Hi there, !
Today Mon 05/10/2021 Sun 05/09/2021 Sat 05/08/2021 Fri 05/07/2021 Thu 05/06/2021 Wed 05/05/2021 Tue 05/04/2021 Archives
Rantburg
533590 articles and 1861681 comments are archived on Rantburg.

Today: 72 articles and 166 comments as of 12:36.
Post a news link    Post your own article   
Area: WoT Operations    WoT Background    Non-WoT    Opinion       
400 suspects to be arraigned for funding Boko Haram, bandits
Today's Headlines
Headline Comments [Views]
Page 6: Politix
6 10:32 rjschwarz [7] 
5 17:06 NoMoreBS [5] 
3 23:43 rjschwarz [8] 
7 21:38 Pliny Hupeater3406 [4] 
0 [2] 
2 09:43 M. Murcek [14] 
Page 1: WoT Operations
5 18:10 Torquemada [7]
10 23:20 Rupert Grundy2592 [13]
0 [6]
1 02:43 Dron66046 [11]
0 [3]
0 [9]
0 [13]
0 [8]
0 [8]
0 [13]
0 [13]
0 [6]
0 [7]
0 [4]
1 18:13 Torquemada [6]
0 [7]
0 [8]
0 [3]
3 14:24 Dron66046 [4]
0 [15]
0 [10]
4 12:17 Dron66046 [14]
0 [11]
0 [17]
Page 2: WoT Background
4 16:54 NoMoreBS [12]
5 11:59 746 [3]
0 [9]
0 [1]
6 12:41 NoMoreBS [9]
0 [2]
0 [6]
0 [4]
0 [3]
1 15:25 Mike Kozlowski [5]
0 [5]
1 12:30 ed in texas [7]
0 [8]
0 [12]
0 [7]
1 04:08 Dron66046 [5]
0 [4]
1 08:28 Spike and Tenille5583 [3]
0 [6]
3 14:02 CrazyFool [5]
0 [14]
Page 3: Non-WoT
4 17:05 DarthVader [13]
9 17:17 Lord Garth [5]
6 15:36 NN2N1 [3]
4 13:27 Tom [7]
13 13:57 CrazyFool [7]
4 16:33 Beavis [5]
18 17:56 swksvolFF [10]
9 15:38 Warthog [4]
4 09:10 Skidmark [2]
4 12:42 SteveS [3]
1 07:38 Procopius2k [10]
0 [10]
4 04:25 g(r)omgoru [2]
0 [4]
5 23:59 Rupert Grundy2592 [8]
4 12:22 Abu Uluque [9]
Page 4: Opinion
0 [8]
3 08:38 Besoeker [4]
0 [4]
2 16:13 Cesare [6]
3 21:29 SteveS [8]
-Short Attention Span Theater-
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer Reportedly Borrowed A Private Jet For Secret Florida Trip During Lockdown
[Federalist] A spokesman for Democratic Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer confirmed in April that Whitmer flew to Florida while instructing Michiganders to stay home while under COVID-19 lockdown orders. Now, a new report indicates Whitmer contacted wealthy Detroit businessmen to lend a private plane.

Spokesman Bobby Leddy said the governor traveled on three occasions to Florida to visit her elderly father. The governor’s office claimed taxpayer money was not used for travel. Deadline Detroit reports Whitmer avoided a private plane fee in the range of $10,000 to $20,000 by asking billionaires to provide a charter. The jet she took would have allegedly ran [poor grammar] her a fee of $40,000, an estimated 25 percent of Whitmer’s salary before taxes.

"We wondered why she reached out to us instead of booking a private charter," one of the owners of the plane said. "You can’t tell a governor no. Who needs that kind of trouble?"

The governor was asked about the report Thursday and declined to provide information as to whether she reimbursed the Detroit businessmen.

"I’ve said everything I’m going to say about my trip to check on my father," she told a reporter from WWTV. "I’ve got nothing to add. We don’t discuss my travel. I have received an incredible number of death threats over the last year and a half. There are a lot of reasons we don’t discuss how I travel and when I travel."

While Whitmer released vaccine benchmarks and encouraged residents to get shots, she was not vaccinated upon traveling to Florida for four days. The jet she flew on, a Gulfstream G-280 twin, took her from Lansing, Michigan to West Palm Beach, Florida. Two weeks after getting back from her trip, Whitmer made a point to tell Michiganders to stay home.

"Gov. Gretchen Whitmer says a factor in Michigan’s surging COVID-19 cases is fewer people were infected earlier in the pandemic than in other states. She also is concerned about spring break travel, particularly to Florida," the Associated Press reported on April 3.

Then, appearing on MSNBC’s "Meet the Press" on April 19, Whitmer said people should avoid travel.

"Michigan and Florida are not next to each other," she said. "But this is the time of the year that snowbirds come home from Florida, where people are going on spring break, and all of these things can contribute to spread. We’re imploring people to take this seriously, mask up, get tested. If you’ve been around someone who’s positive, stay home."

Whitmer’s administration refuses to provide details of her Florida trip due to "ongoing security concerns." Jason Roe, executive director of the Michigan GOP, said in a statement that Whitmer "has been the most opaque governor in Michigan history."

"Governor Whitmer lied about her trip to Florida and is compounding her lies by refusing to disclose the cost of the private plane she used, if she paid for her personal trip, and what the fair market value of that payment was," Roe said.

Whitmer’s office did not respond to a request for comment.
Posted by: Clem || 05/07/2021 00:00 || Comments || Link || [4 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Maaaaayyybbeee she was planning to report it as "Campaign Contributions"?
Posted by: Bobby || 05/07/2021 8:10 Comments || Top||

#2  Bonus:

The Gulfstream G-280 used for her secret trips (there were more than one), is made in Israel by Israel Aerospace Industries under contract to Gulfstream.

Be sure to let Rep. Rashida Tlaib know about this.
Posted by: Lord Garth || 05/07/2021 9:28 Comments || Top||

#3  Why was she traveling to see her father (yes, I know he was ailing)? Other Michiganers were ordered to stay home. If a parent or relative were sick, they could not visit - even inside Michigan.
Talk about tone deaf.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia || 05/07/2021 15:30 Comments || Top||

#4  Gretchen is naughty.
Posted by: Clem || 05/07/2021 15:31 Comments || Top||

#5  Wretched Gretchen doesn't want to talk about past travels because time-traveling white supremacists might track her down.
Posted by: Grampaw Phavish2227 || 05/07/2021 15:38 Comments || Top||

#6  Come to me Gretchen.
Posted by: Besoeker || 05/07/2021 17:30 Comments || Top||

#7  "We wondered why she reached out to us instead of booking a private charter," one of the owners of the plane said. "You can’t tell a governor no. Who needs that kind of trouble?"

What country is this?
Does anyone still believe that we have rule of law in the USSA?
Posted by: Pliny Hupeater3406 || 05/07/2021 21:38 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Politix
Uh oh: MAGA turning on Liz Cheney's replacement already?
[HotAir] I’m trying to decide how seriously this should be taken. On the one hand, I’m sure Trumpers’ irritation is sincere. Elise Stefanik has a more liberal voting record than Cheney and has been especially questionable on immigration, populism’s pet issue. She used to work for George W. Bush, was mentored by Paul Ryan, and was iffy about Trump until she realized at some point during his first term that the base’s infatuation with him wasn’t about to blow over, at which point she transformed into a pretend MAGA enthusiast. True populists have no reason to trust her. If the mood in the party were to shift tomorrow, Stefanik would shift with it.

I think of her as a sort of Republican Kirsten Gillibrand, another ambitious politician who started in upstate New York. Gillibrand was a moderate representing a centrist district when she was in the House; she supported border enforcement and gun rights. As soon as she was appointed to the Senate and realized she’d need to face a much more liberal statewide electorate in the future, she became a staunch left-winger. Stefanik made the same move, turning from establishmentarian to Trumpist once she realized that the constituency to which she’d need to pander to keep getting reelected had shifted and wasn’t shifting back.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 05/07/2021 03:19 || Comments || Link || [7 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Concern trolling from HotAir. Gee, whodathunkit?
Posted by: M. Murcek || 05/07/2021 7:06 Comments || Top||

#2  If the mood in the party were to shift tomorrow, Stefanik would shift with it.

I know politicians are supposed to have ironclad, rock-solid principles, but isn't 'shifting with it' representing your constituents? The Athenian way?

On the other hand, republic-representatives are supposed to lead their constituents, like 1940's FDR?

I'm so confused.
Posted by: Bobby || 05/07/2021 8:26 Comments || Top||

#3  #1 Concern trolling from HotAir. Gee, whodathunkit?

It's that Eeyore bitch Allahpundit. I don't read his articles because I know from the title where it's gonna go. Might as well be Bill Kristol
Posted by: Frank G || 05/07/2021 8:31 Comments || Top||

#4  Well, she is a Northeast liberal; would you guys fully trust a Republican congresscritter from Mass.? The Globe bought off (so to speak) then Rep. Peter Torkildsen (R-MA; Danvers / North Shore) back in 1995; Tom Oliphant wrote a slobbering editorial praising him, and Torkie went along with some lib. preferred legislation. Tork wound up being a one-termer.
Posted by: Raj || 05/07/2021 8:37 Comments || Top||

#5  It seems that politics are rife with devil's bargains.
Posted by: JohnQC || 05/07/2021 9:30 Comments || Top||

#6  When the facts change a politician should re-evaluate even rock-solid positions. Hypocrisy is a term thrown around too easily these days.
Posted by: rjschwarz || 05/07/2021 10:32 Comments || Top||


A Major Biden Administration Scandal Is Brewing
BLUF:
[Red State] A RedState reported weeks ago, there are serious issues surrounding millions of dollars in stock owned by Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm. That stock is in Proterra, an electric vehicle company that is being actively promoted by the Biden administration. Further, Granholm being the Secretary of Energy means she gets to make regulations that can directly enrich herself.

Now, the story has gotten worse as Granholm appears to have reneged completely on her pledge to sell her stock and leave the board of the company in question.
Posted by: Besoeker || 05/07/2021 01:23 || Comments || Link || [5 views] Top|| File under:

#1  A few local clouds and high winds. Nothing more.
Posted by: Besoeker || 05/07/2021 7:20 Comments || Top||

#2  There won't be a scandal, self-enriching scandals are de rigueur.
Posted by: JohnQC || 05/07/2021 9:16 Comments || Top||

#3  Granhole was a "democrat rising star" to the extent that lefties yammered about trying to find some way to make her Canadian hide eligible to run for prexident. Somehow, an "energy secretary" who has no background in the energy industries is just not very convincing.
Posted by: M. Murcek || 05/07/2021 9:19 Comments || Top||

#4  If a scandal falls on a Democrat and nobody hears of it is it still a scandal?
Posted by: Glenmore || 05/07/2021 9:31 Comments || Top||

#5  That there is a Bidet Administration is the major scandal. That we all know it was installed not elected and just go along is the scandal, that the intelligence and law enforcement elements of the US government obey this coup is a scandal, that we are seeing every aspect of out federal government weaponized and slowly turning into tyrants and enemies of the people is a scandal....next to these things Jojo and the Bidet crime family grifting is petty cash....
Posted by: NoMoreBS || 05/07/2021 17:06 Comments || Top||


Maricopa County cites 'security risk' in refusing to give subpoenaed router info to 2020 election audit team
[Washington Examiner] Officials in Maricopa County, Arizona, where a Republican-backed audit of the 2020 election is underway, said they cannot give the audit team access to county router information that was subpoenaed by the state Senate.

In a Monday letter sent to Ken Bennett, a former Republican secretary of state in Arizona who is serving as the Republican-led state Senate’s audit liaison, Deputy County Attorney Joseph La Rue said the county "cannot at this time provide the virtual images of routers" to be examined by auditors, citing "a significant security risk to law enforcement data utilized by the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office as well as numerous federal agencies."

"We had previously believed that the risk would be eliminated by redacting the law enforcement data on the routers and not producing it," La Rue said in the letter. "But we were informed that redaction did not eliminate the risk. We also learned that if criminal elements or others gained access to this data, it might compromise county and federal law enforcement efforts and put the lives of law enforcement personnel at risk."

Bennett said in an interview with Just the News that the Senate’s subpoena had requested "access or control of all routers and tabulators ... used in connection with the administration of the 2020 election," along with "the public IP of the [routers]."

"I don't know why the routers in a tabulation and election center have anything to do with the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office or numerous federal agencies," Bennett said, adding that "the sheriff's department and the Maricopa County tabulation and election center aren't even in the same building."

County spokesman Fields Moseley told the Washington Examiner that county IT professionals made the determination that information contained in the routers "can be used as blueprints to intercept sensitive county data" across more than 50 different departments.
Posted by: Besoeker || 05/07/2021 01:14 || Comments || Link || [8 views] Top|| File under:

#1 

Or they need time to scrub the router logs of any improper connections to the Voting systems.
Posted by: NN2N1 || 05/07/2021 7:21 Comments || Top||

#2  'Real criminal activity' shrouded by the threat of 'imagined criminal activity'. Ok, I got it.

No mention made of potential damage to the ozone layer, environment, or to the children. The dem legal team must be holding those back for later use as necessary.
Posted by: Besoeker || 05/07/2021 7:25 Comments || Top||

#3  Route is not a harddrive. The only info that should be there ae computers that connected to it. This is super-suspicious.
Posted by: rjschwarz || 05/07/2021 23:43 Comments || Top||


Portland mayor ⁦@tedwheeler⁩ piously condemns anti-Asian violence happening in the country
[PUBLISH.TWITTER]
Posted by: Fred || 05/07/2021 00:00 || Comments || Link || [2 views] Top|| File under:


Texas Special Election: Pubs 2 - Dems 0
[Epoch Times] Losing Texas Candidate Issues Warning: 2022 ’Could Be Major Setback’ for Democrats

During the special election, two Republicans—and no Democrats—advanced in the runoff as the top two vote-getters in the race for Texas’s 6th Congressional District, after no one in the 23-candidate field won an outright majority of votes on May 1.

Republicans Susan Wright, wife of the late Rep. Ron Wright, finished with 19 percent of the vote, while Jake Ellzey garnered 14 percent. Democrat Jana Lynne Sanchez finished third with 13 percent and conceded on May 2.
I heard turnout was pretty high - 23% of the 2020 general election.
"On Saturday, Republican candidates got 62 percent of the vote to 38 percent for Democrats (R+25). All the things I thought would motivate Democrats, such as the attempted violent overthrow of a legitimate election result, along with Snowmaggedeon ... failed to get our voters out," Sanchez wrote on Monday after conceding defeat.
If you can't win with fake news and bad weather, what are you gonna do?
"I’m sounding the alarm bell: If Democrats don’t organize and prepare, 2022 could be a major setback to our gains of recent years," she said.

The fact that no Democrats advanced can also be seen as a blow to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) quest to keep her majority after 2022. Generally, the party of the president loses seats during midterm elections, and in 2018, Democrats were able to reclaim the House majority after Trump’s 2016 victory.

The House, meanwhile, is currently split at 218 Democrats to 212 Republicans with five vacancies, which means that Pelosi can only lose two votes to pass legislation. If there is a tie in the House, the bill won’t pass.
Unless a couple of Pubs committed suicide.
During an interview last week, however, Pelosi struck an optimistic tone and asserted that Democrats would prevail during the midterms. The reason why, she said, is because of recent Biden adjusted census results.

"I feel very confident that the Democrats will hold the majority after the next election," she told CBS News in late April. "I think that we’re—for all the huffing and puffing the Republicans are doing, these numbers were not as good for them as they had hoped. They wanted three in Texas, two in Florida, and the rest."
Showing off her Joe-speech.
Posted by: Bobby || 05/07/2021 00:00 || Comments || Link || [14 views] Top|| File under:

#1  During an interview last week, however, Pelosi struck an optimistic tone and asserted that Democrats would prevail during the midterms. The reason why, she said, is because of recent Biden adjusted census results.

3 districts (instead of 6 before the Biden Admin crooked census manipulation) were added to red states, cancelling the Dems HoR margin. Add the late TX Rep. Ron Wright seat for Republicans and the Reps have a +1 majority in the HoR.
Posted by: Cratch Glineper8075 || 05/07/2021 2:48 Comments || Top||

#2  ^ Not to worry. GOPe is working hard to turn those seats blue.
Posted by: M. Murcek || 05/07/2021 9:43 Comments || Top||



Who's in the News
31[untagged]
5Sublime Porte
4Antifa/BLM
4Taliban
3Boko Haram (ISIS)
3Islamic State
3Govt of Iran
2Govt of Syria
2Arab Spring
2Commies
2Govt of Iran Proxies
2Govt of Iraq
2Hezbollah
1Islamic Jihad (Palestian)
1Hamas
1Palestinian Authority
1PFLP
1Govt of Qatar (MB)
1Devout Moslems
1[untagged]

Bookmark
E-Mail Me

The Classics
The O Club
Rantburg Store
The Bloids
The Never-ending Story
Thugburg
Gulf War I
The Way We Were
Bio

Merry-Go-Blog











On Sale now!


A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.

Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.

Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has dominated Mexico for six years.
Click here for more information

Meet the Mods
In no particular order...
Steve White
Seafarious
tu3031
badanov
sherry
ryuge
GolfBravoUSMC
Bright Pebbles
trailing wife
Gloria
Fred
Besoeker
Glenmore
Frank G
3dc
Skidmark

Two weeks of WOT
Fri 2021-05-07
  400 suspects to be arraigned for funding Boko Haram, bandits
Thu 2021-05-06
  Iran Diplomat's 20-year Sentence for France Bomb Plot Confirmed
Wed 2021-05-05
  Mozambique: Terrorists Attack in Macomia District
Tue 2021-05-04
  Over 60 Taliban, 30 Soldiers Killed in Past Day's Violent Surge
Mon 2021-05-03
  Abbas Wants to Form Palestinian National Unity Government
Sun 2021-05-02
  Over 800 migrants rescued at sea head to Italy
Sat 2021-05-01
  Russia arrests the founder of the largest Islamic
publishing house in Russia for financing ISIS
Fri 2021-04-30
  Iran Revolutionary Guards
Raid President and Foreign Minister's Offices
Thu 2021-04-29
  Boko Haram Releases Photos Of Tanks, Vehicles Captured From Nigerian Army
Wed 2021-04-28
  Afghanistan: US Will not Provide Air Support after Withdrawal
Tue 2021-04-27
  Explosive-laden balloons launched from Gaza towards Israel
Mon 2021-04-26
  Pak: National Counter Terrorism Authority sez more than 19,000 social media accounts taken down for inciting hate and spreading terrorism
Sun 2021-04-25
  Sri Lanka arrests top Muslim leader over 2019 Easter attacks
Sat 2021-04-24
  German court convicts ISIS woman of crimes against humanity for Yazidi enslavement
Fri 2021-04-23
  Nigeria: At Least 83 Killed As Bandits Strike Again in Zamfara


Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
18.222.117.109
Help keep the Burg running! Paypal:
WoT Operations (24)    WoT Background (21)    Non-WoT (16)    Opinion (5)    (0)