[AmericanThinker] The FBI and DOJ
We’re still waiting for the release of the four-page memo prepared by Congressman Devin Nunes on the investigation into the FBI and DOJ’s skullduggery in the "collusion" investigation, which his colleagues who have read it describe as "troubling" "shocking" "deeply disturbing." From what we are seeing in the publicly released communications of some of the participants, it is not far-fetched to consider that sedition charges may be in the works.
18 U.S. Code § 2384 - Seditious conspiracy
US Code
If two or more persons in any State or Territory, or in any place subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, conspire to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the Government of the United States, or to levy war against them, or to oppose by force the authority thereof, or by force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States, or by force to seize, take, or possess any property of the United States contrary to the authority thereof, they shall each be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both.
(June 25, 1948, ch. 645, 62 Stat. 808; July 24, 1956, ch. 678, § 1, 70 Stat. 623; Pub. L. 103‐322, title XXXIII, § 330016(1)(N), Sept. 13, 1994, 108 Stat. 2148.)
It appears from what little we’ve seen that there was, in fact, a conspiracy by key officials and employees of the bureau and department to advance Hillary Clinton’s campaign for president by covering up her illegal conduct, but as well, to undermine and overthrow the elected president.
Think of the irony: Bill Clinton gets a speaking fee from the Russians for $500,000 that defies honest justification. Hillary then hired GPS/Fusion, which contacts Russian officials who promote unverified and unverifiable smears against her opponent Donald Trump, which, under her direction, the outfit disseminates to the press and the FBI to justify surveillance of himself, his family, and the campaign under the guise that he was colluding with the Russians.
The Justice Department is still withholding tens of thousands of internal communications subpoenaed by from Congressional investigators.
Justice has decided to allow Congress to see just 4,000 to 7,000 of a total of 50,000 Strzok-Page texts -- even the larger number is slightly less than 15 percent of the total number of texts the Justice Department has now. Why is that? Justice Department officials point to a Jan. 19 letter from Assistant Attorney General Stephen Boyd to Capitol Hill investigators explaining which texts would and would not be turned over.
"The department is not providing text messages that were purely personal in nature," Boyd wrote. "Furthermore, the department has redacted from some work-related text messages portions that were purely personal. The department's aim in withholding purely personal text messages and redacting personal portions of work-related text messages was primarily to facilitate the committee's access to potentially relevant text messages without having to cull through large quantities of material unrelated to either the investigation of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's use of a personal email server or the investigation into Russian efforts to interfere with the 2016 presidential election."
Finally -- and this could be significant or not -- Boyd said that "in a few instances," the Justice Department consulted with the office of Trump-Russia special prosecutor Robert Mueller and made some redactions "related to the structure, operation, and substance of the [Special Counsel's Office]'s investigation because it is ongoing." Hill investigators don't really know what that covers.
The bottom line is that the Justice Department has turned over a fairly small percentage of the Strzok-Page texts. Even assuming many of the texts would be personal -- the two were having an extramarital affair, after all -- some Hill investigators wonder whether between 43,000 and 46,000 of the 50,000 known texts were wholly personal.
As more of the communications between the participants is revealed and the Glenn Simpson testimony is made public, it is increasingly obvious that Simpson is a conspiracy nutter of the first order and his work product was seized upon by deep state players as a pretext for their conduct. His dossier cannot withstand even the merest critical examination.
Michael Goodwin details the current state of play:
[E]ach day brings credible reports suggesting there is a massive scandal involving the top ranks of America’s premier law enforcement agency. The reports, which feature talk among agents of a "secret society" and suddenly missing text messages, point to the existence both of a cabal dedicated to defeating Donald Trump in 2016 and of a plan to let Hillary Clinton skate free in the classified email probe.
If either one is true -- and I believe both probably are -- it would mean FBI leaders betrayed the nation by abusing their powers in a bid to pick the president.
More support for this view involves the FBI’s use of the Russian dossier on Trump that was paid for by the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee. It is almost certain that the FBI used the dossier to get FISA court warrants to spy on Trump associates, meaning it used the opposition research of the party in power to convince a court to let it spy on the candidate of the other party -- likely without telling the court of the dossier’s political link.
Even worse, there is growing reason to believe someone in President Barack Obama’s administration turned over classified information about Trump to the Clinton campaign.
As one former federal prosecutor put it, "It doesn’t get worse than that." That prosecutor, Joseph diGenova, believes Trump was correct when he claimed Obama aides wiretapped his phones at Trump Tower.
Goodwin continues by reviewing the records Nunes received which show unmistakably the bias against Trump by FBI agents, James Comey, Andrew McCabe (Comey’s deputy):
"Talk about irony," writes Goodwin, "While Dems and the left-wing media already found Trump guilty of collusion before Mueller was appointed, the real scandal might be the conduct of the probers themselves."
The Guggenheim
The FBI, Department of Justice, and the office of the Special Counsel are not the only outfits whose reputations are in the toilet this week. Due to the nasty arrogance of its anti-Trump curator, Nancy Spector, the Guggenheim Museum of Art joins them.
Tom Stoppard once said "Skill without imagination is craftsmanship and gives us many useful objects such as wickerwork picnic baskets. Imagination without skill gives us modern art." Added to this is the tendency of those contemporary artists’ living well off rich patrons to deride materialism without which they’d be peddling their wares on street corners for pennies.
One such artist is Maurizo Cattalan, famous for having created in craftsmanship-type perfection a solid gold toilet which for a time was in the Guggenheim Museum’s public washroom. His work was highlighted this week when the first lady requested the loan of a Van Gogh painting from the Guggenheim for the White House’s private quarters. The museum’s anti-Trump curator Nancy Spector responded that it was unavailable for loan and snidely offered up Cattalan’s toilet instead.
The Guggenheim has said no to the president of the United States, which is a powerful gesture in itself. But it has also presumed to offer him something "more" valuable according to the value system it imputes to him: a tawdry love of gleaming gold fixtures, common to vulgar despots all the way back to Midas himself. The subtext here is: We assume you only want the van Gogh painting as a status symbol, which we refuse to endorse; but we will give you what you really crave, which is crass gold. If he accepts the golden toilet, he confirms their view of him. If Trump declines the golden toilet, by implication he would seem to believe that there are things (such as van Gogh paintings) that transcend money and commerce. And thus, he may undermine his own worldview, in which all things have their price and anything can be exchanged for something else if the money is right.
So the artwork here is not by Cattelan, who is merely instrumental in this game. Rather it is the work of Guggenheim curator Nancy Spector, who made the offer to the White House. Curators may be talented and creative, but they are not often in the business of making art itself. But now the Guggenheim owns a new work, a Spector original, which will add if not luster at least levity to the museum’s collection. And perhaps, like all political art, a little bit of risk, too. The president is not known to suffer sick burns with a light sense of self-deprecation.
People getting rich off the rise of the markets due to Trump’s policies might consider whether they want to continue contributing to such "sick burn" artistic gestures. Smarmy bastids at the Guggenheim. Maybe the Trump ought to initially accept the toilet and then return it filled and unflushed.
#1
DOJ has elected to provide only 4000-7000 of 50,000 Strzok-Page texts. They said they culled out those of strictly a personal nature and redacted some material based on security.
Missing also are Andrew McCabe's emails/texts. These might be more interesting than the Strzok-Page messages.
Reads like what Hillary and her attorneys did with her server.
h/t Instapundit
[WorldTribune] Some liberal Democrats are fighting back tears when discussing President Donald Trump’s travel ban on Muslims from seven nations.
But in 1975, leftist Dems went to great lengths to keep Vietnamese refugees (even orphans) out of the United States.
Trump issued the order, the White House said, so that a better system to vet refugees coming from those nations can be put into place.
The Democrat complaints in 1975 appeared to center on the fact that the refugees were escaping communism, an ideology, analysts say, liberals did not find that objectionable.
Leading the effort to ban the Vietnamese refugees was California’s Gov. Jerry Brown. Other prominent Democrats calling for the ban were Delaware’s Sen. Joe Biden, former presidential "peace candidate" George McGovern, and New York Congresswoman Elizabeth Holtzman.
#1
Leading the effort to ban the Vietnamese refugees was California’s Gov. Jerry Brown. Other prominent Democrats calling for the ban were Delaware’s Sen. Joe Biden, former presidential "peace candidate" George McGovern, and New York Congresswoman Elizabeth Holtzman
#3
So it was Kennedy and LBJ who got us into that war, LBJ who fucked it up beyond all recognition, Nixon the Republican who negotiated an end to it, Carter and the Democrats who reneged on promises to send arms to the South Vietnamese thereby leaving them defenseless and then Democrats who did not want to accept the refugees. I guess irresponsible would be one word for it.
But if you look at those refugees, those boat people, and their children now you find fully assimilated, high achieving and productive American citizens. You cannot say the same for some of those other folks who have been joining us lately at the behest of Democrats.
Kinda makes you wonder if Brown, Biden, Carter, et al. knew even then which way the Vietnamese refugees would tend to vote in our elections.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
01/28/2018 10:59
Comments ||
Top||
#4
As a friend of mine from that era once said, "When you were born in a cave you don't want to return to your roots."
[FoxNews] A cabal of Hollywood elites, progressive groups and social activists are planning a "People’s State of the Union" as a "public alternative" on the eve of President Donald Trump’s first State of the Union address. A 'public alternative' to a speech that won't be given until 24 hours later and whose content you are completely unaware of. Got it.
Notable participants in Monday's scheduled event in New York City include filmmaker Michael Moore, whose last film. Michael Moore in Trumpland, made a whopping $149,090 which was probably just enough to cover his Hostess Twinkie tab
actors Mark Ruffalo, best known for playing some green fella
Alyssa Milano, who is no longer the boss, but does a mean weight control system infomercial
Rosie Perez who may not be workin' but looks pretty darn good
and Whoopi Goldberg who spends her afternoons on national television going on about something or another with no clear or direct connection to reality.
They'll congregate at the Town Hall in Manhattan, the venue where suffragists met in the 1920s. Singer Andra Day and rapper Common will be performing the song, "Stand Up for Something," from the biopic film "Marshall," about the late Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall.
Tickets were still available Saturday at $47 each. I'm guessing either demand isn't quite what they thought it was, or the 'people' they had in mind had a lot better things to do than blow a few hours' pay listening to these clowns tell them how bad they had it.
The event, coordinated by unions, organizers of the Women’s March and Planned Parenthood, is being marketed as a celebration of the "resistance," closer to "the people’s point of view," USA Today reported. I wish it were possible to zap everyone who uses the word 'resistance' back in time to The Second Great Unpleasantness, so they could see what it was like to really try and resist two of the most brutal dictatorships in history. I suspect they'd last about five minutes before either curling up in a ball sobbing or ratting out everyone they knew in a desperate attempt to be killed last.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
01/28/2018
06:40 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[5 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Gad, these dim lightbulbs have no clue how the middle class live or how their progressive ideas are destroying the lives and dreams of thousands of hard working Americans.
I'd like to see a use tax on private jets in California and see how that plays with these bloviated idiots
#5
Our elites are the popular might,
Awakened in sweetness and light!
That benighted extreme,
The US? Just a dream
Of the one-percent ultra-right white.
#6
$47/ticket? That will be 2 month's of a year's subscription of my InReach GPS/Iridium safety beacon. Hmmmm.....which is the greatest value to me. Choices....choices.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
01/28/2018 18:36
Comments ||
Top||
[The Hill] The Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency will soon have the ability to track license plates across the U.S., The Verge reported Friday. Automatic Place Number Recognition (APNR). DL57DT6320 has delinquent student loans but no criminal history.
ICE has reached a deal with Vigilant Solutions, a top source for license plate data, to gain access to the firm’s database of billions of license plates. The move will allow the agency to start implementing location tracking for the plates.
"Like most other law enforcement agencies, ICE uses information obtained from license plate readers as one tool in support of its investigations," an ICE spokeswoman told The Verge in a statement.
"ICE is not seeking to build a license plate reader database, and will not collect nor contribute any data to a national public or private database through this contract."
Vigilant did not return multiple requests for comment by The Verge. Vigilant has built up its database using information from local law enforcement, car repossession firms and other private organizations.
Using the database, ICE agents will be able to see where license plates have been located over the past five years, as well as find individual’s residences, according to The Verge.
Officials can also be instantly alerted when new records of specific plates are located. Civil liberties groups slammed ICE’s access to the database.
"There are people circulating in our society who are undocumented," American Civil Liberties Union senior policy analyst Jay Stanley told The Verge. "Are we as a society, out of our desire to find those people, willing to let our government create an infrastructure that will track all of us?"
#2
If they could match uninsured drivers I'd be more supportive
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/28/2018 8:09
Comments ||
Top||
#3
either the info is mostly going to be off limits for most law enforcement, like the traffic cameras, OR they are going to need at least 3 additional floors for all the lawyers.
[Zero Hedge] Under President Obama’s watch, the Islamic State conquered a so-called caliphate the size of Ohio in Syria and Iraq. Luckily a new, "tough" president - Donald Trump - stepped in, loosed restrictions on his military, and, defeated the bad guys. At least that’s the popular story and the party line.
Of course, the ground-level truth is much messier.
If ISIS is so decisively and irreversibly defeated, how then to explain last week’s gruesome double-suicide bombing in Baghdad and expert warnings that up to 10,000 ISIS loyalists remain in Iraq and Syria?
The problem is that, even after 17 years of hard lessons to the contrary, most Americans - and administration spokespeople - insist on viewing ISIS as a linear, conventional threat. A quick look at color-coded Syria maps gives the obvious impression that ISIS as a conventional military force indeed has receded. Plentiful U.S. airstrikes, ample American advisory teams, and local Kurdish ground troops combined to devastate Islamic State’s fighters - which is a positive development.
Unfortunately, that may have been the easy part. Conventional destruction does not equate to total, ideological defeat. ISIS is as much idea as army, and such groups have proved remarkably resilient and capable of morphing into new, menacing manifestations.
#1
If I wasn't thoroughly grounded in the mental disciplines of transnational progressivism/progressive liberalism, I would begin to wonder if - maybe, just maybe - ISIS/Al Qaeda etc... are not a small group of extremists trying to hijack a great religion.
#2
You've always leaned a bit to the conspiratorial. You'll no doubt soon be suggesting a villainous plot is underway to extend 'Automatic Plate Number Recognition (APNR)' to humans via wrist tats or something.
#3
Remember, you don't have to completely defeat an enemy, but to weaken it so much that other predators in the environment ascend to dominate the territory.
#9
Trump supporters, most political conservatives and many military officers point to Obama’s supposedly hasty withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq in 2011 as the impetus for the rise of ISIS. That explanation was simplistic — and, in the case of candidate Trump claiming that Obama literally "founded ISIS,” bordered on the absurd.
Army Major using the title Army Major exposed as a political hack. This guy missed the whole point that our political and military withdrawl allowed the Shia govt. to declare war on the Sunnis...and the Sunni population provided the perfect host for ISIS...an armed, pissed population willing to make a deal with the devil to fight with the Shia... Obama the enabler may not have been the founder of ISIS...but the Caliphate surely would not have been founded if not for Obama's stupidity.
#10
#2 You've always leaned a bit to the conspiratorial. You'll no doubt soon be suggesting a villainous plot is underway to extend 'Automatic Plate Number Recognition (APNR)' to humans via wrist tats or something. Posted by Besoeker
It already exists...your cellphone is sitting right beside you with your own unique identification number attached...
[The Last Refuge] Since Thursday night we’ve been combing the FBI files to figure out exactly what FBI Agent Peter Strzok was referencing in one of the most recently released text messages. We have discovered the context and the text is now damning.
House Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte read this specific text message on Thursday night during an interview with Sean Hannity:
At first, the context behind the September 10th, 2016, message was elusive, however it is now clear.
#2
Treason and seditions charges and a grand jury are in order for these Deep Staters who illegally snooped on and plotted against a duly elected POTUS to take him down. Even Strzok said "there's no there there." So, if one of the main conspirators admits there's nothing there in the ginned-up fake dossier and Russian collusion fiction, why is this B.S. Mueller witch hunt still on-going?
[War News Update] The Warzone/The Drive: The USAF Expands MQ-9 Reaper Drone Force in Afghanistan to Its Largest Size Ever
The air war over Afghanistan is rapidly heating up and a huge deployment of Reapers drones is the latest major development.
The U.S. Air Force says its force of MQ-9 Reapers at Kandahar Airfield in Afghanistan is now the largest deployment of the type to a single base ever. The drones are part of a larger surge in the air war over the country, which could still include yet more unmanned aircraft in the near future as other services, such as the U.S. Navy, consider their own unmanned contributions.
The Air Force says there are now nearly three squadrons worth of Reapers at Kandahar, though it declined to give specific numbers, according to a report by Stars and Stripes on Jan. 26, 2018. The size and scope of American presence there had steadily shrunk since the NATO-led coalition officially ended combat operations in 2014. It has begun to grow again as the United States has reinvigorated its efforts against the Taliban, Al Qaeda, ISIS, and other militant groups in the country, deploying additional ground forces, including elements of the U.S. Army’s first ever dedicated advisory unit, the 1st Security Forces Assistance Brigade, or 1st SFAB.
#4
It's almost as if Trump said next to nothing about military matters while we quietly re-armed ourselves, unlike Obozo who telegraphed 3/4 of our punches. I remember some talk a few years ago that we were running low on certain munitions. At least here, that doesn't seem to be the case anymore.
#6
I'll be watching you
(Every breath you take, every move you make, every bond you break, every step you take)
I'll be watching you
(Every single day, every word you say, every game you play, every night you stay)
I'll be watching you
(Every move you make, every vow you break, every smile you fake, every claim you stake)
I'll be watching you …
#9
Trying to figure it out here is a 2016 map of drone squadrons. The count of even MQ-9's varies greatly between squadrons. Squadron sheet from 2016
Low looks to be 12 Reapers per squadron high is 24 per squadron. That gives a low of 36 Reapers and a high of 72 Reapers in Kandahar.
[American Thinker] The excellent 7-part Fox News documentary series Scandalous, covering the scandals of the Clintons through the 42nd president’s impeachment trial in 1999, continues tonight with the premiere of part 2, "A Woman Called Paula." The hour-long program airs at 8 P.M. E.T./P.T. At 7 P.M., part 1, "Up Crooked Creek" about the Whitewater scandal, which originally aired last Sunday, will be reprised.
Fox hopes that Scandalous will be an ongoing series devoted to various political scandals in American history. The first 7 parts, devoted to the Clintons, total 280 minutes of content and go a long way towards helping to correct the largely sanitized and whitewashed record of Bill Clinton’s scandal-ridden career and presidency.
Since he left office on January 20, 2001, the mainstream media, to my knowledge, has never attempted any serious appraisals of the underside of Bill and Hillary Clinton’s eight years in the White House and their earlier careers in Arkansas. The only exception was the PBS American Experience 2-part, 4-hour presidents’ series episode about Clinton which aired most recently in 2012.
It covered Bill and Hillary’s entire career with only a minor focus on the scandals. Like most MSM appraisals of the Clintons, it reinforced the gauzy, airbrushed history of the 1990s, which witnessed the pumped up Internet dot com surge that helped to propel the temporary economic boomlet before the bubble started to burst in 2000, Bill Clinton’s last full year in office.
#1
A 6-part series on the Waco siege is being released. This is the siege where 76 Seventh Day Adventist Branch Davidians were killed during the 51 day stand-off. Twenty-five children were killed during the fire that engulfed the compound. This occurred during the Clinton administration. Janet Reno was the AG. I don't know whether these deaths are included in the Clinton death tally. Nonetheless, they had to kill the children to save them. April 19th WACO siege.
[Right Scoop] This is great ‐ the co-founder of Home Depot rips apart Pelosi and Schumer for downplaying the tax cut that will put money in nearly every American’s pocket.
.@HomeDepot co-founder Bernie Marcus: "Democrats, use your stupid brains. You don't have any brains." #Cavuto pic.twitter.com/HKkCx4FmCZ
‐ Fox News (@FoxNews) January 27, 2018
He’s exactly right about Dems just not understanding what normal people go through and how any money is a help when you’re living paycheck to paycheck.
I’m not sure about his prediction that they’ll lose the next election however ‐ there are a LOT of angry leftists animated by Trump’s rhetoric. But if the economy improves even more, then they’re in trouble...
#1
Leftists want it both ways: They want the producers to carry the welfare state on their backs and the left also wants to flog and belittle the producers while they carry the load. Never occurs to the left that the producers can choose to stop producing. The economic resurgence occurring under Trump is partially explained by producers sitting out the obutthole years.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
01/28/2018 8:57
Comments ||
Top||
#2
Not very original, but what's good for Home Depot appears to be good for America.
#3
Every time I go to Home Depot it's so crowded I have a tough time finding a place to park. When I get inside the aisles are filled with customers and the cash registers are ringing. I think the man knows a thing or two about what he's doing.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
01/28/2018 14:32
Comments ||
Top||
#4
Chuckie "Wesley Mouch" Schumer knows everything about the market economy. At least he thinks he knows, as people like Bernie Marcus who really produce something pass him by.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
01/28/2018 18:31
Comments ||
Top||
[PJ] Planned Parenthood has seeded more than 300 American college campuses with student groups to fight "abortion stigma" and to promote "reproductive justice."
Founded in 2014, the Planned Parenthood Generation Action (PPGA) group recruits college students to launch clubs in support of Planned Parenthood’s mission, and in turn, recruit their peers and friends to join.
Key priorities of the program include "inclusivity, abortion stigma, trans inclusion, elections, and movement/power building," according to PPGA’s website. "We advocate for our health centers to provide crucial health services, including abortion care," it adds.
Once a student chapter is launched ‐ often under covert names like the Salem Sisters or The Feminist Collective of Point Park ‐ the chapter hosts events in hopes of swaying peers’ opinions to support "reproductive justice" and, more bluntly: abortion.
Despite insistence that it is a health care organization, Planned Parenthood is also the nation’s single largest abortion provider. According to a report the nonprofit released over the New Year’s Eve weekend, more than 320,000 abortions were performed last year.
As PJ Media reporter Tyler O’Neil has illustrated, Planned Parenthood’s abortion services have held steady while provision of other services ‐ such as prenatal care, pap tests, and cancer screenings ‐ have dropped precipitously in the last few years.
[Daily Caller] When the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence votes to release the classified intelligence memo, according to one journalist, it will be because the committee found such disconcerting practices by intelligence officials that the public has a right to know.
Mollie Ziegler Hemingway ‐ a senior editor at The Federalist and Fox News contributor who spoke with The Daily Caller New Foundation ‐ discussed how the media narrative is collapsing with new facts showing the misbehavior of certain FBI officials. Besides not showing any collusion, we can now look back to see "inappropriate" briefings by intelligence officials of the Congress using this discredited information.
Hemingway calls the use of the dossier to obtain surveillance on Trump administration officials a "scandal of epic proportions." In addition, America is also learning of the post-election whisper campaign to delegitimize President Donald Trump.
#1
Most likely, the memo will show far more corruption and criminality on the part of former government officials and others than many who only watch the MSM knew. Violations of basic rights, charity fraud, money laundering, pay-for-play, treason, sedition, large-scale theft as in Haiti, campaign and voter fraud, election rigging, weaponizing government agencies against citizens, destruction of public records, sell-out of the country to foreign enemies, espionage, abetting human and drug-trafficking, perjury and a general disregard of our laws. I doubt the memo included all this so releasing the memo could result in an Al Capone's vault response on the part of many informed people.
[The Hill] Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg will not be in attendance at President Trump's first State of the Union address on Tuesday.
Ginsburg is scheduled to be at Roger Williams University in Rhode Island for her speaking tour on Tuesday, according to The Associated Press.
While Ginsburg has been critical of Trump in the past, her talk at the university was announced last August.
Ginsburg did not attend Trump's address to Congress last year after attending all eight of former President Obama's addresses.
Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas also did not attend Trump's address. It is not abnormal for Supreme Court justices to skip out on the annual presidential addresses.
Late Justice Antony Scalia had not attended a State of the Union since 1997 prior to his death in 2016.
"You just sit there, looking stupid," Scalia once said, according to CNN.
Alito, who famously shook his head and mouthed "not true" after Obama criticized the court in his 2010 State of the Union said after the address he would not attend in the near future, saying he felt "like the proverbial potted plant."
#1
Ginsburg did not attend Trump's address to Congress last year after attending all eight of former President Obama's addresses.
It's her way of sending a message. An adolescent message, but a message still. Her speaking tour is much more important than applauding the accomplishments of a mere president. The dour old hag will not be missed.
#9
It only needs a chariot, gold diadem and an imperial purple toga to be the Roman Emperor addressing the Roman Senate. Let's go back to just the sending the letter -- that was adequate for most of the Republic.
There aren’t any soldiers marching on Charleston... or Myrtle Beach. Nobody’s getting shot in the streets. Except in Chicago... and Baltimore, Detroit and Washington D.C.
But that’s not a civil war. It’s just what happens when Democrats run a city into the ground.
...But it’s not guns that make a civil war. It’s politics.
Guns are how a civil war ends. Politics is how it begins.
...The shadow government is an ideological network. These days it calls itself by a hashtag #Resistance. Under any name, it runs the country. Most of the time we don’t realize that. When things are normal, when there’s a Democrat in the White House or a bunch of Democrats in Congress, it’s business as usual.
Even with most Republican presidents, you didn’t notice anything too out of the ordinary. Sure, the Democrats got their way most of the time. But that’s how the game is usually played.
It’s only when someone came on the scene who didn’t play the game by the same rules, that the network exposed itself. The shadow government emerged out of hiding and came for Trump.
...This is a war over who runs the country. Do the people who vote run the country or does this network that can lose an election, but still get its agenda through, run the country?
We’ve been having this fight for a while. But this century things have escalated.
They escalated a whole lot after Trump’s win because the network isn’t pretending anymore. It sees the opportunity to delegitimize the whole idea of elections.
...America was founded on getting away from professional government. The British monarchy was a professional government. Like all professional governments, it was hereditary. Professional classes eventually decide to pass down their privileges to their kids.
America was different. We had a volunteer government. That’s what the Founding Fathers built.
This is a civil war between volunteer governments elected by the people and professional governments elected by... well... uh... themselves.
Of the establishment, by the establishment and for the establishment.
You know, the people who always say they know better, no matter how many times they screw up, because they’re the professionals. They’ve been in Washington D.C. politics since they were in diapers.
...We’re in a civil war between conservative volunteer government and leftist professional government.
The pros have made it clear that they’re not going to accept election results anymore. They’re just going to make us do whatever they want. They’re in charge and we better do what they say.
That’s the war we’re in. And it’s important that we understand that.
Because this isn’t a shooting war yet. And I don’t want to see it become one.
...What we have in America is a representative government. A representative government makes freedom possible because it actually represents people, instead of representing ideas.
The left’s identity politics only represents ideas. Nobody gets to vote on them. Except with a gun
[Independent] Hot people are more likely to support right-wing parties because they are stronger and more successful than their more liberal peers, apparently.
That's according to a study carried out by Rolfe Daus Peterson, a political scholar from Susquehanna University and Carl Palmar, assistant professor in politics at Illinois State University.
The researchers claim that never before has the effects of physical attractiveness on politics been examined on this level and that there is "good reason to believe that individuals’ physical attractiveness may alter their political values and worldviews".
They said that their findings prove attractive people tend to lean towards the right because they have better social skills and are more popular, competent and intelligent due to the "halo effect" - an idea that bias and stereotypes influence the way people judge others.
Writing about their findings in the Politics and Life Sciences journal published in December 2017, the pair said that on average, hotter people have an easier life so don't see the need for more welfare, aid and government support, unlike their left-wing counterparts.
How did the researchers come to this conclusion? How can you not?
Using figures from two earlier surveys, the pair said they soothed concerns around the bias of attractiveness because obviously different people find different things attractive, right?
First, the scholars took figures from the 1972, 1974 and 1976 American National Studies surveys that asked those taking part to evaluate the appearance of others.
The survey also explored participants political beliefs, income, race, gender, and education. They then compared those results with the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study (WLS) that examined the characteristics of over 10,000 high school graduates who were rated by others on their level of attractiveness.
Bringing everything together, Peterson and Palmer argue a connection between an individual's physical attractiveness and political beliefs could be revealed.
They went on to argue that although what people view as attractive may vary, criteria for attractiveness appears to be consistent within cultural groups, pointing to earlier evidence of what beauty is and means.
Attractive people tend to be conservative because of a 'blind spot'
The scholars said hot people lean towards the right because they grow to develop a blind spot that leads them to not see the need for more government support or aid in society - a core liberal value.
They add that attractive people don’t face the same hurdles as others as their attractiveness gains them more attention and they are more successful in social situations. Their lives are generally "easier," the pair claim.
They add:
"Even though this blind spot may not be universally held and physically attractive individuals do not always have easier lives, on average, physically attractive individuals face fewer hurdles navigating the social world."
They conclude that because of this, they expect attractive people to be more likely to support right-wing conservative parties and point to another study that concluded that conservatives are more attractive. Hopefully TW will not pop my happy bubble.
All right, gorb dear. But I did move it to Science&Technology.
[Khaama (Afghanistan)] At least thirty-four gunnies affiliated with 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 (ISIS) terrorist group were killed or maimed during the operations in eastern Nangrhar province of Afghanistan.
The 201st Silab Corps of the Afghan army in the East said the gunnies were killed during the Arclight airstrikes and ground operations in Deh Bala district.
According to the Silab Corps officials, the operations were conducted in Charwazi, Miaji Baba center, and Kanja Worod Khana areas.
The officials further added that the operations are still underway against the terror group in the restive parts of Nangahrar province.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/28/2018
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[3 views]
Top|| File under: Islamic State
#1
"The coin toss is 'heads'. ISIS has elected to receive"
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/28/2018 9:13
Comments ||
Top||
[ALMASDARNEWS] Reports are emerging which indicate that a number of mass graves have been found by the Syrian Arab Army the near the Abu Duhur military airport ‐ located on the border of Idlib and Aleppo provinces.
Some Syrian pro-government social media outlets with links to military sources are spreading information about the possible discovery of three mass graves by the Syrian Army close to the Abu Duhur airbase.
It is said that Syrian troops combing the military installation’s outskirts found the burial sites. There is speculation that the graves hold the remains of some of the 71 soldiers who were first captured and then executed by Islamist forces of Evil after rebel groups captured the base from government forces in September 2015.
At the present time, al-Masdar News cannot confirm the report and even so other sources offer very little detail on the matter.
The Abu Duhur military airport was claimed by the Syrian Army from Islamist militias on Saturday exactly one week ago.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/28/2018
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[5 views]
Top|| File under: Islamic State
[AA.TR] The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... ’s president said on Saturday that the Ottoman Turkish Armed Forces will not show mercy to those who attack its freedom, referring to terrorist groups.
"We are not against any state, we only want to secure our future and liberty," 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... told the opening ceremony of the Kasimpasa-Haskoy Tunnel in Istanbul.
"We will embrace those who extend their friendly hand. We will break bread with those who ask for help.
"We will also show no mercy to those who try to harm our future and freedom," Erdogan said.
Erdogan reiterated that the name of the terrorist group doesn’t matter, whether it is called FETO, ISIS, the PKK, PYD, or YPG, as Turkey will "roll over all of them."
The PKK -- recognized as a terrorist group by the EU, U.S., and Turkey -- has waged a three-decade war against Turkey, taking 40,000 lives in the process. The PYD/PKK and YPG/PKK are its Syrian branches.
The Fetullah Terrorist Organization (FETO) was behind the 2016 defeated coup in Turkey, which martyred 250 people and left 2,200 injured.
Addressing the youth branch of the ruling Justice and Development (AK) Party's provincial congress in northwestern city of Kocaeli, Erdogan underlined Turkey’s decisive stance in fight against the terrorist organization.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/28/2018
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[5 views]
Top|| File under: Sublime Porte
[Khaama (Afghanistan)] A suicide kaboom rocked southern Helmand ...an Afghan province populated mostly by Pashtuns, adjacent to Injun country in Pak Balochistan... province of Afghanistan today after a jacket wallah detonated his explosives near a security check post.
According to the local officials, the incident took place in the vicinity of Nad-e-Ali district leaving at least six people maimed.
Provincial governor’s front man Omar Zwak confirmed the incident and said at least six people including four army personnel and two coppers were maimed.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/28/2018
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[1 views]
Top|| File under: Taliban
[DAWN] Around 300 holy mans from Deoband school of thought on Friday declared the Rs10,000 monthly stipend paid by the provincial government to prayer leaders haram (forbidden).
The declaration was made during a function organised by the Jamaat Ulema-e-Islam ...a Pak religious party. It is usually part of the govt, never part of the solution... -Fazl here.
Acting provincial emir of the JUI-F Mufti Kifayatullah told participants that the joint decree had barred prayer leaders from receiving the government stipend by declaring it haram.
He said the payment was planned under an ’international conspiracy’ against holy mans.
The JUI-F leader said the PTI government had secured money from international nongovernmental organizations to ’buy’ loyalties of holy mans and therefore, his party and religious scholars would raise voice against the move.
Another speaker, Maulana Saeed Abdullah, said the Imam Conference would be organised here on Feb 5 to persuade prayer leaders from all schools of thought to reject monthly stipend.
Meanwhile, ...back at the secret hideout, Scarface Al sneeringly put his proposition to little Nell... the ruling Pakistain Tehrik-e-Insaf ...a political party in Pakistan. PTI was founded by former Pakistani cricket captain and philanthropist Imran Khan. The party's slogan is Justice, Humanity and Self Esteem, each of which is open to widely divergent interpretations.... rejected the decree declaring it unjustified and unwarranted.
PTI Youth Wing president Mohammad Nisar told news hounds that the government had been paying monthly stipend to prayer leaders to help them manage their household affairs well.
He said the JUI-F should stop spreading false propaganda against the stipend’s payment.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/28/2018
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[1 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan
[DAWN] Faheem Shah, a grade 12 student from Charsadda, on Friday confessed to killing Hafiz Sareer Ahmed ‐ his college's principal ‐ after being rebuked for missing classes.
In a confessional statement, recorded in the court of Judicial Magistrate-I Attaullah Jan, Faheem said that he was attending a Mehfil-e-Milad in his village when some people asked him to accompany them to the protest at Faizabad.
He said that he accepted the invitation and spent a night at the sit-in before returning to Charsadda. However, some people cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go... even after returning from the sit-in, he did not attend classes and remained absent from his college for a few days, for which he was censured by his principal.
"After being censured for skipping school, in anger I took a pistol and opened fired and killed the principal," the tossed in the calaboose Maw! They're comin' to get me, Maw! student's confession said.
He recalled that Frontier Constabulary (FC) personnel had arrested him on the spot, recovered the pistol and handed him over to the police.
"I am very ashamed of my action," he concluded.
Earlier, the student, while being arrested, had appeared to justify the murder saying he believed the college principal had committed blasphemy.
It was not immediately clear what had prompted that charge.
"I have been taught... to kill... to not be afraid. Don't be afraid of disrespecting the one who [commits blasphemy]," the student said.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/28/2018
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[1 views]
Top|| File under:
[ALMASDARNEWS] For the third time in the last 72 hours, the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) has fended off a large assault by the so-called 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) in the eastern part of the Deir Ezzor Governorate.
ISIS began their assault on Saturday by storming the Syrian Arab Army’s positions at the town of al-Jalaa, which is located just west of Albukamal city.
However, the man who has no enemies isn't anybody and has never done anything... despite the intensity of the Islamic State assault, they were unable to penetrate the Syrian Army’s lines at al-Jalaa, resulting in their eventual retreat from the town.
According to a military source in Damascus, the Syrian Arab Army killed at least ten Islamic State terrorists, while also destroying two armored vehicles that were used to attack their positions.
The Islamic State has recently stepped up their attacks in the Deir Ezzor Governorate in order to take advantage of the Syrian Army’s weak defenses in western Albukamal.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/28/2018
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[5 views]
Top|| File under: Islamic State
[ALMASDARNEWS] Eight days ago, 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.... holy warriors trapped along the eastern shore of the Euphrates River in the Syrian province of Deir Ezzor launched a week-long offensive operation with all their remaining strength against US-led forces dubbed ’Revenge for the Virtuous [Virgin] Women.’
Although being far from a major victory, the terrorist offensive managed to accomplish a number of operational and tactical objectives ‐ lifting the siege off of ISIS forces in the town of Gharanij and the village of al-Bahra and inflicting almost two hundred dead on the ranks of US-backed Arab and Kurdish paramilitary groups.
The operation saw ISIS employ many hundreds of fighters and throw into battle all of its remaining fire support weapons including (as the picture below show) a truck with a working tank turret rigged onto it. Two boom-mobiles were also used, both hit their intended marks.
Highly untypical to most Islamic State offensives of the last couple of years that normally last two or three days (during which time they either succeed or fizzle out), the most recent operation against US-backed fighters endured for seven straight days before the terrorist group ended the battle on its own terms.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/28/2018
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[5 views]
Top|| File under: Islamic State
[RADIOSHABELLE] al-Shabaab ... Somalia's version of the Taliban, functioning as an arm of al-Qaeda... said it has amputated the right hands of two Somali men accused of theft in Kunya-Barow town of Somalia’s southern Lower Shabelle region.
The men identified as Mohammed Mohammed Hassan, 54, and Hassan Mohammed Yussuf, 45, were convicted of breaking into a shop and stealing 883 US dollar by Al-Shabaab court.
The right hands of the men were amputated by a dagger-wielding Lion of Islam at a square in the town with the presence of hundreds of local residents, including women and kiddies.
In areas under its control, Al-Shabaab regularly carries outs executions by firing squad, stonings, amputations and floggings after summary trials for a range of charges.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/28/2018
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[1 views]
Top|| File under: al-Shabaab (AQ)
[RUDAW.NET] A delegation from Rojava has met with former French President Francois Hollande ...the Socialist president of La Belle France, an economic bad joke for la Belle France but seemingly a foreign policy realist... in Gay Paree on Friday to discuss the situation in Afrin.
Aldar Khalil, co-president of the executive body of the Movement for a Democratic Society (TEV-DEM) that governs Rojava, Abdul Salam Mustafa, Democratic Union Party (PYD) representative in Europe, and Dr. Khalid Issa, Rojava representative in Gay Paree, sought French assistance to pressure Ankara to end its military operation, the PYD stated.
The Kurds discussed "the aggressive war of the occupying Ottoman Turkish state on Afrin and its disastrous consequences for defenceless civilians," the party’s statement read.
They told Hollande that The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... is carrying out its operation under "false pretenses" and is destabilizing the area.
Hollande "promised that he would do everything in his power to stop this aggression," the PYD asserted, reporting that he told the Kurdish delegation, "We and the Kurds are friends and allies in the war on terrorism" and the French government and people will not accept the conflict in Afrin.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/28/2018
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[2 views]
Top|| File under: Sublime Porte
[RUDAW.NET] In December 2016, Ankara betrayed the Syrian rebels it initially supported, forcing them to leave Aleppo to the Assad regime. Ankara kept training and paying the hapless Sunni Arab and Turkmen rebels, however, planning to use them for its own designs. Having reconciled itself, at least for the time being, with Assad remaining in power, The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...just another cheapjack Moslem dictatorship, brought to you by the Moslem Brüderbund.... preferred to deploy the "Free Syrian Army ... the more palatable version of the Syrian insurgency, heavily influenced by the Moslem Brüderbund... " (FSA) remnants against Syrian Kurds. It first did so in places like Jarablus and al Bab, invading in August 2016 in order to prevent the Syrian Kurdish canton of Afrin from being linked up with Kobane and Jazira.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred ||
01/28/2018
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[12 views]
Top|| File under: Sublime Porte
#1
Female YPG fighters are destroying tanks by managing to get close enough to blow themselves up, destroying the tank.
Posted by: Bill Cleretle2363 ||
01/28/2018 18:24
Comments ||
Top||
[Khaama (Afghanistan)] The government of Pakistain has condemned today’s deadly attack in Kabul city that left at least 95 dead and 158 others maimed.
"The people and government of Pakistain condemn the terrorist blast in Kabul and extend heartfelt condolences to the families of those who bit the dust in this reprehensible act. Terrorism is not the way forward," a front man for the ministry of foreign affairs of Pakistain Dr. Mohammad Faisal said.
The Talibs group in Afghanistan claimed the responsibility behind attack.
Taliban ...the Pashtun equivalent of men... front man Zabiullah Mujahid claimed that the kaboom was triggered by a suicide boom-mobilekaboom targeting a group of police personnel near the old building of the ministry of interior.
Mujahid also claimed that scores of people had gathered in the area where the incident and nearly 80 people have been killed or maimed.
The ministry of public health says around 95 dead bodies and 158 people who have sustained injuries have been shifted to the hospitals so far with the Kabul Emergency Hospital saying around 50 were shifted to this hospital only.
Today’s attack was the second deadly incident that took place in the city over a period of almost one week.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/28/2018
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[1 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan
[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] The UN Special Mission in Libya expressed its alarm on Wednesday after reports of summary executions in Benghazi, in which at least nine people being rubbed out at the site of a twin boom-mobileing.
Referring to the killings as "brutal and outrageous," the mission said the UN "demands the handing over of Mahmoud al-Werfalli immediately to the International Criminal Court."
Werfalli is a special forces commander wanted by the ICC allegedly carrying out a number of similar killings.
In a tweet from its official account, the mission added that "it documented at least 5 similar cases, in 2017 alone, carried out or ordered by alWerfalli."
The photos, which were posted on social media and in local media, appear to show executions in front of Benghazi’s Bayaat al-Radwan mosque, where a twin boom-mobileing on Tuesday left at least 35 people dead.
One of the pictures shows a gunman dressed in military camouflage, pointing a weapon at the head of the first of a row of blindfolded men kneeling in blue jumpsuits in front of damaged mosque gates.
Another photo shows all but three of the people slumped forward on the road as the gunman makes his way along the line. It was unclear who the men were.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/28/2018
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[2 views]
Top|| File under: Arab Spring
[DailyMail] - German police suing Georgetown professor for Peace and Security Studies What's the over/under on her students being evaluated by self-grading?
- C Christine Fairs is accused of calling Frankfurt Airport staff 'f****** Nazis'
- She claims her comments were to a fellow traveller with a 'Hitler Youth' haircut Confusing metaphors.
- Fair made headlines in 2016 for allegedly rowing with Trump-voting Muslim ex-colleague
The good professor vented her spleen about the incident in a Huffington Post article here. She clearly felt no need to control her emission of modifiers.
I think this is a quantification of this report from yesterday, rather than yet another mass grave in the area.
[AnNahar] A mass grave containing the remains of dozens of civilians and security personnel apparently executed by jihadists has been found in northern Iraq's Kirkuk province, its governor said on Friday.
Rakan Said al-Juburi told AFP it was the 14th such discovery in the area.
"Local residents and shepherds guided security forces to the mass grave which appears to contain the remains of more than 75 civilians and security personnel," he said.
The governor said the victims had been "savagely executed by jihadists who occupied Hawija," one of the last urban centers held by 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.... (IS) group before its ouster last year by Iraqi security forces.
The corpses found near Ryadh village, 45 kilometers (28 miles) west of the city of Kirkuk, ... a thick stew of Arabs, Turkmen, Kurds, and probably Antarcticans, all of them mutually hostile most of the time... had been shot in the head with their hands bound behind their backs, he said.
Residents fear that many missing relatives and friends, especially members of the security forces, have probably suffered the same fate.
Security forces have discovered dozens of mass graves since they drove out IS in 2017 after three years of occupation of swathes of northern and western Iraq.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
01/28/2018
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[3 views]
Top|| File under: Islamic State
[DAWN] PESHAWAR: A local court has indicted a private school’s principal on charges of child abuse, pornography, rape, blackmail and illicit relations.
The accused, Attaullah Marwat, pleaded not guilty "Wudn't me." on all counts.
Additional district and sessions judge Yasir Shabbir fixed next hearing into the case for Feb 3 and summoned prosecution witnesses to appear before him.
The accused, who the private school’s owner, was enjugged I ain't sayin' nuttin' widdout me mout'piece! after the Hayatabad cop shoppestarted the paperwork but haven't done much else against him on July 14, 2017, on the complaint of a boy student, who had accused him of sexually exploiting schoolchildren, including girls, and filming them by secret cameras installed on campus.
The bail pleas of the accused have already been dismissed by the Beautiful Downtown Peshawar ...capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa administrative and economic hub for the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan. Peshawar is situated near the eastern end of the Khyber Pass, convenient to the Pak-Afghan border. Peshawar has evolved into one of Pakistan's most ethnically and linguistically diverse cities, which means lots of gunfire. High Court and district and sessions judge.
Schoolboy complained the accused sexually exploited students and filmed them by secret cameras
The trial court framed charges against him on eight counts falling under Pakistain Penal Code Section 354-A (stripping woman of her clothes), 376 (punishment for rape), 377-B (sexual abuse of child), 489-C (counterfeit currency), 497 (adultery) and 509 (sexual harassment), and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Child Protection and Welfare Act, 2010, sections 48 (child pornography), 50 (seducing a child) and 53 (sexual abuse).
One of the charges against the accused is that he had forced, persuaded, coerced and enticed girl students aged below 18 years to engage in sexual activities and exposed their bodies, and was involved in explicit sexual conduct and abuse of minor schoolgirls.
The accused is also charged with forcing, coercing and persuading girl students of his school to sexual activities and capturing those acts on his mobile phones, USBs and secret cameras installed in different parts of the school.
The accused had allegedly ’on multiple occasions and habitually’ enticed and compelled multiple women of different ages to have illicit relations with him inside the school.
He is also charged with sexually assaulting many women after obtaining their consent through death threats.
Following his arrest last year, the accused had recorded his confessional statement with a judicial magistrate on July 19, 2017, wherein he had only admitted that he used to bring women from outside to the school for the purpose of adultery.
He had said it was his hobby to make videos of those sexual activities.
He had also admitted that 26 such videos, which he had made, were stored on his personal computer.
The issue had surfaced after a student of the said school (name withheld) had told the police that the accused was involved in sexual exploitation of students and teachers.
He had alleged that he (accused) had sexually exploited students, teachers and some outsider women but nobody had the courage to disclosing or report the matter.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/28/2018
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
"What can I say? I'm a kid lover"
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/28/2018 8:20
Comments ||
Top||
[RUDAW.NET] The US-led Coalition who supports the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces in Syria in their fight against ISIS has told Rudaw that they will continue to stay in the Kurdish-held Manbij, just hours after The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...just another cheapjack Moslem dictatorship, brought to you by the Moslem Brüderbund.... warned the United States to remove their troops stationed there immediately.
Colonel Ryan Dillon, spokesperson for the Coalition, told Rudaw TV on Saturday evening that they have been very "transparent" with Turkey over the delivery of equipment to the SDF force within the frame of the ISIS war. He praised the SDF, an alliance of Kurdish and Arab fighters in northern Syria for their war against the murderous Moslem group.
"Turkey knows where our forces are in Manbij, and what they are doing there, and why they are there ‐to prevent any kind of escalation between the groups who are in that area," Dillon said.
Ankara claimed on Saturday that the US National Security Adviser HR McMaster "confirmed" during a Friday phone call with the spokesperson of the Ottoman Turkish presidency that the US will no longer provide weapons to the YPG, the backbone of the SDF force in Syria.
"The Coalition will continue to support our Syrian Democratic Forces in the fight against ISIS. We have said this all along, and we have said this with the Kurdish elements of the SDF. We will provide them equipment as necessary to defeat ISIS," Dillon said of their support to the SDF who spearheaded the operation to liberate areas in northern Syria including Raqqa.
He explained though "This equipment [provided to SDF] is especially for the fight against ISIS."
Turkey’s Foreign Minister also on Saturday requested the US military to remove their troops stationed in Manbij "immediately," a day after 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... warned that the so-called Operation Olive Branch may continue all the way to the Iraqi border with Syria including Manbij.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/28/2018
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[11 views]
Top|| File under: Sublime Porte
[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] Unknown armed individuals have killed Houthi leader Dr. Raji Hamid al-Deen on Saturday.
Sources said that the armed men fired at the Houthi leader, a member of the political desk, at Cairo Street in the center of the capital city Sanaa, and then fled the scene.
Al-Deen was an assistant professor in the college of Sharia and Law at Sanaa University.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/28/2018
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[6 views]
Top|| File under: Houthis
[DAWN] Saudi billionaire Prince al-Waleed bin Talal was released on Saturday after nearly three months in detention following a "settlement" with authorities, as a sweeping anti-corruption campaign targeting the kingdom's elite winds down.
Prince al-Waleed, dubbed the Warren Buffett of Soddy Arabia ...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in the Soddy national face... , was the most high-profile detainee among 350 suspects rounded up since November 4, including business tycoons and ministers, who were held in Riyadh's luxury Ritz-Carlton hotel.
The prince was released following an undisclosed financial agreement with the government, similar to deals that authorities struck with most other detainees in exchange for their freedom.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/28/2018
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[7 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Saudi Arabia
#1
Wonder how much of this was due to going after 'terrorists' financing?
[All Africa] Mauritania was the last country in the world to abolish slavery in 1981, and has one of the highest rates of slavery in the world
The African Union ...a union consisting of 53 African states, most run by dictators of one flavor or another. The only all-African state not in the AU is Morocco. Established in 2002, the AU is the successor to the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), which was even less successful... on Friday urged Mauritania to make a greater effort to eliminate slavery after the country handed out lenient sentences to a family of slave owners in a landmark conviction.
Said Ould Salem and his brother Yarg were born into slavery in the West African nation and forced to work every day from an early age by a wealthy family, campaigners said.
Their owner was found guilty in Mauritania's first ever prosecution for slavery in 2011, but was sentenced to only two years in prison while the law required five to ten years, said UK charity Anti-Slavery International.
He has yet to be placed in durance vile Drop the rosco, Muggsy, or you're one with the ages! , pending appeal, and other members of the family walked free, the campaign group said.
In a statement published online, the African Union (AU)'s Committee of Experts on the Rights and Welfare of the Child said that all members of the family should be given sentences commensurate to their crimes.
Mauritania should also "give due regard to the issue of slavery and make the elimination... one of its priorities," the pan-African body said.
"This verdict puts a lot of pressure on Mauritania to take slavery seriously," said Jakub Sobik, a front man for Anti-Slavery International.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/28/2018
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[1 views]
Top|| File under:
[ALMASDARNEWS] The Ottoman Turkish military operation in Syria’s northern Afrin district has claimed lives of 86 civilians, leaving 198 others maimed since its beginning a week ago, the Syrian state-run Sana news agency has reported, citing civilian sources.
On Friday, the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), controlling the area, reported the cross-border operation’s civilian corpse count to be 59, saying that 134 other individuals on the Syrian side of the border had been injured. On Saturday, the Ottoman Turkish forces attacked residential buildings in the Afrin area with different types of weapons, the agency reported.
The Ottoman Turkish offensive has caused damage to civilian infrastructure, including residential buildings and archaeological sites, the outlet added.
Ankara started its operation "Olive Branch" in Afrin on January 20. According to the Ottoman Turkish leadership, the operation was aimed at clearing the country’s border with Syria from terrorist presence. Ankara considers the People’s Protection Units (YPG), part of the SDF, being linked to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which is listed as terrorist organization in The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... .
Posted by: Fred ||
01/28/2018
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[4 views]
Top|| File under: Sublime Porte
[ALMASDARNEWS] Unknown assailants have stabbed and heavily injured Egypt’s former anti-corruption chief officer Hisham Geneina in a shocking public attack on Saturday.
Hisham Geneina, formerly Chief of Administrative Control of Egypt, was attacked Saturday morning while making his way to a court session regarding a complaint he lodged against him being sacked from his post back in 2016.
According to Geneina’s lawyer Ali Taha, three men attacked and beat Geneina, stabbing him in the face, as well as breaking both of his legs, right outside of his own house in the Egyptian capital of Cairo.
"[He was] bleeding at the cop shoppe, in attendance of his wife and his daughters, for more than an hour and a half. He has been denied treatment even though the ambulance has arrived at the station," Taha continued.
Other sources claim that in the meantime, Geneina has been brought to the hospital for medical treatment, however.
Hisham Geneina was the head of Administrative Control, which is Egypt’s anti-corruption agency, until being sacked by president Abdel Fattah el-Sisi in March 2016 for allegedly "exaggerating the extent of corruption in Egypt". Right before being sacked, Geneina had stated that corruption ran rampant in Egypt, and costed the country $68 billion in just four years time.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/28/2018
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[2 views]
Top|| File under: Arab Spring
[RADIOSHABELLE] A manhunt has begun in Lamu for al-Shabaab ... the personification of Somali state failure... returnees who sneaked back into the country but refuse to surrender to the police.
The operation will involve identifying communities that shield the returnees instead of handing them over for amnesty and rehabilitation.
Speaking in Lamu on Friday, Operation Linda Boni director Joseph Kanyiri said many of returnees are spies for the militia in Garissa, Lamu and Tana River.
He said communities in Witu, Kiunga, Kotile, Korissa, and Masalani are notorious for hiding returnees. They even help them to prepare and carry out attacks.
He said the spies are responsible for spreading propaganda leaflets, especially in Kotile, Korissa, and Msalani. "In the leaflets, the murderous Moslems claim they have no issues with Moslems and that their only target is Christians and [outsiders]."
What Christians? Unless there have been massive secret conversions, the population is entirely Sunni Muslim.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/28/2018
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[0 views]
Top|| File under: al-Shabaab (AQ)
[AA.TR] The U.S.’ Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) still officially views PYD/PKK as a terrorist organization, according to "The World Factbook" section in the intelligence agency’s website.
The up-to-date website confirms that the PYD is the Syrian wing of the internationally designated terror group PKK, with Salih Moslem as its leader.
The rise of ISIS terror group gave the U.S. an excuse to establish a strong partnership with the PYD/PKK terrorist group.
The first military aid of the U.S. army was delivered to PYD/PKK in September 2014, when ISISsnuffies sieged northern Syrian city of Ayn al-Arab city, which was under PYD/PKK’s occupation.
Following the Arclight airstrikes that continued for months, ISIS was moved away.
The U.S. military aid to the terror group increased day by day, especially in the east of Euphrates River that empowered PYD/PKK’s occupation.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/28/2018
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[7 views]
Top|| File under: Sublime Porte
#1
typical cia sellout
Posted by: Daniel ||
01/28/2018 0:49
Comments ||
Top||
#2
They were on the list prior to 2001, Commie bad guyz, y'know. They've still got that commie strain, but Ocalan's heyday has come and gone. He's kinda the Kurds' Mandela.
Erdogan inherited a peace processor with the Kurds. They were talking about releasing Ocalan and they had ceasefires going. But he needed an external enemy, and the Jews were in Israel, not all that many in Turkey. Armenians coulda done, but they're mostly Christians and the world still recalls the pogroms at the end of the First World War. That left the Kurds.
An ISIS kaboom in Ankara (maybe it was Istanbul, I haven't looked it up to make sure) and Erdogan's response was to break off negotiations with PKK, lump them in with ISIS as terrorists, and he's got his external threat.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/28/2018 1:30
Comments ||
Top||
#3
Look for the CIA label. Might make for a good advert jingle, if it were not so ridiculous.
#5
why does the CIA continue to fight the last ideological war? They are still fighting the cold war as if Stalin and Beria were still in charge.
Just because they are communists doesn't automatically mean they are evil. It is what they do not what they believe that matters. As with the Muslims, I don't care what kind of crazy crap nonsense they believe, it is what they do that has to be stamped out.
Most of the diplomatic and PR black eyes we have and the vast negative perceptions held in Latin America, Africa, and Asia are because the CIA aligned itself with some of the most odious and despicable tyrants on the planet just because they conned us on being "anti" communist.
The reality is that the only reason we sorta don't like the PKK is that "communist" thing, when in effect they and the PYD are the only sane people in the conversation in the ME. Turkey doesn't like them because they want a free Kurdistan, which is not a bad idea given how it cuts off most of Turkey and Iran's access to Iraq and Syria. We had a chance to do this but Slick Willie (Hillary?) decided not to do the right thing and support the Kurds during the Saddam years.
Sorry for glossing over 100 years of genocide in the Soviet Union and China.
The point I am trying to make is that the CiA has a tendency to label someone communist just because they buy weaponry from the Soviets (why the CiA won't). Some of these "communist" organizations that are labeled terrorist are made guilty by association not what they actually are.
The PKK is a nationalist organization that wants a free Kurdistan. That's all I need to know right now.
As for communism in general it is a failed economic theory propped by years of propaganda and critical theory teaching in US Universities.
There is not a successful communist regime in the world...anyone that thinks it will work needs to read "Animal Farm"
[Khaama (Afghanistan)] At least six Taliban ...Arabic for students... Lions of Islam including a commander of the Red Unit of the group were killed or maimed during a clash in northern Kunduz province of Afghanistan.
The 209th Shaheen Corps of the Afghan army in a statement said three Taliban Lions of Islam including a commander of the Red Unit of the group were killed during the clash with the Afghan forces.
The statement further added that the Taliban Überstürmbannführer killed during the clash has been identified as Mumtaz and at least three others were critically maimed.
According to the Shaheen Corps, the clash took place in the vicinity of Chel Cheragh Bagh Sherkat area of the province.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/28/2018
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[3 views]
Top|| File under: Taliban
[Khaama (Afghanistan)] The remarks by the former US Ambassador to Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad have attracted mixed reactions regarding the impasse between the government and Jamiat-e-Islami regarding Balkh political leadership.
In an exclusive interview with the Arian News, Khalilzad had said that the Afghan government and its international will not have further patience and tolerance regarding Ata Mohammad Noor’s opposition to resolve the issue regarding the Balkh leadership.
He also called on politicians of the country to refrain from miscalculations while dealing with the national issues, insisting that the international community will not allow the small issues to turn violent and further increase deadlock.
However, a member of the Jamiat-e-Islami Noor Rahman Akhlaqi in reaction to Khalilzad’s remarks accused him of the current crisis in the country.
In a statement posted online in reaction to the ex-Ambassador’s remarks, Akhalaqi accused Khalilzad of misusing his authorities while serving as US Ambassador to Afghanistan.
Akhlaqi further added that Khalilzad’s steps resulted into the wrongful interferences of President George Bush in the establishment of the political system of the country that resulted into the chaos and return of the terror groups.
The remarks and ongoing impasse have also attracted the reactions of the people and activists on social media who are mainly concerned regarding the situation.
Certain social media users and activists believe that the remarks of Khalilzad could possibly reflect the stance of Washington regarding the political deadlock between Kabul and Balkh.
The White House said in a statement said Wednesday “The White House has been closely following the current dispute over the governorship of Afghanistan’s Balkh Province. The United States calls on the parties involved to quickly and peacefully resolve this dispute over the transfer of authority to a new governor. The continued impasse benefits only terrorists and Afghanistan’s adversaries.”
Posted by: Fred ||
01/28/2018
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] It’s difficult to understand the fierce and ongoing conflict between Trump and the American media without understanding the secret motives of the two parties. Trump has raised the slogan "America First| and the media has been critical of him as he continued to lament America’s status. However, nothing needs reforming like other people's bad habits... these are how things look on the outside as the real conflict has nothing to do with all this.
Take the book "Fire and Fury," in which author Michael Wolff attacked the American president, as an example. Apart from the profit made (more than 1 million copies were sold in a week), Wolff wanted to show that the president has mental health issues by citing his embarrassing behavior, careless decisions, provocative tweets and unhealthy eating habits. The aim is to collect as much evidence as possible from within the White House to get people to doubt Trump’s mental health and show that he is not capable of assuming the difficult and sensitive tasks of a president and he must therefore be expelled from office.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred ||
01/28/2018
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Deeply flawed Kings may sometimes turn up golden.
Americans find one now and again.
#5
It’s difficult to understand the fierce and ongoing conflict between Trump and the American media
Yeah - if you've been living under a pile of fucking rocks for a few decades. The first world news media is chock full of leftists and have zero interest in government accountability unless a given institution is under Republican control. The difference now is that not only does Trump fight back, he fights so much better than the press can and he loves doing it.
There are no 'secret motives' here - this author's an assclown who's reaching for something that isn't there, which is typical of the majority of news articles out there, which is how we get fake news. Piss off, camel jockey.
#6
I have a fervent hope that the MSM destroys itself and is replaced with an authentic media that publishes or airs something that resembles the truth. The current MSM has been taken over by billionaire oligarchs and the Washington Deep State who use it to pump out Dem/left/radical propaganda.
[AlAhram] Unidentified button men killed at least 14 soldiers in central Mali, an area targeted by a growing wave of attacks by Islamist holy warriors, when they overran a military camp early on Saturday, two army officers said.
The camp in the town of Soumpi, near the southern boundary of Mali's Timbuktu region, came under attack at around 6 a.m. (0600 GMT).
"The provisional toll is 14 dead, 17 maimed and two enemies killed. The search is still on for those missing," one of the sources said.
The second source said "around 15" soldiers had been killed.
"The soldiers abandonned their position. The enemy carried away material," he said.
Both sources asked not to be named as they were not authorised to speak to the media.
Violence by holy warrior groups, some with links to al Qaeda and 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, is on the rise in West Africa's arid Sahel region ... North Africa's answer to the Pak tribal areas... . In Mali, attacks have grown more frequent and spread further south towards the capital, Bamako.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
01/28/2018
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[2 views]
Top|| File under: al-Qaeda in North Africa
[AnNahar] A dronezap early Saturday killed seven suspected al-Qaeda forces of Evil in southern Yemen, a security official said.
The US military is the only force known to operate armed drones over Yemen.
The official said the strike happened after midnight and targeted a car in Shabwa province.
"All seven passengers, who were al-Qaeda members, were killed," said the security source.
The United States considers the Yemen-based al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula ...the latest incarnation of various Qaeda and Qaeda-allied groups, including the now-defunct Aden-Abyan Islamic Army that boomed the USS Cole in 2000... to be the radical group's most dangerous branch.
A long-running drone war against AQAP has intensified since 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... took office in January 2017.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
01/28/2018
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[7 views]
Top|| File under: al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula
Anbar (IraqiNews.com) Iraq’s military command said an gang was bombarded by U.S.-led coalition warplanes early Saturday in Anbar, a few hours after news reports said the jets mistakenly hit a local police officer and civilians.
The Joint Operations Command’s War Media Cell said that coalition warplanes struck an "gang" in al-Baghdadi region, west of the province during a hunt for a terrorist element.
"The JOC possessed accurate intelligence information about the presence of a terrorist leader, Karim al-Samarmad, at a house in Baghdadi for a meeting preparing for an attack against security forces and citizens", the command said in a statement.
It added that army forces, backed by coalition jets, moved to the area. Finishing the collection of evidence, the forces pulled back, only to detect "a gathering of button men", which "aircraft targeted without coordination with the assigned force", as the statement put it.
The statement did not mention the presence of civilians or security officials among that gathering, but earlier news reports said Baghdadi district’s police and the areas’ mayor were maimed in the strike, while at least seven non-combatants were killed.
The JOC said it was opening an investigation into the incident.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
01/28/2018
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[3 views]
Top|| File under: Islamic State
[DAWN] The family members of a man accused of being a terrorist, bumped off by 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... police earlier this month, protested after officials refused to hand over his body after they had identified him, DawnNews reported on Friday.
Gul Saeed was allegedly involved in an attack on former senior superintendent of police (SSP) Malir Rao Anwar on January 16, and was one of two bully boyz killed by the police in the 'incident'.
Saeed's family, however, has rejected the claim and insisted that he was a driver who lived in Karachi's Orangi Town.
The man's brother, Mohammad Shoaib, said police had refused to issue a no-objection certificate to the family, demanding that the family bring his national identity card and agree to a DNA test since they have no record of the dear departed.
The family, outraged at the demands, took away Saeed's body by force. However, those who apply themselves too closely to little things often become incapable of great things... after negotiations with the police, they returned the corpse to the mortuary.
Earlier this month, a jacket wallah had reportedly blown himself up near Anwar's convoy when he was on his way to his house in Malir Cantt. Two other attackers were said to have been killed in 'retaliatory fire' by coppers. The former Malir SSP had remained unhurt.
However, those who apply themselves too closely to little things often become incapable of great things... that version of events has been contested since it was uncovered that a separate encounter had been staged in which an innocent man ‐ 27-year-old Naqeebullah Mehsud ‐ had been bumped off on Rao Anwar's watch
An inquiry team of senior coppers probing the alleged extrajudicial killing found that the Wazoo native was killed in a "fake encounter" which was "staged" by Anwar on January 13.
The high-level inquiry committee also concluded that the dear departed had no bully boy tendencies.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/28/2018
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[1 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan
[IsraelTimes] On Holocaust Remembrance Day, German leader warns of rising anti-Semitism in country, calls to create position of anti-Semitism commissioner.
Apparently it was Holocaust Remembrance Day, explaining the startling number of pious speeches recently reported about the Jews, including former president Obama’s extraordinary claim that he is basically a liberal Jew. But Frau Merkel’s oration raises the bar on lacking self-awareness.
#4
Nice little Jewish Institutions you have there. It is a disgrace that your basic physical security depends on the constant active goodwill shown to you by Germany's political leadership.
And you better remember that your basic physical security depends on the constant active goodwill shown to you by Germany's political leadership.
</sarc>
Israeli flags were burned in Berlin in December to protest the US decision to recognise Jerusalem as the Israeli capital.
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
01/28/2018 11:11
Comments ||
Top||
#10
In many smaller communities in Western Germany, there are now effectively no Jews as well. My grandmother’s home village in Lower Saxony, which has a street named after one of her cousins, contained in 2010 when we visited precisely one living Jew, a convert who traveled to the nearest big city once a month to go to services at the synagogue there. Her boyfriend, who was not Jewish, did not understand why she chose this path she was not born to, and was not supportive. I wonder if she subsequently found a job in that city and moved there, as the younger generation of mostly Russian-German Jews from my mother’s home city of Hildesheim had been doing for years (along with their non-Jewish neighbours). The head of the very active and government-supported Jewish community there anticipated extinction in another generation.
The fact that Hildesheim was becoming a center of jihad-supporting Salafists was not then known, I think.
[ALMASDARNEWS] 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... said "those who are creating trouble along our borders, who are betraying this country, they will pay the price," during a speech in Kocaeli, Saturday.
"The PKK, PYD, YPG they will all pay. FETO will also pay. This is a fight of determination," he stated.
On January 20, Erdogan announced the beginning of a military operation against the Kurdish YPG militia.
The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...just another cheapjack Moslem dictatorship, brought to you by the Moslem Brüderbund.... views the YPG, which is active in northern Syria, as an extension of the banned krazed killer group the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
Posted by: Fred ||
01/28/2018
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[1 views]
Top|| File under: Sublime Porte
[DAWN] Dutch intelligence services have provided "crucial evidence" to US counterparts about Russian meddling in the 2016 elections, Dutch media reported on Friday.
After penetrating the network of Russian hackers known as Cozy Bear, the Dutch agents alerted US spy chiefs as they watched the Russians transfer "thousands" of Democratic Party emails ahead of the presidential vote.
The Dutch national intelligence service (AIVD) had been watching the notorious group since 2014, according to the respected Volkskrant daily, and a Dutch TV news programme Nieuwsuur.
They have provided "crucial evidence of the Russian involvement" as well as "technical" proof in the hacking of the US Democratic Party, the reports said, citing anonymous US and Dutch sources.
After digging themselves by chance into the Russians’ computer network run out of a university building near Moscow’s Red Square, the Dutch agents also gained access to the security cameras surveilling the room.
"Not only can the intelligence service now see what the Russians are doing, they can also see who’s doing it," the Volkskrant said.
The AIVD alerted its US counterparts when in 2015 it became a "witness to the Russian hackers harassing and penetrating the leaders of the Democratic Party, transferring thousands of emails and documents," it said.
"Yet, it will be months before the United States realise what this warning means: that with these hacks the Russians have interfered with the American elections. And the AIVD hackers have seen it happening before their very eyes." Pictures obtained from the security cameras, led the AIVD to conclude that Cozy Bear is directed by Russia’s external intelligence agency, the SVR.
Cozy Bear has been widely blamed for meddling in the American elections won by Republican 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... Despite Trump’s vehement denials of working with the Russians, his White House is now under investigation for possible collusion by special prosecutor Robert Mueller.
The information provided by the Dutch was "relevant material" to Mueller’s team, Volkskrant said.
In the past eight months, members of Trump’s campaign, family and White House staff have all been interviewed, and four indictments have been issued, with two guilty pleas as the investigation has spiralled closer to Trump himself.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/28/2018
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[6 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
with two guilty pleas
For lying. Nothing to do with the Russians. BTW, who planted this Dutch gambit? Who's verified it?
#2
Dipshit John Podesta getting phished is NOT hacking
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/28/2018 8:55
Comments ||
Top||
#3
“The Dutch access provides crucial evidence of the Russian involvement in the hacking of the Democratic Party, according to six American and Dutch sources who are familiar with the material, but wish to remain anonymous.”
but wish to remain anonymous? Really?
There is an alternative interpretation of the facts published at Zero Hedge. Dutch ‘Cozy Bear’ Farce Does Not Show DNC Emails Were Hacked By Russians. Here.
Crowdstrike was the only organization to see the DNC servers. Crowdstrike has been linked to the DNC/Hillary. They backed off on the assertion that it was the Russians. Seems like Cozy Bear and Fancy Bear are back in vogue. Moreover, Comey and the FBI never obtained the servers for forensic examination. In light of recent information about the behavior of members of the FBI and DOJ during the Obama administration, IMO there needs to be a thorough examination of this entire fake Dem Russian dossier, the DNC servers, Hillary's servergate and everyone involved in this Dem manufactured mess.
Previously, Adam Carter has made a good argument, based on forensic analysis, for information on the DNC servers most likely being taken by Dem-insider and whistleblower Seth Rich.
#6
A last ditch effort to prop up the collusion/it was the Russians narrative.
Do you really think the two premier hackers in the world would let a couple of Dutch kids hack into their surveillance cameras??? Really am I that stupid to believe this story?
The Israelis are different. If this story had come out of one of the Shin Bet front organizations, I would sit up and pay attention. It didn't so to me this just more liberal hide the story with BS.
Still trying to undercut the study that showed the emails weren't hacked, it had to be a download. AND falling for a pfishing scam?? Really? Crap even my free copy of AVG can cut out a pfishing attack...or was the DNC using that Russian antivirus stuff...
[DAWN] Eight Iraqis were killed on Saturday, most of them security personnel, in a United States (US) air strike that apparently targeted them by mistake, a provincial official said.
"Eight people ‐ a senior intelligence official, five coppers and a woman ‐ were killed by a US strike on the centre of al-Baghdadi," a town in western Iraq, the official said, asking not to be identified.
"It seems the strike was a mistake," the official said of the incident in the Euphrates Valley town, adjacent to the Ain al-Asad airbase 250 kilometres west of the capital.
The dead were travelling in a convoy which had been deployed to support an operation against suspected 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.... (IS) group Lions of Islam in the area.
The strike destroyed most of the vehicles in the convoy and also maimed 20 people, including the town's police chief, who was in a serious condition, the provincial official said.
Iraq's Joint Operations Command, which coordinates the campaign against IS, said it had ordered a special forces raid in the town after receiving intelligence of a "meeting to be attended by terrorist commander Karim al-Samarmad".
It said it had requested "air support from the international coalition".
"Once the terrorist was locked away You have the right to remain silent... and while troops were carrying out searches, a grenade was thrown from an adjacent building."
As the special forces troops returned to base, they ran into a convoy of police and paramilitaries of the Hashed al-Shaabi auxiliary force that had been sent to support them.
The convoy was composed of pick-up trucks and the returning forces mistook them for Death Eaters and called in a coalition air strike, the JOC said.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/28/2018
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[3 views]
Top|| File under: Islamic State
[RUDAW.NET] The Iranian Revolutionary Guards reported that three of their fighters were killed in armed festivities with a group of 21 "ISIS" snuffies who entered the country from the west on the borders with the Kurdistan Region. Kurdish security officials say that they are the same group who engaged in festivities against Kurdish forces in Halabja on Monday.
Iran’s security forces monitored and located the group in the western province of Kermanshah as they entered the country from the west, followed by festivities on Saturday morning, the Revolutionary Guard stated.
Mohammad Pakpur, the commander of the infantry forces of the Revolutionary Guards, told the state media that they captured 16 of the turbans, and that two of them were "surrounded" by the security forces. The rest were killed, he claimed.
Earlier in the day, the Iranian force said in a statement that the "majority" of the snuffies who belong to "ISIS" were captured, but the fighting was still going on, the statement published Saturday afternoon added.
The commander said that the fighting took place in Bamo area, located on the border between Iran and the Kurdistan Region.
A source from the Kurdish security in Garmiyan told Rudaw Saturday that they are the same group who entered armed festivities with their forces in Bamo Mountain, Halabja on the border with Iran.
The group then crossed the border into Iran, the source said earlier in the day, adding that "based on our intelligence, six of the fighters have been killed [by Iranian security forces], eleven of them captured, and the fate of four of them are as of yet unknown."
It is not clear whether the Iranian and Kurdish sides shared intelligence over the presence of the group on the border.
The Kurdish security on Tuesday said that group was suspected ISIS turbans, saying that they took control of their hideout on the mountain.
After Mount Bamo was secured, "their depot was also located a BKC rifle, two Kalashnikov rifles, a sack of TNTs, 17 RPG bullets, many food substances and a box of bullets," according to the Kurdish statement.
Bamo town, 195 kilometers southeast of the Kurdistan Region’s capital, is just west of the mountain range. It is within the Garmiyan bloc.
Mount Bamo is in the Hamrin mountain range and Kurdish officials have expressed concern about ISIS snuffies fleeing from places like liberated djinn-infested Mosul ... the home of a particularly ferocious and hairy djinn... to Hamrin, as the rugged area provides many possible hideouts.
Garmiyan falls under the administration of Sulaimani province, Bamo however is now officially part of Halabja province.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/28/2018
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[4 views]
Top|| File under: Islamic State
[DAWN] Chief Justice of Pakistain (CJP) Mian Saqib Nisar on Saturday gave a three-day deadline to the Sindh police to arrest former Malir senior superintendent of police (SSP) Rao Anwar.
The deadline was given during a hearing of a suo motu ...a legal term, from the Latin. Roughly translated it means I saw what you did, you bastard... case regarding the extra-judicial killing of Naqeebullah Mehsood.
Naqeebullah, a 27-year-old hailing from South Wazoo, was among four men killed in an 'encounter' with a police team headed by Anwar in the Usman Khaskheli Goth on the outskirts of the metropolis.
Anwar had insisted at the time that Naqeebullah was a Death Eater affiliated with the banned Tehrik-e-Taliban ...Arabic for students... Pakistain (TTP).
Inspector General of Police (IGP) Sindh A.D. Khowaja and Additional Inspector General (AIG) Counter Terrorism Department (CTD) Sanaullah Abbasi were present in court during today's hearing, which was conducted by a three-member bench headed by the CJP at the Supreme Court's (SC) 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... registry.
Khowaja told the court that after the first information report was lodged against Anwar, the police had traced his location to Islamabad. However, Caliphornia hasn't yet slid into the ocean, no matter how hard it's tried... the IG was unable to tell the chief justice the current whereabouts of the former SSP.
Khowaja claimed that the police had "tried their best" to arrest Anwar but had so far been unable to do so.
On being asked when the police would be able to arrest and produce Anwar in court, Khowaja remained silent.
Naqeebullah's father, who had also appeared in court, expressed his lack of trust in Sindh police and asked the court to form a judicial commission to investigate his son's extra-judicial killing.
However, Caliphornia hasn't yet slid into the ocean, no matter how hard it's tried... the CJP assured him that the court trusted the Sindh police and urged him to allow the joint investigation team and the police to continue with their investigation.
"A judicial commission cannot conduct a criminal investigation," Justice Nisar explained to Naqeebullah's father.
Justice Nisar asked Khowaja if he was under any political pressure, to which the IGP replied in the negative. The CJP told him to work "freely" and vowed that the court will not let "honest officers fail".
Report's findings
The three-member police committee, investigating the encounter under AIG Sanaullah Abbasi, submitted its report in the court today saying that the incident "appears to be a coordinated fake encounter".
The report said that Naqeebullah Mehsud was picked up from a tea hotel on Abul Hassan Isfahani Road along with two friends, Hazrat Ali and Qasim. The three friends were kept in illegal confinement and subjected to torture, and while Ali and Qasim were later released, Naqeebullah was killed in a staged encounter.
The report said that no evidence of Naqeebullah being a terrorist or a criminal was found and the report presented by Rao Anwar on the dear departed's activities was actually of a different person who goes by the same name.
It note that though the former SSP Malir claimed to have conducted the tainted Naqeebullah 'encounter' on intelligence reports, no evidence was available to corroborate this claim.
The report also said that while Rao claimed he was not present when the encounter happened, call records show he was at the site of the encounter when it happened.
It confirmed that the former SSP Malir tried to escape abroad and did not cooperate with the committee, which amounts to misconduct and obstructing the process of justice.
The report revealed that 444 people were killed in encounters conducted under Rao Anwar, who was appointed in Malir four years ago.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/28/2018
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[3 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan
[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] US Ambassador Nikki Haley ...Trump administration's ambassador to the UN. First woman to serve as Governor of South Carolina, and the second Indian-American governor in the country, after Bobby Jindal of Louisiana. At the age of 39, Haley was the youngest governor in the U.S., a distinction formerly held by Jindal. She is a Republican, which really grates on the Dems... has slammed rumors that she was having an affair with 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... as "highly offensive" and "disgusting."
The rumors stem from author Michael Wolff of the best-seller "Fire and Fury," who suggested in an interview that Trump was having an affair and that the liaison was with someone detailed in his book.
Wolff wrote in his book that Haley, the most high-profile woman in Trump's administration, was positioning herself as the president's heir apparent.
In an interview with Politico's Women Rule podcast on Thursday, Haley shot down talk of being romantically involved with the US president.
"It is absolutely not true," Haley said. "It is highly offensive, and it's disgusting."
She hit back at Wolff's assertion in his book that she was spending a lot of private time with Trump on his presidential plane and in the Oval Office.
"I have literally been on Air Force One once and there were several people in the room when I was there," Haley said.
"He says that I've been talking a lot with the president in the Oval about my political future. I've never talked once to the president about my future and I am never alone with him."
Haley attributed the rumors to sexism from a "small group of men" uneasy with strong-willed women.
"Most men respect women but there is a small group of men, that if you just do your job and you try and do it well and you are outspoken about it, they resent it. And they think the only option is to bring you down," she said.
There are women like that, too — the crabs-in-a-bucket problem.
The former South Carolina governor who backed Trump rival Marco Rubio The diminutive 13-year-old Republican U.S. Senator from Florida... for the Republican nomination said she and Trump are in agreement on almost all policy issues.
"We get along great, and I agree with almost everything that he has done," she said.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/28/2018
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[4 views]
Top|| File under:
#3
Why? Because like with that stupid dossier, every claim in the book that’s knocked down makes the author less authoritative and his claims less believable.
#4
"Why does she even feel the need to defend herself against these allegations?"
You know, Gorb, I almost think ignoring them forever may become the way to deal with it, but.... Trump has played them like a violin thus far.
#5
#2 Why does she even feel the need to defend herself against these allegations?
Possibly the experience of watching Bush "taking the high road" and being used as a punching bag makes people reflect on the virtues of "punching back twice as hard."
#6
In the past Republicans did what you suggest, allowing slurs from Democrats to go unanswered as beneath contempt.
That strategy gives the slur spouters the last word on the subject. And it is the last word that most people remember. By hitting back, people remember her rejoinder. Trump hits back in a way which draws out semi-deranged interpretations of his comments from the press, which he counterpunches again and gets the last word.
Sarah Palin never answered the parodies of Tina Fey and so the uninformed remembered them and attributed them to Governor Palin. The press banged away at Bush who never answered and they wore down his reputation.
Trump seems to understand how to get the last word much more than his adversaries do. He somehow always manages to make them look ugly.
Posted by: Daniel ||
01/28/2018 1:17
Comments ||
Top||
#7
#6, Hear, hear - "ignoring bullies" never works (too bad she can't push their heads into toilet bowl and flush).
#9
...Sadly, Ambassador Haley had the same problem here in SC.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
01/28/2018 7:31
Comments ||
Top||
#10
Discredited Michael Wolff author of discredited "Fire and Fury" published this trash. There have been zero past indications or even rumors of affairs on the part of Ambo Nikki Haley. The left is getting increasing crazy and unhinged. They are hoping that something/anything will stick to Trump. They believe that everyone plays by the same playbook they use in their own lives.
Is this red on red or blue on blue? Maybe green on green? I’ve lost track of who gets which colours.
[ALMASDARNEWS] A veteran Islamist militia has joined the Free Syrian Army ... the more palatable version of the Syrian insurgency, heavily influenced by the Moslem Brüderbund... ’s battle against 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.... -affiliated fighters in the Syrian province of Daraa. The operational merging comes amid some of the most violent festivities ever witnessed between rebels and ISIS throughout the southwestern governorate.
Forces of the Syrian Moslem Brüderbund-linked militia Ahrar al-Sham ...a Syria jihadi group made up of Islamists and salafists, not that there's that much difference, formed into a brigade. They make up the main element of the Islamic Front but they don't profess adoration of al-Qaeda and they've been fighting (mainly for survival) against the Islamic State. Their leadership was wiped out at a single blow by a suicide kaboom at a crowded basement meeting in September, 2014... have combined ranks with local rebels Daraa province’s southern countryside to fight ISIS.
The ISIS group which the rebel coalition is pitting itself against in Daraa is technically an affiliate of the terrorist group that goes by the name Jaish Khalid Ibn al-Walid (Army of Khalid Ibn al-Walid). It operates out of Daraa’s Yarmouk Basin region ‐ being in control of several large towns and dozens of villages.
Recently, the Free Syrian Army issued a surrender ultimatum to ISIS-linked fighters in Yarmouk, threatening a major offensive which it says it is almost ready to launch and which will apparently witnessed the total destruction of ISIS throughout Daraa.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/28/2018
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[6 views]
Top|| File under: Ahrar al-Sham (Salafists)
[ALMASDARNEWS] As Ottoman Turkish and allied Lion of Islam forces from the so-called Free Syrian Army ... the more palatable version of the Syrian insurgency, heavily influenced by the Moslem Brüderbund... (FSA) advance further upon Kurdish positions in northern Syria, The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...just another cheapjack Moslem dictatorship, brought to you by the Moslem Brüderbund.... has called upon the United States to vacate its military bases in the Syrian district of Manbij.
Speaking to news hounds on Saturday, Ottoman Turkish foreign minister Melet Cavusoglu said that Ankara is calling upon the US, its official ally in NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A cautionary tale of cost-benefit analysis.... , to cease any and all support to Syrian Kurdish forces and militias.
Cavusoglu’s statement came mere hours after an official telephone talk between Turkey’s Presidential Spokesman Ibrahim Kalin and US National Security Adviser Herbert Raymond McMaster about the ongoing Ottoman Turkish invasion of Syrian soil.
McMaster is reported to have promised during the talk that the US would no longer provide weapons to the YPG militias, while both agreed to increase coordination and clear up "misunderstandings" regarding Syria.
While both Turkey and the United States are in violation of international law by entering Syria with military forces without permission by Damascus or a UN mandate, both countries have vastly different interests in the country.
The United States has for years supplied weapons and training to Kurdish militias in northern Syria, causing concerns that they seek an eventual secession of Kurdish-occupied lands from Syria. Turkey on the other hand, having supported so-called moderate rebel groups such as the FSA since at least 2015, actively seeks to prevent the existence of a YPG-controlled area to its southern border, as it sees the Syrian Kurdish units as an affiliate of the banned Kurdistan Workers’ Party, which is active within Turkey.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/28/2018
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[8 views]
Top|| File under: Sublime Porte
#1
"Come and get some"
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/28/2018 9:16
Comments ||
Top||
#2
McMaster is reported to have promised during the talk that the US would no longer provide weapons to the YPG militias
#3
I have long been of the opinion that there are no "good guys" in Syria. There are victims, the bad, the ugly and the really bad and ugly. The victims I have sympathy for are the women and kids. The rest are bad guys by vaying degrees. Are the Kurds the least bad o the bunch? I don't know. And I don't think anybody else really knows either. To think the Kurds if they had the upper hand would be incapabled of being just as bad as others have been is foolish. Maybe things would be sweetness and light. But then again most likely not. The Kurds (maybe some,maybe most) would want revenge for wrongs done to them. The Arabs (Sunni, Shia and whatever tribal affiliation) will remembet when they ran things and long for the good days. IMHO the regions problems go back to 5 or 10k years ago somebody stole somebody's goat
#4
Herbert Raymond McMaster is siding with the new Islamic State of Turkey. Thinking about some of his Europe conferences and the Islamic whitewashing there, not a huge surprise he has agreed with Turkey Ottomania to the killing of Kurds.
[RADIOSHABELLE] Drone strikes by the United States military are "wiping out" Shabaab murderous Moslems in Somalia, the head of the African Union ...a union consisting of 53 African states, most run by dictators of one flavor or another. The only all-African state not in the AU is Morocco. Established in 2002, the AU is the successor to the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), which was even less successful... mission in the country told AFP in an interview Friday.
Very good.
The US has stepped up its operations in the war-torn Horn of Africa nation, targeting the al-Qaeda linked Shabaab, which has fought for the last decade to topple Somalia’s internationally backed government and a separate self-proclaimed branch 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.... "These drone attacks and others are wiping out al-Shabaab ... Somalia's version of the Taliban, functioning as an arm of al-Qaeda... in good numbers. And that is good to finish with the terrorism," said Francisco Madeira, the chief of the 22,000-strong African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) on the sidelines of the AU’s summit in the Æthiopian capital.
In recent months, US special forces and the Somali national army have killed scores in air strikes and ground assaults targeting Shabaab, including a Christmas Eve strike that left 13 dead.
The surge in activity comes after 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... last year loosened constraints on the US military in Somalia, allowing commanders to take action against suspected holy warriors when they judge it is needed, without seeking specific White House approval.
The US Africa Command has had to defend itself against allegations that its forces have killed civilians, issuing a statement in November that said no civilians died in a raid three months prior despite media reports to the contrary.
Madeira said only that if soldiers were accused of unlawfully killing civilians they would be taken to court. He said that when deaths did occur AMISOM did not have the money to pay reparations to bereaved families.
"We do not have money to pay for this. We have been sharing this with a number of partners, but so far the response has been very, very, very minimal, almost non-existent," he said.
While AMISOM is scheduled to depart Somalia by December 2020, Madeira said an extension of the force’s mandate was not out of the question.
"The formation of a fully-fledged, functioning... Somali National Army, it might take a bit longer than that. But we can already have some critical mass of forces that can do the work," he said.
The once 22,000-strong AMISOM force began pulling troops out of Somalia at the end of last year, and Madeira has previously highlighted the need for more support to enable the national army to take over.
Currently, the bloated and largely ineffective Somali army is more a collection of clan militias, with various international militaries providing poorly-coordinated training to different units.
The Shabaab lost its foothold in Mogadishu in 2011, but has continued its fight, and was blamed for the country’s worst ever attack in which a truck bombing left over 500 dead in October last year.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/28/2018
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[1 views]
Top|| File under: al-Shabaab (AQ)
#4
You are welcome, newc. Please mark your original work in the way I did above, ok? I put the Strava link in the source box, as you’d left that blank. Finally, I put it in Science&Technology because newish technology is involved.
#5
Yes TW. I do not file things right and thats a problem.
I had no media source but the twitter accounts and what I looked up. Weirded out on sending everyone there.
I probably should have never said a thing but it was like Pokemon on the ranges so it is not anything new, really. Just "Harmless" IOT making the world.... really I do not know. Dangerous?
#9
I had no media source but the twitter accounts and what I looked up.
You did original reporting, which is fine, newc — that’s why I gave you the byline, like badanov gets for his own work. And like him, you provided a key information source. We’ll get you trained. As soon as our new moderators — Frank G, 3dc, and Glenmore, to be followed shortly by Alaska Paul and Skidmore — climb a little higher on the learning curve, we’ll write up a post on how to categorize things, ok?
They ban iPhones from sensitive sites but let troops and officers wear their Fitbit which is essentially an iPhone on your wrist.
This is probably one of the most stupid things I've ever heard of...well maybe not the most stupid, after all these are the same geniuses who bought computers for sensitive programs from China and virus protection software from a Russian company with known ties to the KGB (what the hell do they call themselves these days?).
Yep our Cyberwarfare guys are the best in the world...gives me a nose bleed thinking about this.
[ALMASDARNEWS] The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...just another cheapjack Moslem dictatorship, brought to you by the Moslem Brüderbund.... started a military offensive in Kurdish-dominated Afrin on January 20, aiming to protect its boundaries from various Kurdish militia formations, treated as a potential terror threat by Ankara.
"The Ottoman Turkish Air Force, during air attacks in the course of operation Olive Branch, on January 27 destroyed 42 targets of the PYD terrorist organization (Kurdish Democratic Alliance Party), YPG (Kurdish Self-Defense Forces), ISIS (banned in Russia) and 53 terrorists. The operation involved 22 aircraft, which returned safely to their bases. Since the beginning of the operation, 394 snuffies have been eliminated. Ottoman Turkish forces lost two servicemen during the day, and 11 servicemen were maimed," a statement from the Ottoman Turkish General Staff, obtained by Sputnik, says.
The report also noted that two members of the opposition "Free Syrian Army ... the more palatable version of the Syrian insurgency, heavily influenced by the Moslem Brüderbund... " have died, and four others were seriously injured.
Kurdish Side Meanwhile, ...back at the shootout, Butch shot Black Bart's other gun out of his other hand...... Kurdish militia earlier in the day reported the downing of two Ottoman Turkish reconnaissance Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) in the village of Adama, as well as two Ottoman Turkish soldiers killed in the Chia district.
According to the SDF, Turkey keeps bombing Afrin, especially the districts of Jabal Bafalon and Chia. Kurdish forces, in their turn, are repelling the attacks, which are supported by the Free Syrian Army, on Qastal Ma’af, a strategically important point, and have managed to destroy an armored vehicle.
Olive Branch Operation
Ankara started its military operation in Syrian Afrin on January 20, soon after the US announcement of their plans to start training the new "Border Defense Forces," comprising the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and the Kurdish YPG militias, affiliated by Ankara with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which is designated a terrorist group by Turkey and several other countries.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/28/2018
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[5 views]
Top|| File under: Sublime Porte
[ALMASDARNEWS] The Syrian Arab Army (SAA) launched a powerful assault in the northern countryside of the Hama Governorate, Saturday, striking Jaish al-’Izza’s positions inside the towns of Kafr Zita and al-Lataminah.
Using surface-to-surface missiles, the Syrian Arab Army repeatedly struck Jaish al-’Izza’s positions, tonight, causing serious damage to their defenses in the northern countryside of the Hama Governorate.
Tonight’s missile attack comes just 24 hours after reinforcements from the Syrian Army’s Tiger Forces arrived in southern Idlib for their next big battle in the region.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/28/2018
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[2 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Syria
[All Africa] University of Zim-bob-we (UZ) Vice Chancellor Levi Nyagura has reportedly turned to harassing lecturers who have questioned former First Lady Grace Mugabe's doctorate awarded controversially in 2014, it has emerged.
Nyagura, according to a lecturer, Wilbert Sadomba, called together all staff from the Social Studies Department on Wednesday and threatened to wield the axe.
"He called us to a meeting at the UZ and specifically barred me from taking part against regulations and ordinances governing the institution.
"Nyagura later told other lecturers that he was prepared to fire those that have raised questions around the degree awarded to Grace," Sadomba told New Zim-bob-we Thursday.
Sadomba is a veteran of Zim-bob-we's liberation struggle and serves as secretary for education in the Zim-bob-we National Liberation War Veterans Association (ZNLWVA).
Grace was awarded a PhD in 2014 and was capped by her husband former President Bob Muggsy Mugabe Nonagenarian President-for-Life of Zim-bob-we who turned the former Breadbasket of Africa into the African Basket Case. Dumped in November 2017 when the Missus decided she wanted to be president, and opposed heer might against Crocodile Mnangawa Important safety tip: If your opponent goes by the name Crocodile andf your title is Shopper in Chief let him win.... in a move that triggered wild-cat demonstrations by students who demanded to know details of her study program.
Nyagura's administration remained mum on the issue but the issue was resuscitated following the fall of Mugabe last November in a bloodless military coup.
ZNLWVA spokesperson Douglas Mahiya reacted angrily to Nyagura's reported victimisation of lecturers.
"The issue of Grace's degree must be investigated. If the award was above board there is no reason to victimize people, the idea should be to clear the dust around this issue.
"We view Nyagura's move as a continuation of the G40 cabal remnants within our body politic and social fabric. We will oppose such shenanigans to the hilt," said Mahiya.
Nyagura was not available for comment as his mobile was unreachable.
UZ Dean of Social Studies Charity Manyeruke was also not available with reports she was in Matabeleland North on "business".
Insiders said Department chairperson Claude Mararike has already been suspended over the "Grace degree furor".
"Mararike is already suspended and has been replaced Professor Pedzisayi Mashiri as a way of trying to resolve the issue. Nyagura is trying but it's a delicate issue.
But by Thursday the UZ had posted the former first lady's thesis on its website.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/28/2018
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[1 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
...Who do these people think they are - an American university?
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
01/28/2018 7:33
Comments ||
Top||
#2
Quite easily explained. I believe the former Zim First Lady has always asserted she was.... "out of University of Zim-bob-we (UZ)"
[DAWN] Politicians and retired military officials in Islamabad acknowledge privately that having open channels with the Haqqanis is vital. Some stressed the nature of the connection.
"There's a difference between contact and supporting them or being part of them," Mehmood Shah, a retired brigadier who worked in Pakistain's tribal areas, told AFP.
What does the US want Pakistain to do?
Washington has long pressured Pakistain to crack down on murderous Moslem groups, with the Haqqanis a top priority.
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... turned up the heat last summer when he accused Pakistain of playing a double game in Afghanistan and upbraided Islamabad for sheltering "agents of chaos".
Islamabad has repeatedly denied the claims and accused Washington of ignoring the thousands of Pak lives lost in its struggle with militancy.
Pakistan would not have that problem if their pet jihadis didn’t occasionally get snappish, as such pets are wont to do.
The recovery of Boyle, Coleman, and their children came weeks later, with Pakistain using its role in securing their freedom to urge the US to trust it is doing its best.
Their best requires shutting down the ISI and demobbing all the terror groups it supports for the conquest of Indian Kashmir, Afganistan, and India proper. Anything less is not their best.
.But ‐ Pakistain's desire for strategic depth aside
...a desire to which they are not entitled, as it requires a good portion of another country...
‐ a crackdown on the Haqqanis might not be easy in a tribal society where social relations matter, warned political analyst Imtiaz Gul.
"You can't simply pluck out somebody because they've gone politically incorrect," he said.
Politically incorrect means someone speaks recently deemed wrong words, possibly to express recently deemed wrong thoughts. The Haqqanis are terrorists using physical violence to recreate Pakistan and Afghanistan in a restrictive Muslim mold.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/28/2018
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[1 views]
Top|| File under: Haqqani Network
Baghdad (IraqiNews.com) Five people were maimed on Saturday when two kabooms hit two areas at the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, security sources were quoted saying.
An bomb went off near an industrial area in Rashidiya, north of Baghdad, leaving four people maimed, according to a security source quoted by Baghdad Today.
The website quoted the source saying that another bomb fitted under a vehicle belonging to a member of the Popular Mobilization Forces went off in Mashrou al-Wahda, south of the capital, leaving the driver with serious injuries.
[Ynet] The Paleostinian Security Services have uncovered 12 barrel bombs planted along a road in the Tulkarm area, a Paleostinian security source told Ynet on Saturday.
The explosives were found on a road connecting the Paleostinian villages of Attil and Illar in Area A of the West Bank, which is under complete Paleostinian Authority control.
According to the Paleostinian security source, a Paleostinian man noticed suspicious objects peeking out of the ground on the side of the road, which were uncovered due to the heavy rainfall over the weekend.
The Paleostinian man called the local police, and a Paleostinian engineering force that arrived at the scene uncovered 12 improvised bombs (IED). Each barrel bomb was 40 cm in length and 30 cm in diameter and weighed 20-30 kg.
The Paleostinian engineering force dismantled one IED at the scene and then neutralized the rest so they can be taken to a Paleostinian Security Services facility for further investigation.
According to the source, it is still unclear who the target of these IEDs was. The road is mostly used by civilian Paleostinian vehicles, but at times IDF vehicles also use it on their way to operational duty inside the Paleostinian Authority.
The source added that findings at the scene indicated the explosives have been planted a long time ago.
[RADIOSHABELLE] The security forces of Puntland ...a region in northeastern Somalia, centered on Garowe in the Nugaal province. Its leaders declared the territory an autonomous state in 1998. Puntland and the equally autonomous Somaliland seem to have avoided the clan rivalries and warlordism that have typified the rest of Somalia, which puts both places high on the list for Islamic subversion... administration have carried out an operation in the port city of Bosaso on Saturday, seizing explosives and suspected Al-Shabaab ... the Islamic version of the old Somali warlord... myrmidons.
Puntland security officials in Bosaso displayed quantities of mortar shells captured in raids took place in the port town over the past few weeks.
The officials declined to comment more specific details on the weapon, they claimed the investigation is still underway.
Several attacks occurred in Bosaso in the past years, claimed by al-Shabaab and ISIS.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/28/2018
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[1 views]
Top|| File under: al-Shabaab (AQ)
[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] The Iranian judiciary has issued a ruling dismissing the case against Saeed Toosi, a favored Koran reciter of the country’s supreme leader, accused of raping 19 children many of whom were his students.
An official Iranian media published on Saturday a copy of the Tehran court’s ruling confirming that Toosi was acquitted of charges of sexually molesting and raping four of the victims who filed complaints with the judiciary against him.
The Tehran court’s decision stated that "even if it is proved that the defendant has committed the act, it does not mean that he has committed a crime for which the law and the judiciary will be held accountable".
Reformist MP Mahmoud Sadeghi protested to the judicial authorities, considering the decision to acquit Toosi "unfair and unjust," saying that "evidence indicates that the Koran teacher harassed the children" and that he was being "supported by influential office of the Supreme Leader."
"The judiciary has not heard the voice of the people in the recent protests," Sadeghi wrote on Twitter.
The MP also confirmed that "the court annulled a preliminary decision that was issued by the Court of Appeal sentencing Toosi to four years in prison because of the exertion of clear pressure, where the documents of the case appear to have a clear impact in the process of prosecution".
Posted by: Fred ||
01/28/2018
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[7 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Iran
#1
"even if it is proved that the defendant has committed the act, it does not mean that he has committed a crime for which the law and the judiciary will be held accountable".
too bad its such a long quote... it should be a bumper sticker
Posted by: lord garth ||
01/28/2018 8:23
Comments ||
Top||
[FreeBeacon] Turkish offensive risks direct confrontation between NATO allies
U.S. coalition forces stationed in the Syrian Kurdish town of Manbij are ready to guard against a threatened Turkish offensive that risks direct confrontation between the NATO allies, a coalition spokesman said Friday.
Turkey last week launched an air and ground assault on the northern Syrian enclave of Afrin in an attempt to oust the American-backed People's Protection Units, or YPG, which Ankara considers a terrorist group. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has threatened to extend the operation 60 miles east to Manbij, where, unlike in Afrin, the Pentagon maintains U.S. troops.
"Our forces there are well prepared to defend themselves," coalition spokesman Col. Ryan Dillon told the Washington Free Beacon. "We have air coverage over all of our troops so we're always prepared to defend ourselves, whether it's from ISIS or any other threat."
Dillon reaffirmed American support for the Kurdish YPG fighters who make up the backbone of the Syrian Democratic Forces, a key U.S. partner in the campaign against the Islamic State. The Trump administration has continued to provide weapons, training, and air support to SDF troops over the protests of Turkey.
Posted by: Anomalous Sources ||
01/28/2018
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[8 views]
Top|| File under: Sublime Porte
#1
Party time, to put up or shut up. Hope it doesn't happen but it sounds like our troops are getting the deep fat Turkey fryer warmed up to 375.
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.
[War News Update] The Warzone/The Drive: The USAF Expands MQ-9 Reaper Drone Force in Afghanistan to Its Largest Size Ever
[PJ] Planned Parenthood has seeded more than 300 American college campuses with student groups to fight "abortion stigma" and to promote "reproductive justice."
[Independent] Hot people are more likely to support right-wing parties because they are stronger and more successful than their more liberal peers, apparently. 
"Even though this blind spot may not be universally held and physically attractive individuals do not always have easier lives, on average, physically attractive individuals face fewer hurdles navigating the social world."
[ALMASDARNEWS] Reports are emerging which indicate that a number of mass graves have been found by the Syrian Arab Army the near the Abu Duhur military airport ‐ located on the border of Idlib and Aleppo provinces.
... 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...
[Khaama (Afghanistan)] A 
[ALMASDARNEWS] For the third time in the last 72 hours, the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) has fended off a large assault by the so-called 
Somalia's version of the Taliban, functioning as an arm of al-Qaeda...
[RUDAW.NET] In December 2016, Ankara betrayed the Syrian rebels it initially supported, forcing them to leave Aleppo to the Assad regime. Ankara kept training and paying the hapless Sunni Arab and Turkmen rebels, however, planning to use them for its own designs. Having reconciled itself, at least for the time being, with Assad remaining in power, 
[Khaama (Afghanistan)] The government of Pakistain has condemned today’s deadly attack in Kabul city that left at least 95 dead and 158 others 
...capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa administrative and economic hub for the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan. Peshawar is situated near the eastern end of the Khyber Pass, convenient to the Pak-Afghan border. Peshawar has evolved into one of Pakistan's most ethnically and linguistically diverse cities, which means lots of gunfire.
[ALMASDARNEWS] The 
the personification of Somali state failure...
[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] It’s difficult to understand the fierce and ongoing conflict between Trump and the American media without understanding the secret motives of the two parties. Trump has raised the slogan "America First| and the media has been critical of him as he continued to lament America’s status. 
[DAWN] The family members of a man accused of being a terrorist, 
Wazoo
[IsraelTimes] On Holocaust Remembrance Day, German leader warns of rising anti-Semitism in country, calls to create position of anti-Semitism commissioner.
[DAWN] Eight Iraqis were killed on Saturday, most of them security personnel, in a United States (US) air strike that apparently targeted them by mistake, a provincial official said.
[DAWN] Chief Justice of Pakistain (CJP) Mian Saqib Nisar on Saturday gave a three-day deadline to the Sindh police to arrest former Malir senior superintendent of police (SSP) Rao Anwar.
...Trump administration's ambassador to the UN. First woman to serve as Governor of South Carolina, and the second Indian-American governor in the country, after Bobby Jindal of Louisiana. At the age of 39, Haley was the youngest governor in the U.S., a distinction formerly held by Jindal. She is a Republican, which really grates on the Dems...
The diminutive 13-year-old Republican U.S. Senator from Florida...
[ALMASDARNEWS] As 
Somalia's version of the Taliban, functioning as an arm of al-Qaeda...
[DAWN] Politicians and retired military officials in Islamabad acknowledge privately that having open channels with the Haqqanis is vital. Some stressed the nature of the connection.
[Ynet] The Paleostinian Security Services have uncovered 12 barrel bombs planted along a road in the Tulkarm area, a Paleostinian security source told Ynet on Saturday.
the Islamic version of the old Somali warlord...
