[Bloomberg] Thomas Fanning, Southern Co.'s chief executive officer, discusses the company's strategy with Bloomberg's David Gura and Vonnie Quinn from the Aspen Art Museum in Aspen, Colorado, on "Bloomberg Markets."
[Navy Times] Iran’s supreme leader is hailing his hard-line paramilitary forces as heroes for their arrest of 10 American sailors at gunpoint, but an emerging consensus of U.S. legal experts believe the provocative act was a dangerous violation of international law that has so far gone without repercussions.
The U.S. riverine boats had the right to pass expeditiously through Iran's territorial waters under the right of innocent passage without being boarded and arrested so long as they weren't engaged in a military operation such as spying. Pentagon officials have said the riverine boat crews mistakenly entered Iran's waters in the Persian Gulf due to a "navigation error" while en route to a refueling.
Their arrests nearly derailed the months of nuclear deal negotiations with Iran and U.S. officials quickly secured the sailors' release. But only hours after their release, Iran's hardliners released propaganda videos of the sailors in custody.
Iran did not have the legal standing to arrest the sailors at gunpoint and that demands a U.S. response, said one expert.
"This should be very concerning for the Navy community," said James Kraska, a maritime law expert at the U.S. Naval War College. "This says that U.S. vessels don’t have innocent passage and that their sovereign immunity is not respected."
[FoxNews] A Chechen terrorist responsible for training Russian-speaking Lions of Islam for ISIS is believed to be the planner of Tuesday’s deadly Istanbul airport massacre that killed 43, according to Turkish media.
Akhmed Chatayev was identified on a UN sanctions list as an ISIS leader and was wanted by Russian authorities, Rooters reported citing the pro-government Yeni Safak newspaper. Chatayev had been wanted for links to terrorism since 2008, Russia Today reported, citing Russian news agency Ria Novosti.
Another attacker, also Chechen, was named as Osman Vadinov by the Hurriyet newspaper. Vadinov reportedly arrived in The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... in 2015 from Raqqa, the Syrian capital of ISIS’ so-called caliphate. Turkish officials did not confirm either Chatayev or Vadinov as being involved in the attack.
Turkish police on Thursday linked the airport jacket wallahs to Russia, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, and rounded up 13 more suspects in connection with the attack. State-run Anadolu Agency said the raids were carried out in Istanbul's Pendik, Basaksehir and Sultanbeyli neighborhoods, which span the city's Asian and European sides.
Police seized three hunting rifles and documents relating to ISIS.
In separate large-scale police operations, nine suspects believed to be linked to ISIS were also detained in the coastal city of Izmir. It was not clear if the suspects had any links to the carnage at the airport. The report said the suspects were in contact with ISIS Death Eaters in Syria and were engaged in "activities that were in line with the organization's aims and interests," including providing financial sources, recruits and logistical support.
Days before the Istanbul attack, on June 25, security forces killed two 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.... Death Eaters who were trying to cross the border illegally and ignored orders from security forces to stop, according to local media reports. One of the two Death Eaters was wanted by The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... on suspicion that he would carry out suicide kabooms in the capital Ankara or in the southern city of Adana, Anadolu said.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
06/30/2016
10:41 ||
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#2
Wonder if there was supposed to be Russian politicians or delegations somewhere in the terminal at that time. Maybe something more than just creating a mass casualty incident. Usually you don't see mid to high level Chechens resorting to general mayhem unless there was an ulterior plan for something.
I understand that they didn't get too far into the building before being intercepted by security. It could have been a lot worse.
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
06/30/2016 12:27
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#3
coincidence so soon after turkey prez apologized to vlad for airliner shootdown?
#7
I thought "Recip" had some kind of business arrangement with ISIS, with regard to oil, refugees, etc. I wonder if some change or termination of arrangements made ISIS pi$$ed. Just an idea.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
06/30/2016 17:53
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It's the Daily Mail, so lots of photos at the link for those who were not following events on their own while Fred was wrestling with the unexpected replacement device.
[DailyMail] These are the three ISIS jacket wallahs bombers pictured entering Istanbul Ataturk Airport before they slaughtered 43 44 people and injured 240.
The jihadis who used suicide bomb vests and high velocity AK-47s and Glock pistols to carry out their attack are understood to be from Russia, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan.
All three are understood to have Russian passports in their possession.
The Turkish prime minister had previously linked the attack to ISIS - although the terror group is yet to claim any responsibility.
Sources have also revealed it's feared a second cell is about to attack imminently.
The three men in Wednesday night's attack are said to have hired a first floor apartment in the district of Fatih - 12 miles from the airport - 32 days ago and signed a one year contract.
An estate agent who rented the gang the property said they spoke in Russian and showed him Russian passports.
Neighbours have revealed the trio "spoke to no one" during their stay but were often heard arguing loudly.
Security officials believe the three men are part of a cell who trained with ISIS in Raqqa within the last year.
Investigators combing the apartment for evidence found the men had installed a metal door on the inside of their front door.
One of the men, dressed in a red T-shirt, has been named as Osman Vadinov, a Russian national.
Security officials are hunting a fourth member of the gang who is believed to be on the loose.
Police found notebooks and "manuals" near to the apartment which had been dumped by the gang.
The three men took a taxi to Istanbul's Ataturk airport, the third largest in Europe, before engaging their bloody assault.
A taxi driver who picked them up told police the men were speaking Russian and were "calm and measured" and he "had no suspicions of them at all".
A disturbing timeline has now emerged which reveals seven minutes of mayhem when the three jihadis split up to target different areas of the airport to create maximum damage and panic among travellers.
They arrived at 9.49pm local time (7.49pm BST), taking out their guns from a suitcase and with bombs in backpacks as well as suicide belts hidden underneath their jackets.
Two of the men went inside the airport while one made his way to the car park.
He was challenged by a security guard who became suspicious after seeing his large jacket.
After challenging him for identification the jihadi shot him and then detonated his explosives vest.
One of the men then made his way to the VIP area of the airport while the other went towards the international arrivals section.
At 9.53pm one of the jihadis who goes to the VIP section is shot by a hero cop, falling to the floor and then detonates his bomb.
As hundreds of terrified people scramble for the exits the terrorist at international arrivals detonates his bomb after shooting indiscriminately.
Sources say they fear a second cell is poised to attack imminently.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
06/30/2016
10:19 ||
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#1
VIP area and international arrivals, eh.
Looking for someone or some group perhaps.
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
06/30/2016 15:47
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[American Outlook] The Obama administration has been riddled with Muslims who are anti-American in their views in key national security positions. Now, Cairo-born Gamal Abdel-Hafiz, who immigrated to the States in 1990 and worked at the FBI for 22 years is calling for a national gun registry in clear violation of the Second Amendment.
Abdel-Hafiz who is consulting Obama’s "countering violent extremism," which should be more accurately titled, "countering Islamic terrorism," suggested that a national gun registry be created.
He explained his anti-American, pro-Nazi thinking to WFAA.
[Guardian] Tourists visiting French resorts this summer will see armed police patrols on the beaches, as the country beefs up security measures for the holiday season.
Officers belonging to the CRS riot police force, who have previously been equipped with batons and handcuffs, will be allowed to wear special holsters carrying weapons for the first time. Bulletproof vests will also be at their disposal.
The move comes two weeks after an unarmed French police chief and his partner were killed in a stabbing in front of their house outside Paris. Isis claimed responsibility for the attack, which has sparked a debate in France about whether the forces should carry weapons outside working hours. France remains in a state of emergency following November’s deadly attacks, which left 130 dead.
Concerns about the security of shoreline resorts have also grown since last year’s mass shooting at the Tunisian tourist resort of Port El Kantaoui, near the city of Sousse.
Nicolas Comte, a spokesman from the Unité SGP Police-Force Ouvrière, the syndicate representing the French national police, said on Wednesday that there had been no specific terrorist threats; the measures were taken primarily to ensure the safety of lifeguards.
"This is the first time that these officers will be armed. Normally throughout July and August they are in their swimsuits and unarmed," he said, according to local reports.
[Guardian] On a cold February night in 1986, Berlin’s Glienicke Bridge became the scene of the cold war’s last ever prisoner exchange -- a dramatic hand-over involving a Soviet dissident and Karel Koecher, the only foreign agent ever known to have infiltrated the CIA.
Koecher was a Czech citizen who had been living undercover in the US for 21 years. Alternately codenamed Rino, Turian or Pedro, he had moved to America in 1965 to establish himself as a mole within the CIA. Koecher’s KGB case officer, Colonel Alexander Sokolov, would later call him a super-spy.
According to files held by Czech secret police, his wife, Hana Koecherova, codenamed Adrid, had distributed secret messages on Koecher’s behalf during their decades abroad but was never charged with espionage.
For years she had been a New York City diamond dealer. Everyone in the business loved her. Living in the couple’s flat at 50 East 89th Street in Manhattan, a block from the Guggenheim, Hana’s neighbours were Mel Brooks and Anne Bancroft, and tennis star Ivan Lendl.
But in 1986 Hana was on her way back to a very different world -- Czechoslovakia was a stifling place in the mid-80s.
Koecher was eager to cross the bridge. After spending years as a sleeper agent he had eventually obtained a job and top secret security clearance with the CIA. When he fell out of favour with his Soviet handlers in Prague, he bypassed the Czechoslovak state security, the StB, and reported directly to the KGB in Moscow.
After two decades in the US he was finally arrested by the FBI, and by February 1986 he had been held for 14 months awaiting trial in New York City’s Metropolitan Correctional Centre, where a fellow prisoner had tried to stab him to death.
#1
....Hmmm. Christopher Andrew's superb book Sword and Shield: The Mitrohkin Archive offers another explanation for their success: Hana was a hottie who enjoyed swinging. They would go to exclusive clubs in the DC area and quickly learned who did and didn't have security clearances, and Hana would get the information while Karl did the admin work.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
06/30/2016 19:16
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[BBC] A teenage Israeli girl has been stabbed to death in an attack at a Jewish settlement in the occupied West Bank.
Thirteen-year-old Hallel Yaffa Ariel was attacked while she slept inside her bedroom in Kiryat Arba.
A security guard who responded to the incident was wounded before the attacker was shot dead by other guards.
The Palestinian health ministry identified the assailant as 19-year-old Mohammed Tarayreh, from the nearby village of Bani Naim.
Thirty-four Israelis have now been killed in a wave of knife, gun and car-ramming attacks since October. More than 200 Palestinians - mostly attackers, Israel says - have also been killed in that period.
The assailants who have been killed have been shot either by their victims or by security forces as they carried out attacks. Some attackers have been arrested.
#1
Aaaannnnd she was a US Citizen. Any comment Oblahblah??
Posted by: Frank G ||
06/30/2016 18:31
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#2
Any word on the motivation of the attacker? We may never know for sure.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
06/30/2016 19:06
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#3
According to Ynet,the dear boy was following the example of friends and relations:
The IDF has imposed a full closure of the terrorist's village, Bani Na'im, and troops have already questioned both of his parents at their home, taking the father with them for further questioning.
After the attack, the 17-year-old terrorist's house was decorated with Fatah and PLO flags.
The terrorist's sister was proud of her brother's actions. "My brother is a martyr, praise be to God. May God avenge the Jews. God willing, my brother will be happy in heaven. It's enough to me that God supports (him)," she said.
The terrorist's mother said her son has recently posted to social media photos of his cousin, Yusef Taraireh, also of Bani Na'im, who was killed during an attempted vehicular attack at the entrance to Kiryat Araba in March.
He also posted photos of Majid Khader, from the same village, who committed a vehicular attack last week near Kiryat Arba—and wrote that she had died a martyr.
A week before the attack, the terrorist wrote "Death is a privilege" on Facebook as well.
[BBC] Taliban bombers have attacked an Afghan police convoy outside the capital Kabul, killing at least 30 people and wounding 50 others, officials say.
Two bombs hit a convoy of buses carrying graduates from a ceremony on the city's western outskirts.
Paghman District Governor Musa Khan told the BBC that all but two of the dead were police cadets.
The bombing was claimed by the Taliban and follows an attack on a bus just over a week ago that killed 14 people.
BBC diplomatic correspondent Jonathan Marcus says the latest violence in Afghanistan - just a few days ahead of a Nato summit in the Polish capital Warsaw - underscores the need for a continued Western engagement in Afghanistan where local security forces are having only limited success in restoring order.
The US and Nato combat mission in Afghanistan ended in December 2014.
US forces have taken on an advisory role since then, while also carrying out counterterrorism missions against so-called Islamic State and remnants of al-Qaeda.
h/t Instapundit
A journalist working for the Telegraph has asked her Twitter followers to consider if they would kill UKIP leader Nigel Farage, comparing him to Nazi leader Adolf Hitler. I thought Bush was Adolf Hitler? To paraphrase Andy Warhol, in the future everyone will be Hitler for fifteen minutes.
#2
A sinister sniff of frustration:
"Some say, in the whole population,
There might be a guy who
Don't vote the way I do...
It's like there's this whole other nation!"
#5
Sauce for the goose can be sauce for the gander. You want to go there, buddy? Who will restrain someone else from going after you (based on your logic)? Not a good position to have. Civilization is a very thin veneer over anarchy.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
06/30/2016 17:59
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#6
In the future, everyone will be Hitler for 3 minutes.
[Guardian] Montana authorities say a grizzly bear attacked and killed a cyclist riding in the Flathead national forest just outside Glacier national park.
The victim was killed on Wednesday afternoon about a mile from a West Glacier campground run by KOA, Flathead County Sheriff Chuck Curry told the Associated Press.
He did not identify the person killed or immediately provide additional details about the circumstances surrounding the death. Information about the victim is being withheld pending family notifications.
#1
Having come across grizzlies while miles from anybody deep in Glacier... yeah I suspect it happens more than is noticed. Also, the mountain lions in Glacier are more worrisome than grizzlies esp. if you are biking.
#5
I wonder if the bicyclist ever knew what hit him. I was once followed by a very angry mother black bear on a mountain trail in TN while taking a scenic drive out of Great Smoky Mountains National Park. She was vewy, vewy quiet. Fortunately I was in an F150 & could see her in the rear view mirror. She made a bluff charge at the rear of my truck. I was so glad I was not on a bike or on foot.
#6
More from KRTV, local news: The victim, Brad Treat, a off-duty Forest Service law enforcement officer, was mountain biking on a trail with another male at the time of the attack. It appears they surprised the bear and Treat was taken off his bike by the bear, according to Flathead County Sheriff Chuck Curry. Treat was pronounced dead at the scene.
The second rider was able to escape the area to get help, and was not injured or involved in the attack.
The sex of the attacking bear & whether or not cubs were involved is unknown at present. The incident involving myself started similarly, I drove around a sharp, blind bend on a forest road and almost hit a mother bear nursing 3 cubs in the center of the roadway. She jumped up & ran into the woods with a couple of cubs still holding on, then doubled back & followed my truck.
#7
Surprising the bear is the worst, especially with cubs. Right now at our house in the mountains, we had a grizzly walk right by the house. Then a few minutes later a cow moose and a calf were running in panic by the house, then followed by the bear.
We always observe before we go out, this time of year. Bicycles cover ground quickly, and going around the corner can be dangerous.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
06/30/2016 18:06
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#8
Paul, on a bicycle, you can't outrun a bear. However, you can outrun your buddy whose on foot.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
06/30/2016 19:07
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#9
"who's", not "whose".
I can't even blame this one on autocorrect.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
06/30/2016 19:08
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#10
I remember watching the bikers crossing Glacier - esp ones from Japan and Germany and thinking "They don't understand big animals and heat. This is a really bad idea."
[Jerusalem Post] Tuesday's suspected ISIS attack tack on the Ataturk Airport was likely preplanned and unrelated to the rapprochement between Turkey and Israel and Russia, a senior Turkish official and other terrorism experts told The Jerusalem Post Wednesday.
However, there is evidence Islamic State was angry about the repairing of relations between Turkey, Israel and Russia, publishing a statement in the latest edition of its official newsletter.
A senior Turkish official told the Post "the main reason behind the Islamic State attacks is Turkey’s role in the international coalition [against the group]."
Asked if the attack could be meant as a response to Turkey’s diplomatic moves to repair relations with Israel and Russia, he responded, "An attack of this scale takes planning. But we are not ruling out the fact that the terrorists may have picked this date to challenge Turkey’s diplomatic efforts."
Rafael Green, director of the Jihad and Terrorism Threat Monitor of MEMRI (the Middle East Media Research Institute), told the Post, "It is very unlikely the deal with Israel had anything to do with it."
"As in the past, Islamic State does not claim responsibility for attacks in Turkey," he added.
Islamic State criticism of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, which is similar criticism that came from al-Qaida and others, may point to a motive being Turkey’s support for Free Syrian Army and other Islamist factions in Syria.
#1
Turkey has allowed the US to use Incirlik for quite a while and this has resulted in at least hundreds probably thousands, maybe over 10k of dead ISIS fighters.
A plausible reason for ISIS to attack.
Posted by: lord garth ||
06/30/2016 12:40
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[Nat Review] Nine months before a terrorist attack on U.S. government facilities in Benghazi, Libya, killed four American officials, including ambassador J. Christopher Stevens, the State Department dispatched a security officer to assess the threat there.
In an interview with the House Select Committee on Benghazi, the officer recounted his report to a superior at State, then under the direction of Secretary Hillary Clinton: I told him that this was a suicide mission; that there was a very good chance that everybody here was going to die; that there was absolutely no ability here to prevent an attack whatever. . . . He said, "Everybody back here in D.C. knows that people are going to die in Benghazi and nobody is going to care until somebody does die."
The Select Committee issued its long-awaited report on Tuesday. In many ways, it is a disappointment -- an outcome guaranteed by Obama administration stonewalling, abetted by congressional Democrats’ tireless interference.
The committee held few public hearings to hold officials accountable, and major questions it was created to examine remain unanswered: Why did the State Department and CIA have compounds in Benghazi, one of the most dangerous places in the world, particularly for Americans?
What was President Obama doing during the hours of the siege, particularly once he knew our ambassador was missing? Why, despite the presence of military assets, was no rescue attempted? And why -- when the threat was extraordinary, and after months of jihadist attacks on Western targets in the region -- was no plan in place to extract the Americans from Benghazi? Nevertheless, the report is a devastating account of staggering dereliction of duty and deception by the president and his top subordinates.
Front and center in every phase of this disgraceful episode is Mrs. Clinton, whose appalling judgment and character flaws are amply illustrated in its pages. The committee’s voluminous report is ably summarized in the concurrence appended by two Republican members, Jim Jordan of Ohio and Mike Pompeo of Kansas.
The Benghazi terrorist attack occurred 56 days before the 2012 presidential election. In his campaign for reelection, President Obama repeatedly declared that the killing of Osama bin Laden signaled the defeat of al-Qaeda and its network of affiliates. In reality, the terror threat still remained grave, especially in a post-Qaddafi Libya that had collapsed into chaos and provided a refuge for terrorists, including groups tied to al-Qaeda and ISIS.
[Nat Review] E-mails ordered released Wednesday could contain evidence that Clinton kept a secret, off-the-books schedule of meetings with foreign foundation donors as secretary of state.
federal judge on Wednesday ordered the State Department to produce the e-mail records of Hillary Clinton’s scheduler during her tenure as secretary of state, expanding an investigation being pursued by conservative nonprofit Citizens United into the overlap between Clinton’s official travel and her meetings with foreign Clinton Foundation donors.
Citizens United is slated to receive all e-mails sent to and from Lona Valmoro, Clinton’s State Department scheduler, in the two-week periods before each of 14 international trips Clinton took during her four years in office. David Bossie, president of Citizens United, hopes to confirm suspicions that Clinton maintained an off-the-books schedule, meeting with Clinton Foundation donors on the taxpayer’s dime.
"Citizens United wants to know how many overseas dinners Secretary Clinton attended with Clinton Foundation donors that didn’t make it on her schedule," he says. Judge Rosemary Collyer, the federal judge presiding over a public-records case brought by Citizens United, was initially hesitant to allow the release of Valmoro’s e-mails, and asked the group to provide one example of an off-the-books meeting with Clinton Foundation donors.
As part of a joint filing with the State Department on Monday, Citizens United presented the judge with several pieces of evidence suggesting Valmoro deliberately struck from the official schedule a December 6, 2012, dinner in Dublin, Ireland, with several Clinton Foundation and Clinton campaign donors, organized by Teneo co-founder Declan Kelly. Though Valmoro was made aware of the Dublin meeting through an earlier e-mail chain, neither Clinton’s archived daily calendar nor her detailed official schedule make any note of it.
[Wash Times] Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton said she "loves" the idea of appointing Barack Obama to the Supreme Court if she’s elected president.
At a campaign event in Iowa Tuesday, Mrs. Clinton told the crowd the next president may have to appoint up to three Supreme Court justices. When one attendee mentioned Mr. Obama as a contender, she seemed excited by the recommendation.
"Wow, what a great idea. No one has ever suggested that to me, I love that, wow," Mrs. Clinton said. "He may have a few other things to do, but I tell you, that’s a great idea.
"I mean, he’s brilliant, he can set forth an argument and he was a law professor," she added. "So he’s got all the credentials, but we would have to get a Democratic Senate to get him confirmed."
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
06/30/2016 16:54
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#10
Pushshaw! Do you know how many rounds of golf he can buy with his 49% of Clinton Foundation revenues from the "speeches" he gives to the AG, FBI etc in between now and November.
#11
I'd enjoy him being grilled by Congress and unable to claim Executive Priveledge. He's turned what might have been a smooth ride through confirmation into a certainly painful grilling session by his own arrogance.
I'm Also sure he wouldn't appreciate having to treat the other justices as equals and the High Judge as a superior.
He would like that to be mentioned in the history books though. Only President to also be a Supreme Court Justice (and very likely the worst ever at both jobs).
Posted by: Jack Salami ||
06/30/2016 20:12
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#14
I love the idea of the Senate voting no.
Posted by: Thravimp Lover of the Antelope7006 ||
06/30/2016 21:06
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#15
Problem is the senate would probably ratify his appointment - even with a republican majority.
Heck, they'd probably pass a bill requiring 3/4's vote to oppose the nomination just so they can claim they voted against it at election time. The've done it before.
[Daily Beest] If all else fails, the people dreading a Hillary Clinton presidency can comfort themselves with her coughing fits.
The presumptive Democratic nominee's occasional coughing on the stump--a staple of this year's campaign reports in various right-leaning media outlets--has been a conservative meme for nearly a decade.
There’s even an anti-Clinton Twitter feed, @hillarycoughing, that has been active since February chronicling the frontrunner's supposed respiratory tic.
Her 70-year-old Republican rival, Donald Trump, trailing consistently in the latest polls, sometimes refers to the 68-year-old Clinton’s alleged lack of "strength and stamina"--apparently, the cough is evidence of same--and fired Trump campaign manager-turned-CNN political analyst Corey Lewandowski has used Clinton's coughing bouts to question her health.
"My own feeling is you have a 68-year-old woman running for president who has intense coughing fits in public, and I think the question is, What's that about?;" said Tucker Carlson, editor of the conservative Daily Caller, which has highlighted the former secretary of state's cough. "I'm not a physician. I couldn't hazard a guess. But as of this morning, she's likely to win. So I'd love to know. It's a legitimate question."
Carlson, a cohost of Fox News's weekend Fox & Friends, told The Daily Beast: "Having covered presidential campaigns for 25 years, I've never seen anybody cough that much. It doesn't mean it's a problem, but it raises obvious questions for a person who is likely to be the next president of the United States...In the 19th century, it was a sign of consumption...She coughs like a romantic poet."
The fanatical coughing coverage began as early as May 20, 2007, when the Drudge Report posted the headline, "HILLARY COUGHING, WHEEZING AT COMMENCEMENT," about her speech to graduates of New Orlean's historically black Dillard University when the former first lady was a New York senator launching her first presidential campaign. It has continued through this past Monday, when Drudge posted the headline "HILLARY COUGHING FIT RETURNS!" to characterize a video clip featuring the candidate emitting four dry little coughs during the raucous Cincinnati rally at which she appeared with Sen. Elizabeth Warren.
In a story about the conservatives' coughing fixation this past April, The Washington Post noted that Matt Drudge, the agenda-setting web site's namesake, was happy to minimize Clinton's commencement cough nine years ago, reasoning that "the campaign trail is long and tough." He exhorted the candidate on his radio show: "Hillary, dear, take care of yourself. We need you...Take a few days off, what's this frenetic pace?" He added: "She was professional. She kept going. She finished the speech."
#1
They're her "tell" for lying? Nah, not frequent enough. I'll go with heart issues (Assuming Dr. White has made an examination confirming she has one.).
[Huffpoo] In explosive testimony Tuesday, a witness before a Senate panel about Islamic terrorism accused the two Muslim members of Congress of having attended an event organized by the Muslim Brotherhood.
The charge was leveled by Chris Gaubatz, a "national security consultant" who has moonlighted as an undercover agitator of Muslim groups that he accuses of being terrorist outfits, and it was directed at Reps. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) and André Carson (D-Ind.). At the heart of his accusation is the attendance by those two members at a 2008 convention hosted by the Islamic Society of North America -- a Muslim umbrella group, which Gaubatz claims is a front for the Muslim Brotherhood.
"I attended a convention in Columbus, Ohio, in 2008, organized by Muslim Brotherhood group, ISNA, and both the Department of Homeland Security, and the Department of Justice Federal Bureau of Prisons had recruitment and outreach booths," Gaubatz said in his testimony. "Both Congressman Keith Ellison, MN, and Andre Carson, IN, spoke at the Muslim Brotherhood event."
Allegations that Ellison and Carson are secret Muslim agents with extremist leanings are usually found among fringe groups online, often discussed in dire tones on poorly designed websites. Rarely, if ever, do such sentiments get read into congressional testimony, with the imprimatur that offers.
Responsibility for this rare instance lies with Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who oversaw the hearing as chairman of the Judiciary Subcommittee on Oversight, Agency Action, Federal Rights and Federal Courts and whose staff likely saw the testimonies of the witnesses.
Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) later addressed Tuesday’s hearing and defended Ellison.
"He is my congressman. He is a man of great patriotism," she said, adding that he has advocated for additional funding for efforts to detect what attracts young people to join terrorist groups.
An aide to Ellison confirmed that he did attend the 2008 ISNA convention. He’s gone to a few of the group’s conventions, in fact. Carson’s office didn’t return a request for comment. But news reports show that both he and Carson led a discussion at the 2008 convention on how to mobilize Muslims politically. President Barack Obama has addressed the group as well, though only via a video recording.
ISTANBUL, June 30 (Reuters) - Three suspected Islamic State suicide bombers who killed 42 people in a gun and bomb attack at Istanbul airport this week were from Russia, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, a Turkish government official said on Thursday.
The attack on Europe's third-busiest airport was the deadliest in a series of suicide bombings in Turkey this year.
The three bombers opened fire to create panic outside, before two of them got inside the terminal building and blew themselves up. The third detonated his explosives at the entrance. A further 239 people were wounded.
The official gave no further details beyond confirming the attackers' nationalities and declined to be named because details of the investigation have not yet been released. Investigators had been struggling to identify the bombers from their limited remains, officials said earlier.
"A medical team is working around the clock to conclude the identification process," one of the officials said.
The pro-government Yeni Safak newspaper said the Russian bomber was from Dagestan, which borders Chechnya, where Moscow has led two wars against separatists and religious militants since the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991.
The Kyrgyz security service declined to comment, while the Uzbek security service could not immediately be reached.
Turkish police detained 13 people, three of them foreigners, in raids across Istanbul in connection with Tuesday night’s attack.
Counter-terrorism teams led by police special forces launched simultaneous raids at 16 locations in the city, two officials told Reuters. Turkish authorities have said they believe Islamic State was behind the airport attack.
Yeni Safak said the organizer of the attack was suspected to be a man called Akhmed Chatayev, of Chechen origin. Chatayev is identified on a United Nations sanctions list as a leader in Islamic State responsible for training Russian-speaking militants, and as wanted by Russian authorities.
The Hurriyet newspaper named one of the attackers as Osman Vadinov, also Chechen, and said he had come from Raqqa, the heart of Islamic State-controlled territory in Syria.
Turkish officials did not confirm to Reuters that either Chatayev or Vadinov were part of the investigation.
[Daily Caller] Former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates shared what he believes are the two main reasons why Islamic State exists in an interview with Business Insider Thursday.
Gates, who served in both President George W. Bush and President Barack Obama administrations, said it is the Syrian civil war and former Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s anti-Sunni policies that gave rise to ISIS.
Gates referred to ISIS as an "outgrowth of the conflict inside Syria." Undoubtedly, the turbulence inside the country certainly gave Islamic State a vacuum from which it could entrench itself. ISIS’ rise in 2014 saw the terrorist organization conquering a large swathe of territory in eastern and central Syria. Syrian President Bashar Assad and the various Syrian rebel groups had been fighting for about three years by the time ISIS came around, and neither were prepared to counter a secondary threat. ISIS took advantage of the opportunity, and set up its capital in the Syrian city of Raqqa, which it holds to this day.
The former Pentagon chief’s second factor, al-Maliki’s "wrongheaded" anti-Sunni policies, is more nuanced than the Syrian factor, but it is just as important to understanding ISIS.
[Daily Caller] While Attorney General Loretta Lynch holds firm to her claim that the motive of Orlando terrorist Omar Mateen may never be known, the FBI is instructing Florida agencies that responded to the attack that night to deny requests for public records pertaining to the case.
Mateen called police several times during the three hour ordeal to declare his allegiance to ISIS, yet only a fraction of his discussions with authorities that night have been released to the public -- first an edited version, than an unedited one.
In response to a lawsuit by local media seeking the release of the 911 audio, the Seminole County Sheriff’s Office released a letter they got from the FBI instructing them to deny all requests for information and refer news outlets seeking information to the feds, the Orlando Sentinel reports.
[PJ] On Tuesday, I was a panelist at the Senate Judiciary Committee’s hearing on "Willful Blindness: Consequences of Agency Efforts to Deemphasize Radical Islam in Combating Terrorism."
The hearing was held by the Subcommittee on Oversight, Agency Action, Federal Rights and Federal Courts," chaired by Senator Ted Cruz (R. Tex.). I was one of six panelists. Video of the hearing, which lasted about three hours, is available on the Judiciary Committee website (here). The written testimony I submitted prior to the hearing is (here).
I was also asked to make an opening statement. Below is the prepared version of that statement (which I had to edit down a bit for purposes of time while delivering it at the hearing).
[2Ocians] The news of the United Kingdom’s decision to leave the EU has spread like wildfire, and the consequences are slowly rolling out.
Not only has our very own JSE plummeted, but the pound has also decreased in value.
Inspired by the news, ZA News, the home of those satirical puppet shows, released a statement announcing a Cexit -- or Cape Exit:
Inspired by Britain’s Brexit vote, a group of Capetonians calling themselves Better Than Whole (BTW) are campaigning for a Cexit -- or Cape Exit -- from South Africa.
According to BTW spokesperson Stephanie Green, Cape Town would just be better off emotionally without the whole rest of the country to deal with. "Plus we can charge a fortune when they apply for visas for their summer holidays in the Cape".
Cexit already has a trendy website, a meaningful song, and a solid hashtag. BTW are also subtly referencing that the move would help keep those Eastern Cape "refugees" out, but definitely not in a racist way.
For the purposes of Cexit, Cape Town obviously includes the wine route and Hermanus, although they remain undecided about the West Coast.
[Breitbart] How’d you like to be running a presidential campaign dependent on Muslims not acting up again between now and Nov. 8? It’s getting awfully hard for the media to keep being indignant about Trump's proposed Muslim ban, as long as Muslims keep blowing things up and shooting people.
I'm assuming here that The Washington Post has not already ruled the Muslims who blew up the Istanbul Airport to be self-hating gays infected by America’s culture of homophobia.
It turns out, Omar Mateen, the Orlando nightclub shooter, also wasn't a self-hating gay, despite media excitement over that rumor. The FBI has now run down every alleged gay partner of Omar's, searched his phone and computers, and the alleged gay lovers either had the wrong guy or were lying, and there's no evidence he was on any gay websites or apps.
As a Muslim immigrant explained in a curbside interview videotaped by Tony Vera at the Los Angeles International Airport recently -- before she was arrested -- "that's what we do, we bomb people."
With impeccable timing, three days before the Istanbul bombing, the liberal Guardian (UK) ran an article sneering at Brexit supporters for wanting out of the European Union before Turkey became a member and the door was thrown open to unlimited migration from this Muslim country that shares a border with Syria, Iraq and Iran.
The article by Liz Cookman was titled, "Turkey, the Brexit bogeyman, is not so different from the UK."
To be so fair we fall over from it, they have had jihadi attacks in Britain before. What's the difference, after all, between some and lots?
(Yes of course, /sarc.)
[Breitbart] Attorney General Loretta Lynch met privately with President Bill Clinton on a private plane.
A source tipped off the local ABC affiliate about the brief meeting, which reportedly lasted about 30 minutes, at the Phoenix’s Sky Harbor International Airport.
President Clinton reportedly learned Lynch was arriving soon and waited to meet with her.
According to ABC 15, the meeting occurred hours before the House Select Committee on Benghazi released its final report to the public.
The private meeting comes as Lynch’s Justice Department is investigating presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton’s use of a personal, private email server during her time as Secretary of State.
"Lynch said the private meeting on the tarmac did not involve these topics," ABC 15 reports.
"I did see President Clinton at the Phoenix airport as he was leaving and spoke to myself and my husband on the plane," Lynch stated, confirming the meeting. "Our conversation was a great deal about grandchildren, it was primarily social about our travels and he mentioned golf he played in Phoenix."
#1
Update on FBI investigation and discussion about tactics to stall and slowroll the referral to indict until after the election, then Obumble offers a pardon for the minor error, and poof, US Supreme Court has a talking jackass for life.
[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] Rodrigo Duterte was sworn in Thursday as president of the Philippines, with some hoping his maverick style will energize the country but others fearing he will undercut one of Asia’s liveliest democracies amid threats to kill criminals en masse.
The 71-year-old former prosecutor and longtime mayor of southern Davao city won a resounding victory in May’s elections in his first foray into national politics.
Duterte, who begins a six-year term as president, captured attention with promises to cleanse the poor Southeast Asian nation of criminals and government crooks within six months — an audacious pledge that was welcomed by many crime-weary Filipinos but alarmed human rights watchdogs and the influential Roman Catholic church.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/30/2016
03:05 ||
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[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] Data from one of the black boxes of a crashed EgyptAir plane showed smoke alarms had sounded on board, while soot was found on the wreckage, an Egyptian-led investigative committee said Wednesday.
The black box had been retrieved from the bottom of the Mediterranean after the Airbus A320 with 66 people on board plunged into the sea on May 19 while heading to Cairo from Paris.
It had recorded the flight’s data from its departure until it “stopped at an altitude of 37,000 feet (11,250 meters),” the committee said in a statement.
“Recorded data is showing a consistency with ACARS messages of lavatory smoke and avionics smoke,” it said, two days after the damaged recorder was repaired in France.
Investigators had previously announced that the plane’s automated Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System (ACARS) sent signals indicating smoke alarms on board the plane before it went down.
“Parts of the front section of the aircraft showed signs of high temperature damage and soot,” the committee statement added.
The repair work of the cockpit voice recorder, the second black box, had also begun.
The plane was carrying 40 Egyptians, 15 French, two Iraqis, two Canadians and one passenger each from Algeria, Belgium, Britain, Chad, Portugal, Saudi Arabia and Sudan.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/30/2016
02:43 ||
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[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] US-backed Syrian fighters pushed further into the ISIS group stronghold of Manbij on Saturday, seizing a key road junction and grain silos overlooking the city, a monitoring group said.
The city lies close to the border with Turkey and is a key staging post on the militants’ supply line to areas under its control in eastern Syria and neighboring Iraq.
The US-backed Kurdish and Arab forces, which have thrust into Manbij after driving across the Euphrates River from the east, have encircled the city and are now closing in with the support of US-led coalition air strikes.
The Syrian Democratic Forces overran the Mills Roundabout in the south of the city on Saturday after capturing nearby grain silos overnight, taking them significantly closer to the city centre, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
“The grain silos overlook more than half of Manbij. SDF fighters can climb to the top and monitor the city,” said Observatory chief Rami Abdel Rahman.
The Raqa Revolutionaries Brigades - one of the Arab components of the Kurdish-dominated alliance - confirmed that SDF forces had seized the silos and pushed into the city.
Captured by ISIS in 2014, Manbij has served as a key transit point for foreign fighters and funds, as well as a trafficking hub for oil, antiquities and other plundered goods.
Its loss would deprive the militants of vital revenues and mark the greatest victory so far for the Kurdish-led alliance which has already sealed most of the Turkish border.
Some 200 US and other coalition advisers are supporting the offensive launched at the end of last month.
ISIS has thrown large numbers of fighters into the battle, losing 463 since May 31, according to the Observatory. The SDF has lost at least 89.
Pounding Aleppo
Russian and Syrian warplanes pounded rebel-held areas of divided second city Aleppo on Saturday as government forces closed in on the rebels’ sole remaining supply line, a monitoring group said.
An AFP correspondent in the rebel-held east of the city said the air strikes lasted throughout the night into the morning.
Aleppo, which was Syria’s commercial and manufacturing hub before civil war broke out in 2011, has been a key battleground ever since rebels seized eastern neighborhoods of the city the following year.
A two-day truce brokered by Moscow and Washington earlier this month in a bid to rescue a wider ceasefire expired without renewal and Russia warned it would press ahead with it air campaign, saying the rebels had failed to deliver on promises to break ranks with al-Qaeda loyalists.
The Russian strikes focused on the Castello Road, the only remaining route out of the rebel-held east of the city, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
“Russian planes are backing a Syrian regime ground offensive on the northern edges of the city, while Syrian planes bomb the eastern neighborhoods,” Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman said.
A child was among two people killed in strikes on the rebel-held Al-Maysar neighborhood, the White Helmets civil defense group said.
“In the past two days, my kids and I haven’t been able to sleep all night because of the huge blasts, the likes of which we haven’t heard before,” said 38-year-old shopkeeper Abu Ahmed.
A father of three, Abu Ahmad owns a small convenience store in east Aleppo.
“We haven’t been able to get any products or produce for the shop over the past two days because no one can use the (Castello) road,” he said.
The renewed government offensive around Aleppo comes a day after another key ally, Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, pledged to send more fighters to join the “greatest battle” of the war.
31 killed in east Syria
Meanwhile, the Observatory said Russian air strikes killed at least 31 civilians and wounded dozens more on Saturday in a militant-held town in eastern Syria, a monitor said.
The monitor said the raids hit the town of Al-Quriyah, controlled by ISIS in Syria’s oil-rich Deir Ezzor province.
Observatory head Abdel Rahman said there were 16 other people killed but it was not immediately clear whether they were civilians or ISIS fighters.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/30/2016
02:43 ||
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[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] Baghdad Operations Command said on Saturday that an Iraqi flag was raised on top of a medical center for a newly liberated Al-Jolan neighborhood north of Fallujah city, marking new successes by the country’s security forces against ISIS bad boys.
On Saturday, Iraq’s government also said in a statement that its forces have "cleaned" Al-Mualimeen neighborhood in Fallujah in the western province of Anbar from ISIS bad boys.
"Baghdad Operations’ fighting forces were able to fully clean Al-Mualimeen neighborhood in Fallujah today," the statement read.
It added: "The forces were able to eliminate a number of terrorist ISIS members, and make [ISIS] incur equipment losses."
The news comes after Iraqi security forces were able last week to liberate the center of Fallujah city. Iraqi security forces are continuously trying to liberate areas in the northern part of the city.
On Friday, Makhool, a district in the province of Salah Al-Din which lies north of Baghdad, has been recaptured from ISIS forces of Evil on Friday, the Iraqi government said in a statement.
Salah al-Din is on the border with Nineveh province where Iraq’s second largest city of djinn-infested Mosul ... the home of a particularly ferocious and hairy djinn... is located. Mosul fell under ISIS control since June 2014.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/30/2016
02:31 ||
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[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] Clashes in several areas across Yemen ...an area of the Arabian Peninsula sometimes mistaken for a country. It is populated by more antagonistic tribes and factions than you can keep track of. Except for a tiny handfull of Jews everthing there is very Islamic... on Friday killed 22 militias and 11 members of pro-government forces, military officials said, after peace talks hit a new barrier.
Fierce battles erupted in the northern Jawf province when Houthi ...a Zaidi Shia insurgent group operating in Yemen. They have also been referred to as the Believing Youth. Hussein Badreddin al-Houthi is said to be the spiritual leader of the group and most of the military leaders are his relatives. The Yemeni government has accused the Houthis of having ties to the Iranian government, which wouldn't suprise most of us. The group has managed to gain control over all of Saada Governorate and parts of Amran, Al Jawf and Hajjah Governorates. Its slogan is God is Great, Death to America™, Death to Israel, a curse on the Jews ... militias attacked loyalists in al-Motoon district, triggering a counter attack by government forces backed by warplanes from the Saudi-led coalition, a military official said.
The fighting left 13 militias dead, while eight loyalists were killed by mistake in an air strike that missed its target, the official added.
Further south, three Houthi militias were killed in festivities in Bayhan, Shabwa province, another military official said.
And in the southwestern flashpoint city of Taez, six militias and three loyalists were killed in renewed fighting when holy warriors attacked government troops on the southwestern outskirts of the city, a military official said.
Clashes have continued despite a UN-brokered ceasefire that entered into effect on April 11 and paved the way for peace talks in Kuwait.
Those talks received a new blow on Thursday when government representatives demanded a full withdrawal of Iran-backed militia from territory seized since 2014.
On Wednesday, the rebel delegation said it would not sign up to any deal on military and security issues until there was agreement on a consensus president and a national unity government to oversee the transition.
The peace roadmap put forward by UN envoy Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed proposed the formation of a unity government in tandem with the withdrawal and disarmament of the militia, although he acknowledged major differences between the two sides’ timetables.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/30/2016
02:30 ||
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[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] US-led coalition aircraft waged a series of deadly strikes against ISIS around the city of Fallujah on Wednesday, US officials told Rooters, with one citing a preliminary estimate of at least 250 suspected fighters killed and at least 40 vehicles destroyed.
If the figures are confirmed, the strikes would be among the deadliest ever against the myrmidon group. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to describe the operation and noted preliminary estimates can change.
The strikes, which the officials said took place south of the city, where civilians have also been displaced, are just the latest battlefield setback suffered by ISIS in its self-proclaimed "caliphate" of Iraq and Syria.
The group’s territorial losses are not diminishing concerns about its intent and ability to strike abroad though. The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... pointed the finger at ISIS on Wednesday for a triple suicide kaboom and gun attack that killed 41 people at Istanbul’s main airport.
CIA chief John Brennan told a forum in Washington the attack bore the hallmarks of ISIS "depravity" and acknowledged there was a long road ahead battling the group, particularly its ability to incite attacks.
"We’ve made, I think, some significant progress, along with our coalition partners, in Syria and Iraq, where most of the ISIS members are resident right now," Brennan said.
"But ISIS’ ability to continue to propagate its narrative, as well as to incite and carry out these attacks - I think we still have a way to go before we’re able to say that we have made some significant progress against them."
On the battlefield, the US-led campaign against ISIS has moved up a gear in recent weeks, with the government declaring victory over ISIS in Fallujah.
An alliance of militias have also launched a major offensive against the bad boy group in the city of Manbij in northern Syria.
Still, in a reminder of the back-and-forth nature of the war, US-backed Syrian rebels were pushed back from the outskirts of an ISIS-held town on the border with Iraq and a nearby air base on Wednesday after the bandidosmurderous Moslems mounted a counter- attack, two rebel sources said.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/30/2016
02:30 ||
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#1
I assumed this was another summation of a week's worth of air strikes or something like that, but apparently they pounced on a huge convoy of fleeing Daesh vehicles, like the old days of the first Gulf War.
Posted by: Charles M. Hagmaier ||
06/30/2016 14:58
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#2
Well something happened for sure, in one of those pix an Abrahms is looking at the damage, but from the scars, he'll, looks like napalm to me.
[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] Paleostinian President the ineffectual Mahmoud Abbas ... a graduate of the prestigious unaccredited Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow with a doctorate in Holocaust Denial... on Saturday retracted his allegation that Israeli rabbis had called for the poisoning of Paleostinian water, a remark that had drawn strong condemnation from Israel’s prime minister.
"After it became evident that the alleged statements by a rabbi on poisoning Paleostinian wells, reported by various media outlets, are baseless, President Abbas has affirmed that he didn’t intend to harm Judaism or to offend Jewish people around the world," part of a statement by Abbas’s office said.
The Western-backed Paleostinian leader made the remarks in a speech to the European parliament in Brussels on Thursday, as he condemned Israeli actions against Paleostinians amid stalled peace talks, which collapsed in 2014.
Abbas’s speech received a standing ovation from European politicians, but his allegation about the water poisoning drew strong condemnation from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who termed it a "blood libel."
For Jews, allegations of water poisoning strike a bitter chord. In the 14th century, as plague swept across Europe, false accusations that Jews were responsible for the disease by deliberately poisoning wells, led to massacres of Jewish communities.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/30/2016
02:27 ||
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[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] Protesters bearing Mexican flags invaded a Scottish golf course owned by Donald Trump on Saturday as the presidential hopeful visited the estate, which is hugely controversial locally.
Holding home-made signs reading "Love Trumps hate" and "Stop the hating," the protesters rushed onto a hill overlooking the Trump International Golf Links clubhouse in northeastern Scotland.
Trump employees ushered journalists away as the chanting protesters appeared, waving a gay rights rainbow flag and the red, white and green Mexican tricolors.
Neighbors whose properties border the estate have raised the flag in a symbol of opposition and solidarity due to Trump’s disparaging remarks about Mexican people and promise to build a wall on Mexico’s border with the US.
A Mexican flag waved in the breeze close by as Trump touched down on a golf course green in a helicopter emblazoned with his name.
"I want the American journalists in particular to see it," said David Milne, whose house looks down on the clubhouse and the 18th green, speaking to AFP by phone.
He said the flag was a "little nod of solidarity to the Mexican people" and symbol of opposition to Trump.
"If he gets to be president the US will be at war in a week and bankrupt in two. The man is an idiot," Milne added.
Trump’s development was hugely controversial in Scotland as it was built on an environmentally protected coastline of rolling dunes, and he stoked anger by trying to stop a wind farm he said would spoil the resort’s view.
Asked about the protesters, Trump compared them to rival candidates for the Republican nomination who he had defeated, such as Senator Ted Cruz.
"I have one or two that are contentious and that’s fine because they lost, it’s like some of the people I beat in the primaries," to win the Republican nomination for president, Trump told news hounds.
Asked if he suffered from a lack of support among European leaders, some of whom have criticized his pledge to ban Moslems from entering the United States, Trump was dismissive.
"I don’t care. It’s irrelevant. I'll tell you who has endorsed me, the people of the United States are endorsing me, that’s what relevant to me," Trump replied.
The visit to the resort in the village of Balmedie, north of the oil city of Aberdeen, came at the end of a two-day trip to Scotland, Trump’s first international visit since he became the presumptive Republican nominee.
The trip, which coincides with a shock vote by Britannia to leave the European Union ...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing... , stands in stark contrast to the welcome President Barack Obama That’s just how white folks will do you.... received on a visit to Germany in 2008, when he was the presumptive Democratic nominee.
At the time, Obama addressed a crowd of tens of thousands about his hopes of closer links to a unified Europe.
Trump has criticized the continent’s leaders as "weak," and accused them of allowing uncontrolled immigration and failing to combat terrorism.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/30/2016
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#1
the Brits know so much about the "Mexican" problems in the USA.....idiots
#2
I figure charter flights from Tucson, El Paso and San Antonio, and San Diego to Scotland seems appropriate. At least it'll give the American drop off cites a breather.
#3
Hey, after Brexit Scotland wants independence from the UK. They should join with Mexico and then both of them can join the EU. I'm sure the Spanish would love that.
#4
Trump only opposed illegal aliens, not all Mexicans. Why don't they start waving Islamic flags and Korans around, he wanted to block all immigration from Muslim countries.
Oh, the protesters probably agree with that part (even if they won't say so out loud).
#5
the protesters probably agree with that part By no means, they are tools of whoever is paying their bills. After multiple Islamic-inspired mass murders in recent days, it is unseemly to wave the black flag of Daesh. They'll get around to that eventually.
[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] Belgian police detained two men for questioning after fresh anti-terror raids overnight, the federal prosecutor’s office said Saturday amid reports of a planned attack on a Euro 2016 fanzone.
"One man was jugged Drop the gat, Rocky, or you're a dead 'un! in (the eastern town of) Verviers and another man in Tournai," close to the French border, a front man said.
"It is too soon to talk about a terror attack," he added.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/30/2016
02:27 ||
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[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] Authorities in 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... said on Friday that a police officer working on a traffic patrol was rubbed out in the kingdom’s east.
According to the News Agency that Dare Not be Named, the Interior Ministry said the officer, identified as Faisal al-Harbi, was killed by unknown assailants early Friday morning in the city of Saihat. It said an investigation was ongoing.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/30/2016
02:16 ||
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After a catastrophic hard drive crash, a new box, five days, and the remaining hair torn out of my head we're back. I'm sorry for all the downtime.
We're current as of the 4:30 pm backup on the 25th. The new box isn't quite as nifty as the one that broke, but it's not broken, either. We've got twelve GB of memory instead of 16, an i5 processor instead of an i7. We'll see how well it works under load.
I'm going to try and recover the data from the old box. The physical backup we're working from was current a couple months ago, so we're missing graphics and code tweaks and such. I do my best there.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/30/2016
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#1
Thank you, Fred. Sorry about the hair.
Posted by: Matt ||
06/30/2016 11:55
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#2
Comments were busted. I think they're fixed now.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/30/2016 11:55
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#3
Comments seem to be mighty touchy. I'll be keeping an eye on them.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/30/2016 11:59
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#4
Okay. I think comments are fixed now. I'll now turn my back on it to see if it breaks. If not, I'll clean up the mess.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/30/2016 12:04
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Posted by: Frank G ||
06/30/2016 12:06
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#7
Good work, Fred.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
06/30/2016 12:17
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#8
Thank you Fred. "Things happen" as Paddington would say and your continued diligence, even with setbacks on the path, is greatly appreciated.
As a person who grew up in an earlier time, with only one rotary phone in the house (party-line to boot), no ZIP codes or direct-dial long distance, patience is learned and good results are valued.
In an age where instant gratification is expected, I sometimes feel out of place.
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
06/30/2016 12:20
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#11
I greatly missed the site, thank you for making it return. The insight and attitude of the regulars here lifts my spirit many times, and makes me laugh often. But most importantly, I find here threads and articles and ideas that the MSM, and even other conservative news and opinions sources miss or overlook. Thanks for making a valuable part of my morning ritual return.
#14
I'm afraid I'm not going to be able ti fix the o-club for a few days. Gloria's taking me off to New York for a weekend vacation so I can fret about all the bugs crawling out.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/30/2016 13:17
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#29
I chipped in some gelder tokens earlier even though the comments weren't working.[grrr]
Welcome back, Fred.
While you were down I had to make do reading other blogs for content, worst two minutes of my life!
[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] In the heart of Solo city, not far from the Islamic boarding school founded by the radical holy man who inspired the 2002 Bali bombings, the staff of an unremarkable-looking restaurant prepare for another day serving the humble staples of the Indonesian diet to hungry locals.
The manager, a slightly built man with quick lively gestures, darts about the narrow kitchen, dropping ingredients into sizzling hot pans to make the bistik and other fare that customers including the local police crave. With a wife and two children to support, he also runs a car hire business and a laundry service on the side.
One of the millions of small-time business owners that keep the world’s most populous Moslem nation ticking, 40-year-old Mahmudi Haryono is also a poster boy for the transformation of a bomb maker and Death Eater into a productive member of society.
To be sure, his extensive Death Eater history doesn’t inspire easy trust. It includes being a combatant with the rebel Moro Islamic Liberation Front in the Philippines for three years, where he honed bomb making skills, and fighting in sectarian conflicts between Moslems and Christians in Indonesia. He was nabbed Drop the rod and step away witcher hands up! less than a year after the 2002 Bali bombings that killed 202 people and convicted of hiding materials used to make the bombs.
"The fact is that I trained in the Philippines as a Jihadi fighter to defend Moslems and I did jihad only when Moslems were oppressed in conflict regions. It was part of my past," Haryono said in an interview. "Today, my priority in life is taking care of my family and business and preaching a path to help reform radical inmates."
A private foundation has worked intensively with Haryono since his release from prison in 2009, and holds him up as an example of how hardened holy warriors can be reformed. The need for such success stories is great in Indonesia, where several hundred men imprisoned for terrorism offenses have been paroled in the past several years, including 97 last years alone.
Since 2002, Indonesian authorities, with US and Australian help, have vastly improved their intelligence gathering and counterterrorism operations. The imprisonment of nearly 800 holy warriors and the killing of more than 100 in raids have weakened the groups under the al-Qaeda-linked Jemaah Islamiyah network responsible for the Bali tragedy and dozens of other plots and attacks.
But efforts to de-radicalize holy warriors in prison have been less successful, partly because ISIS inspires them to hold to extremism. Two perpetrators of the ISIS-inspired Jan. 14 suicide kaboom in the Indonesian capital had been released from prison shortly before the attack.
"We have to admit the de-radicalization programs by the non-state groups, and the government, are not enough," said Taufik Andrie, executive director of Yayasan Prasasti Perdamaian, an institute that helps paroled holy warriors and established the restaurant where Haryono works and now owns a stake in.
Andrie estimates that 40 percent of the more than 400 holy warriors released as of December last year returned to their radical networks.
He said some of those people may want a normal life, but few Indonesians want to employ them, or even have them living in their neighborhoods. Back in their radical circles, they would be welcomed as heroes.
"When they are released, they are on their own. For them, society is a second prison because of the stigmatization," Andrie said.
In the Solo neighborhood of Ngruki, former Death Eater Joko Purwanto, who uses the alias Handzollah, said he has slowly gained acceptance from the devout Moslem community that shunned him when he was released from prison two years ago.
The village of narrow lanes and tightly packed houses is dotted with shops selling hijabs and famously is home to the fundamentalist Al Mukmin Islamic boarding school founded by Abu Bakar Bashir ... Leader of the Indonesian Mujahedeen Council and proprietor of the al-Mukmin madrassah in Ngruki. The spriritual head of Jemaah Islamiya, which he denies exists. Bashir was jugged and then released in the wake of the 2002 Bali bombings, which he blamed on a conspiracy among the U.S., Israel, and Australia ... , the aging spiritual leader of the Bali bombers, who is now languishing in prison for his role in funding a Death Eater training camp in Aceh.
Handzollah, a former student at Al Mukmin, fought alongside Haryono and was arrested in a 2010 raid on Bashir’s training camp. After his release, he said, neighbors ignored his greetings, and at the mosque a worshipper called him a terrorist who should be ostracized.
"I responded by doing good," the 41-year-old said. "I didn’t avoid them. Instead I tried to approach mainstream society.
"Gradually, they realized that I’ve changed."
Nowadays, Handzollah is popular as a preacher and often travels. Numerous children from two wives are supported by one wife’s business making snack foods for restaurants and shops.
He now says violent holy warriors is not justifiable within Indonesia because Moslems aren’t under attack. In common with other parolees, he denounces ISIS for killing Moslems who reject its extreme interpretation of Islam.
"What I did in the past was a mistake. Many tenets of Islam were violated to do jihad, by doing bombing attacks in peaceful places like hotels, markets or other public areas that killed innocent people," he said.
Prized for his skill in repairing weapons, Handzollah said ISIS supporters have attempted to recruit him since he left prison. He said he has persuaded at least 10 young men not to travel to Syria to join the ISIS group.
Like Haryono and other former Jemaah Islamiyah holy warriors interviewed by The News Agency that Dare Not be Named, he still believes Indonesia should be governed by Islamic Shariah law, not a secular government, but says that goal should be achieved through peaceful methods.
Yet Handzollah does not unequivocally rule out a return to militancy.
"Of course the ideology of jihad remains inside me, because it’s part of Islam," he said. "I believe in Shariah law and an Islamic state, so, if someone is able to convince me with certain arguments - but this is very unlikely to me now - it may make me go back" to violence.
For those who support de-radicalization efforts, Handzollah represents a form of success but also underlines a dilemma for the government: Will doing more to support released holy warriors join mainstream society help prevent future attacks, or provide the cover for holy warriors to rebuild and plot?
Brig. Gen. Hamidin, director of prevention at Indonesia’s counterterrorism agency, said there are limits to what the government can do. It can’t provide former bully boyz small-business loans, for example, since that could create a perception there’s a financial incentive for terrorism, he said. Instead, it plans to mentor released holy warriors and help them get national ID cards, which are needed to apply for jobs, opening bank accounts and conducting other essential tasks.
Hamidin, who uses one name, says the government already has had some success. Government figures show that less than 10 percent of released holy warriors have been re-arrested or killed in anti-terrorism operations. He concedes, however, that the number who returned to radicalism is much higher.
The recidivism figure doesn’t include those who joined ISIS in Syria, for instance. It’s not illegal for Indonesians to join conflicts abroad, though Parliament is considering a revamped law.
Andrie, from the institute, said it has been successful with most of the 30 men it has been involved with in the past five years. It finds ways to draw individuals into their communities and focuses on persuading them to repudiate violence, rather than trying to try change core beliefs such as support for a caliphate.
The group has learned on the job, including from its mistakes.
In one case, a paroled Death Eater was provided with $500 to start a T-shirt business. Soon the group discovered the venture had failed, partly because the business didn’t engage the man with regular people.
As for the T-shirts? They were emblazoned with either the face of the late Osama bin Laden ... who used to be alive but now he's not... or an AK-47 and given away within the man’s radical circle.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/30/2016
02:16 ||
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[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] In a speech broadcast on Friday, Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Lebanese Lion of Islam group Hezbollah scoffed at the recent US sanctions stating that these sanctions will not impact his group whatsoever due to the fact that Hezbollah receives full financial and arms support from the Islamic Theocratic Republic of Iran.
He pointed out that "We do not have any business projects or investments via banks..." Nasrallah added that "We are open about the fact that Hezbollah’s budget, its income, its expenses, everything it eats and drinks, its weapons and rockets, come from the Islamic Theocratic Republic of Iran," and he emphasized that his group "will not be affected" by any fresh sanctions.
Speaking in a speech to mark 40 days after the death of a high level Hezbollah commander Mustafah Bedreddine in the Syrian capital Damascus, Nasrallah stated that: "As long as Iran has money, we have money... Just as we receive the rockets that we use to threaten Israel, we are receiving our money. No law will prevent us from receiving it..."
First public confirmation
It has been long known to political observers that the Islamic Theocratic Republic played a key role in giving birth to the Lebanese Shiite Lion of Islam group in 1982. For over three decades, Iran’s financial, military, intelligence, logistical, and advisory assistances to Hezbollah have been well known. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and its elite force, the Quds force, transformed Hezbollah to be one of Iran’s most important and powerful regional and international proxies.
Nevertheless, what highlights the significance of Nasrallah’s speech is the fact that this is the first time in which he is announcing and publicly confirming that his group is receiving full monetary and arms support from the Iranian government.
The United States has long listed Hezbollah as a global terrorist group (since 1995) and accused it in several attacks such as the 1983 Beirut barracks bombing, that killed 241 US marines, the April 1983 US embassy bombing, and the 1984 US embassy annex bombing.
On Dec. 18, 2015, the US president signed the Hezbollah International Financing Prevention Act. The US Congress voted to impose fresh sanctions on Hezbollah by targeting those banks that are "knowingly facilitating a significant transaction or transactions for" Hezbollah and those financial institutions that "knowingly facilitating a significant transaction or transactions of a person identified on the List of Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked persons."
Nasrallah pointed out in his recent speech: "We totally reject this [United States] law until the Day of Judgment ... Even if the law is applied, we as a party and an organizational and jihadist movement, will not be hurt or affected," He added: "We have no money in Lebanese banks, neither in the past nor now ... We don't transfer our money through the Lebanese banking system."
Posted by: Fred ||
06/30/2016
02:14 ||
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#1
Even the muzzies have turned on Obama. They are crossing his narative at every step. He must feel betrayed, like a rube, and a useful idiot. If it was not so tragic it could be comical.
Posted by: 49 pan ||
06/30/2016 14:55
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#2
"Look up, America. The soul of man has been given wings, and at last he is beginning to fly. He is flying into the rainbow — into the light of hope, into the future, the glorious future that belongs to you, to me, and to all of us."
#3
Hezbollah actually does have internal fundraising - they extort money from businesses, they sell drugs, they sell used firearms and so on.
this speech was, no doubt, required by the mullahs and must have been a bit humiliating for Nasrallah
Posted by: lord garth ||
06/30/2016 16:06
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#4
He must feel betrayed, like a rube, and a useful idiot.
Sorry 49Pan, in order for him to feel that he would have to have self awareness, humility and see his errors; since he is incapable of any of that he will only feel anger that he has to share the planet with his inferiors.
[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] Hezbollah is free to choose the parliamentary electoral law it likes and it's free to participate in the government or boycott it. There are no restraints imposed on it when it comes to following the domestic policies governed by the constitution and law. However, alcohol has never solved anybody's problems. But then, neither has milk... Hezbollah, and even if some of those affiliated with it agree, must not intervene in another country and get involved in a war that has absolutely nothing to do with us. To justify its intervention, it has resorted to the excuse of "deterring terrorists." However this excuse just serves the purpose of throwing dust in the eyes as we can actually fortify our borders and prevent those who threaten our security from infiltrating our borders. Cooperation and coordination with security forces will also help arrest murderous Moslems and even execute them if they harm Leb.
The reason I bring this up is reports that at least 25 Hezbollah fighters have died in the past two days in different areas across Syria and that some Lebanese families have lost contact with their sons - also Hezbollah fighters - there. These members were not killed and did not go missing because they were serving higher aims or a national cause as they were only present in Syria to serve foreign interests linked to Iran's will to preserve the Syrian regime. What will Hezbollah's officials tell the families of the members killed? What will they tell them they died for? To defend Syrian Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Scourge of Qusayr... ? Or the Syrian regime which is slaughtering its own sons? They died while confronting who? Confronting the Syrian people who want to change their regime?
What's being committed against the Lebanese people is a crime. We pity these fighters' mothers, wives and children because we've experienced this pain, injustice and grief that deeply wound the heart. We don't want this massacre against Lebanese people who accepted to hand over their decision-making to their leaders to go on. This same category of Lebanese people has been exploited for decades using different slogans.
We do not want our sons to die in defense of Assad or of any other man. We do not want Leb to keep paying the price of other parties' wars on its territories and in the case of the Syrian war, in other territories. Leb's young men and women should be able to live and live long.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/30/2016
02:14 ||
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#1
This article makes sense from the Saudi perspective (it's Alarabiya after all) of wanting to persuade Lebanese that obeying Iran is not in Lebanon's interest. But most Shia in that region need Iranian support (what would Hezbollah have without Iran?) and also feel a very natural allegiance like Canada and Australia naturally helping the UK when Hitler attacked. One hope is that the number of Sunni refugees currently in Lebanon will help swing the power balance away from Hezbollah. A power shift is unlikely to happen solely as a result of internal Shia dissent without other major causes.
[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] More than half the global population is under age 30, President Barack Obama Because I won... said Friday, and it is vital to make sure they have the right tools to start new businesses.
Obama addressed about 1,200 entrepreneurs and investors at an annual event, saying they can help fuel economic growth in their local communities and countries. People from more than 170 countries attended the Global Entrepreneurship Summit, including a contingent of 11 from Cuba.
"Turns out that starting your own business is not easy. You have to have access to capital, you have to meet the right people, you have to have mentors who can guide you as you get your idea off the ground," Obama said. "And that can be especially difficult for women and young people and minorities and others who haven't always had the same access to networks and opportunities." Forget the white men. They got it made. And the Chinamen? Greased. And the Hindoos? Hell, they'e white, except for the color.
The conference gives those in attendance the opportunity to get advice from investors and to learn how to access capital and lower bureaucratic hurdles.
Just 3 percent of venture capital-backed startups are led by women, and only around 1 percent are led by African-Americans. In advance of the conference, the White House announced a list of 30 tech companies that have pledged to increase the diversity of their workforces, among them Airbnb, Intel and SAP.
Obama said his administration is trying to help people take risks by simplifying the process for starting companies and equipping scientists and engineers with entrepreneurial skills.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/30/2016
02:14 ||
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What insight the man has! But mainly you have to have a compliance team who can help you avoid running afoul of the 43,686 state, federal and local regulations involved in opening a lemonade stand. And you need a staff of accountants who can give you a WAG about the application of the Internal Revenue Code and its attendant army of regulations, rulings, etc.
Posted by: Matt ||
06/30/2016 12:33
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#3
"Turns out that starting your own business is not easy. You have to have access to capital, you have to meet the right people, you have to have mentors who can guide you as you get your idea off the ground,"
And yet, "You didn't build that."
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
06/30/2016 13:22
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#4
"Comparing the inner attractiveness
Of candidates, students, job applicants?
This colorblind whiteness
Is starting to frighten us!"
-- Backwards American Africans
#6
When wantrepreneurs haunt the gentry,
It's "Halt!" An unfaltering sentry
Wields lobbies and parchments
And legal departments.
This spectre? The high cost of entry.
[SPECTATOR.ORG] Next to the propagation of the big lie, one of the most elementary and common devices in manufacturing propaganda is the notion that the truth is something you are not being told.
From conspiracy theorists to those selling patent medicine on the Internet, everyone who whispers the words "secret" and "mystery" is using this device.
But what happens when you already know you’re not being told the truth? The psychological impact is that much greater. Your normal inclination to be taken in by conspiracy theorists is all the more heightened when you know you are not being told the truth.
That is what President B.O. and Attorney General Lynch achieved in their clumsy and stupid attempt to redact the transcripts of Islamic terrorist Omar Mateen’s phone calls to 911 as he shot up a gay nightclub in Orlando. Their bungled attempt to manipulate reality now affirms the role of Islam in the shooting. By attempting to change Mateen’s invocation of "Allah" to "God" and redacting entirely his swearing of allegiance to ISIS, the B.O. regime has created the opposite of what it intended.
Any doubts that this shooting was inspired by Islam have now been vitiated. In addition, conspiracy theorists have found in the administration’s inept handling of Mateen’s 911 calls new sustenance for their own cherished conspiracy.
When the absurdity of the editing by Obama’s "most open administration in American history" hit the news, public outrage forced the administration to relent, especially since the tapes’ contents in the age of social media were no secret.
At some point, the administration realized the obvious. The censorship did precisely the opposite of what was intended, reminding those of my generation that the quickest way to produce a best seller was to get it banned somewhere. Henry Miller, who might never have been read beyond the well-educated and sophisticated, found a whole new audience created by censorship.
Omar Mateen was a devout Moslem. Islam prescribes not just the killing of gays but killing them in some grotesque fashion. Of the countries in the world where homosexuality is punishable by death, all but Nigeria are Moslem, and in Nigeria the death penalty is part of the Sharia law of Moslem areas.
Omar Mateen could have embraced the tolerance of the America of his birth or the intolerance of the culture that socialized him. He chose the latter. And in an Islamophilic administration, that fact had to be hidden, just as it had to be hidden at Fort Hood, at the Boston Marathon, and more grotesquely in any discussion of the attack on the World Trade Center on 9/11.
The more the administration engages in that kind of deceit, the more likely we are to believe that the truth is what we are not being told. Such attitudes do not bode well for the functioning of a democracy where legitimacy is the prime value in sustaining the people’s commitment to the government. The hubris of this administration undermines that commitment.
The administration might believe that those who control the language control the definition of the situation. But in the age of social media, the language is beyond the control of babus bureaucrats or their sycophants in the mainstream media.
We are all aware that Omar Mateen killed in the name of Allah, not God, and pledged allegiance to ISIS. Dismissing this only heightens our conviction of this reality.
On the same day, a committee of the Department of Homeland Security decided that the words "jihad" and "radical Islam" only separate us into "us" and "them." I guess in World War II, the words "Allies" and "Nazis" performed the same function, and we are eternally grateful that they did.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/30/2016
02:07 ||
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#1
We are all aware that Omar Mateen killed in the name of Allah, not God, and pledged allegiance to ISIS. This does not apply to the worshipers / true believers of Obama, Hillary and Bernie Sanders, not in the least.
[CNN] Turkish officials have strong evidence that the Istanbul airport attackers came to the country from the Syrian ISIS stronghold of Raqqa and that the group's leadership was involved in the planning of the attack, a senior Turkish government source told CNN Thursday.
Officials believe the men -- identified by another Turkish official and state media as being from Russia, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan -- entered The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... about a month ago from Raqqa, along with the boom jackets and bombs used in the attack, the source said.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: trailing wife ||
06/30/2016
00:00:00 ||
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[26 views]
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#1
First welcome back, I can't survive multiple days without the 'burg.
Second, do you think JF'nK has figured out the motivation yet?
[DailyBeast] Three months after attacking Brussels airport, Death Eaters have shown in the attack on Istanbul’s international airport an alarming ability to stay one move ahead of the defenses put in place to stop them--an agility in planning that could present a new and serious threat to airports in the U.S.
Most experts agree that the Istanbul atrocity has the hallmarks of ISIS. Even then, the sophistication of how the attack was carried out has surprised them.
It was carried out in a way that suggests the kind of advance intelligence, careful study of a target, and cool execution that would normally be practised by Western special forces.
There were three phases. It began with an attack in a car park adjacent to the international arrivals terminal. The purpose was to draw security staff away from the terminal.
The attackers obviously knew that security at the terminal itself had recently been hardened, as a response to the Brussels attack, where the bombers had exploited the fact that, as in many airports, there was no security threshold before the check-in desks.
In Istanbul anyone entering the arrivals terminal faced screening and checks at the doors. The car park diversion achieved its aim of drawing police and security staff from the building’s first line of defense--and left vulnerable scores of people at the taxi and drop-off area waiting to go through security.
This was where the second attack was carried out, causing most of the casualties: 41 dead, more than 200 injured. The blast effect of this attack breached the doors and security cordon, allowing a third attacker to get inside the building. As seen in a chilling video from a security camera this attacker, wearing a suicide belt, was tackled by a guard who forced him to the floor. From the video it seems that the guard died while trying to prevent the attacker from detonating the suicide belt--an act of supreme bravery.
Even though the Turks moved the security perimeter outward to reinforce what is called landside defenses (as opposed to airside, where the gates and airplanes are), the body advising European airports, Airports Council International (ACI) Europe, was amazingly complacent after the Brussels attack.
They said, "The possible adoption of additional security measures such as checks on persons and goods entering airport landside spaces could be disruptive and actually create new security vulnerabilities." They added that it would amount to "moving the target" rather than securing it. They also said--revealing their deepest concern--that such changes would cost money.
In Europe (excepting Germany) the airport authorities have to fund their own security. In the U.S., of course, the Transport Security Administration (TSA) is responsible for all airport security as part of Homeland Security.
And it is here, in the U.S., where there must be renewed concerns about the vulnerability of the arrivals and departure areas of airports. Although there are invisible protections like closely monitored surveillance cameras and some random visible protections like armed security guards and sniffer dogs, the first line of defense remains beyond the check-in counters, not ahead of them.
Airside security at U.S. airports has also been found wanting. For years there have been worrying breaches including a notorious case where guns were smuggled from Atlanta to New York by a criminal ring and where the screening of personnel with access to baggage and airplanes has been found to be lax.
And hardening the perimeter on the landside raises the question of how far outward it can go. If attackers are to be intercepted successfully before reaching the terminal buildings that means new checkpoints and screening on access roads that would, in turn, create the kind of bottlenecks that make tempting targets.
It may always be true that once Death Eaters get to an airport it is already too late to stop an attack, even if it can be disrupted. The most effective last line of defense is intelligence that identifies and thwarts an attack before it can be executed.
Commercial aviation remains the most effective target for ISIS. This year it seems that their attention has turned more and more to attacking airports as an easier option than airplanes. This produces huge short-term results in publicity and terror and serious long-term economic damage to tourism and to freedom of movement. Istanbul shows that whatever the defeats of ISIS on the battlefield in Iraq and Syria it remains devoted to finding soft targets in the West wherever they are detected.
#2
The most effective targets for terrorists are basically any large assembly of individuals. Airports are only one of many such possible targets. As airports get more difficult to attack, terrorists can simply shift to easier targets.
#4
In China the gangs have on more than one occasion killed dozens of people in subway cars or trains using knives. Couple of attackers using knives create lots of panic and confusion without gunfire. In a subway or train car there is nowhere to go and a knife is easy to hide (and may not even be metal). I suspect that sort of thing is in our future.
That and attacking the grouping of folks trying to get through security at airports, sporting events or concerts. Playing defense is stupid, but so is our Administration.
[Hurriyet] At least 42 44 people were killed and 239 others were maimed when 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.... of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) bully boyz attacked Istanbul’s Ataturk Airport late on June 28, the Governor's office announced on June 29.
It added that 10 of the victims were foreign nationals and three had dual-citizenship.
Continued on Page 49
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.
[Huffpoo] In explosive testimony Tuesday, a witness before a Senate panel about Islamic terrorism accused the two Muslim members of Congress of having attended an event organized by the Muslim Brotherhood.
[Breitbart] Attorney General Loretta Lynch met privately with President Bill Clinton on a private plane.
Abu Bakar Bashir
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] More than half the global population is under age 30, President 
