SEATTLE - The Las Vegas Metro Police Department (NVMPD) released new body camera video on Friday from its investigation into the encounter with officers and Seahawks defensive end Michael Bennett. Bennett in early September accused Las Vegas police of racially motivated excessive force, saying he was threatened at gunpoint and handcuffed following a report of gunshots at an after-hours club at a casino hotel. Bennett, who has recently remained seated during the national anthem prior to football games, posted a statement to Twitter detailing his side of the story. >> See photos here frame-by-frame from when Michael Bennett was put in the back of a police car The NVMPD first gave a news conference in early September about the accusations, saying there was no evidence Bennett was detained because of his race. On Friday, the sheriff reported no evidence of excessive force, and he showed the controversial interaction between Bennett and officers. According to the department, officers were investigating an active shooter call — which turned out to be false — and Bennett running quickly prompted a chase. The chase ended with the controversial encounter. Scroll down below to read expanded sections on what happened. Related coverage The Las Vegas Police Department has shared body camera video during a news conference of the scene that unfolded outside and inside the casino-hotel, The Cromwell and Drai Nightclub, leading up to the incident with Bennett on August 27. The video shows officers responding to an active shooter call, which turned out to be false. According to police, a stanchion was knocked over during a fight, which prompted reports of a shooting. As officers investigated, patrons panicked as they tried to leave the building. Video shows people screaming and scrambling to get out of the casino and others trying to hide. See video of when chaos unfolded, and scroll down to keep reading. In the body camera video, officers can be heard telling people to leave casino. Thousands of people were in the area at the time of the active shooter call, according to police. Bennett was crouched down as officers approached, and then he quickly ran, and jumped over a ledge onto busy Flamingo Boulevard. This led officers to chase him and order him to the ground, police said. Watch the video of his interaction with officers while in the back of a police car below. Scroll down to read Bennett's letter. After digging into 861 tapes, police released new body camera video on Friday that showed officers putting Bennett in the back of the police car. Bennett is panicked, asking what he did wrong, and pleading to be let go. Sheriff Joe Lombardo said the video shows some claims that Bennett made were not true, such as a gun being held to his head. Lombardo said that while officers had a gun in hand while putting Bennett in cuffs, it was not directed at his head. As for the claims officers said they would, "blow his ******* head off," Lombardo reports his department found no evidence of that. Bennett wrote in his letter that he was visiting Las Vegas to watch the Mayweather-McGregor fight, and he was on the way to his hotel when he was detained. According to Bennett's statement, police ordered him to the ground at gunpoint, jammed a knee into his back and handcuffed him so tight that his fingers went numb. According to Bennett, one officer placed a gun near his head and warned him if he moved his would "blow his ******* head off." In his letter, Bennett called it an excessive use of force, simply because he was a "black man in the wrong place at the wrong time." Read his full letter below, and scroll down to watch video of part of the encounter. A brief video obtained by TMZ Sports surfaced just hours after the letter. It showed part of the encounter between police and Bennett, where he lay on the ground as an officer puts him in handcuffs. “I wasn’t doing nothing, man,” Bennett is heard saying in the video. “They told us to get out and everybody ran.” Bennett's attorney, John Burris in Oakland, California, said he believed the TMZ 30-second video clip showed some of how his client was treated. "We think there was an unlawful detention and the use of excessive force, with a gun put to his head," Burris told The Associated Press. "He was just in the crowd. He doesn't drink or do drugs. He wasn't in a fight. He wasn't resisting. He did nothing more or less than anyone in the crowd." Burris said Bennett waited to make public his account of the incident until after Burris contacted Las Vegas police last week by letter and email, seeking police records of Bennett's detention. In addition to explaining the events leading up to the encounter, police commented on social media commentary that the detention was motivated by race. “Many of the folks ... have called this an incident of biased-based policing … police officers focused solely on the race of an individual … I can tell you as I stand here today I see no evidence of that,” said NVMPD Undersheriff Kevin McMahill. "In fact as you may have noticed, while officers were searching the casino they were able to evacuate many patrons of all races. It’s also important for me to note to you both of the officers involved in this incident in question are of Hispanic origin," McMahill said. McMahill invited Bennett and his legal team to make a formal statement to the officers. According to McHill, after his detention, Bennett told officers that he understood the events that led to the incident. He did mention to police that he had an issue with the officer who held a gun to his head. In their second news conference, Lombardo commended the officers for following their training, and he called them heroic for running into a possible active shooter situation. One of the officers involved in the incident did not have his body camera activated. Bennett is one of the 200 NFL players who didn’t participate in the national anthem over the weekend in the wake of President Donald Trump suggesting the NFL bar players from kneeling in protest. The entire Seahawks team also didn’t participate during the anthem and sat out in the lockerroom before their game against the Tennessee Titans. Over the last year, Bennett has been a leader of the national anthem protests started by former 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick. Before President Trump’s comments on the NFL, Bennett gave this reason for his protesting: “I have always held the strong conviction that protesting or standing up for justice is just simply the right thing to do. This fact is unequivocally, without question, why before every game, I sit during the national anthem – because equality doesn’t live in this country, and no matter how much money you make, what job title you have or have much you give, when you are seen as a ‘n*****,' you will be treated that way." Pete Carroll supports his players and Bennett. At a news conference on Monday, Carroll told reporters he understands why people are upset with the protests, but he hopes that they listen. "It is not about denigration of the flag or our country," Carroll said. "We all can learn what we want to learn out of this, but I hope we learn about empathy." © 2018 Cox Media Group.


This question is entirely rhetorical because the BBC and its crew of analysts and right-on comedians have told us already: America will be engulfed by a tidal wave of sexism, racism and xenophobia; the dollar will collapse and with it the global economy; by the end of his first week Trump will be so drunk with power that he’ll make a clumsy pass at some White House intern, miss and accidentally press the red button which triggers a nuclear war… Call me an optimistic fool but I don’t believe any of this nonsense. Not only do I think that a Donald Trump presidency would be far less disastrous than a Hillary Clinton one but I’d even suggest – albeit cautiously – that the world might become a better, safer, more prosperous place. Let me stress that Donald Trump is by no means my dream candidate for the post of the next leader of the free world. I perfectly well accept that he is a vulgar, rude, bullying, ignorant, sexist chancer who entered the presidential race on a whim and may end up getting the job only by default. But Donald Trump has at least two massive qualities in his favour. The first is that he is not Hillary, a corrupt, ailing serial fibber with a dubious track record (from the Whitewater financial scandal to Benghazi, where her negligence may have resulted in the murder of the US ambassador) and a snooty contempt for the law demonstrated most by the FBI investigation into her hidden emails. And the second is that he is not a paid up member of the Washington DC establishment. Trump, not unlike Nigel Farage, is the voice of the ordinary bloke or woman who has had just about enough of the remote, spoilt, anti-democratic political elite. Yes, America is a very different place from Britain but there are definitely echoes in the US presidential campaign of the tensions which led so many of us to vote for Brexit. While America’s rich have got richer, living standards for its working folk have remained stagnant for decades. This is at least in part because of a cosy stitch-up between the governing elite – lawyers, corporations, politicians and the overmighty US central bank the Federal Reserve – which has entrenched its own power by making it almost impossible for those lower down to climb the ladder. Adding to these financial pressures are the frustrations caused by mass illegal immigration and also by the liberal elite’s obsession with political correctness, which has led to a woefully bad state education system, an increase in Islamist terrorism and a burning sense of injustice, especially among blue-collar Americans that they can’t speak their minds and that their country is no longer their own. Trump’s proposed solutions – build a wall on the Mexican border to stop immigration, ban Muslims(!), protect American jobs with tariff barriers on imports, hammer the Federal Reserve, stop wasting gazillions of dollars pretending to “combat” climate change – may be impetuous and in some cases extreme. But the point is here at last is a politician bold enough to address the real and pressing problems that most of his contemporaries have preferred to brush under the carpet. While Obama has fiddled during his eight years as president the world has burned: the Middle East crisis has worsened; terrorism has proliferated; Russia and China have flexed their muscles; the eurozone has stagnated; the refugee problem has got out of control; and almost nothing has been done to address the underlying economic problems that led to the 2008 crash. If Hillary gets in, it will be more of the same. Trump on the other hand is a radical who might actually press the reset button. Tue, November 8, 2016 Take Russia: for the Washington establishment it’s the world’s biggest geopolitical threat with Putin being painted as the new Stalin. But Trump just isn’t interested in prolonging the Cold War, let alone provoking a Third World War. He sees Putin as a flawed man with whom he can nonetheless do business. This will appal those who just want to focus on Putin’s human rights record but may come as a relief to those who would prefer to have Russia as an awkward ally rather than as a belligerent, chippy basket case on Europe’s doorstep. Let’s hope this strategy works because one of the bigger worries about Trump is his view on Nato: he has even suggested – against Nato policy – that if one of its member states were attacked, America wouldn’t necessarily go to its defence. This is one of those areas where you have to hope that the wiser counsels of his advisers will prevail. That said, it would be no bad thing if Trump’s remarks about Nato members failing to pull their weight were to concentrate the minds of European governments, ours included, on the woeful neglect of our defence budgets. No one is pretending that Trump is the dream presidential candidate but then we’ve just had eight years of the “dream” one – or so the slavish liberal media kept telling us – and he was useless. Maybe the time has come for someone who really does want to make America great again. And if we’re lucky perhaps a little bit of that optimism will rub off on the rest of us too.


After another week of violence and mayhem, it's clear Hillary Clinton's controversial assessment of Trump's fans was, well, generous.


The NFL‘s position after commissioner Roger Goodell‘s news conference Wednesday was clear: The league wants its players to stand for the national anthem. However, it appears there will be no rule passed to force that issue. Goodell had a news conference at the NFL’s fall meetings that lasted about 20 minutes and almost every question was related to the anthem and player protests. Goodell’s main talking point was that the NFL also will listen to its players about social issues and wants to be a part of the solution. Everyone was focused on what will happen at NFL games with the national anthem, which has become the most divisive issue among fans that the league has seen in a long time. “We believe everyone should stand for the anthem,” Goodell said. “That’s an important part of our policy, it’s also an important part of our game that we all take great pride in. It’s also important for us to honor our flag and our country and we think our fans expect us to do that.” The best outcome for the NFL would be for the players to stop protesting without the league making a rule change. Goodell sounded like the league hopes that if it keeps working with its players to help with their issues, with racial equality and law enforcement reform, then perhaps the protests will end. “The fact is, we have about a half a dozen players that are protesting,” Goodell said. “We hope and we’re going to continue to work to try to put that at zero. That’s what we’d like to do. But we want to make sure we’re understanding what the players are talking about, and that’s complex.” The number Goodell cited seems low, considering seven San Francisco 49ers players alone took a knee for last Sunday’s anthem, and as many as 30 49ers players were taking a knee two weeks ago. But it appeared he wanted to make it a point that it’s not as widespread of an issue as it is being made out to be. Goodell was asked why the NFL wouldn’t make it a rule to stand. New York Giants owner John Mara told the Daily News that the league has no plans to make a rule about standing for the anthem. “We believe our players should stand for the national anthem. That’s an important part of our game and our moments, and we believe in that,” Goodell said. “I think we also have to keep focus on this: We have about six or seven players involved in this protest at this point. This is something, what we’ve tried to do is we’ve tried to deal with the underlying issue and understand what it is they’re protesting and try to address that matter. The important thing for us is to be able to do that and take that opportunity to make real differences in our community. That is really what’s ultimately going to be the important aspect for us long term. Because this is a long-term issue. “I understand the way our fans feel about this issue, and we feel the same way about the importance of our flag, the importance of patriotism, and I believe our players feel that way. The will state to you and they have stated to everyone publicly, they’re not doing this in any way to be disrespectful to the flag, but they also understand how it’s being interpreted.” Goodell was also asked about the latest tweet from President Donald Trump about the NFL. The NFL has decided that it will not force players to stand for the playing of our National Anthem. Total disrespect for our great country! Goodell said he has not talked to Trump about the anthem issue. “We respect our country, respect our flag, respect our national anthem,” Goodell said. “I think you look at our clubs and what they do on a daily basis, look at our players and what they do and how they participate in that, we all feel very strongly about our country and our pride.”


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President Donald Trump is calling on NFL players once again to stand during the national anthem. He tweeted Saturday that players should stand on Sunday, saying they should respect the U.S. flag and country. More than 200 players either knelt or used other means as expressions of unity last weekend. NFL spokesman Joe Lockhart said such actions are not a protest against the anthem or the flag. The players knelt last weekend in response to social injustice. Full teams, along with some team owners, linked arms either before or during the anthem. Three teams — Pittsburgh, Seattle and Tennessee — did not take the field until after the anthem. Very important that NFL players STAND tomorrow, and always, for the playing of our National Anthem. Respect our Flag and our Country! Trump had earlier called on NFL owners to fire players who didn't stand for the anthem. Previously, Trump also said National Football League team owners are "afraid of their players." Earlier this week, he called for action against those who kneel during the national anthem to protest racial injustice. Trump said he began criticizing the players because he has "so many friends that are owners." He added: "I think they are afraid of their players, if you want to know the truth, and I think it's disgraceful." The president spoke in an interview that aired Thursday on "Fox and Friends." He says "most people agree" with him. NFL spokesman Joe Lockhart called the president's statements "inaccurate." "I believe there was a statement our owners are afraid of our players and owners requested intervention by political leaders to kick this off," Lockhart said. "Those statements are not accurate." Trump has spent days attacking players who kneel during the anthem. He insists the NFL should require players to stand. Responding to Trump, hundreds more players have been sitting, kneeling, locking arms or remaining in locker rooms. If a player wants the privilege of making millions of dollars in the NFL,or other leagues, he or she should not be allowed to disrespect.... ...our Great American Flag (or Country) and should stand for the National Anthem. If not, YOU'RE FIRED. Find something else to do! "The owners are clearly united in a sense that the attacks on the game, on the NFL, on the players were unfair and unfounded, and that there was unity among the group," Lockhart said, noting that about two-thirds of the 32 team owners were at league headquarters this week for committee meetings. "I think there was also a sentiment ... that the issues are being obscured and distorted by people with political agendas," Lockhart said. "I think they made it clear they support our players, but also support our country, the national anthem, the flag—all of the things some have suggested we don't." The Associated Press contributed to this report.


It will be only a matter of days before the Democratic Party press in America starts taking up the suggestion of Chancellor Merkel of Germany that we seek with North Korea a pact of appeasement like the one the Obama administration engineered with the ayatollahs at Iran. “I could imagine such a format being used to end the North Korea conflict,” Frau Merkel told the Frankfurter Allgemeine. Were Germany asked to participate, the chancellor warned, she would say yes “immediately.” This is a devilish demarche, coming, as it does, at a time when the American administration is seeking to demonstrate its resolve against North Korea’s atomic bomb program. Frau Merkel’s interview is calculated to short-circuit any refusal on President Trump’s part to certify Tehran’s compliance with the Obama-Khomeini pact. It is dog-whistling to the New York Times, which is no doubt scrambling to get aboard the Merkel appeasement. Let’s see if it can bring aboard Mr. Trump’s newest pal, Senator Schumer. New York’s senior senator, now the minority leader, played a double role in the drama on the Iran appeasement. Ostensibly he opposed the pact. Yet he refused to take a leading role in the fight against it, even when opponents sought to have have the pact itself put to a proper vote. In other words, he took a powder. That was all the more disappointing because it was clear that if the pact had been put to the Senate it would have been rejected. This point is acknowledged even by the Times, which concedes that the Iran pact was opposed in the Congress “overwhelmingly.” The Gray Lady suggests that “many critics now see its value,” though its editorial fails to name any such critics. Germany, of course, never gave a fig about what the Congress thought of the pact. And why should it have? The Obama administration took the unratified deal straight to the United Nations, where Ambassador Power voted against the Congress of her own country. “It’s presumptuous of some people to suspect that France, Russia, China, Germany, Britain ought to do what the Congress tells them to do,” Secretary of State Kerry snickered. President Putin must have loved that line. Frau Merkel, in any event, isn’t waiting for any formal nod in respect of what President Trump wants to do about the Iran deal — or about North Korea. She’s prepared to leap right into a negotiated settlement with Pyongyang that would, if Iran is any guide, leave its communist camarilla not only entrenched but richer to boot. This is a moment for President Trump to remember the 30 American states that lofted him to office. The platform on which he stood described the Iran deal as a “personal agreement” between President Obama and his negotiating partners. It described it as “non-binding on the next president.” Mr. Trump himself promised to “rip up” the agreement. That he has grounds to do so was underscored last week at Washington by his envoy at the United Nations, Governor Haley. She is a better tribune of American interests than Chancellor Merkel. receive the latest by email: subscribe to the new york sun's free mailing list


Some time back it was reported that an alert Maryland police officer saw an Islamic woman in an SUV videotaping a bridge’s support structures. He arrested the driver, Ismail Elbarasse—a Hamas and Muslim Brotherhood operative. An FBI raid on Elbarasse’s home unearthed a trove of Islamic doctrinal books and key Muslim Brotherhood documents—which became evidence in the largest terrorism-financing trial in U.S. history. Islam’s books are “the real bomb,” Muslim reformer Islam al-Behery said. Its ideology is “its blueprint” for world domination. A document from the Elbarasse raid outlines the Muslim Brotherhood’s phased plan to destroy Western civilization from within: Phase One: Secret establishment of leadership. Phase Two: Gradual public profile by infiltrating government, the judiciary, finance, intelligence, police, prisons, military, education and religious institutions. Phase Three: Escalation prior to conflict and confrontation with rulers using mass media. Phase Four: Publically confront the government using political pressure. Weapons training domestically and overseas in anticipation of zero-hour. Phase Five: Seize power to establish the Islamic state. Other documents outline the plan to replace the U.S. Constitution with sharia (Islamic law). Sharia is based on the Quran and other Islamic writings. Moderates see it a spiritual struggle, or outwardly observe it for fear of reprisal. But for radicals, sharia is the legal and political foundation for jihad and global rule, a power play to force Islam on the world. The D.C. based Center for Security Policy calls it a “totalitarian ideology” controlling all legal, political, military, economic and social life. No other laws or governments may coexist with sharia. It’s primarily political, not religious; though in America it masks itself as a religion to manipulate the First Amendment as a front for seditious activity. The Quran requires all Muslims to wage jihad (holy war) against infidels (non-Muslims). Jihad calls for multiple stages and platforms—violent and pre-violent. An Elbarasse memorandum calls the pre-violent “settlement process” in North America “civilization jihad” to destroy the Western way of life. In jihad’s final, violent stage, non-Muslims convert or die. Though jihad is obvious in North America and Europe, it’s not limited to the West. The phased plan is a template for radical Muslim subjugation. Indonesia, a secular, mostly moderate Muslim-majority democracy, is a case in point. Its motto, “Unity in Diversity” reflects its six religions and 300 ethnicities. Though religious parties’ gains in national elections have been paltry, locally elected Islamists passed more than 400 sharia ordinances, according to economist.com. Christian incumbent Basuki Tjahaja “Ahok” Purnama lost a recent governor’s race when radical Islamists told Muslim voters that Islam forbids voting for Christians. A video of Ahok’s rebuttal was edited to appear he was insulting the Quran. Charged with blasphemy, he lost the election and was sentenced to jail. Ahok’s conviction—accompanied by violent rallies and death threats, shows the chilling influence on pluralism by “hardline Islamism that the government and judiciary are reluctant to oppose,” said Time reporter Nicola Smith. In Indonesia, radical Islamists have advanced their plan for global dominance to Phase Four. Then there’s Iran, whose visceral anti-Semitism and poisonous ideology infuses jihad and sharia, but with a twist. The late Ayatollah Khomeini, and his successor, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, sidestepped Shi’a believe that the Mahdi (12th Imam), a quasi-messianic figure, must return before waging jihad and adopted an ideology promoting a senior Shiite cleric to theocratic political power over Shiites worldwide. Khomeini offered himself as successor to the 12 Imams, thus “inheriting the mantle of leadership directly from Muhammad,” said expert Clare Lopez. Khomeini inserted his doctrine into the 1989 constitution, in which the regime’s objective is global conquest under sharia rule and nuclear dominance is a surefire path to achieve that goal. Iran and its proxies not only menace Israel’s existence and portend regional upheaval, the “bomb” of Islamist ideology threatens the lives and freedoms of every sovereign nation in the world. Reprinted with author’s permission from Jerusalem Post


With the end of his second term on the horizon, President Obama spoke to 60 Minutes this week, reflecting on his achievements -- and on the problems not yet solved. At the top of that list is the protracted crisis in Syria, where more than 250,000 people have died, according to UN reports, and some 12 million have been forced from their homes. Correspondent Steve Kroft asks President Obama about the lack of progress in Syria, but Obama says improvement takes time. "In a situation that is as volatile and with as many players as there are inside of Syria, there aren't any silver bullets," he says. One of those players, Kroft points out, is Russia, which recently stepped up airstrikes and naval bombardments in support of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. President Putin "is challenging your leadership, Mr. President," Kroft says. Obama disagrees. "Steve, I've got to tell you, if you think that running your economy into the ground and having to send troops in in order to prop up your only ally, is leadership, then we've got a different definition of leadership," he says. Kroft and Obama discuss domestic issues as well, including gun violence. At a press conference after last week's mass shooting in Roseburg, Oregon, Obama urged the country to do more to prevent these tragedies. In the unaired clip below, Kroft asks the president if he can personally make a difference. Obama acknowledges that his options are limited. "We are running out of administrative actions that could really move the needle in reducing gun violence in this country," he says. At the same time, he adds, "it is not realistic to think that this Congress will pass any common sense gun safety legislation." But that doesn't mean a public outcry can't effect change, Obama says. "The most important thing I can do right now is just to keep on lifting up the issue and saying, 'It doesn't have to be this way,'" he tells Kroft. "I genuinely believe that." The two-part interview also touches on the 2016 presidential race, and the candidates on both sides of the aisle. Kroft asks the president what he thinks of GOP frontrunner Donald Trump. "He is, you know, the classic reality TV character," Obama says. "At these early stages, it's not surprising that he's gotten a lot of attention." As to whether that attention will evaporate, the president declines to speculate. "I'll leave it up to the pundits to make that determination," Obama says. "I don't think he'll end up being president of the United States." At different moments in the interview, the president turns reflective, taking stock of his time in office and eyeing the year ahead. In the unaired clip below, he tells Kroft that, at this point, he's learned to trust his instincts. "The nice thing about being a veteran in anything is your fear kind of goes away," he says. "There's no doubt I'm better at this job now than I was when I started." At the end of the interview, Kroft asks Obama if he's glad he can't run for president again. Obama says he feels a mixture of satisfaction at what he's accomplished and a desire to still do more. "But by the time I'm finished, I think it will be time for me to go," he says, adding that new blood in the White House is essential for a healthy democracy. "Do you think if you ran again, could run again, and did run again, you would be elected?" Kroft asks. "Yes," says Obama, without missing a beat.


“In fourteen hundred and ninety two, Columbus sailed the ocean blue…. Today, Christopher Columbus is celebrated as a mythical hero by some – complete with songs, poems, and fictional tales about his great adventure across the Atlantic to explore the majestic land that would eventually be known as the Americas. There are fifty four communities named after the explorer in the United States, including the District of Columbia. “Hail, Columbia” was the United States’ unofficial national anthem until 1931. A federal holiday, “Columbus Day,” is celebrated every second Monday in October. Despite all of this, historians have begun to tear down the Columbus myth: That he discovered America. That he proved the world wasn’t flat. ( That had been well-known for more than a millennium in Columbus’ time. In fact, scholars had a pretty good idea of what the circumference of the Earth was, which was part of the dissent against Columbus making his trip- Columbus thought Asia was bigger than it is and the world much smaller, leading one of the scholars commissioned by the monarchy to investigate the plausibility of Columbus’ journey succeeding to say, it was “impossible to any educated person”). That he came to America in the name of exploration. And, finally, that he came in peace. Quite simply, most of these “facts” are unequivocally false or half-truths. Columbus sailed the ocean blue to look for wealth and, officially, in the name of Christianity. What he mostly did, though, was enslave and rape the natives he met, sold girls (as young as nine by his own account) into prostitution, and committed numerous acts so heinous that he was forcibly removed from power and sent back to Spain in chains. Christopher Columbus was brutal, even by the standards of his age, leading Bartolome de las Casa, who accompanied Columbus on one of his voyages, to write in his The History of the Indies, “Such inhumanities and barbarisms were committed in my sight as no age can parallel… My eyes have seen these acts so foreign to human nature that now I tremble as I write.” In August 1492, Columbus departed Spain with three ships – the Santa Maria, the Pinta, and the Santa Clara (nicknamed “the Nina”). After two months on the high seas, land was spotted. Now, before they had left, King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella had promised to whoever spotted land first a reward of a silken jacket and an annuity of ten thousand maravedis. The lookout on the Pinta was Rodrigo de Triana and he was the first to spot land. He shouted to the rest of the crew down below, and the Pinta’s captain announced the discovery with cannon fire. When it came time to receive the reward though, Columbus claimed he actually saw a light in the distance several hours prior to Triana’s shout, “but it was so indistinct that I did not dare to affirm it was land.” The reward reportedly went to Columbus. Upon landing on the island, which he would call San Salvador (present-day Bahamas), Columbus immediately went to work finding gold and enslaving the native populations. Specifically, Columbus, upon seeing the Arawaks (the peoples of the region) come out of the forests frightened of the men with swords, but bearing gifts, wrote in his journal, They do not bear arms, and do not know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it by the edge and cut themselves out of ignorance. They would make fine servants . . . with fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want. As other European visitors would observe, the Arawaks were legendary for their hospitality and their desire to share. Again saying Columbus about the Arawaks, “are so naive and so free with their possessions that no one who has not witnessed them would believe it. When you ask for something they have, they never say no. To the contrary, they offer to share with anyone.” Columbus quickly took advantage of this. Seeing that they wore gold studs in their ears, he rounded up of a number of Arawaks and had them lead him to where gold was. The journey took them to present day Cuba and Haiti (but Columbus thought it was Asia), where they found specks of gold in the river, but not the enormous “fields” Columbus was expecting. Nonetheless, he wrote back to Spain saying that, “There are many spices, and great mines of gold and other metals.” This report earned him financing for a second voyage, this time with 13 ships and twelve hundred men. While he never ended up filling up these ships with gold, he filled them with another “currency” and one that would have a horrendous effect on the world going forward – slaves. In 1495, Columbus arrived back in the New World and immediately took 1500 Arawaks as prisoners. Of those 1500, he picked 500 to be shipped back to Spain as slaves (about two hundred died on the journey back), starting the transatlantic slave trade. The rest were forced to find what little gold existed in the region. According to noted historian Howard Zinn, anyone over 14 had to meet a gold quota. If they didn’t find enough gold, they would have their hands cut off. Eventually, when it was realized there wasn’t much gold in the region, Columbus and his men just took the rest as slaves and put them to work on their newly established estates in the region. Many natives died and their numbers dwindled. In the 15th century, modern historians believe there were about 300,000 Arawaks. By 1515, there were only 50,000 left. By 1531, 600 and by 1650, there were no longer any full-blooded Arawaks left on the islands. The way Columbus and his men treated the women and children of these populations was even worse. Columbus routinely used the raping of women as a “reward” for his lieutenants. For example, here’s an account from one of Columbus’ friends and compatriots, Michele de Cuneo, who accompanied Columbus on his second journey to the New World, on what Michele did to a native “Carb woman.” Michele wrote that, While I was in the boat I captured a very beautiful Carib woman, whom the said Lord Admiral [Columbus] gave to me, and with whom, having taken her into my cabin, she being naked according to their custom, I conceived desire to take pleasure. I wanted to put my desire into execution but she did not want it and treated me with her finger nails in such a manner that I wished I had never begun. But seeing that (to tell you the end of it all), I took a rope and thrashed her well, for which she raised such unheard of screams that you would not have believed your ears. Finally we came to an agreement in such manner that I can tell you that she seemed to have been brought up in a school of whores… Going further, Columbus wrote in a letter from 1500, A hundred castellanos are as easily obtained for a woman as for a farm, and it is very general and there are plenty of dealers who go about looking for girls; those from nine to ten are now in demand. As illustrated in a recently discovered 48 page report found in the Spanish archives written by Francisco De Bobadilla (charged with investigating Columbus’ rule at the behest of Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand, who were troubled by allegations of some of Columbus’ acts), a woman who verbally insulted Columbus’ family was stripped naked and made to ride around the colony on a mule. After the trip was done, her tongue was cut out by the order of Columbus’ brother, Bartolomé, who Columbus then congratulated for successfully defending the family’s honor. Needless to say, these and numerous other such acts ultimately resulted in De Bobadilla having Columbus removed from power and sent back to Spain in chains. After Columbus came, and was forced out, the Spaniards continued his policy of enslavement and violence. In 1552, the Spanish historian and friar Bartolome de las Casas published multiple volumes under the title The History of Indies. In it, he described the collapse of the non-European population. Casas writes that when the men were captured and forced to work in mines looking for gold, rarely if ever returning home, it significantly impacted the birth rate. If a woman did give birth, she would be so overworked herself and malnourished, that she often could not produce enough milk for the baby. He even reported that some of the women “drowned their babies from sheer desperation.” There are lot more examples, writings, and research that points to one fact – Christopher Columbus was a lamentable individual. Nobody’s perfect- if we restricted celebrated individuals to those who didn’t have any major flaws, we’d have few humans to celebrate- and it’s extremely important to view things in the context of the time individuals lived in. But even in his age, many of his acts were considered deplorable by his peers, which is in no small part why Columbus was arrested for his conduct in the New World. Combined with his truly historic and widespread impact being incidental to what he was actually trying to do (so a little hard to celebrate him for even that side of his life), maybe it is time that we let go of the myths we learned about Christopher Columbus in elementary school and stop celebrating Columbus, the man. If you liked this article, you might also enjoy our new popular podcast, The BrainFood Show ( iTunes, Spotify, Google Play Music, Feed), as well as: Bonus Fact: Expand for References


As seen on Fox & Friends Former FBI Asst. Director: Original Clinton Probe 'Not a Real Investigation' Fmr CNN Executive Reacts to Donna Brazile-Hillary Debate Question Leak On "Fox & Friends" this morning, Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn (Ret.) reacted to the "unbelievable tragedy" of two Iowa police officers being gunned down in their squad cars. "The assault on our law enforcement professionals in this country is out of control," Flynn said. He said that the leadership in our country needs to come out and say, "This has got to end." Flynn, a Donald Trump supporter, said that the law enforcement community is reaching out to the Republican presidential nominee because he's willing to speak up on their behalf. "This is just another tragedy, another example of the lack of safety that we have in our streets and in our country for these police officers." What do you think? Let us know in the comments. What Did Clinton Campaign Chair Mean By 'Dump Emails' Before Subpoena? Krauthammer: Clinton 'Drowning in Cumulative Effect' of WikiLeaks, FBI Probe Gutfeld on Clinton 'Sexism': Hillary 'Looks Out for Only Herself'


Mike Vanderjagt's brief run as a middle-school soccer coach is on the ropes. The former Indianapolis Colts kicker has been suspended from that role after a March incident in which Vanderjagt allegedly grabbed a student by the throat at Charter Middle School in Marco Island, Fla. The Naples Daily News reported Thursday that Vanderjagt, a school parent, was investigated by police for attacking a student who taunted him with cries of "wide left, wide left" through a rolled-up piece of poster board doubling as megaphone. Flashback: Vanderjagt missed a game-changing field goal attempt at the end of the Colts' AFC Divisional playoff loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers in January 2006. According to police, Vanderjagt was crossing the school's parking lot when he heard the taunts. The student told authorities the former kicker "walked up to him, grabbed him by the throat and started cursing at him." Vanderjagt told police he simply placed his hand on the child's shoulder. He claimed a mouthy band of students had been issuing the insults for months. Vanderjagt admitted growing tired of the taunts. Police went so far as to file the incident with the State Attorney's office, which ruled that no charges would be issued against Vanderjagt. He has apologized to the student and currently awaits word from the school's principal about his coaching future. In the meantime, this former NFL kicker is running a pizza joint on Marco Island. Strange days, indeed.


SACRAMENTO, Calif. (KCRA) — California is now one step closer to becoming sanctuary state. The Assembly Judiciary Committee approved Senate Bill 54 on Wednesday along party lines -- with eight Democrats voting in favor and three Republicans opposed. Under the proposed bill, ICE agents would be prohibited from entering county jails unless they have a warrant. Get the full story in the video above.


Much of the ugliness we see on the Left today is embodied in groups like Black Lives Matter and ANTIFA. Both groups think they are oppressed, both are obsessed with identity politics, and both are steeped in Marxist ideologies. You’d think that they would get along just fine but that’s not the case. People who have their identities wrapped up in victimhood are narcissistic by nature. They want the spotlight at all times, and can’t stand to see someone else hog it. So it was probably just a matter of time before these two groups clashed.


Remember when we told you how an injured officer sued the Black Lives Matter movement and DeRay McKesson after getting shot by Gavin Long in the infamous July 17, 2016 attack in Dallas? The cop, who only goes by John Doe Smith, was shot in the head and through the intestine during the attack that claimed two police lives and wounded several others. He blamed Black Lives Matter for their presence on the scene “inciting violence” to cause Gavin to snipe the cops, and sought damages to the tune of $75,000 for his surgery bills. The thing is… Black Lives Matter is a movement, not a specified group of people or a business. So there’s really no one in particular to sue. According to TMZ, the judge ultimately dismissed the case due to the fact that BLM is a social movement, and McKesson as an individual was only using his first amendment right by appearing at the protest — not inciting anyone to commit any acts of violence. It’s truly unfortunate what happened to his officer, but you can’t blame the peaceful protestors on the scene exercising their rights for the reckless actions of one disturbed individual. WENN/Getty


Sex-trafficking is happening in nearly every city and in every state in the U.S. In an all-new Crime Watch Daily in-depth investigation, we take you inside the epidemic that has exploded in recent years. Human trafficking is defined in the simplest terms as the exploitation of another person through force, fraud or coercion. The average age of trafficking victims entering the sex trade world is 13 years old. According to Mary Mazzio's documentary I Am Jane Doe, there are more than 1.6 million homeless or runaway kids on the streets of America, and up to 15 percent of them have fallen victim to sex-trafficking. "That's hundreds of thousands of children every day, and that's only the homeless and runaway population," said Mazzio. HUMAN TRAFFICKING IN LOS ANGELES Crime Watch Daily rode along with a group of undercover deputies from the L.A. County Sheriff's Department as they busted men looking to hook up with underage girls. TRAFFICKING IN HOUSTON In Houston, Texas, one woman is tackling the problem from a very different angle. She's not a sex worker -- not anymore. "I know what it's like to be more afraid to go home than you are to get in a car with a stranger," said former trafficking victim Rebecca Bender. Bender become a victim for nearly six years, traded between three different traffickers in all. She says it was only after police busted her trafficker for tax evasion that she was able to finally break free. But it would take years to get her life back on track. After a decade free from the life, Rebecca Bender is about to go back on the streets, posing as a sex worker to expose just how big the problem may be in your town. TRAFFICKING DELUNA Much like the heroin epidemic we are now facing, sex-trafficking is a massive problem in the United States. These are not just women being brought in from other countries. We're talking about teens, or even younger, being recruited from middle schools and high schools in just about every city in America. So far we've taken you undercover on sex-trafficking stings and you've see some cities that have become sex-slave hubs. Crime Watch Daily interviews a young woman lured into the sex-trade world and how it's now landed her in prison doing serious time. Lizette Deluna ran from abuse at home into the arms of a sex-trafficker. Now she's in prison in Texas, convicted of trafficking herself. How did she get there? She share her journey exclusively with Crime Watch Daily. TRAFFICKING IN DEKALB COUNTY Crime Watch Daily teams up with law enforcement agencies all over the country who are cracking down on the illegal sex trade business. On the streets of Georgia, we encountered an alleged pimp that was more than happy to talk to us. TARGETING ONLINE CLASSIFIED ADVERTISING No matter where we went, there seemed to be one name that kept coming up: Backpage.com. Operating in more than 900 cities worldwide, the online classifieds website commands, by some estimates, more than 80 percent of all online sex ad revenues. And it's through those ads that many allege the company has knowingly permitted the sale of underage children. "The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children has stated that at least 73 percent of all reports to them, of online sex trafficking, where does it happen? Backpage.com," said I Am Jane Doe filmmaker Mary Mazzio. Just recently, under pressure from the U.S. Senate, Backpage did shut down its adult section in the United States. The company itself may be worth more than $500 million, and by some estimates, 99 percent of that global income comes from illicit ads. For their part, Backpage claims no responsibility for what they call third-party content. But in a series of new civil suits brought by former victims, attorney Erik Bauer claims Backpage actually helped edit the ads to make them appear more legitimate. Not long ago, Backpage CEO Carl Ferrer, along with former owners Michael Lacey and James Larkin were actually brought up on pimping charges by former California Attorney General and current U.S. Senator Kamala Harris. Crime Watch Daily Correspondent Melissa McCarty was there during their latest arraignment. They ignored our questions, but considering the serious nature of the charges, we had to keep trying. The judge granted Crime Watch Daily exclusive access inside the courtroom for the proceedings, where ultimately the defense requested a delay. While they wait for the next hearing, Carl Ferrer is released on a $500,000 bond, while Larkin and Lacey get out on $250,000 bonds. "We have lost all common sense," said Mary Mazzio. "If you had a site that said 'Murder for Hire,' do you seriously think the American public would stand for that, that a federal jurist would stand for that? But because it's prostitution, it's 'Pretty Woman,' it's the victimless crime, it's the world's oldest profession, you know what -- not that big of a deal." So is there a solution? Can awareness alone help stop the problem? And just how many more lives will be stolen for sex? RESCUING A TRAFFICKED DAUGHTER The parent and the pimp. How far will one dad go to rescue his girl from the clutches of a criminal? "Say no to drugs. Stay in school." These are the things brad smith thought to teach his daughter. But there was one threat that never even crossed his mind. This is not a victimless crime. And to all the "johns" out there feeding the illegal sex trade, you can be sure that law enforcement and Crime Watch Daily will not stop until you are in handcuffs. RESOURCES The National Child Traumatic Stress Network has resources for mental health professionals, law enforcement personnel, health care professionals, and survivors on the signs of trafficking and services for human trafficking survivors. Children of the Night is a privately funded non-profit organization established in 1979 and dedicated to rescuing America’s children from the ravages of prostitution. GenerateHope provides a safe place for survivors of sex trafficking to be restored through long-term housing, healing, psychotherapy and education. Since recovery from sexual exploitation is a long-term process, GenerateHope provides individualized support to work through past trauma until the women reach the ability to live independently and become a positive influence on their communities and future generations. Help fight trafficking by uploading photos of your hotel room. These photos will be used to determine where perpetrators of sex trafficking are committing their crimes. #HumanTrafficking #SexTrafficking #SexCrimes #SexualAssault #Prostitution #Rape


President Donald Trump's nominee for federal judge in Alabama was just approved by every Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee — even though he was unanimously rated "not qualified" by the American Bar Association. Brett J. Talley is 36 years old, has only practiced law for three years and made a series of partisan comments on his blog in 2016 that would normally be considered unbecoming of a judge, like referring to the Democratic presidential candidate as "Hillary Rotten Clinton," according to the Los Angeles Times. Although Talley does have degrees from the University of Alabama and Harvard Law School and clerked for two federal judges, he has never argued a motion, making it nearly unprecedented for him to be considered as a candidate for a lifetime appointment. One of Talley's most controversial statements was a blog post in which he claimed that President Barack Obama was "about to launch the greatest attack on our constitutional freedoms in our lifetime." He added, "The object of that war is to make guns illegal, in all forms." After a commenter wrote that Americans would "resort to arms when our other rights — of speech, press, assembly, representative government — fail to yield the desired results," Talley said he agreed with him. When asked about these statements by the Senate Judiciary Committee, Talley said he was merely "trying to generate discussion. I wanted people to be able to use my blog to discuss issues, to come together and find common ground." The president has directly praised Talley as being an "untold story" that "nobody wants to talk about." "When you think of it, Mitch [McConnell] and I were saying, that has consequences 40 years out, depending on the age of the judge," Trump said in October. "But 40 years out." One other factor that may have contributed to Talley's nomination: He was mentored by Sen. Luther Strange of Alabama and worked in the Justice Department office that chooses judicial nominees. Talley isn't the only Trump judicial nominee who has been the subject of raised questions. Charles Goodwin, who was nominated to the federal bench in Oklahoma, was the first judicial nominee since 2006 to receive a "not qualified" label from the American Bar Association. Jeff Mateer, who was nominated to the federal bench in Texas, aroused controversy by referring to transgender children as proof of "Satan’s plan" and denounced the Supreme Court decision legalizing gay marriage as "disgusting." John Bush, who was confirmed to the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals, wrote a blog post arguing that slavery and abortion were the "two greatest tragedies in our country."


And the Trump chronicles continue. Presidential hopeful Donald Trump said he supports creating a mandatory database to track Muslims in the United States. “I would certainly implement that. Absolutely,” Trump, 69, told NBC News between campaign events on Thursday in Newton, Iowa. “There should be a lot of systems, beyond databases. We should have a lot of systems.” When asked by the reporter whether Muslims would be legally obligated to register in the database, the business mogul responded: “They have to be. They have to be. ” He said that the country’s Muslims would register for the database at “different places,” adding, “It’s all about management.” The comments come less than a week after terrorists wreaked havoc on the French capital, taking the lives of at least 129 people and injuring more than 300 others in a series of coordinated attacks. The attacks have prompted calls for new restrictions on accepting Syrian refugees. On Thursday, the House passed a bill to drastically tighten screening procedures on Syrian refugees, requiring key national security agencies to determine whether each Iraqi and Syrian refugee poses a threat, CNN reports. The White House vowed that President Barack Obama would veto the bill. Trump’s recent comments stem from an earlier interview with Yahoo News on Thursday in which he did not reject the idea of requiring Muslims in the U.S. to register into a database or present a special ID that noted their religion. “We’re going to have to look at a lot of things very closely,” the 69-year-old said. “We’re going to have to look at the mosques.” The Council on American-Islamic Relations criticized the candidate for the comments in a statement on Thursday, and a council spokesman told NBC, “We’re kind of at a loss for words,” adding that the database plan is comparable to that of prewar Nazi Germany. However, when a reporter asked Trump about the difference between Muslim databases and requiring Jews to register in Nazi Germany, Trump replied, “You tell me.” He did not answer when asked what consequences would be implemented for Muslims who refused to register. He later denied responding to questions regarding a potential Muslim database at all, adding that he didn’t “know where you heard that.” Trump isn’t the only Republican to come under fire regarding comments made after the Paris attacks. Ben Carson is facing criticism for comparing blocking Syrian refugees from entering the U.S. to protecting a child from a “rabid dog.” Meanwhile, GOP hopeful Ted Cruz has said that Obama is endangering the safety of Americans by allowing Syrian Muslim refugees to enter the U.S. However, he says, America should provide a “safe haven” for Christian refugees. He added that the U.S. would need to “vet anyone coming in,” a practice the White House called a “religious test,” CNN reports.


Sebastian Gorka, who served seven months as deputy assistant to President Trump, alongside former chief strategist Steve Bannon, sat down with Circa to talk about his time in the White House, the "deep state," the future of Trump's Make America Great Again agenda and the Washington, D.C. "bureaucratic swamp." Question and Answer with Sebastian Gorka: Sara Carter: There's a lot of supporters who are concerned now that with the departure of both you and Mr. Steve Bannon, that the MAGA (Make America Great Again) agenda is gone. Is that true? Sebastian Gorka: No, not at all. I know a lot of people are worried, a lot of people that, from the base felt that November the 8th was politically a revolutionary moment. The fact that Steve left and then a week later I resigned, I always tell people "relax." Count to 10. Take a deep breath. Whether or not the president's agenda succeeds isn't a function of where I sit or where Steve has an office. The president's supporters aren't just individuals who have to be inside the White House. They can be on the outside. And what, what a lot of Steve's critics didn't understand, who celebrated his resignation, Steve today is more powerful than he's ever been. It's like that scene from "Star Wars" when Ben Kenobi gets slain by Darth Vader. I will be more powerful than you can ever imagine. Steve Bannon is now the most powerful man outside of the Oval Office in America. I'm not joking, he is, because there are things you can do, legal things -- OK, relax Huffington Post -- there are legal things that you can do as a private citizen that you cannot do as a government employee. Sara Carter: But then access to the president, that's also very important? Sebastian Gorka: Yes. Sara Carter: So when you're not in the White House, you're outside the White House, how does that affect access? Sebastian Gorka: OK. I'm not gonna give away any inside baseball, but let me give you an example. When I was deputy assistant to the president, I'd walk in and out of the Oval Office and I'd regularly see people like Corey Lewandowski, I'd see Dave Bossie in the Oval [Office] with the President. Now, neither of those individuals had a government ID card, neither of them worked for the White House, but they were in there with the president and I can assure you they weren't talking about the weather. So, one thing to know about the president, he is very loyal to those who have been loyal to him. And the idea that you can isolate Donald J. Trump from people he trusts who don't happen to be inside the building is, of course, absurd. So, the President talks to lots of different people and several of them do not work for the White House. So relax. View the slideshow Sara Carter: This brings me to your resignation letter. Sebastian Gorka: Yes. Sara Carter: In your resignation letter you state that there are people ascendant within the White House that do not support the President's MAGA agenda? Explain that, and who are these people? Sebastian Gorka: OK, so first things first, I'd like to try and explain what was special about November the 8th. And if you remember, there was a film, a great John Milius film called "Red Dawn" in the 80s about the Soviet Cuban invasion of America and the resistance that American patriots put up to it. The president of the United States won against the whole establishment on November the 8th. He was just accidentally the GOP's candidate. He had nothing to do with the swamp, nothing to do with the GOP, nobody took him seriously when he announced and what did he do? He proceeded to wipe the floor with 16 establishment GOP candidates and then defeat a woman who'd officially spent $700 million on a position she thought was owed to her. This is the rank outsider. So what happened on November the 8th? It's like the wolverines from Red Dawn, a scrappy bunch of insurgents defeated the mighty empire that is the swamp. As a result, when we moved into the White House, Steve, myself, the president, it was the most leveraged, hostile takeover in political history in the modern age. Because it was a small group of people that came in to run the largest government in the run. Sorry, if you add the armed forces, millions of employees. So, what happened is a natural event. In the intervening months, the establishment figures reacted to the antibodies that represent the MAGA agenda and boxed us out, tried to cut us out of the policy agenda. Fired a lot of the more junior people in the NSC. That's the point at which Steve and then later I realized look, uh, this is about eight years of President Trump and then eight years of President Pence. We have to think about the long game. And if right now we're being undermined internally, what we do is we go on the outside and we support the agenda from the outside. That's why I became the chief strategist for the Make America Great Again Coalition. That's why Steve is doing all kinds of things right now. That's why I predict that in the near future, before Christmas probably, there will be some very high-level personnel changes in the White House that are driven by the president. It's important to know, apart from [Robert] Mueller -- he's a holdover, ignore him -- every single, high-ranking or, or less than high-ranking firing in the last eight months was not driven by the president. OK? All those people fired from the NSC, [Anthony] Scaramucci, these were people who were fired by people other than the president. I think the president already realizes he's being given bad advice on key issues. The Alabama race tells you everything you need to know. And now he's going to get rid of some people who aren't on message and have nothing to do with the original agenda. Take the quiz! Sara Carter: Would one of those people happen to be Secretary of State [Rex] Tillerson? Sebastian Gorka: The President reached out to me the day after I resigned. He thanked me for my service. He said he is gonna stick to the agenda and he'd like me to support him from the outside. That's exactly what I'm doing. One of the things I promised myself I wouldn't do is attack individual members of the cabinet who aren't part of the agenda. So, I'm not gonna talk about individuals just yet, but I'll talk about principles and the fact is, um, Tucker Carlson had a segment after Steve left the White House that I think is crucial to understanding the reality of what's going on in the West Wing. I don't think Tucker Carlson is a big fan of Steve Bannon or Breitbart, I may be wrong, but he said one very trenchant thing. He said, "Whatever you think about Steve Bannon, there's one thing that's certain. He would not be at home in a White House under Hillary Clinton." There are people in the administration of Donald J. Trump who not only would have been at home in a Hillary Clinton White House, they would have been cabinet members in a Hillary White House. So that's the current problem, but again, relax. It's a temporary state of affairs. Sara Carter: So the president is surrounded, in your opinion, by some people that would have been comfortable in a Hillary Clinton White House and may be pushing those agendas? Sebastian Gorka: The president has this sense, and I guarantee you right now, he knows who around him is now consistently giving him bad advice and sooner or later he will make decisions to remove those people from around him. Sara Carter: Explain the "deep state." Sebastian Gorka: I'm a little bit uncomfortable with the phrase "deep state." I love conspiracy theories but only as entertainment. There's a reason they're called theories. Conspiracy theories kill critical thought. I prefer the phrase "the deep state." The deep state isn't a conspiracy theory, it's a real thing. Let me give you an example. So, I didn't work in the NSC, I worked for Steve. I was a strategist in the office, or the chief strategist to the president. But because of my national security portfolio, I attended regular classified meetings with the NSC on whatever issue it was. The Qatar crisis, the ISIS plan, you name it. And a pattern developed in these meetings which is really disturbing and explains the permanent state. You're sitting in, a White House meeting that is the pinnacle of policy making in the most powerful nation in the world. The NSC makes national security policy. There's nothing above it apart from, you know, the President and his National Security Advisor. You sit there for an hour, an hour-and-a-half, with key members of the NSC, invited guests from the CIA, DIA, outstations from the Pentagon, you name it. And for 90 minutes on a key issue, you didn't hear the name of the president. You didn't hear mention of the president's strategic objectives, and you didn't hear mention of what he said yesterday in Warsaw or Riyadh. And it would be up to me, the guy with the funny accent, after 90 minutes to say, "Uh, hey guys. Did you hear what the President said yesterday in Riyadh about ISIS? Did you hear what the President said about NATO in Warsaw?" This is what the president wants to achieve and we're all gonna be on message, right? So what I saw is that the swamp isn't Capitol Hill. A lot of people think the swamp is the political professional class of congressmen and women. The swamp is much more. The professional bureaucratic class in America that believes that they know better than the president elected by the people of America to run this country. A GS14, a GS15 who's been at State Department or CIA for 20 years and thinks, "Oh, I, I've been doing this for so long. I don't care what the president says about Qatar, we need to do this. I don't care what the President says about X, Y, Z, we need to do this." That undermines American democracy and that's the permanent state, and that's what we have to push back on if democracy is to thrive in America. Related Stories: Former WH strategist, Sebastian Gorka, hit back at the 'fake news industrial complex' Sebastian Gorka resigned from his position in the White House View the slideshow


“They’ve forgotten about us.” I don’t remember where I heard this, perhaps somewhere in the small town of Blacksburg, Virginia, but the context was definitely political. The IRS is always out to get our money – of course the government hasn’t forgotten about us, right? But the more I thought about it, the more I realized the meaning behind that statement. Since the founding days of the United States, a problem has always been the power balance between small states and big states. Presently, this has evolved into the local balance between rural areas and urban areas. I remember hearing in government class how just a dozen or so of the largest cities in the United States could swing the popular vote to one political party and realizing just how valuable the electoral college is to modern politics. There’s no simple alternative to balancing out protecting the interests of the rural minority and forwarding those of the urban majority. From the U.S. Census: “Rural areas cover 97 percent of the nation’s land area but contain 19.3 percent of the population.” This is a huge disparity; how can state governments look out for rural counties when urban counties dominate the political sphere? For many in southwestern Virginia, it seems that politicians are always subverting rural interests in favor of the dense, northern urban areas. Even the President and many other conservatives use this idea of rural areas being left out to win votes. From his always-rambunctious Twitter account, Trump proclaimed: “The Democrats in the Southwest part of Virginia have been abandoned by their Party. Republican Ed Gillespie will never let you down!” In a time of great change and technology around the globe, sometimes it can feel as if rural areas are being left behind. Given this context, I’d like to quickly transition to a discussion about the political frustrations surrounding the Confederate flag. The Civil War was definitely fought over slavery, but does that make the Confederate flag racist? Probably. But I’d also like to consider what the Confederate flag symbolizes to many in the South. Growing up, Confederate flags were never really made out to be a big deal. I remember thinking nothing of the raised Confederate flags on the way to swim meets and camps. I remember the public outcry throughout the region when the school sent out an announcement banning Confederate attire. Even recently, right before I came to Stanford, I was driving home one night and pulled up next to a beat-up pickup truck flying two large Confederate flags at a traffic light. It felt pretty normal, albeit a little strange especially because of the earlier South Carolina flag controversy and the happenings in Charlottesville. This was the norm. The problem is just how commonplace these provocative items are in the region. These rural Southerners, a legislative minority, are painted as villains, outcasts for not seeing these items as strange in such an apparently “progressive” society. This is an issue because first off, no one likes being called a villain, and secondly, to many of these people – who have seen crumbling infrastructure, a stagnating economy and skyrocketing health care premiums (one of my older teachers always complained about his wife’s new insurance bill under Obamacare) – are we really that progressive? And how high should working out our flag issues be on our priorities list? Should we be arguing over a flag when there are places with exactly zero professional medical attention? I remember watching the local news and finding out that in nearby Wise County, Virginia, the only time people can receive medical attention is once a year, when a mobile clinic known as the Remove Area Medical arrives. General health is deteriorating every year as lung cancer and obesity set in. Things really aren’t looking up for the people here. The fact that a colored piece of cloth is generating the most media coverage instead of a terrible healthcare crisis here is a sort of a slap in the face to the coal miner with permanent nerve damage or the diabetic who can’t access insulin. We tend to separate the world into “us” and the “other,” but we fail to realize that the “other” may also be struggling to come to grips with the world too. There are definitely two sides to the argument, and I’m not advocating for any position. There are many parts of the country that need work. Racism is a huge problem that we need to solve as soon as possible. Denigrating an important bloc of people for the sake of making a point will only divide the nation even more. If we are to move forward and be “progressive,” we need to set aside distractions, unify in our actions and put our attention to the big picture. Contact Tiger Sun at tgsun ‘at’ stanford.edu.


It's a debate playing out across America. Should statues and memorials of Confederate soldiers and officers remain standing, or should they be removed. Those in favor of removing the statues say the statues represent racism. Those who want the statues to remain complain that removing the statues would be an attempt to get rid of history. What do you think? Should cities and states get rid of Confederate statues and memorials?


Depraved ISIS thugs are little more than serial rapists who claim sex assault is a byproduct of implementing teachings of the Qur’an. The grisly details are laid out in a new report by Nikita Malik called, “ Trafficking Terror: How Modern Slavery and Sexual Violence Fund Terrorism.” In it, a Yazidi survivor describes how ISIS henchman would line up young girls against walls before groping their chests. “If they had breasts, they could be raped; if not, they would wait three months to check again,” Victim 1 said, according to an interview cited in the report. The girls – many of them minors – were raped together in rooms as children looked on, she said after finally eluding ISIS’ grip. Victim 1 also described how she was raped by six ISIS guards one night after attempting to flee. “She was raped in every place possible," the report reads. "She was forced to do things that were disgusting to her and they kept her without clothes in this room so that anybody could come at any time and rape her.” Yazidi women were told by brainwashed ISIS brides that they needed to be raped to become fully Muslim, according to the report. They were often sold, but lost monetary value the more times they were purchased by men in Iraq and Syria. The report also describes how sexual depravity continues to act as a pull factor for prospective terrorists “Sexual slavery serves as an incentive for new recruits and foreign fighters, with the promise of wives and sex slaves.” writes Malik. The Henry Jackson Society reports human trafficking brought Islamic terrorist groups upwards of $30 million last year. It’s believed ISIS could turn to kidnapping and sex slavery as a means to sustain itself as its shrinking caliphate continues to crumble.


A note to Steve Bannon: No matter what your beliefs are, the most dangerous thing you can do is cross Donald Trump. The fallout against the former White House political strategist and Trump confidant is continuing this week, in the wake of his comments appearing in Michael Wolff's tell-all book, "Fire and Fury," and as his political foes are celebrating his perceived demise and his political friends are starting to distance themselves from him. One of Bannon's strongest allies — the Mercer family, which is funding Breitbart — issued a stinging rebuke on Thursday, but limited the scope of their attack to what Bannon said about the president. "I support President Trump and the platform upon which he was elected," Rebekah Mercer told the Washington Post. "My family and I have not communicated with Steve Bannon in many months and have provided no financial support to his political agenda, nor do we support his recent actions and statements." And CBS reported Friday that Mercer "cut all ties" with Bannon because that's what Trump wanted her to do. . @CBSNews confirms Steve Bannon's longtime benefactor Rebekah Mercer cut *all ties* with him at the request of White House officials in the aftermath of #FireAndFury. pic.twitter.com/8eICjpp6Qw — ryan kadro (@RyanKadro) January 5, 2018 But Mercer is continuing to finance Breitbart, which has not only been Bannon's political agenda, it's been his political essence. Bannon made Roy Moore his candidate in the Alabama special election. When Moore's major flaws were exposed, Bannon dispatched Breitbart's staffers to attack the women who accused Moore of trying to date them when they were teenagers. After the election, Breitbart's editor admitted that they were acting as political operatives in their decision to cover the election. So while Breitbart's funders are wondering whether or not to cut ties with Steve Bannon, it's important to realize that Bannon's legacy will certainly live on. It will just be more Trump-friendly.


“Bigger than Watergate!” Donald Trump exulted about the discovery of new emails from Hillary Clinton’s time as secretary of state. Sure, they could be. They could also be pleas from Clinton that Huma Abedin fetch her a skinny latte from Starbucks. We don’t know. And the horrifying thing is that the F.B.I. director, James Comey, didn’t seem to know, either, even as he disclosed their existence to the world. How strange but how fitting. This entire election is being conducted in the key of hysteria, and Comey just found a way to amplify that ugly music. Listen, Clinton made an awful decision in setting up a private email server, then compounded that error by dragging her feet through defensive non-apologies that gave the story such legs. Now she limps to the finish line when she should be hitting full stride. But Trump is as much of a part and player in this latest chapter of the email saga, because of the one-syllable grenade that he keeps lobbing at the body politic, his furious mantra over these final weeks. “Rigged,” “rigged,” “rigged.” Many Americans have come to believe that. Many others are rightly determined to prove to that group how wrong they are, or at least not to add accelerant to the wildfire. And so all of us, including Comey, operate in a befouled atmosphere, tailoring our actions to it. Comey obviously felt that he was in a bind and clearly believed that by disclosing the emails as soon as possible — and not, say, delaying until he had some sense of what the F.B.I. was dealing with — he had the best chance of avoiding any possible charges of a cover-up later, and was acting with the cleanest conscience. But his desire to be a Boy Scout may have eclipsed sound judgment here, and rectitude is a quaint, shortsighted notion in an election this rife with accusations of bias, this primed for scandal, this frenzied. Were the emails in question sent to or from Clinton? Comey didn’t and perhaps couldn’t say. What about them warranted inspection? Again, he had nothing to offer. He told F.B.I. employees in a memo that he was hoping, with his announcement, not “to create a misleading impression” of some hugely significant discovery. But that’s exactly and predictably what he did. Most Democrats were outraged. “Mr. Comey said he was duty bound to inform Congress,” Bob Kerrey, the former senator and governor, told me. “Quite the opposite is the case. He was duty bound to make an announcement after he completes his examination of the emails.“ Indeed, he broke with the longstanding F.B.I. policy of not commenting on ongoing investigations. He also defied the wishes of senior officials in the Department of Justice, according to various news reports early Saturday afternoon. And he frustrated everyone — conservatives, liberals, Trump, Clinton — because his disclosure was all questions, no answers. Regardless, the media went nuts, declaring that the development could bend the shape of the race and assuming damage to Clinton without any polling or other evidence to back that up. “We don’t know what this means yet except that it’s a real bombshell,” the journalist Carl Bernstein said in a phone interview on CNN on Friday, adding: “It is unthinkable that the director of the F.B.I. would take this action lightly, that he would put this letter forth to the Congress of the United States saying there is more information out there about classified emails and call it to the attention of Congress unless it was something requiring serious investigation.” A viewer couldn’t see him licking his chops but could hear it. Even the many news organizations that stressed the possible innocuousness of the emails and emphasized how very little we knew contradicted that caution with the length, number and front-and-center placement of their stories about this development. Why? The Politico writer Glenn Thrush had a thought, expressed in this tweet: How is this supposed to play out? If, a few days from now, the F.B.I. determines and announces that none of the emails contain classified information or anything else of concern, will Trump and Clinton’s other enemies conceivably believe that? Hah! They’ll be shouting “rigged” all over again. They’ll be shouting it louder than ever. It wouldn’t be normal practice for the F.B.I., in an effort to buttress its determination, to release the emails, many of which are presumably private communications of Abedin’s. And those might be too intimate for her to make public herself. But now that Comey has flagged the whole batch of them, suspicion will never die. And if the emails are fresh cause for concern, will that be knowable, and digestible, before Nov. 8? On this point, too, we’re all in the dark. What a steaming mess, and that’s a comment partly on this specific situation but also on this election, which has devolved into a junkyard of innuendo, lies and conspiracy theories. Trump doesn’t bear all the blame for that, but he bears an ample share of it. On the subject of conspiracy theories, I can offer some comic relief, noting that he and Rush Limbaugh couldn’t get on the same page about the new emails on Friday. Even as Trump was praising Comey and saying that the election might not be quite as rigged as he’d feared, Limbaugh was telling his listeners that Comey was “just doing this to take everybody’s attention off of the WikiLeaks email dump” that was embarrassing Clinton and her aides. “The cynical view,” he said, “is that Comey is still carrying water for Clinton and is trying to get everybody to stop paying attention on the WikiLeaks dump because it’s starting to have an impact.” Let me get this straight: The crooked F.B.I. and the corrupt media throw just enough dirt at Clinton so that she’s sure to track it into the Oval Office? Thank God for Limbaugh. God help the rest of us.


BERKELEY, Calif. (KCRA) — Several fights broke out during largely-peaceful protests in Berkeley Sunday afternoon when about 4,000 people converged on the city, police said. Thirteen people who ranged in ages from 20 to 47 years old, were arrested for "various violations” including assault with a deadly weapon and felony assault during the events, Berkeley police said. Of the people arrested during the protests, several were wearing masks while others were connected to assaults. Two men were arrested after exchanging blows. The SFGate reported they were quickly swept up by officers inside Civic Center Park. Police detained Patriot Prayer leader Joey Gibson at the protests. The SFGate reported he was handcuffed after being chased by a mob of demonstrators who took swings at him and pepper sprayed him. Police said Gibson was actually "rescued" and was not arrested or charged. The crowd began to diminish around 3:30 p.m., six hours after a march led to the protests. The event was one of several rallies that had been called for Sunday in Berkeley, a day after a controversial freedom rally planned by Gibson in San Francisco fizzled amid throngs of counterprotesters. Hundreds of people gathered on the UC Berkeley campus around 10 a.m. Sunday. They then marched to Civic Center Park, where police had set up barricades and secured the area with bomb sniffing dogs. The march was part of the Bay Area Rally Against Hate Rally. In a statement early Sunday, the group said "we fully intend to move forward with (the Rally Against Hate)" on the campus despite calls by the university police department for people to stay away for safety reasons. The rally was held in response to the planned right-wing protest "No To Marxism in America." However, organizer Amber Cummings canceled the protest on Friday, saying Berkeley officials and left-wing extremists made it impossible to hold the event and she would be the sole attendee. Despite the cancellation, hundreds of ring-wing protesters showed up to the park. Around 1 p.m., police reported the crowd had grown to several thousand. A skirmish broke out between several dozen left-wing demonstrators and a handful of right-wing supporters. The skirmish was tense but ended quickly. The left-wing protesters surrounded the small number of right-wing supporters, then shouted at them and pushed them. The right-wing protesters sought protection from police and were escorted away. Before the unpermitted events, Berkeley police put into place several rules in response the protests, stating, "To ensure the peaceful expression of free speech, the City of Berkeley will be prohibiting sticks, pipes, poles and anything else that can be used for a 'riot' at Civic Center Park." Other banned items include explosives, pepper spray, axes, dogs (except for service animals), eggs, torches and more. Police also said anything that "covers or partially covers the face and shields the wearer's face from view, or partially from view, is prohibited." However, protesters with an anarchist group arrived at the park wearing masks and hoods that covered their faces. The group of more than 100 hooded protesters, with shields emblazoned with the words "no hate" and waving a flag identifying themselves as anarchist, broke through police lines, avoiding security checks by officers to take away possible weapons. Then the group blended in with the rest of the crowd. The group pushed their way past police barricades and into Civic Center Park. They assaulted at least five people by punching and kicking them. Gibson was one of the people assaulted by the group. Police broke up the fights, using what appeared to be a smoke grenade to stop one scuffle. The three people who were attacked ran behind police lines to escape. Then around 2:30 p.m., more than 1,000 people left the park and began marching north Martin Luther King Way. An hour later, the crowd had diminished and many roads reopened. ---- The Associated Press contributed to this story.


Permission Details DMCA US President Trump's threats this week to shut down critical news media is an ominous sign of how fragile American democratic rights have become. For Donald Trump to impugn media freedom -- albeit in his usual whimsical, boorish fashion -- nevertheless shows how far democracy has been eroded in the "land of the free." The latest furore followed a report this week by NBC in which Trump purportedly harangued his top Pentagon advisers for a 10-fold increase in the US nuclear weapons arsenal. Trump's outlandish demand was reportedly made during a high-level national security meeting back in July. It was the same meeting during which Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is said to have scoffed at Trump's antics and called him a "moron." Trump has reacted angrily to the reports, dismissing them with his characteristic jargon as "fake news." But, adding to the furore, the president also went on to question whether the broadcasting license of NBC and other networks should be cancelled because of what Trump views as "fake news." That is, the president is speculating on shutting down media outlets. Such a move by a president would be legally unviable, according to US laws. But it shows the kind of slippery slope that US media and democratic rights are on. Trump's latest musing about shutting down NBC and other channels drew predictable outcry from US media, who rightly to a degree, deplored his attack on democratic rights. The irony is, however, that the attack on American democratic rights has already been underway before Trump entered the White House, and without much protest from the same media outlets who are now railing against Trump over this rant. We can point to the increasing surveillance powers of federal intelligence agencies which have steadily encroached since the September 2001 terror incidents in New York and Washington DC. Media freedom in the US has been under assault for a long time. Trump's latest outburst is not a one-off anomaly. In recent weeks, the US government has moved to severely restrict the freedom of Russia-based news media operating in the country. A move that has so far not been reciprocated by Moscow on US media operating in Russia. Russian state-owned news channel RT has been forced to register as a "foreign agent" which will curtail how it carries out normal journalistic functions. Sputnik, another Russian state-owned channel, is also under investigation by US authorities over allegations of destabilizing American politics with "fake news." The crimping of Russian news media is part of a wider campaign to suppress all alternative media outlets, including US-based websites, which are being labelled as agents of "foreign interests" because of merely posting articles sourced from RT and Sputnik. The willing participation of US internet companies, Google, Twitter and Facebook, in blocking news sources that are designated "fake" or "interfering in US politics" is another troubling sign of how citizens' access to information is being curtailed. These gatekeepers of information are openly moving to restrict access to "authoritative," "respectable" media outlets. Many of these "respectable" news outlets, such as the New York Times and Washington Post, have in the past been guilty of purveying outrageously fake news, like the "weapons of mass destruction" claims which led to the 2003 US war in Iraq that killed over a million people and unleashed on the world the ongoing scourge of jihadist terrorism. There is absolutely no credible evidence that Russian news media or alternative US-based sites are systematically engaged in an "influence campaign" to destabilize American democracy. Sure, there is plenty of false information on the internet available through platforms like Facebook, which most Americans now rely on for their news feed. But to lay the blame for this on Russian media is preposterous scapegoating. What really is the issue here is that US authorities and established media companies simply can't abide rival outlets that are providing an alternative, critical perspective. For example, Russia's RT and Sputnik have given much critical coverage on the war in Syria, as well as conflicts in Ukraine, Yemen and elsewhere. Both channels have reported, with documentary evidence, on how the US government and its NATO and regional allies have been complicit in an illegal, covert war for regime change in Syria involving support for extremist militant groups. This is a critical perspective with grave legal and political implications for Washington and its allies. Just because the US government does not like this kind of unflattering coverage does not legitimize its opprobrium of "fake news." The latter charge is brazenly being used as a pretext to censor discomfiting information. There are many other international issues where Russian media are giving a valid, alternative viewpoint. And because official US interests are offended by this critical perspective, the authorities are moving to ostracize Russian media with the spurious allegation of "foreign agents" and "undermining American democracy." But the paramount issue here is that this is an audacious attack on American democratic rights of free media and freedom of speech, as supposedly enshrined in the US Constitution's First Amendment. All of the US established news media have propagated the bogus narrative of "Russian influence" and "Russian fake news." This narrative plays well for political opponents of President Trump, primarily in the Democrat party. On this issue, Trump is right when he denounces as "fake news" the campaign to pillory Russia and to allege that the Kremlin directed state-owned media to influence the November presidential election in Trump's favor. There is simply no evidence that Russian news media were or are engaged in anything nefarious to destabilize US democracy. Russian media have and do give critical news coverage. If that "destabilizes" Washington's illicit activities in overseas' wars then that's what responsible journalism should be doing. To curb this journalism because it offends geopolitical interests is, frankly, censorship and the actions of a tyrant. Trump's latest threats to shut down the American news channel NBC over alleged "fake news" are indeed menacing. The NBC report on Trump's nuclear weapons ranting appear to be credible in any case. But the outcry from US media over Trump's boorish threats are hypocritical. Their concern seems to be based on a superficial contempt for Trump as a loathsome individual -- as opposed to a principled defense of democratic rights, and media freedom in particular. The US media outlets that are piously railing against Trump over his "assault on the Fourth Estate" are the same outlets which have piled on the pressure to suppress alternative media outlets like Russia's RT and Sputnik, as well as other US-based independent information sources that are being demonized in McCarthyite fashion as "foreign agents." And, again, much of this hostility towards alternative media is motivated by the fact that these alternative media have admirably exposed the hypocrisy and criminality of US authorities. Also exposed is the aiding and abetting by the servile establishment media who have long covered up for the US authorities and their illicit activities in overseas' wars and against citizens at home. American democratic rights are indeed on thin ice. But that was the case long before the elephantine Trump arrived on the scene. His clumsy lurching is merely serving to illustrate how treacherously thin the ice has become upon which US democracy now stands. Permission Details DMCA US President Trump's threats this week to shut down critical news media is an ominous sign of how fragile American democratic rights have become. For Donald Trump to impugn media freedom -- albeit in his usual whimsical, boorish fashion -- nevertheless shows how far democracy has been eroded in the "land of the free." The latest furore followed a report this week by NBC in which Trump purportedly harangued his top Pentagon advisers for a 10-fold increase in the US nuclear weapons arsenal. Trump's outlandish demand was reportedly made during a high-level national security meeting back in July. It was the same meeting during which Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is said to have scoffed at Trump's antics and called him a "moron." Trump has reacted angrily to the reports, dismissing them with his characteristic jargon as "fake news." But, adding to the furore, the president also went on to question whether the broadcasting license of NBC and other networks should be cancelled because of what Trump views as "fake news." That is, the president is speculating on shutting down media outlets. Such a move by a president would be legally unviable, according to US laws. But it shows the kind of slippery slope that US media and democratic rights are on. Trump's latest musing about shutting down NBC and other channels drew predictable outcry from US media, who rightly to a degree, deplored his attack on democratic rights. The irony is, however, that the attack on American democratic rights has already been underway before Trump entered the White House, and without much protest from the same media outlets who are now railing against Trump over this rant. We can point to the increasing surveillance powers of federal intelligence agencies which have steadily encroached since the September 2001 terror incidents in New York and Washington DC. Media freedom in the US has been under assault for a long time. Trump's latest outburst is not a one-off anomaly. In recent weeks, the US government has moved to severely restrict the freedom of Russia-based news media operating in the country. A move that has so far not been reciprocated by Moscow on US media operating in Russia. Russian state-owned news channel RT has been forced to register as a "foreign agent" which will curtail how it carries out normal journalistic functions. Sputnik, another Russian state-owned channel, is also under investigation by US authorities over allegations of destabilizing American politics with "fake news." The crimping of Russian news media is part of a wider campaign to suppress all alternative media outlets, including US-based websites, which are being labelled as agents of "foreign interests" because of merely posting articles sourced from RT and Sputnik. The willing participation of US internet companies, Google, Twitter and Facebook, in blocking news sources that are designated "fake" or "interfering in US politics" is another troubling sign of how citizens' access to information is being curtailed. These gatekeepers of information are openly moving to restrict access to "authoritative," "respectable" media outlets. Many of these "respectable" news outlets, such as the New York Times and Washington Post, have in the past been guilty of purveying outrageously fake news, like the "weapons of mass destruction" claims which led to the 2003 US war in Iraq that killed over a million people and unleashed on the world the ongoing scourge of jihadist terrorism.