In testimony before Congress, FBI Director James Comey stated that Hillary Clinton’s aide Huma Abedin had habitually forwarded classified emails to her husband, Anthony “Bulgey” Weiner. If the FBI had not been investigating Mr. Weiner’s alleged sexting email exchanges with an underage girl, the fact that his laptop was bulging with Mrs. Clinton’s emails might never have emerged.
In other news, in anti-terrorism raids all across France, five potential violent extremists were arrested.
To see the headlines and the articles, click “Continue reading” below.
Thanks to Dean, DV, Fjordman, Nick, Reader from Chicago, Srdja Trifkovic, SS, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.
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Puerto Rico Declares a Form of Bankruptcy
With its creditors at its heels and its coffers depleted, Puerto Rico sought what is essentially bankruptcy relief in federal court on Wednesday, the first time in history that an American state or territory had taken the extraordinary measure.
The action sent Puerto Rico, whose approximately $123 billion in debt and pension obligations far exceeds the $18 billion bankruptcy filed by Detroit in 2013, to uncharted ground.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
2 Dead, Including Gunman, In Shooting at North Lake College in Irving
Two people were found dead Wednesday about an hour after a shooting was reported at North Lake College in Irving.
The college was placed on lockdown at 11:43 a.m., and Irving police later confirmed that shots had been fired at the school in the 5001 N. MacArthur Blvd.
Irving police spokesman James McLellan said around 12:45 p.m. that officers found two bodies in a building on campus. One of them was presumed to be the shooter, and the incident appeared to be a murder-suicide.
Neither person has been publicly identified…
| — Hat tip: Dean | [Return to headlines] |
Dramatic Washington Plane Crash Caught on Camera; Everybody Survives
A small plane crashed over a busy street near Seattle Tuesday afternoon, damaging several vehicles but amazingly causing no serious injuries, officials said.
Investigators said the single-engine Piper PA32 aircraft took off from Evertt’s Paine Field in Mukilteo, Wash., around 3:30 p.m. Tuesday and started losing engine power soon after.
The dramatic crash unfolded on camera.
The pilot, a man from Oregon, told police that he was losing too much altitude to return so attempted to land on Harbour Point Boulevard because it was clear, Q13 Fox reported.
On its way down, the two-passenger plane clipped powerlines and hit a street light, which raptured a fuel cell.
Despite the ensuring fire, no one was seriously injured and the pilot and his passenger walked away from the crash, investigators said.
| — Hat tip: DV | [Return to headlines] |
Huma Abedin Forwarded Hillary’s Classified Emails to Her Husband, Anthony Weiner
Huma Abedin forwarded Hillary Clinton’s emails, some of them classified, to her disgraced husband, Anthony Weiner, FBI Director James Comey revealed on Wednesday.
“[Weiner’s] then-spouse, Huma Abedin, appears to have had a regular practice of forwarding emails to forward to him, I think, to print out for her so she could deliver them to the secretary of state,” Comey told the Senate Judiciary Committee during an oversight hearing.
Comey reopened the FBI investigation into Clinton’s email practices in October after agents discovered that a laptop owned by Weiner and Abedin contained Clinton’s emails. The laptop was seized as part of a separate investigation into Weiner’s contacts with a 15-year-old girl.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Multiple Deaths, Injuries Reported After SUV Plows Into Crowd at Massachusetts Auto Auction
Three people were killed and several injured Wednesday when a jeep sped through a crowded auto auction in a small Massachusetts town, authorities said.
The crash happened around 10:30 a.m. at LynnWay Auto Auction in Billerica, about 20 miles northwest of Boston, Fox affiliate WFXT-TV reported.
Marian Ryan, the Middlesex County district attorney, said one man and two women were killed when the vehicle “suddenly accelerated” and struck “numerous people” before crashing into a cinder block wall.
Ryan told reporters that 10 people were injured, two with life-threatening injuries…
| — Hat tip: Dean | [Return to headlines] |
NSA Continued Spying on Americans, Collecting Over 151 Million Phone Records Despite Law Change
The National Security Agency (NSA) collected over 151 million phone records of Americans in 2016, despite a new system created by the US Congress to limit the spy agency’s ability to gather bulk data, a report released by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) revealed on 2 May.
The government report detailed that the NSA amassed vast amounts of data under a new system, despite having been court ordered to only use the system to apprehend 42 terrorism suspects in 2016.
| — Hat tip: Nick | [Return to headlines] |
The sex secrets of the young Barack Obama have been revealed in an authoritative new biography of the ex-president. Obama slept with his girlfriend Genevieve Cook on their first date, before she wrote him a poem about their ‘f***ing’ and called their sex ‘passionate’, the book about the former president reveals. They also took cocaine together — and after they split she slept with his best friend. Obama also considered a gay relationship while at college, twice proposed to another white girlfriend, and cheated on Michelle with his ex during the first year of their relationship. His past is revealed in the 1,078-page biography Rising Star: The Making of Barack Obama, to be published on May 9.
| — Hat tip: Nick | [Return to headlines] |
Trump Stirs Pot With Talk of Blowing up Senate Rules
As a gridlocked Congress threatens to stall the legislative promises that catapulted him to office, President Trump has raised hackles on the Hill by suggesting longstanding Senate rules simply be scrapped to cripple Democratic opposition.
Trump has twice in the past week railed against “archaic” Senate procedures — first in an interview with Fox News and then again on Twitter — seeming to suggest the legislative filibuster be ended to take advantage of Republicans’ control of Congress.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Commuters Express Joy at End of ID Controls
Thousands of commuters were breathing a sigh of relief on Wednesday, ahead of the last ID checks to be carried out on people travelling from Copenhagen to Malmö.
“I actually audibly cheered,” British data expert Nick Nilsson-Bean tells Radio Sweden of his reaction to the news.
German programmer Tobias Richter says his only regret was that he had already left Denmark when the news came out, so he couldn’t buy any champagne in Denmark.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Fed-Up Young Greeks Head Abroad
A lack of meritocracy and corruption are the main reasons why talented young Greeks head abroad for work, according to ICAP People Solutions, an international human resources services provider.
The results of the group’s research regarding the country’s brain drain were presented last month within the framework of the 3rd Human Capital Summit.
The research, which was conducted for a third straight year, included a survey of 1,268 Greeks working abroad — compared to 853 who took part in 2016.
Sixty-eight percent of those who took part in the 2017 study are below 35 years of age, highly skilled and without family obligations.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
France Anti-Terrorism Raids Leads to 5 Arrests
French authorities have detained five men and seized weapons in anti-terrorist operations across the country. Security is tight after recent Islamist attacks and the upcoming presidential runoff
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
French Election Latest: 14 Million People Won’t Vote Which Could Help Marine Le Pen
A SHOCKING 14 million French voters are planning to hand in blank protest votes on Sunday’s final election in a move that could propel Marine Le Pen to become the country’s president.
The voters feel disenchanted with the state of French politics and feel that neither anti-migrant Marine Le Pen or centrist Emmanuel Macron represent them.
Some voters have said the two candidates are comparable to choosing “between plague and cholera”.
This is the first time since 1958 that the traditional left and right are absent in the second round of the election contest.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Julian Assange, WikiLeaks Publisher, Asks Sweden to Drop Arrest Warrant Amid Pending DOJ Indictment
An attorney for Julian Assange asked Swedish prosecutors to drop a long-standing arrest warrant against their client Wednesday so the WikiLeaks publisher may once and for all take refuge in Ecuador in light of a looming U.S. indictment.
Mr. Assange’s Swedish attorney, Per Samuelson, filed the request in Stockholm District Court on Wednesday in the face of a rekindled Justice Department probe centered around WikiLeaks and its publication of classified U.S. government and military documents.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Key Moments of Final Macron-Le Pen Duel Before French Presidential Run-Off
The two remaining contenders for the French presidency, centrist Emmanuel Macron and far-right candidate Marine Le Pen, on Wednesday battled it out on live TV one last time before Sunday’s nail-biting run-off vote.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
‘Let’s Stop Brussels!’ Hungary Displays Anti-EU Posters on EU-Funded Train
Mr Orban, who has been at loggerheads with the EU for years, has clashed with his continental counterparts over immigration and economic policy.
Despite receiving funding from EU coffers to pay for the railway line, according to Spectator International, Mr Orban is happy to use the vehicle as a billboard to advertise his nationalist message.
The “Let’s Stop Brussels!” campaign has seen every household in Hungary sent a questionnaire asking them how the nation should deal with various issues posed by EU membership.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
‘Risk’: Director Laura Poitras on Her Explosive Julian Assange Documentary
Julian Assange detests “Risk,” the incisive new documentary about the WikiLeaks founder that premieres on Friday, and it’s easy to see why he’s not a fan.
Over the course of six years, director Laura Poitras was granted unprecedented access to Assange and his team, shooting them as they broke one big story after another. If he was hoping that the resulting film would lionize him as a man of principle, courageously defying governments and big corporations by leaking classified data, he was gravely mistaken.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Sweden’s ID Checks Were ‘Not Fun’: Danish PM Rasmussen
Denmark’s prime minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen said Tuesday that he was glad that Sweden has decided to scrap ID checks on Øresund crossings between the two Scandinavian countries.
Sweden decided earlier Tuesday to drop the ID checks that it has carried out on its borders since the beginning of 2016.
“Swedish ID checks have set the whole of the Øresund region back,” the PM said in a press statement.
“The controls have been a significant inconvenience for commuters and others travelling between Denmark and Sweden and have adversely affected the strong dynamic the region has had for decades. It has not been fun to experience it,” Rasmussen continued.
Sweden introduced border control in November 2015 and in January 2016 required transport service providers to carry out ID checks on board trains, ferries and buses crossing the Øresund.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Switzerland Faces ‘Heightened’ Terror Threat in Uncertain Europe
“The question isn’t if an attack will take place in Switzerland, but when.” That’s the view expressed by Swiss defence minister Guy Parmelin at a press conference on Tuesday as the Swiss federal intelligence service (FIS) released its situation report.
The head of the FIS, Markus Seiler, took a calmer stance but spoke of an “elevated” threat, reported Le Temps.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
The Unholy Alliance Between George Soros and Pope Francis
An excerpt from George Neumayr’s new book, “The Political Pope.”
The election of a liberal Jesuit to the papacy thrilled Democrats in the United States, whose unholy alliance with the Catholic left goes back many decades. Barack Obama, one of the pope’s most prominent supporters, has long been a beneficiary of that alliance. The faculty at Jesuit Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., ranked as one of the top donors to his campaign.
In a grim irony, Obama, whose presidency substantially eroded religious freedom in America, rose to power not in spite of the Catholic Church but because of it. The archdiocese of Chicago helped bankroll his radicalism in the 1980s. As he recounts in his memoirs, he began his work as a community organizer in the rectory rooms of Holy Rosary parish on Chicago’s South Side. The Alinskyite organization for which he worked — the Developing Communities Project — received tens of thousands of dollars from the Catholic Campaign for Human Development.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
A lost 16-year-old girl was repeatedly raped by a kebab shop owner and three others in a flat above a takeaway after she asked them for directions, a court heard. The drunk teenager was led to a filthy room above 555 Pizza in Ramsgate, Kent, where she was pushed onto a mattress and forced upon by the group of laughing men, it was said.
| — Hat tip: Nick | [Return to headlines] |
‘What is France?’: How Le Pen and Macron See Their Country Very Differently
Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen couldn’t offer two more strikingly different views of France, it’s almost as if they’re talking about two different countries. So what does France look like to each candidate, if we study their campaign speeches and interviews.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Morocco’s Christian Converts Emerge From the Shadows
Moroccans who secretly converted to Christianity are demanding the right to practise their faith openly in a country where Islam is the state religion and “apostasy” is condemned.
At an apartment in a working-class part of the southern town of Agadir, Mustapha listened to hymns emanating from a hi-fi under a silver crucifix hung on the wall.
The 46-year-old civil servant, son of an expert on Islamic law from nearby Taroudant, was once an active member of the banned but tolerated Islamist Charity and Justice movement.
He said he converted in 1994 to “fill a spiritual void”.
“I was tired of the contradictions in Islam,” said Mustapha.
| — Hat tip: Nick | [Return to headlines] |
Iran Attempted Missile Launch From Submarine, US Officials Say
Iran attempted to launch a cruise missile from a submarine in the Strait of Hormuz on Tuesday but the test failed, two U.S. officials told Fox News.
An Iranian Yono-class “midget” submarine conducted the missile launch. North Korea and Iran are the only two countries in the world that operate this type of submarine.
In February, Iran claimed to have successfully tested a submarine-launched missile. It was not immediately clear if Tuesday’s test was the first time Iran had attempted to launch a missile underwater from a submarine.
This incident comes on the heels of other recent provocations from Iran.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Turkey PM Erdogan Tells EU to Open Up or Else in New Shock Threat
TURKISH president Recep Tayyip Erdogan yesterday told the EU to open up or it would end its 50-year attempt to join the European Union.
He said the European Union must open new chapters in Turkey’s accession process, otherwise Ankara had nothing to discuss with the bloc and would say “goodbye”.
His comments came after European Commissioner Johannes Hahn, who oversees EU membership bids, said Turkey under Erdogan had turned its back on joining the bloc.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
North Korea’s Overrated Threat
by Srdja Trifkovic
There seems to be no end to the deluge of inane and/or deranged commentary on “the North Korean nuclear threat.” On Wednesday Matt Pottinger, the Asia director on President Trump’s National Security Council, said that “they want to use these weapons as an instrument of blackmail to achieve other goals, even including perhaps the coercive reunification of the Korean peninsula.” He did not explain how exactly would Pyongyang translate its possession of a few small nuclear weapons into an effective tool of forcing Seoul to surrender to its will.
Vice-President Mike Pence sounded far more bellicose while visiting Demilitarized Zone along the 38th parallel on May 1. Pence declared that “the era of strategic patience” was over and that all options were on the table if North Korean President Kim Jong Un continued to threaten the region with his missile and nuclear testing programs. Sen. John McCain went over the top as always, asserting that “a North Korean missile tipped with a nuclear warhead, capable of reaching our homeland is no longer a distant hypothetical, but an imminent danger.” The interventionist consensus was summed up in a Fox News column claiming that “the United States must seriously anticipate the use of force to eliminate this rogue nation’s offensive nuclear capacity.”
“Use of force” means going to war against North Korea. This is a reckless and irresponsible proposition. That Pyongyang embodies a bizarre mix of Stalinism and Oriental despotism is beyond dispute. North Korean soldiers comically emulate their taller Western models in their goose-stepping routine, but the idea is the same: “passo romano” is the metaphor for violent dominance devoid of reason. North Korea is a dystopia unable to feed its cowed serfs—at least two million are estimated to have died of hunger two decades ago—yet it is perfectly capable of unleashing a hurricane of artillery fire against Seoul and other targets in the south at a moment’s notice, killing and maiming tens of thousands of civilians. That is not the kind of protection South Korea needs or wants.
The response of the Truman Administration to Kim Il Sung’s aggression in June 1950 was remarkably swift, bold, and necessary. For many years after the armistice, the presence of U.S. forces in South Korea was justified by the fact that neither China nor the USSR could be trusted to keep the North under control. Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, however, the equation has changed. South Korea is an economic powerhouse with the financial and scientific potential to become a nuclear power at a short notice. It is perfectly capable of deterring North Korea, a fourth-rate power and an economic basket case. Qatar and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia notwithstanding, the “Democratic People’s Republic of Korea” is the worst country on the planet in terms of what passes for “human rights” and “freedom” among reasonable people. As per the Holy Roman Empire, it is neither democratic, nor people’s, nor a republic. It is “Korean” in the narrow sense of the Kim family’s acceptance of a quasi-nationalist mantle of self-sufficiency (juche); a quick visit to the approved source will give you some idea of the nebulous concept.
North Korea is a bad place ruled by bad people, but the character of its regime is irrelevant to the security of the United. The assertion that the country’s ineptly executed missile and nuclear testing programs can or will be used as a means of disrupting the regional balance of power—let alone deployed as an imminent threat to “our homeland”—is preposterous. Even if it had the wherewithal to threaten the U.S.—which it does not have—North Korea could not do it credibly. A single missile or two would be fairly easy to intercept and destroy; and the ensuing retaliation would turn much of the PDRK into a parking lot. In a few years the North may develop a medium-range device capable of reliably delivering a warhead, but much longer it will have no guidance system necessary for reasonable accuracy. For decades it will lack re-entry technology to develop and deploy an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM).
If North Korea does develop functional nuclear missiles some time in the late 2030’s, South Korea and Japan can and should acquire them too, in order to establish a regional balance of terror. This is the only viable model of regional stability.
| — Hat tip: Srdja Trifkovic | [Return to headlines] |
North Korea Threat: WH Official Says Kim Could Use Nuclear Weapons as ‘Blackmail’
North Korea’s nuclear weapons development could be used as “blackmail” to influence the U.S. to abandon its ally in South Korea in order to make it easier for Pyongyang to overtake its archrival, a White House official said Tuesday.
Matt Pottinger, the Asia director on President Trump’s National Security Council, said there might be some truth to the idea that North Korea wants a nuclear deterrent to protect its communist regime, but the country’s robust conventional military has worked as a deterrent for decades.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Clashes in Venezuela as Maduro Starts Constitutional Rewrite
Thousands of protesters were met with plumes of tear gas in Venezuela’s capital Wednesday, just a short distance from where President Nicolas Maduro delivered a decree kicking off a process to rewrite the polarized nation’s constitution.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
An Afghan asylum seeker is under arrest in Germany suspected of stabbing a woman to death because she converted to Christianity. The victim, Fatima S. 38, was knifed on Saturday in front of a Lidl supermarket in Prien in Bavaria. The 29-year-old migrant attacked the woman in front of her five and 11-year-old children and she later died from her wounds.
| — Hat tip: Nick | [Return to headlines] |
British Taxpayers Pay £1 Million a Week on Calais Crisis
Our investigation exposes how trying to stop refugees sneaking in to the country from northern France has become a “shocking” drain on the public purse.
Since 2010, £315.9million has been spent dealing with the threat of illegal immigration on Britain’s doorstep, Home Office figures show.
The sum, revealed for the first time today, equals about £150,000 a day — averaging £52.5million a year over the past six years.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Exclusive: Paris Migrants ‘Blame Europe’ For the Migrant Crisis
PARIS, France — At the largest migrant camp in Paris, just outside the Porte de La Chapelle metro station, hundreds of migrants live in tents. Many of them blame Europe for not giving them documentation or free housing.
The Porte de Le Chapelle migrant camp is the largest outdoor makeshift camp in the French capital and is home to several hundred migrants, most of whom come from African countries like Sudan, Eritrea, and Nigeria.
Breitbart London spoke to several of the migrants at the camp, and all of them blamed the French government and Europe for their situation, demanding documentation and access to welfare.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Uzbekistan Says Uncovering Militants Daily Among Returning Migrants
Uzbekistan’s police routinely uncover militant Islamists among Uzbek migrants returning home and plan to expose those who remain abroad via social networks, Interior Minister Abdusalom Azizov said on Tuesday.
An Uzbek asylum seeker has been charged by a Swedish court over a deadly truck attack in Stockholm last month that put Uzbekistan, a largely Muslim Central Asian nation, in the global spotlight. Five people were killed in the attack.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Susan Carland, a Muslim-convert academic who is married to The Project’s Waleed Aly, says Islamic women are often portrayed as meek and submissive.
| — Hat tip: SS | [Return to headlines] |
Scientists Didn’t Believe in Meteorites Until 1803
The l’Aigle meteorite fall involved more than 3,000 pieces of rock and numerous witnesses, and it changed everything.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Re “Dramatic Washington ‘Plane Crash”. I read that the ‘plane “…hit a street light, which raptured a fuel cell”.
I knew Jesus was the Light of the World, but this is truly miraculous.