June 21st, 2019

The five blacklisted organizations placed on the so-called Entity List includes supercomputer maker Sugon, which is heavily dependent on U.S. suppliers including chipmakers Intel, Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices. The other four are the Wuxi Jiangnan Institute of Computing Technology and three Sugon affiliates. The Commerce Department called their activities “contrary to the national security and foreign policy interests of the United States.”

Sugon and the Wuxi Jiangnan Institute, which the U.S. said is owned by a Chinese army research institute, are involved in China’s push to develop next-generation “exascale” high performance computing to assist with military modernization. The technology involved supports such military-related tasks as running nuclear simulations, calculating missile trajectories and hypersonic algorithms, said Paul Triolo, technology analyst with the global risk-assessing Eurasia Group.

Since Trump’s inauguration, he has reduced the levels at which Syrian refugees are arriving in the U.S. Between January 20, 2017, and June 2019, only about 2,419 Syrian refugees have entered the country — nearly 97 percent of which are Muslim and 1.4 percent of which are Christians and Catholics.

Compare this level to Obama’s surge of Syrian refugees between January 20, 2014, and June 2016 when about 6,368 Syrian nationals were granted entry to the country. Almost 99 percent of the Syrian refugees admitted by the Obama administration during this period were Muslim and less than 0.8 percent were Christians and Catholics.

"People are eating away at their brain with a really bad fast-food diet and little-to-no exercise," Cherbuin said in a university newsletter.

"We've found strong evidence that people's unhealthy eating habits and lack of exercise for sustained periods of time puts them at serious risk of developing type 2 diabetes and significant declines in brain function, such as dementia and brain shrinkage."

The invocation was the first given by the Satanic Temple since the borough changed its invocation policy in November. The new policy allows for anyone in the borough to offer an invocation, no matter their religion. The change in policy came after the Alaska Superior Court found the former policy unconstitutional and in violation of the state’s constitution’s establishment clause.

In her invocation, Iris Fontana — a member of the Satanic Temple and the prevailing plaintiff in the lawsuit against the borough — called the room to be present, and for attendees to clear their minds. She asked listeners to embrace the impulse to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

Cook County State Attorney Kim Foxx's handling of the controversial Jussie Smollett alleged hate crime case -- including the contentious decision to suddenly drop all charges against him -- will be examined by a special prosecutor, an Illinois judge ruled Friday afternoon. The decision by Cook County Judge Michael Toomin comes after a deluge of criticism and second-guessing regarding Foxx's management of the case, in which Smollett claimed he was attacked in the early morning hours of Jan. 29 while walking home to his Chicago apartment. Toomin, according to the Chicago Tribune, said the special prosecutor could re-charge Smollett.

I found exceedingly rich, white men with enormous cultural influence are funding the transgender lobby and various transgender organizations. These include but are not limited to Jennifer Pritzker (a male who identifies as transgender); George Soros; Martine Rothblatt (a male who identifies as transgender and transhumanist); Tim Gill (a gay man); Drummond Pike; Warren and Peter Buffett; Jon Stryker (a gay man); Mark Bonham (a gay man); and Ric Weiland (a deceased gay man whose philanthropy is still LGBT-oriented). Most of these billionaires fund the transgender lobby and organizations through their own organizations, including corporations...

These funders often go through anonymous funding organizations such as Tides Foundation, founded and operated by Pike. Large corporations, philanthropists, and organizations can send enormous sums of money to the Tides Foundation, specify the direction the funds are to go, and have the funds get to their destination anonymously. Tides Foundation creates a legal firewall and tax shelter for foundations and funds political campaigns, often using legally dubious tactics...

The previous 1985 ruling found that an individual whose property is taken by a local government cannot file a federal suit under the Fifth Amendment until that challenge fails in state court.

But on Friday the justices ruled along ideological lines to reverse that precedent, finding that the requirement “imposes an unjustifiable burden,” conflicts with other similar rulings and “must be overruled.”

“A property owner has an actionable Fifth Amendment takings claim when the government takes his property without paying for it,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the majority opinion.

Dr. Reynold Panettieri Jr., a Rutgers University vice chancellor, told "Fox & Friends" that the FBI is conducting extensive tests to determine what may have caused at least nine people to die after visiting resorts in the Dominican Republic in the last year. "Some of these individuals, couples dying with no pre-existing illness, really suggests a potential toxic exposure," Dr. Panettieri said. "Now that can be topical, ingested in the case of alcohol, or inhaled," he continued. "Inhaled intoxicants could be odorless and colorless. You wouldn't know."

The Friday morning blaze started in a vat of butane, which exploded and prompted other explosions as the flames engulfed other fuel pipes at Philadelphia Energy Solutions refinery, officials said.

Philadelphia Deputy Fire Commissioner Craig Murphy said no one was injured, but one employee was complaining of chest pains. The fire was reported at 4:05 a.m., and by about 7 a.m. had been confined but was not yet under control, Murphy said.

The move follows a lawsuit filed against Oliver North, the former NRA president who reportedly tried to force NRA EVP Wayne LaPierre to step down.

Plenty of us know there has been some bad blood between LaPierre and Cox for some time. However, this move by LaPierre and his cadre will undoubtedly deepen the conflict within the organization’s headquarters and with its members. After all, Cox, Who heads the NRA-ILA didn’t buy ten $20,000 suits and bill them to the NRA.

Nor did he put up sorority girl interns in $4500 condos for their summer internships and bill it to the NRA...

Is it time to walk away from the NRA?

The news comes three days after the abrupt resignation of acting Defense Secretary Pat Shanahan, whose hopes of getting the job collapsed amid ethics questions, complaints about his leadership style and media scrutiny of his troubled family history...

The White House also said Friday that Trump will nominate Pentagon comptroller David Norquist — the brother of anti-tax activist Grover Norquist — to be deputy Defense secretary, and Army Undersecretary Ryan McCarthy to be Army secretary.

Richard Barry, a former Toys “R” Us executive who is now CEO of new entity Tru Kids Inc., has been pitching his vision to reincarnate the chain to toymakers, including at an industry conference this week, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the plans aren’t public. The stores are slated to be about 10,000-square feet, roughly a third of the size of the brand’s big-box outlets that closed last year, the people said. The locations will also have more experiences, like play areas.,,

FBI agents searched the Georgetown home of D.C. Councilman Jack Evans on Friday, one day after he put out a letter saying he would step down from the board that oversees the Metro transit agency. D.C. police secured the area while agents, operating under a court-approved federal warrant, searched the home on P Street NW for about three and a half hours, starting at 6 a.m. Federal prosecutors would not say what they were looking for.

The “family op,” as it is referred to at ICE and the Department of Homeland Security, is slated to target up to 2,000 families facing deportation orders in as many as 10 U.S. cities, including Houston, Chicago, Miami, Los Angeles and other major immigration destinations, said the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the law enforcement operation.

President Trump sat down Friday for an interview with NBC's "Meet the Press," marking the first time he will appear on the program during his presidency. Moderator Chuck Todd tweeted that he had spent the morning interviewing the president at the White House. The conversation will air on Sunday...

Here's a preview:

EXCLUSIVE: In an exclusive interview with Chuck Todd, President Donald Trump says he hadn’t given final approval to Iran strikes, no planes were in the air. pic.twitter.com/qHtTx7Zql5

— Meet the Press (@MeetThePress) June 21, 2019

New York Attorney General Letitia James, one of the state attorneys general leading the lawsuit, on Friday announced that Hawaii, Massachusetts, Minnesota, and Nevada have joined onto the states' effort to block the merger... The lawsuit is moving forward as the Department of Justice (DOJ) continues to mull whether it will approve the merger. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) last month said it will green-light the deal, which will reduce the number of major mobile wireless networks in the U.S. from four to three.

....Death to America. I terminated deal, which was not even ratified by Congress, and imposed strong sanctions. They are a much weakened nation today than at the beginning of my Presidency, when they were causing major problems throughout the Middle East. Now they are Bust!....

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 21, 2019

....proportionate to shooting down an unmanned drone. I am in no hurry, our Military is rebuilt, new, and ready to go, by far the best in the world. Sanctions are biting & more added last night. Iran can NEVER have Nuclear Weapons, not against the USA, and not against the WORLD!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 21, 2019

“Many people have now understood that things are going to change fundamentally,” the 53-year-old said. “The question is whether we make the changes ourselves or allow ourselves to be swept over by the climate crisis.”

The Green party politician said they would publish detailed financing for the fund in the coming weeks. She said that no decision had been made on whether it would be financed through tax hikes or via an increase in public debt.

...several polls suggest that the party as a whole is now the most popular political force in the country...

Along with the populist movement, the European Green Party is emerging as a dominant force in Germany, but these guys want to push for the banning of all industrialized farming, which would in effect cause massive starvation and even societal collapse. But maybe that's the plan.

The judge said the order does not limit ICE’s ability to make criminal arrests of individuals or civil arrests of people brought to Massachusetts courthouses while in state or federal custody. Instead, she said it prevents ICE from "civilly arresting parties, witnesses, and others attending Massachusetts courthouses on official business while they are going to, attending, or leaving the courthouse."