Beyond Fake News – Fake Video Could Make You Question Everything You See

 

By Elliot Friedland/Clarion Project March 15, 2018

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“The idea that someone could put another person’s face on an individual’s body, that would be like a homerun for anyone who wants to interfere in a political process. This is now going to be the new reality, surely by 2020, but potentially even as early as this year.” — Senator Mark Warner (D-VA)

 

New technology with the ability to create hyper-realistic fake videos has the potential to wreak havoc on the political landscape, lawmakers and technology experts say.

 

The tech allows people’s faces to be superimposed onto different bodies in other videos. Different technology can also allow allow facial expressions to be altered. Adobe even has a program to create new audio from text.

 

Currently, fake video technology requires manipulation of existing video footage of a person, and cannot create fake video from scratch with just a picture.

 

Right now, the technology is not that widespread and can still be detected by experts. But it is improving rapidly.

 

Such videos have already caused controversy. Fake pornographic videos have been made by face-swapping celebrities into pornographic movies. In February 2018, the popular content sharing website Reddit banned the r/deepfakes subreddit, which had been used to share fake pornographic content featuring celebrities. 

 

Reddit updated its rules prohibiting sharing pornographic content of someone without that person’s consent to include faked images. 

 

The combination of the different emerging technologies means it is highly likely we will soon see videos of public figures saying and doing things which never happened, that are all but indistinguishable from the real thing.

 

In July 2017, a team of researchers created a fake video of former president Barack Obama giving a speech he never gave, as an experiment.

 

 

The national security implications for terrorist groups using this technology are very worrying.

 

They will be able to create images of politicians announcing strikes that never happened, announcing anti-Muslim policies that don’t exist, making racist and bigoted remarks they never said or even footage of war crimes that never took place.

 

 

As Lawfare blog writes “The spread of deep fakes will threaten to erode the trust necessary for democracy to function effectively, for two reasons. 

 

First, and most obviously, the marketplace of ideas will be injected with a particularly-dangerous form of falsehood. Second, and more subtly, the public may become more willing to disbelieve true but uncomfortable facts.”

 

The deepfakes trend takes existing problems with fake news to the next level. As fake news spreads, the public will be less and less inclined to believe what they see, hear and read, and more inclined to rely on tribal in-groups and partisan sources they trust to support their specific narratives and interests.

 

Terrorists can and probably will manipulate these passions in three main ways:

 

Faking anti-Muslim hate crime and anti-Muslim bigotry in order to sow distrust between communities. It achieves this goal by making Muslims more afraid of non-Muslims, and by making non-Muslims less likely to trust stories of anti-Muslim bigotry.

 

Faking terrorist attacks and making sophisticated threats to spread fear and reduce our ability to respond appropriately to genuine danger.

 

Faking news reports or other information about genuine terrorist attacks, in order to increase confusion and put more lives at risk (ie falsely giving information that a suspect has been subdued when in fact there are more gunmen at large).

 

Deep fake videos are “like a weapon of mass destruction in the world of fake news and extremist propaganda, especially for hostile intelligence agencies engaging in political influence operations,” Clarion Project National Security Analyst Ryan Mauro said.

 

Yet despite the risks, the technology is ploughing ahead with no signs of slowing. The website deepfakes.club offers tutorials to anyone with an internet connection on how to create fake videos.

 

Nor are government attempts to develop reliable ways of authenticating content likely to be effective.

 

“We all will need some form of authenticating our identity through biometrics. This way people will know whether the voice or image is real or from an impersonator,” Congressman Ro Hanna (D-CA) told The Hill.

 

He called on the military’s research and development wing, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), to create secure authentication techniques.

 

Yet the lighting-quick development of digital technologies suggests any such process would become liable to manipulation. It even opens up the possibility of a fake video being stamped with a real mark of authentication.

 

“Any technology that will allow you to fingerprint, the adversary is going to figure out how to take it out, manipulate the content, and then put that fingerprint back in,” Dr. Hany Farid, a computer science professor at Dartmouth College, who specialises in digital forensics told ABC News. “That is almost guaranteed.”

 

Cybersecurity experts are working on possible solutions to the coming threat, but so far have not agreed on a viable path forward.

 

Originally published at Clarion Project – reposted with permission.

 

This Is Happening Right Now in America

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This Is Happening Right Now in America

Not a week goes by without police officers or the FBI arresting someone in the U.S. for Islamist-based terror plots or that a court finds guilty an ISIS sympathizer. Indeed, the FBI says at any time there are ongoing investigations in all 50 states.

Here are two such incidents from this week:

Utah Student Brings ISIS Flag, Bomb to School

First the student at Pine View High School in Saint George, Utah replaced the American flag with an ISIS flag. Then, just two weeks later, he set fire to pieces of paper in his backpack in a bid to detonate an explosive device that would have fired shrapnel in all directions.

The teenager is suspected of possession or use of a weapon of mass destruction, threat of terrorism, graffiti and abuse of a flag.

Alabama Man Pleads Guilty to Supporting ISIS

Aziz Ihab Sayyed, 23, of Huntsville, Alabama pleaded guilty this week to attempting to support ISIS. The crimes attributed to him include distributing ISIS propaganda, researching how to produce explosive materials, and meeting with an undercover agent posing as a member of ISIS to whom he offered to provide services and personnel.

If you’d like to comment on this item, please email us at info@clarionproject.org and enter US Terror in the subject line. Please let us know if you’d rather we publish your comments anonymously.

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WAR: ASSOCIATION OF MUSLIM CLERICS CALL FOR UPRISING TO PROTEST TRUMP’S DECISION TO MOVE EMBASSY TO JERUSALEM IN MAY

“We call for a Palestinian, Arab, Islamic, and popular uprising against this American aggression against the direction of the first prayer (the Al-Aqsa Mosque) and Muhammad’s place of worship,” said Qaradaghi in an official statement. He stressed that the issue of the city of Al-Quds (the Arabic name for Jerusalem -ed.) is an issue of concern to the entire Muslim nation, and renouncing it or harming it is a mark of Cain that Allah, history, and future generations will not be able to atone for.

ALI AL-QARADAGHI, SECRETARY-GENERAL OF THE ASSOCIATION OF MUSLIM SCHOLARS HEADED BY SHEIKH YUSUF AL-QARADAWI, IS CALLING FOR AN UPRISING OF PEOPLES AND GOVERNMENTS AGAINST THE AMERICAN ADMINISTRATION’S ANNOUNCEMENT OF ITS INTENTION TO MOVE THE U.S. EMBASSY FROM TEL AVIV TO JERUSALEM THIS MAY.

“And in that day will I make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all people: all that burden themselves with it shall be cut in pieces, though all the people of the earth be gathered together against it.” Zechariah 12:3 (KJV)

EDITOR’S NOTE: Many people think that because Muslims have not yet launched a military action against Israel over the US Embassy move to Jerusalem, that there is not going to be one. But nothing could be further from the truth, the uprising is certainly coming. Like everything else that is prophetically percolating now, the month of May is shaping up to be when all the action on multiple fronts should be taking place. As the prophet Jeremiah tells us…after 70 years…here it comes. 

“For thus saith the LORD, That after seventy years be accomplished at Babylon I will visit you, and perform my good word toward you, in causing you to return to this place.” Jeremiah 20:10 (KJV)

“We call for a Palestinian, Arab, Islamic, and popular uprising against this American aggression against the direction of the first prayer (the Al-Aqsa Mosque) and Muhammad’s place of worship,” said Qaradaghi in an official statement.

He stressed that the issue of the city of Al-Quds, the Arabic name for Jerusalem, is an issue of concern to the entire Muslim nation, and renouncing it or harming it is a mark of Cain that Allah, history, and future generations will not be able to atone for.

MOVING THE U.S. EMBASSY TO JERUSALEM, CONTINUED QARADAGHI, IS “A DECLARATION OF WAR AGAINST THE MUSLIMS AND A STEP THAT WILL ESTABLISH THE ILLEGAL OCCUPATION.”

The Association of Muslim Scholars brings together clerics from around the world and is considered an influential organization in the Sunni Muslim world.

Its leader, Qaradawi, is considered the supreme religious authority of the Sunni Muslim world and the spiritual leader of both the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas. During the period of the Al-Aqsa Intifada, Qaradawi issued a fatwa permitting suicide attacks against Israel.

Last July, Qaradawi called for an “Islamic war” over Jerusalem. source

POPE FRANCIS IN CHILE PLACED CROWN ON STATUE OF THE ‘VIRGIN MARY’ AND DECLARED HER QUEEN OF THE UNIVERSE

“The virgin who wanted to be called Your handmaid was chosen mother of the Redeemer, and true mother of all the living, and now exalted above the choirs of the angels, reigns gloriously with Your Son interceding for all men as an advocate of grace and queen of mercy,” he prayed during mass, moments before crowning the statue.

THE CORONATION TOOK PLACE DURING MASS AT O’HIGGINS PARK IN SANTIAGO, WHERE THE TENS OF THOUSANDS IN ATTENDANCE WATCHED POPE FRANCIS PLACE A CROWN ON THE HEAD OF THE CHRIST CHILD, AND THEN ALSO ON THE HEAD OF MARY.

“The children gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead their dough, to make cakes to the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto other gods, that they may provoke me to anger.” Jeremiah 7:18 (KJV)

EDITOR’S NOTE: Section 966 of the official Catechism Of The Catholic Church states “the Blessed Virgin is invoked in the Church under the titles of Advocate, Helper, Benefactress, and Mediatrix”. But the Bible says that Jesus alone is our Advocate with the Father. It furthermore goes on to say that Mary is a co-redeemer in that the “union of the mother with the Son in the work of salvation is made manifest”. The Bible says that Jesus alone paid for our sins, with no earthly help from anyone. So when Pope Francis was in Chile earlier this year, placing a crown on a statue of Mary and declaring her to be queen, he was simply reaffirming that Catholics worship this fictional Mary who exists nowhere within the pages of the Bible. This is nothing more than pagan idol worship of another human being, making a statue and bowing down before it. This is not Christianity, and this is not biblical. No one in the Bible ever asked Mary for her advice, not one time is recorded of anyone asking for her prayers, and on the day of Pentecost she is a silent observer, saying and doing nothing at the birth of the Church. And yet somehow, the Catholic harlot has promoted her to the 4th part of the Trinity and a co-redeemer  with God in our salvation. Anything to get and keep your eyes off of Jesus, anything at all. 

In Chile, the statue is known as “Our Lady of Mount Carmel,” who is also known by Roman Catholics in the country as the patron saint and “queen” of Chile.

“The virgin who wanted to be called Your handmaid was chosen mother of the Redeemer, and true mother of all the living, and now exalted above the choirs of the angels, reigns gloriously with Your Son interceding for all men as an advocate of grace and queen of mercy,” he prayed during mass, moments before crowning the statue.

–

“Lord, look kindly upon these your servants, who by adorning with a visible crown the image of the mother of Your Son, recognize Your Son as King of the universe and invoke the virgin as queen,” Pope Francis said.

He “blessed” the crowns and was escorted to place them on the heads of the images. Francis then stood before the statue, swinging a smoking censer of incense.

“I pray that Our Lady of Mount Carmel, mother and queen of Chile, will continue to accompany and bring to birth the dreams of this blessed nation,” Bergoglio said in a speech to Chilean authorities on the same day.

The Roman Catholic leader also spoke to Chilean youth on Wednesday at the Basilica of Our Lady of Carmel in Maipú, where he told those gathered that the “Our Lady of Carmel waits for you and welcomes you with an open heart.”

POCAHONTAS: ELIZABETH WARREN’S NEW STEALTH CAMPAIGN TO MAKE VOTERS FORGET SHE PRETENDED TO BE NATIVE AMERICAN FOR CUSHY JOB

It comes as Warren considers a run for the White House in 2020. Her Feb. 14 address to the National Congress of American Indians was widely praised by conference attendees, and her allies viewed it as an important step forward for a potential candidate who had faced unexpectedly harsh criticism from both Republicans and some liberal activists over her claims of Cherokee and Delaware heritage despite a lack of documentation — a reality she acknowledged in the speech and her private conversations with Native American leaders.

ELIZABETH WARREN’S SURPRISE ADDRESS THIS MONTH ON HER DISPUTED NATIVE AMERICAN HERITAGE WAS JUST ONE PIECE OF A CONCERTED CAMPAIGN BY THE MASSACHUSETTS SENATOR AND POTENTIAL 2020 HOPEFUL TO PUT THE CONTROVERSY BEHIND HER.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Elizabeth Warren pretended to have “Cherokee blood” in order to get a cushy diversity job at Harvard which paid her $400,000 per year. Then when Donald Trump called her out on it, because she is not Native American in at even the smallest DNA level, there was a Liberal firestorm calling ‘foul’.  So now Warren, to get people to forget about all that truthiness, has launched a massive campaign to make nice with the real Native Americans, and she is using the Democrat’s favorite tool to do it with. Free stuff, free stuff…and more free stuff. 

Derisively nicknamed “Pocahontas” by President Donald Trump over allegations that she used claims of Native American heritage to get a head start in her job search — a claim she and former colleagues strongly deny — Warren has met with close to a dozen tribal leaders and prominent activists recently.

She has also signed onto at least six bills directly related to Native American policy. It’s clearly an organized effort: Four of those co-sponsorships came within two days of her speech, and Warren endorsed two bills around that time even though they’d been introduced months earlier.

It comes as Warren considers a run for the White House in 2020. Her Feb. 14 address to the National Congress of American Indians was widely praised by conference attendees, and her allies viewed it as an important step forward for a potential candidate who had faced unexpectedly harsh criticism from both Republicans and some liberal activists over her claims of Cherokee and Delaware heritage despite a lack of documentation — a reality she acknowledged in the speech and her private conversations with Native American leaders.

Now, Warren and her backers are hoping to move beyond the argument entirely and spin it into a positive. The aim is to neutralize what’s seen as an Achilles’ heel for a potential national bid, turning wary activists into allies.

“Her speech was, in many ways, long overdue. It was a great opportunity for her to tell her story,” said Rion Ramirez, chairman of the Democratic National Committee’s Native American Council, who sat down with Warren the day before she addressed the NCAI. “Unfortunately, her president tries to define what her story is. And it’s not his story to tell.”

“It’s ridiculous that a non-Indian man, that’s our president, tries to sit there and define who is and who isn’t Native,” he added.

Still, the sudden flurry of activity on Native American issues opens Warren to accusations that her maneuvers simply reflect a political scramble to mitigate an issue that’s made her vulnerable in the past.

When the first-term lawmaker surprised the NCAI by appearing onstage this month, she acknowledged her own controversy before framing herself as an ally of Native Americans in their fight for fair treatment.

“I get why some people think there’s hay to be made here: You won’t find my family members on any rolls, and I’m not enrolled in a tribe. And I want to make something clear: I respect that distinction, I understand that tribal membership is determined by tribes, and only by tribes. I never used my family tree to get a break or get ahead; I never used it to advance my career,” she said, diving into a personal history that few outside Massachusetts had heard her tell before, and addressing the Pocahontas nickname she has long decried as racist.

“I’m here today to make a promise: Every time someone brings up my family’s story, I’m going to use it to lift up the story of your families and your communities.”

GOP leaders have continued using her claims of Native heritage to make the case that Warren is not who she says she is. They allege she misrepresented herself to get a job at a time that Harvard — where she landed — was struggling with diversity. The Republican National Committee even knocked Warren for not attending NCAI just before she made her surprise appearance.

“Fauxcahontas MIA From Major Native American Summit,” read one email sent by the RNC to reporters, detailing her history of claiming Native ancestry.

It’s not just a Republican attack: Liberal Native American activists have also criticized Warren. They argue she hasn’t gone far enough in explaining her claimed ties to the culture and needs to do more work for their communities. One, Rebecca Nagle, wrote in a November ThinkProgress post, “She is not from us. She does not represent us. She is not Cherokee.” source

Report: Four of Sheriff Scott Israel’s Deputies Waited Outside Douglas High During School Shooting

Joe Raedle/Getty Images

by AWR HAWKINS23 Feb 201873,930

A report released Friday claims four of Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel’s deputies waited outside Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School while the attack was occurring.

On February 22 Breitbart News reported that one deputy resigned after it was learned that he was on scene but failed to control Nikolas Cruz. Sheriff Israel told ABC 13 that video shows the deputy, Scott Peterson, “arrive at the west side of Building 12” and “take a position” outside the school — but never go inside. The sheriff’s office moved to suspend Peterson, who resigned before the suspension could take place.

Now CNN reports that the Coral Springs police officers claim three other Broward County deputies were outside the school but failed to go inside as well. They quote “Coral Springs sources” who said the three “deputies had their pistols drawn and were behind their vehicles” when Coral Springs officers arrived. They said “not one of [the deputies] had gone into the school.”

The sources indicate other Broward County deputies arrived on scene, and two of those new arrivals joined with Coral Springs officers and entered the building.

The sources said, “Coral Springs police were stunned and upset that the four original Broward County Sheriff’s deputies who were first on the scene did not appear to join them as they entered the school.”

Coral Springs Police Department public information officer Sgt. Carla Kmiotek would not comment on what Broward County deputies did or did not do. Rather, “The Coral Springs Police Department will speak on behalf of our officers and their response in that incident,” she said. “We will not speak on behalf of Broward Sheriff’s deputies and their response to the incident.”

AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News, the host of the Breitbart podcast Bullets with AWR Hawkins, and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com. Sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange.

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CNN Lets Students Attack Dana Loesch as a Bad Mother at Town Hall on Guns

CNN / YouTube; arr: BNN

by JOEL B. POLLAK22 Feb 201815,512

Two students from Marjorie Stonemason Douglas High School attacked National Rifle Association spokesperson Dana Loesch as a bad mother during the CNN Town Hall on gun policy on Wednesday night.

The students had survived last week’s shooting, which left 17 dead and over a dozen wounded.

One student, Cameron Kasky, said onstage while questioning Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL): “I wish I could have asked the NRA lady [Loesch] a question … I would ask her how she can look in the mirror, considering the fact that she has children, but, you know, maybe she avoids those.”

“What was that, I’m sorry?” Tapper said, without admonishing Kasky or the cheering crowd.

Deena Zeina Zaru

✔@Deena_CNN

Cameron Kasky, who survived the school shooting at CNN Town Hall: “Sen. Rubio, can you tell me right now that you will not accept a single donation from the NRA?”
Rubio: “People buy into my agenda, and I do support the Second Amendment” #StudentsStandUp

Another student, Emma Gonzalez — whom CNN has highlighted frequently in the past several days — also attacked Loesch as a mother: “I want you to know that we will support your two children in a way that you will not.”

Andrew Jerell Jones@sluggahjells

Only @jaketapper & @cnn would think it’s a good idea to have the angel that is Emma Gonzalez ask a question to a real psycho #StudentsStandUp

Tapper did not comment.

In addition, as NewsBusters notes, the crowd repeatedly heckled Loesch as a “murderer.” Tapper did admonish them — as did Gonzalez — to be quiet so that they could hear her answers to questions.

“Let’s have some respect. She’s here to answer the questions. Let’s let her answer the questions,” Tapper said.

The crowd also booed Loesch when she referred to a rape survivor who supports gun rights.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News. He was named to Forward’s 50 “most influential” Jews in 2017. He is the co-author of How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.

GUCCI MODELS AT MILAN FASHION WEEK FEATURED CYBORGS CARRYING SEVERED HEADS FOR ‘FEMINIST MESSAGE’

Michele’s vision for Gucci includes models who are genderless: Men wear “women’s” clothing and vice versa, something he has done for several seasons now. He toys with the idea that in the future, traditional notions of men and women will no longer exist. As written in the show notes, “The collection goes further beyond, taking the shape of a genuine Cyborg Manifesto (D.J. Haraway), in which the hybrid is metaphorically praised as a figure that can overcome the dualism and the dichotomy of identity. The Cyborg, in fact, is a paradoxical creature keeping together nature and culture, masculine and feminine, normal and alien, psyche and matter.”

ON WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON DURING MILAN FASHION WEEK, GUCCI STAGED A SPECTACULAR YET PECULIAR FASHION SHOW THAT INCLUDED “CYBORG” MODELS — WHICH, UPON A DEEPER LOOK, POSSESSED AN UNDERLYING METAPHORICAL FEMINIST MESSAGE.

“Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, Traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away.” 2 Timothy 3:3-5 (KJV)

EDITOR’S NOTE: Cyborg models carrying severed heads preaching from the Feminist Manifesto paints a rather bleak vision of the future, but one that is exactly in line with how life will be in the time of Jacob’s trouble. Transhumanism is no longer science fiction but an abject fact of human life in the 21st century, and it will only get worse and weirder as time goes on. Does it seem to you like this lost and unsaved world is preparing to meet and live under Antichrist? You’d be correct. Good thing the Rapture of the Church comes first. 

In the Gucci show notes, creative director Alessandro Michele referenced A Cyborg Manifesto, written by Donna Haraway in 1984. In it, Haraway uses the concept of a “cyborg” to represent women, without the constraints of society’s traditional gender labels. As one Wired writer notes, the cyborg in Haraway’s piece “trashes the big oppositions between nature and culture, self and world that run through so much of our thought.”

It poses the idea that all of us are not “naturally made” — or rather, we are “constructed,” like a cyborg. And if “given the right tools, we can all be reconstructed.” That is to say, women aren’t born to be wives, born to work in the house, or “naturally” submissive and overly emotional people. Women can choose to be however they want to be.

Today, feminism is defined as “the advocacy of women’s rights on the ground of the equality of the sexes.” But in Gucci’s world, sexes and genders do not exist. So Michele raises a bigger question: Why let traditional gender constraints put forth by society stop women from moving forward with their goals and dreams?

Michele’s vision for Gucci includes models who are genderless: Men wear “women’s” clothing and vice versa, something he has done for several seasons now. He toys with the idea that in the future, traditional notions of men and women will no longer exist. As written in the show notes, “The collection goes further beyond, taking the shape of a genuine Cyborg Manifesto (D.J. Haraway), in which the hybrid is metaphorically praised as a figure that can overcome the dualism and the dichotomy of identity. The Cyborg, in fact, is a paradoxical creature keeping together nature and culture, masculine and feminine, normal and alien, psyche and matter.”

MICHELE CONTINUES, “GUCCI CYBORG IS POST-HUMAN: IT HAS EYES ON ITS HEADS, FAUN HORNS, DRAGON PUPPIES AND DOUBLING HEADS. IT’S A BIOLOGICALLY INDEFINITE AND CULTURALLY AWARE CREATURE.” HE REFERS TO THESE “GUCCI CYBORGS” AS MONGRELS, WHICH SUGGEST INDEFINABLE, INTERMIXED BREEDS.

In a show setting that mimicked a surgical operating room, models walked down the Gucci runway carrying their own severed “heads,” as well as an artificial baby dragon, chameleon, and snake, re-created for a different kind of world. The collection included Michele’s signature maximalist style, with beaded jackets layered atop patterned blouses and floral trousers underneath plaid skirts. Ruffled velvet dresses were styled with turbans, and knit balaclavas were paired with exaggerated metallic Victorian blouses.

There were several pop culture, cinematic, and athletic references too. Logomania was front and center, something the Gucci house is very familiar with. But instead of just using their brand, they focused on Paramount Pictures, the New York Yankees, and the San Francisco Giants, whose logos were all displayed on various cardigans and coats.

In one film reference, Michele designed a shirt with a feminist twist, showcasing the poster for the 1965 film Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! which was initially deemed sexist in the ’60s but later hailed as a feminist classic.

Who knew that a collection that at first glance appeared so wild was advocating for a “post-human” version of feminism? It’s often difficult to predict what Alessandro Michele will do next, but this season surely takes the cake. source

FBI Failed to Act on January 5, 2018, Tip About Florida School Shooter Nikolas Cruz

7485

Broward County Jail and Instagram via AP

by CHARLIE SPIERING16 Feb 20187,519

The FBI admits it failed to act on a warning about Florida shooter Nikolas Cruz when informed about potentially dangerous behavior.

The warning came from a person close to Cruz on an anonymous FBI tipline warning about his possession of a gun, his disturbing social media posts, and his desire to kill people, according to the FBI.

The tip-off was delivered on January 5, 2018.

The information was not sent to the FBI Miami field office, which the FBI blamed on a failure to act under “established protocols.”

“We are still investigating the facts,” FBI Director Christopher Wray said in a statement. “I am committed to getting to the bottom of what happened in this particular matter.”

Wray added that it was the FBI’s job to “act properly and quickly” when informed of troubling behavior by the public

He expressed “regret” for the additional pain that the information would have for families and friends of those Cruz killed.

“All of the men and women of the FBI are dedicated to keeping the American people safe, and are relentlessly committed to improving all that we do and how we do it.”

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FAKE NEWS MEDIA BLAMES TRUMP FOR FLORIDA SHOOTING IN MASSIVE DISINFORMATION CAMPAIGN BLITZ

The accusation that a bill designed to remove restrictions and allow the mentally ill to purchase guns was passed by the GOP and signed by President Trump had long been debunked. As the National Review’s Charles C.W. Cooke wrote over a year ago, what got removed was “in layman’s terms: The rule would have allowed bureaucrats within one of our federal agencies to bar American citizens from exercising a constitutional right — and on the highly questionable grounds that to be incapable of managing one’s finances is, by definition, to be a ‘mental defective.’”

FRESH OFF THEIR DISINFORMATION CAMPAIGN IN THE IMMEDIATE AFTERMATH OF THE PARKLAND, FLORIDA SCHOOL SHOOTING IN WHICH THEY FALSELY CLAIMED THERE HAD BEEN 18 SCHOOL SHOOTINGS THIS YEAR, THE THREE MAJOR NETWORK NEWS OUTLETS (ABC, CBS, AND NBC) MOVED ON TO ANOTHER FAKE NEWS TOPIC THEY WANTED TO PUSH ON THE AMERICAN PEOPLE: PRESIDENT TRUMP AND THE GOP MADE IT EASIER FOR MENTALLY ILL PEOPLE TO BUY GUNS.

EDITOR’S NOTE: When they decided to make alcohol illegal during Prohibition, two major things occurred. First, anyone who wanted to drink was still able to get a drink. Second, Prohibition created the booze black market, made thousands of people like the Kennedy family crazy wealthy, and provided all the revenue that allowed the Mafia to become such a powerful force during the middle and end of the 20th century. You want to bans guns? Sure, go ahead. Chicago has the strictest anti-gun laws in the country, and the highest number of people shot and killed by guns. The Parkland shooter had already been flagged by the FBI and local law enforcement, and was allowed to slip through the cracks instead of being taken off the street. Meth is illegal, does that stop all the thousands of meth labs from being set up across the country? Heroin and cocaine are illegal as well…

The accusation that a bill designed to remove restrictions and allow the mentally ill to purchase guns was passed by the GOP and signed by President Trump had long been debunked. As the National Review’s Charles C.W. Cooke wrote over a year ago, what got removed was “in layman’s terms: The rule would have allowed bureaucrats within one of our federal agencies to bar American citizens from exercising a constitutional right — and on the highly questionable grounds that to be incapable of managing one’s finances is, by definition, to be a ‘mental defective.’”

And the bill wasn’t even supported by the NRA. But it was supported by the liberal ACLU and the American Association of People with Disabilities. Yet that didn’t stop the networks from pushing lies and being appalled that the President wasn’t exploiting the situation to push gun control as their previous president did.

“The President’s efforts to comfort the nation tonight striking for what he didn’t say,” chided White House Correspondent Peter Alexander during NBC Nightly News. “President Trump in a nearly seven-minute statement not once mentioning the word ‘Guns.’ Instead, again signaling his focus is on the mental health of shooters, not the weapons they use.” He then spewed a torrent of fake news:

DESPITE EMPHASIZING MENTAL HEALTH, THE WHITE HOUSE’S NEWLY UNVEILED BUDGET WOULD SLASH FUNDING FOR MEDICAID THAT COVERS A QUARTER OF MENTAL HEALTH CARE IN THE U.S. AND PRESIDENT TRUMP LAST YEAR REVOKED A HOTLY CONTESTED OBAMA-ERA REGULATION THAT WOULD HAVE MADE IT HARDER FOR SOME PEOPLE WITH MENTAL ILLNESS TO BUY GUNS.

That lamenting for the lack of a gun control push was echoed on CBS Evening News when anchor Jeff Glor bemoaned that “President Trump did not mention gun laws when he addressed the nation today about the shooting.”

“Well, Jeff, the President didn’t have a lot to say today about what he actually plans to do about school shootings,” CBS’s Chip Reid whined to Glor. “But just last year, the President signed legislation reversing an Obama-era regulation that would have made it more difficult for some people with mental illness to buy guns,” Reid continued.

The report by ABC’s Senior White House Correspondent Cecilia Vega during World News Tonight was particularly vindictive. “Calling the shooter mentally disturbed, his message was clear … But shortly after taking office, President Trump blocked an Obama-era rule that made it tougher for the mentally ill to obtain guns,” she claimed.

But Vega’s lie appeared to be inadvertently exposed when Justice Correspondent Pierre Thomas was describing how the shooter obtained his rifle. “Federal law bans anyone deemed by authorities as mentally ill from buying guns, but it’s unclear whether any court or commission designated Cruz as mentally unfit. So, it appears he fell through the cracks,” he explained. So, is it easy for the mentally ill to buy guns or are they banned? ABC doesn’t seem to know, judging by their own reporting.

It should be noted that all three of the networks backed off and didn’t repeat the bogus claim about there being 18 school shootings since the start of the year. BUT, all of them left it out there and didn’t correct their reporting from the previous night. source

DOJ INSPECTOR GENERAL HOROWITZ SET TO REOPEN INVESTIGATION INTO FBI HANDLING OF CLINTON ILLEGAL EMAIL SERVER

IG Horowitz’s reputation will be put to the test when he releases the findings of the Clinton investigation. No matter what he concludes, it’s likely to create a political firestorm, coming at a time when both Republicans and the White House are charging that political bias is rampant at the Justice Department and at the FBI.

FEW PEOPLE HAVE HEARD OF MICHAEL HOROWITZ, BUT THAT’S ABOUT TO CHANGE. HOROWITZ, THE DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE (DOJ) INSPECTOR GENERAL, IS AN INCREASINGLY CRITICAL PLAYER IN THE CONTROVERSY SURROUNDING THE FBI, PRESIDENT TRUMP AND THE RUSSIA INVESTIGATION.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Candidate Donald Trump famously said to Hillary Clinton in a debate that if “he were president” that she would be “locked up”. Now it looks like that promise just might be kept after all. At the very least, the collusion between Crooked Hillary and the FBI must be exposed and dealt with. 

With little fanfare, he has been conducting a sprawling probe of the FBI’s handling of the 2016 investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server. His full report, which could set off shockwaves, is expected by the early spring.

A political appointee in both the Bush and Obama administrations, Horowitz’s yearlong investigation already reportedly contributed to the early resignation of Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe. And his work has been felt in other ways.

Horowitz also uncovered a series of text messages between FBI officials Peter Strzok and Lisa Page that led special counsel Robert Mueller to remove Strzok from his team. Those texts have fueled accusations among GOP lawmakers that Mueller’s probe is tainted by partisanship.

Those who know Horowitz portray him as an independent voice.

“He is really one of the smartest and fairest people I have ever had the pleasure to work with,” said Bill Hamel, who served as assistant inspector general for investigations at the Department of Education. “He’s a straight shooter and a fair guy. He’s an honest broker.”

But Horowitz’s reputation will be put to the test when he releases the findings of the Clinton investigation. No matter what he concludes, it’s likely to create a political firestorm, coming at a time when both Republicans and the White House are charging that political bias is rampant at the Justice Department and at the FBI.

Horowitz attracted public attention early in his career as an assistant U.S. attorney in New York for prosecuting corrupt police officers in the infamous “Dirty 30” case in the mid-1990s.

He later moved to the Justice Department’s criminal division in Washington, where he served as chief of staff for a period spanning the Clinton and Bush administrations.

Bush later appointed Horowitz to a six-year term as a commissioner of the U.S. Sentencing Commission, an agency within the judicial branch that writes sentencing guidelines for federal courts. He was then selected by President Obama to serve as the Justice Department’s top watchdog in 2011.

HIS JOB IS DEMANDING. HOROWITZ OVERSEES A DEPARTMENT OF NEARLY 500 EMPLOYEES WHO ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR INVESTIGATING WASTE, FRAUD, ABUSE AND MISCONDUCT WITHIN THE JUSTICE DEPARTMENT.

“You’re there to help the agency succeed in doing its job,” said Hamel, who has known Horowitz since his days working in New York. “They have to be independent to do that job. They can’t be swayed by political issues.”

He is best remembered in his current role for coming down hard on regional officials at Justice and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives for the infamous “Fast and Furious” operation in which officials allowed the illegal sale of firearms in a botched effort to track Mexican drug cartels.

Just six months into the job, Horowitz issued a report eviscerating law enforcement officials in Arizona for a “significant lack of oversight” and disregard for “the safety of individuals in the United States and Mexico.”

While the investigation absolved Attorney General Eric Holder of blame, Horowitz recommended that the Justice Department consider potential disciplinary action for 14 officials involved.

“It was just a remarkably intense first six months on the job. I know I wouldn’t have chosen to walk into the job that way. Looking back on it, it was sort of trial by fire,” Horowitz told The Washington Post in 2014. “You sink or you swim pretty quickly, and fortunately I didn’t sink. People can use their own judgment about how well I swam.”

Horowitz also clashed with the Obama administration over Justice and the FBI bucking requests for documents from the inspector general’s office.

Horowitz’s work has earned him respect among his peers. He has been twice elected to lead the Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency, the independent panel of inspectors general across the federal government.

“He is a man of the utmost integrity who is willing to call the shots as he sees them,” said Stanley Twardy, a Stamford, Conn.-based lawyer who has known Horowitz professionally since his days as a U.S. attorney.

Horowitz formally announced last January that he would investigate allegations of wrongdoing by Justice Department and FBI officials leading up the 2016 election, in response to demands from both Democrats and Republicans.

IT’S POSSIBLE THAT BOTH PARTIES WILL GET POLITICAL AMMUNITION FROM HOROWITZ’S REPORT.

The inspector general is examining whether then-FBI Director James Comey broke FBI procedure with his public disclosures about the Clinton case, including the letter that he sent to Congress a few weeks before the election. Before Trump fired Comey, Democrats were outspoken in their criticism of those decisions, saying they violated procedure and cost Clinton the election.

But Horowitz is also looking into allegations that McCabe should have been recused from the investigation. Republicans, including Trump, have seized on reports that McCabe’s wife accepted campaign contributions from Clinton ally and former Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe when she ran for state office in Virginia, calling it a clear conflict of interest.

Finally, Horowitz is also looking into unauthorized disclosures of information.

Lawmakers have pressed Horowitz to expand the scope of the probe to include Comey’s firing or Attorney General Jeff Sessions’s recusal from the separate investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.

Horowitz has not committed to looking into Comey’s firing, signaling that doing so could present a conflict with Mueller’s investigation.

Horowitz’s probe has become all the more relevant in light of McCabe’s decision to step down last week. According to The New York Times, Christopher Wray, whom Trump installed as FBI director last year after Comey’s ouster, had raised concerns about details of the forthcoming inspector general report that led him to propose that McCabe be demoted.

The Washington Post subsequently reported that Horowitz is examining why McCabe seemingly did not move forward for several weeks on a request to examine new emails in the Clinton investigation that were found on former congressman Anthony Weiner’s (D-N.Y.) computer.

“There are a lot of legitimate questions that I hope would be answered by this inspector and that probably aren’t going to paint the DOJ or the FBI in a particularly good light,” said Ron Hosko, a former official in the FBI’s criminal investigative division.

THE FINDINGS COULD FURTHER PLAY INTO GOP CHARGES OF POLITICAL BIAS AT THE FBI, WHICH CRITICS VIEW AS PART OF A BROADER EFFORT TO INHIBIT MUELLER’S INVESTIGATION.

The text exchanges between Strzok and Page came to public light when the Justice Department delivered them to GOP-led panels in Congress in December and also reportedly allowed journalists to view them.

“These text messages prove what we all suspected: high-ranking FBI officials involved in the Clinton investigation were personally invested in the outcome of the election and clearly let their strong political opinions cloud their professional judgment,” House Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) told Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein at a hearing in December.

The Justice Department came under fire from Republicans in January when lawmakers discovered a five-month gap in the text messages; Horowitz has subsequently said he recovered the missing exchanges and would provide copies to the department, which could decide to release them to Capitol Hill.

Horowitz told lawmakers last November that his investigators had reviewed roughly 1.25 million records and conducted dozens of interviews in connection with the ongoing investigation.

At the time, he said he expected the report to be issued by March or April. Otherwise, the inspector general has remained tight-lipped on the status of the investigation, including the potential widening of its scope.

His statement last January contained an important caveat. “If circumstances warrant,” it said, “the [inspector general] will consider including other issues that may arise during the course of the review.”  source

Clinton Associates Fed Information to Dossier Author Steele, Grassley-Graham Memo Says

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The Associated Press

by KRISTINA WONG5 Feb 20188,559

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Crime and Terrorism Subcommittee Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-SC) on Monday released a memo referring Trump dossier author Christopher Steele for a criminal investigation that revealed that a friend of Hillary and Bill Clinton fed information for the Steele dossier.

According to Grassley and Graham’s memo, which is heavily redacted at the request of the FBI, a foreign source gave information to friends of Bill and Hillary Clinton, who then gave it to an Obama State Department official, who then gave it to Steele.

Grassley and Graham’s memo stated:

One memorandum by Mr. Steele that was not published by Buzzfeed is dated October 19, 2016. The report alleges [redacted], as well as [redacted]. Mr. Steele’s memorandum states that his company ‘received his report from [redacted] US State Department,’ that the report was the second in a series, and that the report was information that came from a foreign sub-source who ‘is in touch with [redacted], a contact of [redacted], a friend of the Clintons, who passed it to [redacted].

“It is troubling enough that the Clinton Campaign funded Mr. Steele’s work, but these Clinton associates were contemporaneously feeding Mr. Steele allegations raises additional concerns about his credibility,” Grassley and Graham wrote.

The Washington Examiner‘s Byron York noted in his report that Clinton associate Cody Shearer was in contact with Steele about anti-Trump research and that Obama State Department official Jonathan Winer was a connection between Steele and the State Department during the 2016 campaign.

The Justice Department and the FBI requested heavy redactions from Grassley and Graham’s memo, making it hard to discern its full meaning.

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The senators said in a statement accompanying their memo that it had quotes from the FISA warrant application used to surveil Carter Page — specifically what Steele had told the FBI about his contacts with the media.

The House Intelligence Committee memo revealed that Steele had not been honest with the FBI about his contacts with the media, and was thus terminated as a source.

Grassley and Graham on January 4 referred Steele for a criminal investigation for lying to federal authorities, but they were not able to release their memo explaining why they were doing so until the Justice Department and FBI reviewed it.

The memo explained that their referral was based on Steele’s statements in British court about the distribution of his research conflicting with things he told the Justice Department.

Their memo includes what those statements are, but the FBI requested they be redacted. Grassley is now calling on the FBI to withdraw its redactions, now that the House Intelligence Committee memo has been declassified.

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They said in the statement that their memo is “largely based on the same underlying documents” as the House Intelligence Committee memo that was recently declassified, and that Grassley is now calling on the FBI to withdraw its redactions.

“Seeking transparency and cooperation should not be this challenging. The government should not be blotting out information that it admits isn’t secret, and it should not take dramatic steps by Congress and the White House to get answers that the American people are demanding,” Grassley said.

“There are still many questions that can only be answered with complete transparency. That means declassifying as much of the underlying documents as possible,” he said.

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2016 Presidential Race, Big Government, Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton, christopher steele, dossier, Hillary Clinton, Sen. Chuck Grassley, Sen. Lindsey Graham, Steele dossier

Intel Memo Mystery: John McCain Pushed ‘Pee’ Dossier to FBI Months After Feds Already Used It to Gain FISA Warrant

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Mark Wilson/Getty

by AARON KLEIN6 Feb 20189,658

TEL AVIV — Last week’s release of a four-page House Intelligence Committee memo alleging abuse of surveillance authority provides details that raise new questions about Sen. John McCain’s role in delivering the infamous, largely discredited 35-page dossier on President Donald Trump and Russia to the U.S. intelligence community under Barack Obama’s administration.

The memo, crafted by House Republicans, reveals, among other things, that former FBI Director James Comey personally signed FISA court applications utilizing the dossier to obtain FISA court warrants to conduct surveillance on Carter Page, who briefly served as a volunteer foreign policy adviser to Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.

Comey allegedly utilized the dossier, produced by the controversial Fusion GPS opposition research firm, to seek and receive the first warrant against Page on October 21, 2016. Federal agencies sought the renewal of the order every 90 days in accordance with court requirements. According to the memo, Comey “signed three FISA applications in question on behalf of the FBI, and Deputy Director Andrew McCabe signed one.”

Comey allegedly utilized the dossier to seek the initial warrant even though he would label the same dossier “salacious and unverified” eight months later during sworn testimony.

Comey also utilized the dossier, according to the memo, even though senior FBI officials were aware at the time that the document, authored by ex-British spy Christopher Steele, was produced by the controversial Fusion GPS firm and was funded by Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee (DNC) via the Perkins Coie law firm.

The questions about McCain’s involvement follow an admission last month by the founders of Fusion GPS that they helped Steele share the document with the Arizona senator utilizing a surrogate after the November 2016 presidential election. McCain in turn reportedly provided the dossier to the FBI in December 2016.

The timeline revealed in the memo shows that by the time McCain delivered the dossier to the FBI leadership in December 2016, the agency had not only already launched an investigation into Trump’s campaign partially utilizing the dossier but Comey himself had two months earlier signed an application using the dossier to obtain a FISA warrant on Page.

It is therefore not clear why Fusion GPS would seek out McCain to deliver to the FBI a document already being utilized by the agency to launch a probe into Trump’s campaign and obtain a FISA warrant after Steele himself provided the dossier to the FBI in July 2016.

It is also not clear whether, at the time he delivered the dossier to the FBI, McCain was aware of the origins of the information, primarily that Fusion GPS compiled the charges and that they were paid to do so by Clinton’s campaign and the DNC.

McCain has not responded to multiple Breitbart News requests for comment.

Necessity of McCain delivering dossier

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In August 22 testimony released last month, Fusion GPS Co-Founder Glenn R. Simpson stated that Steele’s outreach to the FBI was “something that Chris took on on his own.” Simpson stated that as far as he knew Fusion GPS did not fund Steele’s July 2016 trip to Rome to meet with the FBI. He said he believes that the trip expenses may have been reimbursed by the FBI.

In a New York Times oped last month, Simpson and fellow GPS Co-Founder Peter Fritch relate that they helped McCain share their anti-Trump dossier with the Obama-era intelligence community via an “emissary.”

“After the election, Mr. Steele decided to share his intelligence with Senator John McCain via an emissary,” the Fusion GPS founders related. “We helped him do that. The goal was to alert the United States national security community to an attack on our country by a hostile foreign power.”

It was not clear from their statement whether McCain knew Fusion GPS was behind the dossier.

While the Fusion GPS oped sheds some light on the manner in which McCain obtained the dossier, the Fusion founders did not name the “emissary” who delivered the document to McCain.

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A January 11, 2017 statement from McCain attempted to explain why he provided the documents to the FBI but did not mention how he came to possess the dossier or whether he knew who funded it.

“Upon examination of the contents, and unable to make a judgment about their accuracy, I delivered the information to the director of the FBI,” McCain said at the time. “That has been the extent of my contact with the FBI or any other government agency regarding this issue.”

Sir Andrew Wood, a former British ambassador to Moscow, said McCain first consulted him about the claims inside the dossier at a security conference in Canada shortly after last November’s presidential election.

Wood stated that McCain had obtained the documents from the senator’s own sources. “I told him I was aware of what was in the report but I had not read it myself, that it might be true, it might be untrue. I had no means of judging really,” Wood further told BBC Radio 4 in January.

Last December, Wood related that he served as a “go-between” to inform McCain about the dossier contents. “My mission was essentially to be a go-between and a messenger, to tell the senator and assistants that such a dossier existed,” Wood told Fox News.

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In March, Vanity Fair raised questions about the alleged involvement of longtime McCain associate David J. Kramer, a former State Department official, in helping to obtain the dossier directly from Steele. The issue was also raised in a lawsuit filed against Steele by one of the individuals named in the dossier.

Kramer was reportedly questioned by the House Intelligence Committee about his involvement in the dossier affair.

Newsweek reported on an alleged McCain-directed meeting between Kramer and Steele involving the dossier:

Kramer was reportedly directed to meet with Steele in London by McCain, who then received copies of the Trump-Russia dossier and delivered them to the Arizona senator upon returning home. McCain then gave the dossier to the FBI in December 2016.

Briefing to Trump leaked to media, contents of dossier publically disclosed

One issue that could be relevant in Fusion GPS’s admitted decision to turn to McCain is a revelation in the House memo that dossier author Steele was terminated as an FBI source “for what the FBI defines as the most serious of violations – an unauthorized disclosure to the media of his relationship with the FBI in an October 30, 2016 Mother Jones article by David Corn.”

Another issue here is the timing. McCain reportedly delivered the dossier to FBI leadership in December 2016. The memo relates that in early January 2017, prior to Trump’s inauguration, Comey briefed then President-Elect Trump and President Obama on the dossier.

As Breitbart News documented, Comey’s dossier briefing to Trump was subsequently leaked to the news media, setting in motion a flurry of news media attention on the dossier, including the release of the document to the public. The briefing also may have provided the veneer of respectability to a document circulated within the news media but widely considered too unverified to publicize.

On January 10, 2017, CNN was first to report the leaked information that the controversial contents of the dossier were presented during classified briefings on classified documents presented one week earlier to Obama and Trump.

The news network cited “multiple U.S. officials with direct knowledge of the briefings” – in other words, officials leaking information about classified briefings – revealing the dossier contents were included in a two-page synopsis that served as an addendum to a larger report on Russia’s alleged attempts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election.

Prior to CNN’s report leaking the Comey briefing to Trump, which was picked up by news agencies worldwide, the contents of the dossier had been circulating among news media outlets, but the sensational claims were largely considered too risky to publish.

All that changed when the dossier contents were presented to Obama and Trump during the classified briefings. In other words, Comey’s briefings themselves and the subsequent leak to CNN about those briefings by “multiple US officials with direct knowledge,” seem to have given the news media the opening to report on the dossier’s existence as well as allude to some of the document’s unproven claims.

Just after CNN’s January 10 report on Comey’s classified briefings about the dossier, BuzzFeed famously published the dossier’s full unverified contents. When it published the dossier text, BuzzFeed reported that the contents had circulated “for months” and were known to journalists.

The New York Times used CNN’s story on Comey’s briefing to report some contents of the dossier the same day as CNN’s January 10 report on the briefings.

After citing the CNN story, the Times reported:

The memos describe sex videos involving prostitutes with Mr. Trump in a 2013 visit to a Moscow hotel. The videos were supposedly prepared as “kompromat,” or compromising material, with the possible goal of blackmailing Mr. Trump in the future.

The memos also suggest that Russian officials proposed various lucrative deals, essentially as disguised bribes in order to win influence over Mr. Trump.

The memos describe several purported meetings during the 2016 presidential campaign between Trump representatives and Russian officials to discuss matters of mutual interest, including the Russian hacking of the Democratic National Committee and Mrs. Clinton’s campaign chairman, John D. Podesta.

It seems the news media utilized the leak about Comey’s dossier briefings to finally publicize the dossier’s existence and some of its contents even though many news media outlets reportedly possessed some of the dossier information for months.

Yet in his testimony, the FBI’s Comey claimed the opposite was the case. He stated that he and other U.S. officials briefed Obama and Trump about the dossier contents because they wanted to alert the president and president-elect that the news media were about to release the material. It is not the usual job of the U.S. intelligence community to brief top officials about pending news media coverage.

In his prepared remarks before the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence on June 8, 2017, Comey detailed why he claimed the Intelligence Community briefed Obama and Trump on the “salacious material” – a clear reference to the dossier.

Comey wrote:

The IC leadership thought it important, for a variety of reasons, to alert the incoming President to the existence of this material, even though it was salacious and unverified. Among those reasons were: (1) we knew the media was about to publicly report the material and we believed the IC should not keep knowledge of the material and its imminent release from the President-Elect; and (2) to the extent there was some effort to compromise an incoming President, we could blunt any such effort with a defensive briefing.

ACTIVE SHOOTER SITUATION AT MARJORY STONEMAN DOUGLAS HIGH IN FLORIDA LEAVES DOZENS INJURED OR DEAD

Police responded to an active shooter situation at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland. A source briefed on events says “there are multiple people shot” and the shooter “is possibly a former student.” Margate Fire Dept. says 20 to 50 people might be injured. The U.S. Coast Guard and Palm Beach County are sending helicopters to help. A number of people could be seen being loaded into ambulances on a stretcher.

POLICE RESPONDED TO AN ACTIVE SHOOTER SITUATION AT MARJORY STONEMAN DOUGLAS HIGH SCHOOL IN PARKLAND. A SOURCE BRIEFED ON EVENTS SAYS “THERE ARE MULTIPLE PEOPLE SHOT” AND THE SHOOTER “IS POSSIBLY A FORMER STUDENT.”

EDITOR’S NOTE: This is breaking news and is happening right now…as more information continues to come in we will update this story as necessary. The police are saying that the shooter might be a former student. 

The father of a student at the school says the shooter was allegedly “wearing a black vest with a red shirt…and supposedly he pulled the fire alarm and planned it,” according to CBS This Morning.

Officers are inside the building looking at surveillance video and trying to identify the shooter. Chopper4 is over the school located at 5901 Pine Island Road Wednesday afternoon.

Margate Fire Dept. says 20 to 50 people might be injured. The U.S. Coast Guard and Palm Beach County are sending helicopters to help. A number of people could be seen being loaded into ambulances on a stretcher.

INSIDE, A STUDENT SHARED A PICTURE AS THEY TOOK COVER.

View image on Twitter

CBS Evening News

✔@CBSEveningNews

NEW: Photo from a student in the school barricaded in a classroom at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High where an active shooter incident is underway

3:32 PM – Feb 14, 2018

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CBS4’s Rick Folbaum was speaking over text message with a student at the school who is hiding in a closet.

“All of a sudden there was a really loud noise…..people are crying the closet,” the student wrote to him and later asked when police were coming to help them.

The school was placed on lockdown but around 3 p.m. some students could be seen walking out of the school with their hands up, some in tears. Officers are asking people to avoid the area. President Donald Trump has been made aware of the school shooting.

Rick Scott

✔@FLGovScott

I’ve spoken with @BrowardSheriff Scott Israel, @browardschools Superintendent Robert Runcie and FDLE Commissioner Rick Swearingen regarding Stoneman Douglas High School. We’ll continue to receive updates from law enforcement.

3:09 PM – Feb 14, 2018

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“We are monitoring the situation. Our thoughts and prayers are with those affected,” wrote White House Deputy Press Secretary Lindsay Walters. Florida Gov. Rick Scott issued a statement on the shooting. At last check, he was on his way to Parkland. source

 

Donald Trump Hints at #ReleaseTheMemo Success: ‘We Caught ‘Em … It’s So Much Fun’ – Breitbart

 

Donald Trump alluded to the effort to release the House Intelligence memo that exposed new details of FBI officials colluding against him.

Source: Donald Trump Hints at #ReleaseTheMemo Success: ‘We Caught ‘Em … It’s So Much Fun’ – Breitbart