I seem to recall at least two people specifically told not to attend anything related to John McCain's funeral proceedings - Sarah Palin and Donald Trump - look how these assholes portray it...
[Reuters] - Washington lauds McCain as one of America's 'bravest souls;' Trump absent
WASHINGTON ‐ Washington’s bitterly divided leaders came together on Friday to praise the late Senator John McCain as an embodiment of America’s fighting spirit, idealism and sense of humor, but there was one notable absentee: President Donald Trump.
...
McCain helped plan the events around his funeral. He made it clear to family and friends that he wanted Democratic former Vice President Joe Biden, Bush and Obama to speak ‐ but that Trump was not welcome.
Waiting until the very last paragraph to tell us why Trump wasn't there, which is quite a bit different from 'Trump absent', isn't it?
[NR] It has long been a matter of public record that Beto O’Rourke was arrested for driving while intoxicated in 1998, but a police report recently obtained by the Houston Chronicle reveals that the Democratic Senate candidate crashed and tried to flee the scene before his arrest.
O’Rourke, then 26, was driving at “a high rate of speed” on a Texas highway roughly ten miles from the New Mexico border when he crashed into a truck and spun across the median into oncoming traffic. A witness whom O’Rourke passed shortly before crashing later told police he personally prevented O’Rourke from fleeing the scene. The unnamed witness “turned on his overhead lights to warn oncoming traffic and to try to get the defendant [O’Rourke] to stop,” according to the report.
The rising progressive star, who blew a 0.136 and a 0.134 on police breathalyzers, did not address the witness report that he tried to flee the scene in a statement released on Thursday.
[Breitbart] Outsourcing corporation IBM laid off about 20,000 older Americans in the last five years, a new investigation reveals, while the tech multinational sought to import at least 37,000 foreign workers to take U.S. jobs.
A joint investigation by ProPublica and Mother Jones reveals that about 60 percent of the Americans that were laid off by IBM in the last five years were workers over the age of forty. This amounts to about 20,000 40-years-old and older Americans being laid off by IBM since 2014.
At the same time, IBM has attempted to import at least 37,000 foreign workers on H-1B visas since 2016.
Every year, more than 100,000 foreign workers are brought to the U.S. on the H-1B visa and are allowed to stay for up to six years. That number has ballooned to potentially hundreds of thousands each year, as universities and non-profits are exempt from the cap. With more entering the U.S. through the visa, Americans are often replaced and forced to train their foreign replacements.
Publicly available data reviewed by Breitbart News reveals that in 2018, alone, IBM was one of the top three multinational corporations trying to import more than 10,000 H-1B foreign workers to take American jobs.
In 2017 and 2016, combined, IBM sought to import nearly 26,000 H-1B foreign workers to take coveted, high-paying jobs in the tech industry.
[FOX] Former "ER" actress Vanessa Marquez was reportedly shot and killed by police officers conducting a welfare check on her at her Southern California home Thursday.
Marquez allegedly brandished a "BB-type" gun causing an officer to open fire, police said. A source identified the woman as Marquez to the South Pasadenan. Police identified the woman as a 49-year-old Hispanic woman, but didn’t immediately confirm her name.
The LAPD didn’t immediately return Fox News' request for comment.
Marquez, who also appeared in films like "Stand and Deliver" and "Twenty Bucks," was shot at least once in the torso, the South Pasadenan reported. Police said the woman was pronounced dead at the hospital.
South Pasadena officers and a mental health specialist arrived at the home at around 11:45 a.m., after the landlord had called concerned about the woman’s well-being, police said. Officers had been to the home a few times in the past, according to KABC-TV.
Best seat in the house, eh Bill? With video goodness!
[Evening Standard - UK] - Social media has erupted at a video of Bill Clinton watching Ariana Grande perform at Aretha Franklin’s funeral.
Video footage of Miss Grande performing the hit (You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman had social media paying more attention to Mr Clinton’s gaze, rather than Miss Grande’s vocals.
Social media users criticised the former president as "gross" after his eyes appeared to wander onto Miss Grande's derriere.
One user said: "Gross..watch Bill Clinton look Ariana Grande up and down when she sings at #ArethaFranklinFuneral and try not to throw up in your mouth."
UK Media - doing the reporting that American Media just can't be bothered doing.
[Free Beacon] Washington Free Beacon senior writer Adam Kredo said Friday that two Iranian spies recently arrested in the U.S. were part of a much larger intelligence effort by the Islamic Republic.
"This is a story long-ignored," Kredo said.
Kredo, speaking on on One America News Network's "Tipping Point," described how Iran’s intelligence activity reaches far around the world. Rep. Peter Roskam (R., Ill.) described the arrested Iranians as just the "tip of the iceberg," and Kredo warned of mounting evidence that Iran is actively engaged in the U.S. and the western hemisphere.
"All we have to do is look at Latin America and the sophisticated operation that Hezbollah runs to just operating with impunity in terms of drug trade and arms trafficking, but very much embedding themselves in the government of certain left-leaning South American nations," he said.
He described how the agents arrested were focused on Jewish and Israeli facilities for a possible attack.
"They were canvassing, essentially spying on Jewish and Israeli facilities around town with what they expected was the intent of planning some sort of terror attack," he said.
"The Iranians have a very sophisticated espionage operation," he said, noting it is bolstered by terrorist organizations like Hezbollah.
He said it’s important to "take the Iranians at face value" when they show their intentions.
Roskam told the Free Beacon that more is yet to be learned about Iran’s activities:
[Breitbart London] Dutch police responded to a ’stabbing incident’ at Amsterdam Central railway station early Friday afternoon, shooting a suspect after two were stabbed.
The suspect and two victims were taken to hospital after the incident, and police confirmed they had shot one person. There were no reported fatalities.
No information about the identities of those involved has yet been released, reports Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf. It is not known if the attack was terror-related.
Witnesses took to social media to describe the station being evacuated before one o’clock Friday afternoon. Dutch police released their own statement subsequently, however, saying the station had not been evacuated and only two platforms were closed to traffic.
One eyewitness told the newspaper: "There was a big chaos in the station... it was teeming with police. I saw something like fiften [police] cars and lots of agents. There was also a police helicopter circling above."
[Huffpoo] After Grant and Amanda Hayes killed Laura Ackerson, cut her body into pieces and attempted to dissolve the remains in acid, they threw her dismembered remains into an alligator-infested creek to get rid of the evidence.
Those are the grim details of Ackerson’s 2011 murder that a Texas jury heard this month before convicting Amanda Hayes of tampering with evidence. That same day, Aug. 21, Fort Bend County District Judge Maggie Jaramillo sentenced the 46-year-old to 20 years in prison.
"The jury verdict was swift, and the court’s sentence was appropriately harsh," said Assistant District Attorney Amanda Bolin. "Laura Ackerson’s family can be assured that Amanda Hayes will be punished for all of her barbaric behavior ― whether it was in North Carolina or the great state of Texas."
The sentence was the maximum possible under Texas law and is in addition to one she’s serving roughly 1,000 miles away.
Raleigh, North Carolina, is where authorities say Grant and Amanda Hayes killed his ex-wife and the mother of his two young sons.
LOGAN, Ohio (WSYX/WTTE) ‐ The Hocking County Sheriff's Office is working to identify two people seen dumping several items in a wildlife preserve last month.
A man and woman were caught on camera illegally dumping various items including televisions and tires on Sand Run Road in a wildlife preserve area.
The sheriff's office said thanks to a number of tips from the public they were able to identify the man and woman in the video. Corey Webb and Amanda Pyke, both of Perry County, have been charged with littering on state property and operating a vehicle in a non-designated area.
Webb and Pyke confessed to dumping items at multiple locations.
The sheriff's office has asked that anyone with information contact them at (740) 385-2131.
The 100 million is just for the study. The EUnochs are going to make the UK bleed for daring to leave the European "super state."
Britain may be denied full access to the EU's Galileo satellite navigation system on security grounds after Brexit and this may cost UK firms billions of pounds, hundreds of jobs and create national security problems for the nation. In light of this the British government announced that it will spend over $100 million to study launching a GPS alternative of its own.
In a UK Government statement released yesterday officials announced they plan to use £92 million ($119.69 million) from a £3 billion brexit readiness fund to pay for the study.
"The danger space poses as a new front for warfare is one of my personal priorities." said Gavin Williamson, U.K. defense secretary, in the statement. "It is absolutely right that we waste no time in going it alone if we need an independent satellite system to combat those emerging threats,"
Space News reports that British government officials have hinted for months that the country could seek to develop its own satellite navigation system if it’s unable to work out an agreement with the E.U. on continued participation in Galileo.
After Brexit, British companies could be denied contracts and barred from working on Galileo development. The British military could also be locked out of Galileo's military-specific services if an agreement is not reached between the UK and EU. I thought that the UK and US had a special relationship where they could use our GPS without spending themselves penniless on independent systems.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
08/31/2018
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#1
'Study' an alternative for $100 mill? Wouldn't it make more sense to spend that kind of $ for actual development since it's going to be needed anyway?
#4
I thought that the UK and US had a special relationship
The relationship would no doubt be more special had the Brits not paraded their dislike of President Trump after having started the dossier nonsense. As a result, one wonders if they have yet asked about joining the American system.
[FOX] Robert Boyd Rhoades kidnapped eight-year-old Michael Lyons while he was walking home from school in 1996, stabbed him up to 80 times with a fishing knife and kept him alive for nearly 10 agonizing hours before dumping his body in the Feather River, just up the street from the child’s home.
The ’Grim Sleeper’ killed nine women and a teenage girl over the course of 22 years, targeting drug addicts and hookers and tossing their naked bodies along roads or in the trash.
And the ’Trailside Killer’ preyed on hikers along trails in state parks near San Francisco, telling cops that he reveled in making his victims beg in vain for their lives, before shooting them in the head, execution-style.
These are just some of the 744 inmates currently on California’s Death Row.
Mass commutations as a political statement? Perhaps the Supreme Court and or the Congress should have a look.
#5
I suspect he plans to just commute their death sentence to life in prison. Which I would only agree to if you cut their arms and legs off, then hung them in cages in the public square, fed via tube and hydrated by IV. This country doesn't punish people, imprisonment isn't a punishment.
#7
Never interested in real justice. Just rituals and condescending statements to those who want real justice. More than likely, they got to carry out a 'death penalty' for which there was no due process or appeal. Who's more powerful. See - cooperating witnesses in the 'No Go' areas of major cities.
(Reuters) - Coca-Cola Co (KO.N) has agreed to buy coffee chain Costa for $5.1 billion including debt to extend its push into healthier drinks and take on the likes of Starbucks and Nestle in the booming global coffee market.
The purchase from Britain’s Whitbread (WTB.L) of Costa’s almost 4,000 outlets thrusts the world’s biggest soda company into one of the few bright spots in the sluggish packaged food and drinks sector.
Paying about 1 billion pounds ($1.3 billion) more than some analysts had expected, Coke will use its distribution network to supercharge Costa’s expansion as it chases current coffee chain market leader Starbucks (SBUX.O) and its almost 29,000 stores across 77 markets.
Beyond coffee shops, Coca-Cola CEO James Quincey, himself a Briton who is familiar with the Costa brand, said Costa would provide an important growth platform ranging from beans to bottled drinks in what is one of the world's fastest-growing drink categories, growing 6 percent. (bit.ly/2wyISYp)
"Coca-Cola doesn’t have a broad, global portfolio in this growing category," Quincey said, highlighting Costa’s retail footprint, roastery, supply chain and Costa Express vending system, which the company plans to expand.
[Mercer at Townhall] In a recent translation of Tacitus’ Annals, a question was raised as to whether "there were any ’nations’ in antiquity other than the Jews." Upon reflection, one suspects that the same question can be posed about the Afrikaners in the modern era.
In fact, in April of 2009, former South African President Jacob Zuma infuriated the "multicultural noise machine" the world over by stating: "Of all the white groups that are in South Africa, it is only the Afrikaners that are truly South Africans in the true sense of the word. Up to this day, they [the Afrikaners] don’t carry two passports, they carry one. They are here to stay."
Indeed, the Afrikaners fought Africa’s first anticolonial struggles, are native to the land and not colonist in any normal sense. Yet the liberal world order has only ever singled out Afrikaners for having established apartheid, considered by the Anglo-American-European axis of interventionism to be "one of the world’s most retrogressive colonial systems."
However, while the honing of apartheid by the Afrikaner National Party started in 1948, after Daniel Malan assumed the prime minister’s post, elements of the program were part of the policy first established in 1923 by the British-controlled government.
There was certainly nothing Mosaic about the maze of racial laws that formed the edifice of apartheid. The Population Registration Act required that all South Africans be classified by bureaucrats in accordance with race. The Group Areas Act "guaranteed absolute residential segregation." Pass laws regulated the comings-and-goings of blacks (though not them alone), and ensured that black workers left white residential areas by nightfall.
Easily the most egregious aspect of flushing blacks out of white areas was the manner in which entire communities were uprooted and dumped in bleak, remote, officially designated settlement sites‐ "vast rural slums with urban population densities, but no urban amenities beyond the buses that represented their slender lifelines to the cities."
#1
Easily the most egregious aspect of flushing blacks out of white areas was the manner in which entire communities were uprooted and dumped in bleak, remote, officially designated settlement sites
h/t Gates of Vienna
A company in Texas must forfeit $5.5 million to the government for hiring illegal aliens over a course of nine years, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Texas Wednesday.
Waste Management of Texas hired at least three managers who actively encouraged illegal aliens to work between 2003 to April 2012, according to a press release from the attorney’s office. Many workers were hired or rehired with little to no regard to authorization status at the Houston location.
"The non-prosecution agreement requires Waste Management to continue its substantial remedial measures to address all past immigration violations and forfeit more than $5.5 million in proceeds gained from hiring an illegal workforce at the Afton [Street] location," U.S. Attorney Ryan Patrick said in statement.
#1
Waste Management can easily pay the fine, they are a huge company -- which is why the local USAtty went after them. WMA probably got lazy and didn't cover up who they were hiring until 2012. All the while wages are depressed for the legal.
#4
Need to up the fine to $1 million per illegal hired.
If caught, most companies would be immediately put out of business.
With stringent enforcement, companies would stop hiring them as the draw of illegals coming here would diminish.
Put up a wall to keep most drug mules and gangs from crossing the border and call it a win.
#5
When they start sending the hiring personnel to jail...
I seem to remember there was a crime law in that regards and it was repealed during Reagan's years. Could be wrong. But it sure the hell should be a crime.
[Daily Caller] Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani suggested the Department of Justice should investigate its own employee, Bruce Ohr, over payments his wife received from Fusion GPS, the opposition research firm that commissioned the Steele dossier.
Writing on Twitter, Giuliani questioned whether the Justice Department has opened an investigation into whether Ohr had a written waiver for his wife’s work for Fusion GPS.
"What are the odds the DOJ or Mueller have begun an investigation of Bruce Ohr for violating 18 USC sec. 208? That’s a federal felony unless he disclosed all facts to the DOJ and has a written waiver. How many of you know what that is?" Giuliani wrote.
h/t Gates of Vienna
Police in Greece have arrested pro-migrant NGO workers on the island of Lesbos who they claim have been part of an operation to assist asylum seekers illegally entering the country.
According to investigators, 30 people, six of them from Greece with 24 coming from other countries, were involved with the network and three suspects have been arrested, Le Figaro reports.
All of those involved were working for the Greece-based NGO Emergency Response Centre International (ERCI) which facilitates a number of programmes aimed at helping asylum seekers.
The police in Lesbos have now accused the NGO workers of being a "criminal network" which has helped smuggle illegal migrants into Greek territory for money since the height of the migrant crisis in 2015.
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#1
..."Higher duty", blah blah blah yakety shmackety. I'm sure the other inmates will understand.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
08/31/2018 5:42
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Hope they get something "smuggled inside their borders" in jail.
[Daily Caller] St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner delivered an "exclusion list" to the city police department on Tuesday. On that list were the names of 28 police officers ‐ and Gardner says that she will no longer consider cases brought to her office by any of those on the list.
Gardner’s office gave no reason for submitting the list, but did note that previous cases brought by those same officers were under review for "viability."
Warrant applications from the affected officers may also be denied according to an email obtained by the St. Louis Post Dispatch in which Maj. Michael Sack, of the Bureau of Professional Standards, referenced Gardner’s Chief Warrant Officer Chris Hinckley as the point of contact for any concerns.
In his email, Sack quoted Hinckley’s email. "Mr. Hinckley advised, ’warrant applications involving officers (sic) as essential witnesses will be refused if their participation is essential to the successful prosecution of the case. Cases previously issued where the above officers are essential witnesses will be reviewed for viability.'"
While Gardner’s office has given no official reason for the case review or the exclusion list, many of her critics fear that the move could be political. Gardner’s relationship with local police departments has long been contentious ‐ and a couple of recent high profile cases have not done much to mend fences.
In 2017, protests broke out after Gardner failed to get a conviction against former police officer Jason Stockley for the shooting death of Anthony Lamar Smith. Stockley has since filed a lawsuit against former circuit attorney Jennifer Joyce ‐ who filed charges on her way out the door and left the prosecution in Gardner’s hands ‐ for defamation and malicious prosecution.
Gardner was also the subject of a formal complaint, filed earlier this week, alleging that she suborned perjury and withheld evidence in the case she brought against former Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens.
#4
Not much different from Orlando DA refusing to bring death penalty to the table.
All these leftist pols swear an oath to uphold "the law." Then they break it immediately.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
08/31/2018 9:49
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So it will go like this. She refuses to go after a criminal over her black list. The criminal kills yet again and the city gets sued by the victims family...
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
08/31/2018 12:12
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And St. Louis, having lost over 500K people since its peak in 1950, will continue to shrink. There has been white flight, black flight--now I guess we will see "sanity flight."
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[Politico] President Donald Trump's Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh has picked up an unlikely endorsement: a nod from from Bob Bennett, a lawyer to President Bill Clinton during the Monica Lewinsky controversy two decades ago.
Bennett, who represented Clinton in the civil sexual harassment suit that ultimately led to his impeachment, sent an effusive letter Tuesday paying tribute to Kavanaugh's legal acumen and his personal character.
"I first crossed paths with Brett in the mid-1990s, when we found ourselves lined up on opposite sides of the decade’s biggest legal battle. At the time, I was serving as President Clinton’s personal lawyer in the Paula Jones case. Brett had just joined the Office of Independent Counsel under Ken Starr, then investigating the President," Bennett recalled.
Bennett, a veteran D.C. litigator, said he and Kavanaugh ultimately became close despite being at odds in that searing and hyperpublicized legal battle.
"That hardly seems like the winning recipe for a close friendship. Much like politics, litigation often brings out people’s worst tribal instincts, and the temptation to view your opponent as a villain can be especially overwhelming when the stakes are high. Despite being on opposite sides of the Starr investigation, however, Brett and I managed to avoid falling prey to that trap," Bennett wrote to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley and the panel's ranking member, Sen. Dianne Feinstein. "Brett’s integrity quickly won me over, and we became close friends despite our differences (and the differences between the Presidents we served)."
[National Review] The Department of Justice (DOJ) filed a statement of interest on Thursday in defense of the plaintiffs suing Harvard University for allegedly discriminating against Asian applicants.
DOJ attorneys argued there is substantial evidence to support the plaintiffs’ claim that Harvard unfairly, and illegally, disadvantages Asian applicants by consistently attributing to them a lower "personal rating," in an effort to detract from their academic performance and test scores, which in isolation would qualify them for admission.
"The evidence, moreover, shows that Harvard provides no meaningful criteria to cabin its use of race; uses a vague ’personal rating’ that harms Asian-American applicants’ chances for admission and may be infected with racial bias; engages in unlawful racial balancing; and has never seriously considered race-neutral alternatives in its more than 45 years of using race to make admissions decisions," the attorneys wrote.
The lawsuit against Harvard, which has gained substantial national media attention in recent months, was filed in 2014 by Students for Fair Admissions, a nonprofit comprising Asian students rejected from Harvard and other interested parties.
While Harvard has argued that its "personal rating" score is determined independent of race and takes into account a number of social factors, plaintiffs have questioned why Asians consistently score lower on the metric than their counterparts of other races.
The DOJ suggested the discrepancy is likely the result of a racial bias that holds Asians are less "likeable."
[NEJM via Health.com] A 71-year-old man needed his forearm amputated after eating raw seafood, according to a case report in a recent issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.
The unnamed man went to a South Korea emergency room after having a fever for two days and "excruciating pain" in his left hand. The cause? A dark purple blister covering much of his palm, with more swelling and discoloration on the back of his hand. Twelve hours before the blister developed, he had eaten raw seafood, according to the NEJM.
How do you like your seafood? Well cooked please, thanks for asking.
#2
The patient "had a history of type 2 diabetes mellitus and hypertension and was undergoing hemodialysis for end-stage renal disease."
I suspect he contaminated a lesion on his hand when preparing and eating the seafood. His preexisting condition would explain the catastrophically fast progress of the infection.
[Guns America] A Vietnam War veteran and Bronze Star and Purple Heart recipient was laid to rest this weekend after being shot by police defending his grandson from a home intruder.
Richard "Gary" Black, 73, was in his Aurora, Colorado, home around 1:30 a.m. last month when a naked man broke down their front door and began assaulting his grandson. Black shot the intruder, but police shot Black when they arrived at the scene and saw him carrying a handgun and a flashlight.
The incident has been described as one of the most tragic police shootings in the city’s history, according to the Denver Post, and those who were there hailed him as a hero both in the service and at home.
"He was a hero coming out of that war, and he died a hero defending his family," said Mark Potter, chaplain for American Legion Post 22 in Northglenn, Colorado.
#5
So what's going to happen to the trigger happy cops?
It seems that the officer in question returned to work. But investigations are still in progress so there may be more later.
There's more if you check the headline link above in the main article and then click on some of the inline links. One can get a better idea of what happened, including an hysterical unintelligent 911 call and the usual "fog of war" that apparently some of the LEOs involved were never trained to deal with.
#7
This strikes me as one of those rare unfortunate cases; both the vet and the policeman acted reasonably given the timing and what they knew of the circumstances, with a tragic result. The cop arrived on an assault call and heard/saw a gunshot/gun and responded, not really able to know it was the homeowner and not the assaulter that had the gun.
[The Federalist] Since his election, Pope Francis has done everything within his power to soften and subvert the church’s teaching concerning human sexuality. He also packed the College of Cardinals with the Lavender Mafia. Much smoke in the teepee.
Sixteen years ago, reporters at The Boston Globe conducted an extensive investigation of the sexual abuse of minors by priests in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston. Not long thereafter, reporters elsewhere detailed similar abuse in places like Los Angeles, Chicago, New Orleans, Philadelphia, and the like. The word used in the press to describe what had been going on was pedophilia, which is a misnomer deliberately employed to cover up what journalists then considered and still consider now an inconvenient aspect of the truth.
As a report commissioned by the National Review Board of the American Catholic bishops and issued in 2004 revealed, something like 81 percent of the victims were boys, and very few were, in the strictest sense, children. They were nearly all what we euphemistically call young adults. They were male adolescents on the younger side ‐ at the age when boys as they mature can briefly be downright pretty.
NO Advocate, from March. I'll be damned... hadn't heard about this. I can't say that he got what he deserved, cuz he didn't... and can't say that he didn't, cuz he did. Hard to believe, today, that tedious boilerplate stories like his actually had some shock value back in ancient times. Dino's joint, St. Rita's, was across the street from a girls HS, which was across the street from the seminary, on whose compact, open grounds resided beloved Archbishop Hannan (against whom I insinuate nothing whatever). And across the street from him was one of our glorious old public school buildings, an elementary quaintly named "Lafayette," slightly less comically lousy than most, IIRC. Probably a thriving charter now with a faculty like an Adams Morgan cafe clientele. Whatever. Hey, since we're here anyway, what say we walk across to the College Inn and get some oyster loaves?
[American Thinker] I can't think of anything more spiteful or "mean-spirited" than the exclusion of former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin from the funeral of the late Sen. John McCain.
According to Breitbart News, not only was she not asked to come to any of the numerous McCain events where she could have been present, but she was actually asked to stay away.
Who the hell did that? Maverick and the family, who else ?
#1
I recall, in his presidential primary, the press noted his history of a foul temper and spitefulness. The present day MSM seems to have forgotten why he really is call a maverick. It's just a nice way of calling him a prick.
In his death, with the self planned tribute to himself, and his left wing guest list, it's easy to see this guy was never a conservative, never a good Republican, and probably not a good human being.
I bet they will need to place guards at his grave site to prevent vandalism.
#5
"John McCain was a maverick, a hero, a patriot, a true American, and a genius, my Friendssh"
/John McCain
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/31/2018 9:23
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Palins first mistake was taking up McCain's offer. She could have been an all star with a bit more experience. She's sort of an all star now despite the massive pile on resulting from the campaign and the lefts fear the first woman VP might be a Republican.
[NY Post] FBI surveillance of former Trump campaign advisor Carter Page cost him business, income and even his girlfriend. Sleep with the dog, wake up with the.....
Page tells The Post that during the media barrage he faced in late 2016, he visited his girlfriend at her London flat, where she was "freaking out with the fake news about me."
"Talking with her later in the evening after dinner, she told me that she didn’t want me staying there anymore, and that our relationship was over.
"So late that night," Page continued, "I booked a last-minute hotel reservation as part of this early chapter of the redefinition of my life."
Page believes the FBI’s mole, professor Stefan Halper, was secretly spying on him as part of a "politically motivated" investigation of Team Trump, using fake sympathy to gain his trust ‐ all while fishing for dirt on Page’s ties to Russia, where he’d worked as an energy consultant. Halper the "mole" was he? Well, if you say so but are you sure you're not suffering a bout of projection ?
"I wouldn’t be surprised if it turned out to be a trap," Page said. Naval Academy grad and military intelligence officer was he ?
[NY Post] One of the leading Western executives working for big business in Russia was found dead close to the Kremlin on Thursday.
The body of Dr. Bruno Charles De Cooman was discovered beneath his luxury ninth-floor apartment near Red Square.
The academic and businessman worked for Vladimir Putin’s fried Vladimir Lisin’s NLMK steel empire.
De Cooman, 59, arrived on Thursday at the historic House on the Embankment ‐ besides the Moscow River almost opposite the Kremlin ‐ with a friend.
A friend said De Cooman ‐ a vice-president of NLMK ‐ had planned to go upstairs and return. However, his body was found minutes later on the ground below.
He was reported dead before the ambulance arrived on Serafimovicha Street.
[Free Beacon] The State Department on Thursday formally cleared Obama and Trump administration officials from any wrongdoing in the lead-up and response to the still-unexplained sonic attacks in Cuba that harmed the health of at least 25 U.S. personnel, although it cited some problems with security staffing vacancies and communications "challenges."
After delivering the official report to Congress, the agency released a "fact sheet" to the press on the Accountability Review Board's (ARB) findings and recommendations. The ARB process, which Congress established, investigates what happened and issues recommendations aimed at preventing future incidents.
"The ARB found the department's security systems and procedures were overall adequate and properly implemented, though there were significant vacancies in security staffing and some challenges with information sharing and communication," the fact-sheet statement said.
"The ARB did not find any U.S. government employee engaged in misconduct or performed unsatisfactorily in a way that contributed to these incidents," it continued.
The long-awaited report did not provide a timeline of exactly when U.S. personnel in Havana began to report the strange sonic incidents and health problems related to them, nor when they ended.
#1
The long-awaited report did not provide a timeline of exactly when U.S. personnel in Havana began to report the strange sonic incidents and health problems related to them, nor when they ended.
"Long awaiting report"... all of our internal reporting is... 'long awaited,' it's the way we roll.
Employees complaining of health problems? No worries, someone here is always complaining about something. We have lots more employees.
Of course a 'timeline' was not provided. The ongoing Obama-Cuba political narrative during that period would conflict with the facts.
"State Dept employees cleared of wrongdoing." What about non-Foggy Bottom people operating out of the embassy ?
#3
I'm sure DoS never objected to opening said liaison in hostile territory believing the old refrain - why don't sharks eat lawyers? Professional courtesy.
[WSJ] To believe most media descriptions of Justice Department lawyer Bruce Ohr, he is a nonentity, unworthy of the attention President Trump has given him. This is remarkable, given that Mr. Ohr spent Tuesday confirming for Congress its worst suspicions about the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s abuse of its surveillance and sourcing rules.
If Mr. Ohr is only now under the spotlight, it’s because it has taken so much effort to unpack his role in the FBI’s 2016 investigation of the Trump campaign. Over the past year, congressional investigators found out that Mr. Ohr’s wife, Nellie, worked for Fusion GPS, the opposition-research firm that gave its infamous dossier, funded by the Hillary Clinton campaign, to the FBI. They then discovered that Mr. Ohr had numerous interactions of his own with Fusion chief Glenn Simpson and dossier author Christopher Steele, and that he passed on information from these talks to the bureau. So the G-men were being fed the dossier allegations from both the outside and the inside. Commonly referred to as multi-source HUMINT reporting.
This week’s news is that Mr. Ohr’s deliveries to the FBI came with a caveat. Congress already knew that Mr. Ohr had been aware of Mr. Steele’s political biases. In notes Mr. Ohr took of a September 2016 conversation with Mr. Steele, he wrote that the dossier author "was desperate that Donald Trump not get elected and was passionate about him not being president." Congressional sources tell me that Mr. Ohr revealed Tuesday that he verbally warned the FBI that its source had a credibility problem, alerting the bureau to Mr. Steele’s leanings and motives. He also informed the bureau that Mrs. Ohr was working for Fusion and contributing to the dossier project. By the way, is there any vital bits you'd like Nellie to plug into the document ?
Mr. Ohr said, moreover, that he delivered this information before the FBI’s first application to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court for a warrant against Trump aide Carter Page, in October 2016. Yet the FBI made no mention of this warning in the application, instead characterizing Mr. Steele as a "reliable" source. Nor does the application note that a senior Justice Department official’s spouse was contributing to the dossier and benefiting financially from a document the FBI was using in an investigation. That matters both because the FBI failed to flag the enormous conflict and because Mr. Steele’s work product potentially wasn’t entirely his own. Of course it wasn't entirely his own. Nellie Ohr and seniors at the FBI were his ghost writers.
No reference to Mr. Ohr‐direct or cloaked‐can be found in any of the four applications for Page warrants, according to those who have seen them. This despite his more than a dozen conversations with FBI agents over the course of the probe that addressed the content in and sourcing behind the surveillance applications. I’m told Mr. Ohr made clear that these conversations variously included all the heavyweights in the FBI investigation‐former lead investigator Peter Strzok, former FBI senior lawyer Lisa Page, and former Deputy Director Andrew McCabe. So senior people were very aware of his role, information and conflict. Yes, I suppose you could call it a creative awareness.
All this is what Republicans are referring to when they hint that the Ohr interview provided solid evidence that the FBI abused the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. "Before yesterday, we thought the FBI and DOJ had not disclosed material facts they were aware of in the FISA application. If Bruce Ohr testified truthfully, we now know that to be the case," Rep. John Ratcliffe of Texas tweeted Wednesday. (The Justice Department declined to comment, citing an inspector-general investigation.)
As for Mr. Ohr’s interaction with the FBI, he told congressional investigators this week that while initially he reached out to the FBI, the bureau also later came looking for information about Mr. Steele. That outreach happened after the FBI had terminated Mr. Steele as a source in October 2016 for violating bureau rules about talking to media. So even after having been warned of Mr. Steele’s motivations, even after having fired him for violating the rules, the FBI continued to seek his information‐using Mr. Ohr as a back channel. This surely violates the FBI manual governing interaction with confidential human sources. In intelligence community parlance, Ohr became a 'cutout.'
That Mr. Ohr came shopping the Steele info should have on its own set off FBI alarm bells. Mr. Steele was already in direct contact with the FBI by early July. Why would Mr. Steele then go to work on a Justice Department source, and refunnel the same allegations to the bureau? The likely answer is that the Fusion crowd wanted to exert maximum pressure on the FBI to act. Had the FBI bothered to try to find out what was behind such a pressure campaign, it might have stumbled upon the obvious answer: politics. Why settle for one source payment when you can have multiple payments ?
Unless it didn’t care. The evidence continues to mount that the FBI didn’t want to know about bias, or about conflicts of interest, or about the political paymasters behind the dossier‐and it certainly didn’t want the surveillance court to know. It wanted to investigate Donald Trump.
#1
In notes Mr. Ohr took of a September 2016 conversation with Mr. Steele, he wrote that the dossier author "was desperate that Donald Trump not get elected and was passionate about him not being president."
If he said that to people like Comey, Stzrok, Rosenstein and McCabe it would have been a sterling endorsement.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
08/31/2018 12:14
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[IsraelTimes] Noting facility's apparent similarity to Iran's Parchin complex, report says site likely spared from Israeli strike due to nearby Russia anti-aircraft battery
Satellite photos published Thursday purported to show the establishment of an Iranian surface-to-surface missile factory in Syria, raising fresh concerns over the extent of the two countries’ military cooperation on Israel’s northern border.
The photos, which were taken by ImageSat International and published by Channel 10 news, were said to show a facility outside Wadi Jahannam in northwest Syria resembling Iran’s Parchin facility, which has been linked to the Islamic Theocratic Republic’s ballistic missile and nuclear programs.
Beyond noting an apparent surge in construction work at the site and the building’s seeming similarity to Parchin, Channel 10 did not say how it was identified as a missile factory.
Unlike other Iranian facilities in Syria that have been targeted in Israeli Arclight airstrikes, the report said the site was likely spared due to its close proximity to a Russian S-400 ant-aircraft battery, which is considered to be one of the most advanced air defense systems in the world.
In July, Israeli jets reportedly targeted a missile production facility in nearby Masyaf, where a leading Syrian chemical weapons and missile scientist was killed earlier this month in a boom-mobileing attributed to Israel.
According to a New York Times
...which still proudly displays Walter Duranty's Pulitzer prize... report, Israel believed that Dr. Aziz Asbar was leading a classified weapons development program called Sector 4 at the Syrian Scientific Studies and Research Center, and was busy rebuilding an underground weapons factory to replace the one said destroyed by Israel.
Israel did not comment on its alleged involvement in the July airstrike on the facility, but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement following the raid that Israel "will not stop taking action in Syria against Iran’s attempts to establish a military presence there."
Iran has been one of the top military backers of Syrian Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Lord of the Baath... ’s regime in the over sever-year-long civil war in the country, as has been its Lebanese proxy, the Hezbollah terror group.
Both Israel and the United States have called for the removal of all Iranian-backed forces from Syria. Russia, which like Iran is fighting on behalf of Assad, has expressed support for this goal but said it can’t force Iranian forces out of the country.
Iran for its part has vowed to remain in Syria, and earlier this week the two countries signed a defense agreement during a visit by Iranian Defense Minister Amir Hatami to Damascus.
Hatami said the pact would include the rebuilding of Syria’s military and defense programs.
Netanyahu this week reiterated that Israel will continue to take action against Iran’s military entrenchment in Syria, and issued an emphatic warning against those who call for Israel’s annihilation, such as the Islamic Theocratic Republic.
"Whoever threatens us with destruction puts himself in similar danger, and in any case will not achieve his goal," Netanyahu said during a ceremony at the nuclear research facility in Dimona.
#1
"satellite photos" If the public at large can see them, how about he juice?
And, you know...take a look at the decimal points in the lat/long on Google Earth.
Targeting....that would be a kindergarten project in a kibbutz school.
Posted by: Richard Aubrey ||
08/31/2018 0:43
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#2
Cruise missile target
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/31/2018 8:10
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#3
Oh I'm sure Israel is aware of it.
Planning to take it out without killing Russians and with the most political bang for the buck is the delay.
#5
From its perch on the rim of a hummus plate, a nondescript bug regarded the imperceptibly repaired Arcimboldo with an air of quiet satisfaction. "I've still got it." His eyes were green. The greenest green ever seen. Like, a hundred times greener than any human eye had ever been. The bristles on his legs were greying, true, but he hadn't lost a step. The entomologists at King Saul Boulevard reckoned he was still at least thrice as agile, with wings tied behind his back, as his oafish Arab adversaries. His nose, as unobtrusive in the back alleys of Paris or a vault in Zurich as on the grain-rich steppes of his ancestors, could have been carved from wood. A jealous colleague had once suggested it was "kinda like a stinkbug's." But Gabriel wasn't stinky. That could give him away!
[IsraelTimes] PA chief doesn't want to see the terror group that threw his Authority out in 2007 legitimized as ruler of the Strip
Israel and Hamas, one of the armed feet of the Moslem Brüderbung millipede, have reportedly been indirectly negotiating a ceasefire deal in recent weeks through the Egyptian General Intelligence Services and United Nations ...an organization originally established to war on dictatorships which was promptly infiltrated by dictatorships and is now held in thrall to dictatorships... Special Envoy to the Middle East Peace Process Nikolay Mladenov.
While the parties have not agreed on final terms ‐ and there is no certainty that they will ‐ a number of reports have mentioned that such a deal would provide for the end of violence and tensions in the border region between Gazoo and Israel for a set period of time, a significant easing of Israel’s blockade on the Hamas-run Strip, and hundred of millions of dollars of investment in development projects in the territory.
Many Paleostinians in Gazoo, who have suffered through overwhelmingly inadequate hours of available electricity, excessively dirty drinking water, acutely high rates of unemployment and an overall dire humanitarian crisis, hope the possible agreement will come to fruition.
For Paleostinian Authority President the ineffectual Mahmoud Abbas ... a graduate of the prestigious unaccredited Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow with a doctorate in Holocaust Denial... , however, the prospect of a long-term ceasefire between Israel and Hamas is anything but desirable.
"Over my dead body, there will be a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas," Abbas has said, an unnamed senior Fatah official told Israel’s Channel 10 on Tuesday.
One reason Abbas staunchly opposes such a deal is because he wants the PA to be in control of Gazoo before it is achieved.
"It is not possible to talk about a ceasefire before we achieve reconciliation," Hussein al-Sheikh, a close confidant of Abbas and Fatah Central Committee member, told PA television on Monday evening.
What al-Sheikh means by his comments is that no ceasefire deal can precede the implementation of an internal Paleostinian reconciliation agreement which includes the PA retaking control of Gazoo.
Hamas has controlled Gazoo since it forcibly ousted the Fatah-dominated PA in 2007. While Fatah and Hamas have signed deals to bring Gazoo under one government, they have repeatedly failed to implement them.
"The PA is the only party that has the legitimacy to oversee the development of Gazoo," a senior Fatah official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, told The Times of Israel. "Neither the Paleostinian leadership nor the international community can allow for a party that illegally took over Gazoo to manage the development of it... Otherwise the divide between the West Bank and Gazoo will be further cemented."
Another reason Abbas strongly stands against a possible ceasefire accord is that he believes the PLO alone should negotiate it.
"The PLO is the only party that can negotiate on behalf of the Paleostinian people," said Ahmad Majdalani, a PLO Executive Committee member. "We are not against a ceasefire. In fact, we support a ceasefire, but the PLO must negotiate it. Hamas has no legitimacy to conclude it."
Abbas and the Ramallah-based Paleostinian leadership often repeat the idea that the PLO "is the sole, legitimate representative of the Paleostinian people."
A ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas, which is not a member of the PLO, would appear to challenge that notion. It would seem to show that Israel and some members of the international community are prepared to work with Hamas and bypass the PLO and PA when dealing with Gazoo.
A ceasefire deal would seem to isolate Abbas in Gazoo, while legitimizing Hamas and its rule in the Strip, which he has bitterly fought since the group seized control of the territory.
"It is either the PLO that negotiates the deal or no one," the senior Fatah official said.
Good to know it was never more than a hudna until the impossible comes to pass.
[IsraelTimes] 'If we ever have military power, will we let them keep Haifa? We'll take it,' Abdelsalam al-Majali says in TV interview, while praising Israel for water supply
The former Jordanian prime minister who signed the peace treaty with Israel said in a recent interview that his country would "take Haifa by force" if it ever has the military power to do so, despite the 1994 treaty.
Abdelsalam al-Majali, 93, served as prime minister in 1993-1995, during which he signed the accord with his Israeli counterpart Yitzhak Rabin, and took office again in 1997-1998.
But in a TV interview aired on August 18, he said: "The Arabs do not have any power. If we ever have military power, will we let them keep Haifa? We’ll take it."
"If tomorrow we become stronger and can take Haifa by force, will we really decline just because we have an agreement with them?" Majali told Jordan Today TV in remarks translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute.
Earlier in the interview, Majali and the TV host had been discussing the "right of return" which Paleostinians claim five million people ‐ tens of thousands of living original refugees from what is today’s Israel, and their millions of descendants ‐ are eligible for. Israel rejects the demand, saying that it represents a bid by the Paleostinians to destroy Israel by weight of numbers and that no other population of refugees has been dealt with in that manner.
"There are millions of Jordanian Paleostinians who have property in Israel," Majali said. "They have the right to get it back or get compensation for it."
The host was opposed to the idea of compensation, equating it with the Paleostinians "sell[ing] their land for a price."
Majali said that people would collect the compensation from "Haifa, Jaffa, and elsewhere beyond the West Bank," adding that retaking the land wasn’t possible for the time being because "[The Israelis] own that land. They live and build there, while you are not there, and you don’t have an army or anything."
When the host argued it was better for the Paleostinian cause to refuse the compensation and leave the land "occupied," Majali said: "Well, what can you do? You lost the land to a military force. You do not have any power. All you do is talk."
It was then that he made the remark about conquering Haifa if Jordan ever got stronger.
At the beginning of the interview, Majali defended the peace treaty he signed 24 years ago, which is opposed to this day by many Jordanians, saying that "my mentality is a mentality of peace."
"As long as you do not have force of another kind, peace is your only option," he added.
He said that contrary to what many Jordanians believe, "Israel continues to give us more water than we are due."
#2
...In fairness, the Arabs have had power on several occasions and completely bollixed it up. Not too worried, though the Jordanians are still the most professional and capable of the Arab militaries and warrant watching.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
08/31/2018 5:44
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#3
Asia Times'> US cuts to Palestinians raise existential fears in Jordan
Jordan views the prospect of absorbing its entire Palestinian refugee population as a threat to its demographic balance. For one thing they might need to move them out of a refugee camp mode and into constructive employee mode....
#7
I think that giving Jordan a path to the sea that they own would be feazable if they took over the “Palestine” and “Gaza”. Tunnels have been built from England to France so why not built one from what is euphemistically known as Palestine to Gaza. This would have to be done with israelly permission of course.
#8
Would Gazans huzzah the big dig?
Does Faðmbyggvir Friggjar like Frigg?
Would they go for the graft
But take pride in their craft?
Does a Little Rock rooter like pig?
#9
Looking at a map, one sees that Jordan’s southwestern tip lies on the Gulf of Aqaba, which opens onto the Red Sea, and thence to the Arabian Sea and freedom. ;-)
[AXIOS] In a letter sent to House Speaker Paul Ryan on Thursday, President Trump announced that a majority of civilian federal employees will not receive pay increases next year, undoing the original 2.1% pay increase that was set to take effect in 2019.
The details: The president explained the change is an effort "to put our Nation on a fiscally sustainable course, and Federal agency budgets cannot sustain such increases." No change has been announced for pay increases of military troops, which are still on track to receive a 2.6% bump according to the Military Times, marking their biggest pay raise since 2009.
#3
And they typically get raises yearly. I don't. Hell, last time I got a non-promotion raise, they claimed they were raising our dayrate, but they took away a secondary rate for specialized monitoring that was the exact same amount. So I got paid the same before my 'raise' as after. And that was the ONLY freaking raise in years, they generally cut our pay, first 10, then 30%.
[MEMRI] 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... has mobilized to come to the aid of its ally The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... , as reflected in Qatari Emir Tamim bin Hamad Aal Thani's and other Qatari officials' expressions of support for it, and in an economic aid package totaling $15 billion. Qatar's mobilization is also expressed in articles and op-eds in the Qatari press that emphasize the warm relations and the alliance between the two countries and note that they have always helped each other. The articles in the Qatari press stated that Qatar was the first to extend help to Turkey in the current crisis, just as Turkey had stood by Qatar during the Gulf crisis and is still supporting it in light of the Saudi, UAE, Bahraini, and Egyptian boycott against Qatar that has continued for over a year. They also harshly criticized the U.S. and reiterated Turkey's argument that the economic sanctions against it were part of a U.S. conspiracy, after the U.S. failed to harm Turkey with the 2016 coup attempt. Other articles praised Ottoman Turkish President Sultan Recep Tayyip Erdogan the First ... Turkey's version of Mohammed Morsi but they voted him back in so they deserve him. It's a sin, a shame, and a felony to insult the president of Turkey... for his valor in standing up to the U.S., and criticized the other Arab countries for failing to stand alongside him, and for even rejoicing in Turkey's troubles.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/31/2018
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[ALMASDARNEWS] The Syrian Arab Army (SAA) unleashed a powerful assault in the northern countryside of the Hama Governorate, tonight, targeting several areas controlled by the jihadist rebels near the Idlib axis.
According to a field report from Hama, the Syrian Arab Army heavily targeted Jaish al-Izza’s trenches around the al-Lataminah area.
The Syrian Arab Army would then expand their assault to the southern axis of the Idlib Governorate, where they would attack the jihadist-held towns of al-Taman’ah and Sukayk.
The jihadist rebels have yet to respond to this attack by the Syrian Arab Army and their allies from the National Defense Forces (NDF).
This latest assault by the Syrian Armed Forces comes as they prepare to launch their long-awaited offensive in the northern countryside of Hama.
Posted by: Fred ||
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[Breitbart] The University of Illinois system ‐ which has endured more than a decade of corruption scandals ‐ announced Thursday that it will present former President Barack Obama with an "ethics in government" award at a Sep. 7 ceremony.
The university did not explain what Obama had done to earn the award ‐ nor did it explain how Obama qualified after the IRS scandal, the Benghazi cover-up, or his own "boneheaded" deals with corrupt Chicago figures, among other ethical problems.
The university stated in a press release:
The University of Illinois System will honor former President Barack Obama on Friday, Sept. 7, with the Paul H. Douglas Award for Ethics in Government, presented annually by the system’s Institute of Government and Public Affairs (IGPA) to recognize public officials who promote the highest standards of public service.
...
Obama will accept the invitation of a national selection committee to receive the IGPA’s Douglas Award, which has been given annually since 1994 to public officials who have made significant contributions to the understanding and practice of ethical behavior in public service. It honors late Illinois Sen. Paul Douglas (1892-1976), who became known as the "conscience of the Senate" because of his deep commitment to high ethical standards while serving as a senator from 1949 to 1967.
Among the most notorious University of Illinois scandals was the admissions scandal of 2009, in which the university’s president was forced to resign after children of Illinois politicians were found to have been given preference. In 2004, the university was accused of cheating the organ allocation system to give its transplant patients prefence over those at other hospitals. More recently, in 2015, the university admitted that some senior officials had used private email accounts to conduct official communications; these emails had not been turned over when public records requests had been filed.
#4
"The university did not explain what Obama had done to earn the award".....
Obama got a Nobel for the same standards. Remember?
But then, he was the Messiah and the smartest man in the room and he did send a tingle right up your leg as far as your butt. But then, he has a Legacy that will last down the Centuries.
And the Univ. of Illinois ? Can you spell SHILL, boyz and girls?
#9
Henry Kissinger's 1973 Nobel Peace Prize. I agree with Tom Lehrer on this -- there are things that are so absurd that you can't match Reality with any Fiction you invent...
[TRIBUNEONLINENG] MORE than 100 African migrants colonists managed to force their way into the Spanish enclave of Ceuta from Morocco on Wednesday when hundreds tried to storm the highly fortified border, a Spanish police front man said.
Television images showed some of the migrants colonists with bloodied arms and legs, apparently caused by the razor wire that tops the border fences, cheering as they walked toward a temporary reception centre.
"I love Spain!" shouted one. Some were draped in European Union ...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing... and Spanish flags.
More than 3,800 migrants colonists have crossed the Moroccan border into the Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla so far this year, according 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... refugee agency UNHCR.
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[ARABNEWS] One of the great geopolitical issues in 19th century Europe ...also known as Moslem Lebensraum... was the so-called Eastern Question. The Ottoman Empire, then known as the "sick man of Europe," was rapidly disintegrating, and it remained to be seen which European power would succeed it. When the self-annihilation of World War I finally arrived, it was no coincidence that it emanated from the Balkans ‐ the geopolitical playground for the Ottoman, Austro-Hungarian and Russian empires.
[DAWN] Chief Justice of Pakistain Mian Saqib Nisar on Thursday deemed the jirga system "against fundamental human rights ...which often include carefully measured allowances of freedom at the convenience of the state... " and recommended that its scope be limited to civil cases only.
The incumbent chief justice made those remarks while hearing a vani and sawara (marriage of underage girls against their will to settle murder and tribal disputes) case first taken up in 2005 during former chief justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry's tenure.
"The jirga system is against fundamental human rights," Justice Nisar said. "Jirga and panchayat (tribal councils) cannot have the right to vani girls and award capital punishments.
"Some people take their disputes to Jamaat-ud-Dawa ...the front organization of Lashkar-e-Taiba... , which then imposes heavy fines. This is illegal," the top judge warned.
The chief justice defined the limit of a jirga's legal powers and jurisdiction, saying: "Jirga and panchayat can only settle minor civil disputes. If they are approached in such cases then that's fine. However, ars longa, vita brevis... jirga rulings on criminal cases intrude on the legal jurisdiction of Pak courts."
Justice Nisar asked the advocate generals whether any legislation in this regard had been done at the provincial level.
The chief justice also urged the federal government to take remedial action, "draft a law and send it to parliament.
"Only parliament [then] can pass or reject such a law," he added.
An additional advocate general told the chief justice that "the Sindh High Court has already declared the jirga system as illegal."
At this, Justice Ijazul Ahsan added: "KP and Balochistan...the Pak province bordering Kandahar and Uruzgun provinces in Afghanistan and Sistan Baluchistan in Iran. Its native Baloch propulation is being displaced by Pashtuns and Punjabis and they aren't happy about it... have the most number of jirgas."
Posted by: Fred ||
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[ARABNEWS] When it comes to Iran’s opposition and dissidents, the regime has long been investing significant political and financial capital in running covert disinformation campaigns, propagating fake news, and misleading the public, both domestically and globally.
The Iranian regime and its loyalists have capitalized on disseminating several key arguments and narratives. Some of these arguments include: There exists no opposition against the Islamic Theocratic Republic; if there are any oppositional groups, they are scattered, trivial, weak and unorganized; those who oppose the Islamic Theocratic Republic are "monafeghin" ‐ hypocrites, or betrayers.
Mastering the skill of creating inflammatory mantras, the regime has also coined slogans against the opposition, such as "marg bar monafeghin," meaning "death to the hypocrites."
There are several objectives behind such efforts by the ruling mullahs. The theocratic establishment is trying to delegitimize its opposition, to divide and conquer, as well as to project to the international community that no credible and legitimate alternative to the Islamic Theocratic Republic exists.
As a result, the regime seeks to illustrate that the only option for the Iranian people and the international community is to accept the current political rule. To debunk the regime’s fallacy, one issue ought to be addressed adequately: Is there an organized and robust Iranian opposition?
In order for an oppositional group, or any political organization or social movement, to be considered formidable and legitimate, it ought to meet several critical characteristics. These include: Having strong leadership; sociopolitical and socioeconomic influence; clear objectives; written rules; transparency; inclusiveness and accountability; enjoying considerable support from various sectors; launching effective and dynamic campaigns; having dedicated and active followers; being organized into clear organizational divisions; and being politically and financially independent from outside influence and interests.
Regardless of whether some may agree or disagree with the mission of a particular political organization, if the party has these qualities then it is undoubtedly strong and influential.
After the extensive research I have conducted based on the aforementioned factors, when it comes to Iran’s opposition, one group appears to meet these characteristics: The National Council for Resistance of Iran (NCRI). In other words, the Iranian regime’s argument that there exists no organized opposition is totally inaccurate.
In terms of sociopolitical and socioeconomic influence, as well as organizational qualities and support from people, the NCRI does wield a noticeable amount of power. Every year, the NCRI organizes the world’s largest gathering of those who advocate freedom and democracy in Iran. The mass "Free Iran" rally is held in Gay Paree every year.
The event attracts tens of thousands of people, who come together from all around the world in order to make their voices heard, and in the hope of freeing and liberating their homeland. They rally and demand regime change in Iran, advocating for a democratic, non-extremist, pluralistic, and non-fundamentalist government.
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[ARABNEWS] Iran "cannot avoid" talks on thorny issues like its ballistic missile program and role in Middle East conflicts, French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian warned Thursday, as La Belle France leads the work to rescue the beleaguered nuclear deal with Tehran.
"Iran must respect the fundamentals of the JCPOA (nuclear deal) and I think that is the case, but Iran cannot avoid discussions, negotiations on three other major subjects that worry us," Le Drian said as he arrived for a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Vienna.
La Belle France are among several countries, including Germany, UK, Russia and China, continuing to try and salvage the deal after 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... decided to pull the US out unilaterally in May.
The comments came after a confidential quarterly report seen by AP released by the ineffective International Atomic Energy Agency, which shows Iran continues to comply with the nuclear deal even after the withdrawal of the US.
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Of course. Treaties are only binding on the signatories, and then only once ratified by all the parties involved.
[IsraelTimes] Israel will continue to act in Syria as it deems necessary for its security, without consideration for the international agreements now being discussed to formally end the country’s brutal seven-year civil war, Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman says.
"From the viewpoint of Israel, with all due respect and appreciation for the agreements and the understandings ‐ they do not apply to us," he says during a tour of the northern border.
"The only thing that concerns us is the security interests of the State of Israel," he says.
[ARABNEWS] Bahrain’s attorney general on Thursday said 13 people have been charged with terrorism offenses.
"Charges of forming and funding a terrorist cell have been filed against six persons in jug and another seven charged in absentia," said attorney general Ahmad al-Hamadi.
Hamadi said the 13 had ties to Bahrain’s so-called "February 14 Coalition" movement that emerged in 2011, which the Kingdom already announced it has ties with Iran.
In January, Bahrain’s Interior Ministry claimed that the group’s Twitter account was an Iranian account and was being managed from Iran, and as a result, a number of individuals were tossed in the slammer Drop the heater, Studs, or you're hist'try! and prosecuted.
The Director-General of Criminal Investigation and Forensic Science said in a statement that the Cyber Crime Directorate had found out that "the account of the terrorist group was being operated and managed from Iran."
The group will also face charges of targeting police in a trial which is due to open on September 19.
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[ALMASDARNEWS] The 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.... (ISIS) is on the verge of defeat in southern Syria after a string of losses to the Syrian Arab Army and their allies this week.
According to a military source in Damascus, the Syrian Arab Army has tightened the siege on the Islamic State forces at the al-Safa Mountain, leaving them virtually nowhere to retreat.
The source said that the Syrian Arab Army liberated the following areas, yesterday: Saad Hateel, Huwi Awad, Wadi Halaweh, Ghader al-Sous, Huwi Raseen, Tal Daras , and Khirbat Awad.
Making matters worse for the terrorist group, the Islamic State is trapped on a large volcano, which has no resources to replenish their dwindling provisions. Don't they teach that in the first week of officers' school? "Never let your entire force be trapped in an extinct volcano without water?"
ISIS lost their main water source on Tuesday, when the Syrian Arab Army liberated the Saad Hateel area.
It is just a matter of time now before the Islamic State finally gives up the battle in east Sweida, as they continue to lose more territory each day.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/31/2018
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#1
going without water until you die seems pretty appropriate to me.
Posted by: chris ||
08/31/2018 0:19
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#2
Didn't the ancient Jews do something like this at Masada? The Romans just built a ramp up to their fortress. Of course, the Romans didn't have the luxury of air assault.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
08/31/2018 11:01
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#3
Of course, the Romans didn't have the luxury of air assault.
They had Ballistas, a nifty little 'indirect fire' method.
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
08/31/2018 11:27
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#4
Mullah, look up Masada in Wikipedia. I've been there. It is high on a mesa, and even a ballista wouldn't reach from the base. That's why the Romans built a ramp.
Of course, when they did reach the top, all but seven of the Jews had killed their families and then committed suicide.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
08/31/2018 11:37
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#5
The Romans just built a ramp up to their fortress.
A very large and long ramp...
Has the U.N.stuck their nose in and demanded negotiation and giving ISIS a good chunk of productive land yet? I'd be surprised if they hadn't.
#8
The Romans just built a ramp up to their fortress.
A very large and long ramp...
...using Jewish slaves from captured and destroyed Jerusalem. Thus one sees that there is a natural order to these events, and President Assad, fil, has completely neglected the mass enslavement stage.
[ARABNEWS] Yemen’s Information Minister Muammar al-Iryani condemned the United Nations ...an organization conceived in the belief that we're just one big happy world, with the sort of results you'd expect from such nonsense... on Wednesday over its report on war crimes in Yemen, in which he says the leader of the Houthi ...a Zaidi Shia insurgent group operating in Yemen. They have also been referred to as the Believing Youth. Hussein Badreddin al-Houthi is said to be the spiritual leader of the group and most of the military leaders are his relatives. The Yemeni government has accused the Houthis of having ties to the Iranian government, which wouldn't suprise most of us. The group has managed to gain control over all of Saada Governorate and parts of Amran, Al Jawf and Hajjah Governorates. Its slogan is God is Great, Death to America™, Death to Israel, a curse on the Jews ... militia was referred to as a "leader of the revolution."
The UN Security Council designated sanctions on Abdul Malik al-Houthi in April 2015 for engaging in acts that threatened the peace, security, and stability of Yemen.
Describing the report as "disastrous," al-Iryani said on his Twitter account that it was based on "a number of fabrications" aiming to harm the internationally recognized government and the member states of the Saudi-led Arab coalition fighting the militias.
The minister said the report did not mention all the "terror acts" carried out by the militia group on officials, government headquarters and military and security sites of the government.
The report ignored hundreds of rockets launched by the Houthi militia under Iranian pretexts targeting the Saudi capital Riyadh and Makkah and a number of other cities in the Kingdom, the minister said.
There was no mention of the killing of a number of civilians, in addition to the targeting of oil tankers in international waters, he added.
The Arab coalition also refuted the UN report on Yemen, saying it made a series of accusations against the alliance.
In a strongly worded statement, the coalition, which supports forces loyal to the internationally recognized government, rejected the claim that it did not provide information requested by the UN.
The coalition dismissed as "false" and "inaccurate" claims in the report that its forces were obstructing humanitarian access to civilians in the country.
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08/31/2018
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[IsraelTimes] Incident comes after police arrest two suspects armed with pipe bombs at nearby military courthouse
It’s the latest fashion among idiotic Palestinian yoots of both sexes.
Israeli troops on Thursday placed in durance vile Keep yer hands where we can see 'em, if yez please! three Paleostinians who were in possession of "a number" of pipe bombs in the northern West Bank, the army said.
The suspects were spotted outside the village of Deir al-Hatab, near Nablus, by soldiers monitoring surveillance cameras, and the troops were dispatched to arrest them.
The three suspects were handed over to the Shin Bet for questioning.
The incident came hours after police arrested two other Paleostinian teenagers who were found holding improvised bombs outside a nearby military courthouse.
The entrance to the Samaria Military Court in the village of Salem was briefly blocked and the area cordoned off, while a police sapper inspected the devices, which were found in plastic bags.
Police said in a statement that officers noticed the "suspicious behavior" of the teens ‐ aged 14 and 18 ‐ and stopped them, thus foiling a terror attack at the court.
One of the objects was revealed to indeed be a pipe bomb, while the two others were improvised bombs made from metal containers, police said.
All the bombs were loaded with explosives and detonators, and were subsequently destroyed in a controlled kaboom.
The entrance to the court was then reopened, and the suspects were taken for questioning.
Pipe bombs are frequently used by Paleostinian assailants in attempted attacks at the Samaria Military Court.
[DAWN] KARACHI: A teenage girl was kidnapped and allegedly raped in Surjani Town, a police brass hat said on Wednesday.
The police tossed in the slammer Into the paddy wagon wit' yez! five suspects including a woman who were allegedly trying to shift the victim to Punjab 1.) Little Orphan Annie's bodyguard
2.) A province of Pakistain ruled by one of the Sharif brothers
3.) A province of India. It is majority (60 percent) Sikh and Hindoo (37 percent), which means it has relatively few Moslem riots.... for sale, said Bloody Karachi ...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It is among the largest cities in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous... West SSP Dr Rizwan Ahmed Khan.
The 14-year-old girl was kidnapped from Surjani Town on August 26.
The police have registered FIR (508/18) under Section 365-B of Pakistain Penal Code against unknown suspects on complaint of the girl’s father.
Acting on a tip-off on Wednesday, the police raided a house situated in Khuda Ki Basti of Surjani Town, arrested five suspects including a woman and recovered the girl.
"During initial interrogation, the girl disclosed that the accused kidnapped her [when she was on her way home] and took her to some unknown place at Nazimabad where they raped her," said the SSP West.
"Today they shifted her to Surjani Town and were planning to shift her to Punjab for sale," said the SSP, adding that further investigation was in process.
Another officer, Surjani SHO Nasrullah Khan, told Dawn that they have sent the girl to Abbasi Shaheed Hospital for medical examination.
The girl, who works in bungalows in the area from where she was kidnapped, told the police that she was returning home when a rickshaw driver allegedly kidnapped her. The officer said that the girl was kept at the home of the arrested woman.
The girl belonged to Karachi while the kidnappers originally hailed from Rahim Yar Khan in Punjab.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/31/2018
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[NATIONALREVIEW] By JOHN O'SULLIVAN In which the author makes a good case, without actually coming out and saying so in so many words, that the 2100 year old church is again riddled with the adherents of everything the institution's supposed to be against.
Could Archbishop Lefebvre have been right, despite how nice Pope John XXIII seemed?
Is the church in need of a mass exorcism? It'd be easy to make jokes about watching the current head of the church spin around thirteen times and vomit Linda Blair, but it isn't really funny. The whole idea of having a (catholic) church is to have people paid to ponder full time the nature of right and wrong. I could be wrong, not being infallible like some people I know of, but global warming doesn't seem to be the stuff of salvation. Yet Chicago's archbishop commented:
“The pope has a bigger agenda. He’s got to get on with other things, of talking about the environment and protecting migrants and carrying on the work of the church. We’re not going to go down a rabbit hole on this.”
That sort of talk makes your average Baptist or Free Methodist collapse in gales of laughter. The ghosts of Saint Augustine, Martin Luther, John Calvin, and John Knox are all audibly snickering.
I make no secret of being an Orthodox Agnostic. I have no idea whether there's an afterlife. I passed my allotted Threescore and Ten mark last year, so I'm getting kinda nervous about that. My expectation is that when The End does come my consciousness will simply go where it was before I was born, or maybe to where it was when I was two or three, wherever that was. If I reincarnate as someone (or something) else but don't remember my previous lives is it really me that's alive? Jews seem to get by okay without the promise of heaven or hell, so I guess I can. If God exists (the existence of everything is a good argument in favor), I still don't believe his ego is so small that he requires me to grovel on my knees and praise him like some Oriental potentate. God is not Erdogan.
Christians have different opinions about all that. The ideas of Heaven and Hell are outgrowths of the ideas of dualism, of Good versus Evil. If you're good your soul, which may or may not be the same as your animus, gets to go to heaven. If you're Actually Hitler or Himmler or Heydrich or one of those guys (not just Literally) then it's the hot place for you. Or cold. Dante said the innermost hell was colder than... ummm... hell.
That still leaves Roman Catholics with the problem of a polluted church, that's more concerned with Global Warming, what to wear for mass on Sunday, and how to raise bail for a few hundred rapacious priests here and there. If the guys who define Good and Evil are themselves evil, can you trust their definitions? If the Church has fallen on evil days and they hold an exorcism, who's going to be cast out? Beelzebub or Saint Michael? Can you be sure just because the College of Cardinals stops spinning around? Duality, see? The Zoroastrians put good and evil on the same level of strength. Lucifer thought they were right.
There are alternatives.
The actual Catholic Church consists of over twenty churches. The largest by population is the Roman Catholic, of course. The non-Roman Catholic Churches fit into one of six liturgical traditions: Alexandrian, Antiochene (or Syrian), Armenian, Byzantine, Maronite, and Chaldean. We have a Ukrainian Catholic Church right here in Baltimore. It follows the Byzantine tradition, which is similar to the Greek Orthodox. They acknowledge the Pope as primus inter pares, but they also maintain different liturgies, ignoring that infallibility thingy. I have no idea whether their priests and bishops like to diddle little boys and girls. I haven't heard of any cases, but I haven't been paying attention and their numbers are small enough that no one seems to have gone digging for dirt on them to destroy them as institutions.
If you're utterly sick of the Pope, and want more structure in your life than you'd get as an Episcopalian, a United Methodist, or some other National Council of Churches Sunday feel good club, there are the Orthodox churches -- Greek, Russian, Coptic and such. They don't consider the Bishop of Rome infallible and they treat with him as equals. No one is required to hop on the humanist slide. They all still retain the concepts of sin and redemption.
Posted by: Fred ||
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#2
"If God exists (the existence of everything is a good argument in favor), I still don't believe his ego is so small that he requires me to grovel on my knees and praise him like some Oriental potentate. "
Absolutely - it would mean we are going through the same thing together, watching the same things. No need to bow to Something that Totally gets it.
"If you're utterly sick of the Pope, and want more structure in your life than you'd get as an Episcopalian, a United Methodist, or some other National Council of Churches Sunday feel good club, there are the Orthodox churches -- Greek, Russian, Coptic and such. They don't consider the Bishop of Rome infallible and they treat with him as equals. No one is required to hop on the humanist slide. They all still retain the concepts of sin and redemption."
Absolutely as this Pope is Clearly not Infallible. And I fired him last night (BTW- we see it that takes). But you are correct. I really want a Unification of the True Church. It could do wonders for this Earth. The Eastern Orthodox has much to remind all of US of. And I have a Wanting for them back.
You are a very much more than an excellent Man, Fred, You are a Tower where many perch upon.
#3
I beg the indulgence of our readers as I share a Facebook post on the scandal by a friend who is a former philosophy professor and a member of the Catholic intelligencia. Incidentally, he contends the problem peaked decades ago, a comforting thought.
'Tis the season once again for denouncing the celibacy requirement for priests in the Latin Church. Accordingly, 'tis the season once again for noting what's wrong and what's right about pinning the problem on celibacy.
First, it's pointless to talk about the role of celibacy without getting clear about the exact nature of the problem that sparks so much justified outrage. Both the independent lay commissions appointed by the bishops--one in 2004, the other in 2011--noted that roughly four out of five underage victims of sexual abuse by clergy have been male, and a similar percentage of those males have been 14-17 years old. The 2018 Pennsylvania grand-jury report shows similar numbers. So the core problem is not pedophilia, which is sexual abuse of pre-pubescent children. Pedophilia is as common among married as among single men, and the victims are female at least as often as male. The core problem is *same-sex ephebophilia.*
That has been a well-known part of homosexual culture for thousands of years. The problem it causes in the Catholic priesthood spills over into the abuse and harassment of young-adult seminarians by their superiors. I know firsthand that that is by no means limited to ex-Cardinal McCarrick. Then there's the fact that, until effective retro-viral drugs became widely available, hundreds of Catholic priests died of AIDS in the 1980s and 90s. Finally, nobody denies that the percentage of homosexuals in the RC priesthood is far higher than in the general population. So the math alone indicates that the core problem is homosexuality in the priesthood.
Not that it's the only problem, of course. Many factors feed into this. The celibacy requirement is but one of them, and only indirectly.
Because of that requirement, seminaries attract applications from many young men who have psychosexual issues they hope to minimize or escape by a life of celibacy. Homosexuality is the most important such issue, though not the only one. Some effort is made by the better seminaries to weed out psychosexually troubled applicants, but the process is not perfect. In particular, many bishops decline to follow the Vatican's repeated directives not to admit to seminaries men with "deep-seated homosexual tendencies." The reasoning is that, so long as they are truly committed to celibacy, their sexual orientation does not matter. But it does matter. Pope Benedict explained why, and my personal experience both as a seminary applicant and as a seminary professor revealed a further reason: once homosexuality gains a foothold in a seminary, even those who don't engage in sodomy have every incentive to look the other way when others do. That is a major reason why the coverup part of the scandal used to be so effective.
So the celibacy requirement contributes to the problem by allowing men who will become predators, mainly but not exclusively homosexual, to hide behind a veneer of respectability and live a double life. But to conclude that getting rid of said requirement would get rid of the problem is at best naïve.
Such a conclusion would be warranted only if we had independent evidence that married clergy--i.e., clergy in every other church--are better-behaved sexually. I know of no studies providing such evidence. My hunch is that such a study, if conducted, would show what we know about public schools: less *homosexual* misbehavior than in the Catholic priesthood, but no less *heterosexual* misbehavior, and no less sexual misbehavior with minors. If that hunch is ever borne out, it would not provide reason enough to drop the celibacy requirement.
#4
Such a conclusion would be warranted only if we had independent evidence that married clergy--i.e., clergy in every other church--are better-behaved sexually.
Before the growth of Online Gaming there was another meaning to the acronym "PK" -- Preacher's Kids. If you have met any you might know my firm policy: I don't trust them, period. There are some perfectly nice, sane, devout or agnostic examples that I found out later were PK's later. Truly, truly nice people.
But then there are the rest... Growing up as the living exemplar of their Parent's Morals and Religious Teachings has twisted these children into evil menaces. Lying, smiling hypocrites that have learned to mouth all the appropriate platitudes are the most insidious. The other is the Counter-Culture Rebel, militantly atheistic -- at least these are honest in their bitterness.
#8
3dc, let me repeat myself:
"...There are some perfectly nice, sane, devout or agnostic examples that I found out later were PK's later. Truly, truly nice people. "
#9
It always surprising that organizations that have been around as long as the Catholic Church fail to learn one of life’s most valuable lessons: a problem not solved or dealth with fully, honestly, and completely will eventually come back worse than originally.
#10
I don't need the Pope or anyone else to interpret the Bible for me. But I do believe it is a good thing to have places where people can get together and talk about it, can pool their resources to do good things in the community and can teach their children about Jesus. So it's sad and truly frightening when such an institution is corrupted.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
08/31/2018 12:00
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#11
Socialist first, last. Everything else are cultural trappings.
#14
Follow up to my post of this morning, with regard to the decrease of child abuse incidents. The diocese of Pittsburgh presents a graph of alleged incidents, whether or not substantiated, by decade of occurrence. See here.
[ARABNEWS] The UN called on Russia, Iran and The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...just another cheapjack Moslem dictatorship, brought to you by the Moslem Brüderbund.... on Thursday to forestall a battle in Syria’s Idlib province, which could affect millions of civilians and see both snuffies and the regime potentially using chlorine gas as a chemical weapon.
UN Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura said that there was a high concentration of imported muscle in Idlib, including an estimated 10,000 snuffies designated by the UN as terrorists.
He offered to travel to Idlib himself to help ensure that civilians could leave through a humanitarian corridor amid fears of full-scale military operations in the area.
"I am once again prepared ... personally and physically to get involved myself, with the government cooperation this time ... to ensure such a temporary corridor would be feasible and guaranteed for the people so that they can then return to their own places once this is over," de Mistura said.
The Syrian opposition swiftly rejected De Mistura’s offer. Its front man Yahya al-Aridi told Arab News: "I cannot understand this suggestion by de Mistura about corridors. In the past, the destination for war-displaced people was Idlib. De Mistura himself said that there would be no other Idlib. How could he suggest a corridor now? Where would over 3 million people go? Turkey would close its doors. Could they go to another planet?"
The only solution to this, al-Aridi said, is to stop "this devilish and criminal act" against civilians.
"Is it the UN’s specialization to find corridors for the Syrians who have been thrown out of their homes by this brutal regime and its supporters?" he asked.
The Turks and the Russians are still discussing ways to get al-Nusra ...formally Jabhat an-Nusrah li-Ahli al-Sham (Support Front for the People of the Levant), also known as al-Qaeda in the Levant. They aim to establish a pan-Arab caliphate. Not the same one as the Islamic State, though .. ... to dissolve itself, al-Aridi said, adding: "Russia is saying that there are parties who want a political settlement on the part of al-Fasaail (another gang)."
Al-Aridi said that Idlib itself is a de-escalation area and Russia, along with Iran and Turkey, is a co-signer to that. "If anything happens, it would be another proof that Russia doesn’t honor any promise or any word it utters or paper it signs."
He said that the "storm" that de Mistura warned about could be avoided by getting rid of the source of the tension ‐ "the regime of oppression and aggression" in Damascus.
Al-Aridi questioned the figure of 10,000 Death Eaters mentioned by de Mistura. "We don’t know how Mr. de Mistura calculated this number. It is not his job to decide who is a terrorist and who is not. All we know is there are over 3 million civilians in Idlib and there is a party that doesn’t care about them ‐ the regime and its backers."
Posted by: Fred ||
08/31/2018
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[GUARDIAN.NG] Violent festivities resumed late Thursday afternoon between rival militias south of the Libyan capital, just hours after a truce was announced to end fighting that has killed almost 30 people since Monday.
The fighting broke out on Monday in suburbs south of Tripoli ...a confusing city, one end of which is located in Lebanon and the other end of which is the capital of Libya. Its chief distinction is being mentioned in the Marine Hymn... and continued into Wednesday evening after a truce collapsed, despite an appeal by the United Nations ...where theory meets practice and practice loses... for calm.
The festivities had paused on Thursday after a ceasefire agreement announced by officials from western areas, but by late afternoon the hostilities had resumed.
Residents in the Khellat al-Ferjan area reported the use of heavy weapons and rifle fire.
Two teenagers were killed when a rocket hit a house in the Sebia district, according to a local official and AFP journalists on the scene.
The health ministry had earlier said at least 27 people were killed and 91 were maimed in this week’s fighting, most of them civilians.
Fayez al-Sarraj, the leader of the internationally recognised Government of National Accord (GNA), has tasked forces from western and central regions of Libya with ensuring the rivals adhere to the ceasefire.
These forces are meant to guarantee the withdrawal of the two rival camps from front lines and ensure normal life returns in the districts affected by the fighting.
‐ TO BE ’HELD ACCOUNTABLE’ ‐
The proposed pacifying forces consist mainly of powerful gangs from the cities of Misrata and Zintan in the west, which are technically under the GNA’s defence ministry.
Under the orders of Sarraj, who heads the Libyan army, these military units will be allowed to operate in the capital and its environs only until September 30, when they must leave.
The Misrata and Zintan militias controlled the Libyan capital from the fall of dictator Moamer Qadaffy in 2011 until 2014, when a coalition of militias mainly from Misrata seized the city.
This week’s fighting has pitted Tripoli militias loyal to the GNA against the so-called 7th Brigade.
This unit is from the town of Tarhuna southeast of the capital and is supposed to operate under the GNA’s defence ministry.
In a televised speech, Sarraj said on Thursday that the 7th Brigade had been "dissolved" since April, before calling on the rival camps to respect the ceasefire.
In a joint statement, the embassies of Britannia, La Belle France, Italia and the United States on Thursday said they were "deeply concerned about the recent festivities in and around Tripoli that are destabilising the situation".
"Pursuing political aims through violence will only further exacerbate the suffering of the population of Libya, and threaten broader stability", the statement said.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/31/2018
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A Syrian migrant was subjected to xenophobic insults and beaten up in the northern German city of Wismar Wednesday evening, police said, in an attack that comes as the country is shaken by far-right demonstrations against foreigners.
The 20-year-old man was walking home when "he was stopped by three German-speaking people who insulted him in a xenophobic manner," police said.
Two of them then hit him in the face before the third "hit him on the shoulder and ribs with an iron chain."
The victim fell to the ground and was beaten before his attackers fled. He suffered a broken nose and bruises to his face and upper body, said police who have opened an investigation.
The attack in the Baltic coastal city comes as Germany is reeling from weekend protests by right-wing holy warriors in the eastern state of Saxony, long a hotspot for xenophobia.
After the fatal stabbing of a German man, 35, allegedly by a Syrian and an Iraqi, thousands of far-right protesters marched in the city of Chemnitz for two straight days, some chasing down people they believed were immigrants colonists.
Police reported assaults by holy warriors against at least three foreigners on Sunday, while investigations were opened in 10 cases of the protesters performing the illegal Hitler salute.
The ugly scenes of mostly white men, many of them bad boy soccer hooligans, hurling abuse at people they deemed to be foreigners, have deeply alarmed Germany.
Saxony has been a stronghold of far-right parties and groups that bitterly oppose Chancellor Angela Merkel ...chancellor of Germany and the impetus behind Germany's remarkably ill-starred immigration program. Merkel used to be referred to by Germans as Mom. Now they make faces at her for inundating the country with Moslems .. for her 2015 decision to keep open German borders to a mass influx of migrants colonists and refugees.
[IsraelTimes] German police are bracing for more far-right protests today against Chancellor Angela Merkel ...chancellor of Germany and the impetus behind Germany's remarkably ill-starred immigration program. Merkel used to be referred to by Germans as Mom. Now they make faces at her for inundating the country with Moslems .. ’s immigration policies in the eastern city where a fatal stabbing has sparked outbreaks of racist mob violence.
Saxony state police say they will be backed by reinforcements from five other states and federal police, after being heavily outnumbered by thousands of neo-Nazis, football hooligans and other turbans in unrest on Sunday and Monday.
The flashpoint city of Chemnitz has seen a violent outbreak of long-simmering anger against what protesters label "criminal immigrants colonists" since Sunday’s knife killing.
Police have placed in durance vile Please don't kill me! Iraqi Yousif Ibrahim A., 22, and the Syrian Alaa S., 23, for the stabbing of 35-year-old Daniel H., a carpenter ‐ the crime that set off random street attacks against people whom the mob took to be foreigners.
#3
Meet Alice Regnault, 1880,
An actress (it sounded less shady):
"They may pay for my rôles
In the hay or bagnoles
Till the day I retire, a great lady!"
Which day arrived in 1881, sez wikipedia's shabby little article, not that she looks like she's counting the days. Thanks for the intro to her and Mirbeau.
Posted by: Frozen Al ||
08/31/2018 12:42
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#5
19th century women started wearing itsy bitsy teeny weeny training corsets at age 11
As young as six in some households, Ebbavirt Clunk4147. So much easier and more comfortable to hold the waist at the same size as the child grew into a young lady than to start when she went to finishing school at the great age of fourteen, and at that point start pulling the laces tighter an inch every two weeks until the target of 16" was achieved, while competitive girls had themselves tight-laced to 14".
[Ynet] A US soldier based in Hawaii pleaded guilty Wednesday to trying to help the 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‐admitting he provided secret military information, a drone meant to track US troops and other support to undercover agents he believed were members of the terrorist organization.
...the tactical combat instructor who for years openly proclaimed his support for ISIS, then managed to hook up with yet another FBI undercover operator. He is also in our archives as Ikaika Erik Kang...
handcuffed and wearing beige prison jumpsuit, spoke in a clear and confident voice when he told a US magistrate judge in Honolulu he's guilty of all four counts charged in an indictment filed last year.
"Your honor I provided unclassified, classified documents to the Islamic State," Kang said, adding that he also provided the drone.
He agreed when Assistant US Attorney Ken Sorenson described other support he provided to undercover agents Kang believed were part of the Islamic State group, also known as ISIS.
#1
Well. Do I look like I care? Don't matter one way or the other, it's really all about being able to tell people what to do.
As a practical approach, everybody dies of something. Always have, always will.
Posted by: ed in texas ||
08/31/2018 17:03
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#2
In that case I'll take a 2×2, mustard fried.
Posted by: Rex Mundi ||
08/31/2018 20:49
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[CNBC] Investors are increasingly concerned Latin America's third-largest economy could soon default as it struggles to repay heavy government borrowing.
The peso is down more than 45 percent against the greenback this year, exacerbating pre-existing fears over the country's weakening economy and inflation running at 25.4 percent this year.
"I know that these tumultuous situations generate anxiety among many of you ... I understand this, and I want you to know I am making all decisions necessary to protect you," Macri said.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/31/2018
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#1
The biggest enemy of Macri's reforms ïs the knuckle dragging socialist media there.
[ARABNEWS] Geert Wilders said on Thursday he was canceling plans to hold a highly inflammatory contest for cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad. Mainly because he's made his point.
The MP said he would never personally stop his campaign against Islam but the risk to innocents, and of attacks on the Netherlands, stemming from the proposed contest were too great, Rooters reported.
Earlier this week, Dutch police nabbed Drop the rosco, Muggsy, or you're one with the ages! a 26-year-old man suspected of threatening to attack Wilders over his plan.
On Thursday, the suspect briefly appeared in a Dutch court. He "is being suspected of committing a terrorist act, planning to commit murder and incitement," Dutch prosecutors said in a statement.
Police arrested the man at one of The Hague's main railway stations after he posted a film on YouTube saying he planned an attack on Wilders or the Dutch parliament.
The man, believed to be from Pakistain, also called on other Moslems for support.
"Authorities are taking the threat very seriously," the Dutch public prosecution service said in the statement.
"The investigation is ongoing" and the man is in jug "with maximum restrictions" meaning that he is only allowed to consult his lawyer.
Prosecutors did not release the suspect's name, saying at this stage they were reluctant to release further information.
He will remain in jug for another two weeks before a next appearance.
Plans by Wilders, an avowed anti-Islamist, to hold a cartoon competition at his PVV party's offices in parliament have stirred anger among Moslems, particularly in Pakistain.
The Netherlands on Wednesday updated its travel advice to Pakistain urging its citizens "to avoid demonstrations in Islamabad, Lahore and Bloody Karachi ...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It is among the largest cities in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous... ."
Posted by: Fred ||
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[Khaama (Afghanistan)] The anti-government armed Lions of Islam suffered heavy casualties during separate festivities in southeastern Ghazni province of Afghanistan, the 203rd Thunder Corps of the Afghan Military said Thursday.
According to a statement released by Thunder Corps,at least eight Lions of Islam were killed and seventeen others were maimed during a clash in Nani area of Andar district.
The statement further added that the clash took place as the Afghan forces were busy conducting clearance operations as part of the ongoing Nejat operations.
A rocket launcher, an assault rifle, a pistol, and a radio set were also confiscated by the Afghan forces following the clash, the 203rd Thunder Corps added.
At least three Lions of Islam were killed in a separate clash in Meri area of the same district, the 203rd Thunder Corps said, adding that the Afghan Air Force also carried out Arclight airstrikes in Seni and Shaliz areas of the district.
According to the statement released by Thunder Corps, at least 15 Lions of Islam were killed and 17 others were maimed during the same airstrikes.
At least ten cycle of violences belonging to the Lions of Islam were also destroyed in the airstrikes, the statement added.
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[ALMASDARNEWS] Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and his Syrian counterpart Walid Muallem warned Western powers "not to play with fire" in Syria during a presser in Moscow on Thursday.
"With facts in our disposal through Defense Ministry and Ministry of Foreign Affairs we clearly and sternly warned our Western partners not to play with fire," Lavrov said regarding any possible provocation using chemical weapons.
Russia’s top diplomat added that the West’s meddling in OPCW investigation process of two previous cases of using chemical weapons in Khan Shaykhun and Ghouta was a violation of Chemical Weapons Convention.
Muallem stated the USA was a loser from military perspective and is now trying to take advantage of the situation.
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#1
If that fucker gasses his People - The Souls like cockroaches with chemical stock you removed under Obama, You have a problem, Russia.
[ARABNEWS] JUBA: Emboldened by a new peace deal, civil war-torn South Sudan said that it will resume oil production in a key region next month to make up for more than $4 billion of revenue lost during years of fighting.
South Sudan, with Africa’s third-largest oil reserves, will renew drilling in northern Unity State for the first time since the fields were destroyed when the conflict began in late 2013, oil ministry officials told The News Agency that Dare Not be Named.
The goal is to have all five locations there operational by the end of the year and working alongside the oil fields in Upper Nile State, which operated throughout the civil war.
South Sudan’s economy is almost entirely dependent on exports of oil from its 3.5 billion barrels of reserves. Most of the oil rigs were shut down or destroyed by the civil war. The fighting that killed tens of thousands of people has also devastated the economy and sent prices for everyday items soaring.
Posted by: Fred ||
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#1
Most of the rigs and pipelines are built and owned by China. It's a point worth noting.
[IsraelTimes] Egypt’s President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi has sworn in several new provincial governors, including the first-ever Coptic Christian woman to hold the position.
Manal Awad Mikhail has been appointed governor of Damietta province. She was previously a deputy for the Giza governor.
The reshuffle included new governors for Cairo, Giza, Luxor, Aswan and North Sinai.
Egypt appointed the first-ever female governor to the province of Beheira in a reshuffle last year.
#1
appointed. That's good. Elected would be better. Baby steps.
Posted by: Richard Aubrey ||
08/31/2018 0:45
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#2
An expat Coptic Egyptian friend writes:
I never comment on religious issues or have any religion posts or even read religious posts as a rule, but this is worth mentioning for many historic and political reasons: this woman is the first Christian woman to be a governor of a province in Egypt. Dr. Manal Mikhail is the new Governor of the Province of Damietta. She is the second woman governor in history. There are also 4 more women deputy governors, young and progressive. If all that means anything, it means it is another step in the right direction, trying to cleanse the old dirt accumulated in the past 40 years and fighting the Moselm Brotherhood/Wahhabi/Islamist backward/evil ideology.
[TRIBUNEONLINENG] STUDENTS at a university in South Africa gave up on writing an exam ‐ and started protesting that it was too difficult, local media reports say.
The incident happened during a philosophy exam at the University of Limpopo in the remote northern part of South Africa, BBC has said.
Videos have been posted on social media about the protest, with at least one student seen walking on a desk.
One of the students who asked not to be named told Sowetan Live that they were expecting a mix of difficult and easy questions, and were shocked that the exam was far more difficult than they had expected.
She said: To show that this test was unfair, the entire class walked out. Even those who are geniuses left."
Another student said: The lecturer himself does not understand philosophy. So how can he teach it to us? The test was not what we expected. It was set up to be difficult."
Posted by: Fred ||
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#1
Just when you thought U.S. students were the softest pansy snowflakes in the world - thanks for bailing us out this time!
That's bullshit - if you had any 'geniuses' in your class, they would have stuck around and finished the test to break the grading curve just to fuck the rest of you over. Well, worse than you fucked yourselves over with your self-defeating temper tantrum.
Next year when I see you, I would like fries with that burger.
#3
We had a take home em-fields exam in EE in college that only 3 people in the class passed.
The other EE profs took the test and the prof was not offered a contract to continue the following year.
That's the way a complaint is done for tests.
#5
if you had any 'geniuses' in your class, they would have stuck around and finished the test to break the grading curve just to fuck the rest of you over.
If they were geniuses, they would have finished the test long since, silly whiners. Whether they mained seated or turned in their test and left would no doubt depend on thr school’s exam rules. Nor would it necessarily require genius to do so — my father was the only one to answer the final question on a physics final because he’d read the day before, in the latest issue of the physics journal, the proof of the theorem that the professor put up on the board, thinking it impossible for undergrads to figure out on their own. Daddy wasn’t a genius, merely brilliant, but he’d made friends with the librarian, getting access to the journals before they were circulated among the professors.
#6
Studyin B. Hard: "Even those who are geniuses left."
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/31/2018 8:47
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#7
Sounds like the "Professor" was incapable of teaching the course and did not properly prepare the students for what was in the test. Kind of like taking a course in Calc, being taught basic Algebra, and then trying to take an advanced Calc. Not good.
#10
Had a slot to fill, once, and couldn't get any relevant elective, so I cheerfully signed up for a vaguely named philosphy class that I figured would be a total crip, since... yeah... I kinda liked philosophy. Turned out to be "Battle of the Neo-Thomists." Still features in nightmares once in a while.
[ARABNEWS] A rare public protest by thousands of Hui Moslems this month was caused by local officials’ recklessness, Chinese authorities said Thursday, without settling concerns a large mosque in the northwestern region would be razed.
The governor of the region of Ningxia and a regional Communist Party official said tensions had died out in the city of Weizhou, where thousands protested in early August to prevent authorities from demolishing the towering Grand Mosque. The protests were an unusually bold display of resistance against the party’s efforts to dictate how religion is practiced.
"This incident is a result of an oversimplified administrative decision by the local government. It originally should not have happened," said Bai Shangcheng, director-general of the regional Communist Party committee’s United Front Work Department, which oversees religious groups. Local officials have been ordered to review the incident and "handle it properly," Bai said at a news conference in Beijing.
"Now, overall, the situation is under control," he said.
The Hui are an Islamic ethnic minority descended from Chinese converts and Moslems who came to China as traders. Unlike China’s other main Moslem group, the Uighurs, Hui generally speak Chinese and follow many Chinese cultural practices.
The Weizhou protest came as religious groups have seen their freedoms shrink as the government seeks to "Sinicize" religions by making the faithful prioritize allegiance to the officially atheist Communist Party. Mosques and churches have been stripped of religious imagery and Tibetan children moved from Buddhist temples to public schools.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/31/2018
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OPENS TO VIDEO
[FOX] Embattled Justice Department official Bruce Ohr had contact in 2016 with then-colleague Andrew Weissmann, who is now a top Robert Mueller deputy, as well as other senior FBI officials about the controversial anti-Trump dossier and the individuals behind it, two sources close to the matter told Fox News.
The sources said Ohr's outreach about the dossier ‐ as well as its author, ex-British spy Christopher Steele; the opposition research firm behind it, Glenn Simpson’s Fusion GPS; and his wife Nellie Ohr's work for Fusion ‐ occurred before and after the FBI fired Steele as a source over his media contacts. Ohr's network of contacts on the dossier included: former FBI agent Peter Strzok; former FBI lawyer Lisa Page; former deputy director Andrew McCabe; Weissmann and at least one other DOJ official; and a current FBI agent who worked with Strzok on the Russia case.
Weissmann was kept "in the loop" on the dossier, a source said, while he was chief of the criminal fraud division. He is now assigned to Special Counsel Mueller’s team. Emphasis added
LONDON (Reuters) - Congressman Devin Nunes, chairman of the U.S. House Intelligence Committee and a strong supporter of President Donald Trump, sought unsuccessfully to meet chiefs of Britain’s three intelligence agencies on a recent visit to London, according to two sources familiar with his itinerary.
The sources said representatives of the British agencies initially considered meeting with Nunes during the trip which took place in recent weeks, but that scheduling difficulties made it impossible.
Ultimately, the sources said, after consultation with the three agencies MI5, MI6 and GCHQ, Prime Minister Theresa May’s deputy national security advisor, Madeline Alessandri, met Nunes. His London visit and his unsuccessful effort to meet British spy chiefs were originally reported by the Atlantic.
[ARABNEWS] Iraq will send a delegation to the United States seeking an agreement on financial transactions with Iran following Washington’s reimposition of sanctions on Tehran, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said on Tuesday.
His statement was the first by an Iraqi official since Rooters reported last week Baghdad was going to ask Washington for exemptions from some of the sanctions because Iraq’s economy is closely linked with neighboring Iran.
"We are not with economic sanctions against any country and that is our strategic position," state television ... and if you can't believe state television who can you believe?
quoted Abadi as saying at a weekly news conference.
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... withdrew the United States in May from world powers’ 2015 nuclear deal with Iran, calling it flawed, and reimposed trade sanctions on the Islamic Theocratic Republic.
Posted by: Fred ||
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#1
Iraq is in recovery and Iran is a part of that for them. Not enough logtrains.
[ARABNEWS] The US Navy seized hundreds of small arms, including AK-47s, from an unflagged boat in the Gulf of Aden, a US defense official said on Wednesday.
Similar vessels intercepted in the same waters in recent years were shipping weapons to the Houthi ...a Zaidi Shia insurgent group operating in Yemen. They have also been referred to as the Believing Youth. Hussein Badreddin al-Houthi is said to be the spiritual leader of the group and most of the military leaders are his relatives. The Yemeni government has accused the Houthis of having ties to the Iranian government, which wouldn't suprise most of us. The group has managed to gain control over all of Saada Governorate and parts of Amran, Al Jawf and Hajjah Governorates. Its slogan is God is Great, Death to America™, Death to Israel, a curse on the Jews ... militia in 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. Except for a tiny handfull of Jews everthing there is very Islamic... from their backers in Iran.
The defense official told Rooters that the incident took place on Tuesday and the boarding was carried out by the crew of the Jason Dunham destroyer. The unflagged vessel was a traditional dhow.
The defense official declined to comment on the destination of the small vessel, but it was being investigated.
He added that the US Navy and allied ships have carried out similar operations in the past, including seizing drugs from vessels in the area.
The Arab coalition, which is supporting Yemen’s government forces in the war against Houthi militia, has repeatedly accused Iran of shipping weapons, including ballistic missile components, to the group.
Posted by: Fred ||
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#1
My only question - why isn't this 'dhow' at the bottom of the Gulf of Aden along with the crew?
[JOURNALDUCAMEROUN] Iraq’s Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi on Thursday announced the dismissal of the head of the powerful Hashed al-Shaabi paramilitary force, which played a major role in stinging defeats of the 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.... jihadist group.
The prime minister in a statement reproached the force’s head Falih Alfayyadh for "having been implicated in partisan political matters which contravene the rules of neutrality which apply to members of the security and intelligence forces".
Alfayyadh, 62, was also dismissed from his position as national security advisor.
Despite being on the PM’s electoral list ahead of legislative polls that took place in May, the prime minister suspected Alfayyadh of negotiating behind his back with rival Hadi al-Ameri as post-election talks were underway.
The Hashed al-Shaabi (Popular Mobilisation) auxiliary force was created by the government in 2014, after a call to jihad by the spiritual leader of the Shiite community, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani to help in the fight against IS.
Posted by: Fred ||
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[Khaama (Afghanistan)] A leader of the 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.... of Iraq and Syria Khurasan (ISIS-K) Yasir Khurasani was killed with his five comrades during an Arclight airstrike in 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.. province of Afghanistan.
The 201st Silab Corps of the Afghan Military in the East said the U.S. forces carried out airstrikes using unmanned aerial vehicles targeting the ISIS hideouts in Wazir Tangi area of Khogyani district.
The statement further added that the airstrikes left ISIS leader Yasir Khurasani and his comrades dead and a Dshk heavy machine gun was destroyed.
The Afghan forces also discovered and defused two improvised bombs during the separate operations conducted in Mohmandara and Rodat districts, the 203rd Silab Corps added.
The anti-government armed myrmidon and terrorist groups including ISIS loyalists have not commented regarding the report so far.
Posted by: Fred ||
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[ARABNEWS] The new sanctions against Iran are technically imposed by only one country: The US. However, ars longa, vita brevis... because Washington has threatened to impose secondary sanctions on countries that do not abide by them, most other countries will likely comply. As a result, the effect of the sanctions is a global denial of economic activity with Iran. Nevertheless, it is vital to understand that these sanctions are actually the work of just one country and as such are intended to pursue the interests of that country.
The primary interest of the US vis-a-vis Iran is to prevent it from becoming a nuclear power. It is now abundantly clear that Iran has desired nuclear weapons technology for some time. The US considers this possibility to be a direct threat to the safety of the country and its people, as well as a threat to America’s Middle East allies. There is the fear that this technology, in the hands of a revolutionary Iranian regime, would be used to further destabilize the region, impose Iran’s will, and possibly empower terrorist organizations. However,
Continued on Page 49
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[WashingtonTimes] A Democrat running for the U.S. House in Massachusetts has made an unusual political promise: Put me in Congress and I’ll impeach Justice Clarence Thomas for sexual harassment and perjury.
State Sen. Barbara L’Italien said the promise would be part of a broad assault on sexual abuse at the highest levels of the U.S. government that also would include congressional hearings about claims made by many women about President Trump.
At Justice Thomas’s confirmation hearings in 1991, Oklahoma law professor Anita Hill accused him of sexual harassment ‐ one of the first such cases made against a public figure. Justice Thomas vehemently denied the charges, calling them a "high-tech lynching" against an "uppity" black man.
Numerous women who’d worked with Justice Thomas said the graphic accusations from Ms. Hill were not credible to them.
But according to Ms. L’Italien, there is "considerable evidence that Thomas lied under oath" about sexually harassing Ms. Hill.
Spokesman Joe Katz told Politico that his boss is the first congressional candidate to call for Justice Thomas’ impeachment.
Posted by: Vast Right Wing Conspiracy ||
08/31/2018
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#1
I follow Mass. politics pretty closely. I have not heard of this broad until yesterday. Politically speaking, she's a complete nobody / zero.
#5
L'Italien's mom, to the girlies,
Extracting the thing from her pearlies,
"Hey, blame M.C. Thomas...
No, really, I promise!"
"But it looks just like James Michael Curley's!"
A golden toothpick or somesuch, it must have been...
[ALMASDARNEWS] Up to 11 jihadists from the 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.... were killed when Arclight airstrikes hit their hideouts in Makhmour town, southeast of Erbil.
According to a Peshmerga field commander, the aerial bombardment on ISIS positions occurred on Tuesday morning by coalition fighter jets.
The commander said that no joint operations are currently held with the Iraqi forces against ISIS, but affirmed, at the same time, a considerable level of cooperation.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/31/2018
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The Atlantic headline is "China Is Treating Islam Like a Mental Illness"
[TheAtlantic] One million Muslims are being held right now in Chinese internment camps, according to estimates cited by the UN and U.S. officials. Former inmates‐most of whom are Uighurs, a largely Muslim ethnic minority‐have told reporters that over the course of an indoctrination process lasting several months, they were forced to renounce Islam, criticize their own Islamic beliefs and those of fellow inmates, and recite Communist Party propaganda songs for hours each day. There are media reports of inmates being forced to eat pork and drink alcohol, which are forbidden to Muslims, as well as reports of torture and death.
The sheer scale of the internment camp system, which according to The Wall Street Journal has doubled in China’s northwestern Xinjiang region just within the last year, is mindboggling. China-worshiping NYT columnist Tom Friedman, Islamic countries and human rights organization have been quiet or restrained in their criticism.
Posted by: lord garth ||
08/31/2018
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#1
ummm, should i i give 2 fucks?
Posted by: chris ||
08/31/2018 0:20
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#3
Yeah, the Islamic countries are really quiet about this. It's almost as if they only care when they can bash Jews or Christians. Why aren't they sending suicide bombers into Beijing subways?
Posted by: Herb McCoy ||
08/31/2018 2:12
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#4
Instapundit's comments.
Hmm. So will this (1) end under international pressure; (2) go on despite international pressure; or (3) serve as a model for other countries with troublesome Muslim populations?
#7
#4 Instapundit's comments.
Hmm. So will this (1) end under international pressure; (2) go on despite international pressure; or (3) serve as a model for other countries with troublesome Muslim populations?
Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2018-08-31 02:53
...The Chinese have sufficient money and/or force to insure the answer is #2. Xinjiang is sufficiently remote that not too many people can get in there unless the Chinese let them in. And the Muslim nations that might be most likely to protest are sufficiently scared of the one nation that, when provoked, might be even crazier than they are.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
08/31/2018 5:48
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#8
There are media reports of inmates being forced to eat pork and drink alcohol
#12
Glenmore: further, their means is to treat them in the way they treated everyone in the Han majority (and all the other minorities) in the first thirty years of Red China's existance.
[FreeBeacon] Iran spies stationed across U.S. a result of Obama-era cash payouts
The recent arrest of two Iranian agents alleged to have been running spy operations on U.S. soil is just "the tip of the iceberg" in terms of the Islamic Theocratic Republic's efforts to conduct intelligence operations in America that could result in a terrorist attack, according to a leading politician and U.S. officials who spoke to the Washington Free Beacon about the matter.
Following the arrest of two Iranian individuals charged with spying on Jewish and Israeli facilities in the Caliphornia, an impregnable bastion of the Democratic Party, area, Rep. Peter Roskam (R., Ill.) told the Free Beacon it is likely Iran has stationed multiple regime-tied agents in the United States to conduct intelligence operations.
Continued on Page 49
[DAWN] The special court hearing treason charges against former president retired Gen Pervez Perv Musharraf ... former dictator of Pakistain, who was less dictatorial and corrupt than any Pak civilian government to date ... was informed on Wednesday that Interpol had refused to issue red warrants for his repatriation from the United Arab Emirates where he has been living since 2016.
Interior Secretary Yousuf Naeem Khokhar told the court comprising Lahore High Court Chief Justice Yawar Ali and Justice Nazar Akbar that Interpol had explained to Islamabad that the high treason case being a political one in nature did not encompass the charter of the international law enforcement organization.
The special court, however, asked the secretary to furnish copies of the correspondence between Islamabad and Interpol before postponing the proceedings till Sept 10.
The previous government had in April requested the special court to proceed and conclude the treason trial without waiting for the former military ruler’s personal appearance.
But before adjourning the treason case, the court also sought assistance from the parties, including the federal government, asking whether the court could record Mr Musharraf’s statement under Section 342 of criminal procedure code through video facility or Skype ‐ a social media application ‐ when the accused was not appearing before the court, and whether it could proceed in the absence of any statement of the accused under Section 342.
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[JOURNALDUCAMEROUN] Colombia President Ivan Duque reiterated on Thursday his call for ELN Marxist rebels to release hostages as a prerequisite to restarting suspended Cuban-hosted peace talks.
Duque said he would only speak to the guerrillas if they "suspend all criminal activities" and agree to "demobilize, disarm and reinsert" into civilian life.
But the starting point for that is "the liberation of hostages."
"We cannot legitimize violence as a mechanism to put pressure on the state," said Duque during a presser with Spain Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez.
The ELN, the last recognized rebel group fighting government forces since the 2016 peace accord with FARC guerrillas, said two weeks ago it was prepared to release the nine hostages: four military, three police, and two civilian contractors.
But since then they have failed to agree with the government on the security protocols to carry out the handover.
Peace talks have been on hold since August 1 after Duque’s predecessor Juan Manuel Santos admitted defeat in his bid to agree a disarmament plan with the ELN before his mandate came to an end.
The nine hostages were captured after those talks concluded.
Duque has promised a more hardline approach to the ELN and after his inauguration he said he would take a month to decide whether or not to resume rebel talks.
"These 30 days expire on September 7," said Duque. "We’ve analyzed it and have seen worrying acts of violence.
"Kidnappings, extortion, terrorist attacks, which obviously demonstrates everything but a genuine desire for peace."
The ELN, or National Liberation Army, has around 1,500 guerrillas and an extensive support network.
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[Bloomberg] President Donald Trump said Attorney General Jeff Sessions’s job is safe at least until the midterm elections in November.
"I just would love to have him do a great job," Trump said Thursday in an Oval Office interview with Bloomberg News. Asked if he’d keep Sessions beyond November, he declined to comment.
Trump has repeatedly attacked Sessions in private and in public for recusing himself in March 2017 from the investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein then appointed Robert Mueller as special counsel to conduct what’s become a wide-ranging probe, including whether people around Trump conspired with the Russians and whether the president sought to obstruct justice.
[Breitbart] The dairy farm where an illegal alien worked who is charged with murdering 20-year-old college student Mollie Tibbetts has close ties to the state’s largest farm outsourcing lobby.
Illegal alien Cristhian Bahena-Rivera ‐ a 24-year-old from Mexico who has been charged with first-degree murder in Tibbetts’ death ‐ lived in a trailer on property owned by the Lang family, which owns and operates Yarrabee Farms, where the illegal alien worked under a false name.
Eric Lang, one of the chief executives of Yarrabee Farms, is the brother of Craig Lang, who was the president of the Iowa Farm Bureau. The Farm Bureau has chapters all over the United States, with the goal of increasing the number of low-skilled foreign workers, specifically those on H-2A visas, who are allowed to enter the country every year.
Currently, the national Farm Bureau organization ‐ lobbying for the outsourcing of blue-collar American jobs ‐ has been influential in gaining sympathy from President Trump’s Agriculture Department, run by Sonny Perdue.
As Breitbart News reported, Eric Lang is also married to Nicole Schlinger, who runs the GOP fundraising firm Campaign Headquarters in Brooklyn, Iowa.
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.
[Breitbart] Outsourcing corporation IBM laid off about 20,000 older Americans in the last five years, a new investigation reveals, while the tech multinational sought to import at least 37,000 foreign workers to take U.S. jobs.
[FOX] Former "ER" actress Vanessa Marquez was reportedly shot and killed by police officers conducting a welfare check on her at her Southern California home Thursday.
[Free Beacon] Washington Free Beacon senior writer Adam Kredo said Friday that two Iranian spies recently arrested in the U.S. were part of a much larger intelligence effort by the Islamic Republic.
[Huffpoo] After Grant and Amanda Hayes killed Laura Ackerson, cut her body into pieces and attempted to dissolve the remains in acid, they threw her dismembered remains into an alligator-infested creek to get rid of the evidence.
[Yahoo] 
[Daily Caller] St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner delivered an "exclusion list" to the city police department on Tuesday. On that list were the names of 28 police officers ‐ and Gardner says that she will no longer consider cases brought to her office by any of those on the list.
[Politico] President Donald Trump's Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh has picked up an unlikely endorsement: a nod from from Bob Bennett, a lawyer to President Bill Clinton during the Monica Lewinsky controversy two decades ago.
[Guns America] A Vietnam War veteran and Bronze Star and Purple Heart recipient was laid to rest this weekend after being shot by police defending his grandson from a home intruder.
[NY Post] One of the leading Western executives working for big business in Russia was found dead close to the Kremlin on Thursday.
[Free Beacon] The State Department on Thursday formally cleared Obama and Trump administration officials from any wrongdoing in the lead-up and response to the still-unexplained sonic attacks in Cuba that harmed the health of at least 25 U.S. personnel, although it cited some problems with security staffing vacancies and communications "challenges."
...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...
... Turkey's version of Mohammed Morsi but they voted him back in so they deserve him. It's a sin, a shame, and a felony to insult the president of Turkey...
Obama will accept the invitation of a national selection committee to receive the IGPA’s Douglas Award, which has been given annually since 1994 to public officials who have made significant contributions to the understanding and practice of ethical behavior in public service. It honors late Illinois Sen. Paul Douglas (1892-1976), who became known as the "conscience of the Senate" because of his deep commitment to high ethical standards while serving as a senator from 1949 to 1967.
[DAWN] Chief Justice of Pakistain Mian Saqib Nisar on Thursday deemed the jirga system "against fundamental 
[ARABNEWS] Yemen’s Information Minister Muammar al-Iryani condemned the 
[IsraelTimes] Incident comes after police arrest two suspects armed with pipe bombs at nearby military courthouse
[NATIONALREVIEW] By JOHN O'SULLIVAN
That sort of talk makes your average Baptist or Free Methodist collapse in gales of laughter. The ghosts of Saint Augustine, Martin Luther, John Calvin, and John Knox are all audibly snickering.
That still leaves Roman Catholics with the problem of a polluted church, that's more concerned with Global Warming, what to wear for mass on Sunday, and how to raise bail for a few hundred rapacious priests here and there. If the guys who define Good and Evil are themselves evil, can you trust their definitions? If the Church has fallen on evil days and they hold an exorcism, who's going to be cast out? Beelzebub or Saint Michael? Can you be sure just because the College of Cardinals stops spinning around? Duality, see? The Zoroastrians put good and evil on the same level of strength. Lucifer thought they were right. 
If you're utterly sick of the Pope, and want more structure in your life than you'd get as an Episcopalian, a United Methodist, or some other National Council of Churches Sunday feel good club, there are the Orthodox churches -- Greek, Russian, Coptic and such. They don't consider the Bishop of Rome infallible and they treat with him as equals. No one is required to hop on the humanist slide. They all still retain the concepts of sin and redemption.
...chancellor of Germany and the impetus behind Germany's remarkably ill-starred immigration program. Merkel used to be referred to by Germans as 
[CNBC] Investors are increasingly concerned Latin America's third-largest economy could soon default as it struggles to repay heavy government borrowing.
[ARABNEWS] Geert Wilders said on Thursday he was canceling plans to hold a highly inflammatory contest for cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad.
[TRIBUNEONLINENG] STUDENTS at a university in South Africa gave up on writing an exam ‐ and started protesting that it was too difficult, local media reports say.
...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. Except for a tiny handfull of Jews everthing there is very Islamic...
At Justice Thomas’s confirmation hearings in 1991, Oklahoma law professor Anita Hill accused him of sexual harassment ‐ one of the first such cases made against a public figure. Justice Thomas vehemently denied the charges, calling them a "high-tech lynching" against an "uppity" black man.
[FreeBeacon] Iran spies stationed across U.S. a result of Obama-era cash payouts
Pervez 
[Breitbart] The dairy farm where an illegal alien worked who is charged with murdering 20-year-old college student Mollie Tibbetts has close ties to the state’s largest farm outsourcing lobby.
