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Kim Jong Un's top aide executed by North Korean death squad, reports suggest

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A key member of Kim Jong Un's inner circle touted as a powerful military figure mysteriously vanished from public life recently, sparking rumors he was executed by a North Korean death squad after allegations of bribery, recent reports indicated.

Hwang Pyong-so, a vice marshal who held the most senior position in North Korea’s military, hasn’t been seen in public since Oct. 13, sparking rumors of his death.

North Korean vice chairman of the State Affairs Commission Hwang Pyong-so's profile picture is shown in this undated photo.  (KCNA via Reuters)

Kim has previously dispatched his enemies via a variety of gruesome methods, including shooting them with anti-aircraft weaponry at a close distance and feeding them to a pack of ravenous dogs.
News about Hwang’s troubles within Kim’s regime emerged in mid-November, when South Korea’s spy agency reported the top aide and his deputy, Kim Won-hong, were expelled from the military’s General Politico Bureau and “punished,” Yonhap News Agency reported.

Kim Jong Un, right, and Hwang Pyong-so enjoy watching an air show in 2014.  (KCNA via Reuters)

A rare inspection on the bureau was conducted after reports of “impure attitude” toward the volatile regime. The spy agency said it was looking into details about their punishment.
“If Hwang was indeed kicked out of the Workers’ Party, it would practically mean the end of his political career, and possibly his life, though it is unknown whether or not he is still alive,” South Korea's JoongAng Ilbo reported, according to the Telegraph.
KIM JONG UN KILLED UNCLE, HALF-BROTHER OVER 'CHINA COUP PLOT,' REPORT SAYS

Kim Jong Un, left, greeting officials with Hwang Pyong-so by his side in 2015.  (Reuters)

Kim Won-hong was reportedly sentenced to one of North Korea’s prison camps. As for Hwang, many of Kim Jong Un’s recent actions indicate the man who the dictator has trusted for about a decade was executed -- possibly by the infamous firing squad that also killed Kim’s uncle Jang Song Thaek.
The two officials allegedly had been receiving favors for promotions, the Telegraph reported. Kim ordered the two officials to be punished “as a warning to others.”
Kim’s visit to the country’s Mount Paektu over the weekend hinted at Hwang’s possible execution. Kim usually visits the sacred mountain before he makes a significant decision, much like his father and grandfather had done, Korea Jongang Daily reported.
The leader previously visited the mountain with his aides in November 2013, a month before ordering the deaths of several officials, including Jang, who was branded “worse than a dog” and a “despicable human scum.” The bodies were then lit on fire with flamethrowers.

Kim Jong Un visited Mount Paektu over the weekend, an indication he may be making a significant decision.  (KCNA via Reuters)

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Kim also made a trip to the mountain before he executed former defense chief Hyon Yong-chol in April 2015.
North Korea’s Korean Central News Agency did not mention Hwang in its statement about Kim’s visit, but said the despot was celebrating his “big achievements in November.”
Hwang rose through the ranks and, in 2014, was named the senior deputy director in the central party, North Korean Leadership Watch reported. South Korean spies believe Kim was pitting Hwang against Choe Ryong-hae, the vice chairman of the Central Committee of North Korea’s ruling Workers’ Party, to ensure they were forever loyal to the leader, according to Yonhap News Agency.

California housing crisis affecting middle class the most: It's 'a broken system'

For all of its claims of being an economic paradise, California is a failure when it comes to housing.

Not just low-income, affordable housing, but middle-income, working-class housing for teachers, firemen and long-time residents hoping to live anywhere near work.

"California has a housing crisis. We can't provide housing to our citizens," said Rita Brandin, with San Diego developer Newland Communities. "In Georgia, Texas and Florida, it can take a year and a half from concept to permits. In California, just the process from concept to approvals, is five years – that does not include the environmental lawsuits faced by 90 percent of projects."
Numbers tell the story of California's housing crisis.
* 75 percent of Southern Californians can't afford to buy a home, according to the state realtors association.
* 16 of the 25 least affordable communities in the US are in California, according to 24/7 Wall Street.
* Officials this year declared a homeless emergency in San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego and Orange counties.
* 56 percent of state voters say they may have to move because of a lack of affordable housing. One in four say they will relocate out of state, according to University of California Berkeley's Institute of Governmental Studies.
 * A median price home in the Golden State is $561,000, according to the realtors association. A household would need to earn $115,000 a year to reasonably afford a home at that price, assuming a 20 percent down payment. Yet, two thirds of Californians earns less $80,000, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
* The household income needed to afford a median-priced home in the Silicon Valley town of Palo Alto is $450,000.
* In San Francisco, a median priced home is $1.5 million, according to the Paragon Real Estate Group.
* Home prices in California are twice the national average, and 70 percent can't afford to buy a home, according to state figures.
* Median household income in L.A. is $64,000. That's half what is necessary to buy a home.
*1 in 10 residents are considering leaving because they can't afford a place to live, according to a state legislative study, while US Census figures show 2 million residents, 25 and older, have already left the state since 2010.
* In 2016, 30 percent of California tenants put more than 50 percent of their income toward rent and utilities, according to the California Budget & Policy Center. Economists consider 30 percent the limit.
* California needs to double the number of homes built each year to keep prices from rising faster than the national average, according to the Legislative Analyst's Office.
"The biggest tragedy of California is we have stopped building houses for the middle class," said Borre Winkle with the Building Industry Association of San Diego. "Think of California's housing market as a martini class. We're building some affordable housing at the low end. Absolutely nothing in the middle and the top end is high-income housing, which subsidizes low-income housing. So that is a broken system."
In 2016, the cities of Houston and Dallas built more homes, 63,000, than the entire Golden State, which built 50,000, according to US Census Bureau figures.
"Supply and demands works," said USC real estate professor Richard Green. "People want to be here and we're not accommodating them with new housing and so the cost of the housing goes up."

"The biggest tragedy of California is we have stopped building houses for the middle class," said Borre Winkle with the Building Industry Association of San Diego. "Think of California's housing market as a martini class. We're building some affordable housing at the low end. Absolutely nothing in the middle and the top end is high-income housing, which subsidizes low-income housing. So that is a broken system."  (REUTERS)

The lack of housing is a statewide problem for which many share the blame. Current residents adamantly oppose any new project because it will aggravate traffic, already the worst in the nation. Environmentalists oppose growth because most new projects require a lot of land, which they feel contributes to sprawl. They favor infill projects of higher density, just the sort existing residents oppose.
Politicians are caught in the middle. They know businesses needs a growing population to meet labor needs, but are afraid to vote for new housing for fear of being voted out of office.
"Our long-term growth and prosperity is absolutely and fundamentally dependent upon housing that folks can afford," said Elizabeth Hansburg, a young mother who started a “Yes in My Backyard,” or YIMBY chapter in Orange County. “If we want Orange County to be prosperous in the future, we have to have housing that people can afford to live in."
YIMBY members show up at city council and planning commission meetings and advocate for more housing. They counter the typical “Not in My Backyard” groups that typically kill projects by exerting political influence.
"I just thought to myself, there is no one providing a counter argument to this. All the elected officials are hearing is no we don't want this," Hansburg said. "And I thought we needed to balance that conversation in the public sphere. Somebody needed to be there saying: ‘Yes we do want this.’ We do have a housing shortage."
According to a study commissioned by the Building Industry Association at Point Loma Nazarene University, up to 40 percent of the cost of a new home is attributable to the 45 regulatory agencies that govern home building in California.
"California is a state that just absolutely loves regulations. And the problem of housing in California is one of regulatory overreach," Winkel said. "In San Diego, 40 cents on the dollar of production of housing goes to regulations alone. It's not uncommon to have $100,000 in impact fees on a single-family house and try to sell a house with that type of cost burden."

California residents adamantly oppose any new building project because it will aggravate traffic, already the worst in the nation.  (REUTERS)

The Newland Sierra project near San Diego is still trying to build a mixed-use community with 2,100 new units on a parcel of 1,900 acres. But builders say they are only developing 775 acres, leaving 61 percent open space.
Yet, environmentalists and local opposition are already threatening to sue, or gather signatures to take the project to a vote.
"NIMBYism has now become a tool for special interests to stop projects," Brandin said. "There's an anti-growth attitude that really creates this roadblock to providing homes and that is creating a disparity. We are leaving out our working class who have to commute hours, sometimes two hours beyond our borders, to work in our city."
A similar, albeit larger project in Los Angeles fought environmental lawsuits for 20 years.
"Very often these lawsuits are not won, but it extends the time it takes to do the development and in development time really is money," Green said. "The thing about environmental groups is they just don't trust developers, period. We're one of the fastest-growing states in the country when it comes to jobs and we're not building any housing. California has the second lowest rate of homeownership in the country. Only Hawaii is lower."

Comey edits revealed: Remarks on Clinton probe were watered down, documents show

Newly released documents obtained by Fox News reveal that then-FBI Director James Comey’s draft statement on the Hillary Clinton email probe was edited numerous times before his public announcement, in ways that seemed to water down the bureau’s findings considerably.

Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, sent a letter to the FBI on Thursday that shows the multiple edits to Comey’s highly scrutinized statement.

In an early draft, Comey said it was “reasonably likely” that “hostile actors” gained access to then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s private email account. That was changed later to say the scenario was merely “possible.”
Another edit showed language was changed to describe the actions of Clinton and her colleagues as “extremely careless” as opposed to “grossly negligent.” This is a key legal distinction.
Johnson, writing about his concerns in a letter Thursday to FBI Director Christopher Wray, said the original “could be read as a finding of criminality in Secretary Clinton’s handling of classified material.”
He added, “The edited statement deleted the reference to gross negligence – a legal threshold for mishandling classified material – and instead replaced it with an exculpatory sentence.”
The edits also showed that references to specific potential violations of statutes on “gross negligence” regarding classified information and “misdemeanor handling” were removed.
EX-MUELLER AIDES' TEXTS REVEALED: READ THEM HERE
The final statement also removed a reference to the “sheer volume” of classified information discussed on email.
“While the precise dates of the edits and identities of the editors are not apparent from the documents, the edits appear to change the tone and substance of Director Comey’s statement in at least three respects,” Johnson wrote Thursday.
That includes, Johnson said, “repeated edits to reduce Secretary Clinton’s culpability in mishandling classified information.”
Johnson continued, “In summary, the edits to Director Comey’s public statement, made months prior to the conclusion of the FBI’s investigation of Secretary Clinton’s conduct, had a significant impact on the FBI’s public evaluation of the implications of her actions.”
Johnson referenced newly revealed anti-Trump text messages exchanged between FBI officials who at one point worked on the Robert Mueller Russia probe.
Fox News has confirmed that one of those officials, Peter Strzok, a former deputy to the assistant director for counterintelligence at the FBI, was the person who changed the language from “grossly negligent” to “extremely careless.”
REPUBLICANS TURN FOCUS TO MCCABE OVER TEXTS ON 'INSURANCE' AGAINST TRUMP
“This effort, seen in light of the personal animus toward then-candidate Trump by senior FBI agents leading the Clinton investigation and their apparent desire to create an ‘insurance policy’ against Mr. Trump’s election, raise profound questions about the FBI’s role and possible interference in the 2016 presidential election and the role of the same agents in Special Counsel Mueller’s investigation by President Trump,” Johnson said.
According to Johnson, Comey emailed a draft statement to top FBI officials clearing Clinton of criminal wrongdoing in May of 2016 -- two months before the FBI completed two dozen interviews, including with Clinton herself.
“I’ve been trying to imagine what it would look like if I decided to do an FBI only press event to close out our work and hand the matter to the DOJ,” Comey wrote at the top of the draft. “To help shape out discussions of whether that, or something different, makes sense, I have spent some time crafting what I would say, which follows. In my imagination, I don’t see me taking any questions. Here is what it might look like.”
Comey delivered his statement on the Clinton case in July 2016, calling her actions “extremely careless” while recommending against criminal charges.
The Senate Homeland Security Committee is doing oversight of the Justice Department's Office of Special Counsel's investigation into whether Comey violated the Hatch Act with his statement. The Hatch Act limits the political activities of federal employees.

Republicans turn focus to FBI's McCabe over texts on 'insurance' against Trump

Peter Strzok and Lisa Page exchanged anti-Trump texts for months.  (Getty/FBI)

Top Republicans are turning their focus to FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe as they scrutinize a host of anti-Trump texts exchanged between two bureau officials, raising questions about one in particular that seemed to reference an “insurance policy” against a Trump presidency. 

That text was revealed on Tuesday night when the Justice Department released hundreds of messages between FBI officials Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, who were romantically involved and at one point worked on Robert Mueller's Russia probe. 

Video

Goodlatte: Strzok texts show 'strong bias' in Clinton probe

“I want to believe the path you threw out for consideration in Andy’s office - that there’s no way he gets elected - but I’m afraid we can’t take that risk,” Strzok texted on Aug. 15, 2016. “It’s like an insurance policy in the unlikely event you die before you’re 40.”
Some lawmakers surmise "Andy" is a reference to Andrew McCabe, and now want to know about his communications with Page and Strzok.
“This [text] is the one that concerns me the most,” House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., said on “Fox & Friends” Thursday, one day after Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein defended the Mueller probe in testimony before Goodlatte's committee.
“Andy is presumably Andrew McCabe ... and this text is very troubling because it suggests that they’re doing something, they have a plan to take action to make sure that Donald Trump does not get elected president of the United States at the highest levels of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.”
Strzok, who was a counterintelligence agent at the FBI, was removed from Mueller's team after the discovery of the texts and re-assigned to the FBI’s human resources division. Page also was briefly on Mueller’s team, but returned to the FBI over the summer.
When asked about the "insurance policy" text message and whether it referred to McCabe, a Justice Department spokesperson told Fox News they could not comment on the nature of the messages -- but that Strzok has been cleared to be interviewed by Congress.
ROSENSTEIN STANDS BY MUELLER AS REPUBLICANS FUME OVER 'INSIDER BIAS' 
The FBI also told Fox News they had no comment on whether that text message referred to McCabe or someone else.
Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, also raised concerns about that message, penning a letter Thursday to Rosenstein -- who oversees the special counsel probe since Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused himself earlier this year.
“Some of these texts appear to go beyond merely expressing a private political opinion, and appear to cross the line into taking some official action to create an ‘insurance policy’ against a Trump presidency,” Grassley wrote Thursday. “Presumably, ‘Andy’ refers to Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe. So whatever was being discussed extended beyond just Page and Strzok at least to Mr. McCabe, who was involved in supervising both investigations.”

Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe announces the results of the national health care fraud takedown during a news conference at the Justice Department in Washington, U.S., July 13, 2017.  (Reuters)

Grassley requested the Justice Department turn over records by Dec. 27 relating to “the conversation” that allegedly occurred with Strzok and Page in McCabe’s office, and all records relating to McCabe’s communications with Strzok and Page between Aug. 7 and Aug.  23, 2016.
“Any improper political influence or motives in the course of any FBI investigation must be brought to light and fully addressed,” Grassley wrote. “Former Director [James] Comey’s claims that the FBI ‘doesn’t give a rip about politics’ certainly are not consistent with the evidence of discussions occurring in the Deputy Director’s office around August 15, 2016.”
That text was just one of 10,000 messages the Justice Department was reviewing between Strzok and Page -- and hundreds turned over to Congress that contained anti-Trump and other politically charged comments.

Video

Deputy AG Rosenstein grilled by House Intel Committee

DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz said that the “politically-oriented” messages between the two were found in his office’s initial search, which led to the watchdog requesting all their messages through the end of last November. The messages were produced by the FBI on July 20 of this year. Muller and Rosenstein were informed about them a week later, on July 27.
WATCHDOG REVEALS HOW EX-MUELLER AGENTS' ANTI-TRUMP TEXTS CAME TO LIGHT
Some of the other anti-Trump text messages called then-candidate Trump a “menace” and a “loathsome human.”
Lawmakers peppered Rosenstein with questions on Capitol Hill Wednesday over the appearance of an “insider bias” on Mueller’s team, zeroing in on the text messages between Strzok and Page.
But Rosenstein stood by Mueller, whom he appointed, and stressed that he has discussed the appearance of “bias” with Mueller.
“It’s our responsibility to make sure those opinions do not influence their actions,” Rosenstein said. “I believe Director Mueller understands that, and recognizes people have political views but that they don’t let it [affect their work].”
Rosenstein underscored that he had oversight over the special counsel probe.
“I know what he’s doing,” Rosenstein said of Mueller’s investigative actions, noting that he would take action should the special counsel do something “inappropriate.”  “He consults with me about their investigation, within and without the scope.”