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*PENTAGON CHIEF ESPER HAS PREPARED RESIGNATION LETTER: NBC https://twitter.com/zerohedge/status/1324453051021860867   

NASA chief Jim Bridenstine told lawmakers Wednesday it was crucial for the US to maintain a presence in Earth's orbit after the International Space Station is decommissioned so that China does not gain a strategic advantage. The first parts of the ISS were launched in 1998 and it has been continuously lived in since 2000. The station, which serves as a space science lab and is a partnership between the US, Russia, Japan, Europe and Canada, is currently expected to be operated until 2030. "I'll tell you one thing that has me very concerned—and that is that a day is...

SEATTLE — Seattle Police Chief Carmen Best has announced that she will be resigning next month.  The news of Best's resignation comes on the same day the Seattle City Council voted to cut spending for the Seattle Police Department. Best has been dealing with issues regarding police brutality nationally, as well as police use of force during Seattle protests, and navigating the Consent Decree. Best also had protesters come to her Snohomish County house, creating tension with neighbors. KING 5 chief political reporter Chris Daniels has been tracking matters at City Hall, and said Best's resignation is due to council actions,...

Dear Rafael: Permit me to hint, whether it would not be wise & seasonable to provide a strong check to the admission of Foreigners into the administration of our national Government; and to declare expressly that we should all be totally copacetic with the Command in chief of the american army being given to, or devolving on, any Tom, Dick, Harry, John, Barack, Nikki, Bobby, Marco, Ted, or Kamala as long as they weren't born overseas to two non-citizen parents. With Sentiments the most cordial and sincere I remain Dear Sir Your faithful Friend & Servt- J.J.

Washington - Seattle Police Chief Carmen Best said Sunday the groundswell of support for implementing police reforms that has erupted in the weeks following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis indicates that there will be long-lasting changes to policing. "This is a pivotal moment in history," Best said on "Face the Nation." "We are going to move in a different direction, and policing will never be the same as it was before." **SNIP** Best said protests are peaceful, but said it's been a challenge for her and other Seattle leaders to determine "who is a leader or an influencer."...

World leaders must “behave” if they want to avoid a wave of new fatalities related to the coronavirus pandemic, the World Health Organization’s top official said in response to President Trump’s criticism of his performance.“We will have many body bags in front of us if we don't behave,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters Wednesday when asked to address Trump's specific criticisms of the WHO. “When there are cracks at national level and global level, that’s when the virus succeeds. For God's sake, we have lost more than 60,000 citizens of the world.”WHO officials have taken criticism, especially from American...

Katherine and Louis Kealoha found guilty of conspiracy, obstruction of justice HONOLULU, Hawaii (HawaiiNewsNow) - After deliberating for less than nine hours, a jury of seven men and five women found former law enforcement power couple Louis and Katherine Kealoha guilty Thursday of conspiracy and other counts in one of Hawaii's most closely-watched public corruption trials. After hearing the verdict, the Kealohas left the federal courthouse stone-faced. Katherine Kealoha, walking ahead of her husband, and her attorneys declined comment. Louis Katherine, appearing stunned at his incredible turn of fortunes, told reporters: "There's still a lot to take in. I just...

It will come as no surprise that the White House is in chaos, but what is shocking is that this fact is being confirmed by President Donald Trump’s outgoing Chief of Staff John Kelly. In an exit interview with the Los Angeles Times, Kelly admits that the White House is not quite the “well-oiled machine” that Trump loves to brag about. Two specific instances he cited as chaotic were the implementation of the travel ban and the “zero-tolerance” family separation policy at the Mexican border.

Senator Elizabeth Warren named a new chief of staff on Thursday, changing up her office ahead of a possible presidential run and making it one of only a handful in the Senate to be led by a person of color. **SNIP** Although Reid is not on Warren’s campaign team, her appointment is a sign the senator is taking the diversity of her staff seriously. Earlier this year, Warren faced criticism for releasing the results of a DNA test she took to address President Trump’s taunts that she had lied about her claims of having distant Native American heritage. Some progressives...

Majid Faraj – considered one of the people closest to Palestinian President Abbas – met with Pompeo last month and has a close relationship with the new secretary of state A rare meeting between American and Palestinian officials took place last month in Washington when Mike Pompeo, the recently appointed U.S. secretary of state, sat down with Majid Faraj, the head of the Palestinian Authority's security and intelligence services. The meeting took place shortly before Pompeo was sworn in, while he was still the head of the CIA. It was the most high-ranking meeting between Palestinian and American representatives in...

Portugal's minister of education was robbed as he headed back to his hotel in the South American city as it emerged the Olympic security chief had also been attacked after the opening ceremony The Rio 2016 Olympic games have been rocked by more trouble after it emerged the Olympic security chief had been attacked after he left the opening ceremony. The Olympics security chief was attacked as he left the Games opening ceremony by a knife-wielding robber who was shot dead by a cop.

Nepal's parliament elected former Maoist rebel chief Prachanda, who led a decade-long insurgency that toppled a Hindu monarchy, as prime minister on Wednesday after predecessor KP Oli resigned rather than face defeat in a vote of no confidence. Pushpa Kamal Dahal, 61, who still uses a nom de guerre that means "Fierce", won 363 votes out of the 573 cast in the 595-member parliament, Speaker Onsari Gharti said. He becomes the 24th prime minister in 26 years since the Himalayan nation adopted multi-party democracy in 1990 and the eighth since the 239-year-old monarchy was abolished eight years ago. ...Political change...

RS Commissioner John Koskinen has declined to testify in his own defense at a congressional hearing Tuesday, but insisted in a statement that his bungling of a subpoena doesn’t rise to the level of “treason, or high crimes and misdemeanors” needed for him to be impeached. The Judiciary Committee hearing is being viewed by some House Republicans as the precursor to impeachment, with the House’s top investigator saying Mr. Koskinen defied a congressional subpoena that demanded all of former IRS senior executive Lois G. Lerner’s emails be preserved as part of the investigation into tea party targeting. But Mr. Koskinen,...

The resignation comes after police earlier in the day fatally shot a woman in the Bayview DistrictPolice Chief Greg Suhr has resigned from the San Francisco Police Department in the midst of the shooting of a black woman by SFPD officers and other racial tensions, Mayor Ed Lee announced at a news conference late Thursday afternoon. Lee said he had asked Suhr, who has served in the city's police department for more than 30 years, to resign. The mayor appointed Toney Chaplin, former SFPD deputy chief of the Professional Standards and Principled Policing Bureau, as the acting police chief. "The...

CROW AGENCY, Mont. — The last Crow war chief entered the log-cabin trading post at the edge of the Little Bighorn Battlefield just after noon on a Sunday, supported by his son on his left and a cane held firmly in his right hand. Often, at tribal events such as powwows, he’ll swing his cane overhead in celebration. But on this October afternoon, with wind sweeping across the stretch of southern Montana that’s home to the Crows, the cane simply supported the centenarian — Dr. Joseph Medicine Crow in English or High Bird, his traditional name, in Crow.

The top U.S. intelligence official told Congress on Tuesday that Iran could move forward with the construction of a nuclear weapon at any time and that there is no way to know the Islamic Republic will build these weapons following the implementation of a landmark agreement hailed by the Obama administration as a definitive step towards preventing an Iranian nuclear bomb. James Clapper, the director of national intelligence, told Congress during an open hearing that despite an intelligence budget in the billions, his office remains uncertain about Iran’s nuclear intentions. “We do not know whether Iran will eventually decide to...

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Wednesday once again criticized what he called Israel's "stifling occupation" of Palestinians, just one day after appearing to express sympathy for Palestinian Arab terrorists. The UN chief made clear that he would not retreat from his remarks directed at Israel a day earlier, AFP reported. UN diplomats said privately that Ban had upped the pressure on Prime MInister Binyamin Netanyahu in a final bid to revive hopes for peace before he steps down as secretary-general at the end of the year. "After nearly 50 years of occupation -- after decades of waiting for the fulfilment...

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu remembers well just how US President Barack Obama brushed aside Israeli objections and went ahead with the P5+1 nuclear agreement with Iran. Now, Netanyahu is reportedly planning some personal payback. According to the Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Jarida, Netanyahu will make common cause with moderate Arab governments in order to sabotage Obama’s plan to succeed Ban Ki-moon when the South Korean diplomat ends his term as United Nations secretary-general on December 31 of this year. Al-Jarida quoted sources as saying that Obama has already discussed the issue of running for secretary-general with Democrats, Republicans, and Jewish officials in...

A large deployment of ships that Russia sent to the eastern Mediterranean under the guise of naval exercises at the end of September are actually being used to provide an aerial defense zone for Russian jets, Sam LaGrone reports for USNI News. The "Black Sea-based Russian surface action group" in the eastern Mediterranean are based along Syria's coast by the Bassel al-Assad Airport and the Tartous naval facility, which is home to a Russian port. The ships are intended to provide aerial defense for the Russian aircraft that Moscow is currently using to carry out airstrikes against Syrian rebels throughout...

Cincinnati Police Chief Jeffrey Blackwell is now calling for hate crime charges in the horrific mob beating of a white man who was left bloodied and unconscious on the sidewalk on the Fourth of July. The brutal attack was first described as “anti-white” by officer Alicia Essert in the original incident report, but Capt. Mike Neville said on Monday that the preliminary description was incorrect. Chief Blackwell has apparently reconsidered and found cause to ask Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters to pursue hate crime charges in the beating, the Cincinnati Inquirer reported.