US May Freeze Funding for Controversial White Helmets in Syria After Chemical Attack


While the White Helmets claim to be neutral, they have been accused of staging chemical attacks, and they are linked to the al-Nusra terror group. The US State Department is reviewing its support for the White Helmets that have received at least $32 million from US taxpayers. The White Helmets are well-funded for a group that claims to be self-organized.

US State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert said that funding for the White Helmets, a controversial militant-linked group instrumental to the media campaign against Assad and Russia, was under review. The White Helmets are controversial because they have recently been accused of staging a chemical attack hoax in Douma that led to US airstrikes last month, and its members have appeared in videos of killings by the al-Nusra terror group.

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The White Helmets claim to be a neutral self-organized humanitarian group that formed in 2012. They trained in Turkey in 2013 under British former military officer James Le Mesurier. He funded the operation through his non-profit organization, May Day Rescue, financed by grants from Holland, UK, Denmark and Germany. In 2013, the UK based Voices Project, created to influence governments and public opinion, began promoting the White Helmets. The White Helmets also receive funding from Chemonics, a US-based contractor that received $128 million in 2013 to ensure a “stable transition” (regime change) in Syria under USAID, and at least $32 million was paid to the White Helmets. Chemtronics was part of the USAID failure in Libya.

Additional Source:  https://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/patrick-goodenough/russian-military-white-helmets-staged-chemical-attack

 

 

 

 




Finland Court Rules Sex with a 10-Year Old Girl Is Not Rape


Finland’s Supreme Court upheld the three-year prison term sentence for the rape of a ten-year old girl by a 23-year old asylum seeker, Juusuf Muhamed Abbudin, whose country of origin was withheld.  The man had sexual intercourse with the girl in the yard of a deserted apartment block.  The court didn’t recognize the incident as rape, saying the girl wasn’t forced into the sexual act or overcome by fear.  The judges ordered the man to pay the child $3,600. -GEG

In a case that has triggered public outrage, a top Finnish court has upheld a ruling that sex between an asylum seeker and a 10-year-old girl didn’t constitute rape. Critics are calling for harsher sentences for child abuse.

Finland’s Supreme Court rejected a request from the prosecution to appeal a three-year jail term for a 23-year-old man on Thursday. Finnish media identify him as Juusuf Muhamed Abbudin, an asylum seeker, but don’t reveal his country of origin.

The man was convicted of aggravated sexual abuse, although the prosecution had sought a harsher sentence on charges of aggravated rape. However, the court left the original verdict unchanged.

The incident took place near the city of Tampere in southern Pirkanmaa region in autumn 2016. The man had sexual intercourse with a girl, who was 10-years old at the time, in the yard of a deserted apartment block. He also exchanged sexually charged messages with her.

Both Pirkanmaa District Court and the Appeal Court in the city of Turku convicted the asylum seeker of aggravated sexual abuse and handed him a three-year prison sentence in 2017. The courts didn’t recognize the incident as rape, saying the girl wasn’t forced into the sexual act or overcome by fear. The judges also ordered the man to pay the child €3,000 ($3,600).

The decision fueled fierce debates across the country. Tuula Tamminen, professor of Child Psychiatry at the University of Tampere, insisted that the child simply couldn’t know what was happening in such a situation.

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Iowa Bans Abortions After Point of Detecting Heartbeat (6 Weeks)


Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds signed a bill into law banning all abortions after six weeks, which is the time that a fetal heartbeat can be detected.  The law requires physicians to perform an ultrasound test for a fetal heartbeat on any woman seeking an abortion and it bars abortion if a heartbeat is detected.  If lawsuits are filed to challenge the bill, as expected, the law will not go into effect pending the outcome. -GEG

Iowa became the most pro-life state in the nation Friday afternoon, potentially setting up a battle that could change America’s abortion laws.

Republican Governor Kim Reynolds signed the “Heartbeat” bill, which severely restricts the practice of abortion in the midwest state.

The Iowa state House and Senate passed the bill earlier in the week. The bill bans the option of an abortion if a heartbeat is detected in an ultrasound performed by a doctor. Most pregnancies exhibit a heartbeat for the baby as early as six weeks.

There are exemptions to the rule built into the bill. The Des Moines Register compiled a list of the exemptions:

  • the woman was raped and reports the rape to a law enforcement agency, a public or private health agency or a family physician within 45 days;
  • the woman was the victim of incest and reports the issue to a law enforcement agency, a public or private health agency or a family physician within 140 days;
  • “not all the products of conception are expelled” following a spontaneous miscarriage;
  • a physician certifies that the fetus has an abnormality that, in the physician’s “reasonable medical judgment,” is incompatible with life.

 

According to the Register, proponents of the bill hope it will spark a legal debate that ultimately overturns Roe v. Wade in the Supreme Court. Iowa state Sen. Jake Chapman told the Register, “This law, if signed, I believe could very well be the very bill that overturns Roe v. Wade.”

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Judge Questions Motives and Honesty of Mueller’s Investigation of Paul Manafort

US District Court Judge, T.S. Ellis, III told Mueller’s prosecutors that he knew they were not really interested in possible bank fraud committed by Paul Manafort but were just trying to force him to testify against Donald Trump. In other words, if Manafort can be frightened into thinking he will go to prison for the rest of his life on bank-fraud charges dating back to before he worked for Trump as his campaign manager, and if he is offered leniency in return for testimony that would incriminate Donald Trump in the Russian-collusion probe, the chances are good that Manfort would say anything to avoid prison even if it were not true. In a separate case, Manafort is facing trial in Washington, DC before the Obama-appointed Judge, Amy Berman Jackson. Mueller’s prosecutors are determined to use Manafort as the path to destroy Trump. -GEG

Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s “Russia Investigation” may be facing its most significant push-back yet Friday when federal Judge Thomas Ellis questioned Mueller’s prosecutors fundamental authority, motives, and honesty in a pre-trial hearing for one-time Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort.

“C’mon man!” Ellis reportedly exclaimed to Mueller’s prosecutors, telling them later, “We don’t want anyone with unfettered power.”

Ellis called out Mueller’s lawyers on their motive in prosecuting Manafort for crimes that allegedly occurred long before the 2016 campaign. “You don’t really care about Mr. Manafort,” he said. “You really care about what information Mr. Manafort can give you to lead you to Mr. Trump and an impeachment, or whatever.”

Manafort is indicted for money laundering and tax fraud in the Eastern District of Virginia, the subject of Friday’s hearing with Ellis. He also stands accused in the District of Columbia of financial crimes to his activities as a lobbyist and surrogate for foreign leaders, including ousted Ukrainian President Victor Yanokovych, years before he joined the Trump campaign. One of the crimes with which he is charged, violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), has resulted in only one conviction in its more than five decades on the books.

Friday’s hearing was an attempt by Manafort’s lawyers to question Mueller’s office’s authority to bring all these charges against their client as it was outside the stated scope of their investigation. According to the document that appointed Mueller as special counsel, he has authority to investigate:

(i) any links and/or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the campaign of President Donald Trump; and
(ii) any matters that arose or may arise directly from the investigation; and
(iii) any other matters within the scope of 28 C.F.R. §600.4(a) [a regulation that expands a special counsel’s jurisdiction to crimes, such as perjury or obstruction of justice, that interfere with his investigation]

Because of Manafort’s lawyers efforts last month, we now know there is another, more detailed memo drafted by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and hidden from public view that lays out the Mueller probes scope with more specificity. A heavily redacted version came to light as result of proceedings leading up to Friday’s hearings.

The Reagan-appointed Judge Ellis slammed Mueller’s lawyers on their reliance on and evasiveness about this “Scope Memo,” which they refuse to hand over. He characterized their attitude as, “We said this was what [the] investigation was about, but we are not bound by it and we were lying.”

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Israel: Netanyahu Given Power to Declare War, Bringing US with Him If He Starts New Wars

Israel: Parliament passed a law allowing the prime minister and defense minister to decide alone whether the nation will go to war. This puts Netanyahu firmly in the driver’s seat. The law says that this power shall be use only “under extreme circumstances”, which is not defined in the law. If Netanyahu declares war, it is certain that the US will back Israel – which means that Netanyahu now can bring America into war. In a video recorded a number of years ago, Netanyahu says that Israel has 80% support from Americans and that America can easily be maneuvered. -GEG

Video of Netanyahu boasting of being able to be an aggressor because America will back Israel, he said: “American is something that you can easily maneuver, and move in the right direction. And even if they say something….So then they say something, so what? 80% of Americans support us! It’s absurd! We have such support there, and here we’re thinking what we should do “if”…”

In a surprise and potentially far-reaching victory for Benjamin Netanyahu, the Knesset on Monday evening gave the prime minister the authority to declare war or order a major military operation by consulting only the defense minister, and not via a full cabinet vote as the law had previously required.

Sixty-two Knesset members voted the dramatic proposal into law, beating out the 41 opposition MKs who opposed it claiming that the language of the law effectively gives free reign to the prime minister by removing all oversight.

According to the new law, in “extreme circumstances,” military operations can be authorized by the prime minister and defense minister alone and will not need a vote by cabinet ministers.

The law does not specify exactly what those circumstances may be, or who will determine them, saying only that the case will apply, “if the issue is necessary due to urgency.”

The proposal — advanced by Netanyahu since last year — had been rejected earlier in the day by members of two key Knesset committees: Law and Justice, and Foreign Affairs and Defense. It was resubmitted, however, by Likud member and Foreign Affairs and Defense committee chairman Avi Dichter during the second and third readings of a broader amendment and was voted into law as part of that wider legislation.

That wider amendment allows the government to delegate the authority for going to war under normal circumstances, or mobilizing for a major military operation, to a forum made up of “at least half” of all cabinet ministers.

Some eight years ago, Netanyahu and then-defense minister Ehud Barak instructed the chief of staff and head of the Mossad intelligence service to put the army into a state of readiness, only to be told by the latter two that the relevant activity was illegal because it had not been properly approved and could lead to war.

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