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Showing posts from October, 2017

JFK files show informant told CIA Hitler was living in Colombia

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An informant told the CIA that Adolf Hitler survived World War II and was living with ex-Nazis in Colombia in the 1950s, according to newly declassified documents. The source told the agent, whose code name was Cimelody-3, the former Fuehrer was alive and that an ex-SS agent named Phillip Citroen had been in touch with him in the city of Tunja, according to the memo, released as part of the files related to JFK’s assassination. Citroen told the informant he saw a man who strongly resembled Hitler while working in “Residencias Coloniales,” a neighborhood populated by former Nazis. He said Germans living there followed this alleged Hitler with “an idolatry of the Nazi past, addressing him as ‘der Fuehrer’ and affording him the Nazi salute and storm-trooper adulation.” The former SS agent also had a photo of himself with the suspected Hitler, who allegedly went by “Adolf Schritteimayor.” CIA memos make it clear the agency was skeptical of this report, calling it a “fanta...

'Kill them all' -- Russian-linked Facebook accounts called for violence

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Facebook accounts run by Russian trolls repeatedly called for violence against different social and political groups in the U.S., including police officers, Black Lives Matter activists and undocumented immigrants. Posts from three now-removed Facebook groups created by the Russian Internet Research Agency suggest Russia sought not only to meddle in U.S. politics but to encourage ideologically opposed groups to act out violently against one another. The posts are  part of a database  compiled by Jonathan Albright, the research director at Columbia University's Tow Center for Digital Journalism, who tracks and analyzes Russian propaganda. For example, "Being Patriotic," a group that regularly posted content praising Donald Trump's candidacy, stated in an April 2016 post that Black Lives Matter activists who disrespected the American flag should be "be immediately shot." The account accrued about 200,000 followers before it was shut down. Another R...

The brother of Hilary Clinton's campaign chairman steps down as head of his lobbying group as Mueller's probe intensifies

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Tony Podesta, John Podesta's brother, stepped down as the head of a lobbying firm that is now under investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller. The Podesta Group failed to disclose its ties to a lobbying effort organized by Paul Manafort, President Donald Trump's former campaign chairman, that was backed by the pro-Russia Ukrainian party of ousted President Viktor Yanukovych. John Podesta, Hillary Clinton's former campaign chairman, testified in the House Russia probe, but is unaffiliated with the Podesta Group. Tony Podesta, the brother of Hillary Clinton's former campaign chairman John Podesta, has resigned from his position at his lobbying firm following his inclusion in special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation, Politico reported on Monday. Podesta was the head of the Podesta Group, a lobbying organization that was one of several firms that worked with the European Centre for a Modern Ukraine (ECMU), a public relations campaign organized by President D...

Declassified Docs Show NSA Trying To Prosecute A Journalist For His Successful FOIA Requests

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from the  war-on-whistleblowers,-leakers,-and-FOIA-records-requesters  dept MuckRock has been digging into a large pile of declassified CIA documents for the past several months and has come up with some surprising finds. It recently liberated nearly 13 million pages of CIA documents -- known as the CREST archive -- via a FOIA lawsuit. Since this monumental release, MuckRock has covered everything from a CIA report on an Italian pasta shortage to deeper, darker topics like a CIA asset in Mexico being linked to a long list of atrocities. Read More::  US Army Working On A Device That Can Assess Traumatic Brain Injury On The Battlefield Digging through the CIA's archives has dug up dirt on other agencies as well. Emma Best details another MuckRock/CIA gem -- one that shows the NSA attempting to prosecute a journalist for obtaining documents via FOIA requests. Declassified documents in the Central Intelligence Agency’s archives show that while the CIA was looking to include t...

US Army working on a device that can assess traumatic brain injury on the battlefield

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Traumatic brain injury, when not treated soon could significantly increase chances of developing Alzheimer's. US Army soldiers to receive gadgets that can scan for brain injuries   VANO SHLAMOV/AFP/Getty Images The US Army Medical Research and Materiel Command has awarded a contract worth close to $10m (£7.6m) to Neural Analytics, a company that designs and builds medical instruments, for the development of a device that can help quickly determine if a person has received a head injury and how severe it is instantly on the battlefield. Read More: 'DO SOMETHING!': Trump lashes out as the Russia investigation heats up According to a Military Times report, the device, named Lucid System, will be made to monitor and detect physical signs of traumatic brain injury. Leo Petrossian, chief executive officer of Neural Analytics told the Army Times "Our objective is to build an instrument for someone with little or no training that they can use reliably." The Lucid System s...

Explaining the new cryptocurrency bubble

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Investors are pouring tens of millions of dollars into new crypto currencies. You're going to hear a lot about initial coin offerings (ICOs) in the coming months. As investors have poured more and more money into newly created virtual currencies, they have created a gold-rush mentality. In recent months, some ICOs have raised tens of millions of dollars, and in early October the cryptocurrency market as a whole was worth about $140 billion. Some ICOs have been for serious projects trying to solve hard technical problems. Others seemed like little more than cynical attempts to cash in on the speculative boom. Celebrities like Paris Hilton, Floyd Mayweather, and Ghostface Killah have endorsed ICOs The launch video for the cryptocurrency Hilton endorsed, called LydianCoin, consisted entirely of cliches: "Purpose isn't defined by what you want to achieve but what you want to live for to achieve happiness." (Hilton has since deleted her tweet endorsing LydianCoin.) But thr...

'DO SOMETHING!': Trump lashes out as the Russia investigation heats up

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President Donald Trump railed against the Russia investigation on Sunday and asked why Hillary Clinton wasn't being investigated. Trump's tweets came shortly after it emerged that special counsel Robert Mueller had filed the first charges in his investigation. Trump urged Republicans to "DO SOMETHING" as the probe heats up. President Donald Trump lashed out on Sunday as special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election escalates. Read More:: Did TRUMP Make America Less Dependent? "Never seen such Republican ANGER & UNITY as I have concerning the lack of investigation on Clinton made Fake Dossier (now $12,000,000?) ... the Uranium to Russia deal, the 33,000 plus deleted Emails, the Comey fix and so much more," Trump said in a pair of tweets . He was referring to the so-called Steele dossier , compiled by ex-British spy Christopher Steele for the opposition-research firm Fusion GPS. The dossier contains a num...

Terrible news for the stock market - Investors are running out of cash

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A growing number of firms are sounding the alarm on investor cash levels that have dropped near the lowest levels in history. Low cash levels are a threat to the ongoing equity bull rally, because it signals that investors are running out of money they can use to keep the market going higher. Read More::   Billionaire Buffett On Bitcoin The stock market has a cash problem. As in, investors are running out of it, and the shortage could threaten the 8 1/2-year equity bull market that we've come to know and love. It's a new reality facing investors of all types. While money market assets make up a record-low 17% of long-term funds, the cash balance of equity mutual funds also sits at an all-time low of 3.3%, according to data compiled by INTL FCStone . And the firm doesn't mince words when discussing the increasingly dire situation. Read More:: Dan Brown Faces Possible New Plagiarism Lawsuit Over ‘The Da Vinci Code "A decade of financial repression has turned cash into tr...

Sundar Pichai's 'Cockroach Theory'

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Sundar Pichai continues to make global news after becoming Google’s CEO. Stories about his past, schooling and college days are viral. Well at least in India they are. Here’s another story, or rather a speech by Sundar Pichai, that is being massively shared for the past few days. It’s a speech about the ‘cockroach theory’ for self development.  Also Read:: CEOs Suggest Trump Tax Cut May Lift Investors More Than Jobs Here’s how the theory goes: “At a restaurant, a cockroach suddenly flew from somewhere and sat on a lady. She started screaming out of fear. With a panic stricken face and trembling voice, she started jumping, with both her hands desperately trying to get rid of the cockroach. Her reaction was contagious, as everyone in her group also got panicky. The lady finally managed to push the cockroach away but ...it landed on another lady in the group. Now, it was the turn of the other lady in the group to continue the drama. The waiter rushed forward to their rescue. In the re...

Gowdy slams Mueller team over leaks about charges in Trump-Russia probe

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Republican Rep. Trey Gowdy, the leader of the House’s top investigative committee, slammed special counsel Robert Mueller on Sunday for allowing the news media to learn that he and his legal team now have charges in their Russia investigation. Read More:: 'DO SOMETHING!': Trump Lashes Out As The Russia Investigation Heats Up “In the only conversation I’ve had with Robert Mueller, I stressed to him the importance of cutting out the leaks,” Gowdy, chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, told “Fox News Sunday.” “It’s kind of ironic that the people charged with investigating the law and the violations of the law would violate the law.” Mueller and his team have for roughly the past five months been leading a Justice Department investigation into whether anybody associated with the President Trump’s 2016 White House campaign colluded with Russia to influence the election outcome. On Friday night, CNN reported that Mueller’s team has filed the first charge...