There are times when the audacity of the most political poll-testing opportunist on the planet reaches beyond stratospheric levels of comprehension. Cue the visual:
Arguably the most consequential failure of the Hillary State Department was in 2009 when the U.S. undermined the Iranian Green Revolution. Not only did the U.S. do nothing to help the opposition against the Iranian regime, but US funding was cut for democratic organizations/programs in Iran under Clinton’s State Department. It was Hillary Clinton who supported the Mullahs in an ill-fated decision to achieve the ridiculous Iranian Nuclear Deal which she was just praising and defending three months ago.
Hello?
Meanwhile the mainstream media apparatus are refusing to even acknowledge the Iranian uprising; apparently because President Trump is supporting their cries for freedom.
Yes, if ever there was a bigger example of Trump Derangement Syndrome causing media to contort themselves into hypocritical pretzels, their reaction -or lack thereof- to these protests in Iran would stand as exhibit “A”.
(Via BBC) […] They are the biggest show of dissent since huge pro-reform rallies in 2009. There are reports of two deaths.
There were calls for the removal or death of Iran’s Supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in the cities of Khoramabad, Zanjan and Ahvaz.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutions Guards Corp is a powerful force with ties to the country’s supreme leader, and is dedicated to preserving the country’s Islamic system. (read more)
(Fox News, Stephen Miller writes) […] CNN ignored the protests completely, and the explosion on social media until a front page story reporting on not uprisings against the regime, but a pro-government rally and President Trump’s tweet in support of the protestors. If the State Department wants to send a message of solidarity to the protesters in Iran, perhaps it can send them a white truck. Yes, the question has to be asked how such an uprising of thousands against their government would be covered by western media if this were Tel Aviv. We don’t need U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley defiantly raising her hand to answer that question for us.
The somewhat muted reaction to thousands of people rising up against the Iranian regime can and should be compared to the attention the Arab Spring received in 2010. The scenes coming out of Iran are just as dramatic, if not more so, than those of the Arab uprising.
A woman was caught on videotape screaming “death to Khamenei” at Iranian law enforcement officials – an action that could not only endanger her life, but the lives of her family. But nevertheless, she persisted.
Social media came to a halt when another video was shared on Twitter of a female activist, shedding her hijab and waving a makeshift flag at security forces while standing atop a container.
I’m not exactly sure why an Iranian woman would shed such a garment that we’ve been told by the political left of this country is a symbol of empowerment and feminism. But her body, her choice.
Protesters are shouting “Death to Khamenei,” “Mullahs get lost,” “No more Islamic Republic,” “Clerics return us our country.” They are not shouting “We have economic anxiety”. This is not about economic anxiety. This about revolting against a regime who has exhausted its moral good will, and no longer can lean on a sympathetic United States for more pallets of cash. (read more)
It looks like the Iranian Green Revolution is back on the streets as waves of protests are happening. In 2009 the Mullah’s brutally cracked down on the reformers and President Obama stood by. In 2017 the reformers have an ally in the oval office as President Trump and his entire administration (specifically Rex Tillerson and Nikki Haley) openly show their support for the movement. Stunning developments.
The U.S. Media are attempting to spin the protests as “pro-regime” and claiming the supporters are pro-Khameni and pro government. That narrative is 100% false, yet it highlights the severity of the entire left-wing media apparatus as they attempt to prop-up the failed policies of the Obama administration.
Tens-of-thousands of Iranians have taken to the streets to express their anger, and unfortunately for the preferred media script that anger is not directed at President Trump or Saudi Arabia; but rather at the mullahs and their oppressive security forces.
The protests may have begun over economic grievances in the northeastern city of Mashhad. However, the uprising has grown to at least 18 cities nationwide. The slogals are no longer about corruption and economics, they are directly confronting the Islamic Republic:
President Trump Tweeted his prior statements from the U.N. General Assembly about Iran and the hopes for the people of Iran. U.S. Ambassador to the U.N., Nikki Haley, also is transmitting support for the reformers along with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.
The reformers and protesters face a brutal Iranian regime that spends most of its time trying to retain itself and will not hesitate to crack down, just as it did in 1999 and 2009.
Perhaps the difference now is they have the support of U.S. President Donald Trump, and it is likely our western propaganda media will not be able to hide the truth much longer.
Interesting. Visible support for a position 180° from prior administration.
“transition of government” supported by U.S.
State Dept – We are following reports of multiple peaceful protests by Iranian citizens in cities across the country. Iran’s leaders have turned a wealthy country with a rich history and culture into an economically depleted rogue state whose chief exports are violence, bloodshed, and chaos. As President Trump has said, the longest-suffering victims of Iran’s leaders are Iran’s own people.
The United States strongly condemns the arrest of peaceful protesters. We urge all nations to publicly support the Iranian people and their demands for basic rights and an end to corruption.
On June 14, 2017, Secretary Tillerson testified to Congress that he supports “those elements inside of Iran that would lead to a peaceful transition of government. Those elements are there, certainly as we know.” The Secretary today repeats his deep support for the Iranian people. (link)
News of spreading and morphing political protests in Iran are beginning to surface as social media accounts are now gaining MSM attention.
Openly political protests are not common in Iran ever since the 2009 ‘Green Revolution‘ was harshly put-down by security forces carrying out the instructions of the ruling Mullahs and political class. Iranian security services are omnipresent and looming. However, what appears to have begun as protests over prices, inflation and the lack of economic freedom, seems to have morphed into several regional political protests directly challenging the Mullahs and the reigning political class.
Back in 2009, after President Obama gave his famous Cairo speech, the message was interpreted by the Iranian reform movement, the “Greens”, as a spark toward freedom. However, the Mullahs responded violently, Iranian security forces attacked the protestors, several were killed and hundreds jailed and President Obama stood by, watched the brutality, saying and doing nothing. 2009 was a very dark time for the reform movement.
It is too soon to tell if today’s protests are the beginning of a similar uprising, a resurgence of those previously crushed cries for freedom, but the reform movement appears to be pushing the message: this is indeed their objective. It is a very interesting development.
(Reuters) – Demonstrators chanted anti-government slogans in several cities across Iran on Friday, Iranian news agencies and social media reports said, as price protests turned into the largest wave of demonstrations since nationwide pro-reform unrest in 2009.
Police dispersed anti-government demonstrators in the western city of Kermanshah as protests spread to Tehran and several other cities a day after rallies in the northeast, the semi-official news agency Fars said.
The outbreak of unrest reflects growing discontent over rising prices and alleged corruption, as well as concern about the Islamic Republic’s costly involvement in regional conflicts such as those in Syria and Iraq.
An official said a few protesters had been arrested in Tehran, and footage posted on social media showed a heavy police presence in the capital and some other cities.
About 300 demonstrators gathered in Kermanshah after what Fars said was a “call by the anti-revolution”. They shouted: “Political prisoners should be freed” and “Freedom or death”, and some public property was destroyed. Fars did not name any opposition groups.
The protests in Kermanshah, the main city in a region where an earthquake killed over 600 people in November, took place a day after hundreds rallied in Iran’s second largest city Mashhad to protest at high prices and shout anti-government slogans.
Videos posted on social media showed demonstrators yelling, “The people are begging, the clerics act like God”.
Fars said there were protests in the cities of Sari and Rasht in the north, Qazvin west of Tehran and Qom south of the capital, and also in Hamadan in western Iran. It said many marchers who wanted to raise economic demands left the rallies after demonstrators shouted political slogans. (read more)
I would advise caution not to read too much into the events and accept there are tenuously connected seeds within the larger Middle-East struggles. History is filled with the conflicting polarity between Persians and Arabs.
Iran has been on a growing question to influence the broader middle-east ideology, and Saudi coalition members are pushing back against that influence with open support for the reform agenda within Iran. Proxies on proxies, and sub-sects on sub-sects. A considerable challenge for those who would support increased ‘freedom’.
Viewpoint of National Council of Resistance in Iran – SEE HERE
Another Viewpoint of Resistance Supporters – SEE HERE
Reminder, proceed with caution. There’s a great deal of misinformation.
QUESTION: Mr. Armstrong; You are clearly a Roman scholar. Is it true that the Romans used crucifixion only for political crimes and that the two who were crucified with Jesus were not thieves but rebels? There has been some debate on this subject. I would like to hear your views.
Thank you
WR
ANSWER: Jesus’ crime was really sedition and not blasphemy. The high priests may have seen this as blasphemy, but Jesus would never have been put to death by the Romans for such a local issue. The Romans practiced freedom or religion. They allowed the provinces that they had conquered to retain their own gods. Even the Roman Emperor Elagabalus (218-222AD) was an heir to the throne being of the Severian House. He had been a priest in Emesa of the sun god, which is the modern city of Homs in Syria today. He worshiped a black meteor that had fallen from the sky and a temple had been built for this stone of god (see above). When Elagabalus became emperor, he carried the Stone of Emesa to Rome and built a temple there. After he was murdered, the Romans respectfully returned the stone to Syria as to not offend any god. As for the Black Stone of Emesa is concerned, it was most likely smashed to pieces when the temple was converted into a Christian church at some point during the 4th Century AD by the Byzantines.
Therefore, the only possible way that Jesus would have been crucified was for a civil crime, not a religious one, and the penalty had to be only for sedition, which is conduct or speech inciting people to rebel against the authority of a state. It is rabble-rousing, incitement to rebel, subversion, troublemaking, but not a religious issue. Therefore, the high Jewish priests took Jesus to the governor and had to make their case that he was inciting a rebellion against Rome by claiming to be King of the Jews. Pilate interrogates Jesus:
“You are a king, then!” said Pilate. Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. In fact, the reason I was born and came into the world is to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.
“What is truth?” retorted Pilate. With this he went out again to the Jews gathered there and said, “I find no basis for a charge against him.”
Rome’s punishment only for a political crime was a crucifixion, which was a public display that was painful, and a visible warning to others. There is no possible way that the two men crucified with Jesus were common thieves. The sentence of crucifixion was only something that Rome could order. The two men who were killed along with Jesus are identified in the Gospel of Nicodemus as Dismas and Gestas.
Luke 23:39-41 says, “One of the criminals who hung there hurled insults at him: ‘Aren’t you the Christ? Save yourself and us!’ But the other criminal rebuked him. ‘Don’t you fear God,’ he said, ‘since you are under the same sentence? We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong.’”
Matthew refers to Barabbas who is released by Pilate in place of Jesus only as a “notoriousprisoner” and that would never imply a common thief. Mark and Luke further refer to Barabbas as one involved in a στάσις (stasis, a riot), probably one of the numerous insurrections against the Roman power who had committed murder. The translation as “thieves,” however, the word can also mean “insurgents,” and it is more-likely-than-not that the two were co-conspirators of Barabbas rather than thieves. This is the only possibility that would support the sentence of crucifixion, which was a political weapon used to send a message to those still living: Do not engage in sedition or this will be your fate.
Crucifixion was an execution that was severe and reserved for political crimes, not common thieves. The more common method of execution in the Roman Empire was by strangling. Even the leader of the Gauls, Vercingetorix, who was an adversary was put on display in a triumph of Julius Caesar and then strangled – not crucified. This was simply a captive of a conquered nation or group who had not been under Roman rule and thus did not warrant crucifixion.
Spartacus (111-71BC) was a Thracian gladiator who escaped and became a slave leader during the Third Servile War, a major slave uprising against the Roman Republic. Crassus crucified 6,000 of Spartacus’ followers on the road between Rome and Capua pictured here in the 1878 painting by Fyodor Bronnikov. Again, the punishment of crucifixion is employed for rebellion. Even Karl Marx listed Spartacus as one of his heroes and described him as “the most splendid fellow in the whole of ancient history” and a “noble character, real representative of the ancient proletariat”.
Therefore, from a historical perspective of Roman law, Jesus would then have been crucified ONLY as a rebel and not for blasphemy. Giving a choice to the crowd between Jesus and Barabbas would not have been plausible unless they both stood for the same type of offense of sedition. This to me is clear evidence of the political nature of Jesus’s execution and was not merely a local religious issue but was a crime of sedition against the Roman Empire.
The War Cycle is in full swing upward since 2014. We have witnessed the invasion of Ukraine, the invasion of Syria, Rocketman in North Korea, and numerous civil uprisings. However, the war also comes with sharply declining economies as political leaders need to point the finger outside their domestic rule to distract their people.
The Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is also on a power trip and the sharply collapsing currency only puts more pressure on him to start conflicts. That basic incentive has played out with his visit to Greece in December. This was the first time a Turkish leader visited Greece in 65 years. As the Guardian reports, Erdoğan shocked Greece by calling for a revision of the Lausanne Treaty of 1923. The Turkish president in Turkey has sharply criticized the opposition for this demand and as always there is the justification for protecting people of Turkish origin living in Greece. Hitler used the same excuse to invade neighbors to defend Germans living on foreign lands.
The Treaty of Lausanne marks the conclusion of the four-year Greco-Turkish War, which regulated the demarcation between Greece and Turkey and the rights of the religious minority in the other country. Keep in mind that Turkey was the seat of the Ottoman Empire that conquered Constantinople and renamed it Istanbul. The Church of St Sophia became the Blue Mosque. So the conflicts between Greece and Turkey extend back thousands of years. Turkey was originally Anatolia settled by Greeks. They were conquered by Cyrus the Great of Persia and then by Rome. The Turks invaded from Turkestan and thus the ancient land of Anatolia became Turkey. This was where written language and even money were both born.
Erdoğan, while visiting Athens, accused the Greek government of not allowing the Turkish minority to vote for muftis, as promised in the treaty. Instead, the religious jurists would be appointed by the government. The Turkish President had questioned the Treaty of Lausanne in an interview with the Greek broadcaster Skai TV before leaving for Athens. Airspace and the maritime border could be “improved”, Erdoğan said.
In the Treaty of Lausanne in 1923, Greece had been given almost all the Aegean islands off the Turkish coast. The Greek Islands comprise more than 6,000 islands and islets covering much of the eastern Mediterranean. Only about 230 Greek islands are inhabited and, of these, just 80 or so have more than 100 permanent inhabitants.
Erdoğan has domestic problems with the currency moving dangerously toward hyperinflation, which only unfolds when confidence in the government collapses. Turkey’s currency is being attacked from all sides. In October 2017, the Turkish lira collapsed when Turkey and the United States suspended bilateral visa processing, which was restored in early November. However, our model is warning that the Turkish lira will collapse into 2021.
Erdoğan is obviously trying to create an external enemy as the domestic economy turns against his policies. For several months, Erdoğan is trying hard to provoke a conflict in the Aegean Sea of Greece. On April 16th, 2017, Greek Minister of Defense Panos Kammenos and Greek Commander-in-Chief Alkiviadis Stefanis flew to Agathonisi Island, just off the Turkish coast. There they carried out an action with several soldiers. Lambs were roasted on a skewer, which was a symbolic action that dates way back to the Greek occupation of Turkey from 1919 to 1922. At that time, the Greek occupiers in the conquered territories of Turkey roasted lamb on skewers to make it clear to the Turks that they would be defeated.
Erdoğan asserts that the protection of the rights of ethnic Turks is his “top priority” and he wants to visit the Turkish minority in the northern Greek region of Thrace. Erdoğan was twice in Athens before back in 2004 and 2010. But it is the first visit of a Turkish head of state in Greece since 1952.
Erdoğan also criticized the implementation of the EU refugee pact with Turkey in Athens. The EU had “not fulfilled any of its economic promises”, while its country has kept all promises, Erdoğan said. He has long accused the EU of failing to fulfill its part of the March 2016 agreement, including the payment of aid.
Erdoğan also criticised the matter of the eight military personnel who had fled to Greece after the coup attempt in a helicopter. Erdoğan stated that Greece promised to extradite those men to Turkey, but that still had not happened.
Several new developments happening today center around the FBI’s use of the Christopher Steele Dossier in gaining FISA warrants to wiretap and monitor the 2016 campaign of Donald Trump; ie. “The Trump Project”. Doug Ross continues to update the ongoing conspiracy Timeline – SEE HERE. And that timeline just gained a big addition from a recently discovered visitor to the White House.
Before going to the White House visitor angle, it’s important to express appreciation for Tablet Mag who did a deep dive into the Fusion-GPS connection to the creation of the Steele Dossier, and more specifically how Fusion-GPS head Glenn Simpson and his wife Mary Jacoby were instrumental in getting the dossier assembled and into the hands of the White House prior to the DOJ and FBI applying for the FISA warrant – SEE HERE.
Tablet Mag outlines how Mary Jacoby even bragged about getting the “Russiagate” narrative started:
A Tablet investigation using public sources to trace the evolution of the now-famous dossier suggests that central elements of the Russiagate scandal emerged not from the British ex-spy Christopher Steele’s top-secret “sources” in the Russian government—which are unlikely to exist separate from Russian government control—but from a series of stories that Fusion GPS co-founder Glenn Simpson and his wife Mary Jacoby co-wrote for TheWall Street Journal well before Fusion GPS existed, and Donald Trump was simply another loud-mouthed Manhattan real estate millionaire.
Understanding the origins of the “Steele dossier” is especially important because of what it tells us about the nature and the workings of what its supporters would hopefully describe as an ongoing campaign to remove the elected president of the United States.
[…] In a Facebook post from June 24, 2017, that Tablet has seen in screenshots, Jacoby claimed that her husband deserves the lion’s share of credit for Russiagate. (She has not replied to repeated requests for comment.) “It’s come to my attention that some people still don’t realize what Glenn’s role was in exposing Putin’s control of Donald Trump,” Jacoby wrote. “Let’s be clear. Glenn conducted the investigation. Glenn hired Chris Steele. Chris Steele worked for Glenn.”
This assertion is hardly a simple assertion of family pride; it goes directly to the nature of what became known as the “Steele dossier,” on which the Russiagate narrative is founded. (read more)
The Tablet-Mag outline shows the distinct trail of the finished Steele Dossier entering into the White House and how President Obama likely saw and reviewed the content. However, missing from the this report is an origination angle even more nefarious.
Remember, previous media reporting -in conjunction with Clinton campaign admissions- have confirmed the DNC and Clinton Campaign financed Fusion-GPS through their lawyers within Perkins Coie. Fusion then sub-contracted with retired British MI6 agent Christopher Steele to write the dossier.
The dates here are important because they tell a story.
The origin of the Clinton effort with Fusion-GPS was April 2016. That’s the same month Fusion hired Nellie Ohr, wife of DOJ Deputy Bruce Ohr, to gather opposition research on candidate Trump. It would be most likely that Nellie Ohr was in contact with Christopher Steele. DOJ Deputy Attorney Bruce Ohr was later demoted for his unreported contacts with Christopher Steele and Fusion-GPS founder Glenn Simpson.
However, there was another event in this April 2016 timeline which enhances the trail of the Dossier origination. [Hat Tip Katica] Check this out:
In April 2016 Mary Jacoby shows up on White House visitor logs meeting with President Obama officials. In April 2016 the Clinton Campaign and DNC hired Fusion-GPS to organize the Russia research, that later became known as the “Steele Dossier”.
The wife of Glenn Simpson (Fusion GPS), Mary B. Jacoby, with years of Russia-angled reporting –including Donald Trump– visits the White House in April 2016, at the same time as the DNC and Clinton hire Fusion GPS to conduct the opposition research on Donald Trump, surrounding Russia?
This timeline is entirely too obvious to be coincidental.
Expand slightly and consider:
April: Mary Jacoby, wife of Fusion GPS founder Glenn Simpson, visits the White House. The Clinton Campaign and DNC then hire Fusion GPS to conduct ‘Opposition Research’, with a Russian emphasis. Fusion GPS then hires Nellie Ohr who specializes in Russian-centric counterintelligence. Nellie Ohr then contacts MI6 agent Christopher Steele to write a Russian Dossier. A month later, May 2016: Nellie Ohr’s husband inside the DOJ, Bruce Ohr, is then working with FBI counterintelligence head Peter Strzok. By June 2016: Peter Strzok, Bruce Ohr and DOJ Attorney Lisa Page then apply for a FISA warrant.
June 24th, 2017, Mary Jacoby appears on Facebook taking credit for the origination of the Russiagate narrative.
This timeline is so transparent it’s deafening.
[More from the Tablet] Simpson and Jacoby had ID’d Manafort as a world-class sleazeball and they were right. A slick Georgetown Law grad running in GOP circles since the Reagan campaign, Manafort used his talents and connections to get paid by some very bad people. I would only add here that, in my personal experience, journalists are not in the habit of forgetting major stories they’ve written, especially stories with a character like Manafort at the center.
So when the Trump campaign named Paul Manafort as its campaign convention manager on March 28, 2016, you can bet that Simpson and Jacoby’s eyes lit up. And as it happened, at the exact same time that Trump hired Manafort, Fusion GPS was in negotiations with Perkins Coie, the law firm representing the Clinton campaign and the DNC, to see if there was interest in the firm continuing the opposition research on the Trump campaign they had started for the Washington Free Beacon. (more)
Mary Jacoby and Glenn Simpson – Fusion GPS
If the counterintelligence FISA warrant was obtained through deception, misleading/manipulated information, or fraud; and that warrant is what led to the wiretapping and surveillance of candidate Donald Trump and General Flynn; and that warrant was authorized by FISA Court Judge Contreras –who was the judge in Flynn’s case, and is now recused– the entire tenuous FBI and DOJ operation begins to collapse and the outline of a “conspiracy” becomes clearly evident.
The back-story to the FISA warrant is the cornerstone. The back-story contains both the FBI and the DOJ scheme. Expose it, remove it, and the entire ‘muh Russia’ conspiracy fraud collapses under the weight of sunlight. WATCH:
♦Release #2 outlined the depth of FBI Agent Strzok and FBI Attorney Page’s specific history in the 2016 investigation into Hillary Clinton to include the changing of the wording [“grossly negligent” to “extremely careless”] of the probe outcome delivered by FBI Director James Comey.
♦Release #3 was the information about DOJ Deputy Bruce Ohr being in contact with Fusion GPS at the same time as the FISA application was submitted and granted by the FISA court; which authorized surveillance and wiretapping of candidate Donald Trump; that release also attached Bruce Ohr and Agent Strzok directly to the Steele Dossier.
♦Release #4 was information that Deputy Bruce Ohr’s wife, Nellie Ohr, was an actual contract employee of Fusion GPS, and was hired by F-GPS specifically to work on opposition research against candidate Donald Trump. Both Bruce Ohr and Nellie Ohr are attached to the origin of the Christopher Steele Russian Dossier.
♦Release #5 was the specific communication between FBI Agent Strzok and FBI Attorney Page. The 10,000 text messages that included evidence of them both meeting with Asst. FBI Director Andrew McCabe to discuss the “insurance policy” against candidate Donald Trump in August of 2016.
My recent meetings in Brussels reveals some concern what happens when Merkel loses power? Schultz is calling for the complete federalization of Europe – the United States of Europe as he puts it. The power is starting to slip between their fingers and as Italy approaches its confrontation with the EU in the next elections, there too we see the Social Democratic ruling party PD is losing its support in the same manner as the SPD in Germany.
Now with only a few weeks before the expected dissolution of the Italian parliament before the new elections, the PD is already down to only a 23.4% approval rating. The Socialist agenda is losing around the world just as Hillary lost in the States as did Schultz in Germany.
In Italy, the center-right coalition of former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is on the road to a major come-back gathering 36% of the polls, which is the strongest political party in Italy right now. The second party in line is also the anti-Euro Five-Star movement coming in at 28.2%.
If the polls are correct and the election took place today, 64.2% of the people would vote AGAINST the EU. This type of coalition could become the strongest single party in the next parliament and the strongest as a percent of the population throughout Europe. There is a rising feeling in Italy that the EU has been a disaster burdening them with refugees they refuse to compensate or allow to move north within Europe. Italy is now just trying to keep the EU out which or interfering ever again.
In Italy, a new parliament is likely to be elected at the beginning of March. It is expected that President Sergio Mattarella will dissolve Parliament between Christmas and New Year, paving the way for new elections.
I previously wrote that it was the EU which conspired to overthrow Berlusconi because he was anti-Euro back then and wanted to take Italy out before BREXIT. For Berlusconi, this is political payback.
The more political chaos in Europe, the crazier the markets will become in 2018 driving the dollar up until the monetary system cracks wide open.
Justice-time for Christmas !! Against revelations of egregious prosecutorial misconduct, and withholding Brady evidence from the defense, Chief U.S. District Judge Gloria Navarro has declared a mistrial in the federal case against Nevada Rancher Cliven Bundy.
NEVADA – A federal judge declared a mistrial Wednesday in the case of a Nevada rancher accused of leading an armed standoff against the government in 2014, blaming prosecutors for withholding key evidence from defense lawyers, including records about the conduct of FBI and Bureau of Land Management agents.
Chief U.S. District Judge Gloria Navarro in Las Vegas dismissed a jury seated last month for the long-awaited trial of Cliven Bundy, his sons Ryan and Ammon Bundy and self-styled Montana militia leader Ryan Payne.
The decision is the latest in a string of failed prosecutions in Nevada and Oregon against those who have opposed federal control of vast swaths of land in Western states.
Jurors acquitted the two Bundy sons of taking over a federal wildlife refuge in Oregon for more than a month in early 2016 and amid calls for the U.S. government to turn over public land to local control.
In the Nevada case, Navarro faulted federal prosecutors for failing to turn over all evidence to defense attorneys.
“The government is obligated to disclose all evidence that might be favorable” to the defense, the judge said.
[…] The judge had hinted last week that trouble was afoot. She sent the jury home to review sealed documents following closed-door hearings over complaints about the conduct of FBI and Bureau of Land Management agents during the standoff.
[…] A whistleblower memo by a lead U.S. Bureau of Land Management investigator that was released last week alleges widespread bad judgment, bias and misconduct, as well as “likely policy, ethical and legal violations among senior and supervisory staff” in the days leading up to the standoff.
The memo said agents who planned and oversaw the cattle roundup mocked and displayed clear prejudice against the Bundys, their supporters and Mormons.
The investigator, Larry Wooten, said he was removed from the investigation last February after he complained to the U.S. attorney’s office in Nevada.
The judge freed the Bundy sons and Payne to house arrest during the trial after nearly two years in jail. Cliven Bundy refused the judge’s offer, with his lawyer saying the patriarch was holding out for acquittal.
“A mistrial is a very bad result for the government,” Ian Bartrum, a University of Nevada, Las Vegas, law professor who has followed the case closely told the Associated Press.
Bartrum had cast the trial as a test of whether the federal government could enforce its own land policy in Western states where it owns or controls vast expanses. (read more)
The attack upon religion in Australia is not what one would call a direct assault. It is also not unique to just Australia. This is simply the way prosecutors expand the envelope of power. They look at a single issue and seek to address that issue alone. They rarely look at the implications beyond their immediate objective.
Take FACTA in the USA. The objective is to catch people avoiding taxes by putting their profits offshore. They begin with that assumption and ignore the fact that NOT everyone doing business offshore is to hide taxes. They then obstruct businesses from expanding globally. In my own case, despite the fact that we do business around the globe, because I am an American, I cannot open an account anywhere outside the USA because nobody wants to deal with the FACTA reporting back to the USA. My only solution is to go public since an American citizen can no longer own and operate a multinational business privately. Here we have a law designed to get tax evaders, but it blocks the legitimate business from operating. The only exception is the multinational corporation.
This is the entire problem with regulation. In the case of Australia, they may have a noble goal and demand that religion should abolish celibacy and report child abuse crimes confessed to priests to be able to punish people. But such noble goals end up altering the entire structure of a faith. Once you make one exception, you open the door for all crimes.
The same thing with the Muslim secs that demand women wear the full burka. Yes, on the one hand, anyone could put on a burka and hide from the public. So how do you deal with this? The Australian Senator Pauline Hanson entered the Senate in a burka to demonstrate the point. You can outlaw a burka and effectively tell them to leave your country or go to jail. Is that what you tell Christians if they do not report specific crimes to the State? Once you take that first step for one specific crime, you have taken it for all crimes. There is NEVER a line in the sand that remains uncrossed.
This is a very complex and touchy issue. How do we address religion that clashes with the State?
I have created this site to help people have fun in the kitchen. I write about enjoying life both in and out of my kitchen. Life is short! Make the most of it and enjoy!
This is a library of News Events not reported by the Main Stream Media documenting & connecting the dots on How the Obama Marxist Liberal agenda is destroying America
ANSWER: Jesus’ crime was really sedition and not blasphemy. The high priests may have seen this as blasphemy, but Jesus would never have been put to death by the Romans for such a local issue. The Romans practiced freedom or religion. They allowed the provinces that they had conquered to retain their own gods. Even the Roman Emperor 
In Italy, the center-right coalition of former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is on the road to a major come-back gathering 36% of the polls, which is the strongest political party in Italy right now. The second party in line is also the anti-Euro Five-Star movement coming in at 28.2%.
Centinel2012 