Month: February 2020

The Joe Biden Theory and the Ukrainian macguffin’

Correct me if I’m wrong, but my earlier Joe Biden theory is confirmed more and more every day. Let’s start from the beginning.

1. At first Biden is reluctant to run. But in the spring of 2019 he gets wind of Trump investigating his corruption in Ukraine – and he immediately enters the race on 4/25/19. On the trail he looks old, tired, and his heart just isn’t in it. Why do it then? Because it’s about a lot more things than simply running for president.

2. If Trump isn’t stopped, the entire Biden family’s dirt will come out. At this point, the only way to avoid or at least to delay it is Biden being in the race: the news of his corruption can then be discredited as usual electioneering and Trump’s dirty tricks.

3. Biden may not be the only one who took dirty money from Ukrainian oligarchs, plus Democrats used Ukrainian politicians to dig up dirt on Trump’s team in 2016. Now their lives and careers depend on their ability to stop Trump’s investigation and to muddle the issue. They also know they can’t beat Trump in 2020, all they can do is try to impeach him in order to shut him up. They have loyal spies in the White House and wait for an opportune moment to pounce.

4. Trump’s phone call with Ukraine becomes such a moment. The Dems quickly compose a play about a concerned whistleblower and stage it in the House. They charge Trump with exactly what they themselves have done – getting help from a foreign government in order to dig up dirt on a political rival, followed by a cover-up.

5. These charges only make sense if Biden is running against Trump in a general election, which he isn’t. As a minimum, he must be a frontrunner in the primaries, and so the DNC throws him into the mix of candidates and artificially inflates his status. The entire impeachment scheme is predicated on Biden running and winning the primaries. Without him posing as Trump’s rival, the Democrats won’t be able to claim that Trump wanted to steal an election. So old Joe must make a good face and keep running even if he eventually collapses and pays with his life to save the swamp.

6. The Senate acquits Trump and the Dems switch to harassing him about Roger Stone. It no longer matters if Biden is a frontrunner, he has outlived his usefulness. The DNC pulls the plug and the sad old Joe is done, unless the Dems can use him later to cheat Bernie out of a win. His numbers are in the gutter.

7. What are the Dems covering up in Ukraine? It must be big if they staged an impeachment and risked their entire political capital over it. Otherwise they wouldn’t have spied on Rudy Giuliani in Ukraine trying to tarnish his investigation and to besmirch him personally. They even identified Giuliani’s two Ukrainian associates and had them arrested for exceeding a political campaign donation. If Michael Cohen’s story is any indication, the men were likely threatened with imprisonment and then offered a deal in exchange for dirt on Giuliani and Trump.

8. Wouldn’t you want to know what that Ukrainian macguffin really is? I have a theory about that, too, but that’s a story for another time.

Do the Gun-Grabbers Really Want to Save Lives?

My first impression is ‘No’.

We often find ourselves arguing statistics with anti-gun people. Let’s put the conversation into perspective. I will give you some statistics and I’ll also expose the anti-gun left’s real motives for gun control. First of all, don’t you think that if someone really wanted to save lives, they would focus their attention on an area where the most lives are lost? If you’ll notice, Anti-Gunners miss that piece of logic and gravitate toward any justification for gun control laws regardless of its inability to save lives.

The gun grabbers like to use the number of 30,000 to 40,000 gun-related deaths per year but if we take out suicides, which are 60% of those deaths and we take out law enforcement-related deaths, we’re left with about 14,880 gun-related homicides. Let me add something here. After seeing the results of Australia’s gun ban, we know that suicides do not go down in the absence of guns. People find other means; just in case there are some Anti-Gunners out there still trying to blame suicides on guns.

Here’s where it gets interesting.

The majority of those gun-related homicides are gang-related. So, let’s say we didn’t have the gang problem we have in this country. If we take out gang/gun murders the number of gun-related homicides shrinks to 2,976 per year in America. here’s another interesting fact that the anti-gun left doesn’t want you to know. The majority of gang-related violence occurs in Democrat-run cities across this country, which by the way are highly gun restricted and often allow violent Illegals safe harbor. Which means, the good people living within those cities are denied their right to protect themselves against the human violence that Democrats encourage with their bad policies. Now let’s compare 2,976 gun-related homicides to some other things that the anti-gun left could be working on if they really wanted to save lives.

  • 2,976 gun-related homicides, consisting of many different causes. None of which are caused by “the gun.”
  • 11,000 lives lost per year in America to drunk driving accidents.
  • 47,000 lives lost per year in America due to suicide, (bipolar disorder and schizophrenia being two of the leading causes of suicide.) Not guns. Remember, take away the guns and that number doesn’t change.
  • 330,000 lives are taken per year in America by people committing abortion. One of the biggest causes of preventable deaths in America is abortion. Didn’t the gun-grabbers say they wanted to save lives?

Now let me give you a piece of information that the anti-self-defense crowd doesn’t want you to know. How many lives do you think are saved every year because of guns?

  • 2,500,000 lives are potentially saved every year in America because of guns. These are called Defensive Gun Uses (DGU’s). Now, this doesn’t necessarily mean good guys killing bad guys. This most often means just the mere presence of a gun deters a bad guy. 46% of those lives saved are women. This is from a study that was done by Gary Kleck, a Florida criminologist and backed by data from the CDC.

*[Data collected from Pew Research Center, FBI Statistics, Armed Resistance to Crime Report (Kleck/Gertz), Center for Medical Progress, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.]

Why do you think the gun grabbers never share this information? Some would argue that they don’t really care about saving lives as much as they care about disarming their fellow citizens and preventing them from independently protecting themselves and their families.

Gun control is a top-down method that puts the government in charge of the lives and safety of people under the guise of “public safety.” It’s the first step in stealing the freedom our founders fought for. The anti-gun left has already decided that they are willing to give up their freedom to government.

The problem is, they can’t have their government-controlled Utopian society unless everyone gets on board. Real Americans are clearly not getting on board. In fact, just the opposite is true. People across the country are fighting back as the left-wing ideology tries desperately to embed itself into traditional America. Gun control is a way of forcing you into dependence whether you like it or not.

We’re never going to cure the evil in the hearts of killers but thanks to our Founding Fathers recognized the importance of firearms, we can stop them.

So, to the gun grabbers, do you really want to save lives? Then get to work on the real causes of human-violence and help us restore our gun rights so good people can protect themselves. Help us save lives, rather than ending them before they get a chance to take their first breath.

The 2nd Amendment is not a privilege. It’s your right.

Cholesterol drugs may help fight ‘high-risk’ prostate cancers.

Definitely something for further research.

Drugs that many men with prostate cancer might already be taking — cholesterol-lowering statins — may help extend their survival if they have a “high-risk” form of the disease, new research suggests.

High-risk patients include men with high blood levels of prostate specific antigen (PSA) and a “Gleason score” of 8 or more. Gleason scores are a calculation used to gauge prognosis in prostate cancer. Men with a high Gleason score may develop difficult-to-treat cancers.

Prior research had suggested that statins and the diabetes drug metformin (often prescribed together) have anticancer properties. However, it hasn’t been clear which of the two drugs is the bigger cancer-fighter, or whether either might help against high-risk prostate cancer.

To help answer those questions, a team led by Grace Lu-Yao of the Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center–Jefferson Health, in Philadelphia, tracked data on nearly 13,000 high-risk prostate cancer patients. All were diagnosed between 2007 and 2011.

The study couldn’t prove cause and effect, but it found that statins, taken alone or with metformin, did seem associated with an increase in survival.

Men who took both statins and metformin had higher median survival (3.9 years) than those who took statins alone (3.6 years), metformin alone (3.1 years), or those who did not take either drug (3.1 years).

Vancouver homeowner shoots, kills suspected burglar

PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — A man was shot and killed while breaking into a home overnight, according to Vancouver police.

Vancouver PD responded to what they believe was a burglary around 10:20 p.m. in the River View Neighborhood along Southeast Beach Drive. Police said an unknown man kicked in a back door and was inside the home when he was confronted by the homeowner, who had a gun.

The burglar charged the homeowner, who fired and shot the suspect. The suspect ran outside and collapsed. When authorities arrived the suspect was already dead.

The homeowner and his family were not injured.

One woman who lives in the neighborhood said she’s sorry for the tragedy that someone died “for trinkets or whatever. It wasn’t worth it. But I totally support the homeowner’s desire to protect themselves.”

Mike Murphy, who lives nearby, said it seems people are more desperate and brazen these days.

“Homeowners have a right to protect themselves. You can’t just expect to break into somebody’s home and there’s not going to be repercussions to their actions.”

Murphy said it’s a nice, quiet area. “You just don’t think there would be those kind of people down here up to no good.”

Suspects shot breaking into home a second time

RENO, Nev. (KOLO) – The Reno Police Department released new details into a shooting and house fire in the 900 block of Bates Avenue early Monday morning.

The incident was reported just before 3AM on February 10, 2020.

Investigators say two juveniles, broke into an addition off the main house, looking for a 14-year-old who lives at the home. They were confronted by an adult who was armed with a gun. Investigators say one of the suspects pointed a gun at the adult, and the adult opened fire, shooting both suspects.

One suspect was found at the scene. He was taken to a hospital in critical condition. The other suspect left the scene, but checked into a hospital after getting shot in the leg. He was later arrested.

Part of the home also caught fire. It’s unclear how the fire started.

Investigators say two days prior to the shooting, the same suspects had broken into the home and beat up the 14-year-old who lives there. Police also say the suspects had threatened to return.

The names of the suspects involved are not being released at this time

Yeah, a $150 million lawsuit tends to concentrate the corporate mind

McClatchy Moves to Dismiss Devin Nunes’ Lawsuit, but Judge Grants Him Discovery

The McClatchy Company, a news media company that is being sued for defamation by House Intelligence Committee Ranking Member Devin Nunes (R-CA), moved to dismiss the lawsuit in court on Wednesday, but the judge in the case rejected the request — an interim win for Nunes.

McClatchy filed a motion to dismiss Nunes’ complaint, which was filed in Virginia’s Sixteenth Judicial Court, arguing that the Delaware-based company does not fall under the jurisdiction of Virginia because it has no significant business in the state.

However, Judge Cheryl V. Higgins did not grant McClatchy’s motion to dismiss the case but has granted Nunes discovery on the question. That means that McClatchy must prove that it does not have significant ties to Virginia by answering questions and providing information on assertions from Nunes. Higgins said the court may have to hear witness testimony on the question as well.

So………..

Newspaper giant McClatchy files for bankruptcy

WASHINGTON — McClatchy, one of the nation’s largest newspaper publishers, filed for bankruptcy protection Thursday, another harbinger of America’s deepening local-news crisis.

The Chapter 11 filing will allow the Sacramento-based company to keep its 30 newspapers afloat while it reorganizes more than $700 million in debt, 60 percent of which would be eliminated. If the plan wins court approval, control of the 163-year-old family publisher would be turned over to hedge fund Chatham Asset Management, its largest creditor. The company has obtained $50 million in financing from Encina Business Credit to maintain operations while it undergoes bankruptcy proceedings.

‘Exposing Everything That Went Wrong’: A Parkland Researcher Speaks Out

What you won’t hear on the news today about Parkland.

Today is the second anniversary of the Parkland shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, where 17 people were killed.

Max Eden, an education researcher, who co-authored “Why Meadow Died: The People and Policies That Created the Parkland Shooter and Endanger America’s Students,” joins today’s podcast. Read the edited interview………

Rachel del Guidice: We are joined today on The Daily Signal Podcast by Max Eden. He’s an education researcher. Max, thank you so much for being with us today.

Max Eden: Yeah. Thanks so much for having me.

Del Guidice: Feb. 14 is the second anniversary of the Parkland shooting in Parkland, Florida, that took the lives of 17 people. Max, you co-authored a book about the shooting. The book is called “Why Meadow Died: The People and Policies That Created the Parkland Shooter and Endanger America’s Students.” Max, why did you write this book?

Eden: Immediately after the shooting, kind of two groups of students came forward. And one group got a lot more attention than the other.

The group of students [that] got attention said, “We blame the Second Amendment. We blame the NRA. We blame the gun for what happened.” The other group of students said, “We knew it was him before it was over. The student threatened to kill us. He threatened to rape us. He threatened to kill our families. He brought knives to school. He brought bullets to school. We saw something. We said something. They did nothing. They didn’t protect us from him.”

And kind of from my perch as researcher in D.C. when I saw this, I thought, “Oh, OK. Well, this is in a school district that became nationally famous for fighting the so-called school-to-prison pipeline by lowering arrests, lowering suspensions, lowering expulsions. I wonder if these policies, this kind of leniency pressure played a role in his journey through the school system.”

So I wrote an article kind of posing this question about 10 days after the shooting. And, unfortunately, this question kind of very quickly became an answer in politics, as happens, right? I mean, one side was for gun control and the other side was very quick to take the question and answer, “It wasn’t the gun’s fault. It was these policies. It was [former President Barack] Obama’s policies.”

It became a political football very quickly and nobody answered the question. It was labeled as fake news by the superintendent and most of the media skated on by……………..

California lab says it discovered coronavirus vaccine in 3 hours
Scientists are racing to get the vaccine on the market in record time

An American biotech company says it created a coronavirus vaccine three hours after getting access to the virus’ genetic sequence in mid-January, and now scientists are racing to get the vaccine on the market in record time.

Inovio Pharmaceuticals is based in Pennsylvania, but scientists in its laboratory in San Diego made the discovery.

“We were able to rapidly construct our vaccine in a matter of about three hours once we had the DNA sequence from the virus available because of the power of our DNA medicine platform,” Dr. J. Joseph Kim, Inovio’s president and CEO, told FOX Business. “Our goal is to start phase one human testing in the U.S. early this summer.”

 

Oklahoma State Senate passes bill making it easier to arm teachers

The Oklahoma Senate passed a bill on Wednesday that could make it easier for Oklahoma teachers and school personnel to carry a firearm at school.

The bill by Republican Sen. David Bullard, R-Durant, and Rep. Sean Roberts, R-Hominy, would change requirements for teachers to be able to be armed at school.

Bullard said the rural school districts in his area want the legislation because it could take a significant amount of time for law enforcement to respond to a mass shooting on campus.

“We have students right now that are vulnerable if someone walks in with a gun,” he said. “It’s a manslaughter and there’s nothing they can do about it.”

Teachers would no longer be required to complete a 240-hour Council on Law Enforcement Education and Training certification course in order to be armed at school. Bullard said the requirement is cost prohibitive and time intensive to a point that it deters teachers from participating.

Instead, under House Bill 2336, school personnel who undergo the eight-hour concealed carry class or the 72 hours of armed security guard training would be eligible to carry on campus at K-12 schools. The personnel also would have to go through “campus-specific active shooter training” as stipulated by local law enforcement agencies.

The campus-specific training would vary based on a school’s size and layout and would be intended for law enforcement to work one-on-one with teachers or school staff who intend to be armed, Bullard said.

Senate Democrats said the legislation could result in teachers having various levels of training depending on which district they teach.

Arizona Senate Panel OKs City Liability for Gun-Free Zones
An Arizona Senate panel has approved a measure that would make government entities that don’t allow guns on their property liable if someone is shot on their premises.

PHOENIX (AP) — An Arizona Senate panel on Thursday advanced a measure that would make government entities that don’t allow guns on their property liable if people are shot on their premises.

The proposal from Republican Sen. David Gowan would allow anyone to sue if they or loved ones are injured or killed after being barred from carrying weapons for self-defense on government property.

The measure is the latest in a years-long series of pro-gun measures that are routinely approved by the Republican-controlled Legislature.

Arizona is among the most gun-friendly states in the nation, allowing open or concealed carry of guns without a permit in most places. But efforts to allow weapons on property owned by schools, universities and government buildings have failed.

“It’s just a simple bill that says if a government creates gun-free zones which prohibit a law-abiding citizen from defending themselves, then if harm comes to them because of that policy that entity will be held liable for the damages,” Gowan told the Senate Judiciary Committee. “The point is, if you have a policy like this you protect them or allow them to protect themselves or there will be consequences.”

Missouri Senate bills seek to strengthen gun rights
A bill that would allow concealed carry permit holders to bring guns onto college campuses and other places drew opposition from public safety officials from Lincoln University and the University of Central Missouri in a hearing Thursday.

A bill that would allow concealed carry permit holders to bring guns onto college campuses and other places drew opposition from public safety officials from Lincoln University and the University of Central Missouri in a hearing Thursday.

The Senate Transportation and Public Safety Committee heard two bills Thursday morning that are intended to strengthen gun rights, both sponsored by Sen. Eric Burlison, R-Battlefield.

One was “anti-commandeering legislation” that bars any law enforcement officer in Missouri from enforcing federal gun laws that infringe on Second Amendment rights.

The other allows people with concealed carry permits to bring guns and other deadly weapons onto college campuses and other places they’re currently restricted. Allowing concealed carry on campus was the most controversial part of that bill, with leaders of campus police of two universities testifying against it.

Judiciary Committee Dems hit with ethics complaints over ‘suspicious’ conduct

‘Everytown’ is the Bloomberg bankrolled, astroturf anti-gun organization. So this just might blowback onto him as well.

Three Democratic members of the House Judiciary Committee were hit with ethics complaints Wednesday, connected to a slew of alleged violations related to campaign fundraising.

Nonprofit watchdog group Americans for Public Trust filed complaints with the Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE) against Reps. Madeleine Dean, D-Pa., Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., and Lucy McBath, D-Ga., calling for investigations of possible violations of House rules and federal law. The organization, founded by former National Republican Congressional Committee research director Caitlin Sutherland, also filed complaints against Dean and McBath with the Federal Election Commission (FEC).

“All three of these members have engaged in disturbing activities that appear to us to be violations of federal law and House rules. This is especially alarming given all three sit on the prestigious House Judiciary Committee, which has direct oversight responsibilities over the U.S. Department of Justice and, by extension, the nation’s law enforcement,” said Adam Laxalt, former Nevada attorney general and outside counsel to Americans for Public Trust. “We’re calling on the Federal Election Commission and the Office of Congressional Ethics to immediately investigate these suspicious activities.”…………….

The complaints also allege that McBath received money from Everytown for her campaign during that time, even though Everytown reported in an FEC filing that they first began contributing to McBath’s campaign on April 25, 2018.

“However, Everytown began spending in the election for Georgia’s 6th Congressional District while Representative McBath was still serving as the group’s national spokesperson,” the OCE complaint says. “It is not publicly known what level of involvement Representative McBath had in Everytown’s expenditures against her eventual general election opponent while she was still employed by Everytown.”

Virginia’s Model for Both Sides of Gun Debate
As Democrats advance anti-Second Amendment measures, Patriots fight back.

Like all would-be tyrants, as soon as Virginia Democrats took power following the last election, they began an all-out assault on the right to keep and bear arms, unleashing a package of gun-control measures intended to strip Virginians of their right to defend themselves.

The newest proposed measures include a ban on “assault weapons” such as the AR-15 and AK-47 rifles, magazines holding more than 12 rounds, and sound suppressors (“silencers”). That bill passed the House of Delegates yesterday.

As a means of reducing mass shootings, such measures are worthless. According to the FBI, in 2018, just 297 of the 6,603 gun-related murders (4%) nationwide involved a rifle of any kind. In fact, knives (1,604) and fists/kicking (656) were used to kill far more often.

The “progressive” obsession with the AR-15 is rooted in abject ignorance of all things gun related. Though they refer to AR-15s as “assault weapons” and “weapons of war,” they are neither.

“AR” stands for “ArmaLite Rifle,” after the company that designed it. Furthermore, the Department of Defense defines an assault rifle as a “selective fire” rifle that can alternate between semi- (one shot fired per trigger pull) and full-auto (continuous fire). The AR-15 is semiautomatic, firing a .223 (or 5.56) round, which is smaller and less powerful than many hunting rifles. If we ban AR-15s, why not all hunting rifles and handguns? They are functionally equivalent.

Gun grabbers claim the AR-15 is especially “dangerous and unusual,” attempting to get around the Supreme Court ruling in DC v. Heller, which found the Second Amendment protects weapons “in common use by law-abiding citizens.” But the AR-15 is the very definition of “common use” — more than 15 million AR-style rifles are currently in the hands of American citizens, and more than a million more are sold each year. In fact, one in five new firearms sold in the U.S. is an AR-style rifle.

Yet far from America turning into the Wild West, as anti-gun hysterics claim, America has become more peaceful with the proliferation of firearms. Gun crimes fell to historic lows after the expiration of the 1994 ban on “assault weapons.”

In reality, full-auto weapons have been effectively banned for civilian use since the National Firearms Act of 1934, and there have been only two deaths by full-auto weapons in the last 40 years.

But in the grand scheme of things, this is all just semantics and details. The Constitution protects our right to keep and bear arms, period, regardless of arguments and statistics.

Yet Socialist Democrats reject the meaning of “shall not be infringed.” For decades, Democrats have sought to erode or eliminate this most fundamental of human and American rights. They couch their assaults in terms like “public safety” and “commonsense gun control,” insisting that no one needs certain types of weapons for hunting and sport shooting. Untrue, but irrelevant. The Second Amendment has nothing to do with hunting and everything to do with providing a firm check against the rise of tyrannical government.

In 1787, Thomas Jefferson warned of the dangers of conspiring men and asked, “What country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. … The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.”

Is it any surprise the state seal for Virginia is an image of a robed Virtus (Virtue) standing, spear in hand, over the body of Tyranny? The state motto is “sic semper tyrannis,” meaning “thus always to tyrants.”

Jefferson was a native of Virginia, and it seems many of his fellow Virginians still have the fire of Liberty, and resistance to tyranny, burning in their breasts, judging by the 22,000 gun owners protesting at the state capitol recently. Or the fact that 141 counties and cities have declared themselves “gun sanctuaries.”

After the announcement of the proposed gun-control laws, Virginia gun sales nearly doubled, with nearly 70,000 gun background checks in a single month. Gun owners continue to show up at rallies, chanting “We will not comply!”

Gun owners are by nature peaceful and law-abiding. They seek peace, but are prepared to defend themselves and their families, whether from armed intruders or a tyrannical government. That is a fact that Democrat Gov. Ralph Northam and the Democrats in the state legislature would do well to remember.

No peak in sight as China reports 5,000 new coronavirus cases

BEIJING/SIHANOUKVILLE, Cambodia (Reuters) – China’s coronavirus outbreak showed no sign of peaking with health authorities on Friday reporting more than 5,000 new cases, while passengers on a cruise ship blocked from five countries due to virus fears finally disembarked in Cambodia.

Policymakers pledged to do more to stimulate Asian economies hit hard by the virus, helping Asia stock markets edge higher, with Chinese shares headed for their first weekly gain in four.

In its latest update, China’s National Health Commission said it had recorded 121 new deaths and 5,090 new coronavirus cases on the mainland on Feb. 13, taking the accumulated total infected to 63,851 people.

Some 55,748 people are currently undergoing treatment, while 1,380 people have died of the flu-like virus that emerged in Hubei province’s capital, Wuhan, in December. The latest toll takes account of some deaths that had been double counted in Hubei, the health commission said.

The new figures give no indication the outbreak is nearing a peak, said Adam Kamradt-Scott, an infectious diseases expert at the Centre for International Security Studies at the University of Sydney.

“Based on the current trend in confirmed cases, this appears to be a clear indication that while the Chinese authorities are doing their best to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, the fairly drastic measures they have implemented to date would appear to have been too little, too late,” he said.

Chinese scientists are testing two antiviral drugs and preliminary results are weeks away.

The head of a hospital in Wuhan, a city under virtual lockdown to prevent the spread of the virus, told reporters on Thursday that plasma infusions from recovered patients had shown some encouraging preliminary results.

Japan confirmed its first coronavirus death on Thursday – a woman in her 80s living in Kanagawa prefecture near Tokyo. The death was the third outside mainland China, after two others in Hong Kong and the Philippines…………

Chicago Girl Scouts cash in on cannabis legalization, sell cookies outside dispensary.

Munchies? Girl Scouts perform their “good deed” for the day.

Well, they’re certainly entrepreneurial.

An industrious group of Girl Scouts sold hundreds of boxes of their signature cookies after setting up shop outside of a Chicago cannabis dispensary over the weekend.

In January, the state of Illinois rang in the New Year on a high note, legalizing the sale of recreational marijuana. On Sunday, youngsters from a local Girl Scout troop cashed in by peddling their famous cookies outside Dispensary33 in the Andersonville neighborhood, reportedly charming customers and employees alike.

“The cookies they’re selling and our clientele, it’s a great match,” Abigail Watkins, marketing and outreach manager for the dispensary, told Book Club Chicago, a local news organization. “As a former Girl Scout, I admire the hustle.”

According to Melissa Soukoup, a leader of a local Brownie Girl Scout troop that sold at the weed shop, many businesses were already reserved for the ever-popular cookie sales by competing troops.

Evacuee at Lackland Air Force Base is 15th virus case in US

NEW YORK — U.S. officials on Thursday announced the country’s 15th confirmed case of the new coronavirus — an evacuee from China who had been under quarantine in Texas.

The patient, who had been flown to Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio last week, is now in isolation at a hospital and was reported in stable condition. The infection was confirmed through a Wednesday night lab test, making the person the first coronavirus patient in Texas.

“There may be additional cases we identify. I do want to prepare you for that,” said Dr. Jennifer McQuiston, deputy director of the Centers for Disease Control’s division of high consequence pathogens and pathology.

Two earlier U.S. cases were found among evacuees flown to Marine Corps Air Station Miramar in Southern California.

Hundreds of people, including U.S. State Department employees and their families, were brought to military bases in Texas, California and Nebraska aboard chartered flights from Wuhan, a city of 11 million that is at the center of the outbreak.

There are 57 evacuees being held in quarantine at the Nebraska National Guard’s Camp Ashland southwest of Omaha, Nebraska, none of whom have shown any signs of the virus, Nebraska Medicine spokesman Taylor Wilson said. He said the Omaha hospital prepared to treat any of the evacuees if needed.

Convenience Stores, where crooks can go to conveniently get shot

Suspect shot during armed robbery attempt outside gas station

FORT WAYNE, Ind. (WANE) – The Fort Wayne Police Department is investigating an attempted armed robbery that ended with the suspect getting shot.

Officers responded to the Sunoco gas station at 1416 Oxford St. around 11:30 p.m. Wednesday.

According to an FWPD lieutenant at the scene, witnesses told police a group of people walked out of the convenience store and got in a car at one of the pumps.

That’s when a man wearing a mask apparently walked up to the car, pulled out a handgun, and tried to rob them at gunpoint.

While that was happening, another man with the group walked out of the store and saw what was unfolding. He pulled out a gun and exchanged fire with the robbery suspect.

The suspect and some of the victims then ran from the scene.

As police searched the area, they found the suspect about a block away with a handgun and a face mask nearby. Police said he was suffering from a gunshot wound.

Medics took the injured suspect to a hospital, but doctors determined his injuries were not life-threatening.

Police also eventually found all of the robbery victims that left the scene. Detectives took them to the police station to interview them about the incident.

During their search for more evidence around the area, officers found multiple guns in various places. It’s still not clear whom they belonged to, and police said it was too early to say what other charges, if any, may result from the situation.

The robbery suspect is being guarded at the hospital and will likely be charged with armed robbery once he is discharged from the hospital, according to a lieutenant at the scene.

One woman who lives across the street from the gas station where the shooting happened said bullets came into her apartment during the incident, but they didn’t hit anyone.

Nobody besides the robbery suspect reported any serious injuries.

Detectives interviewed victims and witnesses, and also planned to review security video at the scene to learn more about the incident and confirm the details of what happened.

Man shot, critically wounded by security guard at Garfield Park liquor store

CHICAGO – A man was critically wounded after being shot by a liquor store’s security guard Wednesday in Garfield Park on the West Side.

The man, 28, got into an argument with the guard about 11:30 p.m. inside Madison Food, Wine and Spirits, 3900 W. Madison St., Chicago police said. When the argument turned physical, the guard shot him in the leg and back.

The man was taken to Stroger Hospital in critical condition, police said. The guard was taken in for questioning.

Area North detectives are investigating.

On Point: Fix the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, and Punish the Crooks Who Abused It

Two months have passed since Dec. 9, 2019, the day Justice Department inspector general Michael Horowitz exposed the profound damage done to a judicial institution vital to successfully defending America in a world of complex threats: the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, or FISC.

The damage done to American public trust in the court is not incidental. Trust is a source of strength, among friends or in the world’s most powerful nation. Trust promotes cooperation, which enhances systemic strength. When trust disappears, expect discord seeding division and weakness.

The FISC was created to protect a citizen’s constitutional rights while permitting intelligence community surveillance of legitimate suspects. To protect necessary cloak-and-dagger secrets, the FISC meets in secret. A secret court in a free society requires two things: (1) legitimate existential threats to citizens and assets: (2) trust in security agency professionalism and integrity, and trust in the judgment of the court judges.

Unfortunately, the abuse of the FISC by corrupt members of U.S. security and legal agencies — specifically within the FBI and DOJ — may have squandered that trust forever. Evidence is emerging that other corrupt actors, perhaps in the CIA, conducted illegal surveillance.

With the documented abuse acknowledged, America needs an FISC-type legal tool to combat covert threats like terrorism, transnational crime and enemy espionage. Twenty-first-century digital and financial connectivity, and commercial jet transportation, reduce police and Pentagon response time.

A FISC with integrity must also protect an American citizen’s constitutional rights from crooks and crony government. Horowitz discovered premeditated fraud on the FISC by a DOJ attorney. In 2016, the attorney “altered” email from “the other U.S. government agency” (CIA) and submitted a fraudulent application for a warrant to the court. So the FISC approved the warrant.

The target: Carter Page, a Naval Academy graduate and a former Trump presidential campaign associate. Spying on Page — an innocent man — opened a door to spying on President Donald Trump.

Following Horowitz’s report, the FISC’s then-presiding judge, Rosemary Collyer, issued a public order regarding the Page application and the FBI’s lack of “candor”: “The frequency with which representations made by FBI personnel turned out to be unsupported or contradicted by information in their possession, and with which they withheld information detrimental to their case, calls into question whether information contained in other FBI applications is reliable. The FISC expects the government to provide complete and accurate information in every filing with the Court.”

Collyer should chastise herself as well. She and her colleagues failed to responsibly question the application. The FBI alleges a Naval Academy grad associated with a presidential campaign in an election year is a Russian asset? Judge, wake the hell up. Page was actually a CIA asset.

Trump administration Attorney General William Barr knows the court is a national security asset and wants to save it. On Feb. 6, he put his personal reputation on the line and issued a memo requiring the FBI to have him sign off on FISC applications. Harvard Law School professor Alan Dershowitz pegs the FISC’s structural weakness: Alleged perpetrators have no defender. So assign a lawyer to question government evidence.

To restore public trust, the individuals who abused the court must be investigated, arrested, tried, convicted and sent to prison. They committed an array of crimes — including criminal mishandling of classified material. The FISC is a classified court.

In the past, the public expected responsible reporters to scrutinize government operations. In the FISC saga, contemporary mainstream media served as a PR tool for crooked cops and spies. So-called elite press outfits like The New York Times and The Washington Post unquestioningly touted intelligence leaks that have proven to be false.

Though mainstream media outlets take scant notice, angry calls to disband the court have not faded. The decibels will increase when federal prosecutor John Durham’s investigation into the origins of the Russia collusion hoax becomes headline news.

I wager Durham will expose crony government at its worst — dirty government officials, bureaucrats and agents who are politically exploiting and criminally manipulating the U.S. national security structure to harm their political opponents.

We shall see.

 

Majority of Americans would vote against socialist candidate for president

Americans are not happy with the prospect of a socialist candidate like Bernie Sanders for president, a new poll finds.

A majority of US residents — 53 percent — said they would vote against a socialist candidate for president, the Gallup poll released Tuesday reveals. Meanwhile, only 45 percent of respondents in the poll said they would vote for a socialist.

In fact, socialism was the only category in the poll rejected by a majority of Americans.

For example, 60 percent of Americans said they would vote for an atheist while 38 percent said they wouldn’t. And more than nine in 10 Americans said they would vote for a presidential candidate nominated by their party who is black, Catholic, Hispanic, Jewish or a woman.

The findings come as Sanders (I-Vt.) — a self-described Democratic socialist — is a top-tier candidate vying to win the Democratic nomination for president. He was leading in polls to win Tuesday’s New Hampshire primary and has surged ahead of Joe Biden in national polls.

There is a political divide over the socialist candidate question, however.

For example, 82 percent of Republicans said they wouldn’t vote for a socialist while just 17 percent said they would. By comparison, 76 percent of Democrats said they would vote for a socialist, while 21 percent wouldn’t.

Significantly, only 45 percent of key swing-state voters — self-described independents — would vote for a socialist while 51 percent said they would not.

 

Why scientists are encouraging people to drink more coffee

Coffee, just what can’t it do?

The promise of strong bones meant something very different to us as children. We thought obtaining the physique of our favorite superhero was as simple as drinking as much milk as possible. Turns out, we were wrong about the prize and the best way to achieve it.

According to a new study published in The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, there is a robust association between habitual coffee consumption and the prevention of bone fracturing later in life and the development of metabolic illnesses. In other words, more coffee for everyone!

Coffee, coffee, coffee

“Inconsistent associations between coffee consumption and bone mineral density (BMD) have been observed in epidemiological studies. Moreover, the relationship of bioactive components in coffee with BMD has not been studied. The aim of the current study is to identify coffee-associated metabolites and evaluate their association with BMD,” the authors wrote in the report.

In actuality, bone strength refers to mineral density. The amount of minerals present in bone tissue is a strong correlate of several metabolic bone diseases, including osteoporosis, rickets, osteomalacia, osteogenesis imperfecta, and fibrous dysplasia.

For many years research has been suppressed by a long-standing (and anecdotal) assumption that caffeine poses a negative effect on calcium absorption. Scholarly inspection concluded this impact to be a fractional one.

“There is no evidence that caffeine has any harmful effect on bone status or on the calcium economy in individuals who ingest the currently recommended daily allowances of calcium.” celebrated osteology expert,  Dr. Robert Heaney wrote back in 2002.

Coffee Consumption and its Association with Bone Mineral Density

The Hong Kong University researchers began their analysis with 564  healthy community-dwelling adults previously involved in an osteoporosis study from a few years back. The participants were tasked with documenting the frequency of their coffee consumption in the followup examination logged in November of last year.

Twelve serum metabolites important to bone mineral density were significantly more concentrated among regular coffee drinkers—three molecules (quinate, 3-hydroxypyridine sulfate, and trigonelline) evidenced particular relevance to the study’s premise.

“Among these metabolites, 11 known metabolites were previously identified to be associated with coffee intake and 6 of them were related to caffeine metabolism. Habitual coffee intake was positively and significantly associated with BMD at the lumbar spine and femoral neck,” the authors continued.

The health benefits linked to coffee consumption are almost all preventive in nature. The abundance of anti-oxidants contained in a single serving effectively disarms free-radicals which in turn delays many of the physical markers of the ageing process. These very same agents have been confirmed to be instrumental measures against cavities, diabetes, cirrhosis of the liver and various forms of cancer.

A study conducted back in 2018 that used mouse models determined that drinking four shots of espresso a day boosts heart health by reinvigorating important proteins and cardiovascular cells.

“For all those folks who drink lots of coffee and are concerned about the health effects of coffee, this is good news,” Cleveland Clinic’s Dr. Chad Deal, who was not directly involved in the study, said in a press release. “It appears to show that coffee is, in general, probably good for bone health.”