MSNBC cut away from live coverage of a Bernie Sanders press conference once he began to condemn the controversial Trans-Pacific Partnership.
Social media exploded as a result as viewers felt the break in Monday’s coverage was due to MSNBC’s owner, Comcast, not wanting to air criticism of the TPP because it benefits greatly from the treaty.
Scroll to the 1:40 mark.
“Of the near $16 million Comcast spent lobbying politicians in 2015, $40,000 alone was spent in the first three months of the year targeting the Senate and House of Representatives on issues relating to TPP,” RTreported. “Over an 18-month period between 2013 and 2015, Media Matters found that MSNBC only discussed TPP twice, with the exception of Ed Schultz, who discussed the agreement during 71 broadcasts while he was still hosting The Ed Show for MSNBC.”
Schultz later left MSNBC for RT America.
MSNBC isn’t alone in suppressing TPP coverage; CBS, ABC and NBC also barely mentioned the treaty over an 18-month period despite the TPP’s severe implications on both the U.S. economy and global human trafficking.
For one thing, not long after the White House invited Thailand to join the TPP, the AP reported the country was relying on slave labor to ship shrimp to the U.S.
“For… 16 hours, No. 31 and his wife stood in the factory that owned them with their aching hands in ice water,” the AP revealed. “They ripped the guts, heads, tails and shells off shrimp bound for overseas markets, including grocery stores and all-you-can-eat buffets across the United States.”
“After being sold to the Gig Peeling Factory, they were at the mercy of their Thai bosses, trapped with nearly 100 other Burmese migrants.”
It’s unlikely Thailand’s billion-dollar slave industry would prevent it from joining the TPP considering that President Obama previously removed an anti-slavery provision from the treaty and also allowed Vietnam to join the partnership despite its flourishing slave trade.
During his National Governors Association speech Monday, President Obama joked there was a lot to get done during his final days in office, including “appointing judges.”
“Some of you may be in the final year of your term, working as hard as you can to get as much done as possible for the folks you represent, fixing roads, educating our children, helping people retrain, appointing judges, the usual stuff,” the president jested, as the crowd in attendance burst into laughter.
Last week, the president was criticized after it was announced he would not be attending the funeral of Associate Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.
Obama was further lambasted when it was reported he spent less than two minutes paying his respects to Justice Scalia during the Saturday service at the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C.
HARNEY COUNTY, Ore. (INTELLIHUB) — It looks as the story has now taken a twist, after Shawna Cox, a witness to LaVoy Finicum’s death, came forth, exposing the fact that she filmed the entire event on video, which was soon after confiscated by the FBI.
Moreover, in a bombshell statement, Cox also said she feels the reason they were ambushed by authorities was because they had “many documents” in their possession which show the illegalities of area land grabs, such as the Hammond case, conducted by federal agencies.
According to Cox, Ryan Panye, LaVoy Finicum, and at least one other occupant took fire, “multiple shots,” as they approached the roadblock, however, luckily, most, if not all, of the bullets from the initial barrage were deflected, ether by the metal of the truck or the sharp angle of the windows to the direct line of fire.
We were “shot at,” Cox said. They fired at “the passenger side–Ryan Payne.”
“We got fired upon as soon as he [LaVoy] started around the vehicle–they hit the windows and then we had lasers all over us and the bullets were flying.”
“At the time we turned and headed into the snow, that’s when it [the hail of bullets] started hitting the windshield.”
That’s when LaVoy immediately jumped out of the vehicle into deep snow with his hands raised high above his head.
“There were hundreds of shots [fired].”
Cox described the scene as if it was a war zone.
After Cox was taken into custody the FBI confiscated her camera and its content.
Cox said she “did not see any weapons” when they were on there way to the meeting and said she knows that LaVoy did not have a weapon in his hand.
The group was going to meet a group of people and a constitutional sheriff in a nearby county when they were ambushed.
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - Iran appeared Wednesday to back a plan laid out by four influential oil producers to cap their crude output if others do the same, though it offered no indication that it has any plans to follow suit itself.
The agreement reached in Doha the day before by Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Russia and Venezuela is aimed at stabilizing global oil prices, which recently plunged to less than $30 a barrel, a 13-year low. But Iran is keen to ramp up exports to regain market share now that sanctions related to its nuclear program have been lifted under a landmark agreement.
"Iran supports any measure to boost oil prices," Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh said after talks with his counterparts from Iraq, Venezuela and Qatar.
"The decision taken to freeze the production ceiling of OPEC and non-OPEC members to stabilize and boost prices is also supported by us," he added, in comments posted on the ministry's website late Wednesday.
Iran's envoy to OPEC, Mahdi Asali, had earlier blamed the fall in prices on oversupply, and said it was up to Saudi Arabia and others to cut production. He said the four nations that participated at the Doha gathering could stabilize oil prices on their own -- if they cut their production by 2 million barrels a day.
"These countries increased their production by 4 million barrels when Iran was under sanctions," Asali was quoted as saying by the Shargh daily. "Now it's primarily their responsibility to help restore balance on the market. There is no reason for Iran to do so."
The four countries made their announcement following an unexpected meeting in the Qatari capital that pointedly did not include Iran. They agreed to act only if other producers made similar freezes.
Iran has previously said it hopes to put another 500,000 barrels a day on the market. Figures from the International Energy Agency show it pumped 2.9 million barrels daily in December, before sanctions were lifted.
Iran used to export 2.3 million barrels per day, but its crude exports fell to 1 million in 2012, when sanctions were tightened.
On Tuesday, Iran's oil minister said it had no intention of giving up its share of the market. Zanganeh acknowledged that global markets are "oversupplied," but said Iran "will not overlook its quota," according to comments carried by his ministry's Shana news service.
Even with Iran's cooperation, it was unclear if the Doha plan would be enough to put a floor under prices.
The United Arab Emirates' energy minister, Suhail Mohamed al-Mazrouei, refused on Wednesday to discuss the Doha proposal after giving a keynote address at a Dubai conference in which he mentioned low oil prices only in passing.
"I will only talk about this conference," he said, before smiling and walking away from reporters' shouted questions.
He later took to Twitter to say his country's oil policy "is open to cooperate with all producers toward mutual interest of the market stability and we are optimistic on the future."
Kuwait, another Gulf OPEC member, signaled it was willing to go along with the Doha plan.
Anas al-Saleh, who is Kuwait's deputy premier, finance minister and acting oil minister, said in a statement that his country was committed to the proposal if others join in.
"Kuwait hopes the agreement would provide a positive atmosphere for oil prices, and for the market to regain balance, and calls on all to support stability of markets," he said.
___
Associated Press writers Jon Gambrell and Adam Schreck in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, contributed to this report.
The United States government has demanded that Apple take an unprecedented step which threatens the security of our customers. We oppose this order, which has implications far beyond the legal case at hand.
This moment calls for public discussion, and we want our customers and people around the country to understand what is at stake.
The Need for Encryption
Smartphones, led by iPhone, have become an essential part of our lives. People use them to store an incredible amount of personal information, from our private conversations to our photos, our music, our notes, our calendars and contacts, our financial information and health data, even where we have been and where we are going.
All that information needs to be protected from hackers and criminals who want to access it, steal it, and use it without our knowledge or permission. Customers expect Apple and other technology companies to do everything in our power to protect their personal information, and at Apple we are deeply committed to safeguarding their data.
Compromising the security of our personal information can ultimately put our personal safety at risk. That is why encryption has become so important to all of us.
For many years, we have used encryption to protect our customers’ personal data because we believe it’s the only way to keep their information safe. We have even put that data out of our own reach, because we believe the contents of your iPhone are none of our business.
The San Bernardino Case
We were shocked and outraged by the deadly act of terrorism in San Bernardino last December. We mourn the loss of life and want justice for all those whose lives were affected. The FBI asked us for help in the days following the attack, and we have worked hard to support the government’s efforts to solve this horrible crime. We have no sympathy for terrorists.
When the FBI has requested data that’s in our possession, we have provided it. Apple complies with valid subpoenas and search warrants, as we have in the San Bernardino case. We have also made Apple engineers available to advise the FBI, and we’ve offered our best ideas on a number of investigative options at their disposal.
We have great respect for the professionals at the FBI, and we believe their intentions are good. Up to this point, we have done everything that is both within our power and within the law to help them. But now the U.S. government has asked us for something we simply do not have, and something we consider too dangerous to create. They have asked us to build a backdoor to the iPhone.
Specifically, the FBI wants us to make a new version of the iPhone operating system, circumventing several important security features, and install it on an iPhone recovered during the investigation. In the wrong hands, this software — which does not exist today — would have the potential to unlock any iPhone in someone’s physical possession.
The FBI may use different words to describe this tool, but make no mistake: Building a version of iOS that bypasses security in this way would undeniably create a backdoor. And while the government may argue that its use would be limited to this case, there is no way to guarantee such control.
The Threat to Data Security
Some would argue that building a backdoor for just one iPhone is a simple, clean-cut solution. But it ignores both the basics of digital security and the significance of what the government is demanding in this case.
In today’s digital world, the “key” to an encrypted system is a piece of information that unlocks the data, and it is only as secure as the protections around it. Once the information is known, or a way to bypass the code is revealed, the encryption can be defeated by anyone with that knowledge.
The government suggests this tool could only be used once, on one phone. But that’s simply not true. Once created, the technique could be used over and over again, on any number of devices. In the physical world, it would be the equivalent of a master key, capable of opening hundreds of millions of locks — from restaurants and banks to stores and homes. No reasonable person would find that acceptable.
The government is asking Apple to hack our own users and undermine decades of security advancements that protect our customers — including tens of millions of American citizens — from sophisticated hackers and cybercriminals. The same engineers who built strong encryption into the iPhone to protect our users would, ironically, be ordered to weaken those protections and make our users less safe.
We can find no precedent for an American company being forced to expose its customers to a greater risk of attack. For years, cryptologists and national security experts have been warning against weakening encryption. Doing so would hurt only the well-meaning and law-abiding citizens who rely on companies like Apple to protect their data. Criminals and bad actors will still encrypt, using tools that are readily available to them.
A Dangerous Precedent
Rather than asking for legislative action through Congress, the FBI is proposing an unprecedented use of the All Writs Act of 1789 to justify an expansion of its authority.
The government would have us remove security features and add new capabilities to the operating system, allowing a passcode to be input electronically. This would make it easier to unlock an iPhone by “brute force,” trying thousands or millions of combinations with the speed of a modern computer.
The implications of the government’s demands are chilling. If the government can use the All Writs Act to make it easier to unlock your iPhone, it would have the power to reach into anyone’s device to capture their data. The government could extend this breach of privacy and demand that Apple build surveillance software to intercept your messages, access your health records or financial data, track your location, or even access your phone’s microphone or camera without your knowledge.
Opposing this order is not something we take lightly. We feel we must speak up in the face of what we see as an overreach by the U.S. government.
We are challenging the FBI’s demands with the deepest respect for American democracy and a love of our country. We believe it would be in the best interest of everyone to step back and consider the implications.
While we believe the FBI’s intentions are good, it would be wrong for the government to force us to build a backdoor into our products. And ultimately, we fear that this demand would undermine the very freedoms and liberty our government is meant to protect.
Rumours that Twitter has begun ‘shadowbanning’ politically inconvenient users have been confirmed by a source inside the company, who spoke exclusively to Breitbart Tech. His claim was corroborated by a senior editor at a major publisher.
According to the source, Twitter maintains a ‘whitelist’ of favoured Twitter accounts and a ‘blacklist’ of unfavoured accounts. Accounts on the whitelist are prioritised in search results, even if they’re not the most popular among users. Meanwhile, accounts on the blacklist have their posts hidden from both search results and other users’ timelines.
Our source was backed up by a senior editor at a major digital publisher, who told Breitbart that Twitter told him it deliberately whitelists and blacklists users. He added that he was afraid of the site’s power, noting that his tweets could disappear from users’ timelines if he got on the wrong side of the company.
Shadowbanning, sometimes known as “Stealth Banning” or “Hell Banning,” is commonly used by online community managers to block content posted by spammers. Instead of banning a user directly (which would alert the spammer to their status, prompting them to create a new account), their content is merely hidden from public view.
For site owners, the ideal shadowban is when a user never realizes he’s been shadowbanned.
However, Twitter isn’t merely targeting spammers. For weeks, users have been reporting that tweets from populist conservatives, members of the alternative right, cultural libertarians, and other anti-PC dissidents have disappeared from their timelines.
Among the users complaining of shadowbans are sci-fi author and alt-right figurehead Vox Day, geek culture blogger “Daddy Warpig,” and the popular pro-Trump account Ricky Vaughn. League of Gamers founder and former World of Warcraft team lead Mark Kern, as well as adult actress and anti-censorship activist Mercedes Carrera, have also reported that their tweets are not appearing on the timelines of their followers.
With shadowbans now confirmed by an inside source, there is little room for doubt that the platform is intent on silencing conservatives. Furthermore, it has demonstrated a complete lack of regard for transparency, concealing its shadowbanning system from users and hiding its political bias behind a veneer of opposition to online abuse. (In reality, the site turns a blind eye to abuse from left-wingers.)
Users in search of a transparent, politically unbiased platform will soon have to find — or build — an alternative.
With Turkey on the brink of going to war with Russia and, implicitly, Iran, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is looking for an excuse to invade Syria.
The rebels Turkey and Saudi Arabia back are staging what amounts to a last stand at Aleppo and the Kurdish YPG is moving to cut the Azaz corridor, which would effectively mean that Turkey has no way of resupplying the insurgency.
For the past five days, Ankara has been shelling the YPG in a futile attempt to stop their advance.
The only thing that can save the rebellion against Bashar al-Assad is an outright ground operation by the rebels' Sunni benefactors, including Turkey.
All Erdogan needs is a pretext and he may have just gotten one as reports indicate there's been a huge explosion in Ankara near parliament and at least 5 people are dead.
Early indications are that military barracks were targeted. A "large number of casulaties" are rumored. Expect this to be pinned on either ISIS or the PKK. If it's the latter, Ankara will once again claim that the group is working in concert with the YPG and that will be all the evidence Erdogan needs to march across the border.
EXPLOSION REPORTED IN TURKISH CAPITAL ANKARA, AHABER SAYS
ANKARA EXPLOSION OCCURRED NEAR MILITARY RESIDENCES: OFFICIAL
5 PEOPLE KILLED IN ANKARA BLAST: T24 CITES ANKARA GOVERNOR
ANKARA BLAST WAS SUSPECTED CAR BOMB: CNN-TURK CITES GOVERNOR
A sign indicating radioactive material is shown in Anaheim, California March 17, 2011. REUTERS/LUCY NICHOLSON
Iraq is searching for "highly dangerous" radioactive material stolen last year, according to an environment ministry document and seven security, environmental and provincial officials who fear it could be used as a weapon if acquired by Islamic State.
The material, stored in a protective case the size of a laptop computer, went missing in November from a storage facility near the southern city of Basra belonging to U.S. oilfield services company Weatherford (WFT.N), the document obtained by Reuters showed and officials confirmed.
A spokesman for Iraq's environment ministry said he could not discuss the issue, citing national security concerns. A Weatherford spokesman in Iraq declined to comment, and the company's Houston headquarters did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
The material, which uses gamma rays to test flaws in materials used for oil and gas pipelines in a process called industrial gamma radiography, is owned by Istanbul-based SGS Turkey, according to the document and officials.
An SGS official in Iraq declined to comment and referred Reuters to its Turkish headquarters, which did not respond to phone calls.
The document, dated Nov. 30 and addressed to the ministry's Centre for Prevention of Radiation, describes "the theft of a highly dangerous radioactive source of Ir-192 with highly radioactive activity belonging to SGS from a depot belonging to Weatherford in the Rafidhia area of Basra province".
A senior environment ministry official based in Basra, who declined to be named as he is not authorized to speak publicly, told Reuters the device contained up to 10 grams (0.35 ounces) of Ir-192 "capsules", a radioactive isotope of iridium also used to treat cancer.
The material is classed as a Category 2 radioactive source by the International Atomic Energy Agency, meaning if not managed properly it could cause permanent injury to a person in close proximity to it for minutes or hours, and could be fatal to someone exposed for a period of hours to days.
How harmful exposure can be is determined by a number of factors such as the material's strength and age, which Reuters could not immediately determine. The ministry document said it posed a risk of bodily and environmental harm as well as a national security threat.
DIRTY BOMB FEAR
Large quantities of Ir-192 have gone missing before in the United States, Britain and other countries, stoking fears among security officials that it could be used to make a dirty bomb.
A dirty bomb combines nuclear material with conventional explosives to contaminate an area with radiation, in contrast to a nuclear weapon, which uses nuclear fission to trigger a vastly more powerful blast.
"We are afraid the radioactive element will fall into the hands of Daesh," said a senior security official with knowledge of the theft, using an Arabic acronym for Islamic State.
"They could simply attach it to explosives to make a dirty bomb," said the official, who works at the interior ministry and spoke on condition of anonymity as he is also not authorized to speak publicly.
There was no indication the material had come into the possession of Islamic State, which seized territory in Iraq and Syria in 2014 but does not control areas near Basra.
The security official, based in Baghdad, told Reuters there were no immediate suspects for the theft. But the official said the initial investigation suggested the perpetrators had specific knowledge of the material and the facility: "No broken locks, no smashed doors and no evidence of forced entry," he said.
An operations manager for Iraqi security firm Taiz, which was contracted to protect the facility, declined to comment, citing instructions from Iraqi security authorities.
A spokesman for Basra operations command, responsible for security in Basra province, said army, police and intelligence forces were working "day and night" to locate the material.
The army and police have responsibility for security in the country's south, where Iranian-backed Shi'ite militias and criminal gangs also operate.
POLLUTION RISK
Iraqi forces are battling Islamic State in the country's north and west, backed by a U.S.-led coalition. The militant group has been accused of using chemical weapons on more than one occasion over the past few years.
The closest area fully controlled by Islamic State is more than 500 km (300 miles) north of Basra in the western province of Anbar. The Sunni militants control no territory in the predominantly Shi'ite southern provinces but have claimed bomb attacks there, including one that killed 10 people in October in the district where the Weatherford facility is located.
Besides the risk of a dirty bomb, the radioactive material could cause harm simply by being left exposed in a public place for several days, said David Albright, a physicist and president of the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security.
"If they left it in some crowded place, that would be more of the risk. If they kept it together but without shielding," he said. "Certainly it's not insignificant. You could cause some panic with this. They would want to get this back."
The senior environmental official said authorities were worried that whoever stole the material would mishandle it, leading to radioactive pollution of "catastrophic proportions".
A second senior environment ministry official, also based in Basra, said counter-radiation teams had begun inspecting oil sites, scrap yards and border crossings to locate the device after an emergency task force raised the alarm on Nov. 13.
Two Basra provincial government officials said they were directed on Nov. 25 to coordinate with local hospitals. "We instructed hospitals in Basra to be alert to any burn cases caused by radioactivity and inform security forces immediately," said one.
(Additional reporting by Humeyra Pamuk in Istanbul; Writing by Stephen Kalin; Editing by Pravin Char)
Infowars reporter Joe Biggs is inside the Cibolo Creek Ranch where the mysterious circumstances of Supreme Court Judge Antonin Scalia’s death continue to grow.
Veteran homicide investigators in New York and Washington, DC, on Monday questioned the way local and federal authorities in Texas handled the death of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.
“It’s not unreasonable to ask for an autopsy in this case, particularly knowing who he is,” retired Brooklyn homicide Detective Patricia Tufo told The Post.
“He’s not at home. There are no witnesses to his death, and there was no reported explanation for why a pillow is over his head,” Tufo said. “So I think under the circumstances it’s not unreasonable to request an autopsy. Despite the fact that he has pre-existing ailments and the fact that he’s almost 80 years old, you want to be sure that it’s not something other than natural causes.”
Bill Ritchie, a retired deputy chief and former head of criminal investigations for the DC police, said he was dumbstruck when he learned that no autopsy would be performed.
“I took a look at the report and I almost fell out of my chair,” Ritchie told The Post from his home in Maryland.
“I used to be an instructor in the homicide school. Every death investigation you are handling, you consider it a homicide until the investigation proves otherwise,” Ritchie said.
“How do you know that person wasn’t smothered? How do you know it’s not a homicide until you conduct an investigation? You have to do your job. Once you go through that process, you can conclude that this is a naturally occurring death.”
Presidio County Judge Cinderela Guevara said she declared Scalia dead via telephone based on what cops and marshals at the scene told her — that there were no signs of foul play.
“How in the world can that Texas judge, not even seeing the body, say that this is a heart attack?” Ritchie wondered. “A US marshal can’t tell you. You need a medical professional. If this was Joe Blow, you say OK, 79 years of age, health problems, maybe natural causes. But this is a sitting justice of the Supreme Court!”
Guevara also spoke by phone with Scalia’s physician, who told her Scalia had several chronic medical conditions and had gone to the doctor’s last week for a shoulder problem, reports say.
Scalia’s family did not want an autopsy, she added.
The government has admitted 605 Syrian refugees for resettlement in the United States since last November’s Paris terrorist attack, two of whom are Christians.
The rest are 589 Sunni Muslims, 10 Shia Muslims, three other Muslims, and one refugee identified in State Department Refugee Processing Center data as “other religion.”
At the same time, the proportion of Christians among the total cohort of Syrian refugees admitted into the U.S. since the conflict began five years ago has now dropped below two percent.
Just 55 Christians (1.9 percent) are among the 2,769 Syrian refugees admitted since March 2011, while a large majority – 2,594 (93.6 percent) – has been Sunni Muslims.
Christians accounted for about 10 percent of Syria’s population when the civil war began and Sunni Muslims for an estimated 74 percent.
Christians and other non-Muslim minorities have been targeted specifically by ISIS and other radical groups, and monitoring group estimate that more than 700,000 Christians have fled Syria since then.
Other non-Muslims among the Syrian refugees admitted to the U.S. since the war began include small numbers of Baha’i (2), Yazidis (1), Jehovah’s Witnesses (8), Zoroastrians (6), atheists (3) and Syrians who have self-identified as having no religion (7).
The administration has rejected calls by some Republican lawmakers, andsome GOP presidential candidates, for Syrian Christians to be prioritized in the refugee admission process.
The ISIS terrorist attack in Paris on November 13 fueled concerns that the terrorist group was exploiting the flow of refugees and migrants as cover to send jihadists into the West to carry out attacks.
French authorities said two of the attackers had been carrying fake Syrian passports and warned European Union partners that “some terrorists are trying to get into our countries and commit criminal acts by mixing in with the flow of migrants and refugees.”
Last Tuesday, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper affirmed during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing that ISIS has done so.
“Isn’t it already proven that Mr. Baghdadi is sending people with this flow of refugees that are terrorists that – in order to inflict further attacks on Europe and the United States?” Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) asked him, referring to ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
“That’s correct,” Clapper replied. “That’s one technique they’ve used is taking advantage of the torrent of migrants to insert operatives into that flow.”
In addition, he continued, ISIS has become “pretty skilled at [producing] phony passports, so they can travel ostensibly as legitimate travelers as well.”
In December, House Homeland Security Committee chairman Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas) said the U.S. intelligence community “has identified already individuals tied to terrorist organizations in Syria that want to exploit and get into the United States through the refugee process.”
Bernie Sanders was a bum who didn’t earn a steady paycheck until he was 40 years old. He was a slob who lived in a shack with a dirt floor. He later wrote about masturbation and rape for left-wing rags for $50 a story. The Socialist then wormed his way into politics.
Bernie had his electricity cut off a lot so he’d run an extension cord down to the basement. He couldn’t pay his bills.
And today he’s running for president so he can take your money and redistribute it. Investor’s Business Daily reported:
Sanders spent most of his life as an angry radical and agitator who never accomplished much of anything. And yet now he thinks he deserves the power to run your life and your finances — “We will raise taxes;” he confirmed Monday, “yes, we will.”
One of his first jobs was registering people for food stamps, and it was all downhill from there.
Sanders took his first bride to live in a maple sugar shack with a dirt floor, and she soon left him. Penniless, he went on unemployment. Then he had a child out of wedlock. Desperate, he tried carpentry but could barely sink a nail. “He was a shi**y carpenter,” a friend told Politico Magazine. “His carpentry was not going to support him, and didn’t.”
Then he tried his hand freelancing for leftist rags, writing about “masturbation and rape” and other crudities for $50 a story. He drove around in a rusted-out, Bondo-covered VW bug with no working windshield wipers. Friends said he was “always poor” and his “electricity was turned off a lot.” They described him as a slob who kept a messy apartment — and this is what his friends had to say about him.
The only thing he was good at was talking … non-stop … about socialism and how the rich were ripping everybody off. “The whole quality of life in America is based on greed,” the bitter layabout said. “I believe in the redistribution of wealth in this nation.”
So he tried politics, starting his own socialist party. Four times he ran for Vermont public office, and four times he lost — badly. He never attracted more than single-digit support — even in the People’s Republic of Vermont. In his 1971 bid for U.S. Senate, the local press said the 30-year-old “Sanders describes himself as a carpenter who has worked with ‘disturbed children.’ ” In other words, a real winner.
He finally wormed his way into the Senate in 2006, where he still ranks as one of the poorest members of Congress. Save for a municipal pension, Sanders lists no assets in his name. All the assets provided in his financial disclosure form are his second wife’s. He does, however, have as much as $65,000 in credit-card debt.
Sure, Sanders may not be a hypocrite, but this is nothing to brag about. His worthless background contrasts sharply with the successful careers of other “outsiders” in the race for the White House, including a billionaire developer, a world-renowned neurosurgeon and a Fortune 500 CEO.
The choice in this election is shaping up to be a very clear one. It will likely boil down to a battle between those who create and produce wealth, and those who take it and redistribute it.
MARFA — A first-time guest to the Cibolo Creek Creek Ranch, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia was animated and engaged during dinner Friday night, as one of three dozen invitees to an event that had nothing to do with law or politics, according to the ranch owner.
Just hours later, he would be found dead of apparent natural causes, which media outlets were reporting Sunday was a heart attack.
"He was seated near me and I had a chance to observe him. He was very entertaining. But about 9 p.m. he said, 'it's been a long day and a long week, I want to get some sleep," recalled Houston businessman John Poindexter, who owns the 30,000-acre luxury ranch.
When Poindexter tried to awaken Scalia about 8:30 the next morning, the judge's door was locked and he did not answer. Three hours later, Poindexter returned after an outing, with a friend of Scalia who had come from Washington with him.
"We discovered the judge in bed, a pillow over his head. His bed clothes were unwrinkled," said Poindexter.
"He was lying very restfully. It looked like he had not quite awakened from a nap," he said. Scalia,79, did not have a pulse and his body was cold, and after consulting with a doctor at a hospital in Alpine, Poindexter concluded resuscitation would have been futile, He then contacted federal authorities, at first encountering a series of answering services because he was calling on a weekend.
"Ultimately they became available and handled it t superbly. They flew in by helicopter. They told me to secure the ranch, which I did until this morning," he said.
Scalia was just the latest newsworthy guest to visit the celebrity hideaway that covers 30,000 acres near the Chinati Mountains. Mick Jagger, Julia Roberts and Tommy Lee Jones have also partaken of its scenic vistas and luxury accomodations.
Established in 1857 by Milton Faver, known as the first Texas cattle baron west of the Pecos, the ranch retains 19th Century constructions, including "El Fortin de Cibolo," a primitive fort designed to protect settlers from Apaches.
In a special guest package offered last month, rooms went for $545 to $565 a night for two people, with a meal package and ranch tour included. Other activities include hiking, horseback riding, bird-watching and ATV tours.
Scalia, who was scheduled to return to Washington on Sunday, had little time to avail himself of the ranch's offerings. Poindexter said he had only met Scalia once before briefly, in Washington. Scalia came to the ranch because he was friends another guest. Poindexter said he knew the other guests.
"All the guests were friends of mine, I paid for all of them. There were no politics, no jurisprudence in the slightest," he said.
"This was strictly a group of friends that the judge decided to join. He was coming with his son who had to drop out for reasons I don't' know.
"It was an honor to have him. He was widely admired. There were no speeches. He wasn't asked any hard questions, it was all about the outdoors and Texas, and what it's like to being a Supreme Court Justice," he said.
Scalia's personal financial disclosures show no previous trips to the ranch. The disclosures, posted on OpenSecrets.Org show that the justice made several trips to Texas since 2005 to speak at colleges and universities, including St. Mary's University in 2008.
Poindexter, 71, said Scalia's sudden death was both a "personal tragedy" for those at the ranch, and for the nation.
"All of us here saw him as a stalwart defender of our way of life in Texas, in a real sense," he said. "It's a great loss. Having made that statement, if it was his time to go, he was surrounded by friends, in fairly nice setting, with a full tummy too. He said he was very happy to be invited so it could have been in worse circumstances," he said.
"It's caused all of us here to stop and think about life, how precious it is, and how it is so unexpectedly lost," he added.
The body of the Supreme Court justice was moved to an El Paso funeral home early Sunday. The body was driven from Marfa and arrived around 2:30 a.m. at Sunset Funeral Homes, according to spokesman Chris Lujan.
Lujan said the funeral home was chosen by family of the justice, and at the advice of a family friend.
The El Paso County medical examiner's office said they hadn't received any information regarding the possibility of performing an autopsy.
Staff Writer David Saleh Rauf contributed to this report
Democrat socialist Bernie Sanders’ campaign has evidently roused the satanic electorate.
In a highly popular pro-Sanders meme group created on Facebook, a post with an image stating, “Satanists for Bernie 2016,” has received over 1,100 likes and over 200 shares.
Several members of the Bernie Sanders’ Dark Meme Stash cautioned the image looks bad for the campaign and asked for it to be removed.
But many, many others embraced the supposed endorsement.
While the image’s creator is unknown, it is discussed in the comments that the Church of Satan, a central hub of satanic worship, has not officially endorsed any candidate for president.
Another group entitled the Satanic Communist Party, boasting over 2,000 members, also appears to lean pro-Bernie.
While supporters attempt to distance Sanders’ brand of socialism from Communism, revolutionaries instrumental in shaping the ideology, in particular Vladimir Lenin, have openly admitted, “The goal of socialism is Communism.”
In a 1986 book entitled Marx & Satan, author Richard Wumbrand, who was imprisoned for 14 years by the Communist government of Romania for espousing Christian beliefs, demonstrates through direct quotes that the man credited as the father of Communism crafted the ideology with inspiration from the powers of darkness and with the intent to destroy religion.
“The good of the workers was only a pretense. Where proletarians do not fight for Socialist ideals, Marxists will exploit racial differences or the so-called generation gap. The main thing is, religion must be destroyed,” wrote Wumbrand.
“Marx believed in hell. And his program, the driving force in his life, was to send men to hell.”
CIA director John Brennan testifies before the Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on worldwide threats to America and its allies, in Washington, DC on February 9, 2016 (AFP Photo/Molly Riley)
Washington (AFP) - CIA director John Brennan has said that Islamic State fighters have used chemical weapons and have the capability to make small quantities of chlorine and mustard gas, CBS News reported.
"We have a number of instances where ISIL has used chemical munitions on the battlefield," Brennan told CBS News, which released excerpts of an interview to air in full on the "60 Minutes" news program on Sunday.
The network added that he told "60 Minutes" the CIA believes that the IS group has the ability to make small amounts of mustard or chlorine gas for weapons.
"There are reports that ISIS has access to chemical precursors and munitions that they can use," Brennan said.
Brennan also warned of the possibility that the Islamic State group could seek to export the weapons to the West for financial gain.
"I think there's always the potential for that. This is why it's so important to cut off the various transportation routes and smuggling routes that they have used," he said.
When asked if there were "American assets on the ground" searching for possible chemical weapons caches or labs, Brennan replied: "US intelligence is actively involved in being a part of the efforts to destroy ISIL and to get as much insight into what they have on the ground inside of Syria and Iraq."
- 'Toxic chemicals in Iraq, Syria' -
The release of the interview excerpts comes two days after similar comments from spy chief James Clapper before a congressional committee.
"ISIL has also used toxic chemicals in Iraq and Syria, including the blister agent sulfur mustard," Clapper, the director of national intelligence, told lawmakers on Tuesday.
He said it was the first time an extremist group had produced and used a chemical warfare agent in an attack since Japan's Aum Supreme Truth cult carried out a deadly sarin attack during rush hour in the Tokyo subway in 1995.
President Bashar al-Assad's regime and rebel forces have accused each other of using chemical agents in the nearly five-year war that has killed more than 250,000 people.
After an August 2013 sarin attack outside Damascus that much of the international community blamed on Assad's government, the regime agreed to turn over its chemical arsenal.
The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) -- which oversaw the dangerous removal and elimination of Syria's avowed stockpile -- now says that declared arsenal has been completely destroyed.
But the global arms watchdog has still warned of the continued use of mustard, sarin and chlorine gas in the conflict, without blaming the regime, the rebels or the IS group for use of the weapons, which are banned under international law.
Last year, officials in the autonomous Iraqi region of Kurdistan said blood tests had shown that IS fighters used mustard agent in an attack on Kurdish peshmerga forces in August.
Thirty-five peshmerga fighters were exposed and some taken abroad for treatment, officials said.
At the time of the attack, The Wall Street Journal cited US officials as saying they believed IS had used mustard agent.
The federal government is seeking to create a new bureaucracy that would intervene in family life and could even see state-appointed monitors conduct routine home visits to assess a child’s well-being.
The U.S. Department of Education and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has published a draft document which outlines a plan that will treat families as “equal partners” in the raising of children, opening the door for government intrusion at all levels.
The paper describes how government employees will intervene to provide, “monitoring goals for the children at home and the classroom,” and that if parents are failing to meet the standards set, “evidence-based parenting interventions” will be made to, “ensure that children’s social-emotional and behavioral needs are met.”
The document reveals how the state will help oversee, “constant monitoring and communication regarding children’s social-emotional and behavioral health.”
The program bears the hallmarks of a controversial scheme in Scotland, set to take effect later this year, under which a “shadow parent” appointed by the government would monitor the upbringing of every child until the age of 18.
“The document argues that Big Brother needs to know about essentially everything, for the supposed benefit of the child it wants to “partner” in caring for,” writes Alex Newman. “Citing “research,” the policy statement claims that “the institutions where children learn cannot ignore family wellness if they want to … fulfill their mission to prepare children for school and academic success.” In other words, every aspect of family life is now fair game under the pretext of checking “family wellness.”
The document also extends the understanding of the word “family,” to include, “all the people who play a role in the child’s life,” a definition that could include not only teachers but government monitors.
In a related development, the federal government is pushing for a task force to oversee a program under which pediatricians and doctors would, “screen all students over 12 years old regularly for depression and issue prescriptions or treatment as necessary.”
The program would increase the likelihood of teenagers being given dangerous antidepressant drugs such as Prozac and Lexapro.
The idea of children belonging not just to their parents but to a “community” that involves the state is a common theme of collectivist thinking.
That notion was promoted in the video below from 2013 featuring MSNBC host Melissa Harris-Perry, in which she asserted, “We have to break through our private idea that kids belong to their parents or kids belong to their families.”
The University of Texas at Austin police department issued a disorderly conduct citation to an outdoor preacher on Tuesday after students complained that his message had offended them.
The preacher, who was standing just off campus, recorded his interaction with several university police officers, who explained that it was illegal for him to offend the students.
The preacher was an intern with Campus Ministry USA, an evangelical ministry organization that travels around college campuses loudly preaching their message. The ministry is headed by one Brother Jed Smock, who told The Daily Caller that his intern Joshua “was speaking out against STDs, warning against anal sex.”
The university told TheDC that the officer was responding to students who claimed to be “verbally harassed” by the intern-preacher. The video shows the officer explaining that the intern’s use of “anal” and “penis” offended students, before issuing a citation for disorderly conduct. “After a lawyer representing Joshua called the chief of police, the chief called Joshua and apologized. The citation was withdrawn.” Brother Jed told TheDC.
New York City police have tracked citizens’ cellphones over 1,000 times since 2008 without using warrants, according to public records obtained by the New York Civil Liberties Union.
The organization announced on Thursday that the NYPD has typically used “stingrays” after obtaining lower-level court orders, but not warrants, before using the devices. The department also does not have a policy guiding how police can use the controversial devices. This is the first time that the scope of stingray use by the nation’s largest police agency has been confirmed.
The devices, generically known as stingrays, work by mimicking cell towers and tracking a cellphone’s location at a specific time. Law enforcement agencies can use the technology to track people’s movements through their cellphone use. Stingrays can also detect the phone numbers that a person has been communicating with, according to the NYCLU. The devices allow law enforcement to bypass cellphone carriers, who have provided information to police in the past, and can track data about bystanders in close proximity to the intended target.
Mariko Hirose, the NYCLU attorney who filed the records request, said the records reveal knowledge about NYPD’s stingray use that should have been divulged before police decided to start using them.
Practicing Christians are now a minority in Britain much like the persecuted Roman Catholic minority after the reformation, two senior clerics said yesterday.
The Anglican Bishop of London, Richard Chartres, and the Catholic Archbishop of Westminster, Vincent Cardinal Nichols, said their respective Churches must put aside their differences and recognise their “common agenda” as society becomes increasingly secularised.
The clerics were speaking after a historic meeting at Hampton Court Palace, home of Henry VIII, where the Chapel Royal celebrated Catholic Vespers for the first time in more than 450 years.
The service was designed to highlight the palace’s musical history as it approaches its 500th anniversary.
According to The Telegraph, Cardinal Nichols, who is de facto leader of the Catholic Church in England and Wales, said that after being severely persecuted in previous centuries, Catholics now contribute to British life as a “significant minority”, to which Bishop Chartres replied: “We are all minorities now.”
Cardinal Nichols continued, adding that traditional Christian values that people “used to take for granted” are now widely questioned.
Last month, Breitbart London reported how attendance at Church of England services had dropped below one million per week for the first time ever, with only 1.4 per cent of the population now attending England’s established church.
The figures mark a two-thirds decrease since the 1960s, with Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby warning that Britain is becoming increasingly anti-Christian:
“In some parts of the [Anglican] Communion decline in numbers has been a pattern for many years. In England our numbers have been falling at about one per cent every year since world war two…
“The culture [is] becoming anti-Christian, whether it is on matters of sexual morality, or the care for people at the beginning or the end of life. It is easy to paint a very gloomy picture.”
Not long ago, U.S. jets and Shia militias worked together to battle ISIS. Today, those militias are trying to take down American proxies in Syria.
Iraqi militias who once fought ISIS with U.S. help are now working with Russian and Iranian forces to crush American-backed rebels in the strategic Syrian city of Aleppo, two defense officials have told The Daily Beast.
At least three Shia militias involved in successful battles against ISIS in Iraq—the Badr Brigade, Kata’ib Hezbollah, and the League of the Righteous—have acknowledged taking casualties in fighting in south and southeast Aleppo province. U.S. defense officials confirmed to The Daily Beast that they believe “at least one” unit of the Badr Brigade is fighting in southern Aleppo alongside other Iraqi militia groups. Those groups are backed by Russian airpower and Iranian troops—and all of whom are bolstering President Bashar al Assad’s Syrian Arab Army.
Reports on social media say the Iraqi militias in Syria are armed with U.S. tanks and small arms they procured on the Iraqi side of the border. Those reports could not be independently confirmed.
The presence of militias fighting on behalf of Assad—a dictator that the U.S. has pledged to depose—is yet another reminder of the tangled alliances that the United States must thread as it pursues seemingly contradictory policies in its battles against the self-proclaimed Islamic State. In Iraq, these Shia militias were battling on behalf of the U.S.-backed government. In Syria, they are fighting against an American-supported rebel coalition that includes forces armed by the CIA.
In other words: The forces the U.S. once counted on to take back Iraq’s cities are the same ones the Russians now are counting on to get Aleppo back. And those militias are fighting units of the American-backed Free Syrian Army—including the 16th Division, elements of Jaish al Nasr, and Sultan al Murad—according to Nicholas Heras, a research associate at the Center for a New American Security.
U.S. officials claim not to be alarmed. “On our list of problems, one Badr brigade in Syria is way down there,” one U.S. official explained.
But the role of the Shia militias continues to be controversial. The militias are backed and funded by Iran—Badr, in fact, was created as a branch of the Iranian military. But in Syria, their role is part of the increasingly effective one-two punch of the Russian/Iranian alliance that has given the Syrian government the upper hand in the battle for Aleppo.
U.S. officials agree that without those Iraqi militias, the Syrian Army would be too weak to hold territory on their own.
It is perhaps because of these dynamics that both Russia and the U.S agreed to a “cessation of hostilities” in Syria late Thursday, to begin in one week. Even if Aleppo fell, Assad forces’ hold on the city and the country would be tenuous, at best, and would depend on unending Russian/Iranian support, an unappealing proposition for two states with fragile economies. For the U.S., the deal offered hope for ending uncomfortable alliances that had militias that once served it interests fighting opposition forces it was no longer willing to back militarily.
In the last week, Russia has launched hundreds of punishing, largely indiscriminate strikes in Aleppo. That’s allowed forces loyal to Assad—including the Iraqi militias—to move in and reclaim parts of Aleppo, cutting off the main supply route to the city. According to the Red Cross, at least 50,000 refugees have sought to flee to Turkey since the Russian assault began.
“Without the Russian airstrikes the Shiite militias would not have been as successful,” said Phillip Smyth, a researcher at the University of Maryland who studies Shiite militias. At the same time, “It is clear that Iran is routing as many fighters as possible to Syria, particularly on the Aleppo front.”
To make matters worse for the U.S. effort in Syria, among the opposition groups now losing territory in Aleppo are groups once backed by the United States. Unfortunately, those groups are also intermingled with Jabhat al Nusra, al Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate and a member of the U.S. list of terrorist organizations. The great irony of Aleppo is that U.S. strikes against the Islamic State have the perverse effect of benefiting al Qaeda.
Today Nusra and its allies now are largely fighting back the Russian/Iranian offensive alone.
The fall of Aleppo, Syria’s biggest city, would be a major win for Assad supporters and potentially leave Syria with two major rival forces—ISIS and the Assad regime.
In Iraq, the Shiite militias, known as Popular Mobilization Forces, were key to important wins against the Islamic State in Amiri and Tikrit, former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s hometown. With the help of U.S. airstrikes, the militias were able to claim those cities from ISIS and end the jihadist group’s land grab across Iraq.
Fighting in Syria is a more lucrative undertaking, however. During the battle for the Iraqi cities of Amerli and Tikrit, militia members earned roughly $720 a month, according to Iraqi government officials. In Syria, the militiamen earn as much as $1,500 a month, Smyth said. The pay increase is a powerful incentive to join the battle—as if the appeal to sectarian loyalty were not enough.
U.S. officials are quick to say that they have never directly coordinated with the militias—small wonder, given that the Badr Brigade, for one, targeted hundreds of American troops in Iraq with Iranian-provided explosively formed projectile bombs, one of that war’s deadliest weapons.
But U.S. officials also acknowledged that the pro-Iranian militias benefited from U.S. airstrikes in Amerli and Tikrit, something the militias themselves refused to acknowledge. Only “weak people like the Iraqi army” wanted U.S. help, Haider al Amiri, the head of the Badr Brigade, said of the battle for Tikrit. He publicly celebrated Iranian support.
Either way, the fall of Amerli and Tikrit last year paved the way for the coalition and Iraqi forces to reclaim the city of Ramadi, the biggest prize to be taken back from ISIS so far. That, in turn, allowed the militias to increase their influence over Iraqi security matters.
The U.S. has been notably silent on the role of its erstwhile Iraqi allies in the ongoing battle in Syria, though it no longer predicts that Russia will become bogged down in the conflict as the Russian airstrikes provide the cover needed for the Iranian-backed forces to advance.
The four remaining occupiers of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge surrendered Thursday morning, bringing an end to the standoff on its 41st day.
Jeff Banta, Sean Anderson, Sandy Anderson and David Fry were taken into FBI custody.
Fry was the last to surrender, finally emerging after an extended phone dialogue with supporters who tried for over an hour after the others left to get him to walk out.
By contrast, the surrender of the others appeared to go off as planned.
FBI agents in armored vehicles had moved in Wednesday night on the four still at the refuge, hemming them into their camp and insisting they put down their guns and surrender.
Also Wednesday night, the FBI arrested Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy at Portland International Airport. He faces federal charges related to the 2014 standoff at his ranch. Bundy, 74, was booked into the downtown Multnomah County jail at 10:54 p.m.
His booking mug shot was released Thursday morning by the Multnomah County Sheriff's Office.
Meanwhile, the surreal scene played out across social media.
With the Bundys and the Malheur National Wildlife occupation, America witnessed its first armed occupation in the kinetic, 140-character social-media age.
Updates:
11:46 a.m.: The Bundy family says on Facebook: "They are safe. Thank you God for watching over us. Keep us in your hand and deliver from this present evil," asreactions begin to come in.
11:41 a.m.: The FBI announces it will hold a news conference at 2 p.m. in Burns to discuss law enforcement's next steps.
11:36 a.m.: Gov. Kate Brown speaks about the end of the occupation:
Gov. Kate Brown on the end of the Malheur occupationGov. Kate Brown on the end of the Malheur occupation
11:21 a.m.: The FBI puts out a statement that includes the following from Billy J. Williams, U.S. Attorney, District of Oregon: "The FBI brought three of the remaining Malheur National Wildlife Refuge occupiers into custody without incident. At approximately 11:00 am, agents brought the fourth into custody without incident ... The occupation of the Malheur Wildlife Refuge has been a long and traumatic episode for the citizens of Harney County and the members of the Burns Paiute tribe. It is a time for healing, reconciliation amongst neighbors and friends, and allowing for life to get back to normal. I want to thank our neighbors in eastern Oregon for their patience, resolve, and their kind and welcoming spirit to the many members of federal, county, state, local, and tribal law enforcement who have worked tirelessly to bring this illegal occupation to a conclusion. The fine work of so many dedicated public servants in a difficult endeavor cannot be understated. I am very proud of them all. ... Much work is left to assess the crime scene and damage to the refuge and tribal artifacts. We are committed to seeing the job done and to pursue justice for the crimes committed during the illegal occupation."
11:15 a.m.: William Fry Jr., David Fry's father, texts to an Oregonian/OregonLive reporter: "We are all relieved our prayers were answered."
11 a.m.: Hall begins sobbing after Fry turns himself in. She and Seim then resume the dialogue surrounding their patriotic movement.
As the Oregon standoff holdouts considered their options Thursday for ending the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge occupation by surrender or death, a prominent member of the Tea Party movement emerged as a leading voice on a live broadcast phone call attempting to talk the occupiers into surrendering. KrisAnne Hall, a prominent Tea Party figure who dubs herself a constitutional...
11 a.m.: Authorities say Fry is in custody. The standoff is over.
Gavin Seim's stream on YouTube broke the news that the FBI had surrounded the four remaining armed occupiers at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, providing a real-time view of the tension at the refuge, where the occupiers joined by phone.
10:27 a.m.: Fry says he doesn't care about the movement anymore. That he's doing this for himself.
The last remaining occupier in a 27-year-old from suburban Cincinnati who drove to Oregon while his parents were on vacation in Hawaii.
10:17 a.m.: Fry says he's pointing a gun at his head.
10:11 a.m.: Fry says his biggest fear is being raped in jail.
9:56 a.m.: Three of the four occupiers are in custody of the FBI. Jeff Banta, Sean Anderson and Sandy Anderson each face a federal conspiracy charge for their role in the occupation, joining 12 others already arraigned on that charge.
9:55 a.m.: Fry says he is declaring a one-man war on the U.S. government, saying he wants "liberty or death."
9:51 a.m.: The moderators continue to try to persuade Fry to leave.
9:48 a.m.: Fry says he is feeling suicidal.
9:45 a.m.: David Fry says unless his grievances are heard, he will not come out. The feed moderators, identified as Gavin Seim, who calls himself a constitutional activist, and KrisAnne Hall, a prominent national face of the so-called patriot movement, are encouraging him to follow through and leave the encampment.
9:43 a.m.: Jeff Banta is heading out, according to the feed.
9:40 a.m.: Sandy and Sean Anderson have been arrested, according to the refuge live feed.
9:38 a.m.: Sean Anderson says the occupiers are walking out.
9:34 a.m.: Sean Anderson says on the refuge's live stream that the FBI is telling the four remaining occupiers to come out one at a time.
9:15 a.m.: Blaine Cooper, a member of the core group that took over the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge on Jan. 2, has been arrested, his wife wrote on Facebook on Thursday morning. Cooper's wife, Melissa Cooper, was also among the group occupying the bird sanctuary over the past month. Cooper said Friday that he had not been home since he left the refuge Jan. 26 after learning that Finicum had been killed at a law-enforcement roadblock. A spokeswoman with the FBI in Portland declined to confirm or deny that Cooper had been arrested Thursday morning.
9:03 a.m.: Bundy will make his first appearance in U.S. District Court in Portland at 1:30 p.m. Thursday. Bundy, 74, will appear on federal charges stemming from the 2014 standoff at his ranch in Nevada.
8:40 a.m.: Nevada Assemblywoman Michele Fiore, a high-profile supporter of the Bundy family, said she and Christian evangelist Franklin Graham are traveling to the refuge. Fiore's trip to Oregon is in apparent response to a call from Ammon Bundy, who asked elected officials from across the West to come to the aid of the occupiers.
On her website, Fiore lists job creation, reducing business regulation and taxation and defending Second Amendment rights as among her priorities. She often displays her support for gun rights on social media. Last November, she promoted a 2016 calendar on Twitter that shows her with a firearm for every month of the year.
Follow the latest on Twitter: Oregonian/OregonLive reporters are tweeting updates from Burns:
