53percenter's Blog

In mid-November, a Drake University student told school officials she had received four racist notes in one of the residence halls, at least one of which was addressed to her.

After a police and school investigation, the student, who has not been charged or named, admitted to writing one of the notes. The Des Moines Register reports that Drake officials “are confident the four notes reported by the female student were hoaxes.”

The student who sent the four hoax notes now faces harassment charges, according to Sgt. Paul Parizek, a Des Moines, IA, police spokesman (whether she will actually be charged remains to be seen and is unlikely). Drake spokesman Jarad Bernstein told the Register that the student also faces a campus discipline procedure, which could result in her expulsion. Again, this is unlikely, as most hoaxers claim they were trying to “start a dialogue” and get a pass.

On Friday, Drake University President Marty Martin sent a statement to students and faculty saying the notes reported by the student on Nov. 13 and 15 were “copycat hoaxes of an initial campus incident.”

The original note – separate from the four hoaxes – was found in early November by freshman Keith Walker. Walker wrote about the note in a now-deleted Facebook post, saying he was going to leave Drake on Nov. 9 for “mental health reasons” but would return. Drake sent a statement to the Register saying after Walker reported the note, he was offered a new place to live, academic support, counseling, and security. Bernstein at the time couldn’t tell the Register if Walker accepted any of this.

The Register also reported Walker did not return multiple interview requests and police have said the student is not cooperating with the investigation.

“Right now, we don’t have a suspect we can charge,” Sgt. Parizek said.

Parizek told the Register on Friday that they’re still investigating the note Walker found, even after the other notes were proven to be hoaxes. Based on how these investigations always seem to go, it’s probably safe to assume we already know who sent the note to Walker.

Despite the fact that every incident of racist or sexist notes turns out to be false, about 3,000 Drake students still took the opportunity to get out of class and hold a rally. One speaker, according to the Register, claimed she “felt her life was in danger” at the university.

Drake President Martin addressed the rally in his statement on Friday, standing up for the students who claim to feel threatened despite no actual threat existing.

“The fact that the actions of the student who has admitted guilt were propelled by motives other than hate does not minimize the worry and emotional harm they caused, but should temper fears,” Martin wrote.

Martin said 250 students, faculty, and staff received robo calls containing white supremacist language after the notes were reported. So, a non-hate incident masquerading as a hate incident, rather than leading to an actual conversation, led to an actual hate incident. So much for “starting a dialogue.”

The student government at the University of California Berkeley unanimously passed a resolution that allocates $1,500 to the migrant caravan at the U.S.-Mexico border in Tijuana.

According to the resolution, “In Support of Central American Refugees in their Pursuit of Asylum,” the allocated $1,500 will come from commercial revenues and will be distributed to a student organization, Central Americans for Empowerment, which will donate the allocation to the non-profit Freedom for Immigrants to help the caravan.

The resolution also tasked the student government’s Office of the External Affairs Vice President with “phone-banking and lobbying in support of both emergency and comprehensive immigration reform as part of their national advocacy agenda.”

In the resolution, the sponsor and co-sponsors claim that the migrant crisis is the fault of the U.S. government because foreign policy “fueled by corporate greed” has “strategically intervened in Central American politics and warfare; thus strengthening the U.S. economy and further disregarding the livelihood of citizens in these countries.”

“[S]ince 2009 the U.S. government has given Honduras two hundred million dollars in police and military aid intended to help lower the migration rates from Honduras to the United States,” the resolution says. “[D]ue to inadequate intervention on the United States’ behalf, the Honduran government has abused and misused money intended to aid the Honduran people consequently making Honduras one of the most dangerous countries with the highest murder rate in the world.”

A student associated with the Associated Students of the University of California (ASUC) and familiar with the process told The Daily Wire that there “are three different sections for new bills to get sent to,” but typically new bills get classified as “New Business” and get sent to a committee until the next meeting.

“Senator Nick Araujo, rather than putting it into ‘New Business,’ put it into ‘Immediate Consideration,’ and some senators were upset about that because they thought it needed to go to ‘New Business’ before being considered to be passed,” said the student, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “What Araujo was doing was putting it into the agenda to be immediately considered before it would go to the committee or be given to the public. Six senators thought it should go to the committee, and 14 said that it should go to ‘Immediate Consideration.’”

Before voting on the resolution, several students voiced why they support the resolution, but some used harsh rhetoric to pressure their peers into voting for the resolution in the four-hour meeting.

“Y’all are being really f****** ridiculous having us be up here,” one student said. “I now have had to have the same f****** conversation that is being ignored at the federal level. I’m honestly like— I would of thought people who claim to be— like say they’re our representation— I would’ve thought y’all have the audacity to like pass this f****** bill but of course y’all prove time and time again that y’all don’t give a f**** about students of color.”

According to Campus Reform, other students called the debate over allocating money “damn petty,” told their fellow senators to “get your sh**” together, and that voting no would be “ignorant and violent.”

Tijuana is currently spending around $35,000 a day on the caravan according to authorities, The Daily Wire’s Emily Zanotti reported. Additionally, MSNBC reports that many migrants feel misled and claim that they were promised crossing the border would be easy and that they would be eligible for work programs in the United States. Now the Mexican government is reportedly helping migrants return back to Honduras and Guatemala.

There is big news ahead, and President Trump teased it yesterday from Argentina via Twitter.  Politics has become a game of narratives, something well understood by both President Trump and his enemies in the media-Democrat establishment.  For more than two years, the professionals of the cultural and media establishment have worked assiduously to create an objectively false narrative, with no evidence whatsoever, that Vladimir Putin actually changed the count of votes to hand Trump the presidency, making his victory illegitimate.  Most Democrats actually believe this now and have in earlier polls as well.

But as I keep reminding our readers, President Trump was the most successful reality television producer in the history of the medium, and he understands a story arc well, as events that can be programmed unfold.  That must be kept in mind in understanding this enigmatic tweet that came from the president half a world away, in Argentina for meetings with the leaders of the 20 biggest economies in the world.

Watch @seanhannity on @FoxNews NOW. Enjoy!

Here is the short (barely over a minute) segment on Hannity last night to which the president referred:

John Solomon has a smile on his face as he reveals that two prosecutors working for John Huber, the Salt Lake City U.S. attorney tasked by then-A.G. Sessions with investigating corruption beyond what the Mueller team is handling, “reached out” to a whistleblower from the Clinton Foundation.

Fox News Channel screen grab via YouTube.

The Clinton Foundation scandal is, as President Trump would say, yuuuuge.  I am told by a knowledgeable source that the official that John Solomon cites “knows where the bodies are buried.”

Of course, the news that another whistleblower who came forward with information and documents on the Uranium One scandal, Dennis Nathan Cain, was raided by a team of FBI agents who spent six hours rummaging through his home raises some alarming possibilities.  Sundance of Conservative Tree House comments:

If the reporting of the raid by the Daily Caller is accurate; and given the nature of the timing for that raid; and accepting the at risk elements within the whistleblower case extended beyond Hillary Clinton to Robert Mueller; and noting how the SSCI was the recipient of the information/evidence as transmitted by Michael Horowitz; there is a solid appearance of the DOJ maneuvering to cover-up the underlying DOJ/FBI corruption by seizing -and controlling- all of the evidence.

[Additionally, in the background are the fingerprints of the self-serving quid-pro-quo between DOJ and SSCI] Just sayin’…

If that apparent cover-up perspective is accurate, then so too is THIS.

A cover-up just seems so implausible, because the activity is just so brutally obvious.

How is this level of blatant disregard possible?  Seriously, I really don’t know.  Perhaps these DOJ and FBI officials are genuinely inside a bubble and don’t know the level of information that exists outside DC…. or, maybe they just feel so above the law they simply don’t care.  I don’t understand it either; but it’s happening – regardless.

The expression “high drama” is inadequate to express the nature of the infighting underway, mostly hidden from the public, but occasionally visible through public events and releases.  The revelations set to come next week may open a new chapter in the story arc of Trump versus the bipartisan establishment.

Correction: The Huber team assistant U.S. attorneys reached out to the whistleblower, not vice versa, as erroneously reported at first.

There is big news ahead, and President Trump teased it yesterday from Argentina via Twitter.  Politics has become a game of narratives, something well understood by both President Trump and his enemies in the media-Democrat establishment.  For more than two years, the professionals of the cultural and media establishment have worked assiduously to create an objectively false narrative, with no evidence whatsoever, that Vladimir Putin actually changed the count of votes to hand Trump the presidency, making his victory illegitimate.  Most Democrats actually believe this now and have in earlier polls as well.

But as I keep reminding our readers, President Trump was the most successful reality television producer in the history of the medium, and he understands a story arc well, as events that can be programmed unfold.  That must be kept in mind in understanding this enigmatic tweet that came from the president half a world away, in Argentina for meetings with the leaders of the 20 biggest economies in the world.

Watch @seanhannity on @FoxNews NOW. Enjoy!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 1, 2018

Here is the short (barely over a minute) segment on Hannity last night to which the president referred:

John Solomon has a smile on his face as he reveals that two prosecutors working for John Huber, the Salt Lake City U.S. attorney tasked by then-A.G. Sessions with investigating corruption beyond what the Mueller team is handling, “reached out” to a whistleblower from the Clinton Foundation.

Fox News Channel screen grab via YouTube.

The Clinton Foundation scandal is, as President Trump would say, yuuuuge.  I am told by a knowledgeable source that the official that John Solomon cites “knows where the bodies are buried.”

Of course, the news that another whistleblower who came forward with information and documents on the Uranium One scandal, Dennis Nathan Cain, was raided by a team of FBI agents who spent six hours rummaging through his home raises some alarming possibilities.  Sundance of Conservative Tree House comments:

If the reporting of the raid by the Daily Caller is accurate; and given the nature of the timing for that raid; and accepting the at risk elements within the whistleblower case extended beyond Hillary Clinton to Robert Mueller; and noting how the SSCI was the recipient of the information/evidence as transmitted by Michael Horowitz; there is a solid appearance of the DOJ maneuvering to cover-up the underlying DOJ/FBI corruption by seizing -and controlling- all of the evidence.

[Additionally, in the background are the fingerprints of the self-serving quid-pro-quo between DOJ and SSCI] Just sayin’…

If that apparent cover-up perspective is accurate, then so too is THIS.

A cover-up just seems so implausible, because the activity is just so brutally obvious.

How is this level of blatant disregard possible?  Seriously, I really don’t know.  Perhaps these DOJ and FBI officials are genuinely inside a bubble and don’t know the level of information that exists outside DC…. or, maybe they just feel so above the law they simply don’t care.  I don’t understand it either; but it’s happening – regardless.

The expression “high drama” is inadequate to express the nature of the infighting underway, mostly hidden from the public, but occasionally visible through public events and releases.  The revelations set to come next week may open a new chapter in the story arc of Trump versus the bipartisan establishment.

Correction: The Huber team assistant U.S. attorneys reached out to the whistleblower, not vice versa, as erroneously reported at first.

BY: Cameron Cawthorne Follow
@@Cam_Cawthorne

November 30, 2018 9:05 pm

Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R.) on Friday decided to suspend Brenda Snipes, the supervisor of elections for Broward County, Florida, from office due to a series of voting and ballot controversies during the 2018 midterms and previous election cycles.

Scott said in a statement to Politico that he is suspending Snipes, who holds an elected office, because taxpayers should not be burdened by paying her salary after she announced her resignation.

“Every eligible voter in Florida deserves their vote to be counted and should have confidence in Florida’s elections process,” Scott said. “After a series of inexcusable actions, it’s clear that there needs to be an immediate change in Broward County and taxpayers should no longer be burdened by paying a salary for a supervisor of elections who has already announced resignation.”

Scott’s longtime fixer, attorney Pete Antonacci, will replace Snipes.

Scott could have allowed Snipes to stay in her role until she resigns in January, but someone close to the governor said that his decision was “a long time coming” and that she “had it coming to her,” according to Politico.

Snipes began discussing an early retirement date in earnest after Politico first reported she was likely to be suspended from office for incompetence. Democrats said they couldn’t support Snipes any more, either. And some suspect that the flawed ballot she designed in Broward County may have led to so many undervotes that it helped cost Scott’s Democratic opponent, Sen. Bill Nelson, the election.

Over the years, her office has been a hotbed for elections controversies, from appearing to accept unlawful votes, destroying ballots, busting deadlines, and even violating the Sunshine Law concerning open records. The latter controversy brought Snipes into direct conflict with Scott.

After Election Day, Snipes’ office failed to regularly update the state’s system with ballot totals as required by law. Instead, Broward began uploading tens of thousands of votes—sometimes in the middle of the night—leading Scott to hold an extraordinary press conference Nov. 8 and charge, without evidence, that “rampant fraud” could be taking place in the Democratic-heavy counties of Broward and Palm Beach.

Snipes, whose term runs through the 2020 elections, announced earlier this month that she will resign after she was found to have destroyed ballots earlier than allowed in a previous election and regularly lost absentee ballots, among other issues. She became the subject of national scrutiny after several mishaps earlier this month concerning the recount of the Senate race between Nelson, the incumbent, and Scott, who eventually was declared the winner.

“Although I have enjoyed this work tremendously over these many election cycles, both large and small, I am ready to pass the torch,” Snipes wrote in her resignation letter to Scott. “Therefore, I request that you accept my letter of resignation effective January 4, 2019.”