CLG News

House holds Barr, Ross in criminal contempt over census documents | 17 July 2019 | The U.S. House of Representatives voted on Wednesday to hold Attorney General William Barr and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross in criminal contempt for defying congressional subpoenas related to the U.S. census. The measure, which passed 230-198, was a response to the cabinet members' failure to produce documents requested by House Democrats...Four Democrats voted against the measure, while no Republicans supported it. Justin Amash, an independent congressman from Michigan who recently left the Republican Party, voted in favor of the resolution.

Ebola spread to east Congo's Goma massively raises risk --"The case in Goma could potentially be a game changer in this epidemic," the WHO director-general said. | 15 July 2019 | Ebola's arrival in eastern Congo's main city of Goma severely raises the risk of the virus spreading if it takes root in this metropolis near the border with Rwanda, the World Health Organization (WHO) warned on Monday. U.N. officials and donors met in Geneva to discuss how to tackle the world's second worst epidemic, which has infected 2,500 people and killed 1,655 in the lush farmlands of eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. A toxic mix of armed militias and a deep-rooted mistrust of health officials by communities have hampered efforts to halt the virus.

US Navy shoots down Iranian drone in Strait of Hormuz - Trump | 18 July 2019 | Shortly after entering the Persian Gulf, a US warship shot down an Iranian drone that had approached to within less than a kilometer, US President Donald Trump said at a White House press event. Amphibious assault ship USS Boxer took "defensive action" against an Iranian drone that approached to within 1,000 yards (900 meters), and ignored multiple calls to stand down, Trump said on Thursday...The Boxer sailed into the Persian Gulf earlier in the day, following the reports that the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps had seized the Panamanian-flagged oil tanker MT Riah and its 12-man crew.

Tech Billionaires and Outsourcing Lobby Finance GOP/Dems' Green Card Giveaway | 14 July 2019 | A handful of tech billionaires, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and the Indian outsourcing lobby are financing a green card giveaway plan that has already passed the House with support from 140 House Republicans and 224 House Democrats [ Deep State sacks of garbage from both parties]. Last week, the majority of House Republicans and Democrats -- led by Rep. Ken Buck (R-CO) and Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) and including House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) and House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) -- voted to approve a green card giveaway for 300,000 Indian workers and allow India to effectively monopolize the U.S. green card system for at least the next ten years. Lobbyists across the big business lobby, multinational tech corporations, the Indian outsourcing lobby, and representing the billionaire Koch brothers are financing the passage of HR. 1044 as all are set to gain hugely.

The lobbying groups include:

U.S. Chamber of Commerce
Koch-funded Americans for Prosperity
Cognizant Technology Solutions
Microsoft Corporation
Facebook Inc.
IBM Corporation
Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HP)

House votes to block Trump's Saudi arms sale | 17 July 2019 | Congress and President Trump are headed for a second veto showdown over Saudi Arabia after the House approved three resolutions Wednesday to block emergency arms sales to the kingdom. Wednesday's votes on the Senate-passed measures send them to Trump's desk, where he is expected to use his veto pen for a third time. The House approved two of the resolutions 238-190 and the third resolution 237-190.

Here are the 95 Democrats who voted to support impeachment | 17 July 2019 | Bucking House Democratic leaders, Rep. Al Green (D-Texas) forced a floor vote Wednesday on whether the chamber go forward with an effort to impeach President Trump, a highly charged topic that has stoked divisions within the caucus. A majority of Democrats, along with the chamber's Republicans, voted to table the measure, while 94 Democrats joined Green in going on record to accuse Trump of inflaming racial tensions...Most Democrats who voted Wednesday to move toward impeachment were liberal lawmakers who had already endorsed the push to launch an impeachment inquiry against the president.

House orders Pentagon to say if it weaponized ticks and released them --The order requires the agency to say if it experimented with insects for use as a biological weapon between 1950 and 1975 | 15 July 2019 | The House quietly voted last week to require the Pentagon inspector general to tell Congress whether the department experimented with weaponizing disease-carrying insects and whether they were released into the public realm --either accidentally or on purpose. [My money's on *the latter.*] The unusual proposal took the form of an amendment that was adopted by voice vote July 11 during House debate on the fiscal 2020 defense authorization bill, which lawmakers passed the following day. The amendment, by New Jersey Republican [hero] Christopher H. Smith, says the inspector general "shall conduct a review of whether the Department of Defense experimented with ticks and other insects regarding use as a biological weapon between the years of 1950 and 1975." [Guess I can't be labeled a 'conspiracy theorist,' going forward.]

Los Angeles, California cities 'overrun by rodents' that pose public health epidemic, study says | 17 July 2019 | An ever-growing number of rodents in California -- particularly in Los Angeles -- is being fueled by a spiking homeless population and restrictions on rodenticides that are risking a public health crisis, according to a study released Tuesday. The report by political action committee Reform California cites recent rodent-related events over the past six months, including an employee at the Los Angeles Police Department contracting Typhus and a rat falling from the ceiling of a Buffalo Wild Wings onto the menu of a patron [LOL!], as proof of an "undeniable problem" in the Golden State.

Field locked in, but stage is still in flux, for Round 2 of Dem debates | 17 July 2019 | The names of the 20 Democratic presidential candidates who will take part in the second round of primary debates is now official. The Democratic National Committee and CNN, its media partner for the consecutive nights of showdowns July 30-31 in Detroit, on Wednesday announced which candidates made the cut...While the lineup is set, however, the stage is not. A random drawing to determine the candidate lineup for each of the two nights of the debates will be conducted on CNN on Thursday evening.

DR Congo Ebola outbreak declared public health emergency | 17 July 2019 | The World Health Organization (WHO) has declared the Ebola crisis in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) a public health emergency of international concern. But it stressed borders should not be closed, adding that the risk of the disease spreading outside the region was not high.The outbreak in the DRC has killed more than 1,600 people. This week, the first case was detected in Goma, home to more than a million.

MH370 had 'mysterious' 200-pound load added to flight list after takeoff - report | 17 July 2019 | Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 had a "mysterious" addition to the flight list after takeoff, according to an engineer whose wife and two children were aboard the ill-fated aircraft when it disappeared in 2014. Ghyslain Wattrelos recently told Le Parisien newspaper that French investigators made the discovery while probing the passengers and baggage reported aboard the airplane. The Boeing 777 carrying 239 people from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing vanished March 8, 2014, and is presumed to have crashed in the far southern Indian Ocean. A safety report into the disaster by an international team last July revealed the plane was likely steered off course deliberately by someone and flown for several hours after communications were severed.

Massive heat wave to affect most of US, some temperatures surpassing 90 degrees | 17 July 2019 | A massive heatwave is expected to roast much of the nation through the weekend. The National Weather Service (NWS) this week warned a "scorching heatwave" is expected to affect roughly two-thirds of the nation starting Wednesday and continuing through the weekend. "About a total of 20 to 30 record highs are possible this Friday and Saturday, from the Front Range of the south-central Rockies to the East Coast," the NWS said on Twitter.

19 MS-13 gang members indicted in 'medieval-style' California slayings were in country illegally, officials say | 17 July 2019 | Nearly all of the members and associates of an MS-13 gang charged in the "medieval-style" slayings of seven people in California were in the country illegally, officials said. The U.S. Attorney's [Nick Hanna] Office in Los Angeles charged 22 people linked to a subset of the vicious gang that's known as the Fulton clique, members of which are suspected in nearly 200 crimes in several states over 9 years, according to a federal indictment released Tuesday. Of the 22 defendants, 19 had entered the country illegally in the past three or four years, according to Thom Mrozek, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's office in Los Angeles.

FBI's spreadsheet puts a stake through the heart of Steele's dossier | 17 July 2019 | (Opinion) Investigators are trying to ascertain what the British intelligence operative [MI6 agent Christopher Steele and his infamous dossier] told the FBI about his sources, his relation to the Democratic Party and Clinton campaign, his hatred for Donald Trump, his Election Day deadline to get his information public and his leaking to media outlets before agents used his dossier to justify a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant to spy on ex-Trump campaign adviser Carter Page. There is evidence Steele told the DOJ in July, and the State Department in October, about all of these flaws in his work, and that State officials even detected blatant inaccuracies in his intelligence. If so, all of that information should have been flagged by the FBI as potentially derogatory information weighing against Steele's use as a source for the FISA warrant. But lest anyone be tempted to think Steele's 2016 dossier is about to be mysteriously revived as credible, consider this: Over months of work, FBI agents painstakingly researched every claim Steele made about Trump's possible collusion with Russia, and assembled their findings into a spreadsheet-like document. The over-under isn't flattering to Steele.

Retired Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens has died at the age of 99 | 16 July 2019 | Retired Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens has died at the age of 99, ABC News has confirmed. "Retired Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, John Paul Stevens, died this evening at Holy Cross Hospital in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, of complications following a stroke he suffered on July 15. He passed away peacefully with his daughters by his side. He was 99 years old," the Supreme Court said in a statement.

Green files articles of impeachment against Trump, setting up floor vote | 16 July 2019 | Rep. Al Green (D-Texas) filed articles of impeachment against President Trump on Tuesday under a process that will force a House floor vote by the end of this week. Green introduced his articles of impeachment after the House passed a resolution largely along party lines condemning Trump for [a controversial tweet]. Green said that the House should go beyond condemning Trump and move to remove him from office.

Trump pledges probe into Google 'treason' claim | 16 July 2019 | President Donald Trump on Tuesday said his administration will look into tech investor Peter Thiel's accusation that Google may be committing treason through its work in China, suggesting he may urge the Justice Department to launch an investigation into the matter. Thiel, a prominent Trump supporter and Facebook board member, on Sunday accused Google of "engag[ing] in the seemingly treasonous decision to work with the Chinese military and not with the US military," according to Axios. Thiel later criticized the company's approach to China as "very peculiar" during a Monday night interview on Fox News.

Dems override House rules to allow Pelosi to refer to Trump's tweets as 'racist' | 16 July 2019 | The House voted along party lines to allow Speaker Nancy Pelosi to call President Donald Trump's tweets about minority Democratic lawmakers "racist" in the Congressional Record on Tuesday, overriding a parliamentary ruling and GOP objections. Pelosi's comments were initially ruled "out of order" on the floor itself, a small victory for the Republicans during a tense day in which both sides exchanged accusations of racism, hypocrisy and indecorous behavior unworthy of Congress or the country.The drama over Pelosi's comments played out before the House voted 240-187 to condemn Trump's weekend tweets about four Democratic members of color -- Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan and Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts. All 235 Democrats were joined by four Republicans and Rep. Justin Amash (I-Mich.) in backing the measure.

Poll: Biden, Sanders and Warren lead 2020 Democrats in New Hampshire | 16 July 2019 | Former Vice President Joe Biden and Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) top the field of Democratic presidential contenders in New Hampshire, according to a poll released Tuesday. The CNN poll, conducted by University of New Hampshire (UNH), found Biden leading the crowded field with 24 percent support in the first-in-the-nation primary state. Sanders and Warren, who both represent states neighboring New Hampshire, are tied at 19 percent support among likely primary voters.

Congressman demands to know if the Pentagon's 'bioweaponized' Lyme disease-carrying ticks were released on purpose: Congress investigating possible secret 'bioweaponization' of insects by the Pentagon | 16 July 2019 | The US Congress has backed an amendment to the 2020 US Defense budget which could force an investigation into allegations that the pentagon had weaponized insects, including ticks, in a secret program. Rep. Christopher Smith (R-New Jersey), co-chair of the House Lyme Disease Caucus, asked a series of hard-hitting questions about the alleged 'bioweaponization' program and its potential side-effects, including the possible spread of a bacterial infection. "Americans have a right to know whether any of this is true," Smith said in a news release. "And have these experiments caused Lyme disease and other tick-borne disease to mutate and to spread? Who ordered it? Were any ticks released by design?" Lawmakers are considering whether or not to include Smith's amendment in the final version of the budget which will ultimately be presented to President Donald Trump. The amendment to the House version of the Defense budget for 2020 would require the Department of Defense Office of the Inspector General to explain whether the US military had indeed experimented with weaponizing ticks and other insects between 1950 and 1975.

New York City Blackout Caused by Power Grid's Protection System Failing --Con Edison says normal protection system didn't isolate a faulty cable | 15 July 2019 | The blackout that plunged a swath of Manhattan in darkness on Saturday evening started with a faulty cable on the Upper West Side, utility officials said Monday. Consolidated Edison Inc. said in a statement that the relay protection system that is supposed to isolate faulty cables failed to shut down a 13,000-volt cable on West 64th Street...After "analyzing the large volumes of data," the utility said it had "identified the issues with the relay protection system." The declaration came after New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo attacked the utility for its handling of Saturday’s blackout, which affected more than 70,000 customers, in a series of media interviews.

Judge reduces Sonoma Co. man's $80 million award from Monsanto to $25 million | 15 July 2019 | A federal judge in San Francisco on Monday reduced an $80 million award levied against Monsanto Co. to $25 million for a Sonoma County man who claimed the company's Roundup weedkiller caused his non-Hodgkins' lymphoma. U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria upheld a jury award of approximately $5 million in compensatory damages to Edwin Hardeman, 70, of Santa Rosa, but said that guidelines in a 2013 Supreme Court decision required him to reduce the jury's $75 million in punitive damages to $20 million.

Trump to require increased use of US steel, iron in federal projects | 15 July 2019 | President Trump will sign an executive order on Monday to require that the bulk of the steel and iron used in federal contracts is sourced from U.S. firms, according to a top trade adviser, the latest move by the White House to bolster domestic commodity producers. The action is slated to mandate that 95 percent of steel and iron used for government projects is provided by American firms, the White House's Peter Navarro told FOX News on Monday, an increase from the existing threshold of 50 percent.

US lawmaker who oversees Puerto Rico calls for governor to resign after 6 arrested on corruption charges | 11 July 2019 | The Democratic lawmaker who chairs the House committee that oversees Puerto Rico called on the island's governor to step down after six people, including Puerto Rico's former secretary of education, were arrested Wednesday on federal fraud charges. Former Education Secretary Julia Keleher and Ángela Ávila-Marrero, former head of Puerto Rico's Health Insurance Administration, were arrested on 32 counts of fraud, theft and money laundering, along with two businessmen and two sisters who worked as education contractors. In the indictment, prosecutors allege that Keleher steered government contracts "through a corrupt bidding process" to an unqualified firm run by Glenda Ponce-Mendoza and Mayra Ponce-Mendoza, with whom she had a "close relationship."

Welcome to Social Government | 15 July 2019 | Each day we wake up and see the latest way conservative [and, anti Deep-State] voices are being censored, shadowbanned, silently deleted, hidden from view, buried in searches, algorithmed out of existence. ...Big Tech companies absolutely are controlling our speech...They cannot stop speech at the government level, it would never get past the Constitutional review. But private companies do not need to abide by the Constitution. As our lives become digital conduits that flow through private companies, they have congregated at the helms of these companies, silencing the right starting with the fringe and working their way in as far as they possibly can.

Con Ed can't explain what caused the Manhattan blackout | 14 July 2019 | Con Edison has yet to figure out why a large swath of Manhattan's West Side was plunged into darkness by the blackout that lasted more than five hours on Saturday night. In a statement released late Sunday morning, the power company said it "will be conducting a diligent and vigorous investigation to determine the root cause of the incident." Con Ed spokesman Alfonso Quiroz blamed the blackout on a "disruption on the transmission side" of the company's power grid. Officials initially suspected a manhole fire that affected an underground transformer, but Quiroz said there's "no evidence of a fire at this point."

Appellate Court rejects Sandy Hook parents' lawsuit against Newtown; families plan appeal to Supreme Court | 12 July 2019 | (CT) The state Appellate Court Friday affirmed a lower court's decision to throw out a lawsuit against the town of Newtown and its school district by the parents of two children [allegedly] killed in the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings on the grounds of government immunity. The lawsuit, brought by the parents of Jesse Lewis and Noah Pozner, claimed school officials didn't follow security procedures, including immediately ordering a school lockdown after Adam Lanza [allegedly] shot his way in. It also claimed school officials failed to adequately train staff for lockdowns, which it said may have saved lives. [Sandy Hoax can never go to court, because it never happened (as claimed) and officials would be perjuring themselves on the stand. Imagine what the discovery process would produce?]

Chevron oil spill dumps nearly 800,000 gallons of crude, water in California canyon | 13 July 2019 | Chevron crews have begun to clean up a massive and ongoing oil spill in California after nearly 800,000 gallons of oil and water were dumped into a canyon near Bakersfield in May. The company recently revealed that 794,000 gallons of water and oil have leaked out of the ground where Chevron uses steam injection to extract oil in the large Cymric Oil Field about 35 miles west of Bakersfield...The state has issued Chevron a notice of violation, ordering it to stop steam injections around the spill.

New York massive power outages darkens homes, streets and subway stations | 13 July 2019 | Tens of thousands of people were without power in Manhattan on Saturday evening, ConEdison said. There were 42,000 customers without power in New York, most of them in Midtown Manhattan and the Upper West Side, the utility company said. The city's fire department was responding to numerous transformer fires, the first of which occurred in Manhattan on West 64th Street and West End Avenue, officials said. Several Broadway and off-Broadway shows said they were canceling performances, according to tweets aggregated by The Broadway League.

Volunteers rush to transport shelter animals threatened by Barry out of storm's path | 13 July 2019 | A multistate rescue effort helped secure and transport more than 120 cats and dogs to safety on Friday, removing them from shelters in Louisiana in anticipation of Tropical Storm Barry. The D.C. based Humane Rescue Alliance teamed up with St. Hubert's Animal Welfare Center in New Jersey to rescue the animals from two Louisiana shelters, St. Landry Animal Care and Control and St. Martin Animal Shelter, which are located in the path of the storm...Other animals were flown to shelters in New Jersey, Georgia and North Carolina as well to find adoptive homes.