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Syrian air defence repels Israeli attack in south: State media
Today's Headlines
Headline Comments [Views]
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Economy
Why the stock market is headed for a swift recovery
[USA Today] Welcome to the last in my series of columns on the year ahead. In my four earlier ones, I covered why December was lousy and why stocks are on the right side of a swift V-shaped recovery. U.S. stocks have climbed more than 10 percent since the market close on Christmas Eve. Accompanied by wild wiggles, the rest of 2019 should be similarly happy.

On December 17, I explained how stocks’ have averaged 34 percent before dividends in the 12 months after all of history’s correction bottoms (meaning a drop of 10 to 19.99 percent in the Standard & Poor's 500 index).

Assuming December 24 remains the bottom, this correction ended later in a calendar year than any correction or bear market ever. An average aftermath now would make 2019 simply stellar, and surprise almost everyone. That’s bullish.

Maybe December 24 wasn’t the bottom. We can’t know for sure. But there were abundant bottomish signals. Mutual fund outflows reached levels only associated with major market bottoms. December outflows matched March, 2009, when the last bear market ended. U.S. stock market liquidity sank like a brick, also echoing prior lows.

Price-to-earnings ratios contracted last year ‐ earnings soared while stocks fell. A simple secret: Basically every year valuations shrink, the next year they expand. So unless earnings fall, stocks rise. Analysts expect 6.9 percent earnings growth in 2019. Earnings almost always exceed analysts’ estimates. Expanding valuations on top of earnings growth would cause big positive stock returns

Good years follow bad years unless you have global recession or world war. We’ve never had two straight negative stock market years ‐ except with the Great Depression, the two World Wars, the early 1970s debacle and the tech bubble. Otherwise, stocks were spring-loaded the next year.

And recession is unlikely. I showed you exactly why last week via the Leading Economic Index series ‐ a great predictor for this.

Many misguided people still think the interest rate "yield curve" inverted, signaling that a downturn lurks. I explained on July 22nd why that is wrong and how to view it correctly to see reality.

But, suppose it were inverted. So what?
Posted by: Besoeker || 01/20/2019 13:53 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  The curve is not inverted but it is very flat.
Posted by: Slolutle Cloluse3142 || 01/20/2019 16:20 Comments || Top||

#2  1998 redux?
Posted by: Jim Cramer6666666 || 01/20/2019 16:22 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Politix
Rep. James Clyburn: No border-security negotiations until Trump ends shutdown
[CNN] Washington (CNN)A day after President Donald Trump offered his plan to end the shutdown and fund a border wall in exchange for temporary protections for groups of immigrants, Democrats stood by their demand to reopen the government before negotiating about the border.

"Let's not hold the American people, especially the federal workers, hostage to these negotiations," South Carolina Rep. Jim Clyburn, a member of Democratic leadership, told Fox News. "And hopefully we will open with what he has put on the table, and let's go back and forth on this and see where we can find common ground."

The Democratic rejection came as Vice President Mike Pence made clear the GOP intended to go forward with the plan the President outlined, positions that combined to show little tangible progress toward ending the longest government shutdown on record.

Trump took to Twitter on Sunday morning to taunt House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and knock her for rejecting the deal.
Posted by: Besoeker || 01/20/2019 13:33 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [2 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Do Congress critters get paid during a shutdown? If so, why?
Posted by: Fat Bob Glaise8594 || 01/20/2019 14:18 Comments || Top||

#2  Yes. Because they write the rules
Posted by: Frank G || 01/20/2019 14:32 Comments || Top||

#3  Wouldn't make a difference if they didn't get paid. Their salary makes up a very small part of their actual income.
Posted by: CrazyFool || 01/20/2019 14:44 Comments || Top||

#4  Nancy Pelosi quick fact

Birthdate: March 26, 1940

Net Worth: $58.7 million to $72.1 million
Posted by: 746 || 01/20/2019 15:08 Comments || Top||

#5  Just remember 'No new taxes'. Bush compromised. The Donks got the taxes, but reneged on cutting the budget. Bush would go on and lose to Clinton. See - I'll hold the football, Charlie Brown
Posted by: Procopius2k || 01/20/2019 16:06 Comments || Top||

#6  Clyburn, Hank Johnson, John Lewis, Mad Maxine. There is a pattern here.
Posted by: SR-71 || 01/20/2019 16:09 Comments || Top||

#7  Start the layoffs and use the savings to stock up on steel and concrete.
Posted by: Alistaire Ebbomolet5794 || 01/20/2019 16:19 Comments || Top||

#8  OK then. Keep it shutdown until 2020. See what happens.
Posted by: Abu Uluque || 01/20/2019 16:29 Comments || Top||

#9  #6. Yep. Massive fraud.
Posted by: Jim Cramer6666666 || 01/20/2019 17:38 Comments || Top||

#10  Yep, P2k, that why I didn't vote for HWBush for his 2nd term. The choices seemed to be Lips Bush, Slick Willie and the Texas Troll....so I voted for the Libertarian.
Posted by: AlanC || 01/20/2019 17:43 Comments || Top||


Jimmy Carter tells Booker: 'I hope you run for president'
[The Hill] Former President Jimmy Carter urged Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) to run for president in an Instagram Live video on Sunday.

Booker, who is known for his social media savvy, took to the platform to film a road trip through Georgia with civil rights leader Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) ahead of MLK Day.

After the two lawmakers attended a church service led by Carter in his hometown of Plains, Booker featured the former president in a video.

"I’m very glad to have you here this morning, and I hope you come back," Carter said. "And I hope you run for president."

Booker thanked Carter, telling him: "You encouraging me means more to me than you can imagine."

Booker is one of a slew of potential Democratic candidates generating buzz ahead of the 2020 election, though he has not yet announced his candidacy.

The New Jersey Democrat also spotted "Booker 2020" buttons for sale at a store.

"I’m right next to Oprah 2020," Booker commented in the video.
Posted by: Besoeker || 01/20/2019 13:21 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Proving once again, bovine ignorance is no respecter of age.
Posted by: Besoeker || 01/20/2019 13:26 Comments || Top||

#2  Jimmuah also hoped putting Khomeini in charge of Iran would be good for everybody. That has worked out so well...
Posted by: M. Murcek || 01/20/2019 13:31 Comments || Top||

#3  Did T-Bone co-pilot?
Posted by: Frank G || 01/20/2019 14:28 Comments || Top||

#4  I hope Spartacus runs, too.
Posted by: SR-71 || 01/20/2019 16:10 Comments || Top||


-Land of the Free
Houston homeowner empties AK mag on masked home invaders, 3 invaders KIA, 2 WIA
HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) -- Authorities are investigating after dozens of shots were fired in east Houston.

According to a detective, the incident began as a home invasion at the 7000 block of Sherman. Authorities say the homeowner defended himself when the suspects entered the home. Following the shooting, the suspects fled from the scene.

Police have set up a perimeter stretching from Harrisburg to Sherman to Capitol, along 71st Street. At another scene, a vehicle was found about two blocks from the shooting, where a man was found dead in the backseat.

Authorities say that out of five people shot, three of them died.

A witness at the scene says he went outside when he heard the shots to make sure he wasn't dreaming. In the exclusive interview, the man added he saw two other guys in the front of the home, on the ground.

"I heard around five or six gunshots. I'm pretty sure there were more before that," he said. At some point, officers with guns drawn were seen searching a port-a-potty.
Posted by: Besoeker || 01/20/2019 13:07 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  officers with guns drawn were seen searching a port-a-potty.

"We asked ourselves, where would a piece of sh1t hide? It seemed logical"
Posted by: Frank G || 01/20/2019 14:23 Comments || Top||

#2  I've heard they've been having Amish problems lately. Hard to tell since there's no descriptions of the perps.
Posted by: BrerRabbit || 01/20/2019 15:11 Comments || Top||

#3  I searched the story, discovered that the 20 year old homeowner (impressive!) was distantly acquainted with the bad guys. It is interesting that no names at all are mentioned,

There is news video of neighbours being interviewed in English and Spanish, and a few seconds of female relatives of the bad guys clinging to one another as they cry in the street over their loss — but nothing at all related to the homeowner. Very odd.
Posted by: trailing wife || 01/20/2019 17:17 Comments || Top||

#4  Frank wins the internet today
Posted by: Angotch Flaing8434 || 01/20/2019 18:43 Comments || Top||

#5  Following the shooting, the suspects fled from the scene.

But not very well.
Posted by: gorb || 01/20/2019 18:59 Comments || Top||

#6  It isn't a particularly nice neighborhood.
Posted by: Neville Gonque3407 || 01/20/2019 20:00 Comments || Top||

#7  It's apparently a neighbor in transition from bad to better. So while it's possible this was a raid on a dealers house, it might also be a raid on what used to be a dealer's house but is no longer. Some have speculated he knew they were coming and ambushed them. Dunno. Moredeadcriminals.
Posted by: Silentbrick || 01/20/2019 20:37 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Politix
Andrew McCarthy: Debunking BuzzFeed and the Wages of Investigative Secrecy
[National Review] BuzzFeed published an explosive allegation that the president of the United States ordered his former lawyer, Michael Cohen, to lie to congressional committees investigating Russia’s interference in the 2016 election. Specifically, in a news story sourced to two anonymous law-enforcement officials said to be "involved in an investigation of the matter," the site reported that Special Counsel Robert Mueller had learned, though multiple witnesses and documents, of President Trump’s alleged instruction to Cohen; subsequently, upon being confronted by prosecutors, Cohen had supposedly admitted that Trump gave the order.

As a rule, Mueller does not comment on press reports about his probe. Yet, in a highly unusual move Friday night, the prosecutor refuted the story by reporters Jason Leopold and Anthony Cormier. Through a spokesman, Mueller asserted:

BuzzFeed’s description of specific statements to the special counsel’s office, and characterization of documents and testimony obtained by this office, regarding Michael Cohen’s congressional testimony are not accurate.

Clearly, Mueller did the right thing. The reporting had triggered a frenzy of commentary by Trump critics that impeachment was imminent, and even many chagrined Trump supporters conceded that, if the report was true, the presidency was in grave peril. Had Mueller stood idly by, the administration, and thus the governance of the nation, would have been engulfed in a ruinous storm of suspicion. It is not the special counsel’s job to correct bad reporting, but it would have been irresponsible to stay mum in these circumstances if the story was false.

Nevertheless, this incident highlights how investigative secrecy has wrongly been given pride of place. In the Mueller probe, the desire of prosecutors to go about their business in stealth ‐ to attempt to build a case on undisclosed crimes based on unknown evidence; to prevent witnesses from gaming their testimony and evidence from being tampered with ‐ has been prioritized over the president’s ability to govern the country.

Even in the rare situation when they are actually necessary, special-prosecutor investigations against a president are bad for the country. When the president is the subject of a criminal investigation, when the specter of impeachment hovers, it wounds the executive branch. The political bleeding makes it difficult for the president to deal with Congress, foreign governments, and myriad challenges of governance. The administration finds it ever harder to recruit talented people for jobs in which we desperately need talented people ‐ no worthy person wants to leave safe, professionally rewarding, and financially lucrative opportunities in the private sector to come serve the country if it may mean having to hire lawyers and go through the anxiety of investigations.

The president is not above the law. Consequently, we must tolerate these challenges when there is evidence of a president’s involvement in a serious crime. But that’s why we should be told exactly what the serious crime is and what evidence allegedly implicates the president.
Posted by: Besoeker || 01/20/2019 12:43 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under:


Africa Subsaharan
The horrors Zimbabwe doesn't want the world to see
Hundreds of Zimbabweans have been beaten, detained or killed in recent days as the Government cracks down on protesters speaking out against the regime.

Violence has erupted in the country after a huge fuel price hike which saw the cost increase by more than 200 per cent to $3.31 (£2.57) per litre.
Meet the new boss, same as the old boss
Posted by: Spot || 01/20/2019 10:20 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I wonder how many Zimbabweans would buy a ticket on the Time Machine and go back to old Rhodesia days.
Posted by: SteveS || 01/20/2019 11:00 Comments || Top||


Israel-Palestine-Jordan
Syrian air defence repels Israeli attack in south: State media
[AlJazeera] The Syrian military has thwarted an Israeli attack, shooting down several missiles in the south of the country, state media and Russia's Ministry of Defense said.

"Our air defence systems thwarted ... an Israeli air aggression ... and prevented it from achieving any of its goals," a military source told state news agency SANA on Sunday.

Russia's Ministry of Defense said in a Twitter post that the Syrian military destroyed seven Israeli rockets near Damascus airport.

Shortly after the incident, Israel's military said its Iron Dome missile defense system shot down a rocket that had been fired at the northern part of the occupied Golan Heights on the Syria frontier on Sunday.

The military statement did not specify where the rocket had been launched from. The northern Golan is also close to Lebanese territory.

War News Update opines:
At the same time of this attack a huge explosion occurred in Damascus near an intelligence building .... Syria: 'Huge explosion'' rocks Damascus (DW). More here .... 'Huge explosion' in Syria capital causes fatalities: monitor (AFP).
Repel doesn't mean after the fact.
A palpable point, that.
Posted by: Fat Bob Glaise8594 || 01/20/2019 10:03 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Syria

#1  I’ve set this as today’s headline. Good find, Fat Bob Glaise8594! Thank you for being on top of this for us.
Posted by: trailing wife || 01/20/2019 11:55 Comments || Top||

#2  a rocket was fired into Israel from Syria and the Iron Dome system shotit down - actual video evidence was available and shown, unlike the Syrian "successful" shootdown of Joooo Zionist projectiles. The huge explosion and destruction was probably Syrian propaganda blowing up

*snicker*
Posted by: Frank G || 01/20/2019 12:31 Comments || Top||


International-UN-NGOs
Facing populist assault, global elites regroup in Davos
[SeattleTimes] For most of the past quarter-century, the worldview symbolized by the World Economic Forum -- of ever-freer world trade and closer ties between countries -- had dominated. Then came a backlash from Americans and Europeans whose jobs were threatened by low-wage competition from countries like China and who felt alienated at home by wealth inequality and immigration.

In 2016, U.S. voters elected Trump, who advocated restricting immigration and scaling back free trade, and the British chose to leave the EU.

"The winners from globalization have had the megaphone," said Paul Sheard, a senior fellow at the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government at Harvard University's Kennedy School. "The losers have been somewhat silent, but now are starting to express themselves through the ballot box and through the political process."
Indeed.
In a report this month, Sterne noted that most major economies performed dramatically worse than expected after the 2007-2009 Great Recession. He blames many central banks == besides the U.S. Federal Reserve == for not responding to sluggish growth more aggressively with easy money policies. And, Sterne says, politicians should have juiced growth with tax cuts and higher government spending.

"There was genuine underperformance by the big institutions," he said. The result is a populist backlash. "If you don't do anything about your failings, they can come back and bite you."

Sterne worries that the populist response "could trigger radical and ill-conceived" policies that overshoot and drive up inflation and swell government budget deficits.

The ride could get even bumpier. The World Economic Forum is focusing on what it calls the "Fourth Industrial Revolution" -- a series of rapid advances in technology and medicine expected to transform society. Advances in robotics and artificial intelligence could further threaten jobs and feed the populist revolt.

"We seem to be on the cusp of an incredible new era of automation and critical breakthroughs in health sciences," Sheard said. "But how do we manage this process? And how do we manage it in a way that doesn’t leave millions of people behind?"
Millions of yellow vesters.
Posted by: Fat Bob Glaise8594 || 01/20/2019 08:52 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  One guess as to who won't be attending.
Posted by: Alistaire Ebbomolet5794 || 01/20/2019 16:09 Comments || Top||

#2  The losers have been somewhat silent silenced, FIFY
Posted by: AlanC || 01/20/2019 17:28 Comments || Top||


-Signs, Portents, and the Weather-
Total lunar eclipse meets supermoon Sunday night
Posted by: Fat Bob Glaise8594 || 01/20/2019 08:44 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:


Home Front: Politix
Congressman Mark Meadows, Trump whisperer
[Politico] When Mark Meadows didn’t get President Donald Trump’s chief of staff gig, he wasn’t losing much.

Just 10 days later, the powerful conservative lawmaker managed to engineer what has since become the longest-running government shutdown ‐ convincing Trump to pull the trigger right as the partial closure was on the brink of being avoided.

Meadows picked up the phone to make his move just after Vice President Mike Pence had told lawmakers over lunch on Dec. 19 ‐ two days before government funding would expire ‐ that Trump was prepared to sign a clean spending bill to keep the government open through early February. The North Carolina Republican, who helped shutter the government in 2013 during a revolt against Obamacare, wasn’t prepared to back away from demanding funds for a border wall. And despite Pence’s clear-as-day comments, he assumed the president wasn’t either.

Meadows was right.
A lengthy and revealing article
Posted by: Besoeker || 01/20/2019 07:51 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:


-Lurid Crime Tales-
While Democrats dither over the border wall, deadly fentanyl floods our communities
[Wash Examiner] On Christmas Day, 18-month-old Ava Floyd ingested "a large quantity" of fentanyl while her parents were producing and packing the potent drug for sale at their home in Clinton Township, Mich. That afternoon, Ava died at a local hospital. An autopsy found that her tiny body contained "15 times as much fentanyl as officials have seen in recent overdose deaths."

I read the heartbreaking story of Ava’s death just before I entered my daughter’s room to turn her ambient sound machine from lullabies to white noise. From the side of her crib, I looked down at my daughter’s sprawled-out sleeping form, all 23 pounds of her brimming with limitless potential. I reached my hand down to touch her chest, to feel it rise and fall, thinking of the thousands of hours I have devoted to keeping her safe and happy.

As I often do, I worried about her future.

Before I read about Ava, I mostly worried about what might happen when my daughter began to attend the local high school, just over an hour west of Clinton Twp., which has earned its nickname, "Heroin High," from the drug problems that plague our town. At the playgroup where I bring my daughter twice a week, mothers who graduated from the high school sometimes share stories about how heroin sales take place at the school, despite the constant surveillance of security guards. When they sense my abject horror, they say things like, "It’s not a big deal, you just learn to stay away from it," as though heroin is a series of unmarked physical pits in the hallways that an unwary student might accidentally fall inside.
Posted by: Besoeker || 01/20/2019 07:45 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Narcos

#1  Ending the lives Planned Parenthood doesn't get a shot at ending. The dems really have no problem with this and neither do alleged "conservatives" like Kevin Williamson at Notional Review. Expecting a solution from those quarters is futile...
Posted by: M. Murcek || 01/20/2019 9:58 Comments || Top||

#2  Dick Chaney introduced me to that most useful word Dither. So appropriate when applied especially to Democrats.
Posted by: Dale || 01/20/2019 10:05 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Culture Wars
Body Parts, Foul Language Dominate D.C. Women's March
[Breitbart] Body parts, foul language, and hate speech took center stage at the third Women’s March in Washington, DC, on Saturday. Women and men clad in pussy hats carried signs cursing President Donald Trump and praising female genitalia and reproductive organs.

Pussy hats and pussy signs were plentiful at the third annual Women’s March on Friday in Washington, DC (Penny Starr/Breitbart News).

The March, which was held on the National Mall in 2017 and 2018, was centered this year at the much smaller Freedom Plaza venue. The move and pared down participation came after months of negative publicity about the Women’s March’s leadership and its ties to anti-Semite Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan.

Signs denigrating President Donald Trump were displayed at the Women’s March on Saturday in Washington, DC (Penny Starr/Breitbart News).

One of the co-founders of the march, Teresa Shook, called for Tamika Mallory, Linda Sarsour, Carmen Perez, and Bob Bland to step down for promoting discrimination. The charges snowballed to cause numerous "sister marches" to cancel and many prominent sponsors, including the Democratic National Committee (DNC), to pull support.
Posted by: Besoeker || 01/20/2019 07:34 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Understanding bachelorhood just become much, much easier.
Posted by: Besoeker || 01/20/2019 7:41 Comments || Top||

#2  Body Parts, Foul Language Dominate D.C. Women's March

...And this surprises anyone why...?

Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski || 01/20/2019 7:52 Comments || Top||

#3  A classic example of oxic feminism.
Posted by: Seeking Cure For Ignorance || 01/20/2019 14:16 Comments || Top||

#4  Toxic feminism
Posted by: Seeking Cure For Ignorance || 01/20/2019 14:18 Comments || Top||

#5  #3 I thought that was a new term for "feminists who resemble oxen"
Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 || 01/20/2019 17:27 Comments || Top||


'Schmucks with Underwoods'
The first rule of journalism is, as in screenwriting, "show, don't tell." It's no wonder early Hollywood was populated with ex-newspapermen, who took their fastest-typewriters-in-the-West from New York and Chicago to the actual West and hired themselves out as scenarists and, when the talkies came, screenwriters. As Herman Mankiewicz wrote to Ben Hecht: "millions are to be grabbed out here and your only competition is idiots." Less appealingly, Jack Warner referred to his hired scribes as "schmucks with Underwoods."

Today's journalists are no different in their passion for narrative-spinning. Most of them have forsaken whatever dreams they once had about selling that big spec script for zillions -- and in any case there's almost no market for original specs in Hollywood these days -- but they've found that they can still make stuff up and get paid for it. Of course, they're still schmucks.

Case in point is Friday's one-day wonder, the BuzzFeed "scoop" that Trump told his shyster lawyer, Michael Cohen (a schmuck is there ever was one), to lie to Congress about his alleged dealings on a Trump Tower project in Moscow that never happened.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 01/20/2019 06:13 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Washington - Hollyweird for ugly people.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 01/20/2019 7:55 Comments || Top||

#2  American's have been blessed with a decentralized media through most of their history and a culture that strongly embraces the idea of a truly free press. When competition occurs, truth floats to the top, more often than not.

But the press has been centralized under a few corporations. I ask myself, what would Teddy do?
Posted by: Fat Bob Glaise8594 || 01/20/2019 14:41 Comments || Top||

#3  1 - the press in 'free press' is about the technology for the free flow of information. The cultural institution now known as the 'press' did not exist back then. The media is just as active suppressing, corrupting, or manufacturing what they claim is 'news' thus conspiring to destroy the free flow of information.

2 - the 'press' that hammers manufacturers and service providers for inferior or fraudulent products or deliveries should be held to the same standards for their product and punished accordingly. Libel laws need to conform to the equal standing clause of the 14th Amendment. There should be no public or private separation definition.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 01/20/2019 16:12 Comments || Top||

#4  And now the Covington students story and the eager participation of "conservative" "thought leaders" in their crucifixion.
Posted by: charger || 01/20/2019 19:50 Comments || Top||

#5  Imo, had they been using Underwoods, Remingtons or even IBM Selectric's, the story may have never been written.

"Journalists" used to have to think about what they were writing, the copy then had to be set up, then printed, then delivered to the reader on murdered trees - each step allowed for cooler heads to prevail.

Today, however, the release is instantaneous - reptilian brain to reader in the key of now. From people who, at one time, relied upon graffiti readers for real-time validation.

But they're still schmucks.
Posted by: Anomalous Sources || 01/20/2019 21:53 Comments || Top||


America: The New Socialist Frontier
[HotAir] From the Democrats’ perspective, President Donald J. Trump is a disrupter of what had been a smooth transition to the bright socialist future. In a concerted effort to denigrate the President and paralyze executive authority, they are branding him a racist and blatantly subvert every program on his agenda. To render him ineffective, they actively support a collective mania for ever more sweeping investigations of dubious claims, rumors, unsubstantiated allegations and innuendos that has descended over the President, his family, his associates, and nominees. People who cannot even spell "impeachment" demand one without any substantiation. They act as if their fiat is turning the country into chaos, or as Lenin called it, "revolutionary environment."

Unfortunately, the contemporary political thinking of the American people is more backward than that of the Russians or Chinese, and too many of them are living in a flat-earth, know-nothing, Jesse Watters’ world. Neither education, nor upbringing, nor life experience prepares Americans for grasping the veracity of the socialist assault on the American way of life.

Thanks to the fatuity of the American public, there has not been any effective comprehension of the totality of the assault nor its enervating effect upon national vigilance.

Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 01/20/2019 06:05 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:


Home Front: Politix
Dueling twitter blondes - Ann Coulter BASHES Trump amnesty deal; but Laura Ingraham likes it
[Right Scoop] Trump has announced his amnesty deal and as expected, Ann Coulter is not happy: That’s mean! But on the other end of the spectrum, Laura Ingraham sounds OK with the deal: She . . .
Posted by: Besoeker || 01/20/2019 02:37 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  You know its really not a deal if you already understand your opponent is not going to take it.

“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”
― Sun Tzu, The Art of War
Posted by: Procopius2k || 01/20/2019 7:53 Comments || Top||

#2  The only "deal" the dems will do is a Romney-McCain-Kasich-Bush style bipartisan total capitulation to the demmunist position. Anything else is "rabid partisanship."
Posted by: M. Murcek || 01/20/2019 9:22 Comments || Top||

#3  P2K - you took the words right out of my mouth.
Posted by: warthogswife || 01/20/2019 12:27 Comments || Top||


Britain
Northern Ireland: Suspected car bomb explodes in Londonderry
[DW] Northern Irish police posted a picture of what appeared to be a burning car in front of a courthouse. Irish politicians have condemned what they called a terrorist attack. No one was injured by the explosion.

A suspected car bomb exploded in the Northern Irish city of Londonderry late on Saturday, police have said.

"As far as we know no one injured," police wrote on Facebook.

A photo posted by the police's Twitter account showed what appeared to be a car in flames outside of a courthouse near the city center.
Posted by: Besoeker || 01/20/2019 02:33 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  The Political Wing of Irish Muslims™?
Posted by: Frank G || 01/20/2019 9:03 Comments || Top||

#2  Just what Ireland needed Frank, a 3 way religious war.
Posted by: AlanC || 01/20/2019 10:05 Comments || Top||


-Lurid Crime Tales-
The party of perverts? Yet another bigfoot Democrat donor arrested
[American Thinker] Do Democrats have a #MeToo problem? Or more to the point, a pervert problem?

Yet another prominent Democratic Party donor got arrested for sex with a 16-year-old. Oregon Public Broadcasting reports:
A prominent Democratic Party donor and gay rights activist has been charged with sex crimes involving a child younger than 16.

Real estate developer Terry Bean pleaded not guilty to two counts of sodomy and one count of sexual abuse Thursday in Lane County court. Prosecutors say the charges stem from an incident in September 2013. A grand jury voted to indict Bean earlier this month, but the indictment was secret until his arraignment.
His arrest follows the news from Los Angeles about the mysterious, sexually linked death of a second black man at the home of another bigfoot Democratic Party donor, Ed Buck, who's been called a "serial predator" by investigative reporter Jasmyne Cannick, who's been on his case for years. Democrats have maintained silence about this one, refusing even to say whether they'll return the political donations they took from Buck to their benefit. (Exception: Rep. Karen Bass, who returned her donation from him several years ago, after the first body turned up.) Still no word from Adam Schiff...

Over in Arizona this year, there was also the case of Democrat donor Sal James Rivera, who was busted for assaulting a woman in a car after asking her to take him home, claiming he was too drunk to drive. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema and Rep. David Garcia both took cash from this one.
Posted by: Besoeker || 01/20/2019 02:19 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  On perverts, nothing in the news from Hillary and Bill in days, possibly weeks.
Posted by: Besoeker || 01/20/2019 2:24 Comments || Top||

#2  Priestly corruption is usual in theocracies
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 01/20/2019 5:52 Comments || Top||

#3  I believe Obama's saying applies here best, "the new normal" as he referenced to the economy applies equally well here.
Posted by: Dale || 01/20/2019 10:17 Comments || Top||


-Obits-
Foto Hiking Yosemite while intoxicated, the downside
[LA Times] A Bay Area couple who died after falling from a popular overlook at Yosemite National Park were intoxicated at the time, according to autopsy reports.

Vishnu Viswanath, 29, and his wife, Meenakshi Moorthy, 30, died Oct. 25 after plunging about 800 feet from Taft Point, park officials said. The husband and wife were citizens of India who were living in the U.S.

The couple died of "multiple injuries to the head, neck, chest and abdomen, sustained by a fall from a mountain," Dr. Sung-Ook Baik, a forensic pathologist in the Stanislaus County Coroner’s Office, wrote in his Jan. 4 report, according to the San Jose Mercury News.

Viswanath and Moorthy were "intoxicated with ethyl alcohol prior to death," Baik said in the document, which included toxicology reports. Ethyl alcohol is found in beer, wine and hard liquor.

The sheriff’s department is still investigating how the pair fell.
At about .5 terminal velocity. Why do you ask ?
Viswanath’s brother, Jishnu Viswanath, told the Associated Press at the time that the couple had set up a tripod-mounted camera near the ledge of Taft Point on the evening of Oct. 23.

Park visitors saw the camera the next morning and alerted rangers, who "used high-powered binoculars to find them and used helicopters to airlift the bodies," he said.

In March, Moorthy posted a photo of herself on Instagram, sitting on a cliff at the North Rim of the Grand Canyon in a shirt that said "Sunset Chaser." In the caption, she wrote about the dangers of taking dramatic, high-risk photos for likes on social media.
Posted by: Besoeker || 01/20/2019 02:09 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Sunset, Mt. Darwin (bonus: Mt Mendel)

Posted by: Tiny Elmineper7984 || 01/20/2019 6:56 Comments || Top||

#2  Abandoned, one camera and Garwin.
A selfie at sunset with Darwin,
A wee little drop,
A quick karmic kerplop,
And, "Time, please," from the heavenly barman.
Posted by: Zenobia Floger6220 || 01/20/2019 7:03 Comments || Top||

#3  Taft point now renamed the "V & M Overlook."
Posted by: Besoeker || 01/20/2019 7:33 Comments || Top||

#4  Did they get any good pics?
Posted by: Mrs. Davis || 01/20/2019 8:26 Comments || Top||

#5  “Hey Honey, did this fall make my ass look splat?”
Posted by: USN, Ret. || 01/20/2019 8:50 Comments || Top||

#6  USN Ret. for the early lead in the Snark O'The Day contest...
Posted by: Raj || 01/20/2019 9:04 Comments || Top||

#7  "Here, hold our beers"
Posted by: Frank G || 01/20/2019 9:06 Comments || Top||

#8  "Look at meeeeeeeee......."
Posted by: M. Murcek || 01/20/2019 9:06 Comments || Top||

#9  #6 - seconded
Posted by: Frank G || 01/20/2019 9:06 Comments || Top||

#10  And Besoeker wins the kinematic equation award for the day.

Nicely done,sir.
Posted by: Anomalous Sources || 01/20/2019 22:06 Comments || Top||


Africa Horn
US airstrikes kill 52 Islamic militants in Somalia (Wash Examiner take on DW article found below)
[Wash Examiner] U.S. forces killed an estimated 52 members of the militant Islamic terrorist group al Shabab in airstrikes in Jilib, Somalia, on Saturday, U.S. Africa Command reported.

Al Shabab, an organization linked to al Qaeda, claimed responsibility for an attack on a Nairobi hotel in Kenya Wednesday that left 14 dead, as well as seven attackers.

"U.S. Africa Command conducted the airstrike in response to an attack by a large group of al-Shabaab militants against Somali National Army Forces," U.S. Africa Command, the branch of the military that coordinates with allies on the continent, said in a statement. The strike was part of a broader effort to prevent the terrorist group from "taking advantage of safe havens from which they can build capacity and attack the people of Somalia."

The action brings the total number of U.S. airstrikes this year to six, and the total number of suspected militants killed to 78. Last year, the U.S. reported that it killed 323 al Shabab militants in 41 separate strikes.

The al Shabab group is centered in southern and central Somalia and is believed to be responsible Somalia’s deadliest attack, a truck bomb in Mogadishu in 2017 that killed more than 500 people in 2017. Four years before that, in 2013, its militants targeted a shopping center in Westgate, Nairobi, killing 67 people. In addition to terrorism, the group steals humanitarian aid and extorts the local population, U.S. Africa Command said.
Posted by: Besoeker || 01/20/2019 01:56 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under: al-Shabaab (AQ)


Home Front: Politix
Democrats Immediately Reject Trump's Offer to End Shutdown
[PJ] If Donald Trump thought he could end the partial government shutdown by dangling some tantalizing tidbits to Democrats on DACA recipients and Temporary Protected Status holders, he was immediately disabused of that notion when the Democratic leadership flatly rejected his proposals.

The Hill:
Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) said that Trump offering some protections for DACA and TPS recipients "in exchange for the wall is not a compromise but more hostage taking."
Trump "keeps putting forward one-sided and ineffective remedies. There’s only way out: open up the government, Mr. President, and then Democrats and Republicans can have a civil discussion and come up with bipartisan solutions," Schumer added.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), in a statement released shortly before Trump's speech, said the proposal couldn't pass the House and is a "non-starter."

Was this just more political maneuvering by the president or a genuine effort to end the stalemate on the budget?
Posted by: Besoeker || 01/20/2019 01:52 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Last gesture before 30 days then RIF and no money for food stamps rear their heads.

If numbers of the 800,000 have worked enough free days or are veterans or high level managers they have a chance of retaining those jobs. Otherwise they need to pray Donald Trump doesn't enter a hardball game and yell RIF!
Posted by: 3dc || 01/20/2019 2:16 Comments || Top||

#2  On the food stamp timeline. If you have poor areas on your commute it might be worth changing your route.
Posted by: 3dc || 01/20/2019 2:17 Comments || Top||

#3  Now that Dems have turned down the offer Trump should no longer negotiate and just start turning up the heat: cancel all remittances to Mexico and Central America, turn up deportations in Blue States, tighten up the border with additional state national guard, begin furlough of GIVERnment employees....
Posted by: Airandee || 01/20/2019 6:07 Comments || Top||

#4  It's not about the wall. It's about power. Like the Gracchus brother attempt to dilute the power of the vote to all of Roman Italy beyond the tribes of Rome. The Donks are now clearly signalling that they want to dilute the power of 'Americans' with non-Americans. Like Rome, there will be a civil war. Look around and enjoy what you see and experience cause when the war gets going, it will all disappear. Think of a Katrina event but not isolated to one region, but the whole country. There will be no one from the outside rushing to 'rescue' you and get services back on line.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 01/20/2019 7:48 Comments || Top||

#5  The Dems attitude toward the US citizen:

Posted by: Neville Dark Lord of the Wee Folk7365 || 01/20/2019 8:31 Comments || Top||

#6  All the government workers who voted democrat got what they asked for. Idiots.
Posted by: Fat Bob Glaise8594 || 01/20/2019 8:33 Comments || Top||

#7  House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), in a statement released shortly before Trump's speech


"whatever his proposal is, it's rejected. But he's responsible for the shutdown"
Posted by: Frank G || 01/20/2019 9:05 Comments || Top||

#8  By their behavior we can see which side is/believes it is winning - Pelosi is standing fast and Trump is offering concessions... Trump must feel he is losing in the polls.
Posted by: Glenmore || 01/20/2019 10:57 Comments || Top||

#9  He's showing flexibility. She's showing she's more afraid of her parties left
Posted by: Frank G || 01/20/2019 11:17 Comments || Top||

#10  If Dems refuse to accept reasonable compromise for a vote they agreed to under previous administrations the polls will start to drastically tip towards Trump's favor.
Posted by: ruprecht || 01/20/2019 11:57 Comments || Top||

#11  Dems are so accustomed to winning these standoffs that any other outcome is unthinkable.
Posted by: Iblis || 01/20/2019 12:08 Comments || Top||

#12  I've read some pretty credible explanations saying that the current shutdown situation does not meet the requirements for a RIF. I certainly hope he can RIF a bunch of the workforce.
Posted by: Neville Gonque3407 || 01/20/2019 14:17 Comments || Top||

#13  The national representatives are divided beyond the ability to compromise. They are further apart than during Lincolns time. We are headed for dark times...
Posted by: 49 Pan || 01/20/2019 15:06 Comments || Top||

#14  P2K, I don't know who you think is gonna do all this fighting. I understand that underestimating one's enemy is piss poor strategy but, try as I might, I cannot picture these people raising an army, certainly not the kind that would have any hope of taking Camp Pendleton.



That said, if Nancy doesn't want to negotiate about the Dreamers then Trump should start deporting them.
Posted by: Abu Uluque || 01/20/2019 16:11 Comments || Top||

#15  ...they expect the military to obey them. History shows games like that shatters the military. Given that there are not enough even of the uniform military to cover all the infrastructure, they'll fall back upon the local 1)true believers, 2)their other loyal voting group, felons (penal battalions with promises of 'free other peoples' stuff'), and 3) [the classic] cannon fodder. They've demonstrated time and again, they don't understand war. They don't understand real history. It's just like the socialists, they figure they just got to find the right people to do it. Meanwhile, they'll keep the mob motivated. Then the black swan event occurs.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 01/20/2019 19:03 Comments || Top||


-Lurid Crime Tales-
Trump Thanks Mueller For Slapping Back At Buzzfeed Story
[Hot Air] President Trump left the White House on Saturday morning to travel to Dover Air Force Base to pay tribute to four fallen American heroes, the victims of a suicide bomb attack in Syria. He will be meeting with their families. As is his habit now, he stopped to answer questions from the press before boarding Marine One. He was asked about the Buzzfeed story and thanked Mueller’s Office of Special Counsel (OSC) for issuing a statement strongly pushing back on the credibility of the story.

’It hurts me to say it but mainstream media has really hurt its credibility", Trump said. He called the story ‐ one that claimed President Trump instructed his former lawyer Michael Cohen to lie to Congress about a prospective business deal in Moscow a "total phony story" and a "disgrace to the country, to journalism. Media coverage was disgraceful." Apparently, disgraceful is the word of the day. He’s not wrong.

Related: Mark Levin: Mueller's Office Released Buzzfeed Report Denial 'To Cover Their Asses’
Posted by: Besoeker || 01/20/2019 01:46 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  ...Given the number of "THIS-time-we've-got-him!" stories that have blown up in the Media's face, I'm starting to see this as a Road Runner cartoon...and DJT is the Road Runner.

Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski || 01/20/2019 7:57 Comments || Top||

#2  Not Bugs Bunny?
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 01/20/2019 13:00 Comments || Top||

#3  CBS reported last night that Buzzfeed is sticking by its story with the implication being that CBS is sticking by Buzzfeed. They just can't let go.
Posted by: Abu Uluque || 01/20/2019 16:18 Comments || Top||


-Short Attention Span Theater-
Four women found guilty after leaving food and water for migrants in Arizona desert
[The Hill] A federal judge on Friday reportedly found four women guilty of misdemeanors after they illegally entered a national wildlife refuge along the US-Mexico border to leave water and food for undocumented migrants.

According to The Arizona Republic, the four women were aid volunteers for No More Deaths, an advocacy group dedicated to ending the deaths of undocumented immigrants crossing desert regions near the southern border.

One of the volunteers with the group, Natalie Hoffman, was found guilty of three charges against her, including operating a vehicle inside the Cabeza Prieta national wildlife refuge, entering a federally-protected wilderness area without a permit, and leaving behind gallons on water and bean cans.

The charges reportedly stemmed from an August 2017 encounter with a U.S. Fish and Wildlife officer at the wildlife refuge.

The other three co-defendants ‐ which includes Oona Holcomb, Madeline Huse and Zaachila Orozco-McCormick ‐ were reportedly passengers in Hoffman’s truck at the time and were also charged with entering federally-protected area without a permit in addition to leaving behind personal property.

Each of the women face up to six months in prison for the charges and a $500 fine after being found guilty.
Posted by: Besoeker || 01/20/2019 01:30 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  You enjoy visiting Cabeza Prieta? Excellent! You can pick up trash there for the next 12 months. Have a nice day.
Posted by: Besoeker || 01/20/2019 1:34 Comments || Top||

#2  Treason carries the death penalty, aiding and abetting foreign invaders is treason. Impale them along the border, and leave them as a warning.
Posted by: Silentbrick || 01/20/2019 4:18 Comments || Top||

#3  What part of "Don't Feed the Bears" don't you understand?
Posted by: Procopius2k || 01/20/2019 8:01 Comments || Top||

#4  "undocumented migrants"
Posted by: Raj || 01/20/2019 9:02 Comments || Top||

#5  "Bean cans? You think we crossed the border with can openers? Ay Caramba!"
Posted by: Frank G || 01/20/2019 9:22 Comments || Top||

#6  And didn't the nice guatemalan caravan lady say that "beans aren't fit for pigs?"
Posted by: M. Murcek || 01/20/2019 9:25 Comments || Top||

#7  Vlad knew how to slow down an invasion.
Posted by: AlanC || 01/20/2019 10:08 Comments || Top||

#8  "undocumented migrants"

Why does the press insist on sing this misleading phrase?
Posted by: Bright Pebbles || 01/20/2019 19:48 Comments || Top||


-Lurid Crime Tales-
San Francisco pier shooter seeks dismissal of gun charge
[SFGate] A Mexican man who touched off a fierce immigration debate over his role in the shooting death of a woman walking on a San Francisco pier is seeking to overturn his felony gun possession conviction. It was the only charge he was found guilty of after a jury acquitted him of murder.

Jose Inez Garcia-Zarate had been deported five times at the time of the shooting and was wanted for a sixth deportation proceeding.

Lawyers for Garcia-Zarate filed the expected appeal last week in state court. He contends he didn't know a gun was in his hands because it was wrapped in a T-shirt when it fired and he dropped it almost immediately after picking it up. He argues in court papers that he can't be convicted of illegal gun possession.

Garcia-Zarate was charged with murder and illegal gun possession for the fatal shooting of Kate Steinle in July 2015. Steinle was shot in the back was she walked with her father on a city pier crowded with tourists taking in the sights.

Garcia-Zarate had been recently released from jail after prosecutors dropped a 20-year-old marijuana possession charge. He had been transferred to San Francisco's jail after serving nearly four years in federal prison for illegal re-entry into the United States.
Posted by: Besoeker || 01/20/2019 01:21 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Government and its judicial system forgot what justice was all about. Go back to the beginning. Grant citizens the defense of 'right of vendetta' when the state fails. That will remove a lot of crossing t's and dotting i's seeking perfection in process that the systems has wrapped itself up in.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 01/20/2019 8:00 Comments || Top||

#2  Unbelievable.
Posted by: NoMoreBS || 01/20/2019 13:16 Comments || Top||


Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia
"Managing Russia's dissolution" - neocons want to destroy Russia and break it up
[TheHill] Russia has failed to develop into a nation state with a strong ethnic or civic identity. It remains an imperial construct due to its Tsarist and Soviet heritage.

The unwieldy Russian Federation consists of 85 "federal subjects," of which 22 are republics representing non-Russian ethnicities, including the North Caucasus and Middle Volga, and numerous regions with distinct identities that feel increasingly estranged from Moscow.

Instead of pursuing decentralization to accommodate regional aspirations, the Kremlin is downgrading their autonomy. This is evident in the new language law designed to promote "Russification" and plans to merge and eliminate several regions.

Pressure is mounting across the country, with growing anger at local governors appointed by the Kremlin and resentment that Moscow appropriates their resources. Indeed, regions such as Sakha and Magadan in the far east, with their substantial mineral wealth, could be successful states without Moscow’s exploitation.

Given Russia’s ailments, an assertive Western approach would be more effective than reactive defense. Washington needs to return to core principles that accompanied the collapse of the Soviet Union by supporting democratization, pluralism, minority rights, genuine federalism, decentralization and regional self-determination among Russia’s disparate regions and ethnic groups.
Isn't that what they accuse Russia of doing to us?
The rationale for dissolution should be logically framed: In order to survive, Russia needs a federal democracy and a robust economy; with no democratization on the horizon and economic conditions deteriorating, the federal structure will become increasingly ungovernable.

To manage the process of dissolution and lessen the likelihood of conflict that spills over state borders, the West needs to establish links with Russia’s diverse regions and promote their peaceful transition toward statehood.

NATO should prepare contingencies for both the dangers and the opportunities that Russia’s fragmentation will present. In particular, Moscow’s European neighbors must be provided with sufficient security to shield themselves from the most destabilizing scenarios while preparations are made for engaging with emerging post-Russia entities.

Some regions could join countries such as Finland, Ukraine, China and Japan, from whom Moscow has forcefully appropriated territories in the past. Other republics in the North Caucasus, Middle Volga, Siberia and the far east could become fully independent states and forge relations with China, Japan, the U.S. and Europe.

Neglecting Russia’s dissolution may prove more damaging to Western interests than making preparations to manage its international repercussions. To avoid sudden geopolitical jolts and possible military confrontations, Washington needs to monitor and encourage a peaceful rupture and establish links with emerging entities.
Posted by: Herb McCoy || 01/20/2019 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Making friends & influencing people.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 01/20/2019 5:41 Comments || Top||

#2  And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? - Matthew 7:3
Posted by: Procopius2k || 01/20/2019 8:33 Comments || Top||

#3  The Neo-Cons never miss an opportunity to attack the wrong enemy.
Posted by: BrujoTejano || 01/20/2019 9:10 Comments || Top||

#4  They'll collapse economically and demographically. Let them
Posted by: Frank G || 01/20/2019 9:24 Comments || Top||

#5  The dream of the globalist neo-cons. It is much easier to divide and conquer for their purposes.
Posted by: AlanC || 01/20/2019 10:42 Comments || Top||

#6  The rational could easily be applied to a few western states.
Posted by: ruprecht || 01/20/2019 11:53 Comments || Top||

#7  Nah, but let's do this to California, New York and Illinois.
Posted by: charger || 01/20/2019 18:58 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Politix
Trump offers DACA protections in exchange for border wall; Democrats opposed
[USAToday] As the partial government shutdown neared a month, President Donald Trump
...New York real estate developer, described by Dems as illiterate, racist, misogynistic, and what ever other unpleasant descriptions they can think of, elected by the rest of us as 45th President of the United States...
used a White House speech Saturday to outline what he called "a common sense compromise both parties can embrace" that included protections for some undocumented immigrants colonists and money for border security.

"Both sides in Washington must simply come together," Trump said in a White House speech, saying he is trying to "break the logjam." Defending his plan, he said, "walls are not immoral, in fact they are the opposite of immoral because they will save many lives."

"His proposal is a compilation of several previously rejected initiatives, each of which is unacceptable and in total, do not represent a good faith effort to restore certainty to people’s lives," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in a statement issued before Trump's speech.
In remarks he billed as a "major announcement," Trump cited a proposal developed by administration officials and Republican politicians, one that would grant work permits to certain migrants colonists in exchange for approval of wall funding.

Congressional Democrats, however, said the offer as reported would not lead to a deal that would end the shutdown, in part because it would allow Trump to pursue an expensive and ineffective wall.

"His proposal is a compilation of several previously rejected initiatives, each of which is unacceptable and in total, do not represent a good faith effort to restore certainty to people’s lives," House Speaker Nancy San Fran Nan Pelosi
Congresswoman-for-Life from the San Francisco Bay Area, born into a family of professional politicians. Formerly Speaker of the House, but it's not her fault they lost. Really. Noted for her heavily botoxed grimace...
said in a statement issued before Trump's speech.

Pelosi and other Democrats said the proposal is also a non-starter because it does not provide a path to citizenship for qualified migrants colonists.

A senior House Democratic aide said the proposal as it would not pass the House or Senate, in part because "it includes the same wasteful, ineffective $5.7 billion wall demand that shut down the government in the first place."

Trump said his proposal would give DREAMers ‐ people who were brought into the country illegally as children and now face deportation ‐ work permits and protection from deportation, though he did not say anything about a path to citizenship. "This plan solves the immediate crisis," he said.

In exchange for new Dreamer rules, Trump said he would receive wall funding, a proposal he appeared to scale back in size; Trump said his wall proposal now involves barriers only in "critical places" along the border, not a coast-to-coast structure.

Trump also proposed a new program to allow Central American minors to request asylum in their home countries, though his administration terminated the exact same program shortly after taking power.

Sen. Lindsey Graham
... the endangered South Carolina RINO, fellow maverick of Honest John McCain...
, R-S.C., outlined the proposal for Trump last month, and told news hounds the president was receptive. It involves giving the Democrats protections for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), which includes a group known as DREAMers, and Temporary Protected Status (TPS) holders.

Trump said his proposal is designed to jump-start talks to end the budget impasse that has kept the government closed for four weeks ‐ now the longest shutdown in U.S. history.

"Let's get to work and let's make a deal," Trump said in a video he tweeted out before the speech.
Deutsche Welle has the details:
  • $5.7 billion for wall or steel barriers for critical areas of the border

  • $800 million dollars in urgent humanitarian assistance to the border

  • $800 million for technology, border protection

  • 75 new immigration judge teams, to reduce immigration casework backlog

  • Measures to protect migrant children from exploitation, a new system for minors to apply for asylum from their home countries

  • Three years of legislative relief for young immigrants (DACA) who arrived illegally with their parents, including access to work permits and protection for deportation

  • A three-year extension to the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) refugee program
Trump critic Mitt Romney BACKS the President's push for a border wall saying he 'doesn't understand' Nancy Pelosi's position

Posted by: trailing wife || 01/20/2019 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Sunday is day 30. MLK holiday Monday so RIFs can’t start until Tuesday. No food stamp money should start too!
Posted by: 3dc || 01/20/2019 1:27 Comments || Top||

#2  The democrats are being contrarians.. No matter what, if trump propose something, the Dems will oppose it.
Posted by: Seeking Cure For Ignorance || 01/20/2019 2:05 Comments || Top||

#3  Trump to Dems: "Fuck you. War."
Posted by: Rex Mundi || 01/20/2019 2:21 Comments || Top||

#4  Next time Trump goes on TV with speech on immigration he should run a ‘ticker’ at the bottom of the screen with just the names of every American murdered by an illegal alien. No explaination, no details... just the names. Force the media and others to look up the names and explain.
Posted by: Airandee || 01/20/2019 6:09 Comments || Top||

#5  Splendid idea at #4.
Posted by: Besoeker || 01/20/2019 7:27 Comments || Top||

#6  Word came down last week, no RIFs with this shutdown.
Posted by: AlmostAnonymous5839 || 01/20/2019 8:45 Comments || Top||

#7  I guess not all deep staters are created equal.
Posted by: Fat Bob Glaise8594 || 01/20/2019 9:43 Comments || Top||

#8  Sad if that no RIFs report is true.
Posted by: ruprecht || 01/20/2019 11:54 Comments || Top||


Israel-Palestine-Jordan
UAE, Israeli officials take private jet from Abu Dhabi to Tel Aviv — report
The times, they are a-changing.
[IsraelTimes] Emirati paper says bigwigs were aboard plane on direct flight that flew over Saudi airspace lare last week.

The plane was transporting Israeli officials back to Tel Aviv after a secret visit to Abu Dhabi to prepare for a supposed "surprise visit" by UAE foreign minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan to Israel, the report said, citing high-level Emirati sources. The trip is set to reportedly precede a visit by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to the UAE.

According to the report, the Emirati foreign minister and the head of UAE intelligence Tahnoun bin Zayed were aboard the flight to Tel Aviv.

The report further noted that Riyadh gave Abu Dhabi the "green light" for the flight, which journeyed directly from Abu Dhabi to Tel Aviv over Soddy Arabia
...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in the Soddy national face...
, without stopping in Amman, Jordan as is usually the case. Jordan and Israel have a peace treaty and run direct flights between Amman and Tel Aviv.

In October 2018, a more direct sign of warming relations emerged after Netanyahu paid an official state visit to Oman to meet with Sultan Qaboos bin Said. It was the first visit by an Israeli leader in over two decades. The previous trip by an Israeli leader to Oman took place in 1996, when Shimon Peres visited.

That same month, Israel’s Culture and Sports Minister Miri Regev paid a state visit to the UAE to watch the Israeli delegation compete at the Abu Dhabi Grand Slam, which it did for the first time ever in an Arabian Gulf state under its national flag, after the UAE succumbed to pressure from international sports officials.

Her trip marked the first time a minister from Israel attended a sports event in the Gulf.

As part of the trip, Regev visited Abu Dhabi’s Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque accompanied by officials from the UAE, touring the Moslem world’s third largest house of worship, after mosques in Mecca and Medina.
The UAE and Israel do not have official diplomatic ties.

Malaysia has ’right’ to ban Israelis, says PM, rejecting anti-Semitism charge
But there are still plenty clinging to the traditions of the past two generations
[IsraelTimes] Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad said that it was the country’s "right" to deny entry to Israeli nationals and that it was "unfair to label him as anti-Semitic" for previous anti-Semitic remarks while criticizing the Israeli government.

Speaking on Friday evening before Oxford University’s prestigious debating chamber, the Oxford Union, Mohamad said that "a country has the right to keep its borders closed to certain people, that’s why borders are there."

His speech was met with applause from the audience.

Malaysia has banned Israeli athletes from an upcoming Paralympic swimming tournament, a move harshly criticized by Israel "shameful." Israel further called for the International Paralympic Committee to help reverse the decision or change the venue of the Kuching tournament, scheduled for July and August on the island of Borneo, a qualifying event for the Tokyo 2020 Paralympics.

"Prime Minister Mohamad is an open and unrepentant anti-Semite, accusing Jews of ’Nazi cruelty’ and seeking to wipe out all Moslems, has said ’Anti-Semitic’ is ’an invented term to prevent criticizing Jews for doing wrong’, as well as indulging in Holocaust denial. Given an opportunity to reframe his comments on a recent edition of BBC’s ’Hardtalk’, he instead chose to refer to Jews as ’hook-nosed,'" read a statement by Oxford Jewish Society President Nicole Jacobus, to Facebook.

Other Jewish groups also expressed concern over Mohamad’s invitation.

ISRAELI ATHLETES IN THE ARAB WORLD
Israeli athletes are regularly banned from competing at international sporting events in Arab and Moslem countries, or forced to compete without displaying their national symbols. A number of incidents have led to reprimands from international governing bodies and promises to reform.

Malaysia has stopped Israeli athletes from competing in a sporting event before. Two Israeli windsurfers had to pull out of a competition on the island of Langkawi after they were refused visas in 2015.

Malaysia also refused to host a conference for world soccer’s governing body FIFA in 2017 as an Israeli delegation was due to attend.

Mahathir, now 93 and in his second stint as prime minister, has in the past attracted criticism for his verbal attacks on Jews, including calling them "hook-nosed."

The previous government allowed a high-level Israeli delegation to attend a UN conference in Kuala Lumpur in 2018, sparking public anger.
Posted by: trailing wife || 01/20/2019 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:


Africa Horn
At least 8 Somali soldiers killed in attack on army base
[PULSE.NG] At least eight Somali soldiers were killed when the al-Shabaab
... Somalia's version of the Taliban, functioning as an arm of al-Qaeda...
jihadist group overran their military camp on the outskirts of the town of Kismayo
...a port city in the southern Lower Juba province of Somalia, at the extreme southern end of the country (assuming Somalia can be called a country). It is the commercial capital of the autonomous Jubaland region...
early Saturday, military officials and local elders said.

According to the sources, heavily-armed Shabaab bully boyz launched a dawn raid on the military camp, followed by a heavy exchange of gunfire which lasted hours.

"The faceless myrmidons attacked Bulogagdud military base using heavy weaponry and explosives. The Somali military and Jubaland forces resisted the enemy before later retreating back from the base," Mohammed Abdikarin, a Somali military official told AFP by phone,

"Six soldiers were killed during the attack and two others died after a booby-trapped vehicle exploded when the forces retook control of the base," he added.

Sources at nearby villages said the bully boyz looted the camp and took a military vehicle.

"Al-Shabaab fighters secured control of the base and looted everything. They have set fire to the arms depots and took a military vehicle, but there were two choppers which carried out air strikes during the attack," traditional elder Hassan Rashid told AFP.

The US military has stepped up Arclight airstrikes against Shabaab since 2017.

Suleyman Isse, another witness at a nearby village, said the Somali forces later regrouped after receiving reinforcement from Kismayo and returned to the base.

"The Somali forces retook control of the base with the assistance of military helicopters belonging to the US special forces which were hovering over the area even after the attack," he said.

Shabaab bully boyz grabbed credit for the attack and claimed to have killed 42 soldiers.

The incident came a day after Shabaab said it had attacked Æthiopian troops in Somalia in an ambush attack on the road between the capital and the southwest town of Baidoa.
Posted by: Fred || 01/20/2019 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under: al-Shabaab (AQ)


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
POTUS travels to Dover Air Force Base to meet with families of Americans killed in Syria
[The Hill] President Trump traveled to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware on Saturday to meet with the families of four Americans who were killed in an explosion Wednesday in Syria.

Trump announced the trip early Saturday, tweeting that he would be meeting with the families of four "very special people" who died "in service" to the U.S., but offering no further details on the trip.

"Will be leaving for Dover to be with the families of 4 very special people who lost their lives in service to our Country!" Trump tweeted.
Posted by: Besoeker || 01/20/2019 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under: Islamic State

#1  The casualties:

Posted by: Neville Dark Lord of the Wee Folk7365 || 01/20/2019 8:48 Comments || Top||

#2  Gotta be the toughest part of being the president.
Posted by: Fat Bob Glaise8594 || 01/20/2019 10:52 Comments || Top||

#3  Media screech about Trump using a military plane while preventing congresscreatures from doing the same in 3-2-1.
Posted by: M. Murcek || 01/20/2019 12:13 Comments || Top||


Afghanistan
15 militants killed or wounded as A-29s pound Taliban targets in Kunduz
[KhaamaPress] At least 15 Talibs were killed or maimed during the Arclight airstrikes of the Afghan Air Force in northern Kunduz province of Afghanistan.

The 209th Shaheen Corps of the Afghan military in the North in a statement said the Afghan Air Force A-29 light attack planes pounded the Taliban
...Arabic for students...
targets in Afghan Mazar Village in Qala Zal district on Friday.

The statement further added that the hideouts of Mawlavi Keramatullah and Mawlavi Muqadads were targeted in the airstrikes leaving at least 9 murderous Moslems dead.

At least 6 murderous Moslems were also maimed during the same airstrikes, the 209th Shaheen Corps said adding that two cycle of violences, an ammunitions depot, and three fighting positions of the murderous Moslems were destroyed during the operations.

Kunduz is among the relatively volatile provinces in North of Afghanistan where Talibs are active in some of its districts and often carry out attacks against the government and security institutions.
Posted by: trailing wife || 01/20/2019 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under: Taliban


Africa North
Over 100 African migrants feared dead in the Mediterranean
[DW] Some 170 migrants colonists are feared missing in the Mediterranean Sea after two dinghies sank in separate incidents near Libya and Morocco.

Three migrants colonists rescued by the Italian navy said 120 people had been on their dinghy when it sank on Friday, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said. Most of the passengers were from West Africa, it added.

The dinghy left Gasr Garabulli in Libya on Thursday evening and began to sink about 10 to 11 hours later, IOM front man Flavio Di Giacomo said. Ten of the passengers were women and two were children, he added.
According to Al Ahram, he added that the people came mainly from west Africa.
An Italian naval patrol plane had tried to help the migrants colonists after spotting the sinking dinghy earlier on Friday, Rear Admiral Fabio Agostini told broadcaster RaiNews24. But the aircraft was forced to leave due to a lack of fuel, he said.

Libya sent a merchant ship to the area where the boat sank to find survivors, but it called the effort off after failing to find anybody.

German aid group Sea Watch said it had rescued 47 migrants colonists from an inflatable boat on Saturday, but added that it did not know if the migrants colonists belonged to the Gasr dinghy.

Fifty-three migrants colonists who left Morocco on a dinghy were also feared dead after a survivor told Caminando Fronteras, a Spanish aid organization, that the dinghy they were on had an unspecified collision in the Alboran Sea.

Italia’s anti-migrant interior minister, Matteo Salvini, said the reported deaths were "proof" that Italia's policy of barring ships carrying migrants colonists from docking in Italian ports was working.

"If you reopen the ports, more people will die," Salvini said.

Migrant arrivals to Europe
...also known as Moslem Lebensraum...
in the first 16 days of 2019 totaled 4,449, almost all by sea and more than the 2,964 people who arrived in the same period of 2018, according to the IOM.

The organization said last year, some 2,297 migrants colonists died or went missing in the Mediterranean while 116,959 people reached Europe by sea.
Posted by: trailing wife || 01/20/2019 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under: Human Trafficking


-Lurid Crime Tales-
El Chapo’s bombshell text messages to mistress revealed
[NYPOST] Dating El Chapo means always having to say you’re sorry.

Newly released text messages between Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman and his mistress offer a look inside the drug lord’s twisted love life, showing he sent her love notes mixed with death threats ‐ and that the two may share a secret lovechild.

"Look, the mafia kills people who don’t pay or people who snitch," Chapo wrote in one 2012 message to Lucero Guadalupe Sanchez Lopez that was released in his Brooklyn federal court trial Thursday, "but not if you’re serious, love."

The message was supposedly a warning to Sanchez ‐ who worked in Chapo’s drug empire while having a years-long affair with him ‐ to keep a low profile because people were talking about her.

"Lies are what cause problems. Don’t lie and people will always see the good, love. Always remember that. I’m telling you this because I love you," he continued.

In response, Sanchez, 29, insisted she was "not doing anything bad" and gushed about how much she loved him ‐ but while testifying Thursday, she said she was "feeling threatened" and was worried "he could actually hurt me."

Sanchez told the court that whenever she went to see her married paramour, Chapo’s cronies would cover her eyes and take away her cellphone.

She also recalled an occasion when Guzman’s secretary walked in as they were eating and told them an associate named Tio Virgo was dead ‐ which she took to mean Chapo had ordered him killed.

"He turned around and looked at me in a slow demeanor and then he said something I did not like," she told jurors.

"He said from that point on, whoever betrayed him, they would die. Whether they were family or women, they were going to die."

Meanwhile,
...back at the palazzo, Count Guido had escaped from his bonds and overwhelmed his guard using the bludgeon the faithful Filomena had smuggled to him in the loaf of bread...
other texts shown to jurors appeared to confirm rumors that Guzman and Sanchez had a child together.

"This is your son," she wrote in one 2012 message.

"Hello, my king. I congratulate you because you’re a real man," Chapo replied.

In another message, he said he’s sending "kisses" to her and "Rubencito" ‐ as the lovers also carried on a conversation about weed sales.

"A kiss for each," he messaged her alongside two "wink" and "kiss" emojis. "For you and for Rubencito, two for you."
Posted by: Fred || 01/20/2019 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Narcos


-Obits-
U.S. figure skating champion John Coughlin on ice
[CBS] U.S. figure skating champion John Coughlin died by suicide Friday, one day after being suspended from the sport over unspecified allegations.

"We are stunned at the news of the death of two-time U.S. pairs champion John Coughlin," U.S. Figure Skating said in a statement Saturday. "Our heartfelt and deepest sympathies are with his father Mike, sister Angela and the rest of his family. Out of respect to the family, we will have no further comment until a later time."

In a short Facebook post Friday, Coughlin's sister Angela Laune said, "My wonderful, strong, amazingly compassionate brother John Coughlin took his own life earlier today. I have no words. I love you John. Always Always Brother Bear..."

Police in Kansas City, Missouri, where Coughlin lived, confirmed that his death was a suicide.
Threw himself under a self-driving Zamboni? That took courage.
Posted by: Besoeker || 01/20/2019 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  If you likes to drink your whiskey,
you might even shoot yourself.
Posted by: Ronnie Van Zandt || 01/20/2019 1:09 Comments || Top||


-Short Attention Span Theater-
How the media convinces us we’re all outraged - even when no one cares
[NYPOST] I’m outraged. You’re outraged. They’re all outraged. We’re all outraged!!! Except, what if we’re not?

The News Agency that Dare Not be Named reported that Gillette’s new toxic-masculinity ad caused an "online uproar." "Gillette Ad With a #MeToo Edge Attracts Support and Outrage," claimed The New York Times

...which still proudly displays Walter Duranty's Pulitzer prize...

. "Gillette faces backlash and boycott over ’#MeToo advert," ran a typical headline in the BBC this week.

Outrage? Uproar? Backlash? I’d say it’s more like a hacklash. It’s journalists dealing out pretend outrage.

Lazy media news hounds who are too lazy to even actually speak to people anymore are instead constructing Potemkin Villages of fake hate, fake disgust and fake outrage. They’re Contemptkin Villages. No one really lives there. The laziest hacks can build them using tweets, even tweets from anonymous Twitter accounts. Somehow these hacks are employed at places like the BBC and the Times.

The instantly infamous Gillette ad calling out "toxic masculinity" that painted males as bullies and sexual harassers certainly spurred a lot of conversation. But were dudes outraged or did they just think the ad was misguided and wrong? Men aren’t going James-McAvoy-in-"Glass" Beastmode on Gillette. They’re just saying, "I’d rather not be lectured about what a bully and a creep I am, especially by my toiletries." The New York Times quoted an obscure Irish deejay calling the ad "condescending" on Twitter as an example of "outrage," alongside the British chat-show host Piers Morgan saying the ad was "pathetic." "You’re pathetic" is an expression of outrage?

The BBC claimed breathlessly, "There have been calls for Gillette to post an apology video." There have? Click through on the source for this tidbit, and it turns out to be a Twitter user with 18 followers who also demanded that everyone at Gillette be forced to read a men’s-rights book. Sure. Later in the piece the BBC cites another supposedly angry party to the controversy. That turned out to be an anonymous Twitter user with six followers.

(Most observers readily grasped that Gillette is desperately using cynical marketing ploys to make us remember they exist. "Gillette, Bleeding Market Share, Cuts Price of Razors" ran a Wall Street Journal headline in 2017.)
Posted by: Fred || 01/20/2019 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Fake Media. And the newest generation of corporate execs who advertise on Fake Media are low IQ losers.
Posted by: Ebbavirt Clunk4147 || 01/20/2019 7:43 Comments || Top||

#2  I wasn't outraged. I was disgusted. No more Gillette for me
Posted by: Frank G || 01/20/2019 9:07 Comments || Top||

#3  True. A grand disappointment. I remember saying to an elderly chap it couldn't get worse and his immediate reply was "you wanna bet". I have avoided the mainstream media for years now. Vietnam was my tipping point. I am thankful for alternative sights like Rantburg.I might get chewed out now and then but no harm done. Another old gentleman said to me one day "if you want to be happy in this world don't read the newspaper or watch TV". That was long before Internet, cell phones and so on. OH happy days. I must say myself that congress is as corrupt as it always has been. Then the media more so.
Posted by: Dale || 01/20/2019 10:01 Comments || Top||

#4  I have a mantra for this:

"You can hate me. You can hate yourself. You can't make me hate myself."

While others are outraged, Ima go play golf...
Posted by: M. Murcek || 01/20/2019 10:20 Comments || Top||

#5  I remember saying to an elderly chap it couldn't get worse and his immediate reply was "you wanna bet".

Life is never so bad that it can't get worse.
Posted by: Fat Bob Glaise8594 || 01/20/2019 10:26 Comments || Top||

#6  Agree 100% with Frank G. I'm not mad enough to toss $40 worth of blades bt when they are gone I'm going non-gillette.
Posted by: ruprecht || 01/20/2019 11:59 Comments || Top||

#7  40$? I started using regular safety razors 10 years ago - I don't think I spent 40 $ on them yet.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 01/20/2019 13:02 Comments || Top||

#8  Ho hum doesn't sell newspapers.
Posted by: Abu Uluque || 01/20/2019 16:20 Comments || Top||


Britain
Melanie Phillips: Why the West should hold its breath over Britain
[Jpost] Current events in Britannia’s Parliament are making politics in both Israel and America look positively sane and tranquil by comparison.

Around the world, jaws are dropping at the UK’s convulsions over leaving the European Union
...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing...
. This resembles not so much a divorce as an amputation without anesthetic using blunt knives and a broken saw, with the surgeons throwing punches across the operating table.

This week, the deal struck between Prime Minister Theresa May and the EU over the Brexit terms was thrown out by an enormous majority in the House of Commons.

Although this was the largest prime ministerial defeat in British history, Mrs. May survived a motion of no-confidence the following evening.
This was largely because of two factors: the infighting among Tories about who should replace her, and the fear of precipitating a general election which might bring the far-left Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn to power.

At the core of May’s spectacularly inept EU negotiating strategy lay a fundamental conceptual error. Britannia is bitterly split down the middle between Brexiteers and Remainers, who want to stay in the EU. May wanted to deliver a Brexit deal which would bring both sides together by giving each a little of what it wanted.

But on the issue of sovereign British independence, there can be no compromise. The UK is either out of the EU or it is in. May’s deal would have left the UK under the thumb of the EU over which, as a non-EU member, it would no longer have any influence at all. It was Brexit in name only ‐ or Remain by stealth.

The lesson here for the wider world is that negotiating with the non-negotiable always leads to surrender. Under pressure from the West, Israel has tried to bridge an unbridgeable gulf with rejectionist Arabs. As a result, it has been unable to extricate itself from a perpetual state of war and terrorist attack.

May has survived; but Brexit itself now faces its moment of greatest peril. For a majority of MPs are Remainers, and many if not most are determined to stop Brexit in its tracks.

WESTMINSTER IS currently heaving with plots aimed at reversing the 2016 referendum result ‐ while purporting to honor it.

So MPs are coming up with demands to delay the legal date for the UK’s departure, demands for a second referendum, demands for "compromise" departure terms that are, in effect, forms of Remain.

This is all to break what is widely reported as the parliamentary "deadlock" over the issue. But there’s no deadlock. The legally binding default position is that if no deal with the EU is struck, Britannia will leave on March 29 without a deal.

This is enshrined in an act of parliament passed last year. So the way forward is in fact very clear. The problem is that MPs who passed this act of parliament now want to dump it. They claim that leaving with no deal is out of the question because it would plunge Britannia into chaos and ruin.

Yet instead of helping bring that about, Remainer MPs are spitting in the eye of democracy by seeking to reverse the referendum result, thus setting parliament against the people. Why?

At the core of much Remain thinking lies a profound indifference toward or even contempt for the very idea of a sovereign nation. For people who take pride in their cosmopolitanism and who regard national ties as a form of bigoted atavism, democracy can be endlessly reinvented in their own image.

Such Remainers thus grossly underrated the depth of feeling behind the vote for Brexit because they grossly underrate Britannia itself.
Posted by: trailing wife || 01/20/2019 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:


Terror Networks
Search continues for 3,117 Yezidis still missing
[Rudaw] ERBIL, Kurdistan Region ‐ A Yezidi family of four returned home and was reunited with relatives in the Kurdistan Region after nearly five years under ISIS. Eleven Yezidis have been rescued this month so far. Families and officials are pleading for international help as the battle for the last territory held by the holy warriors enters its final stage.

The family of four who were recently rescued are a mother, two daughters, and a son. They agreed to speak to media, but asked to remain anonymous as they fear for the safety of another two sons who are still held by ISIS.

"We were initially taken to djinn-infested Mosul
... the home of a particularly ferocious and hairy djinn...
. They later took us to Tal Afar and from there to Syria. We were placed in Syria for four years and thankfully we are finally back in Kurdistan," said the mother.

She and her children burst into tears when they were reunited with relatives and close friends at Sharia camp in Duhok.

"We suffered a lot under ISIS. May God help others return safely," she said, using an Arabic acronym for ISIS.

Ghazal Khalaf, an elderly Yezidi woman living in the camp, urged the international community to help rescue others still held by ISIS.

"There are still thousands under them, under the enemy. We are urging all countries to give us a helping hand," Khalaf pleaded.

When ISIS attacked Shingal, it took more than 6,000 Yezidis captive ‐ mainly women and kiddies. So far, 3,342 have been freed. Another 3,117 are known to still be missing, said Hussein Qasim, of the KRG’s committee for the recognition of the genocide.

Since the beginning of January, 11 Yezidis have been rescued from ISIS and efforts are ongoing to find the rest and bring them back home safely.

The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) have pushed ISIS into a pocket of territory on the Euphrates River valley in Syria’s Deir ez-Zor on the border with Iraq.

A Canadian member of ISIS recently captured by the SDF said that the towns still held by ISIS are very crowded as the group gets pushed into an ever smaller area.

Estimates of between 11,000 and 20,000 people have fled ISIS control since early December ‐ this includes civilians and ISIS fighters with their families.

It is not known how many Yezidis may be among the population in the battle zone. ISIS murderous Moslems were known to have brought their captives with them as they moved. Some may also be in camps among the displaced Syrians and captured ISIS.

The KRG is continuing its efforts to find the missing.

"There are plans set out and efforts underway to rescue the remaining Yezidis and our people," Hassan Qaid, in charge of the Yezidi rescue office, told Rudaw.

"Search operations are ongoing to locate others," he said.
Posted by: trailing wife || 01/20/2019 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Islamic State


Israel-Palestine-Jordan
Gaza suffers from brain drain as young professionals look for better life
[Ynet] Almost half of the Paleostinians who leave the Strip don't return, with many taking advantage of the permanent opening of the Rafah border crossing to get out via Egypt and search for a better life elsewhere.

The Gazoo Strip has been experiencing mass emigration in recent months, with almost half of those leaving the Paleostinian enclave choosing not to return. Most of the Gazooks who chose to emigrate are young and educated.

Some 36,000 people left Gazoo between May and September of 2018, in the first four months after the permanent opening of the Rafah border crossing between the Strip and the Sinai Peninsula. Of that number, however, just 17,000 returned.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: trailing wife || 01/20/2019 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Hamas

#1  They had brains? That's news to me.
Posted by: Seeking Cure For Ignorance || 01/20/2019 2:07 Comments || Top||

#2  Fleas leaving the dog
Posted by: Frank G || 01/20/2019 9:38 Comments || Top||

#3  "I'm leaving Gazoo for somewhere that's more stable, a higher economic future, and better citizenry. Perhaps Mali, Somalia, or Venezuela"
Posted by: Frank G || 01/20/2019 10:07 Comments || Top||

#4  The militant wing of the Salvation Army.

Frau Farbissina
Posted by: Fat Bob Glaise8594 || 01/20/2019 10:29 Comments || Top||

#5  They had brains?

For a specific population of humans, almost any trait you can measure such as height, weight or having a lick of sense follows a Gaussian distribution, that bell curve thingie. Basically, you have a bunch of people in the middle, and a few out at either extreme.

We can argue and snigger over what the mean might be, but given that Gaza is Gaza, it is not surprising that anyone with 3/4 of a brain and better prospects is leaving. Think of it like evaporative cooling - the hot, smart molecules boil off leaving the rest collectively cooler and more Paleostinian.

We should not be surprised at history professor Khalid Khaldi's suggestion that the fix for the brain drain is to keep people from leaving rather than create conditions that make people want to stay. After all, he is one of those who hasn't left.
Posted by: SteveS || 01/20/2019 11:27 Comments || Top||

#6  It’s not just the economic situation, both present and future, it seems to me. It does little good to scrimp and save for a better future when it is obvious that sooner or later — and probably sooner — Hamas will again provoke Israel into bouncing rubble.

But the brain drain has been going on since 1948, when the West Bank and Gaza Strip were ruled by Jordan and Egypt respectively — this isn’t specific to nowadays and Hamas-ruled Gaza. Once the better-paying Jewish employers became unavailable, young and ambitious Palestinians without prospects at home took themselves elsewhere. Lots of educated Palestinians have been running things for the Saudis, for instance, for generations.
Posted by: trailing wife || 01/20/2019 11:45 Comments || Top||

#7  Inbred Clan Genetics is prolly skewing that bell curve south
Posted by: Frank G || 01/20/2019 12:33 Comments || Top||


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Fourth American killed in Manbij blast was a Syrian immigrant
[Rudaw] Ghadir Taher, who emigrated to the United States from Syria, has been identified as the fourth American killed in the Manbij suicide kaboom.

Her younger brother Ali told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Friday that the 27-year-old died from injuries sustained in the suicide attack on Wednesday in the northern Syrian city.

Taher worked was an Arabic interpreter for Valiant Integrated Services, a defense contractor used by the US government, The New York Times

...which still proudly displays Walter Duranty's Pulitzer prize...

confirmed.

"Her smile lit up the room. She was kind," her brother told the Atlanta newspaper. "You could go on for hours, talking to her about your worries and about your troubles. And she would make them seem like they were hers."

ISIS claimed the attack on the restaurant that killed two US soldiers, a civilian employed by the US Department of Defense, and Taher.

"We are extremely saddened by the tragic and senseless passing of Ghadir Taher," Valiant front man Tom Becker wrote in an email to the Georgia-based newspaper. "Out of respect to her family, we will make no further comment at this time other than to say she was a talented and highly-respected colleague, loved by many, who will be dearly missed."

US President Donald Trump
...New York real estate developer, described by Dems as illiterate, racist, misogynistic, and what ever other unpleasant descriptions they can think of, elected by the rest of us as 45th President of the United States...
did not acknowledge the attack until Saturday morning when he tweeted that he would be going to Dover Air Force Base "to be with the families of four special people who bit the dust in service to our country."

Brett McGurk, the former US Special Presidential Envoy to the international anti-ISIS coalition, resigned following Trump's announcement. He was appointed by former President Barack Obama
teachable moment...
He tweeted condolences and that the ISIS attack "was the first of its kind" against US forces since they began their operation in Syria in 2015.

A reported five of the local Manbij Military Council (MMC) forces and at least nine civilians were also killed in the kaboom

Local media ANHA named nine civilian victims, citing hospital sources.

They are: Yasser Ahmed Khalaf from the village of Qara al-Sakira, Fadia Abboud and her daughter Sahar Melhem from Aleppo, Mohammed al-Ahmed who worked at the restaurant that was hit in the kaboom, Hassan Hankouri from Uom Jalud village, Yasser Khali Akazi from the al-Shahba region north of Aleppo, Raad Kurdi from the village of Haj Abdeen, and Hamza Shiyar and Wiso Fares who are both from the Kobane area.
Posted by: trailing wife || 01/20/2019 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Islamic State


Home Front: Politix
Reports of a Democratic drift on Israel appear to be greatly exaggerated
[IsraelTimes] Buzzfeed article’s premise that voters are disillusioned due to PM’s closeness to Trump and headway made by BDS movement is based on interviewees’ wishful thinking and not reality.

"Israel Will Be The Great Foreign Policy Debate Of The Democratic Primary" is a BuzzFeed article making the rounds.

The broad premise is one with which readers are familiar: Democrats are becoming more disenchanted with Israel for myriad reasons, including a lack of progress and new ideas on the Paleostinian issue, the parlous relationship between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US President Barack Obama
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: trailing wife || 01/20/2019 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  wait until near the Dem Presidential Convention

the delegates will be activists and include a lot of anti Israel members (also a lot of anti Americans, anti police, gun control extremists, etc.) how well these types can be controlled is the question
Posted by: lord garth || 01/20/2019 5:40 Comments || Top||

#2  lack of progress and new ideas on the Paleostinian issue

IMO, re "Palestinians, old ideas are the best.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 01/20/2019 5:46 Comments || Top||


Quit hoping that Trump will just go away
[NYPOST] The walls supposedly are always closing in on Donald Trump
...New York real estate developer, described by Dems as illiterate, racist, misogynistic, and what ever other unpleasant descriptions they can think of, elected by the rest of us as 45th President of the United States...
. The end is always beginning.

He’s going to quit. He’s going to be impeached and removed. He’s going to decide not to run again. Somehow or other, he’s going to relieve everyone of the responsibility of ever thinking of him again, and especially of the responsibility of defeating him in an election.

This the perpetual backdrop to media commentary about Trump. It rocketed around the Internet a couple of months ago when Jeffrey Toobin of The New Yorker said Trump might not serve out his term. Fake Washington Post editions recently distributed in Washington were about Trump quitting. Such scenarios are a constant topic in private conversations.

The allure of all this is obvious. It is the promise of deliverance. After tormenting his enemies for so long, Trump’s going to make it easy for them. He’s just going to go away.

It is true that the odds of Trump somehow not serving out of his term are, given his erratic personality and the wildcard of the Mueller investigation, higher than those for a normal president serving in normal times (the BuzzFeed report that Trump allegedly directed Michael Cohen to lie to Congress is a reminder of that). But they are still slim.

Perhaps special counsel Robert Mueller’s report will send a torpedo into Trump’s bow. It seems more likely that a report will contain damaging and embarrassing revelations that, whatever the initial shock, will be quickly absorbed by the political system and especially Trump’s supporters.

The velocity of the news cycle, driven in part by the sheer volume and pace of Trump controversies, works in his favor.

Does anyone remember what it was that precipitated Toobin’s prediction, namely the revelation that talks over a Trump Tower project in Moscow went on longer than first realized? Probably not.

The resignation of Jim Mattis rocked Trump’s administration to the core ‐ for all of about 36 hours.

Why would Trump ever quit? This is a man who has fought and clawed for every ounce of public attention ‐ good or bad ‐ he can get throughout his adult life and now, occupying the biggest bully pulpit on the planet, he’s just going to walk away?

Despite media reports that Trump is perpetually furious and feeling besieged, he has never shown the slightest brittleness or sense of being overwhelmed in public. He’s always his same ebullient, combative, outrageous self.

He’s the least likely president to get worn down by an impeachment fight. What would discourage or deflate the normal human energizes him.

The same applies even more to his running for re-election. After enduring several years of having to govern, not his natural aptitude, why would he throw away the opportunity to campaign, which he clearly relishes?
Posted by: Fred || 01/20/2019 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:


-Lurid Crime Tales-
Boy Scout leader gets 10 years in prison for sexually abusing kids in his troop
No extraordinary security measures. Please assign within the general population.
[NYPOST] A former Boy Scout leader from New Jersey who admitted to sexually abusing at least three kids in his troop was reportedly sentenced on Friday to 10 years in state prison.

Stephen Corcoran, 51, of Morris Plains, is already serving a seven year sentence for child pornography ‐ and will now be tacking on three more, according to NJ.com.

His latest sentence is going to run concurrent with the old one, which was handed down in 2017.

Corcoran pled guilty back in August to four counts of sexual assault after being accused by three of his former scouts. The victims said they were abused between 1997 and 1999.

"Every interaction he had with me and my family was for his ultimate goal of molesting me," explained Christopher Malcolm, speaking to news hounds in August 2017. "He wasn’t there to be my friend. He was there for his own sexual desires."

The victims later sued the Boy Scouts of America organization, saying the abuse had a serious effect on their adult lives.

"The boy scouts basically gave (Corcoran) shelter and cloaked in secrecy the abuse that was occurring," alleged one of their lawyers.

While an amount was never reported, the former scouts were said to have been "very pleased" with what they got.
Posted by: Fred || 01/20/2019 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Someone should have pointed out to Corcoran that if he'd become a dem bundler first this never would have happened to him...
Posted by: M. Murcek || 01/20/2019 9:33 Comments || Top||

#2  But never oppose Gay Scout Leaders.

and why is this concurrent with his 7 year child pr0n sentence? Hopefully he won't make it through either
Posted by: Frank G || 01/20/2019 9:34 Comments || Top||

#3  re: the gay part........were his victims male or female?

Things have changed in the 60+ years since I started scouting and I've heard that it's now coed, no?
Posted by: AlanC || 01/20/2019 10:18 Comments || Top||

#4  abused between 1997 and 1999. Back then, all boys.

I coached my daughter's female sports teams, and I made sure there was also a woman around at all times, and told the parents up front of my policy. Most seemed to appreciate it
Posted by: Frank G || 01/20/2019 10:43 Comments || Top||

#5  Frank, me too. Always at least one parent at every practice and game or I was out of there.
Posted by: Fat Bob Glaise8594 || 01/20/2019 10:48 Comments || Top||

#6  What Frank G said.
Posted by: Tom || 01/20/2019 13:55 Comments || Top||

#7  People used to assure me this would never happen if we allowed homosexuals to be scoutmasters.
Posted by: Abu Uluque || 01/20/2019 16:32 Comments || Top||

#8  I didn't believe them.
Posted by: Abu Uluque || 01/20/2019 16:32 Comments || Top||

#9  Well, he was already serving time for kiddy-pron, so charges against him for diddling "off the books" is not surprising. The 19-years for them to come forth, however, is disturbing.

I have fond memories of Mr. Beebe, my Scoutmaster, around whom I never felt uncomfortable. He was a great guy and did a wonderful job of herding his charges. Greased Watermelon...good times.

Why so many bad apples these days? Is it that the Scouts are looked upon as a feeding ground for these animals, and they can make it through the vetting process? Is there a vetting process? If so, what is it? Is it reliable? Who conducts it? Etc. Or is it just too invasive to really know who is taking care of your kids?

Sickening....

Posted by: Anomalous Sources || 01/20/2019 22:25 Comments || Top||


Africa Horn
Kenya police arrest wife, father of hotel suicide bomber
[PULSE.NG] Kenyan police have tossed in the slammer
Drop the heater, Studs, or you're hist'try!
the wife and father of a man identified as the jacket wallah in an attack on Nairobi's Dusit hotel complex that left 21 dead, a police source said Saturday.

The attacker, one of five al-Shabaab
... an Islamic infestation centering on Somalia...
snuffies who stormed the complex on Tuesday, was identified as 25-year-old Mahir Khalid Riziki, who grew up in Mombasa.

"The wife of the suicide bomber is now in our custody. She will help us understand her husband's last moments and his movement, his story in latest years and his very last movements," a senior police official said on condition of anonymity.

"She was arrested in Mombasa and has been brought to Nairobi for further questioning," he added.

His father was also arrested.

"In the course of investigation of this nature, close family members of such people are crucial because they hold crucial information," the source said.

The official said Riziki was identified through mobile phone communication, and that he had communicated with one of the other attackers right before blowing himself up.

"He grew up in Mombasa and that is where he was recruited into al-Shabaab," he said, adding that he had previously been involved in attacks targeting security forces and has previously travelled to Somalia.

That attack by the Somali al-Qaeda affiliate led to a 20-hour siege at the DusitD2 hotel and office complex, which also left 28 injured while some 700 people were rescued.

The Dusit revealed it had lost six staff members while telecoms company Cellulant also lost six staff. An American and British-South African dual national were also among those killed.
Posted by: Fred || 01/20/2019 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: al-Shabaab (AQ)


Southeast Asia
Abu Sayyaf releases Indonesian captive
[BenarNews] Abu Sayyaf rebels freed an Indonesian captive after kidnapping the sailor at sea off eastern Malaysia and taking him to the southern Philippines four months ago. Samsul Saguni and another Indonesian had been seized from a fishing boat in waters off Sabah, in Malaysian Borneo, and brought to Jolo, an island in the far south of the Philippines.

Saguni was freed Tuesday and retrieved by the military and local officials somewhere on the outskirts of Maimbung, a town on Jolo island. Regional military spokesman Gerry Besana said, “He was brought to the residence of Tan, and, upon checking his health by our physicians, it turned out he is physically healthy.”

Saguni and his companion, Usman Yunos, were on a fishing vessel when Abu Sayyaf militants boarded the boat and abducted them at gunpoint on Sept. 11, 2018. Yunos managed to escape from his captors in mid-December.

Indonesian foreign ministry official Lalu Muhammad Iqbal confirmed that Saguni was the man shown in an online video that went viral earlier this month. In the video, a shirtless man, whose hands are bound behind his back, kneels in a pit and pleads for his life as gunmen stand above him.
Posted by: ryuge || 01/20/2019 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Abu Sayyaf (ISIS)


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
The absurdity of a Turkish “safe zone” proposal
[Rudaw] In his latest phone call with Ottoman Turkish president Erdogan, US president Trump apparently proposed a 20 mile (32 kilometers) deep Ottoman Turkish-controlled "safe zone" in northern Syria. This zone would presumably go 400 kilometers along the Ottoman Turkish-Syrian border from the Euphrates river to the Iraqi border. Mr. Erdogan reportedly agreed to the idea immediately.

Erdogan’s assent to Mr. Trump’s idea should come as no surprise. The proposal would essentially give The Sick Man of Europe Turkey
...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire....
the green light and even US assistance to invade more of northern Syria and crush Syrian Kurdish groups there, without obligating them to go beyond Kurdish-held areas to fight the Islamic State
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: trailing wife || 01/20/2019 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Sublime Porte

#1  Auferre, trucidare, rapere, falsis nominibus imperium; atque, ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.
To ravage, to slaughter, to usurp under false titles, they call empire; and where they make a desert, they call it peace. -- Tacitus
Posted by: magpie || 01/20/2019 0:32 Comments || Top||


Terror Networks
A New American Leader Rises in ISIS
[TheAtlantic] A two-year investigation identifies one of the very few Americans in the Islamic State’s upper ranks‐and sheds light on the dynamics of radicalization.

The clues are out there, if you know where to look. Scattered across far-flung corners of the internet, there is evidence that Zulfi Hoxha, the son of an Albanian-American pizza-shop owner from New Jersey, had sinister plans.

First there’s the defunct Twitter profile, which at one point engaged in a conversation with a State Department counter-propaganda account about the Islamic State
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: trailing wife || 01/20/2019 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Islamic State

#1  Let me guess, Tamika Mallory?
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 01/20/2019 13:06 Comments || Top||


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Iraqi air strikes hit IS in east Syria: Monitor
[AlAhram] At least 20 Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems....
group jihadists were killed Saturday in Iraqi air raids on their embattled enclave in eastern Syria, a war monitor reported.

The raids come a day after a US-led air strike on the Euphrates Valley village of Baghouz killed six civilians, including four children, and 10 IS fighters, according to the Britannia-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

There were no immediate comments from the Iraqi army or from the US-led coalition.

Baghouz is part of an enclave of less than 15 square kilometres (less than six square miles) that is all that is left of IS territory in eastern Syria after a gruelling Kurdish-led offensive launched with coalition support.

Observatory chief Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP that Saturday's air strikes "carried out by Iraqi aircraft killed at least 20 IS fighters in Baghouz".

He said at the same time the Iraqi army units stationed nearby on the border with Syria fired artillery.

Abdel Rahman said the US-led coalition had stepped up its air strikes against IS since the jihadists killed 19 people, four of them Americans, in a suicide kaboom on a restaurant in the flashpoint northern town of Manbij on Wednesday.

"The strikes are continuing, and have intensified since the Manbij attack," he said on Saturday.

"Residential buildings in Barghouz were hit," he said.
Posted by: trailing wife || 01/20/2019 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [2 views] Top|| File under: Islamic State


The Grand Turk
Thousands rally in Turkey to back detained Kurdish MP on hunger strike
[PULSE.NG] Thousands demonstrated Saturday in The Sick Man of Europe Turkey
...Qatar's colony in Asia Minor....
's Kurdish-majority southeast to support a detained politician from a pro-Kurdish party who launched a hunger strike in November.

Waving flags of the pro-Kurdish People's Democratic Party (HDP), they danced and flashed victory signs in Diyabakir, the main city in the region, to express solidarity with Leyla Guven.

The HDP describes Guven's condition as "life threatening."

The 55-year-old began a hunger strike on November 8 in protest at the prison conditions for Kurdish leader Abdullah Ocalan.

"It is our duty to add our voices to that of Leyla's," HDP's co-president Pervin Buldan told the gathering.

Ocalan is one of the founders of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) which has waged a bloody insurgency against the Ottoman Turkish state since 1984, and which is blacklisted as a terror group by Ankara and its Western allies.

He has been serving a life sentence for treason in an island prison near Istanbul since his capture in 1999.

Guven's action is aimed at pressuring the government into allowing lawyers and family members to visit Ocalan, whose brother was finally allowed to meet him in jail a week ago.

She was jugged
Into the paddy wagon wit' yez!
for her opposition to Turkey's military operation against a Syrian Kurdish militia that Ankara considers an offshoot of the PKK and has been in jail since January last year.
Posted by: Fred || 01/20/2019 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Sublime Porte


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Israel attacks Syria
The view from Egypt.
[AlAhram] Israel is striking deeper into Syria after the announcement of the withdrawal of US forces from the country, with the apparent aim of targeting Iran.

For the third time since the US announced the withdrawal of its troops from Syria, Israel has bombed a military location belonging to the Syrian regime and Iran, destroying a cargo plane transporting weapons from Iran and Iranian warehouses in southern Damascus and Syrian military bases.

Among the targets, according to the Israeli media, was a senior delegation of officials from the Lebanese Hizbullah
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: trailing wife || 01/20/2019 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Iran

#1  A man spraying his back yard with insecticide is not an "attack".
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 01/20/2019 5:48 Comments || Top||

#2  Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammed Jawad Zarif said last month that "when did we ever say we wanted to annihilate Israel?"

"The head of the Iranian army on Saturday said Iranian forces were working to "annihilate" Israel and predicted they would achieve success within 25 years.

The threats from the Commander of Iran's Army Major General Abdolrahim Mousavi come amid almost daily warnings of conflict from Tehran and Jerusalem, heightened by an alleged Israeli strike on an Iranian base in Syria earlier in the month."

Times of Isreal, 21 April 2018
Posted by: Fat Bob Glaise8594 || 01/20/2019 9:37 Comments || Top||

#3  Shhhh, Fat Bob Glaise8594 — don’t confuse him with the facts he has deliberately forgotten.
Posted by: trailing wife || 01/20/2019 11:57 Comments || Top||


Afghanistan
More than 60 militants killed in Badghis, Baghlan and Nangarhar provinces
[KhaamaPress] More than sixty Lions of Islam were killed during separate operations conducted in northwestern Badghis, northern Baghlan, and eastern Nangarhar
The unfortunate Afghan province located adjacent to Mohmand, Kurram, and Khyber Agencies. The capital is Jalalabad. The province was the fief of Younus Khalis after the Soviets departed and one of his sons is the current provincial Taliban commander. Nangarhar is Haqqani country..
provinces.

According to the informed military sources, the Afghan Special Forces conducted a clearance operation of known Taliban
...Arabic for students...
staging locations in Qal’ah-e Now district of Badghis province killing 48 Taliban and destroying 9 IEDs.

The sources further added that the Afghan Special Forces conducted a clearance operation of Pul-E Khumri district of Baghalan province in order to prevent attacks along Highway 1, leaving at least six Talibs dead.

A Taliban Überstürmbannführer, Gul Mohammad, was killed along with 10 Taliban fighters in Hisarak district of Nangarhar province on January 17, the sources said, adding that Gul Mohammad was responsible for planning and directing attacks against Afghan cops and civilians.
Posted by: trailing wife || 01/20/2019 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Taliban


Southeast Asia
Five troops hurt by bombs, rebel killed in Thai south
[Bangkok Post] Frightened children huddled on the classroom floor amid the sound of gunfire and a helicoper as Thai security forces and insurgents clashed in a rubber plantation near their school in Narathiwat province on Friday morning. One rebel was killed. Four others escaped but left blood trails behind.

In another district of the same province, five members of a security team patroling a road alongside a railway track were injured by the second of two bombs detonated by attackers.

The first bomb was detonated about 7:30am when a soldier and five paramilitary rangers were on patrol in Sungai Padi district. The rangers were unharmed and opened fire into roadside bushes they believed were concealing the ambushers.

As they were move away from the scene of the attack, a second bomb exploded about 15 meters from the first, injuring five of them. Three were seriously wounded.

Shortly before, about 7:15am, police and paramilitary rangers raided a rubber plantation in Chanae district. They converged on a shelter where there were five armed men. The two sides exchanged gunfire for about half an hour. As the rebels retreated, a helicopter was called in to help track them.

One insurgent was found dead at the scene. He was later identified as Abdulloh Masae.

The clash occurred about two kilometers from Ban Tue Kor School, where pupils had already arrived for classes and could clearly hear the battle. Teachers had them huddle down on the floor for their safety and tried to keep them calm.
Posted by: ryuge || 01/20/2019 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Thai Insurgency


Afghanistan
ISIS-K bomb kill Taliban local commander in Kunar province
[KhaamaPress] A local commander of the Taliban
...the Pashtun equivalent of men...
group was killed in an kaboom triggered by an Improvised Explosive Device in eastern Kunar province
... which is right down the road from Chitral. Kunar is Haqqani country.....
of Afghanistan.

The Afghan Military in the East confirmed in a statement that Mawlavi Saeedullah was killed in an kaboom in Manogi district on Friday.

The statement further added that the IED was planted was by snuffies affiliated with the ISIS Khurasan (ISIS-K) snuffies in Bist area.

The anti-government armed bully boy groups including Taliban have not commented regarding the incident so far.

Kunar is among the relatively volatile provinces in East of Afghanistan where both Taliban and ISIS Khurasan affiliates are active and often carry out attacks against the government and security forces while numerous reports have also emerged regarding infighting among Taliban and ISIS-K in this province.
Posted by: trailing wife || 01/20/2019 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  *sniff*
Posted by: Lumpy Unoluth || 01/20/2019 3:58 Comments || Top||


Southeast Asia
Two Thai policemen seriously injured by bomb in Pattani
[Bangkok Post] A bomb blast seriously hurt two policemen on teacher-protection duty in Pattani province on Friday morning.The bomb was detonated on the side of a road teachers use to travel to school in tambon Tuyong in Nong Chik district.

Security officials blamed the attack on insurgents.
Posted by: ryuge || 01/20/2019 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [2 views] Top|| File under: Thai Insurgency


Home Front: Culture Wars
Only 10,000 Expected At Women’s March in DC Following Anti-Semitism Scandal
[DailyWire] This year’s Women’s March has taken a significant hit after reports in 2018 that the founders of the organization were openly anti-Semitic. Many of the founders are supporters of flagrant anti-Semite Louis Farrakhan, who routinely calls Jews "termites" and has led a "Death to America, Israel" chant in Iran.

The public gathering permit provided by the U.S. Department of the Interior’s National Park Service shows just how far the march has fallen, stating that the "anticipated number or participants" is roughly 10,000. In 2017, the first Women’s March attracted between 500,000 and 1 million people from around the country, according to official estimates.

The Daily Mail has photos plus a brief video of Occasional Cortex in front of a microphone, but for some reason no crowd estimates.

Christian Pastor Jacqui Lewis: ‘Our Common Enemy Is White Supremacy, Transphobia, Sexism'

[Breitbart] Rev. Jacqui Lewis, a senior minister at Middle Collegiate Church in New York, took the stage Saturday at the Women’s March and announced what she believed to be Americans’ greatest enemies.

"I am so glad to be able to follow my indigenous family and share some words of blessing," Lewis said as she opened her speech. "Standing here and looking at you and thinking about this movement makes me want to tell you what it means for me to be a Christian pastor."

"There’s all kinds of Christians, but I’m the kind that believes that there’s more than one path to God, the kind that believes that every single body, no matter who you love and how you look, is created by God exactly as you are."

Laura Loomer Showed Up at The Woman's March Screaming 'WHAT ABOUT THE JEWS'

[Newsweek] Laura Loomer interrupted a speaker during the Women’s March in Washington D.C. on Saturday. In a video shared on Twitter, the right-wing activist appeared onstage attempting to speak over a woman standing at a podium.

Loomer shouted claims about the organizers of the march being anti-Jewish. "The Women’s March does not represent Jewish people," she yelled, adding that the Women’s March was a Nazi organization.

Security escorted Loomer off stage, but she didn’t leave without repeatedly screaming at the crowd: "What about the Jews?"

Thousands arrived at the nation’s capital for the third year of the rally, despite the Women’s March organization spending the majority of last year in utter chaos. Top members within the organization were accused of anti-Semitism after one of the organization's founders, Vanessa Wruble, claimed she was pushed out of the group because of her Jewish heritage.

Wiki - What is a Laura Loomer
Posted by: trailing wife || 01/20/2019 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:


Afghanistan
Gulbuddin Hekmatyar to run for president in July elections
And if he doesn’t win, he can always go back to living off terrorism, so that’s ok. But in the meantime people will be happy to just hand him money to help the cause — what could be better than that?
[KhaamaPress] The leader of Hezb-e-Islami Gulbuddin Hekmatyar
... who used to be known in intelligence circles as The Most Evil Man in the World but who now seems merely run-of-the-mill evil...
will run for president during the July 20th presidential elections.

Hekmatyar registered his name for the elections in the Independent Election Commission of Afghanistan (IEC) along with Fazal Hadi Wazin and Qazi Hafiz Ur Rehman Naqi who are going to run for First and Second Vice President in the elections.

Speaking to news hounds after registering his name as presidential runner, Hekmatyar said he will run for president from an independent address emphasizing that he is not favoring to form alliances with the other parties.

He also rejected the establishment of a federal government as well as a semi-presidential system.

In other parts of his speech, Hekmatyar slammed the government regarding the existing situation in the country and claimed that the government leadership was to blame for the ongoing violence.

So far nine candidates have registered their names for the presidential elections including Hakim Torsan, Latif Pedram, Faramuz Tamana, Enayatullah Hafiz, Mohammad Hanif Atmar, Zalmai Rasool, Noor Ul Haq Ulomi, Gulbudddin Hekmatyar and Syed Noorullah Jalili.
Posted by: trailing wife || 01/20/2019 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Hizb-i-Islami-Hekmatyar

#1  We all know that if he throws the election, he'll miss
Posted by: Frank G || 01/20/2019 10:45 Comments || Top||


Caribbean-Latin America
Democratic transition in Venezuela seems possible, analysts say
[PULSE.NG] After an election victory slammed as fraudulent by the opposition and international community, Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro has begun a new term that will see him in office until 2025, his grip on power seemingly firmer than ever.

So why are analysts talking up a hope for political change?

Step in Juan Guaido, a 35-year-old industrial engineer who took charge of the opposition-dominated National Assembly on January 5, breathing new life into the body that had been rendered virtually impotent by Maduro's constitutional maneuvers.

"It's almost like a rebirth. The opposition has emerged more unified than ever before," says Geoff Ramsey, vice president for Venezuela at WOLA, a research center on Latin America based in Washington.

"For the first time in many months... Maduro is on the defensive," wrote Andres Oppenheimer, a noted journalist on Latin American affairs.

Weeks into his new job, Guaido has managed to get the assembly's opposition majority to officially declare Maduro a usurper and denounce his re-election as a fraud, while promising an "amnesty" for all military and government officials that disavow the president.

That achievement eluded his predecessors, who have been exiled, imprisoned or disqualified.
Pathways to power

Guaido upped the ante in a Washington Post column Tuesday, invoking articles of Venezuela's constitution that call on its people to reject regimes that violate democratic values, adding: "I am fully able and willing to assume the office of the presidency on an interim basis to call for free and fair elections."

Michael Shifter, director of the Inter-American Dialogue think tank, agreed Guaido wresting power from Maduro would be in accordance with the law.

"What is happening in Venezuela is not a coup d'etat," he said. "The National Assembly and its current leader Guaido are totally legitimate, and have the law and Constitution on their side."

But, he added, the limits of the opposition's new-found strength are soon to be tested.

Facing a regime-loyalist-dominated Supreme Court that annuls all its decisions, the opposition has three main pathways, argues veteran diplomat Michael Matera, director of the US-based Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"The support of the military, the Venezuelan people and the international community will be essential to allow Guaido to assume (office) officially as president and to step into a role that now Maduro is trying illegitimately to hold to," he said.

To that end, the National Assembly this week boldly extended a hand to the military: it promised to grant amnesty to all those who support a return to constitutional order.

Guaido will also require the support of moderate followers of Maduro's predecessor Hugo Chavez to break for him, added Ramsey.
International Pressure

International pressure on Caracas has been growing since Maduro's reelection last May, but it surged with the arrival in power of the far right in Brazil: new President Jair Bolsonaro agrees with his US counterpart Donald Trump
...New York real estate developer, described by Dems as illiterate, racist, misogynistic, and what ever other unpleasant descriptions they can think of, elected by the rest of us as 45th President of the United States...
that Maduro is a "dictator."

Bolsonaro, whom Maduro called a modern-day Hitler, Thursday met at Planalto Palace with Miguel Angel Martin, president of the Supreme Court of Justice of Venezuela in exile, appointed by the opposition majority Assembly. A top adviser of Organization of American States chief Luis Almagro also was present.

Meanwhile,
...back at the chili cook-off, Chuck reached for the green sauce...
Brazilian Foreign Minister Ernesto Araujo met with Venezuelan opposition members and representatives of the United States and the Lima Group, a bloc of countries critical of Maduro. After the meeting, the Foreign Ministry issued a statement on Brazil's willingness to support a Guaido "interim presidency."

Though Maduro has a few allies in Latin America and around the world, most of the international community would welcome a democratic transition in Venezuela, according to Shifter.

"This process needs to be managed skillfully and be very clear-eyed about the obstacles that stand in the way," he said.
Posted by: Fred || 01/20/2019 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Commies

#1  Let's do it.
Best thing on the table.
Posted by: newc || 01/20/2019 0:29 Comments || Top||


Colombia demands Cuba hand over ELN 'criminals' after bombing
[PULSE.NG] Conservative President Ivan Duque urged Communist-ruled Cuba -- a host and one of the guarantors of the grinding of the peace processor -- to send home National Liberation Army (ELN) rebels who were in Havana.

On Friday, the government blamed the leftist ELN for the bombing of a police academy in Bogota that killed 20 people as well as the attacker, and dealt a body blow to the grinding of the peace processor.

Duque then announced that he was reinstating arrest warrants for 10 ELN members who are part of the group's delegation to the Cuba talks.

The talks -- started with his predecessor -- were aimed at ending more than five decades of insurgency by the Marxist-inspired bad boys.

Duque said that Cuba must not protect the rebels.

The police academy boom-mobileing "was a crime that violated human rights
...which are usually entirely different from personal liberty...
. And no such act deserves (Cuba acting) to avoid justice being done," Duque said while giving a speech in Tolima.

Colombia has experienced several years of relative calm since the 2016 peace accord signed by then-president Juan Manuel Santos and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia
FARC or FARC-EP, is either a Marxist-Leninist revolutionary guerrilla organization or a drug cartel based in Colombia. It claims to represent the rural poor in a struggle against Colombia's wealthier classes, and opposes United States influence in Colombia, neo-imperialism, monopolization of natural resources by multinational corporations, and the usual raft of complaints. It funds itself principally through ransom kidnappings, taxation of the drug trade, extortion, shakedowns, and donations. It has lately begun calling itself Bolivarian and is greatly admired by Venezuela's President-for-Life Chavez, who seemingly fantasizes about living in the woods and kidnapping people himself. He provides FARC with safe areas along the border.
(FARC) guerrillas.

With the landmark agreement turning the former rebels into a political party, the smaller ELN is considered the last active rebel group in the country.
Posted by: Fred || 01/20/2019 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Commies


Africa Horn
US airstrike in Somalia kills dozens of al-Shabab militants
[DW] The US military said on Saturday that it launched an Arclight airstrike against the bully boy group al-Shabaab
... Somalia's version of the Taliban, functioning as an arm of al-Qaeda...
in Somalia following an attack on a Somali military base.

A total of 52 al-Shabaab fighters were killed in the airstrike and no civilians were harmed, the US Africa Command said in a statement.

The airstrike was launched near the town of Jilib in the Middle Juba region in southern Somalia.

"US Africa Command conducted the airstrike in response to an attack by a large group of al-Shabaab forces of Evil against Somali National Army Forces," US military officials said in the statement.

The US statement did not say how many Somali forces were killed or maimed, although Somali General Ali Mohammed Mohamud said that seven Somali troops had died.

Al-Shabaab claimed to have killed 41 soldiers during attacks on two Somali army bases.
Posted by: trailing wife || 01/20/2019 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: al-Shabaab (AQ)


Europe
84,000 Yellow Vest protesters take to the streets across six cities as they attack a bank and riot beside Napoleon's tomb in Paris on the TENTH weekend of demonstrations
[DailyMail]
  • Tear gas, water cannon and flash ball guns used by Paris police at Les Invalides, where body of Napoleon is

  • A police officer at the scene said hundreds of riot police were being attacked by Yellow Vest protesters

  • The protests hit six cities all over France, including Paris, Bordeaux, Lyon, Marseille, Angers and Toulouse

  • The biggest demonstration occurred in the southern city of Toulouse, where around 10,000 people took part
Posted by: trailing wife || 01/20/2019 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  All data are suspect. The 84,000 number was used last week. Toulouse numbers are much higher than 10,000.
Posted by: Chereting Pelosi1889 || 01/20/2019 9:42 Comments || Top||



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Two weeks of WOT
Sun 2019-01-20
  Syrian air defence repels Israeli attack in south: State media
Sat 2019-01-19
  Libyan forces say Al-Qaeda commander killed in southern op
Fri 2019-01-18
  Militants stalked Xulhaz through LGBTQ platforms
Thu 2019-01-17
  Pakistan Releases Senior Taliban Jihadi Days After Arrest
Wed 2019-01-16
  Iran launches satellite into space
Tue 2019-01-15
  Explosions, gunfire erupt at Kenyan hotel in possible terror attack
Mon 2019-01-14
  Sudan Opposition Call for More Protests 'To Shake the Tyrant's Throne'
Sun 2019-01-13
  Report: Nasrallah suffers heart attack
Sat 2019-01-12
  12 civilians killed in jihadist attack in Burkina Faso
Fri 2019-01-11
  Jihadists take control of Idlib province after collapse of Turkish-backed rebels
Thu 2019-01-10
  Turkish-backed rebels surrender last positions in southwest Idlib
Wed 2019-01-09
  Turkish-backed rebels issue urgent plea for help from available forces in Idlib
Tue 2019-01-08
  Israel said to block latest Qatari cash transfer to Gaza
Mon 2019-01-07
  SDF troops capture ISIS stronghold east of Euphrates
Sun 2019-01-06
  Turkey asks US for help in fighting ISIS in Syria

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