Displaying posts categorized under

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION

50 STATES AND DC, CONGRESS AND THE PRESIDENT

Toxic Antibiotics By Eileen F. Toplansky

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2018/08/toxic_antibiotics.html

Urinary tract infections affect millions of women, and often they are prescribed Ciprofloxacin (Cipro), Gemifoxacin (Factive), Levofloxacin (Levaquin), Moxifloxacin (Avelox), Norfloxacin (Noroxin), or Ofloxacin (Floxin). These are fluoroquinolones, antibiotics, and have been on the market for more than 30 years. They are also routinely prescribed for a range of infections – sinusitis, cystitis, prostatitis, bronchitis, and skin infections.

For some people, what is supposed to be a helpful medicine has turned into a medical nightmare, and many are still unaware of the dangers posed by these antibiotics.

Fluroquinolones, when used as tablets, capsules, or injectables, are associated with disabling and potentially permanent serious side-effects that can occur together.

The concerns about the antibiotic fluoroquinolone drugs are not new. In fact:

The FDA first added a Boxed Warning to fluoroquinolones in July 2008 for the increased risk of tendinitis and tendon rupture. In February 2011, the risk of worsening symptoms for those with myasthenia gravis was added to the Boxed Warning. In August 2013, the agency required updates to the labeling to describe the potential for irreversible peripheral neuropathy or serious nerve damage.

Then, on May 12, 2016, the FDA warned that fluoroquinolone antibiotics (emphasis added):

… are associated with disabling and potentially permanent side effects of the tendons, muscles, joints, nerves, and central nervous system that can occur together in the same patient. …

Should It Be Illegal for Prosecutors to “Flip” Witnesses? by Alan M. Dershowitz

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/12935/flipping-witnesses

It is already illegal for a lawyer to offer a witness a valuable consideration for providing testimony — if the lawyer is a defense attorney. If any defense attorney offers a witness an inducement to testify favorably to his client — even if his testimony is 100% truthful — that lawyer will be disbarred, prosecuted and imprisoned. But it is perfectly legal, indeed widely regarded as commendable, for prosecutors to offer major inducements in order to get witnesses to testify against their targets.

Here is what the statute says: “Whoever… directly or indirectly, gives, offers, or promises anything of value to any person, for or because of the testimony under oath or affirmation given or to be given by such person as a witness” is guilty of a felony. [U.S. Code § 201 (c)(2), emphasis added]

Every day, these tactics are being used against ordinary Americans caught up in our deeply flawed criminal justice system that relies far too heavily on the testimony of flipped witnesses.

Recently President Trump said that “flipping” a witness to incriminate a prosecutorial target “almost ought to be outlawed,” saying that individuals who flip are often untruthful.

This statement raises the important question of whether it should be illegal to offer a witness a valuable consideration for providing testimony, as prosecutors allegedly did with Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn.

Interestingly, it is already illegal for a lawyer to do that — if the lawyer is a defense attorney.

A Post-Trump World? By Victor Davis Hanson

https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/08/donald-trump-impeachment-unlikely-unwise/

Removing him would only make things worse — for his opponents & the nation.

It has been quite a ride since Inauguration Day — or, rather, from Michael Wolff to Omarosa and Michael Cohen, or from the Emoluments Clause to the 25th Amendment, or from talk of decapitating Trump to talk of blowing up the White House.

Yet what might happen should Trump be removed from office, either by impeachment leading to conviction or resignation or by federal indictment from Robert Mueller?

Given the evidence so far, the results could be civil chaos, and for a variety of reasons:

The Trump Record
Had Trump misled his base and not fulfilled his campaign promises, he would have little popular support. Had he tanked the economy and started a war, he would be polling in the 20s rather than the mid to lower 40s.

Trump also polls about 85 percent among Republicans. He is even more popular among blue-collar “Trump voters,” largely because of efforts to equalize trade, restore U.S. deterrence, end illegal immigration, and jump-start the economy, as evidenced by a record-high stock market, near-record peacetime unemployment, and likely annualized GDP growth of 3 percent or more. Minority joblessness is also at a near-record low. The startling fact is that a so-called buffoonish real-estate developer hit upon a calculus to restore robust economic growth in a way that all the degreed experts of the prior administration had not.

His judicial picks belie predictions that Trump would not keep his vows to appoint strict constructionists. There have been no David Souter–like or Harriet Miers–like nominations to the Supreme Court. His national-security team at Defense, State, the National Security Council, the CIA, and the UN is better than any seen in prior postwar administrations. Mike Pompeo is not Hillary Clinton, H. R. McMaster and John Bolton have not been Susan Rice, and Jim Mattis is not Chuck Hagel. Nor is Nikki Haley playing the role of Samantha Power at the U.N., or sending in countless requests to unmask the names of those swept in FISA warrants.

Joe Biden’s got some dirty laundry stinking up his presidential ambitions By Monica Showalter

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2018/08/joe_bidens_got_some_dirty_laundry_stinking_up_his_presidential_ambitions.html

For Democrats, Joe Biden is the top seed in the race to unseat President Trump in 2020.

He’s come a long way from his nutty-uncle gaffe-a-thon persona, and with a slew of medals and honors from President Obama, he presents the very picture of the respectable modern statesman. He showed up at a lot of foreign funerals for heads of state. He milked the sympathy factor over his son’s death from cancer. He wore a suit. He projected gravitas. Yet he also manages to have a hard-hat appeal and a mainstream-Democratic-ideological image, which seems to be the right formula for Democrats winning in most of their races these days.

No surprise, he’s the Democratic frontrunner in polls among Democrats with a seven-point lead, campaigning even now with fire to burn, because he’s convinced he made a mistake in not running back in 2016.

Except there’s some dirty laundry now that’s getting some airing.

Biden, it turns out, is loaded with dirty deals spread out the “legal” way, among his family members, which has made his tribe immensely rich. What’s more, he’s doing it the swamp way, which keeps the long arm of the law out of the picture, based on deftly navigating the political loopholes, and a sharkily deft capacity to use advantages. According to the indefatigable investigative reporter Peter Schweizer, who’s written a book about this:

The New York Times’s slathering praise for John McCain rings false Try reading what they wrote about him in 2008, when he represented a threat to Democratic hegemony by Roger Kimball

https://spectator.us/2018/08/the-new-york-timess-slathering-praise-for-john-mccain-rings-false/

I am not going to comment directly on the passing of Senator John McCain. Although I voted for him in 2008, I thought him a deeply flawed candidate. His behaviour subsequently, especially after Donald Trump became the Republican nominee and then President, was in my judgment petty, self-aggrandising, and harmful to the country.

What interests me now, however, are the hallelujahs of praise and commendation that surrounded his passing. He has always been a hero to the neo-conservative faithful. But here we have The New York Times running a fawning obituary with the title ‘War Hero, Senator, Presidential Contender.’ It was the full lion-of-the-Senate treatment: ‘proud naval aviator . . . climbed from depths of despair as a prisoner of war in Vietnam to pinnacles of power . . . two-time contender for the presidency,’ yada, believe me, yada.

Just how great was John McCain, according to the Times? This great: Despite his grave condition, he soon made a dramatic appearance in the Senate to cast a thumbs-down vote against his party’s drive to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

Give the parrot another cracker!

Lanny Davis admits he was source for CNN’s Trump Tower story, lied about it on air

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/aug/27/lanny-davis-admits-he-was-source-cnn-trump-tower-s/

Michael Cohen’s attorney has acknowledged being an anonymous source for the disputed CNN Trump Tower story and also admitted lying on TV about his involvement.

Lanny Davistold BuzzFeed News on Monday evening that he was a source for the story claiming that President Trump had personal prior knowledge of a controversial Trump Tower meeting with Russians — a story the Cohen camp has since repudiated.

China Hacked Hillary Clinton’s Private Email Server Richard Pollock |

https://dailycaller.com/2018/08/27/china-hacked-clinton-server/

The Chinese wrote code that was embedded in the server, which was kept in Clinton’s residence in upstate New York. The code generated an instant “courtesy copy” for nearly all of her emails and forwarded them to the Chinese company, according to the sources.

The Intelligence Community Inspector General (ICIG) found that virtually all of Clinton’s emails were sent to a “foreign entity,” Rep. Louie Gohmert, a Texas Republican, said at a July 12 House Committee on the Judiciary hearing. He did not reveal the entity’s identity, but said it was unrelated to Russia.

Two officials with the ICIG, investigator Frank Rucker and attorney Janette McMillan, met repeatedly with FBI officials to warn them of the Chinese intrusion, according to a former intelligence officer with expertise in cybersecurity issues, who was briefed on the matter. He spoke anonymously, as he was not authorized to publicly address the Chinese’s role with Clinton’s server.

Among those FBI officials was Peter Strzok, who was then the bureau’s top counterintelligence official. Strzok was fired this month following the discovery he sent anti-Trump texts to his mistress and co-worker, Lisa Page. Strzok didn’t act on the information the ICIG provided him, according to Gohmert.

Gohmert mentioned in the Judiciary Committee hearing that ICIG officials told Strzok and three other top FBI officials that they found an “anomaly” on Clinton’s server.

The former intelligence officer TheDCNF spoke with said the ICIG “discovered the anomaly pretty early in 2015.”

Rep. Mark Meadows(R-N.C. District 11): “Hard Evidence” FBI Leaked Info To Press, Used Same Stories To Obtain FISA Warrants By Ian Schwartz

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2018/08/28/meadows_hard_evidence_fbi_leaked_info_to_press_used_same_stories_to_obtain_fisa_warrants.html

Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC) said Tuesday that the American people will be “appalled” at what happened within the FBI and DOJ to start the Trump campaign-Russian collusion probe. Meadows said the DOJ leaked information to the press and used those reported stories as evidence to get FISA warrants.

“I believe that they did. We know that some people at the Department of Justice and FBI actually gave information to the media and then the stories were reported, then they used those reports to justify further investigations,” he said.

Meadows asked why the FBI ignored evidence that pointed toward no collusion:

MEADOWS: There are three different lines of questioning. One, Congressman Issa talked about it. Will Bruce Ohr verify what we already know?

Parsing Mueller’s Lies: Why Julian Assange Makes the Perfect Foil By Michael Thau

https://amgreatness.com/2018/08/27/parsing-muellers

In the second part of this report, we saw that correcting the flagrant misrepresentations and filling in the strategic gaps in Robert Mueller’s July 13 indictment yields a tale that revolves around four important dates in the annals of 2016 presidential election skullduggery: one in March and three over a four-day period in June of that year.

March 19: Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta is tricked into giving away the password to his main Gmail account. As a result, hostile actors gained possession of all of Podesta’s campaign emails; including one containing a file of Trump opposition research.

June 12: Julian Assange announces that his organization WikiLeaks gained possession of and will soon be releasing Clinton campaign emails.

June 14: The Washington Post discloses the now infamous Russian hack of the DNC’s servers, announcing in both the headline and lead sentence the odd detail that the Russians stole a file of Trump opposition research.

June 15: The mysterious Guccifer 2.0 emerges online just one day after the Post story, claiming to be the hacker described therein and releasing 230 pages of Trump opposition research as confirmation.

A Dossier Debunking His lawyer says the Steele claims about Michael Cohen are false.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-dossier-debunking-1535413060

Michael Cohen’s accusations have replaced Russian collusion as Washington’s reason-du-jour to impeach Donald Trump, which may explain why few are reporting that Mr. Cohen has cast further doubt on what was supposedly a key piece of collusion evidence.

Mr. Cohen’s lawyer, Lanny Davis, confirmed last week that Cohen has never been to Prague in the Czech Republic. This is one of the main claims in the Steele dossier that was commissioned by oppo-research firm Fusion GPS, paid for by the Clinton campaign and used by the FBI in its Trump investigation.

The dossier claims Mr. Cohen traveled to Prague in August or September of 2016 to discuss with Kremlin officials how to make “cash payments” to hackers of the Clinton campaign. Mr. Davis now says that the Prague trip and all other allegations about Mr. Cohen in the dossier are “false.”