Soon, this blog will be illegal.

No, I’m not selling drugs or peddling child pornography. I write about America’s wars and the primary objective of those illegal and immoral wars—to make Israel the hegemon of the Middle East along with Saudi Arabia. All US foreign policy in that region centers on those two nations.

The following may soon be classified as hate speech and antisemitism (as increasingly criticism of the Jewish state and its Zionist political ideology are considered crimes).

Trump took the baton from Obama after he told us he wasn’t into “nation-building” and was a populist “America First” noninterventionist. The American people were lied to again, but then this is now normal behavior.

Such criticism of Israel will soon be illegal. Democrats and Republicans are working together to make criticism of Israel a criminal offense. .

The San Diego County District Attorney has a new tactic aimed at locking in prison terms in plea-bargained cases, by requiring defendants to give up any rights they may have in the future to seek a lower sentence if the Legislature or the courts change the law under which they were sent to prison.

The move comes after years of criminal justice reform measures, passed both by voters through statewide propositions and by lawmakers in Sacramento, that have lessened potential sentences for some crimes, downgraded other crimes from felonies to misdemeanors and opened a way for people in prison to go to court and get lower sentences based on newly-adopted changes to the law.

Now, in some cases, prosecutors in San Diego will require defendants to agree that a sentence imposed as part of a plea bargain will remain forever. Under the terms of the waiver, defendants will be barred from pursuing any new benefits that may be available to them in the future.

SOURCE: BUSINESSINSIDER.COM
Facebook harvested the email contacts of 1.5 million users without their knowledge or consent when they opened their accounts.

Since May 2016, the social-networking company has collected the contact lists of 1.5 million users new to the social network, Business Insider can reveal. The Silicon Valley company said the contact data was "unintentionally uploaded to Facebook," and it is now deleting them.

The revelation comes after pseudononymous security researcher e-sushi noticed that Facebook was asking some users to enter their email passwords when they signed up for new accounts to verify their identities, a move widely condemned by security experts. Business Insider then discovered that if you entered your email password, a message popped up saying it was "importing" your contacts without asking for permission first.

Hours after the ejection of Julian Assange from the London Ecuadorean embassy last week, police officers in Ecuador detained the Swedish citizen and open source developer Ola Bini. They seized him as he prepared to travel from his home in Quito to Japan, claiming that he was attempting to flee the country in the wake of Assange’s arrest. Bini had, in fact, booked the vacation long ago, and had publicly mentioned it on his Twitter account before Assange was arrested.

Ola’s detention was full of irregularities, as documented by his lawyers. His warrant was for a “Russian hacker” (Bini is neither); he was not read his rights, allowed to contact his lawyer nor offered a translator.

North Korea is flexing its muscles. On Thursday, the nation announced that it had test-launched a new “tactical guided weapon” — but kept the details vague.

The weapon is unlikely to be a long-range ballistic missile that could jeopardize peace talks, according to the Associated Press. Rather, given the fact that the announcement came with new demands for ongoing negotiations with the U.S., the tests were likely intended as a display of military strength.

Guessing Game
South Korean experts suspect that the new weapon was some sort of cruise missile, per the AP‘s attempt to learn more. Had the weapon been a longer-range missile that could pose a threat to the U.S. or other nations, then North Korea may have put at risk its ongoing effort to lift sanctions that other countries have imposed on it.

The NXIVM sex cult is facing allegations that it illegally bundled campaign donations to gain political favor with an unnamed US presidential election candidate and reports suggest that the politician is Hillary Clinton.
United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York Richard Donoghue asked a federal judge to introduce evidence showing that the defendants in the sex cult case had an “illegal scheme to exceed contribution limits to a presidential primary campaign.”

The court documents claim that witness testimony and documentary evidence will show that at least 14 NXIVM members, including five defendants, made the maximum campaign donation to a candidate, with the “understanding that they would be reimbursed by [Claire] Bronfman or Nancy Salzman,” who were involved in the cult. Salzman is the co-founder along with Keith Raniere.

Sears Holdings Corp sued longtime Chairman Eddie Lampert, his hedge fund ESL Investments, and former directors including Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, accusing them of allowing the retailer to be looted of billions of dollars before its October 2018 bankruptcy.

The lawsuit, made public on Thursday, was filed by the restructuring team winding down what remains of the pre-bankruptcy Sears following Lampert’s $5.2 billion purchase in February of most of its assets.

Sears accused Lampert of ordering the creation of bogus financial plans showing the retailer would turn itself around even as it racked up huge losses, enabling the transfer of five major assets including Land’s End and Sears Hometown Outlet for his benefit.

There’s only been one person – so far – who suffered for the sins of the world and either saved us a lot of trouble or else caused us a lot of unnecessary grief. All I know is that a lot of people are hoping for His return – and for a better outcome.

As for myself, I fully expect a repeat of the previous scenario: the message, the betrayal, the persecution, and a torturous death.

They isolated Julian in the days before they hauled him out for the public display of his martyrdom. No crucifix this time. No crown of thorns. Just a penumbra of the deepest silence, which grips the very air: yet still he remains unbowed, his head held high.

Investigators believe an 'electrical short circuit' was responsible for starting the blaze which devastated Notre Dame cathedral this week.

A French judicial police official said investigators brought in to work out the cause of the inferno made the claims - despite them not having been given access to the church yet for safety reasons.

The official, who spoke anonymously about the ongoing investigation, said the monument is still being consolidated with wooden planks to support some fragile parts of the walls.

Only after it is fully made safe will investigators will be allowed a closer look in order to accurately determine the cause of the fire.

This week, in a stunning turn of events, U.S. congressman Dana Rohrabacher became the first congressman to meet with Julian Assange at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London.

During the private three-hour meeting Assange told Rohrabacher that he will prove that leaked DNC documents, published by WikiLeaks during the 2016 presidential election, did not come from Russia. Then on Thursday, Rohrabacher made a promise to pardon him.

On Thursday, Rohrabacher gave an interview with the Daily Caller in which he noted that Assange couldn’t come to Washington given his current status as a wanted criminal. So, he brought up the notion of pardoning the political prisoner.

Rohrabacher told The Daily Caller in an exclusive interview Thursday that Assange is hoping to leave the Ecuadorian embassy in London where he is currently in asylum, and that during the meeting they explored "what might be necessary to get him out."

Fans of fanatical terrorist group ISIS were happy that a fire partially damaged Notre Dame Cathedral and have made threats on the internet to take down the surviving bell towers.

Al-Muntasir, an ISIS-linked group, posted a photoshopped image of the towers burning with the words “Wait for the next.” When the nearly nine century old church went up in flames, the group posted a picture of the blaze with the caption: “Have a good day.”

Despite this, officials determined the fire was accidental and was not arson or part of a terrorist attack.

A man was taken into custody in New York Wednesday night after entering St. Patrick’s Cathedral carrying two canisters of gasoline, two bottles of lighter fluid and two butane lighters, authorities said.

The 37-year-old man, whose identity will be released once he is formally charged, was stopped by a cathedral security officer, New York City Police said. As the man was turned around, he spilled some gasoline on the floor and walked south onto Fifth Avenue and over to 50th street.

Cathedral security notified two Critical Response Command (CRC) officers-- part of a "striker team"-- outside the cathedral.

Investigators said the man was cooperative but acted evasively and offered police inconsistent answers. He told officers that he was “cutting through the cathedral to get to Madison Avenue” and that "his car ran out of gas," police said. But when police checked the man's minivan, it's gas tank wasn't empty.

The cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris is home to scores of priceless artifacts, artwork and relics collected over the centuries, each with their own story.

As a devastating fire tore through the revered Gothic cathedral on Monday, toppling its spire, many feared these treasures might be lost forever.
A "forest" of wooden latticework fueled the blaze which consumed the building's roof, whose framework dates back to the 13th century, according to Msgr. Patrick Chauvet, the cathedral's rector.
The Paris Fire Brigade tweeted that the cathedral's stone construction has been "saved," as have the "main works of art." As more information emerges, what has been rescued from Notre Dame is becoming apparent.
Yet many details, such as possible water damage from the operation to save the building, are still unclear.

While French authorities investigate what caused the 15 April fire that ravaged the famous Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, one rabbi has speculated that this tragedy might’ve been the work of the divine, the Haaretz newspaper reports.

According to the newspaper, Shlomo Aviner, a rabbi of a West Bank settlement who was born in France, initially refrained from directly calling the blaze a punishment from god, but admitted that it might be possible after he was asked the following question: "So it can't be said that it was punishment?"
"It is possible, after all. The first big Talmud burning was in Paris, there in the plaza of the Notre Dame Cathedral", the rabbi said.

The Florida teen who flew to Colorado and bought a weapon and ammunition there just days before the 20th anniversary of the Columbine tragedy and soon became the subject of a massive manhunt is dead, officials said.

Sol Pais, 18, was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound on Wednesday morning near the Echo Lake Lodge at the base of Mount Evans in Clear Creek County, according to authorities.

The discovery ended a nearly 24-hour manhunt for the high school student after she boarded a Denver-bound flight Monday then made threats, officials said.

“Because of her comments and her actions, because of her travel here to the state, because of her procurement of a weapon immediately upon arriving here, we considered her to be a credible threat — certainly to the community and potentially to schools,” Dean Phillips, FBI special agent in charge of the Denver field office, said at a press conference. “She has had an infatuation with Columbine and the perpetrators of Columbine.”

Julian Assange has been awarded the 2019 European United Left-Nordic Green Left Award for Journalists, Whistleblowers and Defenders of the Right to Information, WikiLeaks informed Tuesday.

The award is given to individuals “uncovering the truth and exposing it to the public” and to honor “individuals or groups who have been intimidated and/or persecuted” for such actions. Thus recognizing Assange’s work through WikiLeaks.

The prize is sponsored by European left-wing parliamentarians, who devised it in 2018 in honor of assassinated Maltese journalist Daphne Galizia. Nobel Peace prize winner (1976), Mairead Maguire, received it on Assange’s behalf at an event in the European Parliament in France.