[Yahoo via Rantingly] A federal judge sentenced a former commander of the Navy base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, on Thursday to two years in prison for trying to cover up a drunken fight with a commissary worker who was later found dead in the bay.
Testimony at the trial showed that the fight inside the official residence of the now-retired Navy captain, John R. Nettleton, 54, followed a night of drinking during a celebration at the base’s private officers’ club. At the party, the man who died, Christopher Tur, 42, loudly accused Nettleton of having an affair with his wife.
U.S. District Judge Timothy J. Corrigan announced the sentence, on six criminal counts including obstruction of justice, after a nearly daylong hearing in Jacksonville. During the hearing, Tur’s mother and siblings emotionally urged a severe sentence while three former military officers described Nettleton as a veteran combat helicopter pilot who had led a life of integrity.
"Any period of incarceration is anything but a slap on the wrist," the judge said in handing down the sentence through a mask in the largest hearing of the pandemic at the courthouse, with some people participating or listening by telephone and others watching on a video feed. "Capt. Nettleton is being held to account, and I think it is appropriate, and I hope it can be seen in that light."
Federal prosecutors had sought 37 to 46 months in prison, citing sentencing guidelines. Defense lawyers had urged no time, or home confinement.
Tur was found dead and floating in Guantánamo Bay on Jan. 11, 2015, two days after the fight and after Nettleton ordered the military and other residents to mount an extensive search for him. Tur had four broken ribs, a bruised forehead, and potentially lethal amounts of Prozac and alcohol in his system. A medical examiner ruled his death was caused by drowning, probably accidental.
Before announcing the sentence, the judge said: "This is not a homicide case. This is not a murder case. It’s not a case in which Capt. Nettleton stands accused or convicted of causing the death of Mr. Tur."
Rather, a civilian jury found that during the search, Nettleton did not report that he had fought with Tur, denied to another officer that Tur had come to his house and lied about the affair he had with Lara Tur, who ran the base’s social service department.
Tur’s family members asked the judge to exceed the sentencing guidelines and send a message of accountability to other military officers about the costs of getting drunk, infidelity and lying. Some argued that had Nettleton called the base police after the fight, Tur would be alive.
"What message will it send to other members of the military if the sentencing is guidelines?" said Ann Tur, his mother. "If you’re not highly ranked, you are not entitled to justice? Senior officers in the Navy, the Department of Justice will watch this closely. A good man, my baby boy, is dead."
Before sentencing, Nettleton told the judge that he was "humbled" by the support of his friends and family, including his former wife, and that "I honestly don’t know what I would decide" were he in the judge’s position.
"Command is an honor and a responsibility," he said. "I failed, and I know that I am accountable for my actions."
Why was he tried in federal court instead of a court martial?
Posted by: Frank G ||
10/11/2020 00:00 ||
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#1
"Command is an honor and a responsibility," he said. "I failed, and I know that I am accountable for my actions."
As Spinal Tap says, 'your appeal has become more selective', and it's right out of the gate!
[Gateway Pundit] - Shepard Smith caused a media stir earlier this year when he abruptly resigned from his show on the FOX News network.
FOX News viewers didn’t mind much. Shep was one of the most liberal hosts on the channel.
Now he has launched a new show on CNBC, but so far it doesn’t look like the viewers at CNBC are too thrilled with his work either.
His ratings are terrible.
The Hill reports:
Shepard Smith averages 322,000 viewers in first week on CNBC
CNBC’s Shepard Smith averaged 322,000 total viewers in his first week of shows on the Comcast-owned business network, according to Nielsen Media Research.
The former Fox News anchor parted ways with the network in October 2019 after 23 years there. Smith signed with CNBC in July, where he serves as the network’s chief general news anchor and chief breaking general news anchor as well as executive editor of his own program, "Shepard Smith Reports."
Smith’s Sept. 30 CNBC debut delivered 373,000 viewers nine days ago, with viewership tracking lower than the premiere newscast over the next four shows.
On Oct. 1, Smith registered 321,000 viewers, followed by 331,000 on Oct. 2, 266,000 on Oct. 5 and 321,000 on Wednesday.
By way of comparison, Tucker gets 5 million viewers a day, making Shep a mighty 7 percenter.
#8
Shep was like watching the news being spun in a laundromat dryer. Two words in and you could skip the rest of the segment -- Shep had a slant and hang the facts!.
New fires broke out on Saturday afternoon, in Banias, the countryside of Tartous, al-Mezeir'a in Latakia countryside, and Qahtan Castle in Jablah, in Syria's coast. #Syria fires https://t.co/QXFymg3oAu
[IsraelTimes] No casualties reported; regional heatwave leads to blazes throughout Middle East, including in Syria, where two people are killed.
Wildfires around the Middle East triggered by a heatwave hitting the region killed two people in Syria, forced thousands of people to leave their homes and detonated landmines along the Leb ...an Iranian colony situated on the eastern Mediterranean, conveniently adjacent to Israel. Formerly inhabited by hardy Phoenecian traders, its official language is now Arabic, with the usual unpleasant side effects. The Leb civil war, between 1975 and 1990, lasted a little over 145 years and produced 120,000 fatalities. The average length of a ceasefire was measured in seconds. The Lebs maintain a precarious sectarian balance among Shiites, Sunnis, and about a dozeen flavors of Christians. It is 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. The Lebs have the curious habit of periodically murdering their heads of state or prime ministers... -Israel border, state media and officials said Saturday.
Fires were reported by Lebanon’s state news agency in several villages along the border, with some of them triggering explosions of land mines placed along the heavily guarded front.
There were no reports of injuries.
The areas hit by the heatwave are Syria, Lebanon, Israel and the Paleostinian territories. The fires come amid an intense heatwave that is unusual for this time of the year.
In Lebanon, firefighters backed by army helicopters fought fires in the country’s north, center and south. A big fire in the southern village of Bater burnt hundreds of pine trees and was getting close to homes when it was put under control.
Wildfires spread across different areas of Israel and the West Bank Friday and into Saturday, forcing thousands of people to evacuate their homes.
One of the hardest-hit countries was war-torn Syria where fires have killed two people and left dozens suffering from breathing problems over the past two days. The wildfires also burnt wide areas of forests, mostly in the central province of Homs and the coastal province of Latakia.
With firefighters overwhelmed, some residents helped them using primitive methods such as carrying water in buckets and pouring them on the fire.
Director of the Forestry Department in Latakia Agricultural Department, Bassem Douba, was quoted as saying by state news agency SANA that the number of fires reached 85 in different sites.
Also in Latakia province, fires in Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Terror of Aleppo ... ’s hometown of Qardaha heavily damaged a building used as a storage for the state-owned tobacco company, part of which collapsed.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/11/2020 00:00 ||
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#1
Some balloon launchers weren't reading the pilot's wind reports.
[Huff Post via Yahoo] Devon Kitzo-Creed, a 28-year-old African American woman, always planned on leaving the United States to live abroad. Definitely before she had children, but probably not until she was in her 30s.
2020 pushed up her timeline.
Now she and her husband, who live in Wilmington, Delaware, are planning on relocating to Ecuador right after the election. She'll continue her work as a doula and childbirth educator. He can work remotely as a video editor and animator.
Why the rush? "The way things have gone this year, the political climate of our country, and just the way that I do not feel valued at all in this country," Kitzo-Creed explained.
The day before Kitzo-Creed spoke to HuffPost, a Kentucky grand jury declined to indict police officers for murder after they shot and killed Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old Black woman, inside her Louisville, Kentucky, apartment.
That no one would face justice for the death of an innocent woman sent a familiar message to Kitzo-Creed: This country doesn't care about Black people.
"It's like the Black woman really is the most disrespected, disregarded person in America," she said, echoing a Malcolm X quote made even more famous by Beyoncé. "So, I'm leaving."
Kitzo-Creed is part of a group of African American professionals looking to leave, or who have already left, the United States. HuffPost spoke to several who said they were fed up with the daily drumbeat of racism, discrimination at work, the hostility of police officers, the fear of doing even the most mundane tasks.
Kitzo-Creed recalled how just this summer, she was getting followed around the grocery store. Another man recounted how a police car followed him at night just recently, sending his heart racing. A woman recalled asking a repairman at her home to put on a mask because of the pandemic. He told her, "We won't need to do this after Trump wins the election."
Almost every Black professional HuffPost spoke with had a story about a tense encounter with the police. Several said that the killings of Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery (shot while jogging), and George Floyd (killed by a police officer who kept a knee on his neck for eight minutes) were crystallizing moments.
While there is no hard data on the number of African Americans who live abroad or intend to move, anecdotally, discussions about whether to stick around in the U.S. are increasing ‐ particularly among college-educated, relatively well-off Black Americans. USA Today and Condé Nast Traveler noted the trend in August. And after the presidential debate last month, Google saw an increase in searches for how to move to Canada.
It isn't just politics and police violence, though. Everyone talked about the pandemic. "The shift really came this year with the pandemic," said Sienna Brown, a 28-year-old African American woman who moved to Spain six years ago and now runs an online community for women who are interested in moving abroad. She said that initially, she mostly heard from women looking to travel internationally. Now it's women who want to leave.... [Don't let the turnstyle hit you in the rear on your way out (but of course, you won't really leave, will you?).]
#3
Nobody is going anywhere. This is just them being bitter and angry. The worst thing they can think of is "I'm going to deny you my presence." Which...well hell who cares about you? But they're the center of their own little world. Remember the hordes of people who said they're leaving if Trump won? Not one of them left. It was nothing but an empty threat of consequences.
#9
Having breakfast at Christopher's not long ago, I was seated near a couple of well spoken, well educated and traveled African American seniors. Both were women. My ears perked when one began speaking about the frequent ill-treatment (not further defined) she had encountered in Europe. One quote that stands out; "you would never see that type of thing here."
#23
I've been trying to think of something witty to post, but I just can't think of anything funnier than moving to Latin America to avoid police brutality. China or one of the 'stans, maybe.
Posted by: Matt ||
10/11/2020 14:31 Comments ||
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#25
Off the pile... Rasselas, Prince of Provincetown, or...
The Tale of "That Ape from the Cape"
Though black Black as a muscadine grape,
He endured a great spate
Of pure hate ["Not a native!"]
Until he could make his escape.
China has amassed more than 60,000 troops on India’s northern border, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has said as he hit out at Beijing for its “bad behaviour” and the threats it poses to the Quad countries.https://t.co/ON33pPAGjV
[Express.UK] CHINA has ordered a US Navy warship to leave the South China Sea "immediately" after a destroyer entered the waters around the Paracel Islands.
Due to its One-China policy, Beijing has laid claim to several islands chains in the South China Sea. On Friday, the Chinese Defence Ministry claimed the USS John McCain had entered into the waters around the disputed islands, without the government's permission. After detecting the US naval ship, the Chinese military quickly ordered the vessel to leave, before sending forces to conduct tracking procedures.
Senior Colonel Zhang Nandong also called on the US to stop violating China’s sovereignty in the region.
He said: "We demand the US immediately stop such provocative actions, and strictly control and restrict military operations in the sea and air."
The military official also stated China would continue to take necessary measures to protect the regional stability of the South China Sea.
China has accused the US of trying to increase its presence in the region by sending navy ships to conduct freedom of navigation operations.
Due to China’s colossal navy, Beijing has been able to put pressure on neighbouring states such as the Philippines, Malaysia and Vietnam to claim the islands it sees as its own.
In response, Washington has attempted to take a tough stance with Beijing.
US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo has persistently warned of Xi Jinping’s growing naval empire.
He has previously stated: "We are making clear: Beijing’s claims to offshore resources across most of the South China Sea are completely unlawful, as is its campaign of bullying to control them.
"In the South China Sea, we seek to preserve peace and stability, uphold freedom of the seas in a manner consistent with international law, maintain the unimpeded flow of commerce, and oppose any attempt to use coercion or force to settle disputes.
"We share these deep and abiding interests with our many allies and partners who have long endorsed a rules-based international order.
"Beijing uses intimidation to undermine the sovereign rights of Southeast Asian coastal states in the South China Sea, bully them out of offshore resources, assert unilateral dominion, and replace international law with might makes right.
"The world will not allow Beijing to treat the South China Sea as its maritime empire."
Canada has now joined the chorus of countries calling for China’s activities in the region to be monitored.
After two Canadians were detained by China, Justin Trudeau’s defence minister, Harjit Sajjan, called for NATO to increase its activities in the South China Sea.
He also described Beijing’s action in the waters as "concerning".
He said: "This type of hostage diplomacy is not what good rules-based order nations do.
"So, if you want to be part of the global rules-based order, we need to have greater predictability.
"These are some of the things that we will continue to monitor, and we need to monitor in NATO.
#5
Great to see the flag flying in the SCS, but I hope that since the 2017 accident the McCain bridge crew has learned how to operate the helm controls.
Posted by: Matt ||
10/11/2020 13:02 Comments ||
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#6
To quote Gen Anthony McAuliffe: Nuts!
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
10/11/2020 13:54 Comments ||
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Maybe I'm the only one here that uses NOOK rather than Amazon Kindle, but if, like me, you have been wondering WTF is wrong with your B&N eReader, here you go. This article was posted 10-10-2020...
[Goodereader.com] Barnes and Noble is experiencing an outage on their Nook e-readers and the Nook apps for Android and iOS.
The Nook libraries are not syncing or loading purchases, which means you cannot read ebooks, view your purchases or make new purchases. The entire system has crashed and it won’t be fixed for a couple of days.
Barnes and Noble technical support has confirmed with Good e-Reader that the servers are down for maintenance, but they never disclosed the downtime in advance to Nook owners. They failed to email, have a popup appear on Nook devices or even issue an update on social media.
The inability to sync purchases is a kick in the pants for anyone that was hoping to read a good ebook this long weekend.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
10/11/2020 08:22 ||
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Nothing like this could ever possibly happen with Faceborg or Goolag or Twatter.
Sidenote: eBay co-founder Pierre Omidyar is the one who owns Billy Kristol now, I believe.
[Fox Business] According to court documents, the editor and publisher of the newsletter were targeted after an article about litigation involving eBay in August 2019. Some members of eBay’s executive leadership team sent or forwarded text messages that suggested it was time to "take down" its editor, prosecutors said.
Popp and Zea are accused of conspiring with the former employees and executives in sending items to the couple such as a preserved fetal pig, a bloody pig Halloween mask, a funeral wreath and a book on surviving the loss of a spouse.
Pornography addressed to the victims was delivered to their neighbor’s homes, prosecutors say, and Zea sent live insects to the victims’ residence.
Another part of the scheme involved sending private Twitter messages and public tweets criticizing the newsletter’s content and even threatening to travel to the victims' home. The plan was for the messages to become increasingly more disturbing and eventually reveal the victims' home address.
The group drove to the home several times, planning to break into the victims’ garage and install a GPS tracking device on their car, court documents say.
[AmericanPartisan.org] Stormbreaker 1776 sends the following Intel:
Dated March, 2018
Chinese Military Like Soldiers Train In Canada
That’s the same video that cingold posted yesterday. Clearly this thing is making the rounds.
Dated July, 2020
News Article Investigating Chinese In Canada
The following information needs to be researched. Several locations on the web cite this but unable to find the origin to this statement as follows:
"Under the terms of the Foreign Investment Protection Act (FIPA), a bi-lateral treaty ratified with China by the Trudeau government in 2019, Chinese security forces can be stationed on Canadian soil to protect vital Chinese investments, without the knowledge or consent of local authorities".
— Canadian Independent Press Review, January 15, 2020
#3
On September 9, 2012, Canada signed a Foreign Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement with China. FIPAs are Canada’s name for bilateral investment treaties used by corporations globally to challenge public policies or decisions that interfere with their profits. Canada’s first FIPA took the form of a single chapter (Chapter 11) in the North American Free Trade Agreement. Because of extreme investment protections in NAFTA, Canada has paid out $160 million to U.S. corporations who challenged public decisionsincluding environmental policy. Canadian mining companies are using FIPAs with developing countries to claim damages from community opposition to unwanted mega-projects.
Cue Chicoms, advisors from Cuba:
Logistics, drill, fire and maneuver.
From Canada, hidden,
They'll, soon as they're bidden,
Embark for Kowloon from Vancouver!
[Breitbart] President Donald Trump, Vice President Mike Pence, and second lady Karen Pence called leaders of OUTspoken, a group of LGBT conservatives who gathered in Nashville, Tennessee, on Friday, to thank them for their support.
OUTspoken, a group of LGBT conservatives who "support freedom and diversity of thought," tweeted a photo of members of the group receiving the special phone calls from the leaders.
When asked about the event, former Acting Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Richard Grenell — the first openly gay cabinet member in U.S. history — told Breitbart News exclusively, "President Trump is the best President the gay and lesbian community has ever had."
"And his support in the gay community is the highest any Republican has ever seen," he continued. "Vice President Pence and President Trump both spoke with conservative gay leaders this weekend and personally thanked them for their historic work to re-elect Trump-Pence."
U.S. Army veteran and author Rob Smith told Breitbart News that "hearing from both the Vice President and the President on the same weekend" made him "realize how important the mission is."
#2
There are big differences between tolerance and submission. It's the latter that now hurts their overall community. Power is addictive. Some just don't know when to stop.
#3
I don't care how they get their kicks. It's when they start trying to use the gummint as a cudgel to force me to validate their life choices that I cease to be passively sympathetic.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
10/11/2020 9:20 Comments ||
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"As long as they keep the curtains closed to avoid frightening the passing horses..." as the Victorians said.
[FlightGlobal] Israeli-Jordan airspace pact set to unlock more Middle Eastern routes
Israel’s government has expanded potential route networks with Arab states through an airspace agreement with its Jordanian counterpart.
The pact, signed between civil aviation authorities on 8 October, opens the two countries’ airspace and will “significantly shorten flight times” from the Gulf states and Asia to destinations in Europe and North America, says the government.
Aircraft have previously had to depart from optimum flightpaths by “many tens of kilometres”, it states, by flying through Iran and Turkey to the north or Sinai in the south.
Israel and Jordan already had diplomatic ties following a peace deal between the two countries reached in 1994.
“This [airspace agreement] is the successful conclusion of negotiations that began several years ago,” the Israeli government says.
It points out that the discussions were “accelerated” as a result of the recent normalisation of relations between Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain – as well as the opening of Saudi Arabian airspace to Israeli-Gulf flights.
Israeli transport minister Miri Regev says the government is “breaking new boundaries”, and that the country is “increasingly integrating”.
“We are opening up new means of transport, economic and political co-operation with countries that share similar borders and interests with us, and share the vision of regional peace,” he adds.
Flights operated by UAE and Bahraini carriers will be able to overfly Israel to proceed to their destinations, leading to “significant” fuel savings, says the Israeli government.
[CollegeFix] The University of Pittsburgh is under federal investigation for allegedly retaliating against a professor for his views and practicing "overtly race-based admission and hiring."
The Department of Education informed Pitt Chancellor Patrick Gallagher in a letter Thursday that Norman Wang may have been "disparately treated" on account of his Asian background as well.
Pitt’s affiliated hospital fired Wang from his position as director of a fellowship program this summer, in response to a white paper he published in the Journal of the American Heart Association.
Wang (above) concluded that it would be best to implement race-neutral hiring methods within his field of cardiology. He argued that affirmative action has led to "relatively weak academic starting positions in classes" among black and Hispanic beneficiaries.
The doctor and his work received subsequent backlash from various academic circles, including his University of Pittsburgh Medical Center colleagues. UPMC also asked JAHA to retract Wang’s article, which it did. (Wang retained his faculty position, however.)
The Department of Education "is concerned Pitt’s many representations to students, faculty, and consumers in the market for education credentials regarding its support for academic freedom are false" based on its actions against Wang, Robert King, assistant secretary in the Office of Postsecondary Education, wrote to Gallagher.
By "denouncing Dr. Wang’s empirical case for race-neutral admission and hiring," Pitt suggests that it’s practicing "systemic discrimination based on race" in violation of the Civil Rights Act, King wrote.
This would mean "Pitt’s non-discrimination assurances in its Title IV program participation agreements" were false, and the department may impose "monetary penalties" as a result, he continued. The university spent $1.6 billion in Title IV funds in the past five years.
That’s clearly the stick they are going to beat the entire education establishment with, like the IRS getting mobsters on undeclared income for their ill-gotten gains and the FBI RICOing the Mafia.
Pitt media relations did not respond to a College Fix query seeking its point-by-point response to the allegations in the letter. UCLA Law Prof. Eugene Volokh, a First Amendment expert who previously frowned on Pitt’s action against Wang, did not respond to a query either.
Posted by: Frank G ||
10/11/2020 7:32 Comments ||
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#3
Our gummint is worse than broke, fiscally speaking. The last place that should get one thin dime of taxpayer money is any institution or business that has a large endowment or nonzero stock price. Period.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
10/11/2020 7:48 Comments ||
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#4
What ever happened to 'working your way' thru college? A demographic breakdown of so-called 'student loans' would be interesting. Compare and contrast them if you will, to college orchestral bassoon scholarships.
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.
[Yahoo via Rantingly] A federal judge sentenced a former commander of the Navy base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, on Thursday to two years in prison for trying to cover up a drunken fight with a commissary worker who was later found dead in the bay.
...an Iranian colony situated on the eastern Mediterranean, conveniently adjacent to Israel. Formerly inhabited by hardy Phoenecian traders, its official language is now Arabic, with the usual unpleasant side effects. The Leb civil war, between 1975 and 1990, lasted a little over 145 years and produced 120,000 fatalities. The average length of a ceasefire was measured in seconds. The Lebs maintain a precarious sectarian balance among Shiites, Sunnis, and about a dozeen flavors of Christians. It is 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. The Lebs have the curious habit of periodically murdering their heads of state or prime ministers...
[Breitbart] President Donald Trump, Vice President Mike Pence, and second lady Karen Pence called leaders of OUTspoken, a group of LGBT conservatives who gathered in Nashville, Tennessee, on Friday, to thank them for their support.
Israeli-Jordan airspace pact set to unlock more Middle Eastern routes
[CollegeFix] The University of Pittsburgh is under federal investigation for allegedly retaliating against a professor for his views and practicing "overtly race-based admission and hiring."
