A Colorado Springs lawyer appointed by President Donald Trump to a federal education board is a prolific author of self-help Illuminati books whose education company has been accused of handing out certificates to undeserving applicants.

The White House announced last week that Trump had nominated George Mentz to the Commission on Presidential Scholars. His nomination does not require Senate confirmation.

Mentz’s books include “The Illuminati Secret Laws of Money,” “The Illuminati Handbook,” “50 Laws of Power of the Illuminati,” and “100 Secrets and Habits of the Illuminati for Life Success.” Nearly all of his works are about money and often center on mindfulness secrets to achieving wealth.
https://www.denverpost.com/2019/10/16/george-mentz-trump-presidential-scholars/

https://twitter.com/paulmcleary/status/1184438545878044672


Amid the Syria mess, don’t sleep on fact that the Pentagon this morning refused to comply with a Congressional subpoena.

https://twitter.com/brett_mcgurk/status/1182756792675139584


Turkish forces have fired on a declared U.S. military outpost in northern Syria. Turkey knows all of our locations down to the precise grid coordinate as confirmed by SECDEF and CJCS only two hours ago. This was not a mistake.


Secretary Mnuchin today briefed from the WH podium that Trump signed an authorization to impose sanctions but that no sanctions have been imposed. This is meaningless nonsense. 100k people are already displaced and US soldiers are being fired upon. What’s the bar for sanctions?


Hard truth: Erdogan knows that Trump wants U.S. forces to leave Syria. Putin knows that Trump wants U.S. forces to leave Syria. Khamenei and Assad know the same thing. Trump himself yesterday (incredibly) said we no longer have forces in Syria. We do, and today they were shot at.

https://twitter.com/yashar/status/1182746538784759808?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Etweet

It also shows a picture of Maddow and calls her a media lapdog. They must have aired it 10 times last night and I've seen it a couple times this morning already. MSNBC should have done the right thing, like CNN, and refused to air it.

https://twitter.com/Eleven_Films/status/1181539774353424385

https://twitter.com/Eleven_Films/status/1181539774353424385

Treasury inspector general to review handling of Trump’s tax returns


The Treasury Department’s acting inspector general has opened a review into whether the Trump administration acted improperly during its ongoing fight with House Democrats over releasing President Trump’s tax returns.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin has refused to comply with a request from House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard E. Neal (D-Mass.) for six years of the president’s business and financial returns. Democrats have said a 1924 law explicitly gives them the authority to request the documents, but Mnuchin has denied the request, and now the matter is pending in federal court.

A focus of the fight is the mandatory audit program that the Internal Revenue Service conducts on the president’s and vice president’s tax returns.

As the fight has intensified, an IRS whistleblower in July filed a complaint with lawmakers and relayed concerns that at least one Treasury Department official attempted to interfere in that audit process.

On Monday, Neal sent a letter to Richard Delmar, Treasury’s acting inspector general, and asked for a review.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/10/04/treasury-inspector-general-opens-investigation-into-handling-trumps-tax-returns/

A heart attack caused Sen. Bernie Sanders to be hospitalized earlier this week, doctors say


Sanders, 78, who was released Friday from a Las Vegas hospital, experienced chest pains at a Tuesday campaign event. Doctors found a blockage in one artery and performed a stent procedure to clear it. “Sen. Sanders was diagnosed with a myocardial infarction,” his doctors said in a statement released by his campaign.
Sanders, an independent senator from Vermont, is seeking the Democratic presidential nomination. His wife, Jane, said earlier this week that he would rest at home for several days before returning to the campaign trail.
This is a developing story. It will be updated.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2019/10/04/a-heart-attack-caused-sen-bernie-sanders-to-be-hospitalized-earlier-this-week-doctors-say/

SAN FRANCISCO — Iranian hackers targeted President Trump’s re-election campaign, two people with knowledge of the attacks said on Friday, in a sign of how cyberattacks could become a fixture of the 2020 presidential election.

Microsoft said in a report earlier Friday that hackers, with apparent backing from Iran’s government, had made more than 2,700 attempts to identify the email accounts of current and former United States government officials, journalists covering political campaigns and accounts associated with a presidential campaign.

It was not clear what information — if any — had been taken in the attack on the Trump campaign, according to the two people, who were not allowed to publicly discuss the investigation. While the Microsoft report did not name Iran’s targets, it found evidence that hackers had infiltrated email inboxes in at least four cases. But the four successful hacks tracked by Microsoft did not belong to a presidential campaign.

Tim Murtaugh, the Trump campaign’s communications director, said in a statement that “we have no indication that any of our campaign infrastructure was targeted.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/04/technology/iranian-campaign-hackers-microsoft.html