Robert Mercer’s Secret Adventure as a New Mexico Cop Robert Mercer probably would have flown into Roswell. From there—1,800 miles from home—he would’ve traveled south through the high desert plains of southeast New Mexico, flat as a tortilla, past abandoned homesteads and irrigation machines moving in slow circles. His phone reception would’ve gotten spotty when he turned left off Highway 285. He would’ve seen the bare limbs of a pecan orchard and a graveyard decked in plastic flowers. If Mercer’s trips to Lake Arthur resembled my recent visit, he might’ve climbed into the passenger seat of Norwood’s police truck, whose black-and-white paint job is fading in the wind-whipped sand. For most of the past six years, as Mercer became one of the country’s political kingmakers, he was also periodically policing Lake Arthur, according to the department. Until a few months ago, Mercer, 71, ran what is arguably the world’s most successful hedge fund. States vary widely in their approaches to regulating concealed weapons.
4 Ways Fred Trump Made Donald Trump and His Siblings Rich In Donald J. Trump’s version of how he got rich, he was the master dealmaker who parlayed an initial $1 million loan from his father into a $10 billion empire. It was his guts and gumption that overcame setbacks, and his father, Fred C. Trump, was simply a cheerleader. But an investigation by The New York Times shows that by age 3, Donald Trump was earning $200,000 a year in today’s dollars from his father’s empire. He was a millionaire by age 8. In all, financial records reveal, Mr. Here are four ways that Fred Trump made his children rich. Fred Trump made his son not just his salaried employee but also his property manager, landlord, consultant and banker. Fred Trump provided money for Donald Trump’s car, money for his employees, money to buy stocks, money for his first Manhattan offices and money to renovate those offices. The biggest payday Donald Trump ever got from his father came long after Fred Trump’s death.
My Life as a New York Times Reporter in the Shadow of the War on Terror I was sitting in the nearly empty restaurant of the Westin Hotel in Alexandria, Virginia, getting ready for a showdown with the federal government that I had been trying to avoid for more than seven years. The Obama administration was demanding that I reveal the confidential sources I had relied on for a chapter about a botched CIA operation in my 2006 book, “State of War.” I had also written about the CIA operation for the New York Times, but the paper’s editors had suppressed the story at the government’s request. 1 A Marketplace of Secrets Bundled against the freezing wind, my lawyers and I were about to reach the courthouse door when two news photographers launched into a perp-walk shoot. As I walked past the photographers into the courthouse that morning in January 2015, I saw a group of reporters, some of whom I knew personally. My lawyers and I took over a cramped conference room just outside the courtroom of U.S. Until now. From top left to bottom right: Aldrich Ames, John I.
11 Takeaways From The Times’s Investigation Into Trump’s Wealth All told, The Times documented 295 distinct streams of revenue Fred Trump created over five decades to channel wealth to his son. But the partnership between Donald Trump and his father was about more than the pursuit, and the preservation, of riches. They were also confederates in a more ambitious project: creating the myth of Donald J. Emblematic of this dynamic is Trump Tower, the talisman of privilege that established Donald Trump as a player in New York. In December 1990, Donald Trump sent his father a document that left him both angered and alarmed. Fred Trump rebuffed the maneuver, refusing to sign the codicil. So with Donald Trump playing a central role, the family formulated a plan that included unorthodox tax strategies that experts told The Times were legally dubious and, in some cases, appeared to be fraudulent. The first major component was creating a company called All County Building Supply & Maintenance.
Here’s How Facebook Should Really Handle Alex Jones Free speech took a whacking Thursday as Facebook cited its policies against “dangerous individuals and organizations” to ban such figures as Alex Jones, Laura Loomer, Louis Farrakhan, Milo Yiannopoulos and several other extremists from the site. They were purged from Facebook-owned Instagram, and their affiliated fan pages will also be shuttered in what the Wall Street Journal called the company’s “most sweeping” action “yet against online provocateurs.” Facebook was within its rights to evict the accounts, even if they’ve done nothing criminal. It’s Facebook’s house, after all, and because the government isn’t involved it’s not a First Amendment issue. But the absolutism of Mark Zuckerberg’s rash housecleaning this week leaves a scrape and a dent in our strong free speech traditions. Story Continued Below Free speech’s health has traditionally been measured in America not by what we will allow speakers to say, although that is important, but what listeners will tolerate.
Fact-checking misinformation about the migrant caravan Misinformation about a migrant caravan heading to the United States is spreading on Facebook and other social media platforms with users sharing false or misleading memes and posts that paint a skewed version of the facts. PolitiFact has fact-checked many of those claims. A hurricane about to strike the caravan? False. Here’s a brief summary of the facts: • It’s estimated that about 7,000 people are in the migrant caravan. • The majority are believed to be from Honduras. Here’s what’s not true or lacks corroborating evidence. Trump: "unknown Middle Easterners are mixed in" the caravan President Donald Trump on Oct. 22 tweeted that "unknown Middle Easterners" were in the caravan. But there’s no proof — something Trump acknowledged a day after making the claim. Pressed for more information, Trump said, "There’s no proof of anything." "Intensifying Hurricane Willa headed directly toward 10,000 migrant caravan path." This is False. False. None of the photos accurately depict the current caravan.
Machiavelli in the White House: Is This the Most Powerful Man in Trump Administration? On September 5, 2016, long before Donald Trump’s shocking election victory—before the Comey letter, before the Billy Bush tape—a lengthy essay was published with minimal fanfare on the Claremont Review of Books’ Web site. Few outside of the solemn world of high conservatism knew of its existence. The majority of political reporters glossed over it. But to the readers of the Review—the right-wing thought leaders, the talk-show hosts, the more erudite Republicans on Capitol Hill—it landed as cacophonously as a jetliner crashing into a Pennsylvania field. The article was written under the nom de plume Publius Decius Mus, but it was notable less for the anonymity of its author than its terrifying thesis. “2016 is the Flight 93 election: charge the cockpit or you die,” it began. Decius continued: “A Hillary Clinton presidency is Russian Roulette with a semi-auto. The “Flight 93” essay, as it came to be known, horrified the Review’s staunchly conservative readers. Mitt Romney The O.G.
Macron condemned the rise of nationalism in front of Trump and Putin, warning that 'old demons are reawakening' PARIS (Reuters) - French President Emmanuel Macron used an address to world leaders gathered in Paris for Armistice commemorations on Sunday to send a stern message about the dangers of nationalism, calling it a betrayal of moral values. With US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin sitting just a few feet away listening to the speech via translation earpieces, Macron denounced those who evoke nationalist sentiment to disadvantage others. "Patriotism is the exact opposite of nationalism: nationalism is a betrayal of patriotism," Macron said in a 20-minute address delivered from under the Arc de Triomphe to mark the 100th anniversary of the end of World War One. "By pursuing our own interests first, with no regard to others', we erase the very thing that a nation holds most precious, that which gives it life and makes it great: its moral values." There was no immediate response from either the White House or the Kremlin to Macron's comments. Benoit Tessier/Pool via AP
Steve Linick fired: Inspectors general, explained by a former inspector general Late Friday night, President Donald Trump fired State Department Inspector General Steve Linick. It was the fourth abrupt dismissal of an inspector general in about as many weeks, and the latest case in which Trump claimed he’d lost confidence in the IG when it very much seemed like something else was going on. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo confirmed recommending that Trump fire Linick. That’s an important detail, because it seems Linick — who, as inspector general, was in charge of oversight at the State Department — might have been zeroing in on Pompeo himself, including the secretary’s alleged use of a political appointee to run his personal errands. Linick was also reportedly probing the administration’s $8 billion arms deal with Saudi Arabia, which sidestepped Congress. Congressional Democrats are now investigating Linick’s firing. But Linick is not the first IG to go. Trump had “lost confidence” in Atkinson, too. Trump’s purge of inspectors general is unprecedented. Jen Kirby No.
Trump tweet labels anti-Kavanaugh protesters as 'paid professionals' Donald Trump condemned protesters who have turned out in droves to oppose the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the supreme court, calling them “elevator screamers” funded by professional interest groups. The thousands of protesters descending on the Capitol have included sexual assault survivors pleading with senators by highlighting their own past traumas, but the president dismissed them on Friday as insincere. “The very rude elevator screamers are paid professionals only looking to make Senators look bad. “Also, look at all of the professionally made identical signs. Some critics saw antisemitic overtones in Trump’s tweet referencing George Soros, a billionaire liberal activist who is Jewish. More than 300 protesters, including comedian Amy Schumer, were arrested on Thursday opposing Kavanaugh, who has been accused by Dr Christine Blasey Ford of sexually assaulting her when they were both teenagers. “This should have been a respectable and dignified confirmation process,” he said.
How the Pentagon Got Inside ISIS’ Chemical Weapons Operation—and Ended It The commanding officer, a Peshmerga colonel named Sabri, cautiously inspected the debris with a few of his aides. The men discovered that the metal tanks in the truck’s rear had blown clear of the vehicle when it exploded and landed haphazardly in the dirt. Some of the containers were leaking the same pale-green smoke the men had seen earlier. Sabri could offer his men no protection other than surgical masks, which were useless, so he moved everyone back and radioed for help. The attack near the crossroads village of Kesik Kupri represented the first known attempt by the newly resurgent ISIS to use a chemical weapon in combat. ISIS was officially in the business of using chemical weapons. From outside Iraq, it was hard to know what to make of reports of these apparently isolated incidents of chemical weapons. The Kurds could not say. The lab tests and interviews yielded a confirmation, and also a surprise. All the signs pointed in the same alarming direction. “That you?”