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04/11/2019 by The Doctor Of Common Sense

Westerners Fighting AGAINST ISIS Being Arrested In The UK, Germany, The Netherlands and Australia

TERROR TRIALS Outrage as Westerners fighting AGAINST ISIS alongside UK’s Kurdish allies face same treatment as returning jihadis.. prosecution and even prison

Former squaddie Joe Robinson, from Lancashire, fled Turkey after he was jailed for seven-and-a-half years on trumped-up terror charges

BRAVE Westerners who dropped their cosy lives to fight ISIS alongside the UK’s Kurdish allies face being treated like returning jihadis.

The UK is among many countries including Germany, The Netherlands and Australia, who penalise volunteers who risked their lives.

Former Brit squaddie Joe Robinson, 25, was arrested on holiday on trumped-up terrorism charges in 2017.

His partner Mira Rojkan, a Bulgarian citizen studying Law, was also arrested and accused of engaging in terrorist propaganda.

Rojkan was given a suspended sentence, the BBC reported Robinson’s mother as saying.

Robinson, who previously served in Afghanistan with the Duke of Lancaster Regiment, previously admitted fighting ISIS but went on to deny he acted alongside the Kurdish militia.

‘I AM NOT A CRIMINAL’

He wasn’t jailed in the UK, but last September he was jailed for seven-and-a-half years in Turkey.

He remained on bail as he appealed his sentence, but weeks before Christmas, he told the BBC he fled Turkey.

He said: “I could not accept the sentence and charges as I am not a criminal” adding “I had to take matters into my own hands.”

Although officials haven’t yet jailed returning volunteers in the UK, many others have faced intense scrutiny and prosecution upon their return.

Brit teacher and ex-soldier James Matthews, 44, was the first British citizen to be charged on his return with terror offences.

But after a two-and-a-half year investigation, all charges against him were dropped.

He had worked with the YPG, who have been backed by Brit special forces and coalition air strikes.

The group is not listed in the UK as a terror organisation.

LAND OF THE FREE

And it’s not the same in the US.

A former US Marine claims they’re praised for fighting ISIS.

Havel Zafer, who served as a US Marine in Afghanistan told The Times it’s easier for Americans to join without any threat of prosecution.

He added: “In fact we’d likely get embraced for what we were doing when we got home.”

Even when he was injured on the battlefield, he recalled American medics “laughing and joking with him”, while others noted he was doing “good” work.

News of their arrests comes after the terror group released a number of vile propaganda videos, shortly after it was believed they were defeated.

The SDF declared military victory over ISIS on March 23 after liberating what it said was the last pocket of territory held by the militants.

And Donald Trump said the US and Coalition allies have liberated all the areas that had been under ISIS’s control in Syria and Iraq – “100 per cent of the caliphate”.

But US-backed Syrian fighters were still battling ISIS jihadis in eastern Syria 10 days after declaring complete victory over the extremists, officials said.

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/8814277/isis-westerners-fighting-against-prosection-prison/

04/11/2019 by The Doctor Of Common Sense

WikiLeaks Julian Assange Has Been Arrested By British After US Pressure

Julian Assange being arrested but no one from the Obama Administration.

JULIAN Assange gave a thumbs up as he was dramatically arrested by British cops today and dragged screaming from the Ecuadorian Embassy after seven years hiding inside.

The pale and bearded WikiLeaks founder, 47, was pulled out in handcuffs as Ecuador withdrew its asylum status – ending Assange’s 2,487 days holed up since 2012.

As he was hauled from the building – looking grey and clutching Gore Vidal’s History of the National Security State – he appeared to shout “The UK has no civility” and “the UK must resist”.

Until today, Assange hadn’t left the embassy since August 2012 – costing the British taxpayer more than £10m.

He had feared stepping off Ecuador’s diplomatic soil would see him arrested and extradited to the US for publishing thousands of classified military and diplomatic cables.

Assange took refuge at the embassy in 2012 to avoid being extradited to Sweden, where authorities wanted to question him as part of a sexual assault investigation. Today one of his accusers demanded the case be reopened.

WHAT WE KNOW SO FAR:

Julian Assange has been arrested after 2,487 days holed up – costing British taxpayers more than £10m
He went into hiding in August 2012 to avoid facing extradition to Sweden for sexual assault and rape allegations
Sweden dropped the charges in 2017 but Swedish accuser today called for case to be re-opened
Wanted in US for espionage and publication of sensitive government documents, and in UK for skipping bail in 2012
He fears he could face death penalty if extradited to US over WikiLeaks scandal
Ecuadorian President said Assange release dependent on not facing extradition to country with death penalty
Foreign Office Minister Sir Alan Duncan said ‘UK courts will decide’ his future
US State Department has not yet commented

Scotland Yard confirmed he is being held on behalf of the US authorities – where he is wanted for espionage – as well as breaching his bail conditions in Britain.

Espionage- the practice of spying or of using spies, typically by governments to obtain political and military information.

America’s involvement raises further questions over the forthcoming battle to be had on his extradition – as his lawyers fear he will face the death penalty if sent to the US.

But Ecuadorian President Moreno said today Britain had confirmed it would not extradite Assange to a country where he could face the death sentence.

After the arrest, Foreign Office minister Sir Alan Duncan said Assange will face “justice in the proper way in the UK” and it will be “for the courts” to decide what happens next.

He insisted Assange would not be extradited to any country where he would stand to face the death penalty. The US State Department has not yet commented.

During his time in hiding Assange has been visited by numerous famous faces – most notably ex-Baywatch star Pamela Anderson, once rumoured to be his “lover”.

Today she tweeted her support for him – dubbing him a “hero” – after earlier retweeting an old photograph of him alongside the caption “truth will prevail” in Latin.

The actress wrote she was “in shock”, adding “he looks very bad” and claiming Assange’s arrest is “a diversion from your idiotic Brexit b*******”.

He has also been visited by ex-Ukip leader Nigel Farage, who is alleged to have handed him a “thumb drive” of secret data.
Farage has openly admitted visiting the WikiLeak founder but dismissed claims of sharing data as “tosh” and “conspiratorial nonsense”.

ASSANGE DETAINED

Assange was arrested after cops were invited into the embassy when Ecuadorian authorities withdrew the asylum he has clung onto for seven years.

Dozens of officers swarmed his hideout in Knightsbridge, West London, this morning and pulled him down the steps, as he fought against the arrest.

Cops struggled to push him into a police van, as he screamed out and gestured with cuffed hands. Once inside the police van, the heavily bearded Assange gave a thumbs up to journalists.

Announcing the arrest today, Ecuador’s president Lenin Moreno said on Twitter it came “after his repeated violations to international conventions and daily-life protocols”.

But WikiLeaks said he had acted illegally, with the organisation accusing “powerful actors” of an effort to dehumanise it’s founder.

Edward Snowden today tweeted Assange’s detention was a “violation of his human rights”, as Russia brazenly accused Britain of “strangling freedom” following his arrest.

‘NO ONE IS ABOVE THE LAW’

Home Secretary Sajid Javid, who is due to make a statement in the House of Commons on the arrest later, tweeted: “Nearly 7yrs after entering the Ecuadorean Embassy, I can confirm Julian Assange is now in police custody and rightly facing justice in the UK.

“I would like to thank Ecuador for its cooperation & @metpoliceuk for its professionalism. No one is above the law.”

And Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt said Assange’s arrest proved “no one is above the law”.

He said: “Julian Assange is no hero. He has hidden from the truth for years and years and it is right that his future should be decided in the British judicial system.

He added that the WikiLeaks’ founder had “held the Ecuadorian Embassy hostage in a situation that was absolutely intolerable for them.”

Praising Ecuador’s decision to stop his asylum, Mr Hunt added: “President Moreno took a courageous decision which has meant we were able to resolve the situation today.

“We’re not making any judgement about Julian Assange’s innocence or guilt, that is for the courts to decide.

“But what is not acceptable is for someone to escape facing justice and he has tried to do that for a very long time and that is why he is no hero.”

ASSANGE SAGA TIMELINE

Here are the key dates in the long-standing saga involving Wikileaks boss Julian Assange.

July 2010: Wikileaks releases 720,000 classified files on Afghanistan and Iraq wars
August 2010: Arrest warrant issued for Assange over rape and molestation allegations in Sweden, which he denies
December 2010: Assange presents himself to London cops and appears at an extradition hearing
December 2010: He is later granted conditional bail at the High Court in London after supporters pay £240,000 in cash and sureties
February 2011: Brit courts rule Assange should be extradited to Sweden
June 2012: The Wikileaks chief enters Ecuadorian embassy in London requesting political asylum
June 2012: Just 24 hours later Scotland Yard says he’ll be arrested for breaching bail conditions
August 2012: Ecuador grants asylum, allowing him to stay in the embassy – where he will remain for the next six and a half years
August 2012: Assange makes first public appearance on embassy balcony calls for end to US ‘witch hunt’
September 2014: Baywatch babe Pamela Anderson and fashion designer Vivienne Westwood enjoy a trip to the embassy to meet their pal Assange. They join a long list of celebrity visors to enter the building – including Lady Gaga and Eric Cantona
February 2016: UN says cooped-up Assange has been ‘arbitrarily detained’ and should claim compo from Britain and Sweden, but both countries ignore ruling
May 2017: Swedish prosecutors close 7-year sex assault investigation, but Brit cops say they’ll still arrest Assange for breaching bail
January 2018: Ecuador says it’s trying to find solution to resolve ‘untenable’ situation
March 2018: Assange’s communications cut off after Ecuador alleges he broke agreement about interfering in other countries’ affairs
April 2019: Ecuador’s President Lenin Moreno says Mr Assange has ‘repeatedly violated’ asylum conditions
11 April 2019: Brit cops arrest Assange at embassy after asylum withdrawn and drag him screaming from building

FACING JUSTICE: Assange rape accuser demands case is reopened

ONE of Julian Assange’s rape accusers today demanded Swedish prosecutors re-open the sex assault case against him.

In August 2010, an arrest warrant was issued for Assange for two separate allegations – one of rape and one of molestation – after he visited Sweden.

The Wikileaks journalist, who denies the allegations, requested political asylum after British courts ruled that he should be extradited to Stockholm.
Sweden later dropped the charges in 2017 – five years after he sought refuge in the Ecuadorian Embassy to hide from the allegations.

The reason the case was dropped was because authorities did not believe Assange would be handed over within a reasonable time.

Speaking today, the lawyer of one of the accusers said she hopes the Swedish preliminary investigation against Assange will resume.
Elisabeth Massi Fritz said: “My client and I have just received the news that Assange has been arrested.

“That what we have been waiting for and hoping for almost seven years now, of course, comes as a shock to my client.

“We will do everything we can to ensure that the prosecutors resume the Swedish preliminary investigation so that Assange can be extradited to Sweden and prosecuted for rape.”

It comes after it was revealed blackmailers have allegedly threatened to reveal sex secrets about Assange’s life inside the embassy as part of a £2.6million extortion plot.

Wikileaks chiefs have accused spies of installing hidden cameras to watch Julian Assange at the Ecuadorian embassy.

The editor-in-chief of Wikileaks Kristinn Hrafnsson claimed Assange has been the victim of an “extreme spying operation”.

Immediately after Assange’s arrest, a prankster posted a joke Ecuadorian Ambassador AirBnB ad for a “spare room” with “stains on the wall”.

Scotland Yard confirmed Assange will now appear at Westminster Magistrates’ Court at 2pm.

Confirming his arrest, a Met Police spokesman said: “He has been taken into custody at a central London police station where he will remain.

“The MPS had a duty to execute the warrant, on behalf of Westminster Magistrates’ Court, and was invited into the embassy by the Ambassador, following the Ecuadorian government’s withdrawal of asylum.”

A Home Office spokesperson said: “We can confirm that Julian Assange was arrested in relation to a provisional extradition request from the United States of America.

“He is accused in the United States of America of computer related offences.”

TAKING ITS TOLL: SEVEN YEARS IN HIDING

Pale, heavily bearded and unsteady, Julian Assange cut a very different figure today to the whistle-blower who sought asylum almost seven years ago.
Assange, the enigmatic figure behind the whistle-blowing WikiLeaks website, has become a poster boy for campaigners against state spying and censorship.

To his critics, he is a danger to national security and his work could make him the subject of espionage charges in the US.

The Australian started hacking into networks of the powerful elite when he was part of the “computer underground” in his late teens.

The 47-year-old shot to public attention after founding the pro-transparency website in 2006 as an online library of otherwise secret documents from governments, intelligence agencies, political parties and multinational corporations.

WikiLeaks servers are located all over the world, but the central server is located in an underground nuclear bunker in Stockholm, Sweden.

As the self-styled editor-in-chief of the site, he has overseen the publication of more than 10 million documents and attracted high-profile supporters including Pamela Anderson, novelist Tariq Ali, filmmaker Ken Loach and Jemima Goldsmith (nee Khan).

He has been quoted as saying: “It is the role of good journalism to take on powerful abusers.”

Among the major leaks since the site’s foundation were battlefield reports from Iraq and Afghanistan, diplomatic communications and a military video showing a US helicopter attack that killed at least 11 men.

Assange has been forced to deny Russian intelligence sources provided a trove of tens of thousands of emails from senior figures within the Democratic National Congress (DNC) during the US election campaign.
He published these alongside thousands of emails from the private server of Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton, originating from her time as Secretary of State, which the site obtained through freedom of information laws.

Assange, who studied at the University of Melbourne, stood down as editor of Wikileaks in September last year.

For more than a year, doctors have warned of the Australian’s declining health due to the “prolonged uncertainty of indefinite detention”.
A legal defence fund was set up in January amid fears the WikiLeaks founder was under “increasingly serious threat”.

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/8839586/julian-assange-dragged-by-cops-removed-ecuadorian-embassy-london/

04/08/2019 by The Doctor Of Common Sense

Kirstjen Nielsen Resigns As DHS Secretary But Why In The Hell Did Trump Hire Her?

Why Did Trump Hire This Bush Hack In The First Damn Place?

Kirstjen Nielsen has resigned as Department of Homeland Security (DHS) secretary in the midst of soaring illegal immigration levels and an expanded Catch and Release policy under her direction.

On Sunday, President Trump wrote online that Nielsen would be leaving her position as head of DHS.

Donald J. Trump

✔

@realDonaldTrump

Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen will be leaving her position, and I would like to thank her for her service….

89.4K

6:02 PM – Apr 7, 2019

Donald J. Trump

✔

@realDonaldTrump

· 19h

Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen will be leaving her position, and I would like to thank her for her service….

Donald J. Trump

✔

@realDonaldTrump

….I am pleased to announce that Kevin McAleenan, the current U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner, will become Acting Secretary for @DHSgov. I have confidence that Kevin will do a great job!

78.8K

6:02 PM – Apr 7, 2019

Twitter Ads info and privacy

26.1K people are talking about this

Nielsen’s resignation as DHS secretary comes amid a surge of illegal immigration at the U.S.-Mexico border and an expanded Catch and Release policy that the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency has been tasked with carrying out.

During Nielsen’s tenure as DHS secretary, illegal immigration has increased nearly every month over the last year and a half. Simultaneously, the Trump administration has yet to construct a border wall on new land at the southern border that did not previously have barriers built by the Bush and Obama administrations.

Most recently, officials with the National ICE Council accused Nielsen of “grossly” mismanaging DHS and failing to acknowledge that the agency had been operating an expanded Catch and Release policy for border crossers and illegal aliens for months.

As Breitbart News chronicled, Nielsen previously served in the Bush administration overseeing a crisis team following the destruction of New Orleans, Louisiana, by Hurricane Katrina in 2005. The Bush administration had waved federal regulations to allow an unlimited level of illegal immigration into the Gulf Coast to take low-skill jobs rebuilding the region. Nielsen previously chaired a World Economic Forum committee that authored a report praising mass migration into Europe. For her confirmation process to DHS, Nielsen worked with an assortment of allies that worked vigorously in the 2016 presidential election to oppose Trump, including Frances Townsend and Tom Ridge.

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/04/07/kirstjen-nielsen-resigns-as-dhs-secretary-in-midst-of-border-surge/

Kirstjen Nielsen, Trump’s nominee to lead DHS, opposes wall along length of Mexican border

President Trump’s pick to lead the Department of Homeland Security said Wednesday that she does not support building a wall along the entire length of the U.S. southern border.

Kirstjen Nielsen, an attorney with cyber- and homeland security experience, told senators during her confirmation hearing that the border should be fortified instead with a mix of personnel, technology and physicial fencing.

Her stand mirrors that of former DHS secretary — and her current boss — White House Chief of Staff John Kelly. Nielsen was Kelly’s chief of staff at DHS and followed him to the White House, where she is principal deputy chief of staff.

“The president has stated as have predecessors at DHS certainly something that I share: There is no need for a wall from sea to shining sea,” she said.

Nielsen previously worked at the Transportation Security Administration and on the White House Homeland Security Council under President George W. Bush.

If confirmed, she will oversee some 240,000 employees at Customs and Border Protection, the Transportation Security Administration, Coast Guard and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, among other agencies.

Senators grilled her during the hearing about climate change, port security, deferring deportation for children brought to the country illegally, and combating violent extremism, including by white supremacists.

Nielsen vowed to closely monitor and strengthen department programs designed to counter extremism. She said undocumented children brought to the United States illegally will not be a priority for deportation if she is confirmed, and that criminals would be.

Nielsen’s nomination has not been particularly controversial since Trump announced it last month. She is expected to win confirmation easily, though she did provide some answers Wednesday that took some some senators aback. For example on climate change, Nielsen declined to say she believes humans caused it.

“I do absolutely believe that the climate is changing,” she said. “I’m not prepared to determine causation.”

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2017/11/08/kirstjen-nielsen-trumps-nominee-lead-dhs-opposes-wall-along-length-mexican-border/842162001/

04/04/2019 by The Doctor Of Common Sense

The Mormon Church Is Blessing And Baptizing , Children Of LGBT Parents

Morons believe that black people’s skin was a curse but they allow the Gay Mafia to have their way.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) on Thursday announced that it will now allow baptisms and give blessings to children of parents who are in the LGBT community.

The changes were announced by Dallin Oaks, first counselor of LDS’s First Presidency, during the church’s 189th Annual General Conference, according to The Deseret News, which reported that 2015 mandates had not allowed the children of LGBT parents to be baptized until the age of 18.

“The very positive policies announced this morning should help affected families,” Oaks said, according to the Salt Lake City news outlet. “In addition, our members’ efforts to show more understanding, compassion and love should increase respect and understanding among all people of good will.”

The Deseret News noted the changes are only to church policy, not church doctrine, and leaders made note of the distinction.

“These changes do not represent a shift in church doctrine related to marriage or the commandments of God in regard to chastity and morality,” the release announcing the changes said.

Oaks said the updates to church policy are part of an effort to “reduce the hate and contention so common today.”

  “We are optimistic that a majority of people — whatever their beliefs and orientations — long for better understanding and less contentious communications,” he said. “That is surely our desire, and we seek the help of our members and others to attain it.”

Additional changes include updates to the church’s handbook that call for removing the label of apostasy for homosexual behavior.

Previously, both homosexual behavior and blessings or baptism of children living with same-sex parents was considered apostasy that required a church disciplinary council. The Deseret News notes a disciplinary council can lead to excommunication from the church.

The updated polices are reportedly being sent to church leaders around the world.

https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/437359-mormon-church-will-now-allow-baptisms-and-blessings-for

04/04/2019 by The Doctor Of Common Sense

Joe Biden Threatened Ukrainian President To Fire A Prosecutor In Order To Protect His Son While Obama Was Still President

Two years after leaving office, Joe Biden couldn’t resist the temptation last year to brag to an audience of foreign policy specialists about the time as vice president that he strong-armed Ukraine into firing its top prosecutor.

In his own words, with video cameras rolling, Biden described how he threatened Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko in March 2016 that the Obama administration would pull $1 billion in U.S. loan guarantees, sending the former Soviet republic toward insolvency, if it didn’t immediately fire Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin.

Scumbag Hunter left his wife to date his dead brothers wife.

“I said, ‘You’re not getting the billion.’ I’m going to be leaving here in, I think it was about six hours. I looked at them and said: ‘I’m leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you’re not getting the money,’” Biden recalled telling Poroshenko.

“Well, son of a bitch, he got fired. And they put in place someone who was solid at the time,” Biden told the Council on Foreign Relations event, insisting that President Obama was in on the threat.

Interviews with a half-dozen senior Ukrainian officials confirm Biden’s account, though they claim the pressure was applied over several months in late 2015 and early 2016, not just six hours of one dramatic day. Whatever the case, Poroshenko and Ukraine’s parliament obliged by ending Shokin’s tenure as prosecutor. Shokin was facing steep criticism in Ukraine, and among some U.S. officials, for not bringing enough corruption prosecutions when he was fired.

But Ukrainian officials tell me there was one crucial piece of information that Biden must have known but didn’t mention to his audience: The prosecutor he got fired was leading a wide-ranging corruption probe into the natural gas firm Burisma Holdings that employed Biden’s younger son, Hunter, as a board member.

U.S. banking records show Hunter Biden’s American-based firm, Rosemont Seneca Partners LLC, received regular transfers into one of its accounts — usually more than $166,000 a month — from Burisma from spring 2014 through fall 2015, during a period when Vice President Biden was the main U.S. official dealing with Ukraine and its tense relations with Russia.

The general prosecutor’s official file for the Burisma probe — shared with me by senior Ukrainian officials — shows prosecutors identified Hunter Biden, business partner Devon Archer and their firm, Rosemont Seneca, as potential recipients of money.

Shokin told me in written answers to questions that, before he was fired as general prosecutor, he had made “specific plans” for the investigation that “included interrogations and other crime-investigation procedures into all members of the executive board, including Hunter Biden.”

He added: “I would like to emphasize the fact that presumption of innocence is a principle in Ukraine” and that he couldn’t describe the evidence further.

William Russo, a spokesman for Joe Biden, and Hunter Biden did not respond to email messages Monday seeking comment. The phone number at Rosemont Seneca Partners LLC in Washington was no longer in service on Monday.

The timing of Hunter Biden’s and Archer’s appointment to Burisma’s board has been highlighted in the past, by The New York Times in December 2015 and in a 2016 book by conservative author Peter Schweizer.

Although Biden made no mention of his son in his 2018 speech, U.S. and Ukrainian authorities both told me Biden and his office clearly had to know about the general prosecutor’s probe of Burisma and his son’s role. They noted that:

Hunter Biden’s appointment to the board was widely reported in American media;
The U.S. Embassy in Kiev that coordinated Biden’s work in the country repeatedly and publicly discussed the general prosecutor’s case against Burisma;
Great Britain took very public action against Burisma while Joe Biden was working with that government on Ukraine issues;
Biden’s office was quoted, on the record, acknowledging Hunter Biden’s role in Burisma in a New York Times article about the general prosecutor’s Burisma case that appeared four months before Biden forced the firing of Shokin. The vice president’s office suggested in that article that Hunter Biden was a lawyer free to pursue his own private business deals.

President Obama named Biden the administration’s point man on Ukraine in February 2014, after a popular revolution ousted Russia-friendly President Viktor Yanukovych and as Moscow sent military forces into Ukraine’s Crimea territory.

According to Schweizer’s book, Vice President Biden met with Archer in April 2014 right as Archer was named to the board at Burisma. A month later, Hunter Biden was named to the board, to oversee Burisma’s legal team.

But the Ukrainian investigation and Joe Biden’s effort to fire the prosecutor overseeing it has escaped without much public debate.

Most of the general prosecutor’s investigative work on Burisma focused on three separate cases, and most stopped abruptly once Shokin was fired. The most prominent of the Burisma cases was transferred to a different Ukrainian agency, closely aligned with the U.S. Embassy in Kiev, known as the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU), according to the case file and current General Prosecutor Yuriy Lutsenko.

NABU closed that case, and a second case involving alleged improper money transfers in London was dropped when Ukrainian officials failed to file the necessary documents by the required deadline. The general prosecutor’s office successfully secured a multimillion-dollar judgment in a tax evasion case, Lutsenko said. He did not say who was the actual defendant in that case.

As a result, the Biden family appeared to have escaped the potential for an embarrassing inquiry overseas in the final days of the Obama administration and during an election in which Democrat Hillary Clintonwas running for president in 2016.

But then, as Biden’s 2020 campaign ramped up over the past year, Lutsenko — the Ukrainian prosecutor that Biden once hailed as a “solid” replacement for Shokin — began looking into what happened with the Burisma case that had been shut down.

Lutsenko told me that, while reviewing the Burisma investigative files, he discovered “members of the Board obtained funds as well as another U.S.-based legal entity, Rosemont Seneca Partners LLC, for consulting services.”

Lutsenko said some of the evidence he knows about in the Burisma case may interest U.S. authorities and he’d like to present that information to new U.S. Attorney General William Barr, particularly the vice president’s intervention.

“Unfortunately, Mr. Biden had correlated and connected this aid with some of the HR (personnel) issues and changes in the prosecutor’s office,” Lutsenko said.

Nazar Kholodnytskyi, the lead anti-corruption prosecutor in Lutsenko’s office, confirmed to me in an interview that part of the Burisma investigation was reopened in 2018, after Joe Biden made his remarks. “We were able to start this case again,” Kholodnytskyi said.

But he said the separate Ukrainian police agency that investigates corruption has dragged its feet in gathering evidence. “We don’t see any result from this case one year after the reopening because of some external influence,” he said, declining to be more specific.

Ukraine is in the middle of a hard-fought presidential election, is a frequent target of intelligence operations by neighboring Russia and suffers from rampant political corruption nationwide. Thus, many Americans might take the restart of the Burisma case with a grain of salt, and rightfully so.

But what makes Lutsenko’s account compelling is that federal authorities in America, in an entirely different case, uncovered financial records showing just how much Hunter Biden’s and Archer’s company received from Burisma while Joe Biden acted as Obama’s point man on Ukraine.

Between April 2014 and October 2015, more than $3 million was paid out of Burisma accounts to an account linked to Biden’s and Archer’s Rosemont Seneca firm, according to the financial records placed in a federal court file in Manhattan in an unrelated case against Archer.

The bank records show that, on most months when Burisma money flowed, two wire transfers of $83,333.33 each were sent to the Rosemont Seneca–connected account on the same day. The same Rosemont Seneca–linked account typically then would pay Hunter Biden one or more payments ranging from $5,000 to $25,000 each. Prosecutors reviewed internal company documents and wanted to interview Hunter Biden and Archer about why they had received such payments, according to interviews.

Lutsenko said Ukrainian company board members legally can pay themselves for work they do if it benefits the company’s bottom line, but prosecutors never got to determine the merits of the payments to Rosemont because of the way the investigation was shut down.

As for Joe Biden’s intervention in getting Lutsenko’s predecessor fired in the midst of the Burisma investigation, Lutsenko suggested that was a matter to discuss with Attorney General Barr: “Of course, I would be happy to have a conversation with him about this issue.”

As the now-completed Russia collusion investigation showed us, every American deserves the right to be presumed innocent until evidence is made public or a conviction is secured, especially when some matters of a case involve foreigners. The same presumption should be afforded to Joe Biden, Hunter Biden, Devon Archer and Burisma in the Ukraine case.

Nonetheless, some hard questions should be answered by Biden as he prepares, potentially, to run for president in 2020: Was it appropriate for your son and his firm to cash in on Ukraine while you served as point man for Ukraine policy? What work was performed for the money Hunter Biden’s firm received? Did you know about the Burisma probe? And when it was publicly announced that your son worked for Burisma, should you have recused yourself from leveraging a U.S. policy to pressure the prosecutor who very publicly pursued Burisma?

https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/436816-joe-bidens-2020-ukrainian-nightmare-a-closed-probe-is-revived

04/02/2019 by The Doctor Of Common Sense

Men’s Cuddling Group Proves That The Gay Mafia Has Taken Over

An outlandish group of men in Pennsylvania meet for “platonic cuddling” twice a month, offering a fascinating view into the psyche of the beta male.

The bizarre “Men’s Therapeutic Cuddle Group” in Northwest Philadelphia offers highly structured male-only cuddle sessions, with “‘safe touch’ boundaries,” and only “non-sexual cuddling,” including such male-on-male action as the “motorcycle style”, the “cuddle train”, “hand holding”, and the classic “hair or beard stroking” among other methods of exciting male-only contact.

According to the event organizers, these acts allow men to experience “‘the three A’s’; Acceptance, Affirmation, and Affection,” in a safe environment.

Men are invited “to participate regardless of your religious beliefs, marital status, or sexual orientation,” though attendees are reminded to keep fully clothed throughout the cuddling sessions.

Men are also encouraged “to cuddle with a man who may carry the energy of their father, a brother, or the jock who may not have affirmed them in High School.”

Philly.com reports that the group also exists to challenge “toxic masculinity” through its cuddling sessions.

The website reported:

At a time when traditional ideas of manhood are facing scrutiny and such terms as toxic masculinity are becoming more widely known through the MeToo movement, the group aims to provide new ways for men to express themselves.

“So often, we’re taught that to be an emotional stoic is the mark of manhood,” said Scott Turner, a 46-year-old interior designer and cofounder of the group. “If you show any emotional weakness or vulnerability, that’s a failure to your title of a man.”

But “if we expect men to be emotionally sensitive to the needs of others, they first need to be able to build an emotional vocabulary,” he said.

The article also reveals that the men have reached new levels of intimacy, as many men now consider the relationships they formed with other attendees to be closer than that of siblings or a father and son relationship.

One attendee’s family even calls an older cuddler “grandpa.”

‘Men’s Therapeutic Cuddle Group’ Offers Beta Males Opportunity for Human Contact

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