Today's News: September 05, 2018

World News

Fears rise, diapers vanish: Iran currency crash causes chaos
AP – Iran’s rial fell to a record low on Wednesday as worried residents of Tehran lined up outside beleaguered moneychangers, part of a staggering 140-percent drop in the currency’s value since America pulled out of the nuclear deal only four months ago.
Those who went to work at the start of the Iranian week on Saturday saw their money shed a quarter of its value by the time they left the office Wednesday. Signs of the currency chaos can be seen everywhere in Tehran, where travel agents offer vacation prices only in hard currency and diapers have disappeared from store shelves — something acknowledged by the supreme leader.
Many exchange shops in downtown Tehran simply turned off their electronic signs showing the current rate for the U.S. dollar, while some Iranians who wanted hard currency sought out informal money traders on street corners. Exchange shops that remained open offered 150,000 rials to the U.S. dollar.

Immigration, welfare fears merge as Sweden lurches to right
Reuters – Those wondering why Swedish politics are set to lurch to the right in Sunday’s election need look no further than Ljusnarsberg, a tiny central county of dense pine forests and glistening lakes.
Many inhabitants of this once-booming region are uneasy about asylum seekers after a large number arrived here in 2015. Some also feel that Sweden’s widely admired tax and welfare model has left them behind.
Fears over globalization’s effect on industrial jobs, the pressure of an aging population and a failure to integrate minorities have boosted right-wing and anti-establishment parties from Italy and Germany to Britain and the United States.
Polls indicating one in five voters in Sweden are likely to back a party with roots in the far-right fringe on Sept. 9 show that even seemingly successful political systems are vulnerable.

Four Russian Warplanes Hit Nusra Front Positions in Syria’s Idlib Province – MoD
Sputnik – On Tuesday night, Russia’s Hmeymim Airbase in Syria destroyed two terrorist drones with surface-to-air missiles, Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov said.

U.S. News, Politics & Government

Kentucky student jailed for fight over dress code protest T-shirt
Fox – One Kentucky high school student was arrested and jailed following an altercation with her school’s resource officer over a dispute sparked by her so-called dress code protest T-shirt.
On August 23, Isabella Messer wore an oversized turquoise T-shirt to Hopkinsville High School with the message “Do my shoulders turn you on?” printed across the front, the Lexington Herald Leader reports.

Criminalizing Childhood: School Safety Measures Aren’t Making the Schools Any Safer
Activist Post (by John Whitehead) – “Every day in communities across the United States, children and adolescents spend the majority of their waking hours in schools that have increasingly come to resemble places of detention more than places of learning. From metal detectors to drug tests, from increased policing to all-seeing electronic surveillance, the public schools of the twenty-first century reflect a society that has become fixated on crime, security and violence.”—Investigative journalist Annette Fuentes
It used to be that if you talked back to a teacher, or played a prank on a classmate, or just failed to do your homework, you might find yourself in detention or doing an extra writing assignment after school.
Of course, that was before school shootings became a part of our national lexicon.
Nowadays, as a result of the government’s profit-driven campaign to keep the nation “safe” from drugs, weapons and terrorism, students are not only punished for minor transgressions such as playing cops and robbers on the playground, bringing LEGOs to school, or having a food fight, but they are being punished with suspension, expulsion, and even arrest.
Welcome to Compliance 101: the police state’s primer in how to churn out compliant citizens and transform the nation’s school’s into quasi-prisons through the use of surveillance cameras, metal detectors, police patrols, zero tolerance policies, lock downs, drug sniffing dogs, strip searches and active shooter drills.
If you were wondering, these police state tactics have not made the schools any safer.
Rather, they’ve turned the schools into authoritarian microcosms of the police state, containing almost every aspect of the militarized, intolerant, senseless, overcriminalized, legalistic, surveillance-riddled, totalitarian landscape that plagues those of us on the “outside.”
If your child is fortunate enough to survive his encounter with the public schools, you should count yourself fortunate.

Gun Rights Groups Sues FSU for Banning Rifles in Vehicles on Campus
Newsmax – A gun rights group is suing Florida State University in an effort to amend the student handbook and allow people to carry rifles and shotguns in their vehicles on campus, the Tallahassee Democrat is reporting.
Presently, the FSU student handbook has been amended to permit concealed weapons in vehicles, but prohibits rifles and shotguns, the newspaper said.

Therapy Dogs Used in Voter Registration Campaign on College Campuses
The New American – In an effort to attract snowflake college students to the polls, one voter organization has opted to utilize therapy dogs to entice students to register to vote.
According to the Associated Press, NextGen America, founded by billionaire activist Tom Steyers, is investing more than $30 million in a voter engagement effort to get more young Democrats to the polls during this year’s midterm elections. The organization is targeting college students in states such as Wisconsin, Virginia, California, and North Carolina, where congressional races are highly competitive.

CLINTON CAMPAIGN FINANCE SCANDAL EXPOSES MEDIA DOUBLE STANDARD
The Daily Sheeple – Over a week has passed since Michael Cohen’s plea deal, and the left-leaning mainstream media is still beating the war drums.
From The New York Times to MSNBC, the liberal media remains fixated on President Trump’s alleged $130,000 payment to porn star Stormy Daniels, even though it came from personal finances, not campaign funds.
Vogue went so far as to feature Daniels in a profile piece, titled “Stormy Daniels Isn’t Backing Down.” CNN then proceeded to highlight the piece, describing it as an “extraordinary story” that “grace[s] the pages of high fashion’s Bible.”
Know what else is extraordinary? Hillary Clinton’s well-documented $84 million campaign finance scandal, which the liberal media simply refuses to cover. That’s right: $84 million — 647 times more money than is involved in the Daniels case, which amounts to an insignificant Federal Election Commission (FEC) reporting issue.
Whereas it’s likely that President Trump did not violate campaign finance law in any way, his 2016 opponent is implicated in America’s largest campaign finance scandal to date.

Tech Titans Plotting Doomsday Escape to Luxury Bunkers in New Zealand
Bloomberg – Years of doomsday talk at Silicon Valley dinner parties has turned to action.
In recent months, two 150-ton survival bunkers journeyed by land and sea from a Texas warehouse to the shores of New Zealand, where they’re buried 11 feet underground.
Seven Silicon Valley entrepreneurs have purchased bunkers from Rising S Co. and planted them in New Zealand in the past two years, said Gary Lynch, the manufacturer’s general manager. At the first sign of an apocalypse — nuclear war, a killer germ, a French Revolution-style uprising targeting the 1 percent — the Californians plan to hop on a private jet and hunker down, he said.
“New Zealand is an enemy of no one,” Lynch said in an interview from his office in Murchison, Texas, southeast of Dallas. “It’s not a nuclear target. It’s not a target for war. It’s a place where people seek refuge.”

Support Grows for Trump to Pardon John Kiriakou
He became the target of a massive, secret investigation that began at the behest of former CIA Director John Brennan. When the FBI couldn’t find enough evidence, Brennan demanded an indictment anyway.
Former FBI Agent Peter Strzok set up an elaborate sting in a bid to get him to implicate himself in a broader conspiracy. But he was so squeaky clean, Strzok finally had to give up.
Then-FBI Director Robert Mueller targeted him with around-the-clock surveillance and wiretapping. But prosecutors, unable to find new evidence, instead had to flash back to a 2007 interview with ABC News to find a charge that would stick.
So who was the subject of so much unwanted attention from Messrs. Brennan, Strzok, and Mueller? Not President Trump, Paul Manafort, or Carter Page.
Instead, it was CIA whistleblower John Kiriakou. His 2012 prosecution at the hands of the same Obama-era officials now driving the Mueller investigation against Trump has cued a growing chorus of supporters urging President Trump to grant Kiriakou a pardon.
“Barack Obama took my life away from me,” Kiriakou tells Newsmax. “And only Donald Trump can give it back.”
He adds: “Only Donald Trump can fix the injustice that was perpetrated against me by Barack Obama, et al.”
Note: John Kiriakou has been a guest on The Power Hour
Listen to the interview here:
June 28, 2017 (hour 3) – Daniel Brigman interviews Joseph Hickman & John Kiriakou
Jeff Bezos’ Super PAC Donation: Amazon CEO Gives $10M to Bipartisan Campaign Fund
Newsmax – Jeff Bezos, Amazon founder and CEO, has donated $10 million to a nonpartisan super PAC campaign fund dedicated to electing military veterans to Congress, the fund said on Wednesday.
Bezos, along with his wife, MacKenzie, made the donation to the one-year-old super PAC as Americans prepare to vote in Nov. 6 congressional elections that are seen as a referendum on President Donald Trump.
Related Article: I went to prison for disclosing the CIA’s torture. Gina Haspel helped cover it up.

Texas Doctors Say They Saw Kavanaugh Protesters Being Paid Off Before Hearing
Infowars – Three doctors said they personally witnessed protesters being paid off before the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation hearing, which was disrupted by unruly demonstrators.
A total of 70 people were arrested during the hearing after many of them began screeching incoherently in an effort to derail the event.
Activist Adam Schindler interviewed three doctors from Texas who suggested that the entire protest was far from organic.
“One thing was there were people who had come along… who had a bag of money, and people would hand them a piece of paper, and then they would give them money. So we know money was exchanged for some of the people to be here, just to protest,” said Dr. Tom Schlueter.

Economy & Business

Starbucks boots paying customers over T-shirts
Activist Post – Ex-Muslims wearing shirts outside a Hilton Hotel Starbucks in Houston, Texas, on Sept. 1, 2018 (Video screenshot)
A Starbucks in Houston ejected paying customers for wearing T-shirts stating “I’m an Ex-Muslim, Ask Me Why.”
The message apparently conflicted with the Islamic Society of North America conference that was going on nearby.
A group called Ex-Muslims of North America said its volunteers were “forcibly expelled” from a Starbucks within a Hilton hotel in Houston “after refusing to change out of T-shirts stating, ‘Love is Greatest’ and ‘I’m an Ex-Muslim, Ask Me Why.’”
They were taking a coffee break after handing out flyers and speaking with people attending the ISNA event nearby.
“I was surprised. I was simply drinking my iced coffee and scrolling through my phone, and they told me I needed to leave, so I asked why,” Lina, an ex-Muslim Syrian woman who had traveled to the conference on behalf of EXMNA, said in the statement.
“I was told that they are not allowing protesters at the property, I assured the woman that I was not a protester. She then asked me if I was part of the event or a guest at the hotel. I was neither. I was then told that even though I was a paying customer, I was not allowed to be on the premise as it was reserved for guests and event members for the weekend and that they will not be allowing anyone else on their private property. However, I noticed the Starbucks was still open to the public and I didn’t see anyone else being asked to leave.”

Science & Technology

Google Ties Into Mastercard Data; Amazon Looks to Snare Advertising
The New American -The latest story about Google, the globe-straddling behemoth that accounts for more 90 percent of the Internet searches conducted every day, divulges just how much power that company wields, and just how careful we ought to be.
Yes, it can track your every move through your smartphone, and tell you how you just walked and where.
Yes, it places ads on the web pages you visit based upon online purchases, or even upon your searches.
And yes, it can track whether an ad pushed you to purchase something at the store.

Scientists to clone 40,000-year-old horse
Mirror – Scientists have taken cell samples from an extinct baby horse up to 40,000-years-old in a bid to clone the species back to life.
The Russian-South Korean team claim the experiment on the male foal is a “first step” towards their ultimate goal – bringing the extinct woolly mammoth back to life.
Laboratory pictures from Yakutsk – the world’s coldest city – show the search for “living cells” on the light ginger-coloured carcass frozen in permafrost for between 30,000 and 40,000 years.
Close-up images highlight the extraordinary life-like preservation in the planet’s natural freezer.

Health

WHO: 1.4 billion risk disease from lack of exercise
AFP – More than 1.4 billion adults are putting themselves at heightened risk of deadly diseases by not getting enough exercise, doctors are warning, with global activity levels virtually unchanged in nearly two decades.
With richer nations enjoying an increasingly comfortable, sedentary lifestyle, a study by the World Health Organization said a third of women and a quarter of men worldwide are in the firing line for killer conditions such as heart disease, diabetes and cancer unless they up their physical activity.
“Insufficient physical activity is a leading risk factor for non-communicable diseases, and has a negative effect on mental health and quality of life,” said the study of world exercise levels published Wednesday by The Lancet Global Health Journal.

Add this to your diet if you’re diabetic: The English walnut prevents neuropathy
NaturalNews – Research has found that English walnut (Juglans regia L.) leaf can prevent and treat peripheral neuropathy, one of the most common chronic complications of diabetes that affect all peripheral nerves. In the study, which was published in the journal BMC Complementary and Alternative Medicine, the therapeutic effects of the English walnut leaf extract against diabetic neuropathy in mice were investigated.

Scientists analyze the antioxidant properties of the pepper fruit tree
NaturalNews – Extracts from the pepper fruit tree (Dennettia tripetala) have been found to have antifungal, insecticidal, and anti-inflammatory properties. In a study that was published in the journal BMC Complementary and Alternative Medicine, researchers investigated the potential of essential oils from the plant’s unripe (UFO) and ripe (RFO) fruit as an antibacterial and antioxidant treatment.