Tottenham MP David Lammy says it is "important our community remains calm" after a man was shot dead during an operation by police. A friend of Mark Duggan told Channel 4 News there may be unrest.
31 Americans, 7 Afghans killed in helicopter crash
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — A military helicopter was shot down in eastern Afghanistan, killing 31 U.S. special operation troops, most of them from the elite Navy SEALs unit that killed al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, along with seven Afghan commandos. It was the deadliest single incident for American forces in the decade-long war.
Never miss an opportunity to sell war propaganda. Instead of just telling us about the news, right there in the first paragraph we have to pull out the ghost of Bin Laden again.
Sometimes, when I hear news like this, I wonder if a crash even happened at all. It's not like our troops aren't in harm's way though, so let's not go too far off the ranch here, and go ahead and assume this crash did indeed occur. That the Chinook helicopter a group of commandos were flying in, was shot down by an insurgent rocket. But let's take a closer look at what's being reported here.
In the opening paragraph, they lead us to believe that the men who were killed are the same "heros" who killed Osama bin Laden. Indeed, that is what everyone is talking about. That the heros of the BinLaden raid have been murdered by the Taliban. Well, that's pretty convenient that the men who supposedly killed BinLaden are now dead too. After all, dead men tell no tales. And if you think Bin Laden was killed in that raid, then I will tell you about how my buddy just killed Bigfoot in Japan.
But digging a little deeper we see that the information about who was actually killed in the downing of the helicopter during a raid on insurgents, comes from unnamed sources. In other words, it could be completely fabricated. A yarn spun to pull at the heartstrings of Americans.
One current and one former U.S. official said that the dead included more than 20 Navy SEALs from SEAL Team Six, the unit that carried out the raid in Pakistan in May that killed bin Laden. They were being flown by a crew of the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment. Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity because families are still being notified.
That's not all I smell.
The Associated Press leaves themselves a back door here though when they add:
None of those killed in the crash is believed to have been part of the SEALs mission that killed bin Laden, but they were from the same unit as the bin Laden team.
Ok, Michael Jackson didn't come over to my house to use the bathroom. But his sister did!
Let's just see if there's anything missing!!!
But how about that Seal Team Six anyway? Oh, you mean that Seal team that doesn't exist? Oh, I get it, super-secret elite group, like our very own Al-Qaeda right? So secret they keep making headlines around the globe. Well, maybe Seal Team Six probably exists, they just can't tell us much about them right?
Naval Special Warfare Group 1: SEAL Teams 1, 3, 5, 7
Naval Special Warfare Group 2: SEAL Teams 2, 4, 8, 10
Naval Special Warfare Group 3: SEAL Delivery Vehicle Team 1
Naval Special Warfare Group 4: Special Boat Teams 12, 20, 22
Naval Special Warfare Group 11: SEAL Teams 17, 18 (formerly Operational Support Teams 1, 2)
You know what I don't see there? A Seal Team Six.They might as well be telling us about the further adventures of the elite G.I. Joes.
Now just to be clear here. I am not trying to undermine the real tragedy here. I have close family in Afghanistan at this very moment, and have lost friends in Afghanistan and Iraq. Losing that many men in a single incident is a terrible loss. And they may very well have been elite forces as well, making it a severe blow to a small community of America's most prized operators. But just the same, let's not smear the tragedy with a face full of bullshit from the propaganda machine.
In case you missed the inline link above, be sure to check out:
As you can see we have added a new comment format to our comments section. It should make commenting a little easier to use and to keep up with conversations. Sadly, it is a generic typset so the gray is a little difficult to read, but I think it's worth the trade-off for a more streamlined and interactive interface. I may try to get in there in the next few days to rewrite some code too if I get ballsy.
The new system does require that you enter an email address to comment, but I will not be logging those addresses and will not be sending you any sort of spam. I would have preferred to leave it wide open like we had it before, but this system doesn't have that option. I left it as wide open and anonymous as possible, and entering an email address is not a subscription. I would think that most folks who comment on blogs and message-boards have a dummy account set up for commenting anyway.
Please keep in mind our guidelines as usual when posting. We're pretty open here and hate censorship, just don't be a total flaming asshole.
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Nearly 15% of the U.S. population relied on food stamps in May, according to the United States Department of Agriculture.
The number of Americans using the government's Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) -- more commonly referred to as food stamps -- shot to an all-time high of 45.8 million in May, the USDA reported. That's up 12% from a year ago, and 34% higher than two years ago.
The program provides monthly benefits to low-income individuals and families, which they can use at stores that accept SNAP benefits.
To qualify for food stamps, an individual's income can't exceed $1,174 a month or $14,088 a year -- an amount that is 130% of the national poverty level.
Shifting dark streaks on the surface of Mars are signs that water is flowing there today, scientists said Thursday.
The possible presence of liquid water is certain to revive speculation that Mars is teeming with microbial organisms. The recipe for life, at least as we know it, calls for liquid water, carbon-based molecules and a source for energy.
There is plenty of ice on Mars, but the chemical reactions for life come to a halt when water freezes.
High-resolution photographs taken by NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, which arrived at Mars in 2006, show fingerlike streaks up to five yards wide that appear on some steep slopes in the planet’s late spring. These streaks grow and shift through summer, reaching hundreds of yards in length before they fade in winter. One crater had about 1,000 streaks.
The following cartoon is one of a series, now available on YouTube, which parodies police corruption issues. While the video never mentions any one or any department specifically, some of the content is said to be reflective of internal affairs issues at the Renton, Washington police department. So much so that the local prosecutor has filed cyberstalking charges against the anonymous creator of the video, and is now armed with a court order to learn the person's identity.
...and finally one episode of 8 so far that have appeared on YouTube...
While some may find the issue humorous to some degree, the seriousness of the matter should not be overlooked. Whenever we pass new laws, this is the result, more often than not. That prosecutor's will used these laws in ways that they were never intended, in order to criminalize you for being free and expressing your God-given Constitutionally protected rights.
Without mention of a specific person, without a valid case defamation or libel, I really don't see how the prosecutor got a judge to sign off on this in the first place. There is no proof that there is a "victim" here at all. Even if the video had mentioned someone by name, if what they are saying is actually the truth, then it could hardly be considered libelous, much less cyberstalking. It would be, in fact, an expression of one's disdain for known corruption.
Is merely talking about corruption now illegal in America? It appears so. Thanks to vaguely worded cyber-stalking laws implemented to appease knee-jerk reactionaries over cyber-bullying and the few tragic cases that make headlines. Meanwhile, we have equally vague interpretations and applications of such laws by prosecutors to the point where these laws can actually be twisted to PROTECT criminals, particularly within te system, rather than prosecute them, and to prosecute people for simply exercising what was once known as freedom.
Cyberstalking is the use of the Internet or other electronic means to stalk or harass an individual, a group of individuals, or an organization. It may include false accusations, monitoring, making threats, identity theft, damage to data or equipment, the solicitation of minors for sex, or gathering information in order to harass. The definition of "harassment" must meet the criterion that a reasonable person, in possession of the same information, would regard it as sufficient to cause another reasonable person distress.[1] Cyberstalking is different from spatial or offline stalking, however it sometimes leads to it, or is accompanied by it.[2]
Reasonable? Who is to decide what a reasonable person might think, or who a reasonable person might be? I don't think that's it's reasonable at all in the first place to charge someone with a crime simply for "monitoring" a page that is publicly displayed on the internet. Yet according to that description above, the laws could actually be twisted to the point that you could be held criminally liable for going to a web-page more than once. If I click on my local police department's web page twice in one week, could that be considered stalking? Some "reasonable" person like the prosecutor in this story would probably say "yes."
And be sure to check out this entry, on hometown ocrruption in America...
Witnesses describe mobs, some people claim racially-charged attacks
By Jay Sorgi and the WTMJ News Team
WEST ALLIS - Witnesses tell Newsradio 620 WTMJ and TODAY'S TMJ4 of a mob of young people attacking innocent fair-goers at the end of the opening night of State Fair, with some callers claiming a racially-charged scene.
Milwaukee Police confirmed there were assaults outside the fair.
Witnesses' accounts claim everything from dozens to hundreds of young black people beating white people as they left State Fair Thursday night.
Authorities have not given official estimates of the number of people involved in the attacks.
"It looked like they were just going after white guys, white people," said Norb Roffers of Wind Lake in an interview with Newsradio 620 WTMJ. He left the State Fair Entrance near the corner of South 84th Street and West Schlinger Avenue in West Allis.
"They were attacking everybody for no reason whatsoever."
"It was 100% racial," claimed Eric, an Iraq war veteran from St. Francis who says young people beat on his car.
"I had a black couple on my right side, and these black kids were running in between all the cars, and they were pounding on my doors and trying to open up doors on my car, and they didn't do one thing to this black couple that was in this car next to us. They just kept walking right past their car. They were looking in everybody's windshield as they were running by, seeing who was white and who was black. Guarantee it."
Eric, a war veteran, said that the scene he saw Thursday outside State Fair compares to what he saw in combat.
"That rated right up there with it. When I saw the amount of kids coming down the road, all I kept thinking was, 'There's not enough cops to handle this.' There's no way. It would have taken the National Guard to control the number of kids that were coming off the road. They were knocking people off their motorcycles."
Another witness, who asked to remain anonymous, said, "it was like a scene you needed the National Guard to control."
"To me, it looked like a scene out of a movie," claimed the anonymous witness.
"I have not seen anything like this in my life. It was a huge mob, and it was a fight that maybe lasted one to two minutes."
Roffers claimed that as he left the state fair with his wife, crowds near that entrance were large, and someone in that crowd .
"As we got closer to the street, we looked up the road, and we saw a quite a bit of commotion going on and there was a guy laying in the road, and nobody was even laying there. He wasn't even moving. Finally a car pulled up. They stopped right next to the guy, and it looked like someone was going to help him. We were kind of stuck, because we couldn't cross. Traffic was going through. Young black men running around, beating on people, and we were like 'Let's get the heck out of here.' The light turned, and I got attacked from behind. I just got hit in the back of the head real hard. I'm like, 'What the heck is going on here?' I heard my bell ring."
Roffers further described what witnesses said happened to the man who was lying in the street.
"People were saying he was on a bike. They tore him off his bike and beat on him. We were walking to the west on Schlinger. I was watching behind me a lot more diligently, making sure there wasn't anybody coming to get us anymore."
One person claimed that someone was knocked off a motorcycle.
TODAY'S TMJ4 video shows West Allis police handcuffing at least one person, but they won't say how many people they took into custody.
Some witnesses described attacks on the State Fair Grounds as well.
Milwaukee Police said that their officers were sent to State Fair Park for "complaints of battery, fighting and property damage due to a large, unruly crowd."
A police sergeant told TODAY'S TMJ4's Melissa McCrady that the number of calls describing injuries are still coming in, so they could not give an accurate number of people who were injured.
That sergeant explained that some injuries were serious, and local hospitals were attending to the injured.
As of early Friday morning, Milwaukee Police said they had no one in custody.
One woman told police that she was sitting in her car with a window down when some teenagers reached through her window and started attacking her.
"I think once we get all the info in it'll be just like that, like what happened in Riverwest," said the police sergeant.
West Allis Police ask you to call them at 414-302-8000 if you have any information.
Sadly, the level of ignorance in this country is only growing in this day and age. Events like this could easily trigger an all-out race war. And for what? Black youth who think it's whitey keeping them down, never realizing that they are playing right into the hands of the overlords who profit by keeping the people, all people, divided and distracted from the real issues.
Poor education standards, lack of meaningful opportunity, economic devastation, these are not just black problems. Point of fact, more white people in America live in poverty than blacks. That is not to say of course that there aren't issues that are more unique or generally oriented to one racial group or another, but events like this certainly do nothing to bridge the gap and come together in a way that will bring meaningful change. When all is said and done, these kids might as well have gone out and beat up other black people for the black-eye this event will leave on the black community.
In the left column you will notice a number of tools, including several different ways you can subscribe to this page.
Under the picture of me you will see a bunch of little flags. That tool can be used to translate the page into any language supported by Google Translate. Fun for you maybe, or a nice tool for sharing the information here with friends who don't speak English or who use English as a second language.
Next you will see a Donate key. Please do consider making a small donation if you have the means. I put a lot of work into this site, and frankly, I could really use the money for food and car repairs. You can think of it as helping someone help themselves, while at the same time paying to support a page you enjoy and which I hope to expand if I can get some funding trickling in.
Next down we have a key to follow us on our Facebook page. I think there are about 80 members or so now following us on the FB page. Most of the articles that get posted here, are linked there as well, so you can see what's new right from your own FB page.
Below that, you will find a tool to subscribe with the RSS system, to get updates on posts and/or comments. Really simple, great tool to keep up with new material here and ongoing discussions in the comment fields.
Next, email subscription. I haven't used it myself so I'm not sure what exactly it updates via email, but I would guess it informs you of new posts anyway when they are published.
And finally we have the Google followers. If you have a Google account, why not join this blog? Google accounts are free and have a variety of great services.
Further on down the column you will also find a number of cool little interactive buttons to play with as well.
Special thanks to John G. who sent me an email asking if there was a way to subscribe to comments in order to follow what's new. RSS is probably the most efficient and easy to use subscription tool, so give it a shot folks!
NOT FOR PUBLICATION UNTIL RELEASED BY THE SUBCOMMITTEE
Statement by
Dr. Tony Tether
Director
Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency
Submitted to the
Subcommittee on Terrorism, Unconventional Threats and Capabilities
House Armed Services Committee
United States House of Representatives
Javelin is a fire-and-forget missile with lock-on before launch and automatic self-guidance. The system takes a top-attack flight profile against armored vehicles (attacking the top armor which is generally thinner) but can also take a direct-attack mode for use against buildings or fortifications. This missile also has the ability to engage helicopters in the direct attack mode.[3] It can reach a peak altitude of 150 m (500 ft) in top-attack mode and 60 m in direct-fire mode and is equipped with an imaging infrared seeker. The tandem warhead is fitted with two shaped charges: a precursor warhead to detonate any explosive reactive armor and a primary warhead to penetrate base armor. The Javelin was used in the 2003 Invasion of Iraq,[3] with devastating effects on Iraqi Lion of Babylon tanks and Type 69 tanks.
The missile is ejected from the launcher so that it reaches a safe distance from the operator before the main rocket motors ignite; a "soft launch arrangement".[4] This makes it harder to identify the launcher; however, back-blast from the launch tube still poses a hazard to nearby personnel. Thanks to this "fire and forget" system, the firing team may move on as soon as the missile has been launched.[2]
The missile system is carried most often by a two man team consisting of a gunner and an ammo bearer, although it can be fired with just one person if necessary. While the gunner aims and fires the missile, the ammo bearer, scans for prospective targets, watches for threats such as enemy vehicles and troops, and ensures personnel and obstacles are clear of the missile's back blast.
The Missing Security Tapes From The World Trade Center
The Intel Hub By Susan Lindauer – Contributing Writer August 1, 2011
Late on the night of August 23, 2001, at about 3 a.m. security cameras in the parking garage of the World Trade Center captured the arrival of two or three truck vans.
Visual examination determined the vans were separate and unique from trucks used by janitorial services, including different colors and devoid of markings.
More curious, all the janitorial trucks had pulled out of the Towers by about 2:30 a.m—about half an hour before the second set of vans arrived.
According to my high level State Department source with a top security clearance, who disclosed the unusual nightly activity, no vans matching that description had entered the World Trade Center at such an hour in any of the weeks or months prior to that date. It was a unique event.
Security cameras caught the vans leaving the Towers at approximately 5 a.m—before the first wave of AAA personality types on Wall Street, driving Mercedes and BMWs, arrived to track the markets.
For the next 10 to 12 nights, the same mysterious truck vans arrived at the World Trade Center at the same mysterious hour— after the janitorial crews had left the building and before the most fanatic robber barons on Wall Street showed up for work.
The vans appeared at the World Trade Center from approximately August 23, 2001 until September 3 or 4, 2001. After that last night, they never appeared at the Towers again.
The vans were never heard of again, either. The 9/11 Commission was never informed of their surprising presence in the Towers three weeks before the 9/11 attack. Most of the 9/11 Truth Community has no knowledge of this extraordinary nightly activity, either.
For all the public’s ignorance, video from the security cameras could be the most significant missing part of the 9/11 puzzle. This State Department source was convinced the mysterious trucks were used to transport explosives into the building, and that an unidentified orphan team wired the World Trade Center for a controlled demolition in those late night hours.
He has stayed quiet to protect his job, his retirement pension and his reputation—knowing that others who spoke up have gotten fired or thrown in prison (myself included).
Controlled Demolition
Other evidence supports a controlled demolition of the Towers, as a supplement to the hijackings. Firefighters and maintenance crews reported hearing explosions popping through the Towers on 9/11. And previous reports indicate that dust from the World Trade Center tested positive for “thermate explosives–” a derivative of a thermite bomb.
A thermite reaction involves a mixture of iron oxide and aluminum, while thermate adds an element of sulfur. When the iron oxide-aluminum mixture is ignited, a super vigorous reaction occurs, creating molten metal—and dust, in the case of thermate. The reaction is extremely exothermic, meaning that a great deal of heat is given off, making for an incredibly powerful reducing agent.
Even so, as the 10 year anniversary of the 9/11 attack approaches, the majority of Americans continue to be confused as to how a controlled demolition scenario fits with the airplane hijackings and aerial strike on the World Trade Center—which the whole world witnessed on play back over and over in the media, until the image was seared like a brand on our collective consciousness.
Until now, there has been a false dichotomy that only one or the other style of attack could have occurred, but never both together. Some parts of the 9/11 Community itself vigorously dispute that both could have occurred as synchronized events. And most of the corporate media refuses to acknowledge the controlled demolition theory whatsoever.
When the public understands 9/11 as a series of Real Time events throughout the month of August, 2001, the unfolding sequence of this tragedy makes a lot more sense.
The difficulty is throwing out everything the public has been taught about 9/11—created for the convenience of politicians and corporate media, who simplified the story for public consumption.
First and foremost, contrary to all media reports and official claims, U.S. and foreign intelligence absolutely expected the 9/11 attack to occur— citing airplane hijackings and a strike on the World Trade Center. Even the time frame was identified precisely—known to be late August through mid-September.
I relate here my own experience as evidence. It has been corroborated in courtroom testimony by Parke Godfrey, a computer science professor at York University in Toronto. He delivered his statement under oath in the Federal Courthouse of the Southern District of New York—1000 yards from where the World Trade Center once graced the skyline.
On August 2, the date of Robert Mueller’s Senate confirmation hearings to become Director of the FBI, my CIA handler, Dr. Richard Fuisz warned me not to travel to New York because the attack on the World Trade Center involving airplane hijackings was “considered imminent,” with the potential for “mass human casualties” and a “possible miniature thermo-nuclear device” (thermite).
Our team aggressively tried to block the conspiracy. But not everyone was on board.
Air Force Pulls Christian-Themed Ethics Training for Nuclear Missile Officers After Publication of Truthout Report
by: Jason Leopold, Truthout | Report
The Air Force, in response to an exclusive report published by Truthout earlier this week, has withdrawn materials used in a training session that relied upon passages from the New and Old Testament and a quote from an ex-Nazi SS officer to teach missile officers about the morals and ethics of launching nuclear weapons.
The Nuclear Ethics and Nuclear Warfare training "has been taken out of the curriculum and is being reviewed," said David Smith, chief of public affairs of Air Education and Training Command at Randolph Air Force Base in Texas. "The commander reviewed it and decided we needed to have a good hard look at it and make sure it reflected views of modern society."
Smith said the ethics training has been in place for "20-plus years" and the decision to remove it was made on Wednesday after Truthout's report was published. He added that it will now be "given thorough scrutiny" and "folks will be appointed to look at what we have and determine its utility and if they think its useful to continue having an ethics course they will develop a new course."
The course was led by Air Force chaplains and took place during a missile officer's first week in training at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. Officers who train to be missileers were required to attend the ethics course, which included a PowerPoint presentation on St. Augustine's "Christian Just War Theory" as well as numerous examples of characters from the New and Old Testament the training materials asserted engaged in warfighting in a "righteous way."
St. Augustine's "Qualifications for Just War," according to the way the Air Force characterized it in slides used in the ethics training, are: "to avenge or to avert evil; to protect the innocent and restore moral social order (just cause)" and "to restore moral order; not expand power, not for pride or revenge (just intent)."
One of the PowerPoint slides also contained a passage from the Book of Revelation that claims Jesus Christ, as the "mighty warrior," believed some wars to be just.
At the conclusion of the ethics training session, missile officers were asked to sign a legal document stating they will not hesitate to launch the nuclear-armed Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBM) "if lawfully ordered to do so by the President of the United States or his lawful successor."
The documents' blatant use of religious imagery and its numerous references to the New and Old Testament would appear to constitute a violation of the First Amendment establishing a wall of separation between church and state.
The 43-page PowerPoint was included with more than 500 pages of other documents pertaining to a missile officer's first week in training that was released by the Air Force under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and provided to Truthout by the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF), a civil rights organization.
Another PowerPoint slide quoted Wernher Von Braun, a former member of the Nazi Party and SS officer who is regarded as the father of the US space program. Von Braun was not cited in the PowerPoint as a scientific expert, rather, he was specifically being referenced as a moral authority, which is remarkable considering that the Nazi scientist used Jews imprisoned in concentration camps, captured French anti-Nazi partisans, civilians, and others to help build the V-2, a weapon responsible for the death of thousands of British civilians.
MRFF President Mikey Weinstein said more than 30 missile officers contacted his organization over the past week to complain about the Christian imagery and biblical passages in the ethics training. He said the decision by the Air Force to pull the ethics course material is a "great victory for the constitution." [Full disclosure: Weinstein is a member of Truthout's Board of Advisers.]
"We are not going to commend the Air Force for doing something they should have done a quarter-century ago," Weinstein said. "It's an outrage and a deliberate attempt to torture and distort our constitution when the US Air Force mandatorily teaches its nuclear missile launch officers that fundamentalist Christian theology is inextricably intertwined with the 'correct' decision to launch nukes."
Cancer-stricken Ground Zero worker Edgar Galvis has finally received a compensation check -- for zero dollars.
The 51-year-old Queens man, who suffered sinus problems and then throat cancer after months of removing toxic debris from the World Financial Center, was relieved to get a check in the mail for his court settlement with Merrill Lynch, whose offices he had cleaned.
But he was stunned when he saw the amount: $0.00.
His award had been $10,005, but his lawyers at the firm Worby, Groner, Edelman & Napoli Bern lopped off $2,579 for unitemized legal expenses.
Then they took a 33.3 percent fee of $2,124.
They also subtracted $352, a fee to the lawyer who referred him.
The remaining $4,950 was withheld for unspecified "liens," the letter says. Galvis thinks this was repayment of workers' compensation for aid.
"I have hit rock bottom," said Galvis, who is jobless and $30,000 in debt. "I was expecting a check, and you can imagine how I felt when I opened it. I couldn't believe it. I thought it was a joke."
Return of the Pendulum: My 2024 Holiday Message
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In the past years, the elite pushed its agendas to absurd extremes. In
2024, people had enough and pushed back. Will the trend continue in 2025?
The post...
Elon Musk Predicts The Rise Of The Machines By 2030
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Billionaire Elon Musk has predicted that by the year 2030, machines will be
more intelligent than human beings. Musk, the tech mogul, says that the
probabi...
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The Hemp Industry / Staying Positive
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Air Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2020
Doug Fine discussed the many amazing properties of hemp. Followed by Eldon
Taylor on staying positive in the COVID-19 era.
The Alzheimer’s Drug that Might Unlock Your Dreams
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As excited as I get about the potentiality of psychedelic drugs, I get far
more amped about pushing the boundaries of dreams as I’m not sure there are
an...
DOJ Stumbles at Hearing on Detaining Immigrants
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Criticizing an attorney for the government for arguing issues he never
raised in briefing, the First Circuit seemed likely at a hearing Wednesday
to u...
Mom Has Stacked Dinner Party Roster
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GOLDEN, CO—Their eyes widening in amazement as the 43-year-old rattled off
the names of heavy hitter after heavy hitter, impressed members of the
Dreesh...
