TV chef, 42, says you should lightly squash the potatoes once they are cooked
He then suggests adding sage leaves before roasting for another 10 minutes
This will make the potatoes crispier on the outside and fluffier in the middle
He also advises filling a spritz bottle with vinegar and spraying the spuds

BOSTON (AP) — A man convicted of leading an Islamic State-inspired plot to behead a conservative blogger who upset Muslims when she organized a Prophet Muhammad cartoon contest was sentenced on Tuesday to 28 years in prison.

Priestap is Peter Strzok's boss and he is involved in everything. Top-level analysis here.

An unsecured database contained a wide range of personal details about virtually every American household, researchers say.

Twelve Republican House members bucked their party on Tuesday and opposed a landmark tax reform bill
Eleven of them hail from California, New Jersey and New York
Voters in those three states stand to lose the most from limits in the deductibility of state and local property and income taxes
No Democrats were willing to support the bill they dubbed a 'GOP Tax Scam'

A street artist is calling Meryl Streep on her bluff.

Posters showing the "The Post" actress standing with disgraced producer Harvey Weinstein have been popping up across Los Angeles, Twitter posts indicate. The artist, who has yet to be identified, placed a red banner with the words, "She knew," over Streep's eyes.

pic.twitter.com/ILOSh3LMVe

Police began their search after receiving a tip from Pakistan that five-year-old Jordan Rodriguez was buried in the backyard
Larissa Rodriguez, 34, has been arrested on suspicion of murder but has not been formally charged with a crime
The caller said the boy had been buried by the boy's mother after discovering him unresponsive two moths earlier
Larissa Rodriguez has a long history with Job and Family Services, who removed her two oldest children from her custody several years ago

2017 has been a year of massive expansion for the Global War on Terror, but you could be forgiven for not noticing. In addition to the media focus on the ongoing chaos in the Trump White House, the Pentagon has consistently avoided disclosing where and who America’s armed forces are engaged in fighting until forced to do so.

>>>>

In Puerto Rico, everything has changed since Hurricane Maria struck nearly 3 months ago.

Many people have no running water. And if they do, it can't be consumed without boiling.

There's no electricity in many regions.

Supplies are scarce.

There is a lot of good information in all those articles about the situation, but it's just words on a page.

The video below brings it to life. This is what life looks like for people who have just watched everything be turned upside down by Mother Nature.

Interesting stuff, as Putin thanks Trump for a tip from the CIA.

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California health officials sound the alarm. This is the first time a state has done this.

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Paul Craig Roberts

What do we make of Trump’s national security speech? First of all, it is the military/security complex’s speech, and it is inconsistent with Trump’s intention of normalizing relations with Russia.

My conclusion is that Trump has surrendered to the real rulers of America—the powerful interest groups such as the military/security complex, the Israel Lobby, the environmental polluters, Wall Street and the banks “too big to fail.”

America is a country in which despite the hopes flyover America had in Trump, an oligarchy rules. The American people, regardless of who they elect, have no voice, no input, no representation.

Oh Chong Song was shot in his knee, arm, back, chest and through shoulder
His life was saved by a team at a South Korean hospital after his daring escape
When he woke up he asked for a Choco Pie, a snack popular in both countries
Black market for the snacks exists in North Korea after they were smuggled in

WCKG 1530 AM radio station operator Matt Dubiel claims that The Alex Jones Show radio feed was cut off, “faded,” as Jones started speaking about the U.N. vehicles which have already entered Chicago.

Dirty DOJ official Bruce Ohr, who met with Glenn Simpson and Fusion GPS secretly during the election, failed to show up for his scheduled Senate testimony. No explanation, he just chickened out.

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Michael Hoffman’s Note: Ingrid Rimland, the wife of the late German revisionist Ernst Zündel, died at the age of 81 in October, after a brief illness. Though no one is permitted by the mass media to be termed a Holocaust Survivor™ unless they were a Judaic victim of the Third Reich, Ingrid was indeed a person who had survived a holocaust, having only barely escaped Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin’s attempt to enslave, extrude and exterminate ethnic Germans in the territory of the USSR.

The Trump administration signaled that it could broaden the use of nuclear weapons as part of a new security strategy, unveiled by the president on Monday.

>>>

(*The flip side; The Stock Market Is Soaring !)

Moments after Andrew McCabe spent 8 hours testifying behind closed doors

The House Judiciary and Oversight Committees are seeking to interview FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe and two other agents as part of a joint investigation into bureau's actions during the 2016 election.

In particular, the investigation is looking into the FBI and the Justice Department's handling of two investigations: the probe into Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server during her tenure as secretary of State and the investigation into possible ties between Trump campaign associates and Russia.

But the propaganda mantra must go on – the lie that declaring Jerusalem the capital of Israel was good for the Middle East, was good for peace, was and still is repeated over and over again, like a mantra, tras-mantra, tras-mantra – by Trump and his mannequins, his foreign affair puppets, Rex Tillerson and Nikki Haley, who is masquerading as Washington’s UN Ambassador, repeating over and over again, the same lie, the same lie, the same lie, in the hope, as the common saying goes after Goebbels, Hitler’s Propaganda Minister, if repeated enough, the lie becomes the truth. Do these clowns really believe that if a world renown repeat-liar keeps repeat-lying the globes populace believes that the repeat-lie becomes the truth?

>>>

(*video at the source)

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Jimmy Dore - The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

WATCH the Video

US President Donald Trump’s newly published National Security Strategy has taken aim at Russia, painting the country as a top adversary that “interferes in the domestic political affairs of countries around the world.”
There is no mention of any policy geared toward mending broken relations between the two powers, something which Trump the candidate had promised to attempt. Instead, the 68-page document reads like something the White House would have produced when Trump’s predecessor Barack Obama occupied the oval office— at least where Russia and other ‘adversaries’ are concerned.

“China and Russia challenge American power, influence, and interests, attempting to erode American security and prosperity”blahblahblah>>>

FLIGHT LOGS SHOW

In a Washington politically riven in ways not seen since the pre-Civil War era, take hope. Despite everything you’ve read, bipartisanship is not dead. On one issue, congressional Democrats and Republicans, as well as Donald Trump, all speak with a single resounding voice, with, in fact, unmatched unanimity and fervor as they stretch hands across the aisle in a spirit of cooperation. Perhaps you’ve already guessed, but I’m referring to the Pentagon budget. By staggering majorities, both houses of Congress just passed an almost $700 billion defense bill, more money than even President Trump had requested and he’s already happily signed it.

And Americans generally seem to partake of the same spirit. After all, while esteem for other American institutions like, uh, Congress has fallen radically in these years, the U.S. military hasn’t lost a step

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The Saudi war in Yemen remains a humanitarian catastrophe and our relationship with the House of Saud remains corrupt. But the war in Yemen was already an American-abetted disaster under Obama, and the Trump White House has at least called for Riyadh to lift its Yemen embargo and seen the new king promise some mild social and economic reforms.

Douthat’s summary here is mostly wrong or misleading. Trump has outlined a very aggressive Iran policy aimed at “rolling back” Iranian influence throughout the region. U.S. forces in Syria are expected to remain there indefinitely, and administration officials are defining part of their mission as “not allowing” Iran and its proxies to have a presence in Syria. This is “slow-walking” his hawkish instincts? Unlike his predecessor, Trump has ordered military attacks on Syrian government targets, and U.S. forces have repeatedly struck pro-regime forces inside Syria when they came too close to U.S. proxies. If he isn’t interested in fighting “all bad actors” at once, he does seem intent on picking fights with Iran wherever possible regardless of the potential costs. Maybe that hostility to Iran isn’t surprising when his administration is overflowing with Iran hawks, but it shouldn’t be minimized or ignored.

The U.S. is getting bogged down deeper in Syria on his watch>>>

Left unmentioned in the president’s speech on Monday regarding the National Security Strategy is that, under his direction, the Pentagon is undergoing its first audit in history. It’s not referenced in the document itself, either, though “restraining Federal spending” and “making government more efficient” are mentioned. The National Interest pointed out last week how little attention the audit is getting.

When the Republicans first made gains back in the Barack Obama era, they did so on the Tea Party wave. Now-forgotten is that many of those emerging political stars, like Rand Paul and Mike Lee, dissented from party orthodoxy on military spending. That legacy carries on, to some extent, today; Paul and Lee were among only eight senators to vote against the National Defense Authorization Act earlier this year.>>>

The Senate passed a $1.5 trillion tax cut early in the early hours of Wednesday ....

Scientists may be on the brink of understanding the nature of dark matter
Researchers are using X-ray data they've observed from Perseus galaxy cluster
Found an unexplained spike of energy of 3.5 kiloelectron volts (keV)
If confirmed with future observations, this may represent a major step forward in understanding the mysterious dark matter
Scientists used data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, Europe's XMM-Newton and Hitomi, a Japanese-led X-ray telescope

Items include a German 'sawback bayonet' blade that was eventually banned
One side had a lethal serrated edge that helped it to pull out a victim's insides
Another weapon up for sale is a wooden 'trench club' dotted with metal studs
A rare steel body armour set worn by German snipers and machine gunners is also up for auction

After Trump’s decision on Jerusalem, Jonathan Cook says “Palestinians will have to shame Israel, the US and the watching world by adopting the tools of an anti-apartheid struggle – of non-violent resistance and civil disobedience – to gain equal rights in a single state.>>

I understand having compassion for people. Yet as small as the fine was, it was the perfect opportunity to teach this young women about personal responsibility for your actions.

Emma Wren, born on November 25 this year, was conceived in 1992
Her adoptive mother Tina Gibson, 26, was conceived in 1991
The embryo was cryopreserved until March this year, making it 24 years frozen
It is the longest time an embryo has been frozen, after one in Virginia which was frozen for 19 years and a few months
Experts say this successful birth 'suggests the shelf life of an embryo could be infinite'

'Cashback queen' Aimee Moore has amassed the festive haul over the past year
Aimee, 43, from Scarborough, takes advantage of coupons and cashback deals
The mother-of-three has managed to rack up £2,000 of goods for just £20
She was even able to quit her job for good thanks to 'extreme couponing'

Patricia and Robert Aldridge the Lucky Dip after buying tickets for 23 years
But the Slough couple are determined the money won't change them
Mrs Aldridge is still working at her Alzheimer's and Dementia home at Christmas

Item listed as 'High Value £40,000 Mystery XXL Box' has more than 50 bids
Description reads: 'High-value items, easy profit for you. Worth up to £25,000.'
Mystery box auctions trend on eBay, with some boxes selling for up to £50,000

Maxim Gribanov beat Anastasia Ovisiannikova because she wanted to leave him
After the attack, he filmed her injuries to show friends she was 'under control'
The 28-year-old had internal injuries and fell into a coma, dying six days later
Friends and family say Anastasia, who lived in Lebedyan, Russia, had been trying to gather the courage to leave Gribanov, 34, for someone new

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(*Alexie)Wood is an independent photojournalist from San Antonio, Texas, whose work focuses on resistance movements. He arrived in D.C. last January planning to document protests around the inauguration — both on January 20 and the Women’s March the following day. But Wood’s coverage of the weekend ended abruptly when he, along with over 200 others, were penned into an area at the intersection of L and 12th streets and arrested en masse.

Individuals arrested at the Inauguration Day protests, known as J20, are being charged under blanket statutes for crimes committed during the action, including bashing windows and other property damage. To make its case against nearly 200 defendants, the prosecution is using the Pinkerton liability rule, which attributes every crime committed during a conspiracy to all those involved. In practice, this means that all defendants on trial for the protests can be convicted for all crimes committed during the action by mere virtue of their proximity to the crimes committed.

Wood’s prosecution is alarming as a reflection of the government’s attempt to define — and criminalize — journalism, but the case as a whole also speaks to the government’s attempt to undermine the First Amendment right to political speech.>>>

China and Russia may be devising a plan to attack U.S. forces in the event an aof t imminent war breaking out on the neighboring Korean Peninsula, according to two former military officials.
Lieutenant General Wang Hongguang, the former deputy commander of the western Nanjing Military Region, warned "the war on the Korean Peninsula might break out anytime between now and March next year"; his comments came during a conference hosted Saturday by ruling Communist Party newspaper The Global Times. The following day, the nationalist outlet expanded on the retired general's remarks with insight from Chinese military expert, commentator and author Song Zhongping, who said China could potentially engage U.S. forces if they posed a threat."China should be psychologically prepared for a potential Korean war, and the Northeast China regions should be mobilized for that," Wang said Saturday, according to The Global Times. "Such mobilization is not to launch a war, but for defensive purposes."

Just when you thought 2017 couldn’t get weirder: George Zimmerman, the man acquitted of murdering teenager Trayvon Martin, is threatening to “beat” rapper and entertainment titan Jay-Z and feed him “to an alligator”—and has sparked a feud with Snoop Dogg in the process.

The Insane Clown Posse lost another court battle in their fight to force the FBI to retract 2011 claims the band's fans are a "hybrid gang."

U.S. health officials plan to crack down on a growing number of unproven alternative remedies, focusing on products containing dangerous ingredients that have occasionally been linked to serious injury and death.

It’s been revealed more Australians are dying from prescription drugs than illegal street drugs.
Last year alone, there were close to two thousand deaths as a result of prescription pills, a new reports from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) has found - which is a rise of 168 percent in 10 years.

Less than a month after a ban on grizzly bear trophy hunting came into effect, the province has decided to expand the ban to include hunting the species for meat.
B.C.'s minister of forests, lands and natural resources made the announcement Monday, stating that the decision was made after consultations conducted earlier this fall.

A man cleared of rape is suing police and prosecutors after they failed to disclose messages that would have proved his innocence.
Liam Allan, 22, of south-east London, accused of 12 rapes and sex assaults, said he lived in “a terrible limbo” as police withheld 40,000 messages from his accuser.

By 2027, more than half of all Americans — 53 percent — would pay more in taxes under the tax bill agreed to by House and Senate Republicans, a new analysis by the Tax Policy Center finds. That year, 82.8 percent of the bill’s benefit would go to the top 1 percent, up from 62.1 under the Senate bill.

In her short tenure as Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos has confirmed all of her critics’ worst fears about her.
A longtime billionaire GOP donor and school privatization advocate with no experience in education whatsoever, DeVos has decimated her department, and federal oversight of education generally.

Moscow-based cyber security firm Kaspersky Lab has taken the United States government to a U.S. federal court for its decision to ban the use of Kaspersky products in federal agencies and departments.

Luis Elizondo ran the US Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program
He believes aliens may have visited Earth based on numerous reports he read
They include reports from pilots of two U.S. Navy Super Hornet fighters
The craft reportedly displayed out of this world speed and manouevering

A Kenyan court has awarded a schoolgirl four million Kenyan shillings ($40,000; £30,000) after she was strip-searched by police looking for drugs in 2015.

You may have missed the fact that exactly one week ago two major solar power plants, with a combined generating capacity of 179 megawatts, shifted into commercial operation on Bureau of Land Management property in southern Nevada. It’s totally understandable, since the Interior Department didn’t even issue a news release (although its Nevada state director did show up for the formal opening ceremony, and provides a quote for a solar firm’s publicity package).