August 21st, 2019

Michael Bowman faced misdemeanor charges for willful failure to file a return. He was also initially charged with felony tax evasion, but his public defender, Matt Schindler, got that charge thrown out for lack of evidence. Bowman said he objects to paying taxes for religious reasons. He said he does not want his money to go toward funding abortions... Bowman believes the First Amendment, the Oregon Constitution, and the Federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act protect his right to make that choice. He said he is innocent... After 11 hours of deliberation, Bowman's case ended in a mistrial because the jury couldn't reach a verdict... The government has not said yet if it plans to refile the charges. Schindler said they have a meeting with the judge this week and is expecting he will have to take this case to court again.

Adm. Craig Faller, who oversees the U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) said Tuesday that the Navy must be ready to "do what needs to be done" on Venezuela."I won't speak to details of what we're planning and what we're doing, but we remain ready to implement policy decisions, and we remain on the balls of our feet," Faller told reporters. He added: "The United States Navy is the most powerful Navy in the world. If a policy decision is made to deploy the Navy, I'm convinced that we'll be able to do what needs to be done." Faller made the remarks in Rio de Janeiro, a large seaside city in Brazil, as the US launched UNITAS 2019, a multinational war exercise that is conducted annually in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Forest fires in the Amazon are generating smoke that can be seen from space and may have caused a daytime blackout more than 1,700 miles away in the country's largest city... the country's space agency The National Institute for Space Research said its satellite data detected more than 72,000 fires since January, an 83% increase over the same period of 2018...

KEK!!!

Yemen’s Houthi rebels claimed they shot down a U.S. drone over the country’s north, as a leading rights group said Wednesday... Yahia Sarie, a military spokesman for the Iran-backed Houthis, said in a statement their air defenses downed a U.S. MQ-9 drone on Tuesday over the northern city of Dhamar. He said the drone was hit by a missile. The U.S. military’s Central Command said it was aware of claims that an American MQ-9 Reaper drone had been shot down over Yemen, but declined to elaborate.

Greece has refused to help the Iranian tanker recently detained in Gibraltar on suspicion of shipping oil to Syria. Deputy foreign minister Miltiadis Varvitsiotis told broadcaster ANT1 his country was "not willing to facilitate the course of this ship to Syria". The move comes after US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo threatened sanctions on any country that helps the tanker...

The draft of the government's 2019 "Defense White Paper" was revealed on the 20th. For the first time, North Korea's nuclear weapons development is clearly stated as “It seems that miniaturization and warheads have already been realized”...

Hulking ex-cop Nicholas Tartaglione — who briefly bunked with Epstein at the Metropolitan Correctional Center — has been told by various guards there to “shut up,” “stop talking” and “stop complaining,” as questions swirled about how the accused sex trafficker was able to commit suicide in federal custody, Tartaglione attorney Bruce Barket says in a letter to White Plains federal Judge Kenneth Karas.

Tartaglione was sharing a cell with Epstein during what’s believed to have been the 66-year-old’s first suicide attempt, on July 23. The two were separated before Epstein hanged himself on Aug. 10...

A federal court judge on Wednesday ruled that President Trump can immediately challenge congressional Democrats' Emoluments Clause lawsuit against him, saying the litigation raises the "unsettled" question of whether politicians have standing to sue a sitting president for running international businesses. The development was a major victory for Trump, who has railed against what he has called politically motivated invocations of the Emoluments Clause.

This unmarked stone crypt at an exclusive Jewish mausoleum is the likely final resting place of Jeffrey Epstein, DailyMail.com can reveal. Sources believe the pedophile financier's remains were transported to Loxahatchee, Florida so they could be entombed beside his parents, Pauline 'Paula' and Seymour Epstein...

Mr. Trump is taking the action in a speech to the 75th annual American Veterans convention in Louisville, Kentucky. He said the memorandum directs the Education Department to eliminate “every penny” of student loan debt for those disabled veterans. There are more than 40,000 veterans nationwide who qualify for debt forgiveness under action taken by the Departments of Education and Veterans Affairs last year. But only a fraction of those eligible has taken advantage of the program by applying for help. Bipartisan legislation was introduced in June in Congress that would dismiss all federal student loan debt for eligible veterans, whether or not they applied for the program.

Brazil’s right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro on Wednesday accused non-governmental organizations of setting wildfires in the Amazon rainforest to damage his government’s image after he cut their funding. Bolsonaro, who has shocked environmentalists with plans to open the Amazon to business interests, said NGOs could be behind the record number of wildfires this year... Bolsonaro said “everything indicates” that NGOs are going to the Amazon to “set fire” to the forest. When asked if he had evidence to back up his claims, he said he had “no written plan,” adding “that’s not how it’s done.”

The Apple iPhone 7 was set to operate at full power and secured below a tub of clear liquid, specially formulated to simulate human tissue... For 18 minutes, it repeatedly measured the amount of radiofrequency radiation the liquid was absorbing from the cellphone. This test, which was paid for by the Tribune and conducted according to federal guidelines at an accredited lab, produced a surprising result: Radiofrequency radiation exposure from the iPhone 7 — one of the most popular smartphones ever sold — measured over the legal safety limit and more than double what Apple reported to federal regulators from its own testing... The Tribune tested three more brand-new iPhone 7s at full power, and these phones also measured over the exposure limit. In all, 11 models from four companies were tested, with varying results... After reviewing the lab reports from the Tribune’s tests, the FCC said it would take the rare step of conducting its own testing over the next couple of months.

The Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Health and Human Services will issue a new rule Friday to withdraw from the Flores Settlement Agreement... The new rule would eliminate a 20-day cap for detaining migrant children and create a new licensing regime that would make it easier for federal officials to expand family detention nationwide. Although the rule is set to take effect 60 days after it is published, officials expect the implementation to last longer...

But officials said they hoped the threat of longer detention would deter the crush of Central American migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border and complement existing enforcement measures. Border apprehensions have slumped more than 40 percent since May, a major drop officials have attributed to increased enforcement in Mexico, but officials worry about a resurgence in the fall.

According to National Iranian Tanker Company spokesman Jabal Ameli, the crew are trying to fix the problem.

“The ship’s crew are fixing the defect and the vessel is in a stable condition from a safety standpoint. Fortunately, the ship’s crew are in a safe condition,” Akbar Jabal-Ameli, said as quoted by the media outlet IRNA...

The Wisconsin Republican said that a background checks measure based on the bill written by Sens. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) and Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and a national "red flag" bill are both unlikely to pass. He was open to GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham’s bill that would establish a red flag grant program, but said the Senate would need to “attach to those grants very strict guidelines in terms of due process.” “I really don’t see the dynamic having really changed there much,” Johnson said of an effort to strengthen background checks during gun sales, which generally polls at around 90 percent. “I don’t anticipate we’re going to pass a federal red flag law...

"A lot of the people that put me where I am, are strong believers in the Second Amendment, and I am also. And we have to be very careful about that. You know, they call it the slippery slope. All of a sudden everything gets taken away," Trump told reporters. "We're not going to let that happen."