Thursday Morning Breakfast For The Brain

Good morning Deplorables, here we are and it’s already Thursday…

#ShutdownStories hashtag takes off as Twitter users share how government closure affects them

Via The Hill

Hundreds of people took to Twitter on Sunday and Monday to share how the government shutdown is affecting them.

Using the hashtag #ShutdownStories, posts from furloughed government workers, their family members and many others accumulated thousands of retweets and favorites in just hours.

The trend appeared to be started by Twitter user @TeaPainUSA, who tweeted to their 418,000 followers a plea to share a tweet using the hashtag.

Many respondents said that they lived paycheck to paycheck, and with the government shutdown were worried about mortgage payments or medical expenses.

One woman using the #ShutdownStories hashtag wrote that her husband works as a park ranger in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, and that the couple has a 4-year-old and a 4-month-old. She expressed concern that they would not be able to cover holiday expenses or mortgage payments.

Read the entire article HERE.

If Federal Workers Are Suffering This Much Already, How Bad Will It Be When The Government Is Still Closed In February?

By Michael Snyder

After just 4 days, federal workers are flocking to social media to share heart-wrenching stories of the misery and pain that they are suffering through because of the current government shutdown. As you will see below, it is being claimed that some federal workers were actually forced to return Christmas presents just so that they could afford to pay their mortgages, others are claiming that President Trump “destroyed Christmas”, and the wife of one federal worker says that she is going to have to kill her cat if this shutdown goes much longer. You couldn’t make this stuff up even if you tried, and it makes one wonder how these people would survive if a real national crisis actually erupted.

The truth is that thousands of federal workers are currently experiencing a paid vacation over the holidays, and ultimately their annual pay won’t be a penny lower than it otherwise would have been.

Other federal workers are currently working without pay, but they will get paid later. Like the above group, their annual pay will be just the same as if the government never experienced a shutdown at all.

But if you go to social media, you would be tempted to believe that America had just entered the apocalypse. Here is a sampling of some of the comments under the #ShutdownStories hashtag on Twitter…

Read the entire article HERE.

Women’s March leader Linda Sarsour downplays Farrakhan ties as anti-Semitism furor grows

Via The Washington Times

Linda Sarsour’s latest effort to distance the Women’s March leadership from Nation of Islam Minister Louis Farrakhan may have backfired.

A Women’s March national co-chair, Ms. Sarsour met with heavy skepticism after insisting that she has never met Mr. Farrakhan — or attended a Farrakhan speech — even though they both spoke at a rally he hosted in 2015.

“I for one, have NEVER EVER met the Minister but facts don’t matter and people want to throw the baby out with the bath water,” Ms. Sarsour said in a Saturday post on Facebook. “Discarding People is not how we transform hearts and eradicate antisemitism.”

As sharp-eyed social-media critics quickly pointed out, Ms. Sarsour spoke at Justice or Else, an October 2015 event at the National Mall organized by Mr. Farrakhan marking the 20th anniversary of the Million Man March.

“So how can we believe the Women’s March when they say they are truly sorry for how they have hurt Jewish people when keep lying about their affiliation with Farrakhan?” said the Twitter account (((kweansmom))).

Ms. Sarsour also said that only one of the four Women’s March co-chairs has attended a speech by Mr. Farrakhan, referring to Tamika Mallory, who came under fire for her appearance in February at his annual Saviours’ Day event in Chicago.

Read the entire article HERE.

Did Trump Put the Deep State on Notice with Syrian Withdrawal?

By Robert Bridge

There are two schools of thought on Donald J. Trump. The first says that he is just another typical politician beholden to the puppet masters of the Establishment, dutifully carrying out orders from above, albeit with a bit more bluff and bluster than past frauds. After all, the argument goes, there is no possible way any individual could reach the Oval Office without the full support of the establishment – media, military, intelligence, etc.

Although that position has some merit, it underestimates the full extent of the desperation that has been gnawing away at the American heartland for many years. Such sentiments peaked out after it became painfully apparent that Trump’s predecessor Barack Obama, despite all the sweet talk of ‘hope and change,’ was no different from the others, and in many cases even worse.

At the same time, it overestimates the ability of the deep state to control every aspect of the political process. This explains why Russia was dragged into the picture – the Deep State needed to provide some sort of alibi as to how Hillary Clinton lost the 2016 election, as well as provide an 11 time-zone smokescreen to conceal her myriad wrongdoings.

The other school of thought says that Trump is the real deal, one of those rare, irresistible forces of political nature who, by sheer exertion of will, character and – dare I say it – genius, ascends the misty mountaintops despite, or because of, the powerful forces aligned against him. In other words, the Trump phenomenon is an open window of opportunity to salvage what is left of the American political system, and the elite, fully aware as to what is at stake, is doing everything to destroy it.

Read the entire article HERE.

Disgraced anti-Trump journalist may have embezzled donations meant for Syrian orphans

Via The Washington Examiner

An award-winning German journalist who was recently found to have fabricated parts of stories may be facing more trouble.

Claas Relotius, 33, is facing new accusations that he solicited donations for orphans of the war in Syria, donations that he ultimately pocketed, reported CBS.

As part of the scandal over the former CNN International’s Journalist of the Year, residents of Fergus Falls, Minn., dispelled a variety of falsehoods in his piece “ In a small town” that took aim at “the people who pray for Trump on Sundays.” Relotius is accused of making up quotes, interview subjects, and facts in potentially dozens of stories spanning years.

Der Spiegel, for which Relotius wrote, said readers had contacted the German news magazine about donations Relotius collected from readers who had emailed him about his 2016 story about two Syrian children living on the streets of Turkey, according to CNN.

Read the entire article HERE.

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