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US deploys air defense systems, troops to Saudi Arabia
Today's Headlines
Headline Comments [Views]
14:07 2 19:43 The peanut gallery [22]
11:31 1 16:47 Skidmark [20]
11:00 4 13:47 Bright Pebbles [22]
10:33 15 19:56 European Conservative [24]
10:20 4 20:50 Varmint Splat1454 [38]
10:12 2 11:19 Grutch Cheting3238 [36]
09:50 8 14:09 g(r)omgoru [19]
08:42 1 12:38 g(r)omgoru [29]
02:21 11 17:10 trailing wife [13]
02:17 21 23:10 European Conservative [35]
01:47 17 14:59 Vernal Hatrick [17]
01:23 8 16:54 Skidmark [25]
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00:15 3 10:48 trailing wife [22]
00:07 2 08:46 Frank G [21]
00:07 1 08:17 Frank G [21] 
00:00 12 17:19 Abu Uluque [13]
00:00 4 22:26 Grutch Cheting3238 [33]
00:00 5 14:14 g(r)omgoru [23]
00:00 5 16:45 Skidmark [17]
00:00 6 20:53 charger [21]
00:00 13 23:01 Bob Smiter of the Swedes5721 [25]
00:00 1 12:10 Skidmark [23]
00:00 1 11:25 M. Murcek [19]
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-Short Attention Span Theater-
Second stage of StarShip Stacked!


This is a live feed. Stacked by 1pm Central Daylight time.
BTW the following is what NASA SOUR GRAPES looks like.


Posted by: 3dc || 09/27/2019 14:07 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [22 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I don't know about ALL night, but the crane drove in and was being positioned @0230 today. There was active staff moving about on the site before and after.
Posted by: Skidmark || 09/27/2019 16:20 Comments || Top||

#2  The BOSS is speaking tomorrow and the stage has to be set!
Posted by: The peanut gallery || 09/27/2019 19:43 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Culture Wars
'Coexist' Molotov Cocktails Now Available
[Babylon Bee] In a move to capitalize on the ever-growing market for more tolerant riot equipment, the Fight Fascism Foundation has announced a new line of Coexist-branded Molotov cocktails.

The weapons are equipped with easy-light technology so even teenagers who have never rioted before can fire them up and show their enemies how loving they are with an explosion of fire.

"Rioters' hearts are in the right place," said an FFF representative. "But they've been unable to express their great tolerance for ideas they disagree with as they burn buildings to the ground until now. With our great line of riot products, the victims of your violence will know just how virtuous you are as they fade into unconsciousness."

The Molotov cocktails will soon be supplemented by other riot products, such as Coexist rocks, Coexist baseball bats, and Coexist ski masks.

"You'll know a tolerant antifa or Communist rioter by their official FFF Coexist products, purchased from our online store," the rep added.

The Coexist riot gear quickly sold out, with a high volume of sales occurring in the Washington, D.C. area, according to the company.
Posted by: Frank G || 09/27/2019 11:31 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [20 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Second only to the Zombie Cocktail.
Posted by: Skidmark || 09/27/2019 16:47 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Politix
The Trump-Ukraine whistleblower complaint looks just like ‘Steele Dossier 2.0'
[NY Post] An old adage holds that while history doesn't repeat itself, it rhymes. Not so in the case of the latest manufactured anti-Trump "scandal." The anonymous whistleblower's allegations of corruption involving President Trump and his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelensky, appear to be a note-for-note reproduction of the discredited "dossier" of 2016.

The template for a coordinated media and intelligence community hit against the president was first perfected in the dossier. British ex-spook Christopher Steele compiled the bogus allegations at the behest of the Democrats. Yet it formed the basis for secret wiretaps, human informants and a sprawling, multi-year special-counsel probe of the president.

Liberals presented Steele as an operative with impeccable credentials and a deep network of Russian sources. His reports, we were told, set a gold standard for intelligence, so much so that the FBI regularly relied on his counsel. His claims found immediate purchase in the highest circles of American journalism ‐ until they were utterly debunked along with the whole "collusion" theory.

Sound familiar?
Posted by: Frank G || 09/27/2019 11:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [22 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Shitshow, Part 104.

I have a strong feeling that we have entered a new era in which the Shitshow will become the new normal. I don't think we have the right political term to describe it: it's clearly not democracy.

Cacocracy?
Posted by: Lex || 09/27/2019 11:25 Comments || Top||

#2  The whistleblower did not write the complaint....a group of democratic lawyers had that task..
Posted by: crazyhorse || 09/27/2019 11:39 Comments || Top||

#3  Fine. The answer going forward is this: When GOPe says "that's not us" to calls to give any dumbocrap nominee the same exact treatment as the dumbs gave Kavanaugh, the answer is "bening 'you' is not the game. Get in there and rip or go home."
Posted by: M. Murcek || 09/27/2019 12:03 Comments || Top||

#4  DNC paid someone to write it? Then got the FBI to reimburse them?
Posted by: Bright Pebbles || 09/27/2019 13:47 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Culture Wars
NY City bans calling someone an ‘illegal alien' out of hate
[NY Post] It's now against the law in New York City to threaten someone with a call to immigration authorities or refer to them as an "illegal alien" when motivated by hate.
I can't wait for this to hit the courts
The restrictions ‐ violations of which are punishable by fines of up to $250,000 per offense ‐ are outlined in a 29-page directive released by City Hall's Commission on Human Rights.

"‘Alien' ‐ used in many laws to refer to a ‘noncitizen' person ‐ is a term that may carry negative connotations and dehumanize immigrants, marking them as ‘other,'" reads one passage of the memo. "The use of certain language, including ‘illegal alien' and ‘illegals,' with the intent to demean, humiliate, or offend a person or persons constitutes discrimination."

The directive goes on to list several examples of acts and comments that would run afoul of the restrictions, including harassing people over their accents or grasp of English, or wielding the threat of a call to Immigration and Customs Enforcement as a tool of hate.[NY Post] It's now against the law in New York City to threaten someone with a call to immigration authorities or refer to them as an "illegal alien" when motivated by hate.

The restrictions ‐ violations of which are punishable by fines of up to $250,000 per offense ‐ are outlined in a 29-page directive released by City Hall's Commission on Human Rights.

"‘Alien' ‐ used in many laws to refer to a ‘noncitizen' person ‐ is a term that may carry negative connotations and dehumanize immigrants, marking them as ‘other,'" reads one passage of the memo. "The use of certain language, including ‘illegal alien' and ‘illegals,' with the intent to demean, humiliate, or offend a person or persons constitutes discrimination."

The directive goes on to list several examples of acts and comments that would run afoul of the restrictions, including harassing people over their accents or grasp of English, or wielding the threat of a call to Immigration and Customs Enforcement as a tool of hate.
Posted by: Frank G || 09/27/2019 10:33 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [24 views] Top|| File under:

#1  The term is enshrined in the statute. It's 100% neutral. It's used by lawyers, judges and law enforcement officials all the time because it is the precise, clear, legally accurate and universally understood way to describe someone who is illegally resident in this country and therefore subject to fine, imprisonment or deportation.

The Left in this country have lost their minds.
Posted by: Lex || 09/27/2019 10:54 Comments || Top||

#2  Lets use the term "alien subject to deportation".
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 09/27/2019 12:40 Comments || Top||

#3  Thought crime.
Posted by: Abu Uluque || 09/27/2019 12:47 Comments || Top||

#4  Does "oh, you fuckin' alien" count?
Posted by: Skidmark || 09/27/2019 12:54 Comments || Top||

#5  1) Can we still use the term 'wetback'? Asking for a friend.

2) In other news, NYC has a Commission of Human Rights. A sure sign that property taxes are funding some serious bullshit.
Posted by: Raj || 09/27/2019 13:08 Comments || Top||

#6  'Pre-Legal Democrats'
Posted by: Mullah Richard || 09/27/2019 13:19 Comments || Top||

#7  Legal status:

Resident Alien
Non-Resident Alien

Illegal Alien.

The process will be the punishment. This NY city ban is clearly illegal.
Posted by: The peanut gallery || 09/27/2019 13:25 Comments || Top||

#8  How long until police have to refer to drug dealers as "Undocumented pharmacists"?
Posted by: Bright Pebbles || 09/27/2019 13:44 Comments || Top||

#9  And holding up a bank is just an undocumented withdrawal.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia || 09/27/2019 13:46 Comments || Top||

#10  Rapist: "unpermissioned partner"

Car thief: "untitled possessor"

Quack: "uncertified practitioner"

See? Anyone can play this game.
Posted by: Lex || 09/27/2019 13:55 Comments || Top||

#11  Democrat: Unethical /Corrupt Politician, Slaveowner
Posted by: CrazyFool || 09/27/2019 14:33 Comments || Top||

#12  And of course 'out of hate' == 'disagreeing with the Democrat/Media groupthink'.
Posted by: CrazyFool || 09/27/2019 14:42 Comments || Top||

#13  I prefer foreign invader or spy and so subject to the Geneva Convention and summary execution
Posted by: Silentbrick || 09/27/2019 16:05 Comments || Top||

#14  This would never survive a trip to the Supreme Court anyway.
Posted by: ruprecht || 09/27/2019 19:53 Comments || Top||

#15  "to threaten someone with a call to immigration authorities"

What about calling?
Posted by: European Conservative || 09/27/2019 19:56 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Politix
Wherever Joe Biden went, son Hunter cashed in
h/t Instapundit
[NYPost] In a now notorious July 25 conversation, President Trump asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to "look into" Ukraine’s role in efforts to interfere in the 2016 election as well as the dealings of Joe ­Biden and his son Hunter with the notoriously corrupt country.

Whether or not Trump’s ham-fisted conversation with Zelensky rises to an impeachable offense, the American people have legitimate reasons to be curious about both issues ‐ and especially the Biden family’s blatant conflicts of interest abroad as Joe Biden seeks the presidency.

Biden has been leading the Democratic field. The central case for his candidacy rests on the supposedly exemplary work he did as a senior member of Team Obama. Well, in 2016, acting as the Obama administration’s point man in Ukraine, the vice president ‐ unlike Trump ‐ openly threatened to withhold $1 billion in American loan guarantees if the embattled nation didn’t fire the country’s top prosecutor, Viktor Shokin.

As Biden later bragged, "I looked at them and said, ’I’m leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you’re not getting the money.’ Well, son of a bitch. He got fired.’ "

Most of the media assure us that, though by the Democrats’ new standards this kind of ­intimidation constitutes a flagrant abuse of power, Biden’s reasons for threatening Ukraine were chaste.

But simply repeating this talking point doesn’t make it true. Granted, Shokin was a shady character. Yet at some point he had been investigating Burisma, the largest gas company in Ukraine, which also happened to be paying Hunter Biden a $50,000 monthly salary as a board member.

By coincidence, Hunter had landed this cushy gig in a foreign country only a few months after the Obama ­administration began dispatching his father, Joe, to the very same foreign country on a regular basis.

SEE ALSO

Joe Biden responds to release of Trump's Ukraine transcript
There was, of course, absolutely nothing in Hunter’s résumé to indicate that he would be a valuable addition to foreign energy interest. He didn’t speak the language, and he had no particular expertise in the energy industry. Oh, he did have one thing, though: his last name.

I suppose, that isn’t entirely fair. Hunter once ran a hedge fund with his dad’s brother, James Biden, and associated with a notorious Ponzi schemer. James would go on to snag a job as executive vice president of a construction company in 2010, despite having virtually no experience in the field. And only a few months into his tenure, the company would win one of its biggest contracts in its history, a $1.5 billion deal to build affordable homes in Iraq.

By pure happenstance, Joe was also the Obama administration’s point man in Iraq at the time. Funny how these things work out.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 09/27/2019 10:20 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [38 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Old news but a good refresher on Hunter, Biden et.al.

Hunter Biden’s China Connections
Posted by: Skidmark || 09/27/2019 12:20 Comments || Top||

#2  Busted. Joe's over.

Bring on Fauxcahontas.
Posted by: Lex || 09/27/2019 13:09 Comments || Top||

#3  Joe "Hunter for Corruption" Biden.
Posted by: Thomogum Omereng5658 || 09/27/2019 15:31 Comments || Top||

#4  Shakedown. Hillary's Clinton Foundation, while she was Sec State was worse. To survive, Trump must capitalize on the corruption.
Posted by: Varmint Splat1454 || 09/27/2019 20:50 Comments || Top||


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Trump Admin Bans Iranian Regime Figures, Families From Entering U.S.
[Free Beacon] The Trump administration on Thursday banned all members of the Iranian regime and their family members from entering the United States, a move aimed at stopping regime figures from sending their children to America for schooling and other opportunities.

"The President announced a presidential proclamation restricting entry into the United States for senior Iranian government officials and members of their families," Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a notice to reporters.

"For years, Iranian officials and their family members have quietly taken advantage of America's freedom and prosperity, including excellent educational, employment, entertainment, and cultural opportunities in the United States," Pompeo said. "Under this proclamation, designated senior regime officials and their families will no longer be allowed entry into the United States."

"No longer will elites reap the benefits of a free society while the Iranian people suffer under the regime's corruption and mismanagement," according to the State Department.

Iranian regime figures have long taken advantage of America's educational institutions, with many sending their children to the United States for college.
Posted by: Frank G || 09/27/2019 10:12 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [36 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Iran

#1  should have done this before Rhouani visited the un
Posted by: chris || 09/27/2019 10:49 Comments || Top||

#2  And take hostage the ones currently here.
Posted by: Grutch Cheting3238 || 09/27/2019 11:19 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Culture Wars
Des Moines Register Fires Reporter Who Dug up 'Racist' Tweets on Children's Hospital Donor; Still No Apology
Can't imagine why the media is so despised
[PJ Media] The Des Moines Register is even more unpopular than the New York Times, if you can believe it. They drew everyone's ire by running a hit piece on some poor guy, Carson King, whose viral sign to raise money for more beer accidentally raised a million dollars and he decided to give it all to sick children. As Jim Treacher reported earlier in the week, you have to destroy that guy.

To recap: A guy donated $1 million to a children's hospital, so his local newspaper dug up some bad tweets from when he was a teenager. He did a good thing and gained national attention for it, and our moral, ethical, and intellectual betters in the press had to put him in his place.

The Register received huge backlash for this and online investigators discovered that the reporter who dug up the tasteless tweets had several of his own that were far worse. Naturally, everyone demanded he be fired. They eventually fired him but not before they went back to writing profiles of Carson King, to everyone's horror. First they drag the guy through the mud, then they write about him like they didn't do that to him in the first place, for clicks. Earlier today they published an article titled "Carson King raises more than $500,000 for children's hospital amid controversy," and then never bothered to say that they themselves created the controversy! (Note: I would normally link the source but in this case I don't think they deserve the clicks on the back of that man they tried to destroy, do you?)
Posted by: Frank G || 09/27/2019 09:50 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [19 views] Top|| File under:

#1  some bad tweets from when he was a teenager.

As I understand it, the bad tweets consisted of:
(1) Comparing black women to gorillas
Betcha it wasn't all black women, but a specific one.
(2) Making light of black people who died in the Holocaust.
I wasn't aware that any black people died in the Holocaust. So I assume he made fun of some Wakandan's ignorant barking.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 09/27/2019 10:17 Comments || Top||

#2  I believe the tweets were lines from a comedian, Daniel Tosh, who once had a tv show on Comedy Central.
Posted by: SteveS || 09/27/2019 10:33 Comments || Top||

#3  Yep - Tosh 2.0
Posted by: Frank G || 09/27/2019 10:38 Comments || Top||

#4  In some movie I saw years ago (and still watch from time to time) a guy who was hung up on Purity of Essence triggered doomsday. Just sayin...
Posted by: M. Murcek || 09/27/2019 11:07 Comments || Top||

#5  Our second civil war will be waged on Twitter and in what remains of the media.

It will involve virtual, not physical, assassination or maiming, as in the first civil war, of some 1/10th of the total adult white male US population, plus another million or so additional perpetrators of thoughtcrimes and other offenses against Right Thinking.
Posted by: Lex || 09/27/2019 11:23 Comments || Top||

#6  The Des Moines Register - Iowa's answer to the Boston Globe.
Posted by: Raj || 09/27/2019 13:22 Comments || Top||

#7  Let me know when the Des Moines Register file for bankruptcy and go out of business.
Posted by: Seeking Cure For Ignorance || 09/27/2019 13:46 Comments || Top||

#8  Mind you, I don't trust anybody who drinks Bud (light or otherwise).
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 09/27/2019 14:09 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
Brother found guilty of 'honor killing' of Pakistan social media star Baloch
[JPost] A Pakistan court on Friday convicted the brother of social media star Qandeel Baloch of her murder, a 2016 killing that sparked a change in laws and ignited fierce debate over the prevalence of 'honor killings' of women.

A court in the eastern city of Multan found Muhammad Waseem guilty of the murder and sentenced him to life imprisonment, his lawyer told Reuters.
"Waseem has been given life in prison," the lawyer, Sardar Mehboob, told Reuters by phone, shortly after the verdict was delivered. He added he would file an appeal against the verdict.
Six other people, including two of Baloch's other brothers, had been acquitted, he said.

Waseem admitted in a 2016 media conference organized by police that he strangled his 26-year-old sister due to her social media activities. Baloch had posted risque Facebook posts in which she spoke of trying to change "the typical orthodox mindset" of people in Pakistan. She faced frequent misogynist abuse and death threats but continued to post provocative pictures and videos.

Baloch, whose real name was Fauzia Azeem, was described as Pakistan's Kim Kardashian and had built a modeling career on the back of her social media fame, but drew ire from many in the conservative South Asian nation.
Posted by: Frank G || 09/27/2019 08:42 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [29 views] Top|| File under:

#1  They shouldn't translate it as "honor". The proper terms are"reputation"/"face".
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 09/27/2019 12:38 Comments || Top||


Science & Technology
School completely bans mobile phones and teachers say kids' behaviour changes
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 09/27/2019 02:21 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [13 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Then there will be a shooting someplace and the parents go berserk trying to get ahold of their child. See Mother Bear, See School Official, See School Official run run run.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 09/27/2019 6:35 Comments || Top||

#2  So, lets avoid shooting.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 09/27/2019 6:38 Comments || Top||

#3  Issue guns , anybody that comes in shooting dies.
Posted by: Clyde Dribble8052 || 09/27/2019 6:54 Comments || Top||

#4  What did school kids do before they had cell phones? Learn?

I saw one of those Fox interview on the college campus (Northridge). They asked around 5-6 students to rank five leaders from worst to best. They had Reagan, Clinton, Obama, Trump, Hitler, Zuckerberg, Stalin, etc. in the mix but only 5 at a time.

One guy out of the 5-6 students knew anything about anything. It was hard to watch except for the one informed student. I wonder if these other students vote?
Posted by: JohnQC || 09/27/2019 8:01 Comments || Top||

#5  I wonder if these other students vote?

Probably not. The under-30s have long been notoriously uninterested in that kind of thing.
Posted by: trailing wife || 09/27/2019 10:46 Comments || Top||

#6  Put them in school uniforms (no jewelry, grooming standards) and it will erase much of the class distinctions and clique forming.
Posted by: Grutch Cheting3238 || 09/27/2019 10:56 Comments || Top||

#7  Put them in cubicles or have online school at home. Use the standard approach to creating webinars, grind all the opportunity for personal soap boxing out of the content. Get rid of the barrels of fish that the school shooters like to line up on. Get rid of the teachers unions. Get rid of all the administrators. Get rid of all their pensions. And that's just for starters...
Posted by: M. Murcek || 09/27/2019 11:28 Comments || Top||

#8  Hear, hear MM. I'd just add one thing - a student should study from books/computer programs with, occasional direction from a supervisor. Can't/not interested, go for vocational training via apprenticeship.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 09/27/2019 12:35 Comments || Top||

#9  Then get the parents to fund their children's educations.

Posted by: Bright Pebbles || 09/27/2019 13:49 Comments || Top||

#10  I've always said that School should *not* be free. The parents should be required to pay something - even if it's on a sliding scale - so that they have some actual 'skin in the game'. Yes - even that welfare mother will need to pay $20/month/kid to school. When they do they might ask: "What the hell am I paying for?" which is a legitimate question all parents should ask.

If the parents have to write a $300 / kid check every school year they might pay more attention to what they are paying for.
Posted by: CrazyFool || 09/27/2019 14:39 Comments || Top||

#11  Put them in school uniforms (no jewelry, grooming standards) and it will erase much of the class distinctions and clique forming.

Nothing erases class distinctions and clique formation. It’s just that the distinguishing markers become more subtle.
Posted by: trailing wife || 09/27/2019 17:10 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Politix
What superpower does Trump have?
h/t Instapundit
[NewNeo] You know that game people sometimes play? The one where you choose which superpower you’d want?

Sometimes the choices are limited, such as in this typical group: "Telepathy, teleportation, super-strength, invisibility or the ability to regenerate your cells."

But I’ve never seen a list that includes the one Donald Trump seems to possess, which is the ability to drive your enemies crazy and make them do stupid things.

We first saw this in evidence, at least somewhat, during the 2016 campaign. The Republican challengers were surprisingly flat-footed against him. And since his election we’ve seen it over and over and over with Democrats, the press, and NeverTrumpers.

I think what’s going on is twofold. The first is that Trump is very very different from their usual opponents. He’s unpredictable. He hits below the belt and above the belt. Whatever he does, they don’t see it coming.

But the second is that they really truly are convinced that he is the crazy stupid one. Therefore, if they can just rile him enough, he’ll reveal this unequivocally to the world. Plus, he’s not just crazy and stupid, he’s also corrupt, and so ‐ like the boy in the joke about shoveling manure in the barn because he knows there must be a pony somewhere ‐ they know that if they just dig and dig and dig they will find the pony that will sink Trump. This is not a pose on their part; they believe it.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 09/27/2019 02:17 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [35 views] Top|| File under:

#1  “But I’ve never seen a list that includes the one Donald Trump seems to possess, which is the ability to drive your enemies crazy and make them do stupid things.”

Trump must read and follow Voltaire’s prayer:

I have never made but one prayer to God, a very short one: 'O Lord make my enemies look ridiculous.' And God granted it. Votaire
Posted by: JohnQC || 09/27/2019 7:24 Comments || Top||

#2  Hubris is not a superpower.
Posted by: European Conservative || 09/27/2019 18:14 Comments || Top||

#3  ^ EC - please explain.
Posted by: Raj || 09/27/2019 18:51 Comments || Top||

#4  When you believe that you have superpower, hubris follows. Trump seems to believe that he himself knows best everything, that he really doesn't need advice. In the end, this will sink you.

The WH knew about the whistleblower early. They had time to prepare and I'm sure the WH lawyers did. But it seems that Trump doesn't listen to them.

I bet not a single advisor in the WH thought it was a great idea to put out the phone call. But Trump did it anyway, convinced it was "a beautiful call".

It was not, and the people who stashed it awayx in the top secret computer knew that.

By putting out the phone call AND the whistleblower complaint, Trump immediately made the complaint look "credible". This was totally unnecessary. He could have prevented the publication of the phone call forever citing executive privilege.

I'm from the mountains. I know an avalanche when I see one. Trump is playing in Pelosi's ballpark now.
Posted by: European Conservative || 09/27/2019 19:24 Comments || Top||

#5  I'm not seeing that - Trump does make some unforced errors but I don't see it rising to the level of hubris, which may or may not happen later on. As a CEO for over thirty years, he generally hires people to head particular spheres of a company's operations and I think that as US President Trump has done that for the most part. Any acts of 'hubris' would occur in his second term, as history bears out.
Posted by: Raj || 09/27/2019 20:04 Comments || Top||

#6  EC - I don't recall you commenting on Obama's: "I think that I’m a better speechwriter than my speechwriters. I know more about policies on any particular issue than my policy directors. And I’ll tell you right now that I’m gonna think I’m a better political director than my political director.”?
Posted by: Frank G || 09/27/2019 20:09 Comments || Top||

#7  FrankG

A quick research reveals that this quote is from November 2008. I don't think I have been on Rantburg for that long.
Posted by: European Conservative || 09/27/2019 20:13 Comments || Top||

#8  Disagree strongly with you, EC.

Impeachment is an extraordinarily risky option that should almost never be used. It's been used only twice in 232 years, and threatened (but not actually launched) one additional time.

The only time that Congress should revert to this extraordinary option is when a president's behavior is obviously criminal -- so criminal that a vasty majority of the public, on the order of at least 2 to 1, believe him to be a criminal.

Nixon was threatened with impeachment after a series of guilty please from the Watergate conspirators AND a complete collapse in his approval rating. That collapse happened at the beginning of 1974, when his approval rating fell to about 25% and stayed there until he resigned.

Trump is not guilty of any crime. Yes, he's a buffoon, a jerk, a bad person. But he hasn't done anything impeachable. Not even close.

This is why, unlike Nixon (and like Bill Clinton), Trump retains the approval of nearly half of the public and why half of the public - regardless of their feelings about Trump -- strongly disapproves of the Democrats' use of impeachment against him.

It is obviously a stunt. Less obvious is the Machiavellian maneuvering inside of the Democratic Party's leadership, which is aimed at forcing Joe Biden to withdraw from the presidential race. It's Biden whose behavior is indefensible here.

THAT'S the real story. Warren and Pelosi are forcing Biden out of the race so that he doesn't fall on his face and lose in a landslide to Trump.
Posted by: Lex || 09/27/2019 20:16 Comments || Top||

#9  I agree that impeachment is risky, and Pelosi certainly knows it is.
The difference to "Russiagate" is that people never really understood what this was all about. And what Trump actually did (or didn't).

This is different: Read that phone transcript. Read it carefully. I can't tell you whether a crime was committed. But it certainly smells of abuse of power.

Trust me, this will not end well. It's possible that Biden won't survive this (his numbers have gone south before the story broke).

But Democrats should be able to make a case everyone understands. And the pony that will sink Trump is Giuliani.
Posted by: European Conservative || 09/27/2019 20:35 Comments || Top||

#10  I've read it, and I responded, point by point, to it here on the 'burg when it first came out.

As a "smoking gun," it's a joke.

There's nothing there. Trump is clumsy (though surprisingly gracious), his "I want to ask a favor" is un-presidential, and he gets into minor details that represent a waste of his valuable time.

But there is absolutely nothing whatsoever that is remotely actionable from the perspective of "treason" or "high crimes and misdemeanors."

This is why the public is yawning about the whole affair, and why there is next to zero support for this stunt outside of the jacobins and other inveterate Trump-haters.
Posted by: Lex || 09/27/2019 20:47 Comments || Top||

#11  It's unwise, perhaps even foolish, and certainly unpresidential to use one's personal attorney.

But it's not a "high crime", or even a misdemeanor to do so. Let alone treason.

Unless and until you see Trump's approval drop to 1974 Nixonian levels, this stunt will go nowhere-- aside from, of course, forcing Biden to step aside for Warren.
Posted by: Lex || 09/27/2019 20:50 Comments || Top||

#12  Prof. Charles Lipson of U. Chicago accurately and concisely sums it up as "a purely political fight, not a legal one."

Lipson breaks it down into four issues:

1. Did President Trump abuse the U.S. Constitution so badly that he should be thrown out of office for asking “a favor” from his Ukrainian counterpart?

Lipson's answer: Official business should be insulated from personal or partisan issues. [Neither] Hillary Clinton [nor] Joe Biden [nor] Donald Trump should combine them... [However,] is the request to Ukraine enough, by itself, to overturn an election when the voters themselves can decide soon enough whether Trump should continue in office? In my opinion, no."

2. Lispon observes that "the Biden family has long monetized the former vice president’s position. That swamp gas [Lipson's metaphor for the impeachment process launched by Pelosi] will sink his candidacy, probably before the nomination..."

3. "Unless the House committees uncover significantly more evidence against Trump, trying to impeach him over the Ukraine phone call will harm the Democrats. ...Democrats are attacking Trump for “abuse of office.” This claim is political, not legal. Although the House can define high crimes and misdemeanors broadly, the Democrats’ case would be far stronger if they can show specific laws were broken. So far, they cannot do that. That leaves them with a political dispute where they have strong support from their base but not from the wider public. ..."

4. It's an extraordinarily risky, maneuver with an extremely low probability of success. "The House Democrats are wagering everything on this. Unless they come up with a lot more, they are betting the ranch on a pair of deuces."

Posted by: Lex || 09/27/2019 21:01 Comments || Top||

#13  Treason, no. Not the definition of treason.
Abuse of power? Different story. And I don't see the public "yawning" over it.
Posted by: European Conservative || 09/27/2019 21:03 Comments || Top||

#14  Even the liberal Trump=haters on National Public Radio went out of their way - every single one of their "analysts" - to highlight that a) the country is exactly divided, 50/50, on impeachment.

Which is to say that this nonsense has not changed Trump's approval rating in the slightest.

Even liberal Trump-haters recognize this will go nowhere.

This is simply politics as theater-- a very risky strategy when used against the Cagliostro of political Cagliostros.

If you'd like to make a wager, I'll put up any sum you wish that he will not be impeached.
Posted by: Lex || 09/27/2019 21:07 Comments || Top||

#15  EC is (my guessing) still butthurt over our Brexit sentiments. The MSM/DNC/NeverTrump is throwing one last prayer dart which will (again) boomerang.
Posted by: Frank G || 09/27/2019 21:16 Comments || Top||

#16  Oh he will definitely be impeached by Democrats in the House.
Removed from office by the Senate is a much different story.

But if Democrats succeed in making a compelling case against Trump and the Senate acquits him, this will hurt the Republicans a lot and turn the Senate blue.

The phone transcript won't be enough, I guess. But impeachment hearings are dangerous. Of course it's possible that Democrats blow it (Nadler doesn't seem to be up to the job).

We'll see.
Posted by: European Conservative || 09/27/2019 21:17 Comments || Top||

#17  FrankG
Not at all. Nothing is more boring than debating in an echo chamber. We may not agree on Brexit or Trump but we'll find a lot of other things we'd agree upon.
Posted by: European Conservative || 09/27/2019 21:20 Comments || Top||

#18  I meant to say, that Trump will not be subject to a trial by the Senate, without which, impeachment is simply a political stunt that will merely remind everyone in this country who still has a functioning, independent brain why our political class is beyond repair and needs to be replaced with a new group of people from very different backgrounds, far from the coasts.
Posted by: Lex || 09/27/2019 21:38 Comments || Top||

#19  "I meant to say, that Trump will not be subject to a trial by the Senate"

I certainly won't bet against this. This will only happen if public pressure becomes unbearable. Too early to tell. The problem with impeachment hearings is that government officials will need to be very careful. "Obstruction of Justice" is a very American thing.
Posted by: European Conservative || 09/27/2019 21:48 Comments || Top||

#20  EC, never happen.
Posted by: Dale || 09/27/2019 23:05 Comments || Top||

#21  Senate conviction, probably no. Impeachment hearings could be nasty, though.
Posted by: European Conservative || 09/27/2019 23:10 Comments || Top||


-Land of the Free
New Census finds 22.1million non-citizens and almost 45MILLION foreign-born residents living in the U.S. - the highest number in more than a century
[DailyMail]
  • The U.S. Census Bureau released estimates from its annual American Community Survey on Thursday

  • Researchers found a record 13.7 percent of the 2018 U.S. population - about 44.7 million people - were born in another country

  • That’s the most foreign-born American residents counted in one year since 1910

  • About 22 million of those foreign born residents were 'not a U.S. citizen'

  • The census figures have emerged during a highly-charged debate over whether America's decennial Census survey should include a citizenship question
Posted by: Skidmark || 09/27/2019 01:47 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [17 views] Top|| File under:

#1  And that's why Democrats like the idea of popular vote so much?
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 09/27/2019 5:54 Comments || Top||

#2  ...more than they could normally get away with by simply stuffing the ballot box with 'harvested' and manufactured votes.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 09/27/2019 6:32 Comments || Top||

#3  Makes one wonder how many elections are legitimately won by the Dems. The Dems agenda only offers riots in the streets, anger, lies, no jobs, poverty, division, corruption, higher taxes, and the destruction of American.
Posted by: JohnQC || 09/27/2019 7:32 Comments || Top||

#4  And that's why Democrats like the idea of popular vote so much?

Also why they become mouth foaming at the suggestion of govt-issued ID screening for voters.
Posted by: Skidmark || 09/27/2019 9:48 Comments || Top||


#6  About 22 million of those foreign born residents were 'not a U.S. citizen'

More support for the Yale-MIT sociologists' conclusion that the real number of illegals in this country is probably >20 million.

Shitshow, Part 103.
Posted by: Lex || 09/27/2019 10:57 Comments || Top||

#7  ^ Yep
Posted by: Frank G || 09/27/2019 10:58 Comments || Top||

#8  About 22 million of those foreign born residents were 'not a U.S. citizen'

Add in another 20+ million illegal aliens.
Posted by: Grutch Cheting3238 || 09/27/2019 11:00 Comments || Top||

#9  I would like to see a rundown of how much which countries contribute to these numbers. The idea of a foreigner was not a big deal to me growing up, as my mom and aunt were Canadian (not even naturalized until I was in middle school), but I know that most of the immigrants nowadays come from third world hellholes rather than places that are relatively similar and English speaking.

Similarly, if there was evidence that these people were blending in and adopting American culture, I wouldn't care so much. As it is, it is a very big deal to me because they are trying to morph this country into the same hellish little nightmare that they came from (especially those from the Middle East and Latin America).
Posted by: Vernal Hatrick || 09/27/2019 11:53 Comments || Top||

#10  Glad you're counting Lex.
I can't keep up.

New York City bans calling someone an ‘illegal alien’ out of hate
Posted by: Skidmark || 09/27/2019 12:03 Comments || Top||

#11  Here you go, VH: American Community Survey
Posted by: Skidmark || 09/27/2019 12:06 Comments || Top||

#12  The model has flipped: it used to be heavily weighted toward Europe, including an usually high percentage of Irish immigrants plus Russian and Soviet Jewish refuseniki, but now us heavily weighted toward Mexico and Central America.

Mexico provides close to a third of the total and slightly over half of the illegals.

Central American countries provide another 10+ percent of the total and another quarter of the illegals.

The remaining legal immigrants are weighted toward the Caribbean and Asia, who together make up maybe a quarter of the total legal immigrant population.

The remaining quarter of legal immigrants come from Rest of World i.e. small percentages from 50+ nations across South America, Africa, Middle East and Europe.
Posted by: Bertie Sinatra4413 || 09/27/2019 12:09 Comments || Top||

#13  Slow motion cultural suicide is well underway.
Posted by: NoMoreBS || 09/27/2019 13:05 Comments || Top||

#14  and economic suicide.

Any economy that imports workers on less than average wage is harming it's productivity.
Posted by: Bright Pebbles || 09/27/2019 13:56 Comments || Top||

#15  Productivity? Who cares about that?

The Business Roundtable/Koch Bros. GOP greedheads get higher profit margins.

The Identity Politics Left gets to preen and bask in virtue signaling.

The US Catholic Church gets to replenish its pews and parishes with a docile new set of millions of parishioners.

The Dems get a lock on the votes of the fastest-growing and in many huge states such as CA, soon to be majority demographic.

Win-Win-Win-Win.

Never mind that native-born Americans of all ethnicities lose. F 'em, right?
Posted by: Lex || 09/27/2019 14:00 Comments || Top||

#16  There are, certain, similarities between the current situation and the peculiar institution - n'est-ce pas?
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 09/27/2019 14:12 Comments || Top||

#17  Thank you very much Skidmark, that's very interesting!
Posted by: Vernal Hatrick || 09/27/2019 14:59 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Culture Wars
And now it's time for Children's Hour
h/t Instapundit
[WattsUpWithThat] Hello, children! Are you all sitting comfortably? Then I’ll begin.

Greta, dear, do wipe that nasty, frowning sneer off your face. If the wind blows on it, you’ll look like that for the rest of your life, and that wouldn’t be very nice, now, would it?

Once upon a time, some very naughty grown-ups made up a wicked story to frighten all you little ones with. They said it was going to get hotter and hotter and hotter. It was going to be ever so hot. Really, really hot. Yes, Alexandria, hotter even than Brad Pitt, if that’s possible.

But, you see, children, you can’t always believe what grown-ups say. Part of growing up is learning to work out when you are being told the truth and when you are not.
And if the grown up happens to be your brain-washed, talentless, fish-monger duly accredited school teacher ...
So today, children, I’m going to have to tell you that quite a lot of what dear old Ms Snorkel, your science teacher, has been telling you about global warming turns out not to be true. Not true at all. Dear me, no.

You see, Miss Snorkel thinks that just because someone says something dreadful is going to happen, then it’s going to happen. Just like that.

But just because someone says they think something bad is going to happen, that doesn’t mean it’s going to happen. It might not happen. So you mustn’t just believe it’s going to happen. You must check what you are told. Don’t just believe it.

Miss Snorkel has told you the experts say the weather is going to get a whole lot warmer. So I’ve drawn a nice picture for you, so that you can see whether they’re right.

...Deary me, it really doesn’t look as though the experts Mrs Snorkel trusts were right about how much warmer the weather was going to be. My oh my, they seem to have overshot quite a bit, don’t they?

...By now, kiddiwinks, you’ll be wondering why all those experts got it so wrong. Well, here’s the thing. They made some big mistakes. Yes, Greta, I’m saying they screwed up, but we don’t use language like that in class.

There’s that face again, Greta. Just relax. Yes, of course, I’ll tell you what they got wrong.

You see, they forgot the Sun was shining. But if you look out of the window you can see for yourself that it is. Yes, I know it seems strange that they forgot the Sun was shining, but that’s exactly what they did. Silly of them, wasn’t it?

Yes, Greta, there are "feedback loops". But that doesn’t mean the feedback loops will make the climate run away to a "tipping point". What it does mean is that the feedbacks don’t just respond to warmer weather caused by the fact that there are greenhouse gases in the air. They have to respond to the fact that the Sun is shining. Not much choice about it.

But the experts more or less completely forgot about the feedback response to the sunshine. They made the mistake of counting it as part of the feedback response to greenhouse gases. And that made them think there would be a whole lot more warming from greenhouse gases than anyone sensible would ever expect.

How do I know? Well, here’s another picture. What it shows is that if there were 4 K global warming, which the experts now predict, the feedbacks would have to make 350 times as much more warming for each degree of greenhouse-gas warming than they did for each degree of the emission temperature that would keep the Earth warm even if there were no greenhouse gases and no feedback loops. And they can’t do that. It’s impossible.

...But the trouble with the official figure of about 255 K is that the experts calculate it by imagining that the Earth is flat. Then they divide the sunshine by a kludge-factor of 4 in a clumsy attempt to adjust their sums for the fact that the Earth is round. Not very clever, are they, acting as though the Earth was flat?

But that’s not the only mistake they make when they try to calculate emission temperature. They calculate it by imagining there would be clouds in the air, just as there are today, reflecting almost a third of that lovely sunshine harmlessly straight back into space.

But clouds are made of water vapour, and water vapour is a greenhouse gas, and it is only in the air because of feedbacks. But at emission temperature there would be no water vapour in the air and no feedbacks. Oops! Aren’t the experts silly, children?

No, Greta, I’m not an expert. But Professor Richard Lindzen is. He’s the very expertest of all the experts. And here’s what he says about it:

    "In considering an atmosphere without greenhouse substances (in order to get 255 K), clouds are retained for their visible reflectivity while ignored for their infrared properties. More logically, one might assume that the elimination of water would also lead to the absence of clouds, leading to a temperature of about 274 K rather than 255 K."

...Well, that’s all we have time for today, children. But don’t worry, Greta: your future will be a rosy one. The world will be a little warmer, but that’s a very good thing, not a very bad thing. Now, stop worrying about the weather, go out and play, and enjoy the sunshine!
The most important thing, IMO, to remember about "Science" is that our schools are conditioning centers for conformism and intellectual dishonesty - unavoidable really once you decided that the differences among students are environmental and not inborn. That's why no week goes by without some brilliant young "scientist" (straight A's since kindergarten) being caught faking results - and that just for experimentalists. They get away with it in computer simulations because nobody checks.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 09/27/2019 01:23 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [25 views] Top|| File under:

#1  They said it was going to get hotter and hotter and hotter. It was going to be ever so hot. Really, really hot.
Sounds like the old descriptions of Hell...
Posted by: Glenmore || 09/27/2019 3:41 Comments || Top||

#2  ^Do you think it's accidental?
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 09/27/2019 5:44 Comments || Top||

#3  Lord of the Flies 2.0?
Posted by: JohnQC || 09/27/2019 7:00 Comments || Top||

#4  Or variation thereon? Probably just me...

Two parents vacationed afar
In a place that you can't reach by car,
But when they got back...
What a mess! Said the pack,
"Yeah, we just had a nuclear war."
Posted by: Bob Smiter of the Swedes5172 || 09/27/2019 7:38 Comments || Top||


#6  One day Greta may actually learn the truth about the load of crap that her parents and other trusted authority figures have been feeding her. She will then have to determine if they were mere fools or if they had some malicious purpose. Her sense of dismay and betrayal will be devastating but at least she can take some comfort in the fact that the sky is not falling.
Posted by: Abu Uluque || 09/27/2019 12:27 Comments || Top||

#7  One day Greta may actually learn the truth...
Typically this type of personality will just believe that "If my side is Bad then the Other Side must, MUST be Evil Incarnate™!!" So she can go about her business afterwards secure in her Moral Superiority™.
Posted by: magpie || 09/27/2019 14:43 Comments || Top||

#8  Or tally+1 another disenchanted corpse.
Posted by: Skidmark || 09/27/2019 16:54 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
Doval’s message to forces: Clean up the terrorists, avoid collateral damage at any cost
Most of the standard politician line about cherishing the locals and protecting them from so much as a stubbed toe deleted. Apparently the big Pakistani infiltration has yet to occur, while Dron66046 and his comrades in arms continue to prowl along the Indian side of the border
[OneIndia] National Security Advisor, Ajit Doval who took stock of the situation in Jammu and Kashmir
...a disputed territory lying between India and Pakistain. After partition, the Paks grabbed half of it and call it Azad (Free) Kashmir. The remainder they refer to as "Indian Occupied Kashmir". They have fought four wars with India over it, the score currently 4-0 in New Delhi's favor. After 72 years of this nonsense, India cut the Gordian knot in 2019, removing the area's special status, breaking off Ladakh as a separate state, and allowing people from other areas to settle (or in the case of the Pandits, to resettle) there....
has advised security forces to be on high alert and also step up operations against terrorists.

The source also said that during the meeting, Doval made it clear that the guard should be upped and operations against bandidos snuffies intensified. He however said that this should not come at the cost of civilian lives and there shall be no collateral damage.
"no collateral damage" is a wish, not a realistic ROE when Pak Jihadis hide with human shields
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: trailing wife || 09/27/2019 00:55 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [35 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistain Proxies


From terror, mingling with migrants to fake currency: How JMB made South India its playground
[OneIndia] The arrest of Jahidul Islam alias Kausar has given the National Investigation to several clues as to how the Jamat-ul-Mujahideen had been operating in South India.

Islam is an accused both in the Burdwan and Bodhgaya blasts and he was arrested after nearly a five year chase. He along with his accomplice, Habibur Rehman were hiding in Karnataka at the time of their arrest.

Prior to this they have moved around several places in South India, which included Tamil Nadu, where they even tested rocket shells. Interestingly these were not the only arrests that were made in connection with the same module and case.

It may be recalled that in January 19, 2018, two more persons Abdul Karim and Mustafizur Rehman were arrested from the labour camp of Bengali speaking persons in Mallapuram in Kerala. Both were also of Bengal origin and were wanted in connection with the Bodhgaya case.

Intelligence Bureau officials tell OneIndia that this is not for the first time that turbans have come down South to hide. There have been several such instances reported in Kerala and Hyderabad as well. They tend to mix with the migrant population including the Rohingyas and continue to stay on in states such as Telangana, Kerala and Karnataka.

In Mallapuram, the members of the JMB were staying at a camp for a long time which was set up for Bengali speaking people. Even in Karnataka, their activities go unchecked as they tend to mingle with those who have migrated in search of work. There is also a concern with regard to the Rohingyas who have moved to various parts of the country in large numbers, including Karnataka. These turbans often use such persons as a shield and use such states as a safe haven.

The Bengal-Bengaluru connection is not restricted to terror alone. There has been a dedicated route between these two states which has been busted by the NIA which probing a case relating to fake currency.

The NIA's Hyderabad wing had in March 2018 arrested Saddam Hussain, a resident of Bengaluru who was found in possession of fake currency to the tune of Rs 26,000.

The NIA team also recovered two demonetised currency notes of the value Rs 1,000. The accused was allegedly circulating fake currency in various parts of his country after obtaining it from his contacts in Mada, West Bengal.

During investigation it was revealed that accused Saddam had travelled to Malda from Bangaluru on the instructions of Amirul Hoque and collected High Quality FICN from Roustam on four occasions.
Posted by: trailing wife || 09/27/2019 00:55 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [33 views] Top|| File under: Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (IS)


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
U.S. sanctions firm it says provides jet fuel to Russia in Syria
Suddenly the Trump administration seems to be sanctioning everyone on a very long list. What changed?
[Ynet] The United States on Thursday imposed sanctions on a firm it said was participating in a scheme to avoid U.S. sanctions while helping provide jet fuel to Russian forces in Syria.

The U.S. Treasury Department said the newly sanctioned firm, Maritime Assistance LLC, was operating as a front company for OJSC Sovfracht, a company the United States had previously sanctioned in relation to operations in Ukraine.
Posted by: trailing wife || 09/27/2019 00:15 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [22 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Suddenly the Trump administration seems to be sanctioning everyone on a very long list. What changed?

Plans announced at G8,
Trump message to the UN,
Dron66's presentation of India's strategy,
Macron getting hard,
Today's twit Emily Feng,
Failed Taliban peace talks,
Iran getting more testy,
(More) arms to SA.

I think the containment strategy is surfacing around the world.
Posted by: Skidmark || 09/27/2019 1:23 Comments || Top||

#2  Its about time!
In September 2016, OFAC designated Sovfracht for violating sanctions against Crimea and prohibited the company from transacting in US dollars.... without first receiving a license from OFAC. Following these new restrictions, the defendants started using Maritime Assistance LLC as a front company for Sovfracht to continue conducting US dollar transactions. Maritime and Sovfracht employees acted interchangeably, according to the indictment, and Maritime assumed debts and contracts previously owned by Sovfracht.
Maritime allegedly continued to operate with US dollars for the delivery of jet fuel to Syria, violating both the Crimean and Syrian sanctions.
Posted by: Chereting Pelosi1889 || 09/27/2019 9:09 Comments || Top||

#3  That does explain things very usefully, Chereting Pelosi1889. Thank you. I wonder what their next name will be...
Posted by: trailing wife || 09/27/2019 10:48 Comments || Top||


Africa North
Arrests widen in Egypt as anti-Sisi protests called for Friday
[Jpost] At least 1,900 people have been detained since protests against President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi began in Cairo and other Egyptian cities last Friday, the head of a rights monitoring group said on Thursday.
Nine hundred more since yesterday's report. The authorities are taking this seriously — or at least not wasting an opportunity.
The public prosecutor’s office said in a statement issued late on Thursday that prosecutors "questioned a number that doesn't exceed one thousand suspects who participated in the demonstrations."

Gamal Eid, head of the Arab Network for Human Rights Information, said the arrests had been made between Friday and Wednesday and described them as part of the "most violent campaign in Egypt's (modern) history."

An interior ministry spokesman could not immediately be reached for comment.

Protesters chanting "Leave, Sisi" gathered in Cairo and other cities last Friday following online calls for demonstrations against alleged government corruption. The protests continued in the Red Sea city of Suez on Saturday.
Posted by: trailing wife || 09/27/2019 00:07 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [21 views] Top|| File under: Muslim Brotherhood

#1  So, is this authentic or MB shit-stirring?
Posted by: Frank G || 09/27/2019 8:17 Comments || Top||


Government
Trump cuts number of refugees to be resettled in U.S. to lowest level
[Jpost] The Trump administration said on Thursday in a statement it would dramatically cut the number of refugees to be resettled in the United States in the 2020 fiscal year to 18,000, the lowest level in the history of the modern refugee program.
So many wars have ended, and clearly so-called economic refugees will no longer be considered.
Posted by: trailing wife || 09/27/2019 00:07 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [21 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Hey, we have our own Free Stuff Brigade to consider.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 09/27/2019 6:36 Comments || Top||

#2  "Democrats hardest hit"
Posted by: Frank G || 09/27/2019 8:46 Comments || Top||


Afghanistan
U.S. airstrikes destroy 2 Taliban compounds in Ghazni, killing at least 27 militants
[KhaamaPress] The U.S. forces conducted Arclight airstrike
...KABOOM!...
s in South-eastern Ghazni province which destroyed two Taliban
...Arabic for students...
compounds and killed at least 27 bully boys.

The 203rd Thunder Corps said in a statement the U.S. forces conducted the airstrikes in Deh Yak, Andar and Qarabagh districts and Asfandi area located in the outskirts of Ghazni city.

The statement further added the airstrikes killed 27 Talibs and maimed another bully boy.

The airstrikes also destroyed 10 cycle of violences, a vehicle, the 203rd Thunder Corps added in its statement.

The Taliban group has not commented regarding the airstrikes so far.
Posted by: trailing wife || 09/27/2019 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [29 views] Top|| File under: Taliban


Afghan forces arrest would-be Talib suicide bomber in Taloqan city
[KhaamaPress] The Afghan forces arrested a would-be jacket wallah during an operation in Taloqan city of Takhar province in the North-east.

The National Directorate of Security
...the Afghan national intel agency...
(NDS) said in a statement the NDS Special Forces arrested Rahmatullah alias Omar, son of Hamidullah in Taloqan city of Takhar.

The statement further added that the Taliban
...the Pashtun equivalent of men...
group had recruited Rahmatullah to its ranks a month ago.

Furthermore, the National Directorate of Security said Omar, a Taliban commander in charge of a group of 100 Lions of Islam in Dasht-e Archi district of Kunduz trained Rahmatullah on how to conduct suicide kaboom.

The National Directorate of Security also added that Rahmatullah was looking to attack the elections site in Taloqan city.

The Taliban group has not commented in this regard so far.
Posted by: trailing wife || 09/27/2019 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [21 views] Top|| File under: Taliban


Afghan forces kill 17 Taliban militants in Kandahar, Zabul and Uruzgan
[KhaamaPress] The Afghan forces killed at least 17 Talibs during the operation in Kandahar, Zabul and Uruzgan provinces.

The 205th Atal Corps said in a statement the Afghan Air Force conducted an Arclight airstrike
...KABOOM!...
in Maiwand district of Kandahar, killing at least 12 Talibs.

The statement further added that the Afghan forces killed 3 Talibs and destroyed 4 cycle of violences during an operation in Shah Joy district of Zabul.

Furthermore, an airstrike killed 2 Talibs including their commander Mullah Nasim in Khanqa area of Tarinkot city in Uruzgan.

The 205th Atal Corps also added that the civilians did not suffer casualties during the operations.
Posted by: trailing wife || 09/27/2019 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [23 views] Top|| File under: Taliban


India-Pakistan
For global terrorist Hafiz Saeed’s ‘living expenses’, Pak goes to UNSC with a request
[HindustanTimes] Saeed, chief of UN-designated terrorist organization Jammat--ud-Dawa was banned in December 2008 by the United Nations
...boodling on the grand scale...
Security Council after the 26/11 Mumbai attacks in which 166 people were killed.


Pakistain has approached the UN security council committee with a request to let Lashkar-e-Taiba
...the Army of the Pure, an Ahl-e-Hadith terror organization founded by Hafiz Saeed. LeT masquerades behind the Jamaat-ud-Dawa facade within Pakistain and periodically blows things up and kills people in India. Despite the fact that it is banned, always an interesting concept in Pakistain, the organization remains an blatant tool and perhaps an arm of the ISI...
emir Hafiz Saeed
...founder of Lashkar-e-Taiba and its false-mustache offshoot Jamaat-ud-Dawa. The United Nations declared the JuD a terrorist organization in 2008 and Hafiz Saeed a terrorist as its leader. Hafiz, JuD and LeT are wholly-owned subsidiaries of the Pak intel apparatus, so that amounted to squat. He is periodically placed under house arrest so it looks like the govt is doing something. Once the heat is off they let him go....
to withdraw money for what Islamabad described as "necessary basic living expenses".

Saeed, chief of UN-designated terrorist organization Jammat--ud-Dawa was banned in December 2008 by the United Nations Security Council after the 26/11 Mumbai attacks in which 166 people were killed. Four years later, the United States had announced a US $ 10 million bounty for his arrest.Hafiz Saeed had tried to get off the UN list earlier this year but the attempt was firmly blocked.

In a request to the UNSC panel overseeing enforcement of sanctions against snuffies such as the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks plotter, Pakistain said one of the bank accounts frozen on UNSC’s orders was one where his pension - Saeed was once a college professor before he made terror his full-time business - was deposited by the Pakistain government.

Also read: ’We spent millions on JuD,’ Pak minister admits funding banned terror organization

"His bank account was blocked by the Government of Pakistain under compliance with UNSC resolution 1267, requesting an asset freeze exemption to access frozen funds in the amount of Rs 1.5 lakh (USD 1000) to cover the necessary basic living expenses for himself and his family," the Pakistain request to the UNSC panel said.

Indian officials say Pakistain’s hard push to let the global terrorist access a mere Rs 1.5 lakh from his bank accounts is important for three reasons.

Firstly, it highlights the nexus between Islamabad and jihadists in the country who are backed by the official machinery. Second, it confirms India’s understanding and information about Hafiz Saeed’s clout in the Pak security establishment. And thirdly, people familiar with the development say, it is a "hugely symbolic move" that is seen to support Hafiz Saeed’s claims that he was not the terrorist criminal mastermind that Indian agencies accuse him of but just another ’retired college professor’.
Posted by: trailing wife || 09/27/2019 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [33 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistain Proxies

#1  "F*ck off"
Posted by: Frank G || 09/27/2019 9:13 Comments || Top||

#2  UNSC, is that the University North of Southern California?
Posted by: Skidmark || 09/27/2019 16:28 Comments || Top||

#3  ^ Oh boy, I bet they wish! Tempted to suggest "Uppity No-count Shoe Chuckers," but that might actually be racist... better not.
Posted by: Bob Smiter of the Swedes5721 || 09/27/2019 22:16 Comments || Top||

#4  Looks like his Paki overlords haven't canceled his ration card.
Posted by: Grutch Cheting3238 || 09/27/2019 22:26 Comments || Top||


Afghanistan
Afghanistan bolsters security as Taliban threatens presidential poll
[AlAhram] Afghanistan deployed more than 100,000 troops and police on Thursday to guard polling stations in a presidential election which the Taliban
...the Pashtun equivalent of men...
has threatened to disrupt with suicide kabooms and rocket attacks.

Every election in the last decade has been marred by violence in Afghanistan, where Taliban Islamic Lions of Islam are fighting U.S.-backed government forces and demand the withdrawal of foreign troops from the country.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: trailing wife || 09/27/2019 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [30 views] Top|| File under: Taliban


Israel-Palestine-Jordan
Abbas says he’ll call general elections when he returns from UN
Probably just talk, but wouldn’t it be fun if he did!
[IsraelTimes] PA President the ineffectual Mahmoud Abbas
...aka Abu Mazen, a graduate of the prestigious unaccredited Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow with a doctorate in Holocaust Denial. While no Yasser Arafat, he has his own brand of evil, just a little more lowercase....
promises to call general elections in areas that the Paleostinians envision as part of a future state when he returns to Ramallah from the UN General Assembly.
so, he's not coming home?
"From the outset, we have believed in democracy as a foundation for the building of our State and society. We have enshrined this in our constitution and exercised this on the ground. We conducted general elections in 1996, 2005 and 2006, in addition to regular local elections," he says.

Abbas blames the Hamas, a regional Iranian catspaw, terror group’s takeover of the Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with an iron fist by Hamaswith about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response...
Strip in 2007 for the failure of elections to be held since then.

"I call on the UN and the relevant international organizations to monitor these elections, and I will attribute full responsibility to those who may attempt to prevent it from happening on the date determined," he says.

He doesn’t address how the West Bank based-PA will administer the elections in Gaza and East Jerusalem, which are respectively under Hamas and Israeli control.

Abbas, who is in the 14th year of a five-year president term, also doesn’t say whether the elections will be for president, the PA legislature, or both.
Posted by: trailing wife || 09/27/2019 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [24 views] Top|| File under: PLO

#1  "From the outset, we have believed in democracy as a foundation for the building of our State and society.

Funny, I always thought it was based on hating the Juice.
Posted by: SteveS || 09/27/2019 0:08 Comments || Top||

#2  About the time John Kerry finally releases his military records.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 09/27/2019 6:36 Comments || Top||


China-Japan-Koreas
Beijing demands US drop sanctions on Chinese firms for oil transports
When you catch flak, you’re over the target...
[IsraelTimes] China has demanded that Washington drop sanctions imposed on Chinese companies and executives for transporting Iranian oil.

The foreign ministry criticizes the use of US laws against Chinese companies and calls on the Trump administration to "immediately correct the wrong approach."
Easy answer: "Don't use US Dollars"
A ministry front man, Geng Shuang, says China’s dealings with Iran
...a theocratic Shiite state divided among the Medes, the Persians, and the (Arab) Elamites. Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979. The nation is today noted for spontaneously taking over other countries' embassies, maintaining whorehouses run by clergymen, involvement in international drug trafficking, and financing sock puppet militias to extend the regime's influence. The word Iran is a cognate form of Aryan, the abbreviation IRGC is a cognate form of Stürmabteilung (or SA), the term Supreme Guide is a cognate form of either Shah or Führer or maybe both, and they hate Jews Zionists Jews. Their economy is based on the production of oil and vitriol...
are in line with international law "and must be respected."

The penalties announced yesterday by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo apply to six Chinese companies and their chief executives. They include units of major Chinese state-owned companies.

Geng says Washington "disregards the legitimate rights and interests of all parties and wields the stick of sanctions at will. It tramples on the basic norms governing international relations."
Posted by: trailing wife || 09/27/2019 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [26 views] Top|| File under: Commies

#1  Keep demanding. Eat less pork and soy.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 09/27/2019 1:04 Comments || Top||

#2  Guess they're working.
Posted by: Skidmark || 09/27/2019 1:39 Comments || Top||

#3  This goes too show how long the US has pandered too every one in the world pretty much. No one ever seems too ask for anything they always demand it.
Posted by: chris || 09/27/2019 10:52 Comments || Top||

#4  he US has pandered too every one

I think pandering goes the other way.

Or maybe not.
US Citizens are pandered by their representative government.
The US Government is pimped by foreign governments for the benefit of their clients(?)
Posted by: Skidmark || 09/27/2019 16:36 Comments || Top||


-Signs, Portents, and the Weather-
Casper Regional Landfill begins burying turbine blades
[WyomingNewsNow] One wind farm in Glenrock and two from the Saratoga area have partnered with the Casper Regional Landfill to dispose of their old wind turbine blades.

More than 900 blades will be brought to the landfill beginning now until the end of next spring.

The Casper Solid Waste Manager, Cynthia Langston, said that though most turbine blades can be reused, there are some that are simply un-recyclable.

"Ninety percent of the turbines are completely reclaimed, recycled, and reused, but there is ten percent that is fiberglass, so those are coming to us from three different farms in the state."

Langston said that though the motor houses can be crushed, the blades are too strong.

To save space, they cut each blade into three separate parts before transporting them, then stack them on each other to be buried.

Expect to see more blades come to the landfill at least until the end of next spring as more turbines are replaced or decommissioned.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 09/27/2019 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [13 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Green energy is not just an economic disaster?
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 09/27/2019 1:06 Comments || Top||

#2  Buried!?
Those huge things would make GREAT fence panels, salmon ladders, highway dividers, breakwaters or flood water levees.

Wind Turbine Blades: A Toxic Legacy For Centuries to Come – So Much for Saving the Planet

The Future of Wind Turbines? No Blades
Posted by: Skidmark || 09/27/2019 1:35 Comments || Top||

#3  Sent this in yesterday, then g(r)om posted it in one of the comments. Give him the cred for the information being first on the Rant.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 09/27/2019 6:27 Comments || Top||

#4  😊
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 09/27/2019 6:37 Comments || Top||

#5  "Green" energy is nothing but a scam.
Posted by: DarthVader || 09/27/2019 8:39 Comments || Top||

#6  ...and in many places, a freakin' eyesore.
Posted by: Raj || 09/27/2019 8:56 Comments || Top||

#7  During the German Reunification there was a story that the old E German Trabant's had a "duroplast body" made of recycled "Mystery Stuff". Un-recyclable mystery stuff. They ended up compressing it into structural building blocks and using that to build walls lining the Autobahns.
Posted by: magpie || 09/27/2019 10:24 Comments || Top||

#8  they haven't figured out a way too bring graft into reusing it yet magpie.
Posted by: chris || 09/27/2019 10:53 Comments || Top||

#9  Grind and cast in polymer for body armor exports.
Should be plenty of graft in that.
Posted by: Skidmark || 09/27/2019 12:11 Comments || Top||

#10  If you're a bird that gets cut in half by one of those blades, it's more than a scam or an eyesore.
Posted by: Abu Uluque || 09/27/2019 12:35 Comments || Top||

#11  AU, Could one affix a lure for the Common Grackle?
Posted by: Skidmark || 09/27/2019 16:41 Comments || Top||

#12  Now, now, Skidmark. They may be unpleasant little peckers but they have a place in nature.
Posted by: Abu Uluque || 09/27/2019 17:19 Comments || Top||


China-Japan-Koreas
As it expands... As you sow so shall you reap.
[Twitter]
Posted by: 3dc || 09/27/2019 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [27 views] Top|| File under: Commies

#1  Islamic schools in Yunnan, Henan and Ningxia outright closed.

Less buggery?
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 09/27/2019 0:56 Comments || Top||

#2  China's Hui Muslims

I've gotta see this article in Russian.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 09/27/2019 0:58 Comments || Top||


#4  You misunderstand Skid, I gotta see it published in Russian newspaper to see how they deal with the "Hui" issue.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 09/27/2019 1:16 Comments || Top||

#5  12 Russian Swear Words You Need to Know
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 09/27/2019 1:18 Comments || Top||

#6  Sorry.
Posted by: Skidmark || 09/27/2019 1:20 Comments || Top||

#7  A very multifunctional word that is usually used in various phrases and has a variety of derivatives.

We have that too, like **** and ****. Used as a noun, verb, adjective, adverb, expletive among others in various forms. Not to be confused with the Left's use of the words Nazi and fascist which simply means anything they don't like.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 09/27/2019 6:42 Comments || Top||

#8  In some messy situations I have heard complete sentences composed of only that one word
Posted by: Sock Puppet of Doom || 09/27/2019 9:49 Comments || Top||

#9  Bozhe moi. The extent of my Russian. I can sometimes recognize it in Cyrillic but depends on the font.
Posted by: Whiskey Mike || 09/27/2019 10:37 Comments || Top||

#10  Grom's referring no doubt to the famous Chinese philosopher, Sui Hui [v]Chai
Posted by: Lex || 09/27/2019 14:03 Comments || Top||

#11  And to Japanese singer Yasuka Baba
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 09/27/2019 14:13 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Culture Wars
Here is a Charles Bukowski poem relevant to all today's stupidity
giving thanks

I have to admire
that most abused of the human
species:
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Herb McCoy || 09/27/2019 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [25 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Shouldn't poems rhyme?
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 09/27/2019 1:08 Comments || Top||

#2  ^ Not an absolute requirement anymore. Or so I've heard. Anyway, it's all about lines now!
Posted by: Bob Smiter of the Swedes5172 || 09/27/2019 2:26 Comments || Top||

#3  I shall attempt to bend with the times.

Ein Kapitan
opened
a diner:
"Amerikan Kochen,
kein finer!"
The crew
had
great legs
From
delivering
eggs
And Frankfurters
the length of
his liner.
Also
Hamburgers.
Posted by: Bob Smiter of the Swedes5172 || 09/27/2019 2:34 Comments || Top||

#4  An odd business model, perhaps, but in its prime streetside location at teh bottom of the Common, convenient to both Beacon Hill and Back Bay, and tolerably handy for Harvard men, the place thrived until April 1917, when the structure was hauled back across the peninsula by gangs of navvies and relaunched as USS [Achtung! Herb, please notice difference!] America.

Seriously though, I swear I've never heard that poem (or much CB at all), but when I saw it -- closed up, mind you -- I thought, "That's not teh usual grom...," and then, "Dammit, Herb, I want to hate you, but I just can't!" And then it turned out to be your post, which ends the way it ends. Wooo-wooo stuff there innit? Thanks.
Posted by: Bob Smiter of the Swedes5172 || 09/27/2019 2:46 Comments || Top||

#5  BS. You slander this white man, I will make sure your fake news sh!t for brains learns never to pull that stunt again, "playground" style.
Posted by: Varmint Splat1454 || 09/27/2019 4:27 Comments || Top||

#6  Gosh, it's almost like I'm a red-blooded patriotic American who loves his country. Whoda thunk it? And gosh, maybe starting wars with other countries is a bad idea. Iraq was a total disaster and Iran or Venezuela or whoever the neocons want to target next will be no better.

American lives matter.
Posted by: Herb McCoy || 09/27/2019 6:37 Comments || Top||

#7  Norway is now a target of the Guardian and EUSSR.
Posted by: Dale || 09/27/2019 8:41 Comments || Top||

#8  #6 - Nahhhh. You're a poser. NeoCons. Pffft.
Posted by: Frank G || 09/27/2019 8:51 Comments || Top||

#9  Paleocons don’t like those they perceive as neocons, Frank G.
Posted by: trailing wife || 09/27/2019 10:39 Comments || Top||

#10  P'tit con, neocon, connerie, SeanConnery : ça m'est égal
Posted by: Lex || 09/27/2019 11:04 Comments || Top||

#11  Little con, neocon, bullshit, SeanConnery: I do not care

"Little con"
Is that like 'tiny Elvis"?
Posted by: Skidmark || 09/27/2019 12:16 Comments || Top||

#12  con = French for asshole

French President Nicolas Sarkozy was famous for using "p[e]tit con" to describe particularly annoying opponents
Posted by: Lex || 09/27/2019 13:05 Comments || Top||

#13  We're always told that the c-word's too strong a translation, but I wonder (lacking background to assert) whetehr, in Englishes that constantly, casually use the c-word in every social setting, it might not be a pretty good fit? I mean, maybe not as good a fit as... awww, shaddup, self! You know you don't go for none of that funny stuff. Seriously, though?
Posted by: Bob Smiter of the Swedes5721 || 09/27/2019 23:01 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Politix
Wall Street Warns Dems: No Donations if You Nominate Liz Warren
[PJMedia] Wall Street and the DNC have been in bed together like a couple of newlyweds for years now, but the honeymoon might finally end if Senator Elizabeth Warren takes the presidential nomination next year.

CNBC's Brian Schwartz reports that "several high-dollar Democratic donors and fundraisers in the business community" plan to "sit out the presidential campaign fundraising cycle" should Warren sit -- must... resist... urge... to... make... sit Indian-style joke -- at the top of the ticket. A private equity executive who wishes to remain anonymous told the network, "You’re in a box because you’re a Democrat and you’re thinking, ’I want to help the party, but she’s going to hurt me, so I’m going to help President Trump'."
Funny how people move in their best intrest instead of the "party"
Warren's proposed "wealth tax," while of dubious constitutionality, threatens to place a 2% tax on the wealth -- not earnings -- of households worth $50 million or more. That's a lot of Wall Street people, it's safe to say.

"Democratic" socialist candidate Bernie Sanders promises an even bigger wealth tax, with a 1% levy on households worth more than $32 million, going all the way up to 8% for fortunes over $10 billion. So far Wall Street doesn't feel as threatened by the prospect of a Bernie candidacy, but with frontrunner Joe Biden sinking in poll after poll, who knows what might happen as the voting starts in Iowa next February.
Biden is done and Ms. Fake is the darling of the regressive left. She can't walk back comments in this day and age and she has lost the Wall Stree doners, the union workers and a good chunk of Middle America. Hence the impeachment push from the Demoncrats
Posted by: DarthVader || 09/27/2019 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [32 views] Top|| File under:

#1  place a 2% tax on the wealth -- not earnings -- of households worth $50 million or more

Of course when that failed to generate the expected revenue that $50 million threshold would have to be lowered and the 2% rate raised until it did - which it never would, even if all the wealth was transferred to the government.
Posted by: Glenmore || 09/27/2019 3:47 Comments || Top||

#2  The old bait and switch ploy.
Posted by: JohnQC || 09/27/2019 6:37 Comments || Top||

#3  One can hope this happens.
Posted by: Uleck Spererong9442 || 09/27/2019 6:59 Comments || Top||

#4  Much like Hillary in 2016, the Dems have a lousy field of candidates--whether it's Biden or Warren or whomever. The Dems are desperate and that is why they are going after Trump so hard. They've been trying to cripple him ever since before Day 1.

This will not end well for the Dems. I'd wouldn't be surprised if the Dems don't end up destroying their party. They are making Trump stronger and stronger by showing their true colors.
Posted by: JohnQC || 09/27/2019 7:51 Comments || Top||

#5  I'd wouldn't I wouldn't
Posted by: JohnQC || 09/27/2019 7:52 Comments || Top||

#6  Don't get cocky kids.
Posted by: AlanC || 09/27/2019 8:17 Comments || Top||

#7  "No wampum for you!"

- The Donation Nazi
Posted by: Raj || 09/27/2019 8:59 Comments || Top||

#8  We can work this out.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 09/27/2019 10:33 Comments || Top||

#9  Of course, true total redistribution would be exemplified by the "gray goo" that keeps Ted Kaczynski and Bill Joy up at night...
Posted by: M. Murcek || 09/27/2019 11:13 Comments || Top||

#10  Must be tough to come up with decent candidates when you have a political party full of communists, lunatics and imbeciles.
Posted by: Abu Uluque || 09/27/2019 11:18 Comments || Top||

#11  The French actually tried this recently, it of course failed, and now they're dismantling it.

What provincial idiots we have in this country's Left wing...
Posted by: Lex || 09/27/2019 13:08 Comments || Top||

#12  I suspect they subconsciously want Trump so denying the Dems money is their compromise.
Posted by: ruprecht || 09/27/2019 19:52 Comments || Top||

#13  #10 Must be tough to come up with decent candidates when you have a political party full of communists, lunatics and imbeciles.

How dare you insult imbeciles like that.
Posted by: bbrewer126 || 09/27/2019 21:17 Comments || Top||


-Short Attention Span Theater-
American university launches institute dedicated to studying kindness in bid to become antidote to world's politics, violence and strife
[Daily Mail, where America gets its news]
  • Bedari Kindness Institute was announced by UCLA after $20 million donation

  • First of its kind and aims to teach and empower citizens to be more humane

  • Will provide funding for research into social and physical mechanics of kindness
Posted by: Skidmark || 09/27/2019 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [17 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I'm working on a paper that shows kindness is evolutionarily unstable.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 09/27/2019 1:05 Comments || Top||

#2  I hope UCLA checked out Hillsdale College prior to the launch of their institute.
Posted by: JohnQC || 09/27/2019 7:40 Comments || Top||

#3  Kindness class 101
First lesson

Don't be an asshole
Posted by: DarthVader || 09/27/2019 11:18 Comments || Top||

#4  Beta-boy major?
Posted by: Skidmark || 09/27/2019 16:38 Comments || Top||

#5  'A Clean Kill is Kind',
'Wounding is Savage'

I forgot where I first heard that.
Some DI or First Sargent I expect.
Posted by: Skidmark || 09/27/2019 16:45 Comments || Top||


-War on Police-
Shocking footage shows woman attacking a cop with her high-heel after 'she was thrown out of a Miami club with her boyfriend'
Posted by: Skidmark || 09/27/2019 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [21 views] Top|| File under:

#1  She wields a mean stiletto.
Posted by: Lex || 09/27/2019 10:57 Comments || Top||

#2  She'd be walking funny in one shoe, a black eye, and a sore ass if that was me
Posted by: Frank G || 09/27/2019 11:00 Comments || Top||

#3  The female of the species is more dangerous than the male.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 09/27/2019 12:36 Comments || Top||

#4  Why Frank!
I didn't know you had a proclivity for that.
Posted by: Skidmark || 09/27/2019 16:37 Comments || Top||

#5  you shove a high heel up there, it WILL be sore
Posted by: Frank G || 09/27/2019 20:04 Comments || Top||

#6  She identifies as a Florida Man.
Posted by: charger || 09/27/2019 20:53 Comments || Top||


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
In Syria, a vast underground hideout housed rebel base
[Rudaw] Tunnels run for hundreds of metres, connecting caves strewn with mattresses that formed what the Syrian army and its Russian allies say was a vast rebel underground network.

The road leading to the entrance of the tunnels in Lataminah in northwestern Syria is lined with the charred shells of cars and armoured vehicles.

According to the Russian army, which organised a press tour of the site for dozens of journalists, the network of caves dug into a rocky outcrop could shelter up to 5,000 people.

The Russian army said it has uncovered around 10 such underground networks across northwestern Syria and others in the desert region of Palmyra.
"We think this network was dug about four years ago with sophisticated machinery, of a kind which is not available in Syria," a Syrian army colonel said as he led news hounds into the tunnels, escorted by Russian demining experts.

The red-brick entrance to this underground base still bears the scars of the battle that saw Russian-backed regime forces retake the area in the province of Hama earlier this year.

"Those who fought here retreated to the north. First to Khan Sheikhun and then further into Idlib province when our forces took the city," the colonel said.

In some places, the tunnels are barely big enough to stand in but connect large rooms carved out of the rock, including a prayer room, a drone workshop, a bathroom and even a prison.

Military officials told AFP news hounds that the total size of the underground network, in which crates of ammunition were found, has not yet been fully assessed.

DRONE WORKSHOP
It was used primarily by fighters from jihadist groups, among them the alliance known as Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, formerly al-Nusra, before that it was called something else
...al-Qaeda's Syrian affiliate, from which sprang the Islamic State...
that now dominates the entire Idlib enclave.

The caves provided shelter to those fighters from the intensive air strikes Russian and Syrian aircraft usually conduct as a prelude to any ground advance.

In some of the caves, empty food cans and crumpled plastic water bottles, jerricans and decaying clothes give a glimpse of daily life in the dark hideout.

Some rooms were done up with tile panels and a coat of paint while others have fully cemented walls, over which Syrian soldiers have since scribbled slogans praising Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad
The Scourge of Hama...
One room was even equipped with an old TV, wired up with cables that run around one kilometre from the nearby town of Lataminah.

The room which officers believe was used as a prison was dug out no less than 400 metres deep into the maze of tunnels and caves.

Blood stains are still visible on the ground, as are tiny separate cells with rusting doors.

The Russian army said it has uncovered around 10 such underground networks across northwestern Syria and others in the desert region of Palmyra.

Officers said the Lataminah cave was a local hub for the manufacture of drones that jihadist fighters used against regime and Russian forces.

The massive Russian military base of Hmeimim, which lies in the neighbouring province, has been repeatedly targeted by rebel drone attacks.
Posted by: trailing wife || 09/27/2019 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [32 views] Top|| File under: Islamic State

#1  Morlochs.
Posted by: AlanC || 09/27/2019 7:30 Comments || Top||


Iraq
After ISIS destruction, University of Mosul bustles once more
[Rudaw] Reconstruction at the once war-ravaged University of djinn-infested Mosul
... the home of a particularly ferocious and hairy djinn...
has reinvigorated its campus, now brimming with new students as the 2019-2020 academic year commences.

University officials say they have decided to enroll as many as 15,000 of this year’s high school graduates, with repair works at many of its colleges completed.

"Repair works at the Science College, Engineering College, Accounting College, Education College, College of Arts, and Business Administration have finished," Engineer Osama Ahmed, in charge of the reconstruction and project department at the Mosul University, told Rudaw on Wednesday.

Once one of Iraq’s most prestigious academic institutions, the University of Mosul was left in ruins by the long battle to liberate the city from Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear western pols talk they're not really Moslems....
(ISIS
...embracing their inner Islamic Brute...
) in 2016.

The university became an ISIS barracks, while the education system was refashioned to suit the demands of its so-called caliphate.

"Though ISIS worked to eliminate the university, it is now back. The university is very active," university president Dr. Qusay Kamaladin told Rudaw. "We managed to restore the university to its original state."

Rudaw visited the campus on Wednesday and saw long queues of students submitting applications for new academic year enrollment.

"After the liberation of Mosul, life has resumed at Mosul University too, though part of it lies in ruins," Mustafa Ahmed, a waiting university applicant told Rudaw.

"We are glad to see that the university is under repair," he said.

ISIS snuffies destroyed the economic infrastructure of Mosul and oppressed the city’s residents for three grueling years.

Another applicant we met called on the Iraqi government to put measures in place for students who had dropped out due to uncertainty and fear under ISIS rule.

"Many students fled the city with their families and have not returned to the university yet," student Tamir Mohammed said.

"I hope the Higher Education Ministry [of Iraq] will start a scientific investigation into such cases and find a solution," Mohammed added.

The nine month alley to alley battles to recapture Mosul from ISIS saw 70 percent of the university and its facilities damaged.

Seventy five percent of the university's electrical system was damaged, as well as 45 percent of its water system. Hundreds of university-owned vehicles were taken by ISIS and more than one million books burned, according to Kamaladin.

The year-long repair works, primarily conducted by the UNDP with support from the Iraqi government, has reduced the scale of damage from 70 to 25 percent, he added.
Posted by: trailing wife || 09/27/2019 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [19 views] Top|| File under:

#1  How do they get accredited without a queer studies program?
Posted by: M. Murcek || 09/27/2019 11:25 Comments || Top||


Africa North
Libyan Strongman Haftar Says Open to Dialogue
[AnNahar] Libyan strongman Khalifa Haftar
...Self-proclaimed Field Marshal, served in the Libyan army under Muammar Qadaffy, and took part in the coup that brought Qadaffy to power in 1969. He became a prisoner of war in Chad in 1987. While held prisoner, he and his fellow officers formed a group hoping to overthrow Qadaffy, so it's kind of hard to describe him as a Qadaffy holdover. He was released around 1990 in a deal with the United States government and spent nearly two decades in the United States, gaining US citizenship. In 1993, while living in the United States, he was convicted in absentia of crimes against the Jamahiriya and sentenced to death. Haftar held a senior position in the anti-Qadaffy forces in the 2011 Libyan Civil War. In 2014 he was commander of the Libyan Army when the General National Congress (GNC) refused to give up power in accordance with its term of office. Haftar launched a campaign against the GNC and its Islamic fundamentalist allies. His campaign allowed elections to take place to replace the GNC, but then developed into a civil war. Guess you can't win them all...
, whose forces have been battling to capture the seat of the UN-recognised government in Tripoli
...a confusing city, one end of which is located in Lebanon and the other end of which is the capital of Libya. Its chief distinction is being mentioned in the Marine Hymn...
since April, has said he is open to dialogue after repeatedly rejecting UN calls for talks.

"When all is said and done, we need dialogue and we need to sit down" at the negotiating table, Haftar said in a statement issued on Wednesday night on the eve of a special session on Libya on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York.

Haftar stressed however that dialogue was "not possible so long as terrorist groups and criminal militias control Tripoli," a reference to the myriad of militias that back the Government of National Accord.

Haftar welcomed the special session to be co-chaired by La Belle France and Italia in New York later Thursday, saying that he hoped it would come up with "proposals that serve Libya's interests and at the same time restore security and stability."

Earlier this month, Haftar, whose forces control eastern Libya and most of the far-flung oases and oilfields of the desert south, rejected a UN call for renewed peace talks, saying that a military solution was the best way of bringing the conflict to an end.
Posted by: trailing wife || 09/27/2019 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [19 views] Top|| File under: Arab Spring


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Khamenei says Europeans can’t be trusted, are as hostile to Iran as US
In which President Trump once again displays his superpower of inciting his enemies to turn on one another.
[IsraelTimes] Iran’s supreme leader says Europe
...the land mass occupying the space between the English Channel and the Urals, also known as Moslem Lebensraum...
ans should not be trusted, based on their inability to save the 2015 nuclear deal that the US unilaterally withdrew from last year.

Since then, US sanctions have kept Iran
...a theocratic Shiite state divided among the Medes, the Persians, and the (Arab) Elamites. Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979. The nation is today noted for spontaneously taking over other countries' embassies, maintaining whorehouses run by clergymen, involvement in international drug trafficking, and financing sock puppet militias to extend the regime's influence. The word Iran is a cognate form of Aryan, the abbreviation IRGC is a cognate form of Stürmabteilung (or SA), the term Supreme Guide is a cognate form of either Shah or Führer or maybe both, and they hate Jews Zionists Jews. Their economy is based on the production of oil and vitriol...
from selling its oil abroad and have crippled its economy.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei
...the actual dictator of Iran, successor to Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini...
speaks a day after Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani
...Iran's moderate president, which he is, relative to his predecessor, which doesn't mean he's anything but a puppet of the nearest holy man...
attended the UN General Assembly in New York.

Khamenei says: "Europeans did not fulfill any of their commitments, and this is the strongest reason that they shouldn’t be trusted."

There had been hope European mediation could help salvage the Iran’s nuclear agreement with world powers.
Iran’s supreme leader says Europeans should not be trusted, based on their inability to save the 2015 nuclear deal that the US unilaterally withdrew from last year.

Since then, US sanctions have kept Iran from selling its oil abroad and have crippled its economy.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei speaks a day after Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani attended the UN General Assembly in New York.

Khamenei says: "Europeans did not fulfill any of their commitments, and this is the strongest reason that they shouldn’t be trusted."

There had been hope European mediation could help salvage the Iran’s nuclear agreement with world powers.

But Khamenei says Europeans are as hostile toward Iran as the US, and that European mediation had provided little so far beyond "long speeches."
But Khamenei says Europeans are as hostile toward Iran as the US, and that European mediation had provided little so far beyond "long speeches."
Posted by: trailing wife || 09/27/2019 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [23 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Iran

#1  Khamenei says Europeans can’t be trusted

Something Khamenei and I can agree on?
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 09/27/2019 1:01 Comments || Top||


Arabia
US deploys air defense systems, troops to Saudi Arabia
[IsraelTimes] The US is sending a Patriot missile battery and four ground-based radar systems to 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...
, the Pentagon said Thursday, in what officials describe as the first steps to help the kingdom protect itself against Iranian attacks.

Two more Patriot batteries and a THAAD missile defense system will be prepared to go later if needed, and the deployment will involve about 200 troops.

Military commanders and defense leaders have been working since last week to iron out what military aid to send to the region in response to what US officials say was a brazen and unprecedented cruise missile and drone attack by Iran
...a theocratic Shiite state divided among the Medes, the Persians, and the (Arab) Elamites. Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979. The nation is today noted for spontaneously taking over other countries' embassies, maintaining whorehouses run by clergymen, involvement in international drug trafficking, and financing sock puppet militias to extend the regime's influence. The word Iran is a cognate form of Aryan, the abbreviation IRGC is a cognate form of Stürmabteilung (or SA), the term Supreme Guide is a cognate form of either Shah or Führer or maybe both, and they hate Jews Zionists Jews. Their economy is based on the production of oil and vitriol...
on Saudi oil facilities on September 14.

US President Donald Trump
...His ancestors didn't own any slaves...
during a White House meeting last Friday put off, at least for now, any immediate military strike on Iran, but approved a broader effort to beef up security in Saudi Arabia and the region. He told news hounds that showing restraint "shows far more strength" than launching retaliatory strikes now.

The four Sentinel radar systems and the Patriot battery are designed to provide better surveillance coverage across northern Saudi Arabia. The bulk of the kingdom’s Patriot batteries and other defenses are focused on the south to protect the country from attacks by Iranian-backed Iran's Houthi sock puppets
...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 legitimate Yemeni government has accused the them of having ties to the Iranian government. Honest they did. 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 They like shooting off... ummm... missiles that they would have us believe they make at home in their basements. On the plus side, they did murder Ali Abdullah Saleh, which was the only way the country was ever going to be rid of him...
s in Yemen
...an area of the Arabian Peninsula sometimes mistaken for a country. It is populated by more antagonistic tribes and factions than you can keep track of...
. The Houthis launch almost daily attacks into Saudi Arabia and at times into the UAE.
Posted by: trailing wife || 09/27/2019 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [39 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Saudi Arabia

#1  THAAD will be useless against drones and cruise missiles. patriot is almost useless against them
Posted by: Lord garth || 09/27/2019 14:30 Comments || Top||

#2  Look on the used arms market for some ZSU-23 "Shrilka" and Sam-6 launchers from the old Warsaw Pact countries. Would work fine against "low and slow" drones, even if they would be mostly useless against modern stuff.
Posted by: magpie || 09/27/2019 17:19 Comments || Top||


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Iran uses advanced centrifuges in new nuclear deal breach: IAEA
[AlAhram] Iran
...a theocratic Shiite state divided among the Medes, the Persians, and the (Arab) Elamites. Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979. The nation is today noted for spontaneously taking over other countries' embassies, maintaining whorehouses run by clergymen, involvement in international drug trafficking, and financing sock puppet militias to extend the regime's influence. The word Iran is a cognate form of Aryan, the abbreviation IRGC is a cognate form of Stürmabteilung (or SA), the term Supreme Guide is a cognate form of either Shah or Führer or maybe both, and they hate Jews Zionists Jews. Their economy is based on the production of oil and vitriol...
has started using advanced models of centrifuges to enrich uranium, the UN's nuclear watchdog said Thursday, in a new breach of the faltering 2015 deal with world powers.

Advanced centrifuges at Iran's Natanz facility "were accumulating, or had been prepared to accumulate, enriched uranium", the ineffective International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said in a report seen by AFP.

Under the 2015 deal with world powers that puts curbs on Iran's nuclear programme in exchange for sanctions relief, Tehran is only meant to enrich uranium using less efficient IR-1 centrifuges.

The landmark deal has been in jeopardy since May last year when President Donald Trump
...The tack in the backside of the Democratic Party...
withdrew the US from it and reimposed sanctions.

The remaining parties to the deal with Iran -- Britannia, China, La Belle France, Germany and Russia -- have tried to salvage the accord, but Tehran has repeatedly accused Europe
...the land mass occupying the space between the English Channel and the Urals, also known as Moslem Lebensraum...
of not doing enough.
Posted by: trailing wife || 09/27/2019 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [27 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Iran


Africa North
First wave of migrants evacuated from Libya heads to Rwanda
[AlAhram] The first evacuation flight of African refugees and asylum-seekers was set to arrive in Rwanda on Thursday in the latest effort to divert and care for thousands from the continent who failed in their efforts to reach Europe
...the land mass occupying the space between the English Channel and the Urals, also known as Moslem Lebensraum...
The East African nation's agreement to take in 500 people who have been trapped in crowded, dangerous Libyan detention centers has raised questions and concerns. It is not clear how long they will be held in Rwanda and what happens if no other country agrees to take them permanently.

``Refugees who will wish to stay in Rwanda permanently will be given asylum,'' Olivier Kayumba, permanent secretary in the ministry of emergency management and refugee affairs, told The News Agency that Dare Not be Named. Authorities said the people were in a bad state of health and media access to their arrival was restricted.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: trailing wife || 09/27/2019 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [31 views] Top|| File under: Human Trafficking


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Israel Intensifies Measures along Leb Border
[AnNahar] Israeli warplanes conducted "intensive" overflights on Thursday hovering at a medium altitude over Nabatieh and Iqlim al-Tuffah, the National News Agency reported.

Later in the day, NNA said the Israeli army set up "modern machine guns used to fire 40mm small bombs at the border line between Shebaa Farms and Ghajar."

The machine guns are equipped with day and night self-control vision, it said.
Posted by: trailing wife || 09/27/2019 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [31 views] Top|| File under: Hezbollah


Iraq
Iraqi security forces use water cannons to quell unemployment protests
[Rudaw] Protestors demanding government action on postgraduate unemployment were hosed down with Iraqi security force water cannons on Wednesday, in an act condemned by a national human rights
...which are often intentionally defined so widely as to be meaningless...
commission as an act "against freedom of expression."

Iraqi master’s degree and PhD holders have been protesting outside ministry buildings in Baghdad since June, calling for measures to ease unemployment among postgraduates, including an increase in public sector jobs.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: trailing wife || 09/27/2019 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [23 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Iraq

#1  Guess they didn't use China's trick of adding water color dye to mark the Hong Kong protesters.

Maybe sewage backwash?
Posted by: Skidmark || 09/27/2019 12:10 Comments || Top||


Israel-Palestine-Jordan
Israel’s population tops 9 million as Jewish new year approaches
[IsraelTimes] Population expected to reach 10 million by 2024; Jewish Agency says 14.8 million Jews worldwide, a slight increase from last year

Israel’s population stands at 9,092,000 and is expected to reach 10 million by Rosh Hashanah 2024, the Central Bureau of Statistics said on Thursday.

In figures published ahead of the Jewish new year which begins Sunday evening, the CBS said the country’s 6.744 million Jews make up 74.2 percent of the total population, and its 1.907 million Arabs represent 21%.

Other minority groups comprise 4.8 percent of the population with 441,000 residents.

Since Rosh Hashanah 2018, the population rose by 184,000, marking a 2.1% increase, a similar change to previous years. Israelis gave birth to 196,000 children in the past year, while 50,000 citizens died. Some 38,000 people moved to the country, of whom 35,000 were Jewish immigrants colonists who received citizenship.

At its current pace, the Jewish State will have 15 million residents by its hundredth birthday in 2048 and 20 million by 2065, the report said.

Worldwide, there are now 14.8 million Jews, a slight increase from the 14.7 million tallied the year before, the Jewish Agency reported on Thursday.

There are 8.1 million Jews living outside Israel, with the largest population in the United States, which has 5.7 million Jews.

Following Israel and the US, the countries with the largest number of Jews are La Belle France (450,000), Canada (392,000), Britannia (292,000), Argentina
...a country located on the other side of the Deep South. It is covered with Pampers and inhabited by Grouchos, who dance the Tangle. They used to have some islands called the Malvinas located where the Falklands are now. They're not supposed to cry for Evita...
(180,000), Russia (165,000), Germany (118,000) and Australia (118,000).

The Jewish Agency says there 26,000 Jews living in Arab and Moslem states, with 15,000 in The Sick Man of Europe Turkey
...the decaying remnant of the Ottoman Empire...
, 8,500 in Iran, 2,000 in Morocco and 1,000 in Tunisia.

The statistics are based on self-identification as Jewish and not as any other religion. The Jewish Agency said when looking at those eligible to get citizenship under Israel’s Law of Return, which requires at least one Jewish grandparent, there are 23.6 million Jews worldwide.
Posted by: trailing wife || 09/27/2019 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [19 views] Top|| File under:


Home Front: Politix
GOP Senator Ron Johnson Suggests Investigating Biden and Ukraine
[AmGreatness] Senator Ron Johnson (R-Wisc.), Chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, has reportedly voiced his support for a possible investigation into former Vice President Joe Biden and his questionable conduct regarding Ukraine, the Daily Caller reports.

The reports first surfaced in a Washington Post piece that cited three unnamed sources who were "familiar with the conversations" that Johnson reportedly had with some of his Senate colleagues. When asked about the conversation in question, Johnson said that "we have and will continue to gather information...on alleged misconduct with government agencies."

Biden’s actions towards Ukraine as vice president have come under heavy scrutiny in recent weeks, with the "whistleblower" complaints against President Donald Trump only forcing mainstream media coverage of Biden’s actions, about which President Trump voiced his concern to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

As vice president in 2016, then-Vice President Biden demanded that the Ukrainian government fire then-Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin, who was investigating the suspicious business dealings of energy company Burisma Holdings, of which Biden’s son Hunter was a board member. It is widely believed that Biden did so in order to protect his son, and went so far as to threaten to withhold $1 billion in U.S. aid to Ukraine if Shokin was not fired.
Posted by: 746 || 09/27/2019 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [23 views] Top|| File under:

#1  And Romney too. Please.
Posted by: newc || 09/27/2019 1:21 Comments || Top||

#2  Does anyone know Joe's middle neme? Robinette. HA HA HA!
Posted by: Varmint Splat1454 || 09/27/2019 1:51 Comments || Top||

#3  It would be a good idea to have some real investigations for a change--instead of these Dem witch hunts with their made-up evidence and with their kangaroo court star chamber trials followed by political lynchings involving Trump.

What the Dems are doing is a sham and a scam. It’s not the way government is supposed to work. If the Dems keep pushing their political lynchings, I can see the people saying enough is enough. I doubt that outcome will be pretty and that they’ll like it.
Posted by: JohnQC || 09/27/2019 6:58 Comments || Top||

#4  What the Dems are doing is a sham and a scam. It’s not the way government is supposed to work.

Of course. It's a Shitshow. That's the purpose.

O'Brien in 1984: "The purpose of power is power. The purpose of torture is torture."

If O'Brien were alive today in DC, he would say that the purpose of Shitshow is shitshow.
Posted by: Lex || 09/27/2019 14:05 Comments || Top||

#5  If O'Brien were alive today in DC

Dems would've been a lot more dangerous.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 09/27/2019 14:14 Comments || Top||


Africa North
The desperation of the Brotherhood
[AlAhram] The Moslem Brüderbund’s latest attempt to move back onto the political scene in Egypt by broadcasting Internet videos from a contractor based abroad is its most desperate to date.

For a group that has managed to survive many challenges since its formation in 1928, the Moslem Brüderbund is reaching a point of unprecedented breakdown in its country of origin, Egypt.

Through many periods, from that of former king Farouk in the 1940s and early 1950s all the way to former president Hosni Mubarak
Also related, from yesterday: Egypt detains more than 1,000 after anti-Sisi protests

Continued on Page 49
Posted by: trailing wife || 09/27/2019 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [23 views] Top|| File under: Muslim Brotherhood

#1  Death to the Juice!
Death to America!
Death to dictator El-Sisi!
Death to my neighbor who plays loud music!
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 09/27/2019 1:10 Comments || Top||

#2  article doesn't mention it but post 2012 the Saudis became afraid of the MBruderbund and has taken measures
Posted by: lord garth || 09/27/2019 8:31 Comments || Top||

#3  the group has attempted to proclaim its innocence and its victimisation, due to a lack of awareness of its true intentions. Some people may even have believed its claims, especially when it was expressing dissent towards Trump a then ruler.

Not just the Brüderbund...
Posted by: Bobby || 09/27/2019 10:57 Comments || Top||

#4  Death to my neighbor who plays loud music!

Well, when it's really loud and really late at night...
Posted by: Abu Uluque || 09/27/2019 11:44 Comments || Top||


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
After UN visit, Iran faces diminishing choices
[AlAhram] Iran
...a theocratic Shiite state divided among the Medes, the Persians, and the (Arab) Elamites. Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979. The nation is today noted for spontaneously taking over other countries' embassies, maintaining whorehouses run by clergymen, involvement in international drug trafficking, and financing sock puppet militias to extend the regime's influence. The word Iran is a cognate form of Aryan, the abbreviation IRGC is a cognate form of Stürmabteilung (or SA), the term Supreme Guide is a cognate form of either Shah or Führer or maybe both, and they hate Jews Zionists Jews. Their economy is based on the production of oil and vitriol...
has long prided itself on its forceful defiance of the United States and Israel, a resistance that has defined the Shiite-led Islamic Theocratic Republic for the 40 years since its revolution.

But the limits of Iran's ability to go it alone were on display at the United Nations
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: trailing wife || 09/27/2019 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [30 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Iran


Iran’s gamble, is it paying off?
The view from Egypt.
[AlAhram] How long can Iran
...a theocratic Shiite state divided among the Medes, the Persians, and the (Arab) Elamites. Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979. The nation is today noted for spontaneously taking over other countries' embassies, maintaining whorehouses run by clergymen, involvement in international drug trafficking, and financing sock puppet militias to extend the regime's influence. The word Iran is a cognate form of Aryan, the abbreviation IRGC is a cognate form of Stürmabteilung (or SA), the term Supreme Guide is a cognate form of either Shah or Führer or maybe both, and they hate Jews Zionists Jews. Their economy is based on the production of oil and vitriol...
expect to succeed in its plans to dominate the Middle East.

Worn down by eight years of fighting with the Iraqi army and the incredibly high toll this was taking in lives lost, Iran’s revolutionary government accepted an UN-brokered ceasefire in July 1988 that ended one of the bloodiest wars in the Middle East.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: trailing wife || 09/27/2019 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [24 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Iran

#1  The last of such "ideological empires," and probably the most famous, was that of Nazi Germany

What about Soviet Union?
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 09/27/2019 1:13 Comments || Top||

#2  Or china
Posted by: Bright Pebbles || 09/27/2019 7:45 Comments || Top||

#3  Or Cambodia?

Or Venezuela?

Or Zimbabwe?
Posted by: Mullah Richard || 09/27/2019 15:20 Comments || Top||

#4  I vote one last blast going down in nuclear flames.
What's the pool?
Posted by: Skidmark || 09/27/2019 16:55 Comments || Top||

#5  "And we were doing what in Angola and Hollywood, chopping liver?"
Posted by: Cuban Empire || 09/27/2019 23:16 Comments || Top||

#6  Please google "Empire"
Posted by: European Conservative || 09/27/2019 23:20 Comments || Top||

#7  ^ You're right (cut that out, dammit!). I should've left Hollywood out of it.
Posted by: Cuban Empire || 09/27/2019 23:36 Comments || Top||


Afghanistan
Kabul: cops defuse sticky bomb, 11 Talibs toes up


Afghan forces foil militants bid to detonate a magnetic IED in Kabul city

[KhaamaPress] The Afghan forces foiled militants bid to detonate a magnetic Improvised Explosive Device in Kabul city.

The Kabul Police Headquarters said in a statement the police forces discovered a magnetic Improvised Explosive Device attached to a vehicle in 5th district of the city.

The statement further added that the police forces defused the explosives with the support of the Explosive Ordnance Disposal team of the National Directorate of Security.

Furthermore, the Kabul Police said the security forces thwarted a deadly explosion by defusing the bomb.

The anti-government armed militants including Taliban have not commented in this regard so far.

Special Forces kill 11 Taliban militants, destroy caches of weapons in Kabul, other provinces

[KhaamaPress] The Afghan Special Forces killed at least 11 Taliban militants and destroyed caches of weapons in Uruzgan, Wardak and Kabul provinces.

The military officials said Thursday the Afghan Special Forces killed 7 Taliban militants during a patrol in Tarin Kot district of Uruzgan.

The officials further added that the Special Forces also destroyed a cache of weapons during the same operation.

Furthermore, the officials said the Special Forces killed 4 Taliban militants and arrested another militant during a raid in Sayyidabad district of Wardak.

The Special Forces also destroyed a cache of weapons of Taliban in Sarobi district of Kabul, the officials added.
Posted by: trailing wife || 09/27/2019 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [24 views] Top|| File under: Taliban


Israel-Palestine-Jordan
Female cop lightly hurt in apparent stabbing attack outside Jerusalem’s Old City
A short video can be seen at the link.
[IsraelTimes] A female police officer is lightly injured in an apparent stabbing attack outside the Old City of Jerusalem, medics say.

Other officers wrestled the assailant to the ground and arrested him, according to police.

The officer is being treated by medics on the scene.
More here:
Police say an attempted stabbing in Jerusalem’s Old City was a terror attack.

According to police, the assailant pulled out a knife and tried to stab officers stationed at the Chain Gate to the Temple Mount.

During a scuffle to detain the suspect, a female officer suffered a light injury to her hand, police say.

Jerusalem police chief Doron Yadid is holding a security assessment after the incident, which comes just days before the start of the Jewish High Holidays.
Posted by: trailing wife || 09/27/2019 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [21 views] Top|| File under:


Afghanistan
Special Forces kill, detain 11 Taliban militants in 4 provinces
[KhaamaPress] The Afghan Special Forces killed or detained at least 11 Talibs during the operations in Kapisa, Kunduz, Ghazni and Waradk provinces.

The military officials said Thursday the Special Forces arrested 3 Talibs during a raid in Jijrab district of Kapisa.

The officials further added that the Special Forces also destroyed a cache of weapons during the same raid.

Furthermore, the Special Forces detained 5 Talibs and destroyed a cache of weapons in Aliabad district of Kunduz.

The Special Forces killed 2 Talibs during a patrol in Andar district of Ghazni, the officials said, adding that the Special Forces killed another Taliban
...Arabic for students...
hard boy during a raid in Nerkh district of Wardak.
Posted by: trailing wife || 09/27/2019 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [27 views] Top|| File under: Taliban



Who's in the News
22[untagged]
6Taliban
5Govt of Iran
2Muslim Brotherhood
2Govt of Pakistain Proxies
2Commies
1Human Trafficking
1Islamic State
1Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (IS)
1PLO
1Arab Spring
1Govt of Iraq
1Govt of Saudi Arabia
1Hezbollah

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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.

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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.
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Two weeks of WOT
Fri 2019-09-27
  US deploys air defense systems, troops to Saudi Arabia
Thu 2019-09-26
  Israeli woman stabbed near Modiin; 14-year-old Palestinian arrested
Wed 2019-09-25
  High Alert In India As JeM Cells Feared Active | Balakot Camp Reopens For Business
Tue 2019-09-24
  Iraqi court sentences 6 IS militants to death over 2013 car bomb attack
Mon 2019-09-23
  Aramco’s Repairs Could Take Months Longer Than Company Anticipates
Sun 2019-09-22
  Greek police make arrest in 1985 hijacking of TWA Flight 847
Sat 2019-09-21
  US to send troops to Saudi Arabia, hold off on striking Iran
Fri 2019-09-20
  NJ man charged with scouting landmarks for Hezbollah, trying to kill Israeli spy
Thu 2019-09-19
  Man arrested in terrorism probe told FBI he'd execute a US service member for ISIS
Wed 2019-09-18
  Half of Saudi Aramco production restored
Tue 2019-09-17
  Special Forces kill 14 Taliban militants; destroy multiple weapons caches in 3 provinces
Mon 2019-09-16
  Iran seizes another oil tanker in Strait of Hormuz as Gulf crisis erupts
Sun 2019-09-15
  Turkey orders arrest of 223 military personnel over suspected Gulen links: State media
Sat 2019-09-14
  Parliament to discuss removal of U.S. forces from Iraq in new session
Fri 2019-09-13
  Over 2,000 militants fled to Turkey from Idlib: Al-Watan

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