Published on Apr 26, 2019
Biden says Obama White House was ‘scandal-free’… Here’re some of the BIGGER ones he drew a blank on
The White House had “not one whisper of scandal” under President Barack Obama – that’s what former VP Joe Biden would have one believe as a selling point for his presidential run. Wait, is that the sound of fact-checkers typing?
“The thing I’m proudest of,” Biden said on Friday of his time at Obama’s right hand, “Not one single whisper of scandal…not one, and that’s because of Barack.”
Biden was speaking on ‘The View,’ a day after announcing his campaign for the presidency in 2020. The studio audience cheered and host Joy Behar chimed in, calling Barack Obama “amazing.” Of course, Biden is hardly going to besmirch his former partner on live television, and the view of presidents past tends to soften once they’ve left office.
But one has to wonder if the busy liberal fact-checkers would want to correct the Democrats’ favorite candidate, as his administration racked up its fair share of scandals during Obama’s eight years at the helm. Here’re three of the biggest:
Attack of the drones
The escalation of drone warfare and the targeted killings of American citizens are some of the biggest and blackest marks on the Obama administration. Although Obama was not the first US president to deploy drones on the battlefield, he was a drone enthusiast from the outset, describing the killer robots as “effective,” “indispensable,” and “the only game in town,”and personally authorizing more strikes in his first year than George W. Bush did in his entire eight years in office.
The whole world became a battlefield. Drone strikes targeted enemies and innocents alike in Pakistan, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Libya, Afghanistan, and Iraq. Of these strike zones, only Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria were active battlefields. At least four American citizens were killed, including a 16-year-old boy in Yemen, struck two weeks after his father.
A grand total of 563 strikes killed between 384 and 807 civilians in non-battlefield countries, according to figures from the Bureau of Investigative Journalism.
Technically, it was all legal, of course – after the law in question was written by executive branch lawyers and hidden from Congress and the public.
Fast and Furious
This Fast and Furious had nothing to do with Vin Diesel and Paul Walker. Instead, it was a ‘gunwalking’ scandal that Obama and then-Attorney General Eric Holder desperately tried to keep a lid on. In 2009, the Department of Justice came up with the amazingly bright idea of letting firearms – including .50 caliber rifles powerful enough to rip apart an engine block – fall into the hands of Mexican drug cartels, supposedly as a means of tracking them.
The plan backfired. Federal agents lost track of most of the 2,000 guns, which wound up being used in murders on both sides of the border, including the slaying of Border Patrol agent Brian Terry in 2010.
ALSO ON RT.COM’Fast & Furious’ cartel hitman who killed Border Patrol agent arrested in MexicoBut the Obama administration was non-apologetic. Instead, when the Republican-controlled House kicked up a stink, Holder sought to withhold documents relating to the scandal under subpoena, and Obama later withheld them under executive privilege when Holder was cited for contempt of Congress.
Years later, Mexican authorities are still finding ‘Fast and Furious’ guns at cartel crime scenes. One of the 19 weapons found at the hideout of notorious drug kingpin Joaquin ‘El Chapo’ Guzman in 2016 was a gun knowingly allowed into Mexico by the Justice Department.
Spy games – allied edition
As a Senator, Barack Obama condemned the Bush-era Patriot Act for violating the rights of American citizens. Once in office, he renewed the act, allowing intelligence agencies to carry out ‘roving wiretaps’ on American citizens and collect billions of phone call and text message records every year.
Much has been written about Obama’s expansion of the surveillance state, and his administration’s scattergun use of the 1917 Espionage Act to prosecute whistleblowers like NSA contractor Edward Snowden, but perhaps most personally embarrassing was the revelation – via WikiLeaks – that the US government spied on German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s phone calls.
In an angry exchange with Obama, Merkel compared the US National Security Agency (NSA) to the dreaded East German Stasi. Suitably chastised, did Obama move to disarm the US’ surveillance apparatus before leaving office?
Nope. Days after Obama’s January 2017 farewell speech, then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch signed an order giving the NSA additional powers to share intercepted communications with the US’s 16 other intelligence agencies. These communications include internet traffic intercepted through the NSA’s dragnet ‘PRISM’ program, and phone, email, and satellite transmissions gathered abroad.
When it comes to totting up the scandals of the Obama years, honorable mention goes to the Benghazi attack that killed ambassador Chris Stevens, Hillary Clinton’s email server scandal, arming jihadist rebels in Syria, and if Republicans are to be believed, authorizing an FBI spying operation on the Trump campaign in 2016.
But Joe Biden would have the voters believe that it is Donald Trump who “will forever and fundamentally alter the character of this nation.”
ALSO ON RT.COMGrope & change: Would America become one nation under Joe Biden?
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Cartel Gunfire in Cancún Kills 6-Year-Old, Wounds Parents
By Robert Arce
A local 6-year-old in Cancún was killed after being struck by stay cartel gunfire as the child was preparing to enter her house with her parents this week. An unidentified male who was the intended target died at the scene.
Two cartel gunmen riding on a motorcycle in Cancún opened fire on an unidentified male who was walking along the road in colonia Supermanzana 75, fatally striking him multiple times. While carrying out the execution, several stray rounds stuck the child on the left side of her chest and left arm. “Yazley” was moving toward her residence with her parents who were also struck. Her father, Dinver SH, 39, was hit in the left arm while the mother, Loidy Karina, R.B., 29, was shot on the right side of her pelvis. The child’s father picked up Yazley and ran three blocks to Clínica del Seguro Social in Región 89, where the child died. Both parents received treatment for non-life-threatening wounds, according to local media.
The intended target of the cartel gunmen remains unidentified. No further information has been developed and released pertaining to the identity of the shooters.
Breitbart News reports extensively on the cartel violence in once peaceful Cancún. In 2018, the traditional tourist magnet smashed its previous annual record for murders with at least 546—the previous mark was 227 in 2017. The ongoing violence is attributed to the turf wars between the Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generacion, Los Zetas, Gulf, and smaller groups loyal to the Sinaloa Cartel.
In January, Breitbart News reported on seven people killed when cartel gunmen stormed a residence and opened fire. In another attack, three men were killed and two others wounded along one of the main avenues in the city. Also, cartel gunmen stormed a bar and killed five in February.
Cancún Homicide Cases Per Year
2018 — 546
2017 — 227
2016 — 61
2015 — 37
2014 — 21
Jack Dorsey Shuts Down Rep. Omar; Won’t Remove Trump 9/11 Tweet
by Tyler Durden
Fri, 04/26/2019 – 11:00
Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) didn’t get her way after Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey called her to let her know that the company would not remove a tweet from President Trump featuring a video of her casually dismissing the 9/11 terrorist attack as “some people did something.”
Dorsey called Omar on Tuesday to discuss the tweet after Omar claimed she received a flood of death threats in response.
When the Somali-born Muslim Rep. pressed Dorsey on why the tweet wasn’t removed, Dorsey said that Trump’s tweet didn’t violate the company rules, according to the Washington Post.
Dorsey also pointed to the fact that the tweet and video already had been viewed and shared far beyond the site, one of the sources said. But the Twitter executive did tell Omar that the tech giant needed to do a better job generally in removing hate and harassment from the site, according to the two people familiar with the call. –Washington Post
Two days after Trump’s tweet, Omar said she had experienced an “increase in direct threats on my life — many directly referencing or replying to the president’s video.”
Twitter confirmed that the Tuesday call too place, telling the Post “During their conversation, [Dorsey] emphasized that death threats, incitement to violence, and hateful conduct are not allowed on Twitter,” adding “We’ve significantly invested in technology to proactively surface this type of content and will continue to focus on reducing the burden on the individual being targeted. Our team has also consistently been in touch with Rep. Omar’s office.”
Dorsey reached out to Omar the same day that he met with Trump in the Oval Office, after he accepted the president’s invitation. Trump is said to have spent much of the meeting discussing his concerns that Twitter is deliberately targeting and removing his followers, according to the Post.
Florida Senate Votes to Ban Sanctuary Cities, DeSantis Expected to Sign Into Law
A huge win for border security in Florida.
WATCH: SELF-LOATHING DEMOCRATS TRIGGERED TOP CANDIDATES ARE WHITE MALES
‘Why do you think white, male candidates are doing better than any of the women candidates?’
APRIL 26, 2019
This compilation video highlights mainstream media’s outrage over the Democratic Party’s overwhelming masculine whiteness, as four of the top seven 2020 Democrat presidential candidates are white males.
“Women have become somewhat overshadowed by white, male candidates,” said one MSNBC anchor.
Another MSNBC host added, “It bothers me a little bit that those are three white males, we need to talk about more diversity.”
https://www.infowars.com/watch-self-loathing-democrats-triggered-top-candidates-are-white-males/
VIDEO: 1300 Migrants Riot, Escape Mexican Immigration Facility
By Ildefonso Ortiz and Brandon Darby
Approximately 1,300 migrants from Central America and Cuba rioted and broke out of an immigration holding facility in southern Mexico Thursday.
The incident began Thursday evening at the Century 21 station in Tapachula, Chiapas, Mexico’s National Immigration Institute announced in a prepared statement. The move was started by Cuban migrants who made up the majority of those held at the facility. In total, approximately 1,300 escaped.
The breakout was recorded on cell phone video and published by Azteca Noticias. In the video, dozens of migrants can be seen running out the doors of the facility. According to Mexican authorities, the facility did not have any measures to contain inhabitants.
Mexican authorities have not released any information about injuries during the riot and escape, however, they did reveal that approximately 700 later returned to the shelter.
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