[JustTheNews] House Speaker Kevin McCarthy visited the southern border on Thursday and met with local law enforcement to discuss the ongoing migration surge and threat from the drug cartels.
Being constrained by the New Republicans appears to be the making of him.
Speaking to reporters in Arizona, McCarthy lamented that the Sinaloa drug cartel had established control over much of the southern border. The speaker contended that the criminal organization had created a unique racket in the part of the border they controlled.
"What's different is what's coming across here... It's controlled... It's controlled by the cartel," McCarthy said. "The individuals who cross illegally on this border... come in camouflaged outfits."
"This is a fundamental problem but it's a problem created by this administration," he lamented, before pointedly criticizing Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas, who has claimed the situation is under control.
"[N]o one believes our border is secure," he went on, accusing Mayorkas of crafting immigration policies to manipulate federal statistics rather than directly address the issue. The speaker promised that Republicans would work to combat the efforts of the cartels and curtail administrative laxness on the issue.
"We will hold people accountable and that includes Secretary Mayorkas," he declared. "You cannot lie to the American people any longer."
The House speaker brought along several freshman Republican lawmakers, including Arizona Rep. Juan Ciscomani, in whose district he held the press conference. Ciscomani largely echoed McCarthy's remarks but also spoke to reporters in Spanish.
[Independent] After Zoya’s brother was snatched from the streets of Kabul, her family were told nothing — until his mutilated body was returned. He is one of an increasing number of Afghans facing brutal reprisals for their connections to the previous government.
Last Sunday, the Taliban announced it had conducted the mass burial of more than a hundred corpses, claiming that all of those who had died were "drug addicts". No further details were provided, which fueled concern that this was a cover-up of extrajudicial killings.
Farhan* had been hiding from the Taliban ...Arabic for students... for more than a year when he decided it might be safe enough to return home to Kabul.
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[CNN] Shortly before leaving for his first state visit to China on Tuesday, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi issued a thinly veiled criticism of his powerful ally, saying the two countries’ relationship has not lived up to expectations.
The first Iranian president to arrive in China on a state visit in two decades, Raisi was keen to tell Beijing that it has not given enough support to Tehran, especially economically.
“Unfortunately, I must say that we have seriously fallen behind in these relations,” he said, referring to trade and economic ties. Part of his mission, he said, was to implement the China-Iran Strategic Partnership Plan (CISPP), a pact that would see Beijing invest up to $400 billion in Iran’s economy over a 25-year period in exchange for a steady supply of Iranian oil.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Penguin_of_the_Desert ||
02/18/2023 00:00 ||
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#1
Iran must attempt to balance the scales with a Chinese government that had, according to the UN, emprisoned a million Uighurs in "Counter-Extremist Centers" in Xinjiang Province. If it joins an obvious alliance with China it will further exacerbate its difference with Sunni Muslims.
[KhaamaPress] The House Committee on Oversight and Accountability is intensifying its probe into the catastrophic withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021 under the Biden administration, the same old faces in slightly different places, the same old ideas, the same old graft ...the pack of self-imagined masterminds of strategy and intrigue at the service of the Biden Crime Family and a grateful nation... It is demanding answers from Biden’s brass hats for "tactical and strategic failings."
Many Republicans declared on Friday that they would write to numerous Biden Cabinet members, including the Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman, to begin the second probe into the chaotic American withdrawal from Afghanistan.
"The Biden Administration was tragically unprepared for the Afghanistan withdrawal, and their decisions in the region directly resulted in a national security and humanitarian catastrophe," the Committee chair said in a statement.
After the Doha agreement between the U.S. and the Taliban ...the Pashtun equivalent of men... , the American troops finally left Afghanistan, spending billions of dollars and causing loss of lives.
Meanwhile, ...back at the shootout, Butch shot Black Bart's knife out of his hand...... Joe The Big Guy Biden ...46th president of the U.S. You're a lyin' dog-faced pony soldier. Of course Corn Pop is a real person.... has always defended their decision over the withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan. as he announced in 2021 that the longest war in American history has ended.
The Republicans would like to conduct a second investigation into what went wrong when the Taliban seized power in August 2021 and put the lives of the hundreds of Americans and thousands of Afghans who had assisted them over the years in great jeopardy.
In February 2020, the Trump administration signed an agreement with the Taliban in Doha, Qatar ...an emirate on the east coast of the Arabian Peninsula. It sits on some really productive gas and oil deposits, which produces the highest per capita income in the world. They piss it all away on religion, financing the Moslem Brotherhood and several al-Qaeda affiliates. Home of nutbag holy manYusuf al-Qaradawi... , in which the U.S. promised to withdraw its troops by May 2021. However, a clean conscience makes a soft pillow... entirely, it was during the Biden administration that the Taliban took over Afghanistan.
In the agreement with the Taliban, there were several conditions, including stopping attacks on American and coalition forces and continuing peace negation with the Ghani government.
After the withdrawal of American troops, the system in Afghanistan collapsed. The Taliban stopped negotiating with the government and opted for military means to control Afghanistan.
Afghanistan is in a dire security situation, threatened by several international terror groups and gunnies and facing a difficult humanitarian situation.
The Taliban government still has not been recognized by the international community on the one hand and not respecting human rights ...which are usually entirely different from personal liberty... , restricting women’s education, work and sports.
#1
The war had gone on swimmingly for decades, then the evil Trump talked the TB into ending attacks on US personnel. Peace was breaking out all over. Might as well call it a day and move on, we're done here.
[CBSnews] Tens of thousands of Afghan refugees who were evacuated to the U.S. after the Taliban ...mindless ferocity in a turban... takeover of Afghanistan in 2021 are at risk of losing their work permits and deportation protections this summer unless Congress acts, unpublished government data show.
Fewer than 5,000 of the 77,000 Afghans resettled in the U.S. under a special legal process have secured permanent legal status for themselves and their families, with efforts to make them permanent residents floundering in Congress, according to the Department of Homeland Security figures.
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#2
If the bill is clean and doesn’t include a bunch of solutions for racist pavement, that’s a start. I would like to see vetting included in the bill. If the refugees helped Americans, there ought to be Americans that could corroborate their help.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
02/18/2023 10:59 Comments ||
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The earthquake was supposed to be a politics-free zone. Guess it isn’t anymore.
[NPASyria] On Feb. 15, videos emerged of armed Ottoman Turkishcoppers taking over a Crisis Coordination Center in Hasankoca, near Kahranmaras, a province in southern The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the occupiers of Greek Asia Minor... and the epicenter of the Feb. 6 earthquake.
The center was established by the People’s Democratic Party (HDP), a pro-Kurdish opposition party in Turkey, in order to deliver humanitarian aid to victims in the district. However,
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Posted by: trailing wife ||
02/18/2023 01:33 ||
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[NPASyria] The Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES) announced on Thursday it handed over 59 women and kiddies of the families of the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really 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 western pols talk they're not really Moslems.... (ISIS) of Kyrgyz nationals to the delegation of their country.
The Foreign Relations’ Department of the AANES said, on its official website, a delegation of Kyrgyzstan visited its area and received 18 women and 41 children of ISIS families.
The Kyrgyz delegation was headed by Tokobaev Arslan, representative of the Kyrgyz Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
The women and kiddies were handed over via a formal document between the AANES and the Republic of Kyrgyzstan.
Following the handing over, the US Central Command (CENTCOM), issued a statement showing its grateful for Kyrgyzstan.
"We are grateful to the leadership of the Kyrgyz Republic for working to resolve the ongoing humanitarian crisis resulting from the dismantling of the so-called ISIS caliphate," CENTCOM Commander, General Michael "Erik" Kurilla said.
He added that the "repatriation" of the nationals is the "only long-term solution" to the crisis of ISIS families in northeast Syria.
General Kurilla stressed that they will continue to support the repatriation efforts with their regional partners, in reference to the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).
Tens of thousands of women and kiddies of ISIS families from about 60 countries are still in the two camps of Hawl and Roj within the AANES-held areas in northeast Syria, in addition to thousands of ISIS members in prisons who were surrendered to the SDF during the fall of ISIS last stronghold of Baghuz in Deir ez-Zor Governorate.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
02/18/2023 01:33 ||
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[IsraelTimes] At Munich conference, defense minister warns the sales violate UN embargo set to expire in October: ‘Time is running out, while an evil regime traffics weapons’
Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on Friday accused Iran ...a theocratic Shiite state divided among the Medes, the Persians, and the (Arab) Elamites.... of advancing sales of missiles and drones to dozens of countries, in violation of a 2015 United Nations ...where theory meets practice and practice loses... Security Council resolution.
"Iran is currently holding discussions to sell advanced weapons, including UAVs and PGMs (precision-guided missiles), to no less than 50 different countries," Gallant said at the Munich Security Conference in Germany.
"Iran is no longer a ’local supplier,’ serving proxies in the Middle East. It is a ’multinational corporation,’ a global exporter of advanced weapons. From Belarus in Eastern Europe, to Venezuela ...a country in Central America that sits on an enormous pool of oil. Formerly the most prospereous country in the region, it became infested with Commies sniffing almost unlimited wealth. It turned out the wealth wasn't unlimited, the economy collapsed under the clownish Hugo Chavez, the murder rate exceeded places like Honduras and El Salvador. A significant proportion of the populace refugeed to Colombia and points south... in South America, we have seen Iran delivering UAVs with a range of up to 1,000 kilometers," he said.
The sale of such drones, according to Western diplomats, violates UN Security Council Resolution 2231, which endorsed the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and six key nations — the US, Russia, China, Britannia, La Belle France and Germany — aimed at curbing Tehran’s nuclear activities and preventing the country from developing atomic weapons.
Resolution 2231 bans Iran from exporting ballistic missiles and drones with a range of over 300 kilometers and a payload of more than 500 kilograms until October 2023.
"All this takes place, while the missile embargo on Iran is still in effect, an embargo that will expire this year. Time is running out, while an evil regime traffics weapons," he said. "The international community must create an effective alternative to the dying embargo, a practical mechanism of deterrence and consequences."
A report by the UK’s Guardian newspaper Tuesday said US officials have been warning that Iran is utilizing the war in Ukraine as a springboard to position itself as a hub for cheap and lethal military-grade drones.
Israel has been closely monitoring Russia’s deadly launch of Iranian-made suicide drones in Ukrainian cities, fearing that similar weapons will be directed at the Jewish state in future wars, particularly via Hezbollah on its northern border.
The Guardian report said US officials believe Tehran is rapidly improving the effectiveness of its drones through real-world use in Ukraine.
The al-Monitor news outlet last week quoted an unnamed Iranian defense official to the effect that China has joined the queue for Iranian drones.
"Our power has grown to levels where China is waiting in line to buy 15,000 of our drones," the official boasted.
Iran maintains a foreign policy goal of developing stronger relations with countries in the global East, such as China and Russia, in an effort to balance against severe Western sanctions placed on it, due to its largely unmonitored nuclear program.
Speaking on the Iranian nuclear threat, Gallant said: "When we speak of preventing Iran from gaining a nuclear weapon, we must keep all the possible means, I repeat, all possible means on the table."
Posted by: trailing wife ||
02/18/2023 00:00 ||
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in violation of a 2015 United Nations Security Council resolution.
[SHAFAQ] Iran's permanent mission to the United Nations ...an organization originally established to war on dictatorships which was promptly infiltrated by dictatorships and is now held in thrall to dictatorships... in New York on Wednesday rejected a report by the world body's experts that has said de facto al-Qaeda leader Saif al-Adl is currently based in Iran.
"It is worth noting that the address for the so-called newly appointed al-Qaeda leader is incorrect," the Iranian mission announced on Twitter.
Casting the UN report as "misinformation," the mission said on Twitter it could "potentially hinder efforts to combat terrorism." According to the Iranian mission, al-Qaeda as a global network was dismantled following the 2011 death of its leader the late Osama bin Laden ...... who used to be alive but now he's not...... The UN report, released on Monday, relied on findings by many member states and described Adl's "presence in the Islamic Theocratic Republic of Iran" as a "fact."
On Wednesday, the same assertion was repeated by the US government, which has placed a $10 million bounty on Adl over his role in deadly bombings targeting American embassies in Tanzania and Kenya back in 1988.
But addressing US authorities, Iran's Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian dismissed the accusation as a "failed campaign of Iranophobia." In a tweet on Thursday, he also advised Washington against giving "the wrong address" on terrorism, claiming that it was the US government that created such groups as al-Qaeda and the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really 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 western pols talk they're not really Moslems.... A formal announcement on al-Adl's leadership has yet to be made by al-Qaeda, whose last leader Ayman al-Zawahiri ...Formerly second in command of al-Qaeda, now the head cheese, occasionally described as the real brains of the outfit. Formerly the Mister Big of Egyptian Islamic Jihad. Bumped off Abdullah Azzam with a car boom in the course of one of their little disputes. Is thought to have composed bin Laden's fatwa entitled World Islamic Front Against Jews and Crusaders. Currently residing in the North Wazoo area assuming he's not dead like Mullah Omar. He lost major face when he ordered the nascent Islamic State to cease and desist and merge with the orthodox al-Qaeda spring, al-Nusra... was killed in a US Arclight airstrike ...KABOOM!... in Afghanistan last year. Those delays, according to the UN report, were caused by "sensitivity to Afghan Taliban ...mindless ferocity in a turban... concerns" in making public acknowledgment of Zawahiri's death.
The perceived reluctance of al-Qaeda as a Sunni bully boy group to target Iranian interests despite fundamental ideological differences with the Shiite government in Tehran has left room for speculation on possible links and exchanges between the two sides.
The latest UN report came against the backdrop of older accusations Iran ...The nation is noted for spontaneously taking over other countries' embassies, maintaining whorehouses run by clergymen, involvement in international drug trafficking, and financing sock puppet militias to extend the regime's influence... has been facing over providing safe heavens to the al-Qaeda leadership. In January 2021, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo alleged that al-Qaeda had found "a new home base" in Iran, as Islamic Theocratic Republic officials were allowing the group to "set up its operational headquarters and fundraise from within Iranian territory."
Posted by: Fred ||
02/18/2023 00:00 ||
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[ENGLISH.ALMANAR.LB] Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Nasser Kanaani says that the Islamic Theocratic Republic would carry on with its peaceful nuclear energy program and constructive cooperation with IAEA.
Kanaani made the remarks on Thursday in reaction to a joint statement by the United States and the Persian Gulf Cooperation Council.
The thoroughly anti-Iranian statement was issued by American and PGCC officials during a meeting of the so-called "Working Group on Iran" at the council’s headquarters in the Saudi capital Riyadh on Wednesday. It saw the countries in question accusing Iran ...The nation is noted for spontaneously taking over other countries' embassies, maintaining whorehouses run by clergymen, involvement in international drug trafficking, and financing sock puppet militias to extend the regime's influence... of leading "destabilizing policies," "supporting terrorism," "weapons proliferation...in the region and around the world," and "nuclear provocations."
Kanaani roundly rejected the accusations that were leveled against the Islamic Theocratic Republic in the statement, describing them as "oft-repeated" and "tedious."
He considered the issuance of such statements to be in line with the US regime’s age-old strategy of sowing division among the countries of the region.
The official went on by citing many instances of the US "destructive" and "interventionist" policies in the region, which had worked to disrupt regional stability and security.
The spokesperson enumerated the US’s sales of millions of dollars worth of weapons to the regional states, its "support for Takfiri ...an adherent of takfir wal hijra, an offshoot of Salafism that regards everybody who doesn't agree with them as apostates who must be killed... terrorism," its "continued all-out backing of the Zionist regime’s crimes against the oppressed Paleostinian people," and Washington’s contribution to the years-long devastating war against the Yemen ...an area of the Arabian Peninsula sometimes mistaken for a country. It is populated by more antagonistic tribes and factions than you can keep track of... i nation.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/18/2023 00:00 ||
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[ENGLISH.ALMANAR.LB] Head of Marada Movement the personal militia of Suleiman Franjieh, president of Lebanon at the outbreak of the civil war, currently Syrian toadies, but you never know when that could change... , Suleiman Franjiyeh, stressed that protecting Christians in Lebanon Hezbollahstan ...the home of Hezbollah, which periodically starts a war with the Zionist Entity™, gets Beirut pounded to rubble, and then declares victory and has a parade... requires reinforcing their belonging to their homeland, warning them against the partition schemes in this regard.
Addressing popular crowds in Zgharta city, Franjiyeh indicated that scaring Christians of their partners in the nation and involving them in partitioning schemes would never protect them.
The former MP and minister pointed out that he has not run for the presidential elections yet, but that his nomination is on the table.
"We have an economic, political and social vision that is built on realism and saying the truth no matter how painful it is," Franjiyeh said.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/18/2023 00:00 ||
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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 pack of self-imagined masterminds of strategy and intrigue at the service of the Biden Crime Family and a grateful nation...
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling 
...a theocratic Shiite state divided among the Medes, the Persians, and the (Arab) Elamites....
Hezbollah
...The nation is noted for 
...an adherent of takfir wal hijra, an offshoot of Salafism that regards everybody who doesn't agree with them as apostates who must be killed...
...the home of Hezbollah, which periodically starts a war with the Zionist Entity™, gets Beirut pounded to rubble, and then declares victory and has a parade...
