Published on Feb 22, 2019


FEBRUARY 22, 2019
“America, let me just tell you something. Do not commit crimes with checks. If you’re going to break the law, do not write a check,” Barkley said, mocking Smollett for leaving a paper trail.
Barkley also poked fun at Hollywood actor Liam Neeson who recently admitted an urge to kill a “black bastard” after learning his friend was raped by an African American.
“Jussie, you wasted all that damn time and money. You know what you should have did? Just went up to Liam Neeson’s neighborhood. That would have solved all your damn problems,” chuckled Barkley.
Barkley’s co-host Shaquille O’Neil couldn’t stop laughing during the segment as Barkley relentlessly slammed Smollett’s poorly planned hoax.
Esquire Magazine called the rant “bizarre” and said the Liam Neeson joke was “turrible,” a shot at Barkley’s pronunciation of the word.

“In a word, it’s brutal. In a few more? It’s random, weird, and will make you uncomfortable,” Esquire wrote.
When Esquire posted the article to their Twitter account, the post was ratioed by users who slammed the fashion magazine.
Check out a sample of reactions from Twitter users below:




By PAUL BOIS
Over at MSNBC, Zach Stafford, Editor-in-Chief for the LGBTQ magazine The Advocate, went so far as to accuse Trump-loving cops in the Chicago P.D. of rigging the investigation in order to deal maximum damage to the disgraced actor.

According to Stafford, the Chicago P.D. intentionally leaked information pertaining to the investigation in order to destroy Smollett, alleging that the police called “it a racist and homophobic attack” even though it initially understood Smollett to be lying. Stafford claims this was all just a part of a broader setup.
“Personally, it was incredibly shocking on day one to see the police department call it a racist and homophobic attack. Their first statement — they exclusively said that, said they’re investigating it as a victim case,” Stafford said, according to Fox News. “As someone that has been investigating these for years in Chicago, that was really unprecedented before.”
Stafford went on to say that the Chicago P.D. essentially played into the victim narrative against Smollett in order to spring a trap on him.
“And a lot of the time people in the background were worried they were leaning into this victim part of the story because they didn’t believe him and they wanted to use it against him at the end when they were able to prove that he was lying,” Stafford continued.
The LGBTQ magazine editor went on to throw dirt at the Chicago P.D.’s past record of leaking information, saying they have a history of lying to the population.
“The police were openly confirming and not confirming certain reports and not doing it to other parts of the story, and so, due to the vocal nature in this case, it was really peculiar,” Stafford said. “Chicago has a deep history of openly lying to citizens. This police department did in 2016, openly through their union, support Donald Trump.”
Stafford suggests that the police union’s support of Trump indicates that there is reason not to believe them — especially in light of the information leaks.
“The central question of this case was, ‘Are Donald Trump supporters out here committing hate crimes?’ And that’s what really sparked a lot of the tension,” Stafford said. “To have a police department that hasn’t been as cooperative as they have been this round, do not openly give information, do openly lie and mishold information in cases and then to know that they…have openly supported Donald Trump in the 2016 election, a lot of activists on the ground are saying, ‘Wait, what’s going on here? Who do we believe out of these two suspect people.'”
In the end, Stafford suggested that even if Smollett were guilty of staging a hoax “hate crime,” he still highlighted a greater truth. “Jussie may have created this whole situation to highlight a reality that is happening every day,” he said. “Our current administration doesn’t support people like him — that are black and queer.”
By Tyler Durden
The cruise missile-firing capable Fateh, or “Conqueror”, was launched for the first time at the start of this week and has been touted as “state-of-the-art” and with the ability to stay underwater for five weeks at a time. Crucially, the large exercises come after last week’s US-sponsored Warsaw conference in which both Israeli and US officials made threats of war with Tehran. Indeed during the conference Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu openly stated that he was attending the summit with an aim to “advance the common interest of war with Iran.”

The games also come at a time when even foreign policy establishment insiders, such as the Council on Foreign Relation’s Steven Cook, increasingly acknowledge that the White House’s “march to war against Iran” is now “echoing the drumbeats” of the lead up to the 2003 Iraq invasion.
Writing in Foreign Policy, Cook warns:
Taken together—the Warsaw conference, Pence’s bullying of the Europeans, Bolton’s threatening video, and the broader background noise in Washington—the events of the past week were familiar in a foreboding way. The chatter about Iran has not become the war fever that gripped Washington in 2002 over Iraq, but the echoes of that year are not hard to miss in the Trump administration’s effort to shape the domestic and international debate about Iran.
Though there’s general agreement that Iran’s navy poses no match of US superiority on the sea and in the skies, Iran seeks to be a significant disruptor of American Persian Gulf capabilities.
Rear Admiral Hossein Khanzadi, commander of Iran’s navy, reflected this in comments announcing the inauguration of the games: “For the first time, these weapons will be tested seriously and we can make the maritime region unsafe for the enemy in any way possible,” he said. He said the games, formally called “Velayat 97,” will begin 2km from the Strait of Hormuz and extend 10 degrees north of the Indian Ocean, in an extended zone some analysts worry may indicate broader intentions regarding Oman and Yemen.

As the Jerusalem Post summarizes of this concern, “In Yemen Iran has supported the Houthi rebels who have used Iranian technology to target Saudi Arabia with ballistic missiles.” And recently, “In addition Oman enjoys decent relations with Iran but Oman also hosted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last year and has sought to play a role in the Israel-Palestinian peace efforts.”

By Don Babwin
The announcement came a day after Smollett turned himself in to police, appeared in court on a felony charge of disorderly conduct for allegedly filing a false police report, and left jail after posting bond.
“While these allegations are very disturbing, we are placing our trust in the legal system as the process plays,” ”Empire” executive producers Lee Daniels, Danny Strong, Brett Mahoney, Brian Grazer, Sanaa Hamri, Francie Calfo and Dennis Hammer said in a written statement. “We are also aware of the effects of this process on the cast and crew members who work on our show and to avoid further disruption on set, we have decided to remove the role of ‘Jamal’ from the final two episodes of the season.”
“Empire” has nine episodes left to air in its fifth season; the last two episodes are still being worked on.
Smollett, who is black and gay, plays a gay character on the show that follows a black family as they navigate the ups and downs of the recording industry.
Police said Smollett planned the hoax because he was unhappy with his salary and wanted to promote his career. Before the attack, he also sent a letter that threatened him to the Chicago studio where “Empire” is shot, police said.
As authorities laid out their case against Smollett, the narrative that emerged Thursday sounded like that of a filmmaker who wrote, cast, directed and starred in a short movie.
Prosecutors said Smollett gave detailed instructions to the accomplices who helped him stage the attack in January, including telling them specific slurs to yell, urging them to shout “MAGA country” and even pointing out a surveillance camera that he thought would record the beating.
“I believe Mr. Smollett wanted it on camera,” police Superintendent Eddie Johnson told reporters at a Thursday morning news conference. “But unfortunately that particular camera wasn’t pointed in that direction.”
Smollett’s legal team issued a statement Thursday night, calling the actor a “man of impeccable character and integrity who fiercely and solemnly maintains his innocence.” The statement called Johnson’s news conference “an organized law enforcement spectacle.”
“The presumption of innocence, a bedrock in the search for justice, was trampled upon at the expense of Mr. Smollett,” the statement read.
Smollett is earning more than $100,000 per episode, according to a person familiar with the situation. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because salary details were involved. The studio declined to comment on the actor’s salary.
As is customary with a successful TV series, regular cast members on “Empire” received a boost in pay as part of contract extensions that followed the drama’s renewal for a second season, the person said.
Smollett is counted among the series regulars.
___
AP Television Writer Lynn Elber in Los Angeles contributed to this report.
By Hunter Walker

Beyer is a member of the powerful House Committee on Ways and Means, which has the power to obtain a copy of President Trump’s tax returns thanks to an obscure law that’s almost a century old.
Trump’s tax returns have been something of a holy grail for Democrats who have consistently requested the release of the documents, particularly given the questions surrounding foreign business dealings at Trump’s sprawling real estate company. Beyer predicted that his committee will ultimately be able to get their hands on Trump’s elusive financial documents. But he explained that there are several obstacles to the process.
According to Beyer, the law allows “entities in Congress” to “request the tax return of any American citizen.” He said the Joint Taxation Committee theoretically could ask for the returns, but would be unlikely to do so due to Republican control of the Senate. This leaves the Ways and Means Committee, which is led by Democrats since they won control of the House last year. While Beyer said the Democrats on the committee have “begun the process,” he said it would be slow going.
“Our chairman, Richie Neal of Springfield, Mass., is going about this in a deliberate, thoughtful way. As he says, this is a really big, important, historic thing. He doesn’t want to not do it right. He wants to make sure that he’s crossing all the t’s and dotting all the i’s,” Beyer said.
Beyer said Neal had described some details about the process to his committee colleagues.
“As I understand it, at least as he’s explained it to us, the first step with his request is that the Internal Revenue Service will share it with him as the chairman confidentially,” Beyer said of Neal. “He will then review it and decide what can be shared with the full committee, and then ultimately, what can be shared with the American people.”
Trump became the first president in decades to break with longstanding tradition and not release his returns when he won the 2016 election. Democrats have consistently questioned what information might be in the documents, particularly given the questions surrounding foreign business dealings at Trump’s sprawling real estate company. Trump, who once promised to release the information, has cited a “routine audit” as why he has declined to do so.
While he stressed that he isn’t writing legal briefs on the issue, Beyer said he saw clear grounds for the request.
“There are so many suggestions that the president’s behavior with Russia, among others, … must be inextricably linked to his financial fortune. Why else would he give Putin a pass on damn near everything from Crimea to believing his intelligence rather than our own?” he said.
Beyer also predicted that Trump’s attorneys and allies would fight the release of the president’s returns.
“There is also anticipation that the White House is going to fight back right away, that once that request goes to them there’ll be requests for injunctions,” Beyer said.
Based on that opposition, Beyer predicted that Trump’s returns will remain hidden through the 2020 election.
“I think we need to do the best we can to get them, but it has been suggested more than once that it could be tied up in courts for two years,” he said.
By Ben Warren

The victim, described as an “Iranian gay man,” received such a fierce beating from the asylum seekers in the dining room that the local migration board had to hire a security company to “maintain order” days after the incident.
“It [was] like twenty rockets were lit,” said a staff member. “The entire dining room was coming. They charged over tables and chairs.”
“…They attacked no one else.”
The staff present only interfered after the attackers began to use chairs and forks on the victim.
Only one of the attackers, Abdul Azizi, was convicted of assault; he claims his actions were in “self-defense,” an account the staff and victim denies.
“If I had been alone and he had said [such] ugly things then I could have checked myself, but when he said this openly to everyone, we all became so upset and couldn’t control us,” said Azizi. “We may have made an unconscious error, but honor violations are serious for us.”
This particular asylum home is locally celebrated due to it being the first of its kind to be LGBTQ-certified by Sweden’s Federation for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Rights (RFSL) back in 2015.
To earn that title, workers went through 16 hours of training, two workshops, and paid attention to details like sex-divided toilets and the art on the walls.
Interestingly, prosecutors have ruled out the assault being a hate crime, a perspective the victim seems to disagree with.
He asserts the attack was the latest in a series of harassments that targeted him and other gay residents.
“When we go to the restaurant, they insult us, scream at us and threaten us,” he said. “It also happens elsewhere in the accommodation.”

By Michael J. Knowles

You had this influx of women, these radicalized Islamic women in the United States, in Great Britain, throughout continental Europe who during the rise of the Islamic state actually left to go fight … on behalf of the Islamic State. So now because President Trump promised we would crush ISIS militarily, and we have, now these women don’t have a state. ISIS barely exists anymore, if it exists at all. Now they want to come back and say, “Whoopsie-daisy, let’s pretend that nothing happened.”
Here is a woman named Hoda Muthana, she left at the age of 19, left Alabama, the good ol’ USA, moved to Syria and married an Australian jihadi who died within three months. Then she married another jihadi, had a child with him, That’s now 18 months old. That guy got killed as well — good job, Western forces — and now she wants to come back to Alabama. Here she is:
Muthara: When I was 17 I had an account on Twitter and we were all just normal Muslims speaking together, and we were just learning off of each other, feeding off of each other. We heard the Caliphate was announced and then we interpreted ourselves that it was obligatory upon us to go…[when she went to Syria] we didn’t see much about, what we did see when we did see it, we would see dead bodies in public.
“You know we’d see dead bodies.” But they knew that they were gonna see dead bodies because they were on these Twitter threads and in these internet groups that we’re talking about this, that’s why they left. Who wants to stay in boring, peaceful, free Alabama, when you can move to Syria and help Islamic militants slaughter innocents? Which is what this woman did. By the way, it’s not like she was eight or nine years old here, was captured and brought over there. She was 19 years old when she left the United States, she helped to spread ISIS propaganda on Twitter. She tweeted out “Americans wake up, go on drive-bys and spill all of their blood.”
We have a hard time in the West believing that people can think this way because we live in a basically decadent, secular, liberal society, so we have no conception of anyone truly believing that people should go on drive-bys and spill all of the blood, as this woman said, on Twitter. So we have this vulnerability, we don’t have a natural defense against these people who are vicious, vile terrorists who want to burn down everything that we have, want to spill our blood in the street — her words, not mine — what we want to do is just let them come back and that’s the compassionate thing, that’s the nice thing to do — that’s the imprudent thing to do. What does this woman think her punishment should be for leaving the United States and going to fight for ISIS?
Muthara: Maybe therapy lessons, it may be a process that will insure us that we’ll never do this again. Jail time, I don’t know if that has an effect on people.
Yeah, jail time, let’s not even consider that. How about just some nice therapy, maybe a good day at the spa, kind of let me get some of my troubles out of here, just relax a little bit, de-stress, maybe that would help. Wow, to be able to look an interviewer straight in the face and say, “Yes, I called for the spilling of American blood in the name of the Islamic state, I’d left and renounced my country, I joined a major international terrorist group and helped people slaughter innocents throughout the Middle East. I think I probably just need a little touch of therapy.” She does need some therapy, she also needs some prison.
By The Babylon Bee

But no. In the actual year 2019 that Trump has created, gay people are still being forced to attack themselves in the streets. Gay people, especially black gay people, have been so brainwashed by the messaging of Trump’s America that they are now hiring people to oppress them right out in the open.
This isn’t some third-world country where this is happening. This isn’t in some dystopian young adult fiction, where I get most of my political ideas. It’s here. It’s now. Every day, a gay person somewhere in this country hires a couple of Nigerian guys to make it look like he’s hated and oppressed.
We need to take a good, hard look in the mirror, America, and ask ourselves if this is who we want to be. We have allowed an evil movement of Trump supporters to take over our nation so effectively that we’re now paying people to dress up like them and beat us up. This won’t stand any longer. The time has come to say, “No more!”
May we look back a year from now and be able to declare proudly that the year is 2020 and the LGBT community is no longer compelled to pay people to oppress them. We owe it to our future, more progressive selves.