National Guard troops in Texas are legally organizing and forming unions while serving on state active duty orders
Federal laws prohibiting members of the military from organizing unions 'does not apply to Guard members on state active duty' DoJ lawyers wrote last month
The green-light to organize hinges upon the troops’ legal status as state employees rather than military members when they are on state active duty
Usually, Guard troops only go on state active duty for short periods of time such as after a disaster or civil disturbance
But Texas' National Guard’s Operation Lone Star, includes up to 10,000 members of the Texas Military Department who are mobilized on year-long orders
Operation Lone Star was created by Texas Governor Greg Abbott amidst a wave of illegal immigrants from Central America crossing the US-Mexico border
It deploys law enforcement in areas human and drug smugglers known to use
They will join the Texas State Employees Union's Military Caucus.
Their unionization comes after a recent filing by the Justice Department that allows for troops with the Guard to join; their first union meeting is scheduled for next week.
A federal law that had previously prohibited members of the military from organizing unions 'does not apply to Guard members on state active duty or in the Inactive National Guard,' DOJ lawyers wrote in a court filing last month.
Do tell. Whose bright idea was it to organize this effort, and what are his connections to the FBI, et al?
#2
...A few months ago - during one kerfluffle or another - I pointed out that some of the loudmouthed former generals and current idiots politicians who were calling for the Administration to crack down on something had suddenly remembered that the Governors controlled a LOT of America's military power. This may be part of the solution to that.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
02/18/2022 11:41 Comments ||
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#3
"Their unionization comes after a recent filing by the Justice Department that allows for troops with the Guard to join; their first union meeting is scheduled for next week."
This just stinks of Biden admin screwing with Texas. Also, it'll be interesting to see how many attend the first scheduled meeting. If they dont' announce massive numbers we can assume the Guard weren't actually following the narrative and didn't show up.
#7
Remember, this is STATE Active Duty, not federal. They are state employees wearing the uniform because they are also qualified current or former federally recognized soldier and airmen. The chain of command ends with the Governor, and they earn state pay, and state credit in the state pension system. Warfighting is NOT their mission, state security and emergency missions as assigned by the governor, to support state law, are their mission set.
At 2:49 the narrator bravely points out that the US aided Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda, which directly led to them becoming popular and well-liked throughout the world. Hope Youtube doesn't harm his channel.
[BBC] President Emmanuel Macron has announced he will be pulling French forces out of the West African nation of Mali, where they have been fighting Islamist militants since 2013.
There are 5,000 French troops in Mali and surrounding countries, fighting groups such as al-Qaeda and Islamic State.
But over the past eight years, the French presence has become increasingly unpopular with Mali's government and its public.
What is the terrorist threat in Mali and the Sahel region?
Both the Islamic State group and al-Qaeda have decided to focus on the Sahel region of Africa, after suffering setbacks in the Middle East.
The Sahel is a strip of semi-arid land beneath the Sahara Desert that stretches across the continent from east to west. It includes parts of Chad, Niger, Mali, Burkina Faso and Mauritania.
Posted by: Besoeker ||
02/18/2022 05:35 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11128 views]
Top|| File under: al-Qaeda in North Africa
#1
The French have done all they can to provide aid and assistance, medicine, education, law & order, the usual elements of a civilized society. They've done all they can to provide some sort of civil order. Unfortunately, teaching goats to play the saxophone is very difficult. Time to leave the bastids to their inherent tribal misery.
If numerous other examples have somehow been overlooked, there remains a valuable teaching point to be found in the French action. That is of course, should anyone in our political establishment care to take note.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
02/18/2022 9:33 Comments ||
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#9
Yes, in fact France does loot its former colonies. Why's that a surprise? Are educated people really unaware of this? The French franc still exists. Yes it does. But only in Africa. France takes its colonies' money and sells it back to them. It's a very important part of the French budget and without it France would have a very hard time making ends meet.
Why's it a surprise that the wealthy rip off the helpless and defenseless? After all, they can't help or defend themselves. You think these sharks have an ounce of human kindness in them? No, no they do not. The only possible policy is to treat them like the dirt they are.
#13
What's being described in #9 is seigniorage. It's a measurable economic factor, but not enough to keep any economy afloat.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
02/18/2022 11:07 Comments ||
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#14
If you look at the greatest civilization/political structure in modern human history, the West (and I would argue the European and Anglo-sphere are the core components) it seems clear a certain kind of cultural "soil" seems necessary to adopt, absorb and thrive from its importation. Judeo-Christian ethics and a belief in genuine science seem essential components. It seems that even after planting, watering, and weeding, some climates and soil conditions just don't seem to be welcoming. Given that analogy, maybe we should focus on agriculture at home and accept that inhospitable conditions are not worth the effort.
#16
It was a continuation of the analogy B, I meant the whole business of making civilizational thriving at home...sorry for being so obscure and enamored of literary blather my friend!
#18
#14, leftistis and race peddlers believe in "magic dirt," the idea that some people just lucked out because of where they were settled. The truth is "magic dirt" is wherever a person with a "western" mindset stands.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
02/18/2022 12:05 Comments ||
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#19
If numerous other examples have somehow been overlooked...Chicago, DC,...
[BenarNews] Bangladesh’s High Court on Thursday ordered the release on bail of a teenager who was in jug for nearly 16 months for allegedly desecrating the Koran via a Facebook post.
Dipti Rani Das, who is from the minority Hindu community, was incarcerated Drop the gat, Rocky, or you're a dead 'un! on charges of violating the country’s draconian online security act by allegedly hurting religious sentiment in Moslem-majority Bangladesh.
"She will be released after the order reaches the women and kiddies corrections center in northern Rajshahi district with due process. It may take another week," lawyer Nina Guswami, a director at Ain-O-Salish Kendra (ASK), a human rights ...not to be confused with individual rights, mind you... organization helping Dipti with legal support, told BenarNews
Dipti, who is now 18, is incarcerated at a women’s correctional center in Rajshahi, which is 247 km (153 miles) from Dhaka, where the High Court is located.
Dipti’s father, Dilip Kumar Das, was overjoyed.
"We could smile today after 16 months; the whole family is awaiting her hug on her release," he told BenarNews.
Police arrested Dipti in October 2020 in northern Dinajpur after a Digital Security Act case was filed over a photo she allegedly posted showing a woman with a Koran placed between her thighs.
Dilip Kumar denied that his daughter had posted anything about Islam’s holy book and said her Facebook account had been hacked.
The teenager was granted bail on Thursday on her sixth attempt. She was denied bail four times by a lower court. On her fifth attempt, the High Court granted her bail but a police officer appealed against her release before the Supreme Court ...the political football known as The Highest Court in the Land, home of penumbrae and emanations... , which then halted the bail order.
On Thursday, she was granted bail on a fresh petition before the High Court.
Passed in 2018, the Digital Security Act punishes those who produce or distribute content that "hurts religious sentiments or religious values" or "destroys communal harmony, or creates unrest or disorder" with up to 10 years in prison.
It empowers police to make arrests on suspicion and without a warrant. Fourteen of its 20 provisions do not allow for bail, so when those accused are brought before a magistrate, they almost automatically are sent to jail.
In November, human rights watchdog Amnesia Amnesty International urged the Bangladeshi government to release Dipti "and all those detained solely for exercising their right to freedom of expression."
POLICE CLAIM TEEN IS GUILTY Meanwhile, ...back at the Senate, Odius Sepulcher called for war against the Visigoths... police said in their chargesheet submitted to the court that their investigation found that Dipti had offended under the Digital Security Act.
"Three allegations brought against her under the Digital Security Act are primarily proved," the police investigation report said.
"She posted a caricature of the Koran .... She intentionally instigated devout Moslems with a view to damaging religious harmony in the country," the police report added.
The case against Dipti has now been transferred to the cyber tribunal in Rangpur for trial.
"A hearing on the chargesheet will be held on March 13," Ruhul Amin Talukder, acting public prosecutor at the Rangpur court, told BenarNews.
Bangladesh Legal Aid and Services Trust (BLAST), a human rights organization, will provide Dipti legal assistance in the case.
"The case was supposed to be forwarded to a juvenile court. Instead, it has been forwarded to the cyber tribunal," Dilruba Rahman Ankhi, a lawyer at BLAST in Rangpur, told BenarNews.
"The investigation report of police had described Dipti as a ’child involved in the conflict.’ Now the judge of the tribunal will decide in which court the case will be tried."
But first they complied, making this move slightly less brave thqn it first appears.
[IsraelTimes] 14 publicly funded institutions say query, filed by pro-Paleostinian group under freedom of information law, led to ’distress and a feeling of insecurity’.
Fourteen Dutch universities said they are suspending their compliance with a freedom of information query from a pro-Paleostinian organization regarding their ties with Israeli and Jewish entities.
The 14 publicly funded institutions, including the University of Amsterdam, the University of Utrecht and the Delft University of Technology, made the announcement Tuesday in a joint statement following an outcry last week over the query by The Rights Forum, which critics say was founded by an antisemite.
The query has led to "distress and a feeling of insecurity. We regret this," read the statement by the Universities of the Netherlands, an umbrella group representing the country’s public universities.
Those institutions have asked for an undisclosed "time extension" in complying with the query, meaning that "currently no further steps are taken to retrieve, collect and/or transmit the information" sought in the query, the statement read.
The universities will "balance" the legal requirements of the freedom of information law that gave the query its legal standing with "other legal frameworks, including those guaranteeing the safety" of university staff, the statement also read.
The universities began gathering the information because the query was certified as what is known in the Netherlands as a WOB request, compliance to which is legally required for public or state-funded organization.
In the request, Gerard Jonkman, director of The Rights Forum, wrote that under the WOB request, he is seeking documents or information on "institutional ties with Israel universities, institutions and businesses and with organizations that propagate support for the State of Israel."
Among the dozens of entities Jonkman listed are Christians for Israel, the Israeli weapons and defense systems producer Elbit, and a right-wing, pro-Israel Dutch-Jewish association.
But the list also includes mainstream Jewish entities from the Netherlands and elsewhere that do not define themselves as Israeli or solely focused on Israel.
Those groups include the Anti-Defamation League, the Central Jewish Board of the Netherlands, the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, B’nai B’rith and even the office of the Dutch government’s own National Coordinator for Fighting Antisemitism, which is headed by Edo Verdonner, who is Jewish.
The Central Jewish Board has called the request antisemitic and urged universities to refuse to comply with it in a statement Tuesday. Rabbi Binyomin Jacobs, the chief rabbi of the Netherlands, also termed the request antisemitic and drew parallels between it and the conduct of Nazi collaborators.
The Rights Forum has not responded to a request for comment by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
The group was founded by Dries van Agt, a former prime minister of the Netherlands whom the Central Jewish Board has called an antisemite. Van Agt has dismissed this as an attempt to delegitimize his criticisms of Israel.
Van Agt recently accused Israeli settlers of routinely poisoning their Paleostinian neighbors, prompting critics to say he was reviving medieval antisemitic blood libels.
In 2008, he compared Israel to Nazi Germany and spoke at a rally in Rotterdam that featured a televised address by a leader of Hamas, the braying voice of Islamic Resistance®,.
Van Agt has also said that the Jews "should have been given a piece of land" in Germany instead of Israel. In 2017, he praised the Dutch Labour party for being "good for the Paleostinians despite the strong Jewish lobby" in its ranks, according to the Central Jewish Board of the Netherlands. And as the country’s justice minister in the 1970s, he cited his "Aryan" roots in explaining his plan to pardon four Nazi war criminals due to health reasons.
[AlAhram] Two words, taboo for many in La Belle France because they evoke a conspiracy theory embraced by white supremacists, have been haunting the French presidential campaign.
``Great replacement'' rolls off the tongue of presidential candidate Eric Zemmour, an outsider with views to the right of the far-right who has made the term the underpinning of his campaign. But when mainstream conservative presidential candidate Valerie Pecresse pronounced them at her first major rally last weekend, politicians and pundits screamed foul, saying she had crossed a red line.
Overton Window moved.
The ''great replacement'' is the false claim
...for a given value of false that means true, but we won’t admit it...
that the native populations of La Belle France and other Western countries are being overrun by non-white immigrants colonists _ notably Moslems _ who are allegedly supplanting, and one day will erase, Christian civilization and its values.
Continued on Page 49
#1
O Muslims, beware of Zemmours
Who, doubting the future is yours,
Creep deep in your sleep
To replace all those sheep
And drugged underaged infidel poors!
#2
It's not a crazy conspiracy theory. Democrats have straight-up said they're going to replace American voters with illegal aliens and, what was the phrase they used in the Wikileaks, "ensure a permanent Democrat majority".
Posted by: Herb McCoy ||
02/18/2022 7:55 Comments ||
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[IsraelTimes] In scathing letter, ambassador Meirav Eilon Shahar says commission headed by Navi Pillay is biased and will not treat Israel fairly; ’We expect such bodies to act in good faith’.
Israel on Thursday formally announced it would not cooperate with a special commission formed by the United Nations ...a formerly good idea gone bad... ’ top human rights
Continued on Page 49
#1
You got to wonder. If the Bolsheviks keep driving NYC into the sewer, someone at the UN has got to say "Why should we be here in a sh*thole city when we can be in Geneva?" Why go the UN in NYC when you might as well be in a sh*thole back home? At least they speak my language.
[Jpost] The IDF 'Mamriot' program, supported by the Zalik Foundation and FIDF, aims to close the gender gap in the Israeli military's cyber units.
A new IDF program providing technological education for teenage girls across Israel has been granted $1 million by Friends of the IDF (FIDF) and the Zalik Foundation.
The IDF program, named 'Mamriot' (taking off), aims to close the gender gap in the Israeli military's cyber units by increasing the talent pool of soldiers and Israeli citizens with scientific and tech-based education.
FIDF, an NGO offering social, educational and cultural programs designed to celebrate and honor Israeli soldiers, and the Zalik Foundation, founded in 2018, have raised the sum to support the integration of young women into IDF cyber units.
A pointless exercise, but the proposed disposition is revealing.
[IsraelTimes] Outline detailed by Rooters provides for Iran’s release of Western prisoners, subsequent gradual waiving of sanctions.
A draft agreement between Iran ...The word Iran is a cognate form of Aryan. The abbreviation IRGC is the same idea as Stürmabteilung (or SA). The term Supreme Guide is a the modern version form of either Duce or Führer or maybe both... and world powers would involve a phased return to the 2015 nuclear deal, with both sides initially taking interim steps to curb enrichment and lift some sanctions, according to a report Thursday.
The 20-page draft deal would also include the release of Westerners held by Iran, a key US demand, according to Rooters. Former US president Donald Trump ...Oh, noze! Not him!... abandoned the deal and reimposed sanctions in 2018, leading Iran to resume open enrichment of nuclear material to levels just below weapons-grade.
Officials involved in talks over the last seven months to reinstate the deal say time is running low, though some have indicated optimism that the sides could reach an agreement soon.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
02/18/2022 01:51 ||
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[11125 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Iran
#1
"....Sources clarified that the report means they enrich to whatever level they freaking want, and as much money as they tell us to hand over. In return, they'll attack us last.
Maybe."
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
02/18/2022 10:39 Comments ||
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#2
Biden is presiding over the development of an Iranian nuke.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
02/18/2022 10:46 Comments ||
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#3
They will eventually get one. It will be if/when/how they use one that will force the bigger decisions.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
02/18/2022 10:47 Comments ||
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#4
See: "Everybody's got the bomb." by Tom Lehrer. One verse, he sang "Egypt's going to get one too. Just to use on you know who."
Good proof that you shouldn't look to entertainers for global military/political analysis.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
02/18/2022 10:50 Comments ||
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#5
#3 They will eventually get one.
Delivered by a jet with a Star of David on the side
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/18/2022 11:38 Comments ||
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#6
Why I was wondering why F-22s sent to UAE "To fight Houthis." was to prevent such a thing.
Seems weird, but then there is this, and Kumala's strange "USA is awful" tweet the other day.
[Rudaw] It was night when Zakia Kachar heard the sounds of footsteps approach her tent in a detention camp for foreigners affiliated with Islamic State group extremists. With rocks in their hands, the wives of IS fighters had come for her.
She fled with her children to another area of the Roj Camp in northeast Syria. “They wanted to kill me,” she said.
Earlier that day, the dual Serbian-German national had fought back in an altercation with a camp resident disapproving of her wearing makeup. The woman had bitten her, and Kachar slapped her in defense.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: trailing wife ||
02/18/2022 00:00 ||
Comments ||
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[11125 views]
Top|| File under: Islamic State
Turkey and opposition factions bomb schools in the countryside of #Syria’s #Aleppo, killing and wounding students, in addition to suspending study in them.https://t.co/J0ehOF9SZr
ALEPPO NORTHER COUNTRYSIDE, Syria (North Press) – Displaced students in the town of Tel Rifaat in the northern countryside of Aleppo demanded on Thursday the concerned authorities and the international community stop the Turkish violations.
“The indiscriminate bombardment by the Turkish forces and the affiliated armed opposition factions on the town of Tel Rifaat, endangers the lives of thousands of residents, disrupting schools and depriving students of continuing their education,” the Education Board in the northern countryside of Aleppo said in a statement.
Displaced teachers and students from Afrin participated in the protest. They carried pictures of the students who either lost their lives or injured by the Turkish shelling during the past periods in the town of Tel Rifaat and the northern countryside of Aleppo.
“Five children have been wounded in the Turkish shelling over the past days, and schools in Tel Rifaat have been closed, as well as material damage to homes housing displaced people from Afrin,” the Education Board said.
the Karamel and Wardiya schools were bombed by Turkish forces and opposition faction during the current month, February, which led to the suspension of study in these two schools.
The students demanded the international organizations, the concerned authorities, and the international community break their silence regarding the ongoing Turkish violations against the displaced people of Afrin.
Reporting by Nariman Hesso
Posted by: badanov ||
02/18/2022 00:00 ||
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[11129 views]
Top|| File under: Sublime Porte
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
...the political football known as The Highest Court in the Land, home of penumbrae and emanations...
The universities began gathering the information because the query was certified as what is known in the Netherlands as a WOB request, compliance to which is legally required for public or state-funded organization.
...The word 
