What has Colin Kaepernick wrought?
Viewership of this past weekend’s Wild Card playoff games should have been a boost for the NFL as it continues to work through a relatively challenging regular season. Yet if the reported overnights are any indication, the league will be expecting some postseason declines as well unless either the Dallas Cowboys or the resurgent Green Bay Packers run the table after their divisional round game this coming weekend.
This should be somewhat expected, however, because we’ve come out of a 2016 campaign that was as relatively as hard as it’s been for the league in a very long time. Previous analysis showed that the ratings struggle was more than a passing concern, but a real problem for both the league and its broadcasters. FOX, CBS and ESPN didn’t shout to the heavens about their numbers as loudly this season and try as it might, NBC’s sole reason for sounding its horn this season was because of Dallas. After taking a glance at how Election Day had an overstated effect on viewership, here are snapshots at how the full NFL season looked from a demographic standpoint against the past three seasons, including the TV peak of 2013.
#1
I wanted to watch 3 hours of back-to-back TV commercials and those idiots kept interrupting it with a NFL "game."
Seriously, there are so many interruptions that the viewer immersion is constantly shattered. And then some announcer decides that they have to share their personal feelings.
This is not fake news. Just look at Angie Harmon, for example. Then look at Madeline Halfbrite. Yes, let's look at Angie Harmon. And look some more...
Research has found that being attractive influences many things in a person's life -- their salary, their popularity and grades in school, even the prison sentences they receive. So why not their politics?
A recently published study in the Journal of Public Economics concludes that the attractiveness of a candidate does correlate with their politics. They find that politicians on the right are more good looking in Europe, the United States and Australia.
The study shows correlation, not causation, but the researchers float a simple economic explanation for why this might happen. Numerous studies have shown that good-looking people are likely to earn more, and that people who earn more are typically more opposed to redistributive policies, like the progressive taxes and welfare programs favored by the left.
The researchers also offer a more general psychological explanation for the trend: That good-looking people are often treated better than others, and thus see the world as a more just place. Past studies have found that the more attractive people believe themselves to be, the lower their preference for egalitarianism, a value typically associated with the political left.
In their first experiment, the researchers showed respondents photographs of political candidates in Finnish municipal and parliamentary elections, members of the European Parliament, U.S. candidates for Senate and governor, and candidates for Australia's House of Representatives. They asked participants to rate the photographs on a five-point scale. The results suggested that politicians on the right are more beautiful on all three continents.
In a separate experiment, the researchers analysed elections in Finland. They say these elections are easier to study because most races feature multiple candidates competing for office -- in contrast to races in the United States, which typically have just two major candidates.
The researchers found that Republican voters care more about appearance than Democratic voters do, but only if the voters don't have much information about the candidates and have to rely largely on appearance -- in city-level elections, for example.
But in elections that give voters a lot of information -- like parliamentary elections when candidates are well covered by TV news and in the newspaper -- politicians' appearance matters equally to voters regardless of party or ideology.
In low-information city elections, a beauty increase of one standard deviation attracts about 20 percent more votes for the average candidate on the right and about 8 percent more votes for the average candidate on the left, the study finds. In high-information parliamentary elections, the figure is roughly 14 percent for candidates on both the left and right.
The researchers also suggest that voters correctly see candidates who are more good looking as more likely to be conservative. When voters don't know much about candidates, they tend to use beauty as a cue for ideology.
Aircraft carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN 69) transits the Mediterranean Sea alongside aircraft carrier FS Charles de Gaulle (R91), December, 2016.
Posted by: Steve White ||
01/11/2017
11:31 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[5 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
OK, I gotta ask: are they both underway under their own power, or is the CDG drafting the IKE due to loss of (another) propeller???
#3
Control Tower of the CdG seems really far forward. I'm guess with the deck space, it is the only place it could go with the takeoff/landing areas. Any Navy buffs have a short explanation?
[Breitbart] President Obama has gone rogue and only one man can protect American democracy in the next few days: the President-elect.
On January 15, 2017, with only five days left after 2,917 days in office, President Barack Obama is planning once again to feed Israel to the international wolves. The move is intended to tie the hands of President Donald Trump and is a direct repudiation of the will of the American electorate who rejected Obama’s calamitous foreign policy and a repeat performance by his secretary of state.
On Sunday, France is scheduled to hold an international conference to unleash an international mob on Israel. The meeting is taking place with Obama’s direct connivance. Seventy-states have been lined up to impose their preferences on the Middle East’s only democracy. Israelis are still dying in Israeli streets after seventy years of unending Arab terror ‐ and the folks sitting in Paris munching on croissants know best how to protect Israeli national security.
The bare-faced power-grab by France and its Arab allies ‐ with the blessing of President Obama ‐ raises unavoidable questions: Who will attend? If they attend, how senior a representative will be sent by the main players on the Security Council: the U.S., Russia, and the United Kingdom? Will attendees sign on to an outcome document imperiling Israel that is already circulating? Will the Middle East Quartet ‐ composed of the U.S., the EU, Russia and the UN ‐ approve of the outcome document? Will a UN Security Council subsequently approve of the outcome document before January 20, 2017?
The French meeting follows on President Obama helping to ram through a UN Security Council resolution on December 23, 2016 that was clearly intended to unleash a legal and economic pogrom against the Jewish state. It didn’t take long for Palestinian terrorists to get the message: sidelining a negotiated solution between the parties by strong-arming an Israeli villain at the UN was a greenlight for the enforcers in Gaza City and Ramallah.
French authorities are expecting 72 countries to attend Sunday’s Middle East peace conference in Paris — but not Israel or the Palestinians.
Government spokesman Stephane Le Foll said Wednesday both Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have been invited to come to France after the conference to be informed of its conclusions.
Netanyahu has declined the invitation — saying only direct negotiations will produce a solution.
Abbas is expected to visit the French capital at the end of the week on the sidelines of the conference. It was unclear whether he would meet French President Francois Hollande.
Participants will include US Secretary of State John Kerry.
[PJ] Here is the latest Fake News lie: They actually believe this crap -- Trump partook in "golden showers" in Russia with prostitutes on a bed Obama once slept on... Russia then blackmailed Trump, not by asking for money or influence in his business deals, but by forcing him to run for president against all odds and win?
Here is the story that the CIA and idiots in the FAKE NEWS Media are pushing on America ‐ Here’s what they want us to believe -- Let’s recount:
Skipping down
And no one questioned this report? Seriously?
America, let’s face it. After eight years of Obama, we are in worse shape than we thought. No wonder Americans trust Wikileaks over the intelligence community.
#4
If Bill Clinton was the target of the smear the story would be entirely plausible. But not Trump and America knows it. Any fiction journalist who refers to this smear in the press conference should be escouted out and their fake press bureau banned for life from from the press pool.
#6
Well, I read the "story" and after finding out that McCain was in part behind it, and that it was opposition research by the Dems and the NeverTrumps, I have to say they could have had a better story.
This is going to be the sleaziest four years of news. I mean when is the picture of Trump with a goat going to surface.
BTW, the picture of Trump and Vlad is wrong, they were riding Vlad's Russian Brown Bear.
#11
McCain gave it to the FBI and then to the Democrats. Seems it was paid for by Republicans.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
01/11/2017 16:49
Comments ||
Top||
#12
Deacon Blues' Daily Mail link wraps it all up in a bow for me. The honourable senator and former presidential candidate was the second person to be given that information to pass on to the FBI; somebody or several somebodies also tried to shop the story to various members of the mainstream media, who rejected it, then to various members of the anti-Trump media, who also rejected it until CNN broke the story and Buzzfeed published salacious bits from the file.
Apparently the salacious bits were not in the two page summary the intelligence community representatives shared with their future boss when they met with him to discuss Russian hacking.
And today Mr.Trump openly refused to take questions from CNN at his press conference, but unlike President Obama's early treatment of Fox News, he allowed them to be in the room with the rest of the press pool.
#13
I was kidding when I suggested Trump privatize the intelligence services, but it's starting to look like a good idea. At least he would know who they were working for.
Benedict Arnold was a POW from the failed early Canadian campaign. Exchanged, he went on to lead the critical combat that lead to the victory at Saratoga. However, he never felt he got the recognition and rewards for his service, so, as well all know, his ego let him to betray his fellow Americans.
[Free Beacon] Leaders of a pro-Hillary Clinton political group threatened to fire employees who questioned its founder’s criticism of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, according to a former staffer.
Employees of American Bridge 21st Century, an opposition research-focused super PAC that backed Clinton’s candidacy, "had their employment threatened when they complained" about the treatment of Sanders, said Will Urquhart, formerly an American Bridge video tracker.
Urquhart revealed the group’s treatment of Sanders supporters in a pair of tweets on Tuesday. He was responding to statements by American Bridge founder David Brock, who publicly apologized on Tuesday for his treatment of Sanders.
"I recognize that there were a few moments when my drive to put Hillary in the White House led me to take too stiff a jab," Brock wrote in a post on Medium. "I own up to that, I regret it, and I apologize to you and your supporters for it."
Brock’s network of political groups, including blog Blue Nation Review and American Bridge spinoff Correct the Record, attacked Sanders as a radical, single-issue candidate myopically focused on the supposed misdeeds of Wall Street. Correct the Record even linked Sanders to unpopular British Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn and late Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez.
[Free Beacon] Congressional Democrats pushing for an ethics probe into a Trump cabinet nominee’s stock trades have their own histories of investing in sectors of the economy they oversee, public records show.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) last week called for an investigation into stock trades by Rep. Tom Price (R., N.C.), who President-elect Donald Trump has tapped to lead the Department of Health and Human Services.
Schumer and Senate Democrats are focusing on Price’s stock portfolio and trading history, which has included holdings in a number of health and insurance companies.
"We don’t know if he broke the law, but there are certainly enough serious questions to warrant an investigation before any hearing is held on Congressman Price to become secretary of HHS," Schumer said at a press conference last week.
Senate Democrats’ strategy on the Price nomination is part of a larger focus on alleged conflicts of interest among Trump cabinet nominees. However, unlike a number of those nominees Price’s personal financial information is publicly available due to reporting requirements for members of Congress.
At issue are 40 trades in health industry companies worth more than $300,000. Schumer and Sens. Patty Murray (D., Wash.) and Ron Wyden (D., Ore.), the ranking Democrats on the Health and Finance Committees, respectively, want to put Price’s nomination on hold pending an investigation into those trades and whether they coincided with legislation written or supported by Price.
That strategy could open up Senate Democrats to criticism, as Schumer, Wyden, and Democratic members of the Finance and Health Committees, which will both hold confirmation hearings for Price next week, have also traded in industries they oversee.
Schumer himself owned securities that likely benefitted from policies he advanced in his official capacity.
[Free Beacon] Television viewers prefer Fox News for political coverage above all other cable news networks and trust CNN the least among them, according to a recent poll.
The Rasmussen poll shows that, when Americans were asked what channels they turn to "at least occasionally" for political news, Fox News took the top spot with 42 percent saying they watch the channel. Competitors CNN and MSNBC fell short with 35 percent and 19 percent, respectively.
The poll also asked how viewers trust the political news from each of the cable networks. Fox News again took the top spot, with 50 percent of respondents saying they trust the network’s political news. Fourty-three percent of MSNBC viewers said the same, and only 33 percent of those who tune into CNN said they trust the news network.
Rasmussen Reports also found that 75 percent of likely American voters watch cable news "at least occasionally" for some of their news reception. For the poll, Rasmussen contacted 1,000 likely voters on Jan. 2.
[Breitbart] According to Gallup, the average presidential honeymoon lasts seven months. This is a window when the losing party declares a partisan peace, allows the incoming president to pick his cabinet and launch the agenda his victory mandates. Presidential honeymoons are not only a venerable American tradition they are one of democracy’s pillars. For generations they have been ceremonial supports for the peaceful transition of power, and the peaceful resolution of partisan conflicts.
Not this election year. There will be no honeymoon. This year even before Trump arrives in the Oval Office, the opposition cry has been Resist! Block! Reject! It is not just anti-American radicals like Michael Moore, who has indeed called for "100 days of resistance" to the Trump presidency, but by the leadership of the Democratic Party which has vowed to fight Trump’s appointments, has attacked the election result as an expression of popular racism, attempted to discredit the Electoral College by falsely calling it a legacy of slavery, and even accused Trump of being a Russian agent, a pawn in the chess game of its dictator Vladimir Putin. It is a sad day for America when the world’s oldest political party, whose name proclaims it a partisan of democracy, comes out in force as a saboteur of that same system.
#2
CIA Director Mike Morell? What? Nothing for the former MI6 guy hired by the Clinton funded Washington Opposition Research Group to develop data on the Trump-Russian connection ?
Oh, ok, that's right...foreign spy. Mike Morell was going to hire take care of that fellow.
[Daily Excelsior] A top 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... (LeT) Lion of Islam was killed in a shootout in North Kashmire’s Bandi-pora early today while security forces conducted operation at around half a dozen places in South Kashmire against Lion of Islams.
Security forces including 13-Rashtriya Rifles (RR) of army and Special Operations Group (SOG) of Jammu and Kashmire Police, Bandipora, cordoned off Parray Mohalla Hajan in North Kashmire’s Bandipora district early today.
A LeT Lion of Islam, who was hiding in a house opened fire on the troops during the house to house searches, leading to a shootout in which he was rubbed out by the troops. The shootout lasted till 7 a.m. and during searches one AK 47, three AK Magazines, three hand grenades, one radio set, one pouch, one matrix sheet and 200 AK rounds were recovered from the encounter site.
The Lion of Islam was identified as Abu Maviya of LeT. He along with his associates had infiltrated into Kashmire in September last year from Macchil sector of Kupwara and was operating in the Hajan area since then.
He along with his three associates fled from security cordon in Hajan area of Bandipora thrice last year in November and December. The security forces were tracking the group for several months.
In the meantime, security forces including 55 RR and SOG Shopian cordoned off Heff Shermal in South Kashmire district of Shopian early today. There are 7 Lions of Islam of LeT from the village and security forces had information about their movement in the village. However, ars longa, vita brevis... the operation was later called off and no one was incarcerated Youse'll never take me alive coppers!... [BANG!]... Ow!... I quit! Security forces including 50 RR, 183 Battalion of Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) and SOG Kakapora cordon off Kandi Zal area of Pampore in Pulwama district today. Sources said that the security forces had information about presence of Reyaz Dar of LeT and his associates in the village. However, ars longa, vita brevis... the operation was later called off.
Security forces including 55 RR and SOG Awantipora cordon off Khandaypora, Awantipora in district Pulwama today. They had information about presence of Reyaz Naiku of Hizbul Mujahideen and his associates in the village. However, ars longa, vita brevis... the operation was later called off.
Security forces including 42 RR and SOG Awantipora cordon off Batpora, Noorpora, Tral in Awantipora area of district Pulwama today. They had information about presence of some Lions of Islam in the area. The troops also cordoned off Ratsuna in Tral area of Awantipora in district Pulwama today. However, ars longa, vita brevis... the operations at these places were later called off.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/11/2017
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[9 views]
Top|| File under: Lashkar e-Taiba
#2
Heh. The "fact check" refutes the claim that Obamacare was a bi-partisian effort by admitting that Obama and the democrats rammed it through on a partisan basis.
As for the "death spiral": The very best time for a plane to get out of a death spiral is for the pilot to recognize when the plane is getting into one BEFORE it gets into it. What? these people are deliberately going to WAIT until companies burn through irreplaceable personal resources BEFORE admitting it?
Meh, I correct myself: they won't admit it even while the companies who shilled for it are in the midst of one.
Their predictions have proven wrong and ours were proven right. All their braying "NAY!" doesn't alter a thing.
Ruined his whole day
Diyala (IraqiNews.com) A militant was killed and his booby-trapped vehicle was destroyed before carrying out a suicide bombing in Diyala, intelligence services said Tuesday.
“Military intelligence teams detected a booby-trapped vehicle on al-Udhaim highway in Diyala. The force detonated the vehicle and killed the militant on board,” said the statement.
Violence surged in Iraq with the emergence of Islamic State militants who took over large areas of the country in 2014.
The United Nations Assistance Mission in Iraq (UNAMI) says violence in Iraq had left 19000 casualties in nine months of 2016. Observers believe Islamic State have begun to escalate attacks outside the city of Mosul, where the group has been losing ground and personnel since October, so as to relieve pressure by government forces on that front and to divert attention from group losses.
Posted by: badanov ||
01/11/2017
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[4 views]
Top|| File under: Islamic State
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
01/11/2017 11:36
Comments ||
Top||
#3
Chain to a road sign along Florida I-75, in 10 inches of low lying water. Chum daily, or until no longer needed. Trail cams and media coverage encouraged.
Baghdad (IraqiNews.com) A policeman and a civilian were killed and seven other people were wounded in three separate bombings in Baghdad on Tuesday, security forces said.
Alsumaria News quoted a source as saying that two explosive devices went off near a commercial area in Basmaya, southeast of Baghdad, killing a civilian and wounding three others. Another bomb exploded in Uwairij in the south, wounding two.
The source, who asked not to be named, said a fourth bomb exploded on the side of a road in Tarimiya, north of the capital, targeting a police patrol, killing a policeman and wounding two others.
Violence surges in Iraq with the emergence of Islamic State militants who took over large areas of the country in 2014. Baghdad has been witnessing almost daily bombings and armed attacks targeting civilians and security personnel.
No one claimed responsibility yet for the Tuesday bombing yet, but Islamic State extremists have claimed several recent attacks in the capital which killed dozens of civilians.
The United Nations Assistance Mission in Iraq (UNAMI) says violence in Iraq had left 19000 casualties in nine months of 2016.
Observers believe Islamic State have begun to escalate attacks outside the city of Mosul, where the group has been losing ground and personnel since October, so as to relieve pressure by government forces on that front and to divert attention from group losses.
[IsraelTimes] An autopsy of the terrorist who drove his truck into a group of soldiers, killing four of them, was killed by bullets fired by soldiers at the scene and a civilian tour guide.
The examination found he was killed by bullets from an army issued M-16 rifle and from a 9mm pistol, Channel 2 says.
[IsraelTimes] Israel has summoned 12 family members of the East Jerusalem terrorist who drove his truck into a crowd of soldiers, killing four, to begin procedures for stripping them of their residency status.
Interior Minister Aryeh Deri says that “we have to use every measure at our disposal as a deterrence,” according to Hebrew language media. Deri thanks police and Interior Ministry workers for beginning the procedure so quickly.
[IsraelTimes] Message scrawled on Old City wall extols terrorist in Sunday’s deadly attack and implores Jews to leave capital.
Israeli police arrested four residents of the Old City in Jerusalem overnight Monday for spray-painting graffiti praising the terrorist who carried out a truck-ramming attack in the capital on Sunday, killing four soldiers and wounding 16.
The graffiti, which was found sprayed across shopfronts in the Muslim Quarter the night after the attack, praises attacker Fadi al-Qunbar, a resident of East Jerusalem, while also declaring that the truck-ramming was “resistance, not terror.”
The graffiti also mentions the name Mesbah Abu Sabih, who killed two Israelis in a shooting attack in October at Jerusalem’s Ammunition Hill light rail stop, with “We will not despair until you give up” and “There is no place for you [Jews] in Jerusalem” written in Hebrew under his name.
Also found written in Hebrew was the statement, “Yesterday’s attack is the beginning of 2017.”
The suspects, whose ages range from 13 to 20 years old, were arrested after police uncovered cans of spray paint during a search of their homes, a police spokeswoman said.
The 13-year-old has since been released to house arrest, while the rest of the suspects will remain in police custody until the completion of the investigation, after which they will be brought before a court, the spokeswoman added.
On Sunday, the security cabinet ordered the security services to detain and investigate anyone found praising or celebrating the attack, which likely led to Monday evening’s arrests.
Police also detained three minors ages 12-14 Monday night after security forces were targeted with rocks, a Molotov cocktail and firecrackers in Jabel Mukaber, the East Jerusalem neighborhood whence Qunbar hailed
Posted by: trailing wife ||
01/11/2017
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[5 views]
Top|| File under: Islamic State
Nineveh (IraqiNews.com) Islamic State militants have cut water supplies from 30 districts in the eastern section of Mosul, a municipal official said Monday as government forces recaptured more regions from the extremist group.
Hossam al-Abbar, a member of Nineveh province council, said in press statements that water plants feeding eastern and western Mosul were still under IS control, adding that the group, stopping water pumps, has caused to cut water on Monday from 30 neighborhoods that had been retaken by security forces.
“There are ten other districts where the water supply continues, but intermittently,” Abbar added.
He urged the government to disburse the province’s budget so as to run potable water tanks.
Iraqi forces, backed by US-led fighter jets, have been carrying out a major campaign since mid October to retake Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city and the Islamic State’s last urban stronghold in Iraq.
Iraqi generals said recently they became in control over more than 70 percent of the eastern section of the city and are hoping to retake it entirely so as to move onwards to fight for IS’s western hideouts.
The conflict in Mosul has forced at least 169.000 people to flee to refugee camps, while hundred thousands are still stranded, being either used as human shields or shot at upon trying to flee, according to aid and human rights groups.
ISIS on execution spree in Mosul That'll stiffen their resolve
Nineveh (IraqiNews.com) The Islamic State has reportedly went on an execution spree over the past 24 hours in western Mosul, with victims accused of treason and espionage.
A local source told Alsumaria News that “eight districts in eastern Mosul have witnessed executions of both group members and civilians over multiple charges ranging from espionage to escaping battlefields”.
The source said the “executions hysteria” attempt to address collapses within the group’s ranks, especially as it continues to lose more ground to Iraqi troops in the eastern section of the city.
“IS media have obviously begun reporting ‘mass treasons’ by group leaders and fighters in the eastern region,” said the source, adding that those were accused of dishonoring their “pledge of allegiance” to the supreme leader, Abu Bakr al-baghdadi.
Since Iraqi government forces launched a campaign to retake Mosul from Islamic State militants in October 2016, there have been regular news about IS executing militants escaping battlefields and civilians collaborating with security forces or breaching the group’s extreme rules. The group has also reportedly ceased to pay salaries to its fighters, a development which observers say reflects the financial dilemma the group is starting to experience.
Iraqi forces have come closer to the Tigris River which cuts through Mosul in recent days, and are hoping to hasten with overtaking the east to proceed towards IS western strongholds.
On Monday, spokesperson of the Pentagon, Navy Captain Jeff Davis, said: “We’re seeing continued signs of ISIL fighters having loss of morale…Many of them have not been paid in months; we’ve seen fewer [vehicle-borne homemade bombs] than we had previously in Mosul, and indications are that ISIL can’t respond to coordinated attacks on multiple axes.”
ISIS creates weather reports, kidz cartoons That's nice of them. Isn't that nice of them?
Baghdad (IraqiNews.com) The self-proclaimed Islamic State group started airing a weather forecast and created a cartoon for children, Alsumaria News reported on Tuesday.
According to SITE Intelligence Group, “The Islamic State produced a weather forecast video for its “provinces” in Iraq, Libya, Sinai, and Syria, to help serve the group’s self-proclaimed Caliphate.”
The Islamic State also released a video showing a child while executing a Kurdish prisoner in Dier ez-Zour.
Moreover, the extremist group created new kids’ cartoons, in order to promote its ideology among children.
Kirkuk (IraqiNews.com) The self-proclaimed Islamic State group executed a former policeman and a teenager, south of Kirkuk, on charges of collaboration with security forces, Al Mada Press reported on Tuesday.
The source said, “Members of the Islamic State executed a former police officer and a teenager in al-Rashad area (65 km south of Kirkuk), for collaborating with security forces.”
The Islamic State is occupying the areas south of Kirkuk since June 2014, while security forces continue their operations to retake these areas.
[ARA News] Manbij – The Islamic State (ISIS) radical group has treated women in Syria’s Manbij city in a degrading and suppressive manner. ISIS used to implement its brutal version of Sharia in Manbij, committing atrocities against civilians, raping women and stoning them on charges of ‘committing adultery’, according to eyewitnesses.
Manbijian women expressed their suffering under ISIS before the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) expelled the radical group form the city on 15 August 2016. The liberation of Manbij city came after two months of deadly fighting.
“Under ISIS, women were forced to wear veil, cover themselves in black. The women were not even allowed to show their eyes in public. Despite the commitment to their radical laws, women were exposed to brutal punishments for no reason,” Fatma And, a woman from Manbij, told ARA News. “That was very stressful… a nightmare.”
After expelling ISIS from the city, the Syrian Democratic Forces discovered a secret prison for women. “The walls of this prison have witnessed unimaginable atrocities by ISIS militants against innocent women,” Fatma said.
Budder Ayman, another Syrian citizen from Manbij, told ARA News that ISIS was calling on women “to leave their husbands and marry jihadists from the group.”
“I remember once I entered a shop without covering my eyes, ISIS militants arrested me and said that my husband was an apostate for allowing me to appear in public like that,” she said.
“They asked me to leave my husband and marry one of the jihadists,” the 34-year-old Budur said. “They kept me in a detention centre for a day before letting me go. My husband was very worried. I have six children and these bastards wanted to destroy my family. May God destroy them.”
“I hope I’ll never see any of those ISIS extremists again,” she added. Video report at the link
Posted by: badanov ||
01/11/2017
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[3 views]
Top|| File under: Islamic State
Nineveh (IraqiNews.com) Iraqi army forces recaptured al-Sukkar district in eastern Mosul on Tuesday, said the commander of the government’s joint military operations seeking to retake the city occupied by Islamic State militants since 2014.
Lt. Gen. Abdul-Amir Yarallah, commander of operation “We Are Coming, Nineveh”, said in a statement that the army’s elite Counter-Terrorism Service forces raised the Iraqi flag above the neighborhood’s buildings.
The force said Monday they were getting closer to storming Mosul University campus, a major Islamic State stronghold in eastern Mosul.
Iraqi forces, backed by US-led fighter jets, popular militias and Kurdish troops, have been carrying out a major campaign since mid October to retake Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city and the Islamic State’s last urban stronghold in Iraq.
Iraqi generals said recently they became in control over more than 70 percent of the eastern section of the city and are hoping to retake it entirely so as to move onwards to fight for IS’s western hideouts. The current operations are the second phase of the campaign that began on December 29th after weeks of recess.
The Pentagon said through a spokesperson on Monday that the extremist group’s days in Mosul are “numbered”, and that its capabilities were waning.
The conflict has forced at least 169.000 civilians to flee the city to refugee camps.
Nineveh (IraqiNews.com) Media officials with the Ministry of Defense (War Media Cell) announced on Tuesday, that the Islamic State extremist group detonated two bridges in the city of Mosul, in order to hinder the advance of security of security forces to the western side of the city.
The officials said in a press statement, “Today, the Islamic State terrorist group detonated the 5th bridge and the iron bridge in the western side of Mosul.”
“The Islamic State detonated the bridges in order to hinder the advance of security forces to the western side of Mousl,” the statement added.
The province of Nineveh is witnessing extensive military operations to retake the city of Mosul that was captured by the Islamic State in June 10, 2014.
Nineveh (IraqiNews.com) Iraqi government forces made further advances in eastern Mosul on Tuesday, recapturing one more district and preparing to invade another as operations continue to drive off Islamic State militants.
A security source was quoted by Sahfaaq news website as saying that the forces recaptured al-Dhubbat district, in the northeast, and were preparing to invade the nearby al-Maliya neighborhood.
Also in the north, the website added that government troops brought down IS’s biggest flag, a five-meter tall post erected at a “festivities arena”. Troops are also proceeding towards a so-called Al-Majmoua al-Thaqafiya area.
Meanwhile, Iranian news agency Tasnim said forces liberated Masjid al-Saegh area, and were engaging in violent encounters with IS militants on their way to al-Andalus district.
Federal Police commander, Raed Shaker Jawdat, said his forces moved through Sumer neighborhood in the southeast and opened safe pathways to evacuate civilians from the area. He said IS militants were “indiscriminately shelling residential areas to take revenge from the people.”
Earlier on Tuesday, the army’s elite Counter-Terrorism Service said they took over al-Sukkar district.
Iraqi forces, backed by US-led fighter jets, popular militias and Kurdish troops, have been carrying out a major campaign since mid October to retake Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city and the Islamic State’s last urban stronghold in Iraq.
Iraqi generals said recently they became in control over more than 70 percent of the eastern section of the city and are hoping to retake it entirely so as to move onwards to fight for IS’s western hideouts. The current operations are the second phase of the campaign that began on December 29th after weeks of recess.
The Pentagon said through a spokesperson on Monday that the extremist group’s days in Mosul are “numbered”, and that its capabilities were waning.
The conflict has forced at least 169.000 civilians to flee the city to refugee camps.
(Reuters) The leaflet dropped from the skies over Mosul urged Islamic State militants to give themselves up. “Who will look after your families if you are killed?” read the message, found on the ground in an apartment complex on the city’s northern edge.
Sent by the Iraqi government, it appears to have been ignored.
At the bottom of a stairwell in one of the apartment blocks lay the corpses of three militants who must have known they would lose against the overwhelming numbers and firepower of their opponents.
Iraqi forces backed by a U.S.-led coalition took the Hadba apartment complex several days ago as the campaign to drive Islamic State out of Mosul gains momentum in the city’s east.
A tour arranged for Reuters to show off the government forces’ latest gains showed how the militants, though vastly outnumbered and overpowered, are still putting up a fight for their largest urban stronghold.
Beneath blankets thrown over their remains, the militants appear to have fought on even after being gravely wounded.
One had a makeshift splint on his leg, and a big skidmark of blood indicated a militant may have dragged himself into cover, or been pulled by the others.
The lower half of one insurgent’s body was blown off before he had a chance to detonate the suicide belt still tied around his waist.
“We came from here and hit him with a rocket,” said an Iraqi soldier, retracing his steps through the outdoor passage they used to come up on the militants from behind.
The complex is made up of more than 160 blocks — the three-storey buildings now giving Iraqi forces an added advantage over the enemy, which is being pushed back towards the Tigris river bisecting Mosul from north to south.
Some Iraqi units further south reached the banks of the Tigris over the weekend — a milestone in the offensive that began when the elite counterterrorism service (CTS) pushed into Mosul from the east in October.
The western half of the city remains fully under Islamic State control and retaking it from Islamic State is likely to be complicated by narrow alleys.
TRIP WIRES
The pastel-colored apartment blocks show marks of heavy fighting and the sound of gunfire was audible nearby.
Spirits were high among the soldiers, who broke into song and dance for the camera, and posed for photographs with Islamic State flags they had torn down.
Victory in Mosul would deal a symbolic and perhaps lethal blow to Islamic State’s self-styled caliphate.
But the group has recently demonstrated the insurgent tactics to which it will likely revert as it loses territory. Dozens of civilians have been killed in bomb blasts in Baghdad since the start of the year and the militants have attacked security forces in areas retaken from them.
Touring the compound, Major-General Najm al-Jubbouri said Islamic State had hit back with four to five car bombs during and after the battle, but they were detonated before hitting their target.
Islamic State newsletters were scattered on the ground outside the entrance to the mosque inside the compound, hailing attacks carried out by its fighters against Iraqi forces.
A ground floor apartment served as a real estate office for Islamic State, which rented out the apartments of those who fled to people displaced from other parts of Mosul or beyond during the two years they ruled over the city.
Another Islamic State flyer warned civilians against informing the security forces about the location of militants.
All civilians were evacuated during and after the battle and government soldiers now appear in the windows of their apartments.
Sheets are stretched across the balconies — in some cases for privacy, but also so that Islamic State snipers could see Iraqi forces without being spotted.
“Some of the doors were rigged with trip wires,” said the head of one of the battalions that retook the apartments, whose name, Colonel Ibrahim, has been graffitied on the walls by his men.
He said his men had broken into one apartment and found a discarded suicide belt and a cup of tea, still steaming hot, suggesting at least one of the militants chose to flee rather than fight on.
ISIS Australian leader bites the dust in airstrike in Mosul I didn't even know ISIS had an Australian brigade
Nineveh (IraqiNews.com) A security source in Nineveh Province revealed that the Islamic State’s Commander of the Australian Brigade was killed, along with three of his aides, north of the province, Alsumaria News reported on Tuesday.
The source said, “Iraqi Air Force, with the cooperation of the military intelligence, conducted an air strike on Islamic State’s headquarters of Australian leaders in al-Hadba neighborhood, north of Nineveh, destructing the headquarters completely, as well as killing all leaders inside it.”
“The air strike also killed the commander of Islamic State’s Australian Brigade, Khaled Sharouf, also known as Abu Mosab al-Australi, along with his aides Mohamed Abdel Karim (Abu Waleed al-Australi), Abdullah Ismail (Abu Aisha) and Sedrouf (Abu Taiba al-Australi),” the source added.
The province of Nineveh is witnessing extensive military operations to retake the city of Mosul that was captured by the Islamic State in June 10, 2014.
Posted by: badanov ||
01/11/2017
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[7 views]
Top|| File under: Islamic State
43 armed militants were killed, 40 wounded and 30 others were arrested by Afghan National Defense and Security Forces.
Afghan National Defense and Security forces launched nine counter-terrorism joint operations in the past 24 hours to clear some of the areas of insurgents, the ministry of interior said in a statement on Tuesday.
The operations were conducted in Kabul, Nangarhar, Kapisa, Khost, Ghazni, Kandahar, Zabul, Uruzgan, Helmand, Nimroz, Herat, Farah, Sar-e-Pul, Faryab, Badakhshan, Baghlan and Kunduz provinces.
Also, during these operations, Afghan National Police discovered and confiscated light and heavy rounds of ammunition and 12 different types of IEDs.
No details on casualties among security forces were given.
A senior Al-Shabaab commander Mohamed Abdullahi Hashi Iiro gave himself up to Somali government authorities in Garbaharey district in Gedo region on Monday, sources said. The commander who was in charge of Al shabaab’s taxation activities in Tulo-Barqawo area near Garabaharey had earlier contacted local Govt officials in the town, asking to surrender.
It was highest-ranking al-Shabaab leader abandoned his life in the group and turned himself in since 2016. Al shabaab did not comment on the claim of the commander’s surrender. Last December, an Al shabaab commander in charge of zakat surrendered to Jubbaland state forces Lower Jubba region after defecting from the militants controlling parts of Somalia.
The Somali government announced an amnesty offer late l2014 to members of the ‘al-Shabaab’, as it goes on with military offensive alongside Africa Union-backed force AMISOM.
Posted by: Steve White ||
01/11/2017
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[4 views]
Top|| File under: al-Shabaab
[IsraelTimes] West Bank sees dramatic increase in stonings following Security Council resolution, Kerry speech and talk of moving US embassy to Jerusalem.
The West Bank has seen a sharp rise in the number of violent attacks, primarily rock-throwing incidents, since an anti-settlement resolution was passed on December 23, 2016 by the United Nations ...the Oyster Bay money pit... Security Council, Israeli defense officials said.
The rise was recorded in the last week of December 2016 and the first week of January 2017, an increase security forces say is mostly due to exam season in Paleostinian high schools. They note, though, that it is a larger increase than in the same period in previous years.
In September 346 rock-throwing attacks were recorded, in October 375, in November 420, and in December 344. Most of the December attacks occurred in the final week of the month. In the first week of January there were 169 recorded attacks, a pace that, if maintained, would lead to almost 700 attacks by the end of the month.
The rock attacks were also linked to a series of anniversaries taking place around now, including that of Fatah’s founding and first terrorist attack on January 1, 1965, and of the liquidation of Yahya Ayyash, Hamas, the well-beloved offspring of the Moslem Brotherhood,’s chief bomb maker, on January 5, 1996.
Nevertheless, the political context cannot be dismissed. On December 23, 2016, the UN Security Council passed Resolution 2334 demanding an end to settlements in the West Bank. A few days later, on December 28, US Secretary of State John F. I was in Vietnam, you know Kerry Former Senator-for-Life from Massachussetts, self-defined war hero, speaker of French, owner of a lucky hat, conqueror of Cambodia, unsuccessful presidential candidate, and utterly failed Secretary of State... gave a speech warning of the dangers of settlement expansion. Finally, Paleostinians have been agitated by ongoing discussion about the possibility the US embassy will be moved to Jerusalem after President-elect Donald Trump ...New York real estate developer, described by Dems as illiterate, racist, misogynistic, and what ever other unpleasant descriptions they can think of, elected by the rest of us as 45th President of the United States... takes office.
The past few months have also seen an uptick in shooting attacks by Paleostinians in the West Bank. In September there was one, October and November had four each, and in December there were six. Most of those attacks were local initiatives, unaffiliated with any serious terror organization.
Most strikingly, there have been a relatively large number of attempts to carry out organized terror attacks, mainly by Hamas. In 2016 Israeli security forces prevented some 100 serious terror attacks, not including the attacks prevented by the Paleostinian Authority. Those thwarted attacks were designed to ignite a full-blown intifada, so far without success.
The officials also noted continued unrest among the Paleostinian public against both Israel and the Paleostinian Authority, saying that the atmosphere remains as tense as ever.
[Daily Mail, Where America Gets Its News] Morocco has banned the production and sale of burqa full-face Moslem veils for security reasons, media reports said Tuesday. While there was no official announcement by authorities in the North African nation, the reports said the interior ministry order would take effect this week. The ban has been imposed due to reports felons have been using the garment to help carry out their crimes.
'We have taken the step of completely banning the import, manufacture and marketing of this garment in all the cities and towns of the kingdom,' the Le360 news site quoted a high-ranking interior ministry official as saying.
It said the measure appeared to be motivated by security concerns, 'since bandidos have repeatedly used this garment to perpetrate their crimes.'
Most women in Morocco, whose King Mohammed VI favours a moderate version of Islam, prefer the hijab headscarf that does not cover the face.
The niqab, which leaves the area around the eyes uncovered, is also worn in Salafist circles and in more conservative regions in the north, from where thousands of jihadists have gone to fight in Syria and Iraq.
In some commercial districts of Casablanca, the country's economic capital, interior ministry officials on Monday conducted 'awareness-raising campaigns with traders to inform them of this new decision,' the Media 24 website said.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/11/2017
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[3 views]
Top|| File under: Salafists
#1
Most women in Morocco, whose King Mohammed VI favours a moderate version of Islam, prefer the hijab headscarf that does not cover the face.
I favor equal rights for women, which includes the right to be allowed to wear whatever they want without the automatic assumption that they're fair game for rape if what they choose ins't "Islamic".
#6
Hijab/headscarf was perhaps to reduce the spread of head lice?
Rewearing without sterilization would cause reinfection, Glenmore. But in a dusty environment with limited soap and water, a scarf over the hair would keep it cleaner.
[BLOOMBERG] Hungary plans to crack down on non-governmental organizations linked to billionaire George Soros now that Donald Trump ...New York real estate developer, described by Dems as illiterate, racist, misogynistic, and what ever other unpleasant descriptions they can think of, elected by the rest of us as 45th President of the United States... will occupy the White House, according to the deputy head of Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s party.
The European Union ...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing... member will use "all the tools at its disposal" to "sweep out" NGOs funded by the Hungarian-born financier, which "serve global capitalists and back political correctness over national governments," Szilard Nemeth, a vice president of the ruling Fidesz party, told news hounds on Tuesday. No one answered the phone at the Open Society Institute in Budapest when Bloomberg News called outside business hours.
"I feel that there is an opportunity for this, internationally," because of Trump’s election, state news service MTI reported Nemeth as saying. Lawmakers will start debating a bill to let authorities audit NGO executives, according to parliament’s legislative agenda.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/11/2017
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[1 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Well, someone followed the money.
How much trouble do you think that sludge bucket has caused in the world.
I would have called Soros scum but I looked for something lower and more disgusting.
#2
Yo, Doris! On TV, it's Soros.
Looks like he's endorsing Lavoris.
"From Buda to Brexit,
My beak reeked of snakeshit...
But no more!" sez George Ouroboros.
[Libya Observer] A private letter sent by the Head of the House of Representatives Office in Tobruk, Awad al-Fituri, to the HoR showed that the HoR’s Speaker, Aqilah Saleh, agreed on a request to distribute the proposal of changing the Libyan national anthem and flag to the HoR members so that it could be discussed officially in upcoming sessions.
The proposal was put forth by a number of HoR members, who said that despite the fact that the anthem and "independence" flag have their undisputed influential roles in the changes that happened in Libya over the past five years, they have become an obstacle that is impeding the efforts of achieving real national reconciliation in Libya.
According to the HoR members, they suggested the changing of the anthem and flag because they saw them as a threat to the unity of the country as the majority of Libyans have refused to partake in any reconciliation initiatives unless the flag and anthem have been reconsidered.
"Despite the fact that the changing of the flag and anthem should be proposed to the Constitution Drafting Assembly, we have suggested it on the HoR’s table due to the obstacles that the CDA is facing currently and the crises that are sweeping through the country. Thus, we preferred to put the CDA aside and use the HoR to pass the proposal." The HoR members, who proposed the change indicated.
Rivals of the HoR have time and time again accused it of being controlled by Qadaffy’s regime henchmen, backing up their accusation by the HoR’s controversial decrees, including an amnesty for Qadaffy’s henchmen, who fled outside Libya and were received in Tobruk like heroes.
They also referred to the HoR’s gasping for releasing Saif Qadaffy by trying to include him in the amnesty, which they said was an attempt to reestablish grounds with Qadaffy’s regime henchmen.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/11/2017
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[5 views]
Top|| File under: Arab Spring
[Ynet] Jordan's Religious Affairs Ministry says it has dismissed 15 mosque preachers and is disciplining seven for refusing to pray for the souls of Jordanian troops killed in recent shootouts with Islamic Lion of Islams.
Eleven members of the security forces were killed Dec. 18 and 20 in the Jordanian province of Karak. A Canadian tourist and two Jordanian civilians were also killed, along with five gunnies. The Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... group grabbed credit for the initial attack.
The ministry statement, published in Jordanian media Tuesday, did not say why the preachers refused to comply with a nationwide call to hold memorial prayers following the attacks.
Some mosque preachers in Jordan are followers of an ultraconservative stream of Islam that also serves as the ideological foundation of IS.
Salafists, perhaps.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
01/11/2017
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[6 views]
Top|| File under: Islamic State
#1
How about dismissing them from "life in Jordan"? Walk to Damascus or die
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/11/2017 20:14
Comments ||
Top||
[AnNahar] Italian authorities said Tuesday they had identified an alleged jihadist recruiter operating in prison, two weeks after it emerged suspected Berlin truck bomber Anis Amri may have been radicalized in a Sicilian jail.
Tunisian national Saber Hmidi, 34, was formally jugged Book 'im, Mahmoud! in connection with new charges while serving a three year, eight months sentence for possession of an illegal weapon and assaulting a police officer.
"His goal was to send fellow prisoners into conflict theatres once they were released," said Augusto Zaccariello of the Italian prison police.
Wiretaps of Hmidi's phone conversations also suggested he planned to travel to Syria after his release, but that he was not plotting any terrorist attacks in Italia, the officer told a presser.
Only a handful of Italian residents are known to have joined jihadist groups in the Middle East and the country is not seen as having a significant problem with homegrown Islamist militancy.
But Amri's case has focused attention on the possibility that some of Italia's prisons could be breeding grounds for jihadism.
Amri allegedly rammed a truck into a crowded Christmas market in Berlin on December 19, killing 12 people. He was killed in a shootout with Italian police four days later, having returned to the country where he had earlier served a four-year prison sentence.
At least seven people were killed after a suicide bomber detonated his explosives outside a National Directorate of Security (NDS) office in PD2 Lashkargah city in Helmand on Tuesday, officials said.
According to the provincial police chief Aqa Noor Kentoz the incident took place at about mid-day in the provincial capital.
Kentoz said the explosion took place while a meeting was underway at the NDS office between security officials and insurgents who wanted to join the peace process.
He said some of the peace-seeking insurgents were among the dead.
Eyewitnesses said bomb-disposal experts were also called in to defuse a car bomb at the scene that had not detonated.
No group has yet claimed responsibility for the attack.
Turkey has invited Iraq’s Chief of General Staff Osman al-Ghanimi to Ankara for talks on both anti-terror fight and the status of the Bashiqa camp after Prime Minister Binali Yıldırım’s key visit to Baghdad over the weekend.
“I have sent him an official letter [of invitation] and told him ‘Let’s come and talk these issues both politically and militarily,’” Defense Minister Fikri Işık told reporters late Jan 9. Al-Ghanimi is also serving as the acting defense minister of Iraq. Işık said it was not certain when this visit will take place.
Yıldırım, accompanied with Işık and other Turkish ministers, paid a visit to Baghdad and Arbil on Jan. 7 and 8 to mend ties with the Iraqi government over the establishment of the military camp in Bashiqa. Turkey said it will resolve the problem in a friendly way while Iraq asked for an immediate beginning of the withdrawal of Turkish troops.
According to sources, Turkey’s withdrawal will be possible after Mosul is freed from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) but in the meantime Ankara and Baghdad will talk on the modalities of the process and the future status of the camp.
Işık said that he met with al-Ghanimi in London on the sidelines of a meeting on the fight against ISIL. “I first extended my invitation to him but he told me there needs to be an official one,” he stressed. The letter was sent to al-Ghanimi after Işık consulted with Chief of General Staff Gen. Hulusi Akar and Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu.
Işık underlined again that the protection of Iraq’s territorial integrity is very important to Turkey.
Posted by: Steve White ||
01/11/2017
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[3 views]
Top|| File under: Sublime Porte
Vietnam War "hero" Senator Dick Blumenthal decided to take the best left-wing opposition research and throw it at Senator Jeff Sessions, Trump's pick for Attorney General. In a creepy scene out of the Soviet Union, Blumenthal demanded that Senator Sessions disavow Horowitz and the Freedom Center.
"At an event called Restoration Weekend, you gave a speech praising a man named David Horowitz as a man I admire," Blumenthal sneered. "David Horowitz has said, among other things, that, quote, all the major Muslim organizations in America are connected to the Muslim Brotherhood, and quote, 80 percent of mosques are filled with hate against Jews and Americans."
Blumenthal demanded to know whether Sessions was embarrassed to have praised David Horowitz.
Sessions refused Blumenthal's demand and instead praised Horowitz's "brilliant book" Radical Son, recalling it as a "powerful and moving story of how he moved from the unprincipled radical totalitarian left to a more traditional American person."
"He's a most brilliant individual and has a remarkable story." More and a video at the link
#1
"David Horowitz has said, among other things, that, quote, all the major Muslim organizations in America are connected to the Muslim Brotherhood, and quote, 80 percent of mosques are filled with hate against Jews and Americans."
Its refreshing to hear the truth every once in awhile.
[Moonbattery] The 620,000 lives lost in the U.S. Civil War were not enough. Systemic discrimination in the name of Affirmative Action isn’t enough. The $trillions confiscated and redistributed as welfare payments aren’t enough.
The senseless violence isn’t enough. Not even Barack Obama is enough. Whites still need to be punished, even if the punishment is directly self-inflicted. So says luxuriantly oppressed Georgetown University sociology professor Michael Eric Dyson, in a nauseatingly obsequious interview with New York Times Magazine intended to promote his book Tears We Cannot Stop: A Sermon to White America:
#4
The back man owes the white man. After thousands of years of wide spread slavery, then came the United States of America. A Christian nation that abolished slavery and then created an industrial revolution that replaced slaves with machines that abolished slavery around the world.
#6
The notion that everything he and these like him have is due to "white guilt", which is not inexhaustible, just doesn't seem to penetrate - does it?
#10
Molon Labe can be used in a double entendre context here.
The next four years are ripe for that meaning to be learned by a lot of those on the left if portents hold.....
[Libya Herald] The Derna Mujahidine Shura Council (DMSC) condemned Presidency Council /Government of National Accord head Faiez Serraj and Khalifa Hafter, and declared their full support for the Grand Mufti Saddek Ghariani. They condemned ISIS.
In a statement released Monday, the DMSC called on the thuwar (rebels during the 17 Feb Revolution) to unite together in the face of ’’suspect operations supported from abroad’’ which Derna deterred through the will of god.
It invited all those of like creed to its city calling on them not to feel the sadness of a heartache of leaving their city ‐ a reference believed to be to the recent escape from Benghazi by the Benghazi Defence Brigades (BDB).
The DMSC announced its support for the victories in Misrata, Sabratha and Benghazi and called for unity against the ’’criminal ISIS’’ used by local, regional and international ’’evil powers’’ to bring down the Arab Spring revolutions.
It called for unity with the Grand Mufti stating that they ’’are his soldiers’’ fully supporting him in his rejection of any foreign protectorate-ship on Libya.
Furthermore, it accused Serraj and Hafter of being treacherous to the Libyan people and of selling the country, adding that they are destined to the ’’rubbish heap of history’’ together with anyone who supported them ’’even with a word’’.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/11/2017
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[3 views]
Top|| File under: Arab Spring
[JUDICIALWATCH.ORG] Judicial Watch announced that a federal court judge ordered the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to produce this week any "preservation requests" for emails sent to Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, Deputy Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, Chief of Staff Christian Marrone, and General Counsel Stevan Bunnell.
The order from U.S District Court Judge Randolph Moss came in a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit seeking agency records in the personal email accounts used by the four top Homeland Security officials (Judicial Watch v U.S. Department of Homeland Security (No. 1:16-cv-00967)). The court order, issued last week after a hearing, requires DHS to comply by January 12 (Thursday).
At last week’s January 5 hearing, Obama Justice Department lawyers confirmed that nothing had been done to retrieve government records from Jeh Johnson or the other officials’ accounts.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/11/2017
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[10 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
At last week’s January 5 hearing, Obama Justice Department lawyers confirmed that nothing had been done to retrieve government records from Jeh Johnson or the other officials’ accounts.
I look forward to the Trump administration filing the appropriate charges.
U.S. troops have arrived in the small town of Drawsko Pomorskie, Poland, as part of the largest armed military brigade deployed in Europe since the end of the Cold War. The U.S. troops, along with 53 track vehicles, including the M109 Paladin self-propelled howitzer, reached Poland after a three-day journey through Germany. The show of force falls under NATO's Operation Atlantic Resolve, designed to show the United States' commitment to its European allies in the face of what NATO sees as Russian aggression.
U.S. soldiers also arrived in Wrocław, a city in southwest Poland in which a key NATO and Polish airbase is located.
On Friday, nearly 2,800 pieces of military equipment arrived in Germany when the U.S. Army's 3rd Armored Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, reached the port at Bremerhaven before setting off for Poland.
The U.S. troops will spend about a month training in Poland before moving to Germany and Romania for additional training exercises.
"Let me be very clear, this is one part of our efforts to deter Russian aggression, ensure territorial integrity of our allies and maintain a Europe that is whole, free, prosperous and at peace," U.S. Air Force Lt. Gen. Tim Ray, deputy commander of U.S. European Command, said.
The troops will rotate training in Bulgaria, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania and Slovakia for the next nine months. The regional training exercises are also designed to test how U.S. forces respond on short notice to a possible conflict with Russia.
"This is a tangible sign of the United States' commitment to maintaining peace on this continent," Maj. Gen. Timothy McGuire, deputy commanding general of the U.S. Army Europe, said in a statement. "It is a sign of the U.S. commitment to this alliance and to peace and prosperity in Europe."
Posted by: Steve White ||
01/11/2017
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[10 views]
Top|| File under:
#4
...Give the Poles the damned tanks and let them handle it. If the Russians come west again, the Poles will fight to the last round, and then they'll pick up knives, and when the knives are broken they'll use their bare hands. I don't think anybody on this side of the line - or the Russian side, either - has any idea how much the Poles hate the Russians.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
01/11/2017 5:59
Comments ||
Top||
#5
Under strength military, penny packeted across the globe. You have too many commitments with too few resources. He who defends everything, defends nothing.
#11
They hate our guts and want our troops out. They are easily capable of defending themselves.
The Polish descriptor of Platonic perfection of anything is American... or at least it was in 1994, according to my Polish au pair girl. That is not the attitude of a people who hate our guts.
[IsraelTimes] Yusuf al-Qaradawi announced the change a few weeks ago, saying Paleostinians now have ’other capabilities’ they can use. But Gazoo’s Islamist rulers are still committed to the ’strategic weapon’ of ’martyrdom’.
The relentless suicide kaboom campaign of Hamas, a contraction of the Arabic words for "frothing at the mouth", during the Second Intifada (2000-2005), which killed hundreds of Israeli civilians, enjoyed a degree of mainstream Moslem legitimacy thanks to Yusuf al-Qaradawi ...crackpot Egyptian Islamist theologian. He is best known for his program Shariah and Life on Al Jazeera, with an estimated audience of 60 million kindred souls worldwide. He is also well-known for IslamOnline, which occasionally advocates things like slavery and thumping the old lady with a rod no thicker than an inch, and has published more than 120 books, including Islam: The Future Civilization. Joe has long had a prominent role within the intellectual leadership of the Moslem Brüderbund. Some of his views have been controversial in the West, though less so among the rubes of the Mysterious East, and he was refused entry to the United Kingdom in 2008. In 2004, 2,500 Muslim academics from Saudi Arabia, Iraq and from the Palestinian territories condemned Qaradawi, and accused him of giving Islam a bad name.... , the highest Sharia authority for the Moslem Brüderbund and one of the Arab world’s most well-known scholars.
Continued on Page 49
[Libya Herald] Since Thursday’s coordinated breakout by Death Eaters in Benghazi, Libyan National Army troops continue to surround the Ganfouda and Sabri districts. They have so far launched no assaults to take positions that are now more lightly defended since some 40 Death Eaters made a dash for freedom.
A Benghazi Revolutionaries’ Shoura Council-linked internet site yesterday showed rousing pictures of fighters in combat. However at least two of the shots look to be from a sequence part of which was published early in November.
There has been little news of the families trapped in the besieged terrorist enclaves. However the LNA claims to have caught a man travelling with several women who were not his wives. The suspect, named as Mustafa al-Sohaibi and his party were detained near Jalu.
TV coverage showed a quantity of cash, identity cards, airline tickets, bank drafts, terrorist literature and what was said the be a BRSC seal. The LNA has not said how many women were with Sohaibi nor how the group came to be tossed in the calaboose You have the right to remain silent...
Posted by: Fred ||
01/11/2017
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[3 views]
Top|| File under: Ansar al-Sharia
[WASHINGTONTIMES] Congress’s top immigrant-rights immigrant entitlements advocate said Tuesday that he’ll skip next week’s inauguration, saying he can’t stomach seeing President-elect Donald Trump ...New York real estate developer, described by Dems as illiterate, racist, misogynistic, and what ever other unpleasant descriptions they can think of, elected by the rest of us as 45th President of the United States... take the oath of office.
Rep. Luis V. Gutierrez, an Illinois Democrat who for years has led the push to legalize illegal immigrants colonists, said Mr. Trump’s past remarks about racial and religious minorities -- and particularly women -- are ’something I can never un-hear."
"Sorry. That is never OK," Mr. Gutierrez said in a speech on the House floor.
Instead, he said, he’ll participate in a women’s march a day later.
He said he went to both inaugurations for former President George W. Bush, and it’s not partisanship that’s driving him away. Instead, he said, Mr. Trump is an exceptional case.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/11/2017
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[9 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Every public "skip" should be met with a low key announcement by the Trump team that a real patriot of whatever background (whether a celebrity, or a serviceman, or whatever background) has been invited to symbolically fill the vacant chair.
#2
he’ll skip next week’s inauguration, saying he can’t stomach seeing President-elect Donald Trump take the oath of office.
I predict the next four years are going to be really hard on you, Luis.
As for "he’ll participate in a women’s march a day later", the thing speaks for itself.
It is an oath not to an Arc of History, the Planet or some progressive vision of the future. It's not an oath to Mexico or Europe or the Liberal world order. The text of the oath is a declaration of allegiance to permanent interests of the United States and the people who live in it, as determined by the Constitution and the laws of the land -- or it is nothing. - Richard Fernandez
Hasakah – Kurdish forces of the People’s Protection Units (YPG) on Tuesday arrested a number of people in Syria’s northeastern Hasakah Governorate, suspected of ties to the Islamic State (ISIS) radical group.
The YPG captured at least five people in Shaddadi city south of Hasakah. The Kurdish forces said the suspects had ties to ISIS.
“They were ISIS supporters. According to security sources, the suspects have been planning to carry out terrorist attacks in Shaddadi,” local media activist Ghassan Abdelaziz told ARA News.
Shaddadi city was captured by the YPG and allied Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in February last year, after heavy fighting with ISIS. The progress came after the local troops, supported by an air cover from the U.S.-led coalition, cut off the main ISIS supply route in al-Hawl near Syria’s northeastern border with Iraq.
However, since then ISIS has been trying to infiltrate into the area, launching mortar and car bomb attacks.
“After failed attempts to regain positions in southern Hasakah, ISIS now tries to use some sleeper cells in areas like Shaddadi,” Abdelaziz told ARA News. “The Kurdish forces have a serious challenge now to reveal such cells in the liberated areas.”
Posted by: badanov ||
01/11/2017
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[9 views]
Top|| File under: Islamic State
"You can switch off the laser designater, Tovaishche!"
[ARA News] Al-Qaeda-linked Syrian jihadists in latest issue of the al-Risala magazine denied any link to the killing of the Russian ambassador Andrey Karlov in Ankara, who was killed last month while giving a speech at an art gallery.
Mevlut Mert Altintas, an off-duty police officer, killed the Russian ambassador on 19 December. However, it remain unclear which group was behind the murder, or if the assassination was an individual act.
The al-Risala magazine published by jihadists closed to al-Qaeda in Syria suggest it was an individual act of revenge for the killing of Muslims by the Russians in Aleppo.
“Thus, contrary to the claims of the disbelievers, it is clear that Mevlüt (may Allãh have mercy on him and accept him) was responding to the cries of the oppressed Muslims of Syria. He did not belong to ISIS or Jabhatu An-Nusra or any other group operating in the region,” the magazine said.
“Rather, what is apparent from his speech and actions (as no one but Allãh has access to his heart) is that he had renounced his former profession and turned to his Lord in repentance. He stood up, not for any particular group or sect, but on behalf of the Ummah that has been suffering at the hands of its enemies for decades,” the jihadist al-Risala magazine added.
“As the tragedy in Aleppo unfolded, Russia remained as committed as ever to aiding the Syrian regime and her allies as they continued their massacre of the innocent Muslims of Aleppo, while arrogantly denying any wrongdoing on their part,” it suggested.
Turkish state media blamed the assassination of Karlov on the Fethullah Gulen sect that follows Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen, who lives in exile in the United States. The Turkish authorities also blamed the Gulen movement for the failed military coup in July 2015.
Aymenn Jawad Al Tamimi, a research fellow at the Middle East Forum–a US think tank– told ARA News that it’s unlikely the killer had any links to militant groups. “He genuinely had no connection to them,” he said.
Anbar (IraqiNews.com) Iraq’s Ministry of Migration and Displacement said Tuesday that 213 families have left western Anbar regions since security and tribal forces commenced an onslaught last week to recapture the area from Islamic State militants.
The families left the western towns of Annah, rawa and Qaem which are still hld by Islamic State militants, according to Mohamed Rashid, head of the ministry’s department in the province. They were distributed among refugee camps in Anbar and were handed out aid supplies.
Islamic State militants have been holding locations west of Anbar, close the borders with Syria, since the group emerged to the scene in Iraq in 2014 to proclaim the establishment of a self-styled “Islamic Caliphate” across many regions of the country. Since then, it had launched occasional attacks on civilians and security in Anbar from those strongholds, with security forces, backed by fighter jets from a US-led military coalition, responding with recurrent airstrikes.
On Monday, Anadolu Agency quoted Mohamed Yassin, a member of Anbar Province’s council, as saying that refugee camps in Anbar host 22.000 families. The number of refugee families returned to their homes in the province has reached more than 121.000, he said.
The United Nations says there are more than 3 million people displaced inside Iraq.
Anbar (IraqiNews.com) Anbar Police Command announced on Tuesday foiling a suicide attack, using a booby-trapped vehicle, and arresting the suicide bomber, east of the city of Ramadi.
Police Chief, Major General Hady Zerig, said in a press statement, “Anbar police forces managed, at afternoon today, to seize a booby-trapped vehicle and arrest it driver in Juwaiba al-Nassaf area, east of Ramadi.”
“The Bomb Squad was able to dismantle the vehicle,” Zerig explained.
“Members of the Islamic State are collapsing, after the liberation of the majority of districts and areas in Anbar. The remaining areas will be fully liberated in the few coming days,” Zerig further added.
Posted by: badanov ||
01/11/2017
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[5 views]
Top|| File under: Islamic State
California’s Lt. Governor Gavin Newsom on Monday said that President-elect Donald Trump’s plan to build a wall along the border will run into trouble in California.
Speaking with ’The Gold State’ podcast, he said that the state could sue under the California Environmental Quality Act or its federal equivalent, the National Environmental Policy Act, utilizing a common tactic that has been used to delay or kill various development projects around the state.
"There’s something called CEQA in California -- NEPA at the federal level," Newsom said. "There’s indigenous lands and autonomies relating to governance on those lands. There are all kinds of obstructions as it relates to just getting zoning approval and getting building permits. All those things could be made very, very challenging for the administration."
The law, which was passed in 1970, has been credited with help protecting the state’s environment, but also is a frequent source of criticism for its unintended consequences. Governor Jerry Brown’s plan to spur housing development last year collapsed in part because environmentalists and labor unions believed the [CitizenSlant] plan was an end-run around CEQA. How, again, did that "Gordian Knot" thingie work out?
When Congress authorizes the wall, it exempts it from state and federal EPA review. That takes care of that.
#3
No more federal research grants for California universities. No more federal block grants for California. No loans for trains to nowhere. In fact, that federal gravy train to California is gonna be delayed for a while.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
01/11/2017 12:55
Comments ||
Top||
#4
And if Rantburgers think Moonbeam is a whacko just wait until he's gone and you start hearing more about Newsom.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
01/11/2017 12:56
Comments ||
Top||
#5
Governor Brown submitted his budget proposal. I think he sees something coming:
When asked about how California would respond to the incoming administration, Brown said the state cannot budget for something that has not happened yet. There was a lot of uncertainty about what the Trump administration and Republican Congress would actually do on issues like healthcare and immigration, he said, adding that the state will remain vigilant.
Brown's budget proposed to boost funding for state reserves, education, healthcare expansion, and transportation infrastructure, counteracting poverty and combating climate change, while rolling back some planned spending increases.
[Hurriyet Daily News] The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... ’s first sperm bank for goats has been founded in the capital Ankara in order to protect the species of the Ankara goat.
The project, which is carried out by Ankara University, received support from the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TUBITAK) worth 240,000 Turkish Liras.
Elite flocks will be founded with artificial insemination in the Ankara Goat Sperm Bank, founded through the cooperation of Ankara University’s Faculty of Veterinary Science lecturer Prof. Ali Daskin, Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR), and TÜBITAK.
The number of high-technology Ankara goats - which has a high value in the world, especially in the textile industry - has been on a steady decline in Ankara and the surrounding provinces and is now near extinction.
While the number of such Ankara goats is decreasing in Turkey, it has been on the rise in North Africa, the U.S., Canada, New Zealand, La Belle France and Russia, according to Daskin.
"With the computer software developed as a part of the project, we’ve reached sperms with highest level of gene quality via embryo transfers, collective insemination, and methods like embryo creation in laboratories. In the sperm bank the prevention of diseases can be possible," Daskin told daily Hurriyet, adding that the farmers could apply to the goat sperm bank.
"Farmers can apply to the goat sperm bank at Ankara University if they want to inoculate high quality goat sperm into their goats. In this way, the Ankara goats started to provide 3.5 kilograms of wool rather than just a kilogram as before," he added.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/11/2017
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[5 views]
Top|| File under:
[Hurriyet Daily News] Some 19 Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) holy warriors have been neutralized as part of the ongoing Euphrates Shield operation in Syria, the Turkish Armed Forces announced on Jan. 10.
In a statement covering updates in the operation until 7 a.m., the military said shots were fired at some 340 ISIS targets, suppressing sanctuaries, defense positions, command centers and weapons belonging to the jihadists.
The military also added that Turkish warplanes also conducted an air operation on 27 ISIS targets in al-Bab, Bzagah and Suflaniyah, destroying sanctuaries, defense positions and weapons.
A total of 19 ISISholy warriors were neutralized in the operations conducted both on land and from air while three mortars, three armored vehicles and one cannon-mounted vehicle were destroyed, the military said.
Turkish authorities often use the word "neutralized" in their statements to imply that the person in question was either killed or captured.
A hand-made explosive was destroyed, adding to a total of 2,821 hand-made explosives and 43 mines destroyed since the launch of the operation in summer 2016.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/11/2017
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[9 views]
Top|| File under: Islamic State
[Hurriyet Daily News] Two Turkish soldiers who went missing in action during the Turkish Armed Forces’ Euphrates Shield Operation in Syria in November 2016 have been confirmed to have been killed, state-run Anadolu Agency reported on Jan. 10.
The military announced late on Nov. 29, 2016, that contact with two soldiers deployed in Syria as part of the operation had been lost.
On Jan. 10, two non-commissioned officers, identified as Muhammet Duran Keskin and Kivanc Kasikci, were announced to have been killed near al-Bab.
The army had initially made no mention of where the soldiers went missing.
Turkish Defense Minister Fikri Isik on Dec. 23, 2016, said he had information that three Turkish soldiers were kidnapped by Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) bully boyz in northern Syria but added that other "comments" beyond this information were not confirmed.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/11/2017
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[7 views]
Top|| File under: Islamic State
[WSJ] Sen. Jeff Sessions, President-elect Donald Trump ...New York real estate developer, described by Dems as illiterate, racist, misogynistic, and what ever other unpleasant descriptions they can think of, elected by the rest of us as 45th President of the United States... ’s choice for U.S. attorney general, forcefully rejected accusations that he has racist views, and departed from several of Mr. Trump’s campaign stances during a Senate confirmation hearing on Tuesday that drew tough questioning from his fellow wardheelers.
Mr. Sessions, a Republican from Alabama, said he doesn’t support a ban on Moslems entering the U.S., as Mr. Trump once proposed, and noted that the use of waterboarding is illegal under current law. Mr. Trump has advocated using that practice more frequently on terror suspects.
The nominee said he wouldn’t serve as a rubber stamp for the incoming administration and would recuse himself on any pending investigation into Mr. Trump’s opponent during the presidential campaign, Democrat Hillary Clinton ... former first lady, former secretary of state, former presidential candidate, sometimes described by her supporters as the smartest woman in the world, usually described by the rest of us as a crook... . "You have to say ’no’ sometimes...for the good of the country," Mr. Sessions said at the start of the hearing in the Senate, which is set to elevate one of its most conservative members to run the Justice Department.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/11/2017
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[5 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
When they start playing the race card it's for damn sure they don't have anything else.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
01/11/2017 12:59
Comments ||
Top||
[IsraelTimes] The Israeli military said early Tuesday morning that a Paleostinian man had been shot, later dying of his wounds, while trying to stab IDF soldiers who were conducting an arrest raid in the West Bank overnight.
Troops from the elite Duvdevan unit were on an operation in the Paleostinian village of Far’a, northeast of Nablus, to arrest wanted suspects, the military said.
The Paleostinian, identified in the Paleostinian media as 32-year-old Muhammad a-Salahi, rushed the soldiers with a knife in hand and did not heed calls to stop, according to the IDF.
The troops "began an arrest process, and when the suspect kept advancing toward them, he was shot and was later pronounced dead," the IDF said in a statement Tuesday.
A-Salahi had served time in Israeli jail, according to Israeli news site Walla.
According to the military, explosives devices were thrown at the troops and they were shot at during the raid. There were no injuries to the soldiers.
Four Paleostinian suspects were incarcerated Maw! They're comin' to get me, Maw! in the operation and transferred to the Shin Bet for questioning. In all, nine Paleostinians were arrested by Israeli security forces throughout the West Bank overnight.
The terrorist, 33-year-old Mohammad Al-Salahi, shouted "Allahu Akbar" and did not heed calls to stop.
...not in the least bit ambiguous about his intentions, that one. Here's hoping he's enjoying his 72 white raisins or his red hot iron stool, whichever Allah chooses to offer him...
[RFE/RL] A militant suspected of involvement in the murder of an investigator in Dagestan has been extradited from the Czech Republic to Russia. The Russian Interior Ministry said that Tagir Israpilov was escorted by Interpol agents and Russian Interior Ministry officials while being extradited.
Investigators say that Israpilov and other militants killed a local investigator in Dagestan and robbed his apartment in 2010. Russian officials issued an international arrest warrant for him in October 2011.
Israpilov lived in Germany for a time under an alias. In 2011, German authorities extradited him to the Czech Republic, where he was arrested on document-forgery charges.
[YAHOO] Democratic Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer Senator-for-life from New York, renowned for his love of standing in front of cameras. Schumer has been a professional politician since 1975, when disco was in flower. Senate minority leader as of 2017. threw Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s own words back in his face, tussling over President-elect Donald Trump ...New York real estate developer, described by Dems as illiterate, racist, misogynistic, and what ever other unpleasant descriptions they can think of, elected by the rest of us as 45th President of the United States... ’s Cabinet picks.
Schumer announced on Monday that he is sending McConnell a copy of a letter the Republican wrote in 2009 outlining "standards" for President B.O.’s Cabinet nominees. In a speech on the Senate floor and a tweet in which he shared a handwritten version of the letter with McConnell’s signature crossed out, Schumer suggested he is trying to show his requests are "reasonable." Confirmation hearings are set to begin on Tuesday, but some of Trump’s nominees have not completed ethics reviews.
In his speech, Schumer raised concerns about what he described as a "jammed" schedule with multiple hearings being held on the same day. Schumer also pointed out that the director of the Office of Government Ethics has raised concerns about the pace of the hearings and said some of the nominees have not undergone reviews.
"We’re not doing this for sport. Democrats feel very strongly that pushing for a thorough and thoughtful vetting process is the right thing to do," Schumer said, later adding, "Our caucus was and is concerned about the timely completion of the standard paperwork and ethics clearance for nominees before proceeding full-steam ahead with their confirmation hearings and votes."
Posted by: Fred ||
01/11/2017
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[3 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Payback's a bitch, huh Chuck?
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
01/11/2017 13:00
Comments ||
Top||
#2
Question - did they pass the various ethics reviews for Obama's nominations?
If they did passed then that says a whole lot about the value of such 'ethics reviews'.
What did Allah have against the mosque -- or is the worshippers he objects to?
[Hurriyet Daily News] Three people were killed and more than 10 were maimed on Jan. 10 after the roof of a tent collapsed on to a mass attending a funeral ceremony at a mosque in Istanbul’s Bakirköy district.
A group of people were in a funeral prayer in the quad of the 5 Kisim Mosque in the Ataköy neighborhood when the tent’s roof collapsed after being pressured by thick snow and striking storm.
The maimed were immediately taken to nearby hospitals while firefighters and rescue teams rushed to the scene to rescue those trapped under the roof.
A witness told Dogan News Agency that they had been warned of a possible collapse. He said the roof collapsed in an instant and created panic among the people.
Another witness said he survived the collapse within seconds after stepping out of the area, adding that the collapse created a huge noise.
Bulent Kerimoglu, the mayor of Bakirköy, has also said municipality teams had arrived at the mosque earlier during the day and warned of a potential collapse after observing that the roof of the tent was overfilled with snow.
Over the past four days, Istanbul was on hold amid heavy snowfall in what Istanbul Mayor Kadir Topbas described as the heaviest since 2009.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/11/2017
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[4 views]
Top|| File under:
[DAWN] At least nine people were killed in an kaboom in the governor's compound in Afghanistan's southern Kandahar province on Tuesday during a visit by the UAE ambassador, local media reported.
The UAE's Foreign Ministry made the statement Tuesday night, describing the attack as "heinous." It identified the maimed ambassador as Juma Mohammed Abdullah al-Kaabi.
Afghanistan's Tolo News said the blast left nine people dead and 16 others maimed.
The statement did not say how many Emirati diplomats were maimed. It said they were there as part of a humanitarian mission.
Emirati combat troops deployed to Afghanistan after the 2001 US-led invasion that toppled the Taliban.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/11/2017
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[1 views]
Top|| File under: Taliban
[FOX] Six months after a Democratic National Committee staffer was gunned down on a Washington, D.C., street, suspicion that he may have been the source who passed incriminating DNC emails on to WikiLeaks persists despite his own parents' strong doubts.
Seth Rich, who was killed July 10 and would have turned 28 earlier this month, worked as a DNC data analyst and had recently built a database for spurring voter turnout. Despite speculation -- fueled by WikiLeaks' founder Julian Assange's own cryptic comments -- that he may have provided some of the emails that rocked the 2016 presidential election, Rich's father rejects such rumors.
"Anyone who knew Seth knew that wasn’t the way he would have handled the problem," Rich’s father, Joel Rich, told FoxNews.com in an exclusive interview, calling Assange’s statements "bizarre." "He would not go outside the system."
Like the Washington police, Rich believes his son was more likely killed in a robbery gone awry.
"The reason Seth was killed is probably because he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time," said his father. "There are all kinds of scenarios, but until something else is proven, these are just scenarios."
Rich was a cheerful, compassionate person, who wanted to make a positive impact, said his father.
"Seth above all wanted to make a difference in the world," Rich said of his son. "At work, Seth was able to extend his desire to make everyone feel included to the basic right to vote in American elections."
#1
This makes less sense all the time. Assange didn't mention Rich. Rich, the DNC staffer who had decided to attach himself to the anti-gun segment of his party for advancement. For a group that loves, Hell, is addicted to waving the proverbial bloody shirt, they never even heard of Seth Rich. Robbery gone awry? Possibly, but the mugger already had created a corpse, it strains the imagination although admittedly not the realm of possibility that he/they wouldn't grab what they could as they already had the ultimate investment in his/their crime.
[Libya Observer] The coastal road that leads to Sirte is going to be reopened soon so that cars from eastern, western and southern Libya can pass through Abu Hadi roundabout in preparation for the return of the city’s displaced residents that is expected to kick off on next Saturday, a source from Bunyan Marsous ...(al-Bunyan al-Marsous, Solid Base) An operation carried out by Misratan forces loyal to the Libyan Goverenment of National Accord to dislodge ISIS forces from Sirte. 2,500 turbans were reported killed in the operation, which lasted from May through December.GNA's Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj officially announced the end of military operations on 18 December 2016... reported on Tuesday.
"The road is safe and there are no obstacles after the military engineers, who are tasked with removing the war remnants from the areas, cleared it." The source added.
It added that the cars movement has become normal as people are driving on the roads of Jaref, Buhadi, al-Arbaeen, Soltan and other areas in Sirte’s suburbs.
Sirte IDPs are expected to return to their houses in 700 Buildings Neighborhood and al-Zaafaran on next Satruday under organized procedures that will see the IDPs registered in security records so that the wanted IS-linked persons can be identified.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/11/2017
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[3 views]
Top|| File under: Arab Spring
[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] Unofficial reports suggest that a member of Iran’s infamous "death commission" will be the likely successor to the late Rafsajani’s position as the head of the Expediency Council, a body which is intended to resolve disputes between the parliament and the Guardian Council.
Ebrahim Raisi is a 56-year-old conservative holy man relatively unknown outside of Iran but has been emerging as a frontrunner to replace the late former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani ... the fourth President of Iran. He was a member of the Assembly of Experts until he was eased out in 2011 He continues, for the moment, as Chairman of the Expediency Discernment Council. In 2005 he ran for a third term as president, ultimately losing to rival Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who was in Khamenei's graces back then. In 1980 Rafsanjani survived an assassination attempt, during which he was seriously injured. He has been described as a centrist and a pragmatic conservative without all that much reason. He is currently being eased out of any position of actual influence or power and may be dead by the end of 2012... , who died on Sunday after suffering a heart attack.
One of Raisi’s most controversial roles has been serving with the "Death Commission" that, in the summer of 1988, oversaw the massacre of thousands of political prisoners.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/11/2017
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[9 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Iran
#1
Ebrahim Raisi is a 56-year-old conservative holy man relatively unknown outside of Iran but has been emerging as a frontrunner to replace the late former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani.
I look forward to him being dead. Is that "wrong"?
[Mindanao Examiner] Pirates attacked a group of fishermen and killed at least eight of them off of Zamboanga City and officials said five others survived the attack. Sangali village chief Daud Bakil said the attack occurred late Monday near Siromon Island. The incident was only reported early Tuesday after two of the survivors managed to flee and return to Sangali.
The gunmen asked the fishermen if they were Muslims and shot them if they failed to recite a prayer. The bodies of the fishermen were recovered on their boat. Their hands were all tied with a nylon rope.
Recently, Abu Sayyaf militants tried, but failed to hijack a Filipino cargo ship while sailing off Basilan near Zamboanga City. The gunmen, aboard two speedboats, attacked the vessel off Sibago Island. The ship was heading to Davao City when it came under fire. It managed to escape.
It was the second cargo ship attacked by militants off Basilan since November last year. Abu Sayyaf fighters also hijacked a Vietnamese cargo ship and seized six crewmen, including its captain in a bold attack November 11 that left one sailor injured.
[TheGWPF] Dr. Maue emphasizes a sharp hemisphere temperature drop in a 3 day period but it seems to me there is a cyclical slow rise and sharp fall. Also, it may be confined to the lowest level of the atmosphere and based on satellite measurements.
Hopefully we didn't just encounter the tipping point into the little ice age the Russians have been predicting for about a decade.
Posted by: lord garth ||
01/11/2017
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[12 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
2 meter data, which would be surface measurements not satellite.
I'd say it's mostly the sampling bias of surface stations that are over-whelmingly in mid to highish (populated) latitudes, which have been cold recently. No stations on the oceans, including the Arctic and few in the low latitude desert/arid regions.
Although it will be interesting to see the albedo effect of the extensive snow cover currently.
If surface temperatures were a valid measure of the climate, then clearly the climate has abruptly cooled. However, they are not a valid measure with numerous issues.
#6
Must be all the hot plasma in the atmosphere from HAARP and plasma balls they have been chasing since World War 2 and the advent of radar! They have been working with it like the Russians for over 6 decades!
Anything that relies on modelling of this kind is so susceptible to data fudging any conclusions are worthless without 100% data and algorithm auditing.
GIGO has always been a problem but the people loading that garbage in has been the most likely source.
#8
I'm not assuming the absolute accuracy of the measurements. They have obvious systemic issues.
However, those issues are essentially the same each day. Each site has the same problems of local heat source contamination, drift between calibration, etc.
The observation that requires a hypothesis is the cyclic nature of the 5-8 day temperature rise followed by the 3 day temperature drop. That would seem to imply a cycle of relatively slower air mass mixing followed by a relatively faster radiational cooling but how there could be enough measuring sites on the same cycle seems impossible.
Posted by: lord garth ||
01/11/2017 8:13
Comments ||
Top||
#9
lord garth, while ascribing to malice is not always the right choice, I think with regards to all things climatological it's the way to bet in lieu of a whole lot of other evidence.
#11
typically observations, i.e., of the temperature as measured by thermometers, is about 2 m above the surface (actually a lot of them are about 1.5m above - which is more convenient for maintenance)
at the actual surface, the temp depends a lot on the nature of the material surface, e.g.,
how long ago the grass was mowed) - this is a problem even at 2m but its not as severe
many of the numerical models also have a computation field that predicts temperatures at 2m
Posted by: lord garth ||
01/11/2017 11:46
Comments ||
Top||
#12
The observation that requires a hypothesis is the cyclic nature of the 5-8 day temperature rise followed by the 3 day temperature drop. That would seem to imply a cycle of relatively slower air mass mixing followed by a relatively faster radiational cooling but how there could be enough measuring sites on the same cycle seems impossible.
It's the transit time of the mid-latitude high pressure systems. Ref my comment on sampling bias.
President of the semi-autonomous state of Galmudug in central Somalia Abdikarin Hussein Guled has declared a state emergency in Galmudug regions on Tuesday.
According to a statement from the office of the president, the state of the emergency that has been put in place will take effect from Tomorrow, Wednesday 11.
Posted by: Steve White ||
01/11/2017
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[4 views]
Top|| File under:
Judicial Watch. Many times right, occasionally wrong. Salt to taste.
The Ft. Lauderdale Airport shooter is a Muslim convert who years before joining the U.S. Army took on an Islamic name (Aashiq Hammad), downloaded terrorist propaganda and recorded Islamic religious music online, according to public records dug up by the investigative news site of an award-winning, California journalist. This is pertinent information that the Obama administration apparently wants to keep quiet, bringing up memories of the Benghazi cover up, in which the president and his cohorts knowingly lied to conceal that Islamic terrorists attacked the U.S. Special Mission in Libya.
Information is slowly trickling out that links the Ft. Lauderdale Airport shooter to radical Islam while the official story from authorities is that the gunman is a mentally ill, Hispanic Army veteran named Esteban Santiago that became unhinged after a tour in Iraq. Only one mainstream media outlet mentions the possibility of Santiago’s “jihadist identity,” burying it in a piece about New York possibly being his initial target. A paragraph deep in the story mentions that investigators recovered Santiago’s computer from a pawn shop and the FBI is examining it to determine whether he created a “jihadist identity for himself using the name Aashiq Hammad…” The reset of the traditional mainstream media coverage promotes the government rhetoric that omits any ties to terrorism even though early on a photo surfaced of Santiago making an ISIS salute while wearing a keffiyeh, a Palestinian Arab scarf.
The public records uncovered in the days after the massacre suggest Santiago (Hammad) is a radical Islamic terrorist that’s seriously committed to Islam. Besides taking on a Muslim name, he recorded three Islamic religious songs, including the Muslim declaration faith (“there is no God but Allah and Muhammad is his messenger”) known as the Shahada. He also posted a thread about downloading propaganda videos from Islamic terrorists on a weapons and explosives forum. The investigative news site that unearthed this disturbing information connected the dots between Santiago, who is of Puerto Rican descent, and Hammad, an identity he created in 2007.
This week a prominent Ft. Lauderdale businessman and longtime resident addressed a letter to the city’s mayor and commissioners blasting county and federal officials for covering up that “Aashiq Hammad, not Esteban Santiago, attacked our city and county.” The businessman, respected Ft. Lauderdale real estate entrepreneur Jim Morlock, specifically names Broward County’s elected sheriff Scott Israel, Florida senator Bill Nelson, the first to identify Santiago as the shooter on national television, and congressman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, ousted last summer as Democratic National Committee (DNC) chair over a scandalous plot to damage Bernie Sanders during the primary.
“Since when does a US Senator (Bill Nelson), not law enforcement, be the one to so quickly release this terrorist’s Hispanic name but nothing about his more relevant Islamic background?” the letter asks. Obama must have told Sen. Nelson to keep this from looking like a Muslim Terrorist attack during the last 12 days of his watch. Bad for his legacy.” Morlock goes on to state that it’s “better to portray this atrocity as white Hispanic Alaskan mental Iraq war vet gun violence.” The real estate entrepreneur proceeds to reveal that Santiago lives in walking distance to the only mosque in Alaska, was radicalized before he entered the military and was knowingly allowed to serve despite his Islamic sympathies thanks to “Obama’s PC military.”
The letter poses interesting questions, including why this Muslim terrorist chose Ft. Lauderdale out of all the nation’s airports and who Santiago knows in Broward county, which has a large and growing Islamic community. In 2015 Judicial Watch obtained records from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) that show and Al Qaeda terrorist who helped plan several U.S. attacks lived in Broward County and graduated from the local community college with a degree in computer engineering. His name is Adnan G. El Shukrijumah, but he also had a Hispanic identity, Javier Robles, and for years he appeared on the FBI’s most wanted list. Back in 2012 Judicial Watch reported on a terrorist front group’s demands that Broward County public schools close twice a year to celebrate Islamic holy days, illustrating the influence that Muslims have in the region.
Posted by: Steve White ||
01/11/2017
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[12 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Islam is the problem. Islam has been the problem for some time now. I wonder when the media will get the memo?
The media is busy with really important issues: how many genders where are; Russian hacking, American Intelligence Community knows it's Russian hacking because they found a signature - x, y, and a third letter they are not familiar with; "middle east" (meaning Israeli - Palestinian) "peace process" (meaning death to the Jews); etc...
A Sacramento Surprise!
woman is suing Chipotle Mexican Grill for allegedly using her image and posting it in several restaurants without her permission.
Leah Caldwell’s lawsuit, filed on Dec. 27 in U.S. District Court, alleges that Chipotle Photoshopped her image and added bottles of alcohol in the photograph. "Yer Honer, I drink alcohol out of a jug."
The distortion, according to Caldwell’s lawsuit, puts "a false light upon her character."
Caldwell, who is representing herself Hmmmm... What is it again that is said about a person being their own lawyer..... Oh, yeah.
is seeking $2.2 billion in profits from the use of her unauthorized image. A photographer and chief executive officer were also named in the complaint. She did not immediately return a request for comment.
Chipotle spokesman Chris Arnold said the restaurant chain does not discuss details surrounding any pending legal action. But he added, "The filing of a lawsuit is purely allegation and is proof of absolutely nothing."
According to Caldwell, her photograph was taken in the summer or early fall of 2006 when she was sitting inside a Chipotle restaurant near the University of Denver. A man approached and asked her to sign a photo release waiver that would have allowed him to use some photographs he had taken, Caldwell said.
Caldwell said she refused to sign the release.
She said she was engaged "in the personal activity of eating in a nearly empty restaurant" and had a "reasonable expectation of privacy." She accused the photographer of invading her privacy.
According to Caldwell, no cameras were visible. No announcements were made of a photo shoot and no alcohol bottles were placed near her. So, the "perp" didn't use a discernable camera? "
Nearly six years later, Caldwell said, she saw a photo of herself in a Chipotle restaurant in Florida. The photograph, according to the complaint, was hanging on a wall inside the Orlando eatery on Dec. 21, 2014.
"With a hocus-pocus
You're in focus
It's your lucky day!
SMILE! You're on Can-did Cam-era...!"
A year later, she said, she saw the photograph on the walls of two Chipotle franchises in Roseville, Calif., and Sacramento.
"At each location, the plaintiff recognized the iconic picture, her distinct photographic image and likeness even with apparent editing," Caldwell said in the suit. "Editing" you say?."
In California, the statute of limitation in publicity-rights cases is two years, so she might not be able to pursue this case because she first noticed the image in 2014, said attorney Douglas Mirell, who represents high-profile celebrities in image-use cases. Cases like these are why many attorneys have a "initial consultation free" policy. Allows a wheat/chaff decision.
She would also need to show that a percentage of Chipotle’s earnings were directly attributed to her image.
Her quest to get $2.2 billion in damages will be difficult to prove and "probably not terribly realistic," Mirell said. I detect a $20.00 Gift Card coming in her future."
#3
Remember between pay deducted SGLI and a government kick in*, we pay families of dead soldiers, sailors, airman, and marines, something like $450,000. Explain to me why anyone deserves more? /rhet question
* that extra didn't exist till when Congress was tripping over itself to 'compensate' families who lost members in 9/11, it was pointed out that the government paid out nothing to the military families for generations. Servicemens Group Life Insurance, the payout for death, was deducted monthly from their pay to form an insurance pool for that compensation in all the time prior.
One militant was killed and one police officer was wounded on Jan. 10 in an armed clash that erupted at the police headquarters in the southeastern province of Gaziantep, private broadcaster CNN Türk has reported.
Consecutive gunfire was heard after an unidentified militant attempted to enter the police headquarters at around 3.30 p.m., as a police officer prevented the militant from entering the building and responded with fire.
Special forces and counter-terrorism police units were immediately deployed to the scene.
The militant was killed in the armed clash while one police officer was wounded, according to initial reports. Witnesses said another militant escaped the scene following the clash. Police works to apprehend him are reportedly ongoing.
According to a Doğan News Agency correspondent near the scene, the armed clash lasted around two minutes and one militant was killed at the scene. In addition, police also conducted searches inside nearby buildings and car parks upon receiving intelligence of another militant, the reporter stated.
Posted by: Steve White ||
01/11/2017
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
Pakistan has successfully test-fired indigenously-developed submarine launched cruise missile Babur-III, the Inter-Services Public Relations said on Monday.
“Pakistan successfully test fired first Submarine launched Cruise Missile Babur-3. Range 450km. COAS congrats nation and the team involved,” DG ISPR Maj Gen Asif Ghafoor said in a statement. The Babur-III cruise missile can strike its target with high accuracy at a range of 450kms.”
[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] How did Tayea Salem Yaslam al-Sayari go from being a former engineering scholarship student, to become a terrorist fighting in Syria and later one of the most dangerous ISIS members in Soddy Arabia? ...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in the Soddy national face... Many have tried to study characters like al-Sayari and examine how they go from having a promising future as a student to becoming an expert in making kaboom and training future jacket wallahs.
How was he able to return to Saudi Arabia?
Sayari, in his 30s, who failed his studies in engineering in New Zealand, went straight to Syria in 2014 to join the fighting. He then left Syria and headed to The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... and then on to Sudan using a fake passport. While in Sudan, he met with Oqab al-Otaibi, one of the most desperados who was recently killed in Saudi. From Sudan, he headed to Yemen ...an area of the Arabian Peninsula sometimes mistaken for a country. It is populated by more antagonistic tribes and factions than you can keep track of. Except for a tiny handfull of Jews everthing there is very Islamic... and then entered Saudi illegally.
Tayea al-Sayari’s name first surfaced when Saudi authorities investigated the attack on a mosque used by the Special Emergency Force in Asir in August 2015. The suicide kaboom in the mosque claimed by ISIS killed 15 force employees and recruits.
Criminal psychology expert Doctor Nasser al-Arifi said Sayari’s character reflected the case of a "stupid" man and noted that his ability to make boom belts did not mean he was smart. Instead Arifi said it showed Sayari had a "docile personality" who lacked the motivation to be positively "productive" in society.
He added that Sayari’s insufficient intelligence made him think that taking the path into terrorism meant satisfying his desires to be a "leader" in his subconscious mind.
Arifi said Sayari’s aggressive tendency to avenge society was due to emotional coldness, adding that this implied a "psychopathic tendency" which meant the person suffered from abnormal social behavior and broke conventional laws and ethics.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/11/2017
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[7 views]
Top|| File under: Islamic State
#1
How did Tayea Salem Yaslam al-Sayari go from being a former engineering scholarship student, to become a terrorist fighting in Syria and later one of the most dangerous ISIS members in Soddy Arabia?
#3
the case of a "stupid" man and noted that his ability to make boom belts did not mean he was smart. ....Sayari, in his 30s, who failed his studies in engineering in New Zealand
Okay, I can equate stupid with failing, what I can't equate is stupid with matriculating in the first place.
[al-Manar] An air strike by the Saudi-led coalition on a primary school in northern Yemen on Tuesday killed five people including two children, medical and military sources said.
The headmaster and two other staff members were among those killed in the air raid in the district of Nihm, northeast of the capital Sanaa, which also left 13 wounded, the sources said.
A medical source at Kuwait Hospital in Sanaa confirmed the casualty toll.
Rights groups have repeatedly criticized the coalition over the civilian casualties inflicted by its air strikes on rebel-held regions.
In August, an air strike on a Koranic school in the northern Saada province killed 10 children and wounded 28 others, prompting a UN call for a swift investigation.
[CNN] Classified documents presented last week to President Obama and President-elect Trump included allegations that Russian operatives claim to have compromising personal and financial information about Mr. Trump, multiple US officials with direct knowledge of the briefings tell CNN. The money shot:
The allegations were presented in a two-page synopsis that was appended to a report on Russian interference in the 2016 election. The allegations came, in part, from memos compiled by a former British intelligence operative, whose past work US intelligence officials consider credible. The FBI is investigating the credibility and accuracy of these allegations, which are based primarily on information from Russian sources, but has not confirmed many essential details in the memos about Mr. Trump.
The classified briefings last week were presented by four of the senior-most US intelligence chiefs -- Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, FBI Director James Comey, CIA Director John Brennan, and NSA Director Admiral Mike Rogers.
One reason the nation's intelligence chiefs took the extraordinary step of including the synopsis in the briefing documents was to make the President-elect aware that such allegations involving him are circulating among intelligence agencies, senior members of Congress and other government officials in Washington, multiple sources tell CNN.
#1
The raw memos on which the synopsis is based were prepared by the former MI6 agent, who was posted in Russia in the 1990s and now runs a private intelligence gathering firm. His investigations related to Mr. Trump were initially funded by groups and donors supporting Republican opponents of Mr. Trump during the GOP primaries, multiple sources confirmed to CNN. Those sources also said that once Mr. Trump became the nominee, further investigation was funded by groups and donors supporting Hillary Clinton.
So, let me get this straight. A Washington D.C. 'Opposition Research Group' likely funded by Clinton, Soros, dems, you pick....looking for info, dirt, and validity, hires Non-USP and former British MI6 officer to build 'synopsis' on Trump connections and 'surrogates.' Unsubstantiated data (unfinished and unverified data aka rumors) then shared with McCain, Reid, Comey....but not Trump until last week.
Excuse me while I claim partisan political BULLSHI* and possible foreign espionage directed against USCIT and U.S. presidential candidate (Trump) by a 'former' foreign intelligence operative likely hired by the Clinton campaign.
Dirty, nasty Russians had the info all the time and never said anything, not even to Wikileaks? Clinton campaign foreign operatives now correcting the record by disseminating unsubstantiated information (non-intelligence fake news). There Julian Assange, take THAT !
Thank you McCain, Reid, Comey, Brennan, Obama, and Clinton's. Nice, very nice. I hope Mike Flynn explains this to Trump and he sticks it up their collected arses with a post-Jan 20th Justice Department investigation.
#4
Did this unnamed MI6 officer have anything to do with former Congressman and FBI agent Mike Rogers, Aegis LLC, or no-bid security contracts at Benghazi annex by chance ?
Mr. Kaliebe, who was arrested in 2013, is a follower. A certain Loretta Lynch prosecuted his buddy, Marcos Alonso Zea. Before her elevation, she got Mr. Zea sentenced to 25 years in the federal pen for trying to join Al Qaeda in Yemen and sending his friend down the same path.
Kaliebe's attorney says his client was a misguided autistic teenager who didn't understand what he was doing. Prosecutors say he proudly proclaimed his commitment to being radicalized.
Surveillance video recorded by undercover federal agents shows Kaliebe praising terrorists.
Prosecutors have asked for 24 years in prison. His attorney has asked for time served and strict monitoring after his client's release.
[DAWN] Earlier in the day, twin Taliban blasts struck near the Afghan parliament in Kabul ...the capital of Afghanistan. Home to continuous fighting from 1992 to 1996 between the forces of would-be strongman and Pak ISI/Jamaat-e-Islami sock puppet Gulbuddin Hekmayar and the Northern Alliance, a period which won Hek the title Most Evil Man in the World and didn't do much for the reputations of the Northern Alliance guys either.... , killing at least 30 people and wounding 80 in a rush-hour attack that shattered a relative lull in violence in the capital.
The bombings came just hours after a Taliban jacket wallah killed seven people in Lashkar Gah, the capital of the volatile southern province of Helmand ...an Afghan province populated mostly by Pashtuns, adjacent to Injun country in Pak Balochistan... , as the murderous Moslems ramp up attacks.
The blasts in Kabul tore through employees exiting a parliament annexe, which houses the offices of politicians, leaving the area littered with bloodied bodies.
"A suicide bomber on foot caused the first kaboom, leaving a number of innocent workers killed and maimed," Zabi, an injured parliament security guard, told AFP.
"The second one was a boom-mobile. The vehicle was parked on the other side of the road and flung me back when it detonated," he said.
The blasts left 30 people dead and 80 maimed, some of them at death's door, health ministry front man Waheed Majroh told AFP, warning that the toll was expected to rise.
The dead included at least four coppers who were killed in the second kaboom when they rushed to help the victims of the first blast, a security official told AFP.
The carnage underscores growing insecurity in Afghanistan, where around 10,000 US troops are helping struggling Afghan forces to combat a resilient Taliban insurgency as well as al-Qaeda and Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... Death Eaters.
Taliban front man Zabihullah Mujahid said they were behind the Kabul kabooms, adding the victims were mostly Afghan intelligence agents. The holy warriors are known to exaggerate battlefield claims.
The parliament complex has been a prime target for Death Eaters. In June 2015 Talibs attacked the old parliament building, sending politicians running for cover in chaotic scenes relayed live on television.
That incident ended two hours later when all seven attackers, including a suicide boom-mobileer, were bumped off by Afghan forces.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/11/2017
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[5 views]
Top|| File under: Taliban
QUETTA - Balakh Sher Badini, a notorious commander and handler of social media cell of Balochistan Liberation Army, yesterday surrendered and announced joining the national mainstream at Frontier Corps Madadgar Centre.
Addressing a press conference, Balakh Sher Badini said, “I am a patriotic Pakistani and a brave Baloch. I know well the skill of fighting and henceforth will fight for Pakistan only.”
Badini admitted, “I was involved in anti-state propaganda due to immaturity. I was also heading a social media network from abroad. Now I have come to my own country.” Balakh Sher Badini appealed to the Baloch youth to acquire knowledge and work for the uplift of Pakistan.
Speaking on this occasion, Balochistan Home Minister Mir Sarfraz Bugti said anti-state elements would not be allowed to create unrest and lawlessness in the country.
The home minister, flanked by FC Quetta Sector in-charge Brig Khalid Baig, Balochistan government spokesman Anwalul Haq Kakar, Quetta DC Engineer Abdul Latif Kakar and other high officials, lauded the LBA ex-commander for renouncing violence and subversive activities. He termed his surrender an excellent example for those sitting abroad. He said the Frontier Corps would provide full security to Badini and his family.
Sarfraz Bugti reiterated Pakistan and Balochistan were inseparable, adding no country, organisation and person would be allowed to damage the province as well as the motherland.
Chiding the separatists dwelling abroad, the home minister noted they were trying to enforce their agenda in the province. The elements that were targeting security forces, doctors, teachers and others in Balochistan were living a luxurious life in foreign countries, averred Bugti, adding their aim was to hamper the uplift of Balochistan and Pakistan. He vehemently announced they would not be able to accomplish their nefarious designs because the people had become aware of their negative and anti-Pakistan propaganda. He commended the tireless endeavours of Balochistan Frontier Corps for maintaining law and order and fighting the war against terrorism.
Balochistan government spokesman Anwarul Haq Kakar told media persons that Balakh Sher Badini had been associated with the proscribed organisation for last five years, remained a commander of this organisation in Noshki and was heading a social media cell. He revealed several other people in Balochistan had joined the national mainstream, adding joining of Balakh Sher Badini was of great significance. He said Badini was in close contact with other social media teams and they also wanted to come to their homes. Responding to a query, Mir Sarfraz Bugti said the Foreign Office could give details of the separatists who were living in UAE and other countries.
Posted by: badanov ||
01/11/2017
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[10 views]
Top|| File under: Baloch Liberation Army
[Libya Herald] The Grand Mufti of Libya said that drugs, alcohol and pork are better for Libya than the actions of Rada, the Special Deterrence Force that is fighting crime 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... . They were also better than attacks on holy mans and the choices the people of Libya had made.
Sadiq al-Ghariani ...Libyan Moslem Brüderhood Grand Mufti since 2012. Issued a fatwa forbidding Libyan women from marrying foreign men. Issued a "fatwa against a UN Commission on the Status of Women's report because it urged governments to protect women and girls against violence" Aligned with the GNC govt... was speaking on his own satellite TV station al-Tanasah yesterday.
He criticised Presidency Council/Government of National Accord (PC/GNA) head Faiez Serraj for his statement in support of Rada, adding that Serraj had failed to make statements on other attacks. Ghariani was referring to Serraj’s failure to condemn attacks by Hafter against bully boy Islamists in Benghazi, including the Benghazi Defence Brigades (BDB), Ghariani’s followers.
Ghariani called upon Libyan thuwar ("revolutionary") fighters to unite around a Libyan-Libyan dialogue without foreign interference, criticising the Skhirat Libyan Political Agreement (LPA) and its PC/GNA which, he said, would lead Libya to its downfall.
He called on the thuwar to unite under one command as was the case during the Bunyan Marsous ...(al-Bunyan al-Marsous, Solid Base) An operation carried out by Misratan forces loyal to the Libyan Goverenment of National Accord to dislodge ISIS forces from Sirte. 2,500 turbans were reported killed in the operation, which lasted from May through December.GNA's Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj officially announced the end of military operations on 18 December 2016... operation in Sirte against ISIS. In their fight they should prioritize their support for the BDB enabling it to defend Benghazi’s residents against Hafter.
He accused Hafter and some Tripoli-based brigades of fighting the entire Libyan people under the pretext of fighting terrorism. Ghariani said Hafter was not fighting ISIS in Benghazi and that after the defeat of its in Sirte Hafter had given it safe passage out of Benghazi to the south so that it could reform its state elsewhere.
The statement by Ghariani also coincided by a statement released yesterday by the Derna Mujahidin Shura Council in which they also condemned Hafter, Serraj and ISIS, and declared their support for the Grand Mufti.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/11/2017
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[4 views]
Top|| File under: Arab Spring
#1
...which, he said, would lead Libya to its downfall...
[AlAhram] The Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... murderous Moslem group has grabbed credit for Monday’s attacks on North Sinai police checkpoints which Egyptian authorities say killed eight coppers and one civilian.
The murderous Moslem group claimed that the corpse count was higher than that reported by Egyptian authorities.
"Twenty-five coppers were killed on Monday in a surprise attack launched by the Islamic State’s fighters on El-Matafe checkpoint in El-Masaeed neighbourhood west of al-Arish in North Sinai," the group’s Amaq news agency said in a statement.
On Monday, state-owned MENA agency quoted Egyptian security sources as saying that eight coppers and one civilian were killed and 22 others were maimed in two separate attacks by Islamist holy warriors on North Sinai checkpoints.
The Amaq statement said that a car rigged with a bomb went kaboom! at one of the checkpoints, after which Islamic State group gunnies killed the coppers who survived the kaboom. The group also claimed that it destroyed two armoured police vehicles.
According to a statement issued by the Ministry of Interior on Monday afternoon, the first attack took place at El-Matafe checkpoint in El-Arish and was carried out by around 20 holy warriors using rocket-propelled grenades and a car rigged with explosives.
The interior ministry said holy warriors also targeted El-Masaeed checkpoint on the Ring Road, killing a police conscript during an exchange of fire.
The ministry said security forces were able to "fight off the terrorist attack," killing five holy warriors and injuring three others.
The attacks came days after the Egyptian army said it was able to foil a plot by holy warriors to attack several North Sinai checkpoints.
The Egyptian army and police have been battling an entrenched Islamist insurgency for several years in North Sinai. Most of the attacks have been claimed by Sinai-based group Ansar Beit al-Maqdis, which pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group in November 2014.
Hours after the Monday attacks, Egypt’s President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi spoke in a phone interview with prominent TV host Amr Adib about counterterrorism efforts by Egyptian security forces in North Sinai. El-Sisi said that terrorism operations in Sinai were part of "a plot by certain countries and apparatuses."
Oh? And which countries and apparatuses might they be?
The president added that throughout the last three years Egyptian security forces destroyed underground weapons caches in Sinai containing thousands of tonnes of explosives.
[PJMedia] A district court judge in Texas has dismissed a defamation lawsuit filed by Mohamed Elhassan Mohamed on his own behalf and on behalf of his 15-year-old son, Ahmed Mohamed
...a very common name in our archives, but this one is a.k.a. Clock Boy...
They had sued Fox News, Glenn Beck, and the mayor of Irving -- among others -- for defamation in September of 2016.
A year earlier, Ahmed, then a 14-year-old freshman at an Irving, Texas, high school, was arrested, briefly detained by police, and suspended for three days after bringing to school a "cool clock" that looked like a briefcase bomb. Ahmed claimed to have "invented" the easily assembled clock, and that he had brought it to school to show it to his shop teacher.
The incident led many to question the Mohamed family's motives. Newly appointed District Court Judge Maricela Moore dismissed the lawsuit following a nearly three-hour hearing on Monday, according to the American Freedom Law Center:
The motion to dismiss was filed by lawyers from the American Freedom Law Center (“AFLC”) and local counsel Pete Rowe on behalf of the Center for Security Policy (“CSP”) and Jim Hanson, two of the defendants in the defamation case, which also named as defendants the local Fox affiliate, Glenn Beck, and Beck’s production company.
Mohamed had sued Hanson and CSP for statements Hanson had made on Beck’s program about the connection between the Clock Boy hoax bomb affair, the attendant media frenzy created in large part by his father Mohamed, civilization jihad, and the Counsel on American-Islamic Relations (“CAIR”), the Muslim Brotherhood-Hamas front group in the United States that promotes civilization jihad.
During the hearing, AFLC co-founder and senior counsel David Yerushalmi explained to Judge Moore that the purpose of the lawfare-driven lawsuit was to intimidate into silence those who might comment publicly on the connection between jihad, terrorism, sharia, and Islam. As such, Yerushalmi argued, "this case is a classic Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation or ‘SLAPP’ case and should be dismissed.”
During the lengthy hearing, Judge Moore pressed Mohamed’s lawyer, Fort Worth attorney Susan Hutchison, to provide any facts that would suggest that Hanson and the other defendants had said anything false or defamatory about Mohamed or his son during the television broadcasts. After spending a painfully embarrassing 15 minutes flipping through reams of paper, Mohamed’s lawyer was unable to provide any such evidence.
At the conclusion of the hearing, Judge Moore said that she would rule by the end of the day. On Tuesday, the court published Judge Moore’s ruling dismissing the lawsuit against Hanson and CSP with prejudice.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
01/11/2017
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[9 views]
Top|| File under: Muslim Brotherhood
[IsraelTimes] It remains unclear whether a person or group was behind unprecedented simultaneous warnings.
Wasn't there something similar last year at a series of British schools? I seem to recall they eventually arrested a teenager for making terroristic threats, or something like that.
The FBI and Department of Homeland Security will be assisting local Jewish community centers in bolstering security after 16 Jewish community centers received bomb threats on the same day.
On Wednesday, officials from the FBI and Homeland Security will conduct a conference call with US Jewish communal leaders to discuss Monday’s incidents, what they stem from and how to craft protocols to handle such incidents in the future. Some communities already receive federal grants to provide for security.
The bomb threats, none of which appear credible, hit JCCs up and down the East Coast, in addition to two in the United Kingdom, prompting evacuations of buildings and campuses. According to Jewish communal security officials, the bomb threats came both from robocalls and from live telephone calls. It remains unclear whether one person or group was behind all the threats.
The FBI is investigating the bomb scares, according to Goldenberg.
Over the past two years, Jewish federations in major urban areas have hired coordinators -- mostly former federal law enforcement officials -- to ensure that all local Jewish institutions are secure and prepared to face threats. More than 20 such security coordinators have been hired.
Brenda Moxley, director of community security for the Greater Miami Jewish Federation, was hired last year after serving as assistant special agent in charge of the FBI’s criminal branch in Miami. She ensures that more than 120 area Jewish institutions are prepared for incidents such as Monday’s, in addition to being in touch with law enforcement officials.
Moxley said the need for such procedure first arose following the 9/11 attacks in 2001, and that Jewish institutions are now beginning to be proactive in responding to threats.
"Every day, it’s important to be vigilant," she told JTA. "It’s not about being paranoid; it’s just about being prepared."
Others point out that Jewish institutions began "hardening" their security after the 1999 attack on the North Valley Jewish Community Center near Los Angeles, when a white supremacist opened fire in the JCC lobby and maimed five people.
[AnNahar] The United States on Tuesday blacklisted a surviving British member of the notorious Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... kidnapping cell popularly known as "The Beatles" as a global terrorist threat.
The State Department identified 33-year-old British Ghanaian jihadist Alexanda Amon Kotey as a member of the Islamic State unit that beheaded two dozen hostages in Syria.
Among those murdered were three Americans -- journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff and aid worker Peter Kassig -- and British aid workers David Haines and Alan Henning.
Some of the group's hostages were released and later revealed their captors spoke with British accents and were nicknamed The Beatles after the 1960s rock group by their victims.
The group leader and most notorious executioner, Mohammed Emwazi or "Jihadi John," was killed last year in a dronezap by the US-led coalition fighting the IS group.
But, according to the State Department designation, London-born Kotey is still thought to be on the lam somewhere in or near the IS stronghold of Raqa, in eastern Syria.
"As a guard for the cell, Kotey likely engaged in the group's executions and exceptionally cruel torture methods, including electric shock and waterboarding," the statement said.
Kotey is also known by several aliases, including Abu Salih al-Britani. He was born in the Paddington district of London and holds British, Ghanaian and Greek Cypriot nationality.
As a "Specially Designated Global Terrorist," US citizens are forbidden from dealing with him and world law enforcement is informed that he "is actively engaged in terrorism."
[AnNahar] The Obama administration said overnight Monday that it has added two senior members of Hizbullah to its “terrorism” sanctions list.
The State Department said that Ali Damush and Mustafa Mughniyeh have been named “Specially Designated Global Terrorists.”
Mughniyeh is a Hizbullah commander with extensive family links to the group. He's the nephew of Hizbullah's previous military commander, Mustafa Badreddine, who was killed near the Syrian capital last year, and the son of military commander Imad Mughniyeh, who was killed in a 2008 car bombing in Damascus that Hizbullah blamed on Israel.
Damush is an aide to the group's leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah. He heads the group's foreign relations department, which the State Department says "engages in covert terrorist operations around the world."
Also Tuesday, the department designated the Indonesia-based Jamaah Ansharut Daulah as a terrorist organization. The group has pledged allegiance to IS and was blamed for a January 2016 suicide kaboom in Jakarta that killed four people.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
01/11/2017
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[8 views]
Top|| File under: Islamic State
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[Breitbart] President Obama has gone rogue and only one man can protect American democracy in the next few days: the President-elect.
[PJ] Here is the latest Fake News lie: They actually believe this crap -- Trump partook in "golden showers" in Russia with prostitutes on a bed Obama once slept on... Russia then blackmailed Trump, not by asking for money or influence in his business deals, but by forcing him to run for president against all odds and win?
[Free Beacon] Congressional Democrats pushing for an ethics probe into a Trump cabinet nominee’s stock trades have their own histories of investing in sectors of the economy they oversee, public records show.
[Free Beacon] Television viewers prefer Fox News for political coverage above all other cable news networks and trust CNN the least among them, according to a recent poll.
[CBSNEWS] 
[NBCNEWS]
[Libya Observer] A private letter sent by the Head of the House of Representatives Office in Tobruk, Awad al-Fituri, to the HoR showed that the HoR’s Speaker, Aqilah Saleh, agreed on a request to distribute the proposal of changing the Libyan national anthem and flag to the HoR members so that it could be discussed officially in upcoming sessions.
Vietnam War "hero" Senator Dick Blumenthal decided to take the best left-wing opposition research and throw it at Senator Jeff Sessions, Trump's pick for Attorney General. In a creepy scene out of the Soviet Union, Blumenthal demanded that Senator Sessions disavow Horowitz and the Freedom Center.
[WASHINGTONTIMES] Congress’s top 
[Hurriyet Daily News] Some 19 
Hillary Clinton
Senator-for-life from New York, renowned for his love of standing in front of cameras. Schumer has been a professional politician since 1975, when disco was in flower. Senate minority leader as of 2017.
[Hurriyet Daily News] Three people were killed and more than 10 were 
...(al-Bunyan al-Marsous, 
[Mindanao Examiner] Pirates attacked a group of fishermen and killed at least eight of them off of Zamboanga City and officials said five others survived the attack. Sangali village chief Daud Bakil said the attack occurred late Monday near Siromon Island. The incident was only reported early Tuesday after two of the survivors managed to flee and return to Sangali. 
[CNN] Classified documents presented last week to President Obama and President-elect Trump included allegations that Russian operatives claim to have compromising personal and financial information about Mr. Trump, multiple US officials with direct knowledge of the briefings tell CNN.
...Libyan Moslem Brüderhood Grand Mufti since 2012. Issued a fatwa forbidding Libyan women from marrying foreign men. Issued a "fatwa against a UN Commission on the Status of Women's report because it urged governments to protect women and girls against violence" Aligned with the GNC govt...
