agent Strzok was reportedly heading up the Manafort investigation before he was taken off the Mueller probe. Manafort’s attorney might try to say that the missing text messages could contain exculpatory evidence (or evidence favorable to the defendant) and therefore the court should get to the bottom of what the two said. However, two former federal prosecutors who spoke to Law&Crime both contend it would be difficult to get the entire indictment dismissed based on the text messages alone. –LawandCrime.com
“It depends on what FBI’s retention policy is for text messages. It does certainly raise questions as to how these five months came up missing,” explained former federal prosecutor Bill Thomas, adding “However, the court is not going to just dismiss the case. If it comes to it, the judge may hold a hearing to get to that information through calling witnesses. Dismissal is the nuclear option, it would have to be something very very egregious for a court to dismiss the case.”
Very very egregious
The bombshell announcement regarding the missing text messages did not go over well with Congressional investigators. In a letter from Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI), Chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee (HSGAC) to FBI director Christopher Wray, Johnson asks five key questions:
- Please explain the scope and scale of all records lost, destroyed, or otherwise alienated during the midyear examination investigation.
- Does the FBI have any records of communications between Ms. Page and Mr. Strzok between December 14, 2016 and May 17, 2017? If so, please provide those communications.
- Has the FBI conducted searches of Mr. Strzok and Ms. Page’s non-FBI-issued communication devices or accounts to determine whether federal records exist on those nonofficial accounts? Please explain how the FBI is complying with federal records requirements with respect to these devices.
- Has the FBI produced text messages to the Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General (DOJ OIG) or any other FBI employees in furtherance of the DOJ OIG’s review of the Clinton email investigation? If so, please identify which FBI employees’ communications were produced.
- Has the FBI produced Microsoft Lync conversations between Ms. Page and Mr. Strzok to the DOJ OIG? Please explain.
When you read Ron Johnson’s letter to Christopher Wray dial in on these 5 questions. #Strzok
PDF> https://t.co/isz1mWL08X pic.twitter.com/AKeSgveyxO— TrumpSoldier (@DaveNYviii) January 22, 2018
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
Question four is an interesting one – considering the conflicting information discovered last night between the FBI and the Office of the Inspector General (OIG). A Friday document submission from the DOJ included a cover letter from the Assistant AG for Legislative Affairs, Stephen Boyd, claiming that the FBI was unable to preserve text messages between the two agents for a five month period between December 14, 2016 and May 17, 2017 – due to “misconfiguration issues” with FBI-issued Samsung 5 devices used by Strzok and Page (despite over 10,000 texts which were recovered from their devices without incident).
However – as Josh Caplan points out, the lost text messages are in direct contradiction to a December 13, 2017 letter from the DOJ’s internal watchdog – Inspector General Michael Horowitz, to Senate Judiciary Committee Chuck Grassley and HSGAC Chairman Ron Johnson, in which he claims he received the texts in question on August 10, 2017.
In gathering evidence for the OIG’s ongoing 2016 election review, we requested, consistent with standard practice, that the FBI produce text messages from the FBI-issued phones of certain FBI employees involved in the Clinton email investigation based on search terms we provided. After finding a number of politically-oriented text messages between Page and Strzok, the OIG sought from the FBI all text messages between Strzok and Page from their FBI-issued phones through November 30, 2016, which covered the entire period of the Clinton e-mail server investigation. The FBI produced these text messages on July 20, 2017. Following our review of those text messages, the OIG expanded our request to the FBI to include all text messages between Strzok and Page from November 30, 2016, through the date of the document request, which was July 28, 2017.
The OIG received these additional messages on August 10, 2017.
As one can see, the deleted text messages are not only highly unusual – but the circumstances surrounding their disappearance are highly suspect, and may even be “very very egregious” upon further analysis.
We’re sure Paul Manafort’s legal team is drafting a motion to dismiss at this very moment.
- Retired Green Beret Warns "The Public's Attention Is Being Diverted From What Is Really Happening"
The Russian surveillance vessel the Viktor Leonov was reportedly leaving the Caribbean over the weekend bound toward the U.S. East Coast. Florida will be reached by next Friday, and before this, the King’s Bay ballistic missile submarine base in Georgia is also along their projected route. This comes on the heels of what has gone largely unreported by the Mainstream Media. On Friday, 1/19/18, a report from U.S. National News emerged, entitled Submarine off of NJ/DE/MD coasts? US Navy deploys NINE Anti-Submarine Aircraft off East Coast Fearing Sub Missile Launch Against US. Here is an excerpt:
The East Coast of the United States may be subjected to attack by submarine launched missile(s) and the US Navy has scrambled NUMEROUS P-8A POSEIDON anti-submarine aircraft, to repeatedly search coastal waters from New York City to Washington, DC ALL DAY Thursday into Thursday Evening.
According to flight records, at least NINE anti-submarine warfare aircraft were sortied Thursday off the US East Coast, and Flight Records show they were engaged in very active hunting for submarine(s) off the East Coast . . .. well WITHIN the 12-mile territorial limit of the United States.
This article has plenty of photos, and some with the locations of CAP (Civil Air Patrol) enlisted to aid the U.S. Navy with the “shortfall” in radar coverage and area surveillance. The article also gives the disposition of numerous aircraft and shows the locations of monitored Russian submarines.
While all of this has been happening, “statesman” Rex Tillerson just came out and declared this at Stanford University on Wed., 1/17/18, as reported by RT News:
“The Japanese… have had over a 100 North Korean fishing boats that have drifted into Japanese waters. Two-thirds of the people on those boats have died.”
“They [The fishermen] are being sent in the wintertime to fish because there are food shortages. And they are being sent out to fish with inadequate fuel to get back. So, we are getting a lot of evidence that these [sanctions] are really starting to hurt.“
Honorable Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. Pure statesmanship, pure diplomacy? No: pure extortion. This coming from a country (the U.S.) that wanted to depose Assad for the “brutal human rights violations” against civilians…but when it involves the civilians of a country we want to crush…what are a few hundred starving North Korean fisherman’s lives worth? Hey, the sanctions work! We oust leaders for human rights violations, but our policies and sanctions are “humane,” and “altruistic.” Let them join the IMF and World Bank, become a vassal, then they can shop at Costco. Then: let them eat cake!
North Korea has the resolve to see through any paper-tiger sanctions initiated by a country that is a dying empire backed up by a “toothless” UN.
China and Russia have the resolve to be positioning their assets now…prior to the conflict…the war that is forthcoming. It has been reported that the Chinese have moved troops and radiation detectors along their border with North Korea.
Just about a week ago, the RAF had to scramble Typhoons to escort Russian bombers conducting practice runs along the Cold War routes that cover the UK.
A very in-depth article came out that reports Russia and China to be skeptical concerning the U.S.’s gold supply.
Economics is another form of warfare: should they prove the U.S. to not have on hand the gold reserves it claims to have, or (as it states) that the gold is of inferior quality to that traded by the rest of the world? This may very well be the final kicker to persuade nations to distrust the falling Petrodollar and remove the dollar as the World Currency exchange. Such would establish the positions of gold-backed Rubles and Yuan that also have oil to trade, to further bolster that worth on a global economy. For those who still watch television, enjoy your football and the upcoming Olympics.
But keep this in mind: the powers that be will not rest in their inexorable march toward global government.
It would not be the first time that bread and circuses were used to keep the mob entertained…and distracted from the sinister actions and purposes of their leaders and governments. In the meantime, other nations are preparing and positioning their forces, as well as conducting intelligence and surveillance on us…prior to the war that may come anytime.
If the politicians are any indicator of how we’ll fare…the prognosis doesn’t look good. All of it can be avoided with diplomacy, but war is a money-maker, and a game changer for an incumbent whose ratings are flagging. War is their solution. Why? Because they live off our labors and our tax dollars ensure they’ll be safe and sound in their bunkers. Their world: opulent feasts, riches, maintaining power, with armies and unlimited resources…it will remain intact. Ours will not.
- The Price Of Freedom: MbS's Corruption Crackdown Nets $100 Billion For Saudi State
After nearly three months of “enhanced interrogations” and at least one reported death, Mohammad bin Salman’s hired mercenaries have nearly finished the job. Bloomberg reported Monday that half of the roughly 180 royals being held at the Riyadh Ritz Carlton have agreed to pay a financial settlement in exchange for their freedom.
The total amount raised is $100 billion in cash, stock, real estate and other assets – enough to cover the state’s 2017 budget deficit, and then some.
Talks with suspects are expected to end by the end of the month and authorities will likely recover more than $100 billion in settlements, a senior official said, asking not to be identified because the details are private. Those who don’t reach deals will be referred to prosecutors, the official said.
Authorities have already agreed to drop charges against about 90 suspects who were released, Attorney General Sheikh Saud Al Mojeb said in a separate interview at the Ritz-Carlton late on Sunday. About 95 people were still at the hotel, including five weighing settlement proposals, with the others reviewing evidence presented against them, he said.
“The royal order was clear,” Al Mojeb said, as Arabic music streamed through loudspeakers in the hotel lobby. “Those who express remorse and agree to settle will have any criminal proceedings against them dropped.”
That group reportedly includes Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, one of the world’s richest men. Bin Talal was reportedly strung upside down and beaten by mercenaries during his interrogation. He eventually relented and agreed to a settlement. Back in November, we reported that Miteb al Abdullah, a prince accused of embezzlement and corruption, settled for $1 billion.
Major General Ali Alqahtani was reportedly beaten to death by mercenaries after refusing the state’s offer of a settlement. Meanwhile, at least one royal, Prince Abdul Aziz bin Fahd, was killed during a gun battle with Saudi state security after refusing to surrender.
Several other high-ranking officials died in suspicious helicopter crashes around the time the purge was launched on Nov. 4.
Billionaire Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal was among those detained, as was former Finance Minister Ibrahim Al-Assaf and Adel Al Fakeih, who was removed as minister of economy and planning on the eve of the arrests.
The princes were detained in the 495-room hotel in Riyadh. Shortly after the crackdown began, images began circulating of royals sleeping on what appeared to be dirty mattresses in the ballroom of the Ritz Carlton.
While 95 princes remain at the hotel, Bloomberg reported that only a handful are expected to reach a settlement. The rest will, presumably, serve lengthy prison sentences.
Saudi officials have defended the crackdown, while foreign observers have complained about a lack of transparency and rumors of widespread human rights abuses.
The probe was conducted in a “pretty nontransparent way,” according to Moritz Kraemer, global chief rating officer at S&P Global Ratings, who appeared on Bloomberg TV Monday. The probe “could be a step in the right direction but it could also be a step towards more arbitrary ruling,” he said.
About 350 people have been summoned during the probe, but many came as witnesses or to provide information, with some spending only a few hours or less at the Ritz, the official said.
With the purge nearly over, the remaining guests will presumably soon be moved to their, uh, long-term accommodations, as the hotel has revealed that it will be taking bookings again as of Feb. 14.
According to Bloomberg, Al Mojeb denied the suspects’ rights were violated. All had access to legal council and some did retain lawyers, though many chose to settle voluntarily without outside representation, he said. Those released faced no restrictions on their movement, he said.
- Paul Craig Roberts Slams The NSA: "It's A Blackmail Agency"
Authored by Paul Craig Roberts,
The main function of the National Security Administration is to collect the dirt on members of the house and senate, the staffs, principal contributors, and federal judges.
The dirt is used to enforce silence about the crimes of the security agencies.
The blackmail mechanism was put into gear the minute the news reported that the House Intelligence Committee had assembled proof that the FBI, DOJ, and DNC created Russiagate as a conspiracy to unseat President Trump. Members of Congress with nothing to hide demanded the evidence be released to the public.
Of course, it was to be expected that release of the facts would be denounced by Democrats, but Republicans, such as Rep. Mike Conaway (R, Texas), himself a member of the committee, joined in the effort to protect the Democrats and the corrupt FBI and DOJ from exposure. Hiding behind national security concerns, Conaway opposes revealing the classified information. “That’d be real dangerous,” he said.
As informed people know, 95% of the information that is classified is for purposes that have nothing to do with national security.
The House Intelligence Committee memo has no information in it related to any security except that of Comey, Brennan, Clapper, Hillary, Obama, Mueller, Rosenstein, Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, the DNC, and the presstitute media.
The logical assumption is that every member of Congress opposed to informing the American public of the Russiagate conspiracy to unseat the President of the United States is being blackmailed by the security agencies who planned, organized, and implemented the conspiracy against the President of the United States and American democracy.
American insouciance is a great enabler of the ability of the security agencies and their media whores to control the explanations.
- "I Have To Apologize" – Contrite Pope Sorry For Accusing Child Sex-Abuse Victims Of Lying
A day after Pope Francis ended his trip to Chile by publicly defending a bishop who victims have accused of covering up widespread pedophilia in the country, by attacking the credibility of child sex abuse victims in a shocking move made at the end of a trip which he had hoped to ‘heal’ the wounds of said abuse, The Holy See has stunned Catholics again… and apologized.
As we detailed over the weekend, Associated Press reported that Francis made the shocking comments in a discussion about Rev. Fernando Karadima who has been found guilty of sexually abusing a slew of minors as a member of the Catholic Church.
Pope Francis accused victims of Chile’s most notorious pedophile of slander Thursday, an astonishing end to a visit meant to help heal the wounds of a sex abuse scandal that has cost the Catholic Church its credibility in the country.
“The day I see proof against Bishop Barros, then I will talk. There is not a single piece of evidence against him. It is all slander. Is that clear?” the pope replied in a snippy tone.
The pope’s remarks drew shock from Chileans and immediate rebuke from victims and their advocates. They noted the accusers were deemed credible enough by the Vatican that it sentenced Karadima to a lifetime of “penance and prayer” for his crimes in 2011.
A Chilean judge also found the victims to be credible, saying that while she had to drop criminal charges against Karadima because too much time had passed, proof of his crimes wasn’t lacking.
And now, as Reuters reports, Pope Francis, in an extremely rare act of self-criticism, apologised to victims of clerical sex abuse on Sunday, acknowledging he had “wounded many” in comments defending a Chilean bishop who is under scrutiny.
However, while the pope was sorry for his choice of words, he hastily added that he was certain that the prelate, Juan Barros, who has been accused of being complicit in the cover-up of the disgusting acts, was innocent.
“I have to apologise,” an unusually contrite pope told reporters aboard the plane returning to Rome from a week-long trip to Chile and Peru, saying he realised he had “wounded many people who were abused”.
“I apologise to them if I hurt them without realising it, but it was a wound that I inflicted without meaning to,” he said. “It pains me very much.”
But, in the latest twist to a saga that has gripped Chile, Francis said Barros, who is accused of protecting a notorious paedophile, would remain in his place in the diocese of Osorno because there currently was no credible evidence against him.
Francis said on the plane: “I know how much they (abuse victims) suffer in hearing the pope say to them ‘bring me a letter with the proof,’ I realise that it is a slap in their faces, and now I realise that my expression was an unfortunate one”.
In his comments on the plane, the pope disclosed that Barros had offered to resign twice in recent years but Francis rejected the offers.
“I can’t condemn him because I don’t have evidence and because I am convinced he is innocent,” Francis said.
He said Barros would remain in his place unless credible evidence is found against him.
Juan Carlos Claret, a spokesman for anti-Barros Catholics in Osorno, southern Chile, said during the trip that he worried the pope’s response to the reporter before the apology would discourage more victims from speaking out.
“What incentive will victims have to come forward when even if the courts and the Vatican have said they are right, in the end the pope says they are pure lies?” he said in an telephone interview.
#SeeToo?
- FBI Agents Discussed "Secret Society" Within DOJ And FBI Working To Undermine Trump
Congressional investigators learned from a new batch of text messages between anti-Trump FBI investigators that a “secret society of folks” within the Department of Justice and the FBI may have come together in the “immediate aftermath” of the 2016 election to undermine President Trump, according to Rep. John Ratcliffe (R-TX) who has reviewed the texts.
The thousands of texts @TGowdySC and I reviewed today revealed manifest bias among top FBI officials against @realDonaldTrump. The texts between Strzok and Page referenced a “secret society.”
John Ratcliffe (@RepRatcliffe) January 23, 2018
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
The new texts were included in a 384-page DOJ document release to Congressional investigators last Friday – during which Congress was notified in the cover letter that that five months of text messages from December 14, 2016 to May 17, 2017 have gone missing (If only the NSA had copies).
Ratcliffe was joined by Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC) to discuss the latest developments with Fox News host Martha McCallum, when Ratcliffe said:
What we learned today in the thousands of text messages that weve reviewed that perhaps they may not have done that (checked their bias at the door). There’s certainly a factual basis to question whether or not they acted on that bias. We know about this insurance policy that was referenced in trying to prevent Donald Trump from becoming president.
We learned today from information that in the immediate aftermath of his election that there may have been a secret society of folks within the Department of Justice and the FBI to include Page and Strzok to be working against him.
Watch:
.@RepRatcliffe on 5-month gap discovered in new FBI texts: “For former prosecutors like @TGowdySC & myself…it makes it harder & harder for us to explain away one strange coincidence after another.” https://t.co/jTCsiBqaVi pic.twitter.com/yPKVEJoG91
Fox News (@FoxNews) January 23, 2018
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
Rep. Gowdy deflected a question over a second special counsel, but mentioned “a text about not keeping texts,” and “more manifest bias against President Trump all the way through the election into the transition,” and finally Gowdy said he saw a text that “Director Comey was going to update the President of the United States about an investigation” which would have been Obama – and may, Gowdy speculates, have been about the Trump team.
.@TGowdySC on 50,000+ new @FBI texts, possible 2nd special counsel appointed to investigate Mueller probe: “We saw more manifest bias against @POTUS all the way through the election into the transition.” https://t.co/jTCsiBqaVi pic.twitter.com/CuyZKexf2s
Fox News (@FoxNews) January 23, 2018
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
Gowdy on FBI text messages: “Today we saw a text about not keeping texts.” https://t.co/beCXGpALF6
Sean Davis (@seanmdav) January 23, 2018
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
Regarding the “secret society,” Gowdy said “You have this insurance policy in Spring 2016, and then the day after the election, what they really didn’t want to have happen, there is a text exchange between these two FBI agents, these supposed to be fact-centric FBI agents saying, ‘Perhaps this is the first meeting of the secret society.’ So I’m going to want to know what secret society you are talking about, because you’re supposed to be investigating objectively the person who just won the electoral college. So yeah — I’m going to want to know.”
As we have been reporting over the last two days, the FBI “lost” five months of text messages between anti-Trump FBI agents Peter Strzok and Lisa Page.
The explanation for the gap was “misconfiguration issues related to rollouts, provisioning, and software upgrades that conflicted with the FBI’s collection capabilities.“
The missing texts conveniently span the period between Dec. 14, 2016 and May 17, 2017 – the day Robert Mueller was appointed to take over the FBI’s probe of alleged Trump-Russia collusion, and during the period in which the FBI would ostensibly have been hard at work on their “insurance policy” against a Trump victory – and during the period in which the “secret society” Rep. Ratcliffe referred to would have been hard at work.
A controversy also emerged following the revelation over the missing “textgate” – in that the DOJ’s internal investigative unit, the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) wrote a letter in December of last year specifically stating that they had obtained text messages from Strzok and Page covering the “missing” period revealed last Friday.
Alas, it appears the Inspector General Michael Horowitz made this statement in error, as Attorney General Jeff Sessions said in a Monday statement that Horrowitz was in fact the one who “discovered the FBI’s system failed to retain text messages for approximately 5 months,” which was confirmed by Fox News.
A Justice Department spokesperson told Fox News that the Departments Office of Inspector General also does not have any text messages between the two during that time period.
Not to worry – the DOJ, known for its honesty, will leave “no stone unturned.”
- "We Can't Pretend Interest Payments Aren't Rising Anymore…"
Authored by Sven Henrich via NorthmanTrader.com,
Is anyone paying attention? I don’t know, but the cost of carrying debt has been rising and it’s already showing measurable impacts despite the Fed Funds rate still being very low.
My concern of course is that the global debt construct will bring global growth to a screeching halt (see also The Debt Beneath).
As the 10 year is already piercing above the 2.6% area now I want to pay attention to the data coming in as the Fed is dot plotting more rate hikes to come:
After all the Fed has hiked 5 times off the bottom floor in the past 2 years:
Can we see any measurable impact? You bet we can.
Here are personal interest payments for consumers:
Mind you we are still near the lows of the previous cycle and already total interest payments are near record highs.
The driver of course is record consumer debt and credit card debt (see also macro charts). But despite rates still being historically low this rise in interest rates has an impact on the consumer.
Already we see this:
“The big four US retail banks sustained a near 20 per cent jump in losses from credit cards in 2017, raising doubts about the ability of consumers to fuel economic expansion. “People are using their cards to get from pay cheque to pay cheque,” said Charles Peabody, managing director at the Washington-based investment group Compass Point. “There’s an underlying deterioration in the ability of the consumer to keep up with their debt service burden.” Recently disclosed results showed Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and Wells Fargo took a combined $12.5bn hit from soured card loans last year, about $2bn more than a year ago.”
I repeat: “There’s an underlying deterioration in the ability of the consumer to keep up with their debt service burden.”
That’s a problem given the Fed’s dot plot. Before you know it consumers will be handing over a good portion of their tax cuts to credit card companies. Winning.
Is the government carrying record debt immune to this? Nope.
Here’s the latest monthly Treasury statement:
Interest on debt alone was $32B for 1 month.
During the same month the year prior it was $25B:
That’s a 28% increase year over year. Perhaps the data is lumpy month to month, we’ll see confirmation in the next few months. But much of this US government debt has to be refinanced in the next few years, meaning it will be subject to much higher rates and the US needs to continue to add to its debt to keep itself financed..
Indeed the recent tax cuts only exacerbate an already existing debt sale schedule:
“Economists with Deutsche Bank expect the extra debt the Treasury must issue to fund President Donald Trump’s tax package and the amount of debt the Federal Reserve plans to redeem at maturity this year will bloat issuance to about $1tn in 2018. That’s up more than 50 per cent from a year earlier and, when coupled with a 30 per cent rise in the amount of corporate debt that’s due to mature, leaves questions of who the eventual buyer will be.“
A good question indeed.
That’s a lot of debt issuance:
Somebody has to buy it or the pain is real:
“If demand for US fixed income doesn’t double over the coming years then US long rates will move higher, credit spreads will widen, the dollar will fall, and stocks will probably go down as foreigners move out of depreciating US assets,” Torsten Sløk, an economist with the bank, said.
No, we can all pretend rising rates don’t have an impact, we can also pretend deficits don’t matter, and we can also pretend money grows on trees.
But we can’t pretend interest payments aren’t rising. Because they are. Right now.
- Tokyo Holds "First Ever" Missile Attack Drills
Two months ago, we reported that Hawaii was restoring an air raid warning system that hadn’t been operational since the Cold War. Only this time, it’s due to the rising tensions between the US and North Korea…
Indeed, these tensions nearly caused a panic last week when one employee at Hawaii’s Emergency Management Agency accidentally selected the wrong dropdown menu choice, broadcasting a “Ballistic Missile Threat” warning to the cellphones of Hawaii residents.
On Monday, Tokyo activated the government’s “J-alert” system in a drill for the public to practice their response to a missile strike, RT reported. Once activated, the system warned people to “evacuate calmly inside a building or underground.”
Video of the response showed people filing into a subway station…
Missile launch missile launch! Evacuation drill against missiles held in Tokyo subway. Details coming up on @ChannelNewsAsia pic.twitter.com/iDhJBzlhnR
— michiyo ishida (@MichiyoCNA) January 22, 2018
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
Around 350 people participated in the first of its kind evacuation drill, which took place in Tokyo’s Bunkyo Ward, as well as a local amusement park. People sheltered in a nearby subway station and buildings, according to local media.
Last year, North Korea memorably launched several moderate-range ballistic missiles over the Northern Japanese island of Hokkaido.
However, the exercise made some Japanese people uncomfortable: A small group of protesters denounced the drills claiming they promoted Japanese militarism. One protester told the media that the exercises merely provided the illusion of safety – in the event of a nuclear strike, nobody in the blast zone would survive.
Japan’s first-ever drills for the evacuation of Japanese civilians were conducted in March of last year in the coastal city of Oga. Japanese authorities have warned that a missile launched by North Korea could reach Japan in 10 minutes…
- Las Vegas Update: Irregularities Cause Story Behind Massacre To Stink To High Heaven
Authored by Jon Hall via Free Market Shooter blog,
Months ago, I called for scrutiny amid a constantly-revolving news cycle concerning the Las Vegas massacre that occurred last October.
The victims of the Las Vegas massacre.
64-year-old Stephen Paddock opened fire on a country music festival from the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay hotel, which overlooked the festival venue. Paddock’s onslaught left 58 dead and 546 injured.
Sadly, despite being the worst mass-shooting in U.S. history, the story has long since been abandoned by any traditional media outlets. A slow and ebbing trickle of developments have transpired despite the story dropping off of the radar…
For instance, in late December, the chief of the FBI’s Las Vegas office, Aaron Rouse, revealed the agency likely wouldn’t brief the public concerning the massacre until their official report was released sometime around the one-year anniversary of the tragedy.
Speaking with the Las Vegas Review-Journal, Rouse detailed:
Paddock’s motivation has not been linked to any sort of affiliation or ideology, and evidence still suggests the gunman had no co-conspirators… FBI investigators have about 22,000 hours of surveillance and cellphone footage to comb through, along with about 250,000 separate photos… Local and federal authorities have to sift through about 40 terabytes of data.
At the turn of the new year, it was revealed that Mandalay Bay staff – where Paddock had been staying – had at least 10 interactions with him during his stay.
Paddock’s huge arsenal of guns and thousands of rounds of ammunition somehow wasn’t noticed throughout 10 interactions with hotel staff – an immediate answer is needed as to how.
Court documents unsealed a week ago reveal that Marilou Danley, Paddock’s girlfriend, told authorities that they would likely find her fingerprints on some of the bullets used during the massacre because she helped Paddock load ammunition into magazines.
Although claiming she had no prior knowledge of Paddock’s plans, Danley deleted her Facebook account at 2:46 a.m. on the night of the massacre, just hours after Paddock began firing at 10:08 p.m.
FBI agents also knew Paddock left behind caches of guns, ammunition, and explosives when they sought warrants before searching his properties. Oddities in Paddock’s online behavior were also noticed. As reported by Fox News:
The documents said Paddock had received an email from a Gmail account in July encouraging him to try an AR-style rifle before buying one. “We have huge selection” in the Las Vegas area, the email allegedly noted.
Paddock wrote back that he wanted to try several scopes and different types of ammunition. An email in response suggested trying a bump stock on the rifle with a 100-round magazine.
Paddock’s email address and the Gmail address had similar names, leading investigators to suspect that he may have been emailing himself, although they couldn’t figure out why.
Over the weekend, the trickle of developments continued, with Fox News revealing Paddock had child porn his computer… but last we knew, the hard drive to Paddock’s computer was missing.
Furthermore, after months of claims and explanations by authorities that Paddock was a “lone gunman”, Fox5 of Las Vegas revealed that Metro Police confirmed they’re unable to release further details on the case because “there are still suspects being investigated”.
Even after months of being ignored by the mainstream media, the story still doesn’t add up.
The Las Vegas shooting investigation – with only four months of radio silence from authorities to show after the horrific incident and no clear answers – is still as murky as ever with no clear sign of when the veil will drop… if ever.
Digest powered by RSS Digest
Saving...