[Hot Air] Down goes another option to replace Michael Flynn as national security adviser, CBS News reports, and from a rather surprising source. After a speech overseas that apparently angered the White House, David Petraeus is no longer in the running for the spot -- and that comes from sources close to Petraeus rather than the White House:
Sources close to retired Gen. David Petraeus say the White House eliminated the former CIA director from consideration for the open national security adviser post after he weighed in on the job during a conference in Germany this week.
"Whoever it is that would agree to take that position certainly should do so with some very, very significant assurances that he or she would have authorities over the personnel of the organization -- that there would be a commitment to a disciplined process and procedures," Petraeus said at the Munich Security Conference.
That pronouncement angered the White House as it deepened the sense the next national security adviser must assert authority over staff and the inter-agency process -- highlighting the reason Vice Adm. Robert Harward refused to take the job earlier this week. Two sources confirmed to CBS News that Harward had demanded his own team, and the White House resisted.
The bigger surprise of this CBS update on the national security adviser sweepstakes is that David Petraeus was seriously in the running. The former four-star general and CIA director had his name included in media shortlists, but with the big, fat asterisk of having a misdemeanor conviction on his record for mishandling highly classified information. That wouldn’t have been an insurmountable legal issue -- if nothing else, Donald Trump could have issued a presidential pardon to wipe it off the record. Politically, though, it would have created some difficulties, and it’s not certain whether Petraeus could get a high enough clearance after that to perform the job.
That makes him immediately at risk of being a Sunni Islamofascist, possibly Muslim Brotherhood.
Self-employed businessman moved to Anaheim in 2004, became citizen in 2012 (why was this allowed???)
On a pilgrimmage to Mecca.
Won't let border security look in his phone "because he didn't want male staff to see a picture of his wife with her head uncovered"
leading to his being locked up 4 hours for interrogation.
This is EXACTLY the type of person I want Trump's extreme vetting to ban from moving to the West
someone who doesn't want a border security official in the course of their job to see just a photo of their wife without a hijab is someone who is NOT COMPATIBLE with Western Civilisation.
#3
also worth noting. This story would have originated by el-Sharkawi ringing up AP and saying "I've just been searched 4 hours at airport, I'm being profiled for being Muslim".
It would have started with his complaint, and he would have been very happy to pose for photos and be quoted.
That's the frame for the journo to hang the story on.
Journo would have checked it out, and found this is now the policy. Done some research on the rules
voila wire story goes everywhere
this is Muslim Brotherhood propaganda. Just like al Jazeera pushes "refugees are good" (for the West)
the Muslim Brotherhood use complaints like this to push news "we are victims being targeted"
i hope they DO get targeted, they are indeed the enemy
[Rooters] Omar Abdel-Rahman, convicted of the bombing of the World Trade Center in New York in 1993, has died in prison in the United States, his son Ammar told Reuters on Saturday.
Ammar said his family had received a phone call from a U.S. representative saying his father had died.
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/18/2017
11:56 ||
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#1
Oh the hunanity! Jailed, never to see the light of freedom day
*spit*
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/18/2017 12:08
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#2
Does it make me a bad person to hope that it was as painful a death as all he was responsible for?
U.S. authorities blamed a computer error for the visa, but the mistake was compounded in 1991 when Abdel-Rahman was given a green card and permanent U.S. resident status. The New York Times reported the CIA had approved the visa application for Abdel-Rahman, who had supported the anti-Soviet mujahedin in Afghanistan during the 1980s.
#1
One wonders whether this is one of those tiny preliminary studies whose conclusion will be reversed by additional research. One is comforted by the thought, however, that another scientist's family will not go hungry for the duration of the follow-up grant.
#3
The study, which tracked roughly 6.6 million people for more than a decade, could not determine whether pollution is directly harmful to the brain. The increased dementia risk could also be a knock-on effect of respiratory and cardiac problems caused by traffic fumes or due to other unhealthy life-style factors associated with living in built-up urban environments.
[Reuters] Republican Senator John McCain broke with the reassuring message that U.S. officials visiting Germany have sought to convey on their debut trip to Europe, saying on Friday that the administration of President Donald Trump was in "disarray".
McCain, a known Trump critic, told the Munich Security Conference that the resignation of the new president's security adviser Michael Flynn over his contacts with Russia reflected deep problems in Washington.
"I think that the Flynn issue obviously is something that shows that in many respects this administration is in disarray and they've got a lot of work to do," said McCain, even as he praised Trump's defense secretary.
"The president, I think, makes statements (and) on other occasions contradicts himself. So we've learned to watch what the president does as opposed to what he says," he said.
European governments have been unsettled by the signals sent by Trump on a range of foreign policy issues ranging from NATO and Russia to Iran, Israel and European integration.
The debut trip to Europe of Trump's Defence Secretary Jim Mattis and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, to a meeting of G20 counterparts in Bonn, went some way to assuaging concerns as they both took a more traditional U.S. position.
#2
Mad as a hatter. Is there some way his passport could be revoked?
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
02/18/2017 11:06
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#3
Is there some way he could be prosecuted for purporting to represent the United States government when he is really nothing but a bitter old mad man?
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
02/18/2017 11:08
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#4
Like Athena springing forth from the brow of Zeus... Is that the minimum standard?
McIdiot assumes that an Administration that is less than a month(!) must be perfect or worthless. Wotta maroon!
#9
McStain does this when the Republicans are in power to seem the maverick. When the demoncrats are in power, he works with the Republicans so he keeps his seat.
Either way, he is a disgrace and needs to be sent to pasture.
Baltimore Black Lives Matter segment in closing adds appropriate gravitas. Be sure to save to favorites, you'll want to visit this site and get April Ryan updates often.
[Jpost] When they met on Wednesday, US President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin were both walking wounded.
Netanyahu arrived in Washington the center of a criminal investigation the chief characteristic of which is that selected details of the probe are regularly leaked to the media by anonymous sources who cannot be challenged or held to account. After several months of "investigation" we were confronted with a shocking discovery: apparently, Bibi gets monthly allowance from one of his mom's relatives - which he kept secret from Saraleh and used to buy cigars.
...As for Trump, he met with Netanyahu two days after his loyal national security adviser, Lt.-Gen. (ret.) Michael Flynn, was forced to resign.
Flynn’s resignation was the culmination of a continuous campaign of defamation waged against him that began even before Trump was elected.
...The campaign against Flynn was based on highly classified information regarding conversations Flynn held with Russia’s ambassador to the US during the transition process in December. Under US law, intelligence agencies are prohibited from divulging the identity of US citizens whose conversations with foreign intelligence targets are intercepted.
The law is in place for good reason. As Eli Lake wrote in Bloomberg on Tuesday, "Selectively disclosing details of private conversations monitored by the FBI or NSA gives the permanent state the power to destroy reputations from the cloak of anonymity. This is what police states do."
In the event, an FBI investigation of the conversations after they were leaked concluded that Flynn did nothing illegal in his dealings with the Russian ambassador. But criminalizing Flynn was never the object of the leaks ‐ making him politically toxic was the aim. And it was accomplished on Monday when he resigned.
It appears likely that Trump became convinced that by sacrificing Flynn, he would end the insurrection US intelligence operatives are waging against his presidency. But as The New York Times made clear on Wednesday, the opposite is true.
...To a certain degree, Trump’s first month in office bears a striking similarly to Netanyahu’s first term in office 20 years ago. When Netanyahu was first elected prime minister in 1996, he was an inexperienced politician. Before winning the election, Netanyahu had never held a cabinet level appointment.
Netanyahu, who opposed the phony peace process with the PLO, was viewed as the root of all evil by Israel’s security and legal establishment whose members had adopted the two-state formula as their catechism. After he was elected they joined forces to subvert his authority.
...Instead of standing up to the rebellious bureaucracies, Netanyahu caved in. Consequently, he lost his base, and in 1999 he lost his office.
In a way, Netanyahu had no choice. He had no allies with the power to help him. The Clinton administration was implacably opposed to him and worked openly with the Israeli deep state to unseat him. The media hated him even more than they hate him today.
Trump’s decision to allow Flynn to resign was a dangerous sign that he is beginning to follow the same pattern of behavior that led to the failure of Netanyahu’s first term.
But his press conference with Netanyahu on Wednesday signaled that Trump may yet turn things around and gain control over the rebellious bureaucracy by leaning on an ally that wants him to succeed and needs him to succeed in order to survive himself.
From the statements they made at the joint press conference, it is clear that Trump and Netanyahu have decided to build an alliance. Its purpose is twofold. First, by working together, they can defeat the common foes of their countries. And second, the success of their joint efforts will bring about the defeat of their bureaucratic enemies.
The most significant development to come out of the Trump-Netanyahu press conference was their refusal to endorse the two-state policy doctrine. This was a necessary move.
...The basic idea behind the two-state paradigm is that the establishment of a PLO state is a precondition for winning the war against Islamic terrorism. Any different view is Islamophobia to western self-appointed "elites"
...Amazingly then, to a significant degree, the survival of both leaders is tied up with their success in keeping their promises to their voters and defeating their foes ‐ domestic and foreign.
#3
My guess is that Trump accepted Flynn resignation because there was so much opposition to Flynn by the intelligent community that Flynn would never be able to accomplish anything. Not because of anything that Flynn did or didn't do.
[Reuters] Nine asylum-seekers, including four children, barely made it across the Canadian border on Friday as a U.S. border patrol officer tried to stop them and a Reuters photographer captured the scene.
As a U.S. Customs and Border Patrol officer seized their passports and questioned a man in the front passenger seat of a taxi that had pulled up to the border in Champlain, New York, four adults and four young children fled the cab and ran to Royal Canadian Mounted Police on the other side.
One by one they scrambled across the snowy gully separating the two countries. RCMP officers watching from the other side helped them up, lifting the younger children and asking a woman, who leaned on her fellow passenger as she walked, if she needed medical care.
The children looked back from where they had come as the U.S. officer held the first man, saying his papers needed to be verified.
The man turned to a pile of belongings and heaved pieces of luggage two at a time into the gully -- enormous wheeled suitcases, plastic shopping bags, a black backpack.
"Nobody cares about us," he told journalists. He said they were all from Sudan and had been living and working in Delaware for two years.
The RCMP declined on Friday to confirm the nationalities of the people. A Reuters photo showed that at least one of their passports was Sudanese.
#7
Why would we want to stop them?
Tell them that the Canadians have free brownies...
Posted by: ed in texas ||
02/18/2017 14:44
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Did Mohammed command Muslims to be drama queens?
Posted by: Rob Crawford ||
02/18/2017 14:47
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#9
Since when have people exiting the USA at border crossings been stopped by US personnel? I've never seen anyone stopped this way. Getting stopped ENTERING a country, however, is the routine event at border crossings.
[Reuters] Guards at one of Mexico's high security prisons have to worry much more about criminals breaking in than busting out. Despite a price tag of more than 2 billion pesos ($98 million), the Papantla prison built for about 2,000 men in the eastern state of Veracruz does not have a single inmate, and only a handful of staff look after the site.
So it was not surprising that last year, construction materials were stolen from inside the prison perimeter.
"In reality, it's a white elephant," Galdino Diego Perez, the legal representative for Papantla's municipal government, said of the enormous white and gray complex outside of town.
The Papantla facility is the most egregious example of wasted taxpayer money under a 2008 prison-building plan that aimed to solve chronic overcrowding in Mexico's prisons and house an influx of new inmates as security forces cracked down on drug cartels.
Under the plan, then-President Felipe Calderon's conservative government gave out some 176 billion pesos ($8.65 billion) of no-bid contracts to open 15 facilities. But years later, four of them stand only partially built or are still not open. Such a poor country. I wonder where the $8.65 billion originated, and where most of it actually went ?
Public policy experts say the idle prisons reflect inadequate planning by Calderon's government, though the facilities that were opened did help reduce overcrowding in the penal system.
People involved in executing Calderon's plan blame current President Enrique Peña Nieto's administration for the delays.
Most agree, however, that Mexican taxpayers lost out.
Selected Excerpt: [American Renaissance] "I must warn you that there are people who become envious when they look into another man’s garden. If they see a large tree full of fruit there, then they say: ’We want to have it.’ The man who attempts or desires to steal from another man’s garden, however, always forgets to take care of his own. While he leans over the fence and looks and looks, he forgets to water his own tree. He forgets to spray against insects, and when he turns around, he discovers that the branches are withered and the fruit isn’t there or is inedible. . . Therefore you must not look with envious eyes to the more developed tree of the whites, because then you will neglect your own little tree that one day will be a great tree too. It has often happened that, when one person covets another’s property, they come to blows. Meanwhile, the thing that they both want to possess falls apart or turns rotten! Or the axe can be used to cut down the tree, and then no one has any fruit! We mustn’t be like that in South Africa. Let’s take the trees of separate development, and each care for his own tree." Don't neglect the comments section.
#3
Just hire politicians to steal for you. Increase taxes on more fruitful trees, Kelo your neighbors land with the better trees, regulate who can and can not have fruit trees on their property, etc.
[FOX] Another big news report was met with an abrupt and unequivocal denial Friday by the Trump administration ‐ this time, over an Associated Press story claiming the team was considering a plan to mobilize National Guard troops to round up illegal immigrants.
The AP cited an 11-page "draft memo" that reportedly called for tapping up to 100,000 troops to track down illegal immigrants in border and non-border states. The memo reportedly said governors in the 11 states cited in the plan could choose whether to have troops participate.
But White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer called the report "100 percent not true."
"It is false. It is irresponsible to be saying this," he said, adding there is "no effort" to use the National Guard to round up illegal immigrants.
While immigration agents have been stepping up enforcement against illegal immigrants, prompting protests from Democratic lawmakers and immigration activists, a Department of Homeland Security official also said Friday the department is "not considering mobilizing the National Guard."
The story shoot-down comes after President Trump held an extraordinary, marathon press conference Thursday during which he repeatedly accused the media of spreading "fake" news.
[Breibart] A group of mostly white students at the University of Wisconsin-Madison is demanding that the school offer a wholly free education to black students, even if they are convicted criminals.
The group, the Associated Students of Madison, demanded that the school offer free tuition, free living expenses, and cancel all fees for all African American students as a form of "reparations" for the practice of slavery that ended 150 years ago, Fox News reported.
"The university’s rhetoric suggests that it is committed to diversity and inclusion, so this legislation compels the university to move towards action -- which is imperative," said the resolution’s author, ASM Student Council Rep. Tyriek Mack. "If no one challenges the university’s empty promises, then the racial composition will remain stagnant."
Calling it the "Cognitive Dissonance Resolution," the ASM policy proposal demands free tuition for all black people, including formerly incarcerated criminals. Free tuition, free housing, and no fees would save a black student up to $20,000 a year.
The resolution also demands that universities spend ten percent of their donations on financial aid. Another provision called on the school to weigh admittance by geographical regions, instead of grades.
While black students make up only two percent of the student body, University spokeswoman Meredith McGlone insisted that the proportion of students of color has grown from 11 to 15 percent under current administration policies, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
On the other hand, the State of Wisconsin itself is only six percent black, while the U.S. population is 12 percent black.
In the end, McGlone said that some of the things the student group wants are not even legal. "It’s unclear that the methods that they’re suggesting are either legal or the best approach to accomplishing those goals," McGlone said.
#1
Little more than guilt therapy for the while privileged classes. Much, much more is needed. Culturally adjusted grading schemes, free books and lab fees, meals, lodging, laundry, day-care, pocket money, clothing allowance, priority employment placement, Affirmative promotion and advancement, tax exemption (April 15th is rapidly approaching) and much more. Real action required. Time is of the essence.
#3
When the tuition fees are loaned from the gov't, and later the debt forgiven, the cost no longer matters. The increases are spread across the entire society, a shared burden.
#4
Virtue signalling with other people's money. Except isn't U of W a state school, in a state with a very hard-nosed accountant as governor? Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Governor Scott Walker's next triumph -- this should be fun!
#7
Since there's apparently so many white libs free with someone else's money, why doesn't the school assign a "foster black" to each one and they can pay for their room, board, tuition, remedial tutoring (no SAT req'ts mean anyone gets in).... that cool ride, protest gear, etc.
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/18/2017 7:52
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It seems to me the NAACP could better use their money if they offered little amounts to guilty liberal white kids to come out and virtue signal in this way.
#11
BU5562, my general rule of thumb is that any major that has the word "studies" in it is worse than useless.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
02/18/2017 15:49
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I'm not sure why this particular emission from the ASM is getting more attention than their usual nonsense. The turnout for elections was about 11% last year--not that many students seem to care about their representatives.
Posted by: james ||
02/18/2017 22:15
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"The university’s rhetoric suggests that it is committed to diversity rather than unity. FIFY
[DeutscheWelle] Spanish authorities said 11 guards in a territory in North Africa were maimed when some 500 people forced their way through a border fence. The rush came as Morocco threatened it could let more migrants colonists through amid a trade dispute with the EU.
Almost 500 migrants colonists broke through the border of Spain's Ceuta enclave from Morocco on Friday.
A group of 700 people simultaneously rushed a gate in the 6-meter (20-foot) fence, with 498 making it into Spanish territory, the Spanish Civil Guard said. The mass entry was one of the largest since the fence was erected in 2005. Over 1,000 people stormed the border fence in January. For many, an attempt to reach a Spanish territory is safer than trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea, a route to Europe that saw a record number of deaths in 2016.
A Ceuta government official told The News Agency that Dare Not be Named two migrants colonists were hospitalized due to injuries they sustained in the assault and 11 Spanish police were also hurt. A Civil Guard front man said at least 10 members of Morocco's armed forces were also injured.
Ceuta's Red Thingy emergency response team reported more than 30 migrants colonists were treated at a migrant center for bone fractures and other injuries.
Moslem colonists Migrants are often injured in attempts on the border
A video filmed by "Faro TV Ceuta" showed migrants colonists with blood on their faces and bruises but celebrating the arrival in Spanish territory. Some wrapped themselves in Spanish and European flags and screamed, "Freedom, freedom!"
Hundreds of people, mainly sub-Saharan Africans, live illegally in Morocco and regularly attempt to enter the Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla. Most are fleeing conflict and poverty.
The Spanish territories of Ceuta and Melilla have the European Union ...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing... 's only land borders with Africa.
Morocco threatens more migrants colonists
In January about 1,100 people stormed the border fence, injuring at least 50 Moroccan and Spanish border guards. In December more than 400 migrants colonists managed to enter the tiny territory of Ceuta when a group of more than 900 attempted to cross. And in October more than 200 people made it over the razor wire fence.
The latest attempt on the border came amid a tense trade dispute between Morocco and the EU over the interpretation of a free trade farm and fishing deal.
In late 2016, an EU court ruled the trade deal did not apply to the Western Sahara, a former Spanish colony controlled by Rabat where the Polisario Front is fighting for independence.
The court said control of the disputed territory remained unclear and the EU did not recognize it as part of Morocco.
The decision angered Morocco, which in a warning on February 7 suggested it could lead to "a new flow of migration" towards Europe and place the continent "at risk."
The border consists of two fences, eight kilometers long and six meters high. Between these a network of steel cables hinders movement.
[AlAhram] Three army soldiers were killed and four others injured in an kaboom in the El-Halal mountain area in central Sinai, the Egyptian army said on Friday.
The kaboom occurred during a raid on "terrorist hideouts" by the third field army and police forces in the area. The raid also resulted in the death of three snuffies and the arrest of three others, an army front man said on his official Facebook page.
[IsraelTimes] Five Israelis were killed and 16 hurt in 100 incidents, according to Shin Bet, including truck-ramming attack that claimed four lives.
That seems awfully inefficient to me, but of course I have no idea.
Four of the victims were killed in Jerusalem on Jan. 8 when the assailant drove his truck into a crowd of soldiers. One man was killed the previous week in Haifa.
Of the attacks documented last month, 81 involved the hurling of Molotov cocktails. December 2016 had seen 98 attacks.
No mention of the many arrested, the guns, supplies, and funds confiscated, the dwellings knocked down, for some reason.
[Ynet] Witnesses and soldiers say 11 people have been killed as Nigerian troops battled Boko Haram ... not to be confused with Procol Harum, Harum Scarum, possibly to be confused with Helter Skelter. The Nigerian version of al-Qaeda and the Taliban rolled together and flavored with a smigeon of distinctly Subsaharan ignorance and brutality... jacket wallahs and fighters to repel an attack on the outskirts of northeastern Maiduguri city.
They say nine suicide bombers and two civilians died early Friday.
It was the fiercest attack in months by Boko Haram on the city that is the birthplace of the Islamic insurgency.
Police say threeexploding trollop female suicide bombers detonated vehicles parked at a truck station around midnight. The two civilians died there.
Self-defense fighters say soldiers later fired at gunnies on cycle of violences escorting suicide bombers, killing at least six of the bombers.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
02/18/2017
01:50 ||
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[IsraelTimes] Moroccan-born baker who appeared in TV show about coexistence previously tweeted that ’Hitler was nothing compared to Israelis.'
A Moslem baker who moved many viewers in the Netherlands with his televised plea for coexistence and acceptance had called in the past for a genocide against Jews, Dutch papers revealed.
Rachid el Hajoui, an immigrant from Morocco who works at a pizza eatery in Tilburg, made his emotional appearance during an expose on growing feeling of insecurity and estrangement in the Netherlands aired on the Feb. 14 evening news edition of the NOS public broadcaster, the country’s best-viewed station.
In the interview (link in Dutch), el Hajoui confessed he feared going to mosque "because some crazy person might attack" there. "Intelligent people incite to the most stupid actions. And stupid people do it," he said. He complained about "the hateful voices" on Twitter and in the political establishment, ostensibly against Moslems. "I stand for democracy and I want my family and everyone to live in harmony," he said.
But on Wednesday, the de Dagelijkse Standard conservative blog found some hateful statements by el Hajoui, whom they also discovered was previously an activist for the Socialist Party and later with the progressive D66 party.
An English-language message posted on el Hajoui’s Twitter account in 2014 read: "Hitler was nothing compared to the Israelis. Someone would had to finish his work 60jr ago." He also wrote in Dutch: "Only answer to Israel is total extermination, annihilate the cockroaches #1945 #wehateisrael."
He also praised Sultan Recep Tayyip Erdogan the First ... Turkey's version of Mohammed Morsi but they voted him back in so they deserve him... , The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... ’s authoritarian and Islamist leader, as "the only real man among Moslem leaders."
The revelation exposed NOS to scathing criticism in other media for affording el Hajoui the opportunity to preach tolerance without addressing his past statements, which were revealed by Twitter users and bloggers who took an interest in him following the news broadcast. BY Friday, El Hajoui appeared to have deleted his Twitter account.
The Center for Information and Documentation for Israel, the country’s main watchdog group on anti-Semitism, filed a complaint for incitement to hatred against el Hajoui.
But Esther Voet, the group’s former director and currently the editor-in-chief of the Nieuw Israelitisch Weekblad, wrote in an op-ed in her weekly that while what she called el Hajoui’s hatred and hypocrisy are not surprising, what "is big news is that NOS made a hero out of this rabid anti-Semite" el Hajoui, whom she also called a "pet Moroccan."
Separately, the Christian organizers of a festival for peace in the eastern city of Apeldoorn last week apologized for offering a podium to an anti-Israel activist whom they said had used anti-Semitic terminology in speaking about the Jewish state during the event last week.
Ending a protracted dispute, the Foundation Jewish Apeldoorn and the organizers from the Church Group Peace Week Apeldoorn signed a joint statement on Feb. 10, denouncing the remarks of the anti-Israel activist Cornelis Blok as "anti-Semitic." The parties stated that Blok of the Sabeel group used the term "Jewish race" during his speech and equated Paleostinian jihadists with anti-Nazi resistance fighters.
Blok denied harboring any anti-Semitic intent.
The chief organizer, Eddy Anneveldt, also apologized for writing to Blok a friendly email stating: "Because of you, my view of Jews has not particularly improved." In the statement, Anneveldt wrote this was a generalization.
#1
Pretty much par for the course. The MSM puts these manipulators forward to progress the narrative... then it falls apart when they are exposed to be just as big as fuckwhits as all their kin.
[ARA] Russian warplanes on Friday conducted several Arclight airstrikes in Syria’s northeastern Raqqa Governorate, targeting 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.... ’s (ISIS) tactical units and training camps.
The Russian Defense Ministry said on Friday that long-range bombers fired a series of cruise missiles at ISIS targets around Raqqa City.
"The Tupolev-95 bombers had taken off from Russia and flown over Iran and Iraq to get to Syria, and successfully targeted bad boy training camps and a command point," the ministry said in a statement.
Since launching its operations in Syria in September 2015, Russian Air Force has focused its power on Aleppo and other rebel-held areas.
This is the second time for Russia to target Raqqa‐ISIS de facto capital in Syria. In late 2015, Moscow carried out a series of Arclight airstrikes on Raqqa city, bombing ISIS fighting positions and weapons storage centers.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/18/2017
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[SCMP] Pak security forces killed dozens of suspected forces of Evil on Friday, a day after 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.... claimed a suicide kaboom that killed more than 80 worshippers at a Sufi shrine in the latest of a series of attacks across the country.
The bombing at the famed Lal Shahbaz Qalandar shrine in southern Sindh province was Pakistain’s deadliest attack in two years, killing at least 83 people and underlining the threat of bully boy groups like the Pak Taliban and Islamic State.
With authorities facing angry criticism for failing to tighten security before the bomber struck, analysts warned that the wave of violence pointed to a major escalation in Islamist bully boys’ attempts to destabilise the region.
"This is a virtual declaration of war against the state of Pakistain," said Imtiaz Gul, head of the independent Centre for Research and Security Studies in Islamabad.
With pressure growing for action, Pakistain demanded that neighbouring Afghanistan hand over 76 "terrorists" it said were sheltering over the border.
The bombings over five days have hit all four of Pakistain’s provinces and two major cities, killing around 100 people and shaking a nascent sense that the worst of the country’s bully boy violence may be in the past.
A series of military operations against holy warrior groups operating in Pakistain had encouraged hopes that their leaders were scattered.
"But this has led to a degree of complacency within our civil-military leadership that perhaps they have completely destroyed these elements, or broken their back," Gul said.
If so, that impression has been shattered by the events of recent days.
At Lal Shahbaz Qalandar, the white marble floor was still marked by blood on Friday, and a pile of abandoned shoes and slippers was heaped in the courtyard, many of them belonging to victims.
Outside, protesters shouted slogans at police, who they said had failed to protect the shrine.
"I wish I could have been here and died in the blast last night," a devastated Ali Hussain told Rooters, sitting on the floor of the shrine.
He said that local Sufis had asked for better security after a separate bombing this week killed 13 people in the eastern city of Lahore, but added: "No one bothered to secure this place".
Anwer Ali, 25, rushed to the shrine after he heard the kaboom, and described seeing dead bodies and chaos as people expeditiously departed at a goodly pace.
"There were threats to the shrine. The Taliban had warned that they will attack here, but authorities didn’t take it seriously," Ali said.
Sindh police chief A.D. Khawaja said on Friday that the corpse count had reached 83 people with scores more maimed.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/18/2017
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[DAILYCALLER] House Republicans are moving forward with efforts to keep taxpayer dollars from going to Planned Parenthood ...has received federal funding since 1970, when President Richard Nixon signed into law the Family Planning Services and Population Research Act. It is sometimes described as the gynecololgical wing of the Democratic party. and other abortion providers.
The House voted 230-188 Thursday to repeal a regulation that prohibits states from defunding organizations that perform abortions, including Planned Parenthood, by far the largest American abortion provider. Planned Parenthood performs one out of every three abortions in the U.S., according to the Heritage Foundation.
The abortion ban was put in place by Congress Jan. 18, just two days before President B.O. left office. The B.O. regime pushed through a rule that targeted family planning funding under Title X of the Public Health Service Act, requiring that states treat all health providers equally, whether they perform abortions or not.
"Why is it necessary for those services to be funded at the nation’s largest provider of abortions?" Republican Alabama Rep. Martha Roby said. "It isn’t, of course, but the abortion industry and its supporters want us to think it is."
Republican Texas Rep. Michael Burgess, who heads the health subcommittee of the House Committee on Energy, said the vote was a positive step towards returning power to the states.
"In the final hours of the B.O. regime, a rule was pushed through that dramatically reduced states’ authority to allocate Title X funding as they see fit," Burgess said in a statement. "We believe that states have the right to choose the health care providers that best serve the needs of their local communities and the B.O. regime’s rule undermines that critical authority."
Posted by: Fred ||
02/18/2017
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#1
Let Hillary Clinton put in the first $100,000 donation, challenging her supporters to meet or beat it. That first subscription should cover the next ten years of expenses plus the upgrades needed to bring all their offices up to the standards for proper ambulatory surgeries.
"Christian terrorism does not exist, Jewish terrorism does not exist, and Muslim terrorism does not exist. They do not exist," Francis said in his speech to a world meeting of populist movements.
What he apparently meant is that not all Christians are terrorists and not all Muslims are terrorists--a fact evident to all--yet his words also seemed to suggest that no specifically Islamic form of terrorism exists in the world, an assertion that stands in stark contradiction to established fact. And there you have it.
#2
EX-communicate yourself, Pope.
You are nothing but a phony, marxist, useless idiot.
You lead nothing and you are standing in the way of someone who could actually do their job.
#7
Jesuits are strong on leftism/liberalism/progressivism. Not Orthodxy. After such great scholarly minds as Saint John Paull II The Great, and Benedict XVI, we now have a mediocre intellect as Pope who is headed into disaster and scandal with his soft headed "feelings first" approach.
#8
In his address Friday, the Pope denounced “the guise of what is politically correct or ideologically fashionable,” which he described as a “hypocritical attitude,” while urging real solutions to unemployment, corruption, the identity crisis, and “the gutting of democracies.”
“The system’s gangrene cannot be whitewashed forever because sooner or later the stench becomes too strong,” he said.
The Jesuits are uniting: Podesta, Brennan, Francis....war and refugees are good for the business of the church. Toward the Global Liberation of All Nations and Peoples requires the pope end perpetual colonization and subjugation of peoples through the archaic Doctrine of Discovery. Besides Native Americans, the principle applies to the UNHCR, Palestinians, refugees, and other indiginous peoples. Catholic Charities are also being forced to close refugee resettlement offices because of Trump's immigration policies. The Deep State is a bloated global bureaucracy. Fumigating required before cleaning.
#10
Yes not all Muslims are terrorists but when polled a strikingly large number of Muslims living in Muslim nations believe in things that the west finds very objectionable. And many support the terrorism against non Muslims and other sects at alarming rates.
No they are not terrorists but they are not part of western civilization and we shouldn't fool ourselves into thinking they are.
Many liberal opinions on Muslims were based on very moderate (nearly atheist but unwilling to admit it) Muslims who fled their nations. I would say that is a fringe and not the baseline we should use.
#13
“Please it your Grace,” said the Prince, very coldly and politely. “You see that lamp. It is round and yellow and gives light to the whole room; and hangeth moreover from the roof. Now that thing which we call the sun is like the lamp, only far greater and brighter. It giveth light to the whole Overworld and hangeth in the sky.”
“Hangeth from what, my lord?” asked the Witch; and then, while they were all still thinking how to answer her, she added, with another of her soft, silver laughs: “You see? When you try to think out clearly what this sun must be, you cannot tell me. You can only tell me it is like the lamp. Your sun is a dream; and there is nothing in that dream that was not copied from the lamp. The lamp is the real thing; the sun is but a tale, a children’s story.”
“Yes, I see now,” said Jill in a heavy, hopeless tone. “It must be so.” And while she said this, it seemed to her to be very good sense.
Slowly and gravely the Witch repeated, “There is no sun.” And they all said nothing. She repeated, in a softer and deeper voice. “There is no sun.” After a pause, and after a struggle in their minds, all four of them said together, “You are right. There is no sun.” It was such a relief to give in and say it.
“There never was a sun,” said the Witch.
“No. There never was a sun,” said the Prince, and the Marsh-wiggle, and the children.
#15
Is his language that staggeringly sloppy (wouldn't be the first time) or is the Vatican translation team sloppy or invidious (wouldn't be the first time)? Or is he trying to work an obvious absurdity into a homily?
Posted by: james ||
02/18/2017 19:12
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[GEO.TV] A boom-mobile on Friday rocked the southeastern Turkish province of Sanliurfa, close to the Syrian border, killing a child and wounding 17 people, the provincial governor's office said.
"Eighteen of our citizens have been taken to hospital, among them a 10-year-old child who lost their life," the office said, adding that one of the injured was in a serious condition.
The kaboom -- which took place near a building where prosecutors are housed -- struck the district of Viransehir, the office added.
Earlier the official Anadolu news agency had cited governor Gungor Azim Tuna as saying the dead child was a three-year-old boy.
The governor said the "terror attack" was caused by a parked vehicle that was loaded with explosives and detonated using a remote control, the agency reported.
The lodgings were badly damaged, the governor added, while Dogan news agency said other buildings and several cars in the area were also damaged.
Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag said on Twitter that no terrorist organization or attack would weaken The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... 's fight against terror.
"Our determined and effective fight against terror will continue," he said.
No group immediately claimed the attack, and Bozdag did not say which organization the government suspected.
Turkey was hit by a series of attacks in 2016 blamed on Kurdish forces of Evil 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.... (IS) jihadists, killing hundreds of people. The country was also shaken by a failed military coup last July.
This year also had a bloody start, with a New Year's attack on an elite Istanbul nightclub that left 39 people dead, most of them foreigners. The attack was claimed by IS.
Last month the Kurdistan Freedom Falcons (TAK), a splinter group of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), grabbed credit for an attack that left two dead in the Aegean city of Izmir.
The PKK has been waging an insurgency against the Turkish state since 1984 during which over 40,000 people have been killed. It is proscribed as a terror organization by Ankara, the United States and the European Union ...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing... The Turkish government says the TAK is merely a front for the better-known PKK.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/18/2017
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[An Nahar] An Emirati soldier was killed while on duty with a Saudi-led coalition battling Houthis in Yemen, the United Arab Emirates' official WAM news agency reported on Friday.
"The general command of the armed forces announced the martyrdom of Suleiman Mohammed Al Thuhuri, one of its soldiers involved in Operation Restoring Hope," WAM said.
The announcement comes after a coalition raid on a rebel post in Khokha, south of the main Red Sea port of Hodeida, killed 15 rebels and maimed 20 on Wednesday, according to military sources allied with the coalition.
A second Emirati soldier died of a heart attack, WAM said.
Some 80 Emirati soldiers have been killed since the coalition launched its intervention in support of President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi in March 2015.
More than 7,400 people have been killed since the intervention began, including around 1,400 children, according to World Health Organization figures.
Despite the coalition's superior firepower, the rebels and their allies still control the capital Sanaa and much of the northern and central highlands as well as the port of Hodeida.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/18/2017
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[Khaama (Afghanistan)] At least two non-combatants were killed in artillery shelling from the other side of Durand Line in eastern Kunar province ... which is right down the road from Chitral. Kunar is Haqqani country..... of Afghanistan.
According to the local security officials, the incident took place late on Thursday night after dozens of artillery shells were fired on Sarkano district.
Provincial police front man Faridullah Dehqan said the shelling started at around 10:00 pm local time and continued for several hours.
He said one of the rockets landed on a residential house in Sarkano district, leaving two members of a family dead.
According to Dehqan, a woman and his 15-year-old son were among those killed in the shelling.
The shelling started hours after a deadly kaboomdestroyed a shrine in Sindh province of Pakistain and shortly after the military of Pakistain closed the routes connecting the two countries along the Durand Line.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/18/2017
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[Khaama (Afghanistan)] The Pak military has reportedly summoned some of the Afghan diplomats following a series of deadly attacks across Pakistain, claiming that 76 gunnies are involved in the attacks using the Afghan soil.
"Afg Embassy officials called in GHQ. Given list of 76 Ts hiding in Afg. Asked to take immediate action / be handed over to Pakistain," DG ISPR Major General Asif Ghafoor said in a Twitter post.
Earlier, the Pak military announced that the routes linking the two countries along the Durand Line have been closed after the attacks.
Gen. Ghafoor said "Pakistain-Afghanistan Border closed with immediate effects till further orders due to security reasons."
Posted by: Fred ||
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[Khaama (Afghanistan)] At least 12 loyalists of the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) terrorist group were killed during the military operations in eastern Nangarhar The unfortunate Afghan province located adjacent to Mohmand, Kurram, and Khyber Agencies. The capital is Jalalabad. The province was the fief of Younus Khalis after the Soviets departed and one of his sons is the current provincial Taliban commander. Nangarhar is Haqqani country.. province of Afghanistan.
The provincial police commandment said the Lions of Islam were killed during the Shaheen-25 operations launched five days ago in this province.
At least four of the Lions of Islam were killed in in Gorgori and Payeen areas of Haska Mina district.
The remaining eight Lions of Islam were killed during the operations in Pandok area of Kot district, the police commandment added.
The Afghan forces destroyed a heavy machine gun, Dshk, during the operations, the police commandment said, adding that the local residents and security forces did not suffer any casualties during the operations.
The anti-government armed bad boy groups including the loyalists of ISIS terrorist group have not commented regarding the report so far.
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[Khaama (Afghanistan)] A top leader of the Haqqani terrorist network was killed in an Arclight airstrike conducted by the Afghan forces in Southeast of Afghanistan.
The Afghan Intelligence, National Directorate of Security ...the Afghan national intel agency... (NDS), said the Haqqani leader killed in the operation has been identified as Khan Badshah son of Gulab Shah who was also famous as Faryadi.
According to a statement by NDS, Khan Badshah was killed along with some other senior Haqqani network leaders.
The statement further added that the other hard boy killed in the Arclight airstrike has been identified as Khan Badshah’s deputy Syedan who was famous as Fedayi and was originally a resident of Orgun district.
Another hard boy identified as Mohsin, originally hailing from North Wazoo, was also killed as he was in command of a group of at least 30 hard boys.
NDS said the fourth Haqqani leader killed in the Arclight airstrike has not been identified so far.
Badshah Khan was involved in training jacket wallahs and had key role in some of the major attacks in Khost, Paktia and Zabul province, NDS said.
Posted by: Fred ||
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#1
that's gonna piss the ISI off
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/18/2017 5:58
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#2
that's gonna piss the ISI off
Yes. All that money and time invested - gone.
I wonder if Faryadi's catamite gets survivor benefits?
[POWERLINEBLOG] April Ryan is a news hound for American Urban Radio Networks. Last week, after a tense exchange with White House aide Omarosa Manigault, she leveled several accusations.
Ryan claimed that Manigault told her she was among a group of news hounds on whom the White House is keeping dossiers with negative information. She claimed that she felt "physically intimidated" by Manigault. She described Manigault’s behavior as threatening enough to be "Secret Serviceable," meaning that it warranted intervention by law enforcement officers.
Manigault denied Ryan’s accusations. She called them "fake news."
Now, Manigault says that a White House media employee recorded the encounter. According to Manigault, the recording backs up her contention that Ryan’s version is false.
She says the tape shows that Ryan came into the White House press-staff area "hot," hurling insults at her:
She came in with an attitude. For her to characterize me as the bully -- I’m so glad we have this tape. . .because it’s ’liar, liar, pants on fire."
Ryan is not happy that the the White House has the tape. She complains that she was not aware that the exchange was being recorded and that she never consented to it. "This is freaking Nixonian," she adds.
As the Washington Post notes, under District of Columbia law there was no requirement that Ryan consent to the recording. It is ludicrous, moreover, to find a reasonable expectation of privacy in an area where White House news hounds mingle with White House staffers.
Indeed, portions of the encounter were overheard by, among others, Abby Phillip of the Washington Post and John Roberts of Fox News. (Neither has corroborated Ryan’s claims, with Roberts denying that the event rose to the level of a "confrontation" and saying he did not hear the word "dossier.")
The taping of a public disagreement is not in any sense Nixonian. If there’s a "Nixon" in this scenario, it is Ryan -- if, in fact, a tape exposes her as dishonest.
During the campaign, there were reports that Ryan was taking money from the Clinton campaign to provide favorable coverage. Manigault, formerly Ryan’s friend (according to the Post), emailed her about this allegation.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/18/2017
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#1
Let's see... vindictive, dishonest, makes stuff up, and is outraged when exposed. Yep, she's a sociopath reporter, all right.
#3
April, sweetie, lemme explain this to youse: everything is recorded today. There are smartphones, cameras, voice recorders everywhere. Everybody's got one, and everybody knows how to use them.
So now you're upset because someone did to you what you ordinarily do to them? Welcome to Washington.
Posted by: Steve White ||
02/18/2017 10:31
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#4
Welcome to the swamp! Watch out for the alligators.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
02/18/2017 11:09
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#6
The government policy should be that the Gov record a version of every interaction with the media. Let it be known and the editing games will slow down if not stop.
#7
Not merely the government: Everyone should always make their own recording of any dealings with the media.
Posted by: ed in texas ||
02/18/2017 15:02
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#8
I have little sympathy for any problems the MSM has brought on themselves. My feelings for them are somewhere south of most repulsive things you might think of. Most should have to give up their 1st Amendment protections since they have abdicated any sense of being reporters.
[SCMP] Indonesia’s corruption fighters are back in the depths of despair after the arrest on bribery charges of a justice of the Constitutional Court, the country’s highest legal institution, once considered a success story of the democratic era.
Former National Mandate Party politician Patrialis Akbar, 58, was taken into custody by the Anti-Corruption Commission (KPK) last week, two and a half years after former Constitutional Court chief justice Akil Mochtar received a life sentence for the same offence.
Long-numbed by the string of thieving politicians and babus bureaucrats filing through the courts, Indonesians have been left to wonder whether they are witnessing not only a failure of the rule of law, but a systematic collapse in public morality that seems to have no end.
Akbar’s arrest further undermines confidence in a court that was once considered an icon of Indonesia’s reform success story. Established in 2003 under a 2001 amendment to the 1945 constitution, it was Indonesia’s first judicial body empowered to review government regulations (those below the level of actual laws).
It won plaudits in its early years under pioneering chief justice Jimly Asshidiqqie, but in subsequent years its shine dimmed amid suspicions of political interference under his successor Mohammad Mahfud. Now, with the arrest of a second justice on bribery charges, there have been calls to rein in some of its unlimited powers.
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[SCMP] Two Pak men face the gallows in Singapore after a court on Friday found them guilty of murdering a compatriot over a gambling dispute and dismembering the body.
Street-side tissue sellers Rasheed Muhammad, 45, and Ramzan Rizwan, 28, were convicted of smothering fellow Pak Muhammad Noor to death in their lodging house in 2014, before hacking up the body with saws.
The 59-year-old victim’s torso and lower limbs were found stuffed in two separate luggage bags in the city-state.
Murder convictions in Singapore are punishable by death and carried out by hanging.
Rasheed Muhammad. Photo: The Straits Times
"As the photographs and evidence of the discarded limbs and torso show, both Rasheed and Ramzan acted in concert after the murder as they did before and during it," High Court Judge Choo Han Teck said in his judgement.
Rasheed and Ramzan arrived in Singapore in May 2014, and sold packets of tissue paper for a living.
The dispute started after the pair sought to retrieve S$1,100 (HK$6,030) Ramzan had lost to the victim in a card game.
After using a shirt to smother the victim, the two men purchased saws to dismember the body.
A bag with the torso was found by an 81-year-old man and Rasheed subsequently led police to a second bag containing the legs, court documents showed.
Ramzan Rizwan. Photo: The Straits Times
Defence lawyers for the pair had argued that they did not intend to commit murder, and both blamed each other for the death.
Rasheed, a father of eight, and Ramzan, a father of three, will appeal the conviction, their lawyers said.
Earlier this month, Singapore’s highest court upheld the death sentence of a former Singapore policeman for double murder.
Singapore executed four people in 2015, one for murder and three for drug offences, according to prison statistics.
Rights groups have called on Singapore to abolish capital punishment, which was carried over from British colonial rule, but the government argues that it is a deterrent to crime.
Posted by: Fred ||
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Virus undetectable in high percentage of patients after treatment.
Press release: WASHINGTON – A Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) database study shows that new drug regimens for hepatitis C have resulted in "remarkably high" cure rates among patients in VA's national health care system.
Of the more than 17,000 Veterans in the study, all chronically infected with the hepatitis C virus at baseline, 75 percent to 93 percent had no detectable levels of the disease in their blood for 12 or more weeks after the end of treatment. The therapy regimens lasted 8 to 24 weeks, depending on patient characteristics. .. the newer drugs are considered far more tolerable than the older interferon-based antiviral regimens, although they are far more expensive.
Other sources indicate:
Veterans Affairs spent $696 million -- or 17 percent of their total annual pharmacy budget -- on HCV medication in 2015. This year, it has dedicated nearly a billion, which it hopes to increase to $1.5 billion in 2017.
According to recent studies, one out of 10 U.S. veterans are living with HCV, a rate five times higher than the average population. Veterans of the Vietnam War are considered to be at particular risk due to blood transfusions and blood contact during warfare.
[Khaama (Afghanistan)] A prominent Jihadi leader and former member of the Afghan parliament Abdul Rab Rasool Sayyaf ...Afghan Salafist warlord, owned by Saudi Arabia. He was the guy who invited al-Qaeda to come into Afghanistan and make themselves at home... has said no one is favoring the collapse of the current government but serious reforms are need in various sectors.
Sayyaf was speaking during gathering organized by the former Jihadi leaders to mark the anniversary of the withdrawal of the former Soviet Union forces from the country.
He said the government should further step up fight against corruption and bring reforms in almost all sectors, including security and economy.
The former Jihadi leader further added that a partially developed political system in power is better than the absence of no system.
In other parts of his speech, Sayyaf reiterated the call for support to Mujahideen, insisting that the sacrifices of Mujahideen should not be ignored.
He also called on neighboring countries of Afghanistan to refrain from intervention and called on international community to continue their support to Afghanistan and the Afghan people.
The remarks by Sayyaf came as reports have emerged during the recent months suggesting the growing interference by regional countries in internal affairs of Afghanistan.
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02/18/2017
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[FoxNews] George Soros' alleged meddling in European politics has caught the attention of Congress.
Concerns about Soros' involvement most recently were raised by the Hungarian prime minister, who last week lashed out at the Soros "empire" and accused it of deploying "tons of money and international heavy artillery."
But days earlier, Republican lawmakers in Washington started asking questions about whether U.S. tax dollars also were being used to fund Soros projects in the small, conservative-led country of Macedonia.
Rep. Christopher Smith, R-N.J., led a group of House lawmakers in writing to Ambassador Jess Baily -- an Obama appointee -- demanding answers. Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, also expressed concerns about USAID money going to Soros' Open Society Foundations as part of a broader concern that the U.S. Embassy has been taking sides in party politics.
“I have received credible reports that, over the past few years, the US Mission to Macedonia has actively intervened in the party politics of Macedonia, as well as the shaping of its media environment and civil society, often favoring groups of one political persuasion over another,” Lee said in his letter.
Together, the concerns reflect growing conservative pushback against Soros' operations in Europe.
George Soros' alleged meddling in European politics has caught the attention of Congress.
Lee’s staff recently met with Macedonia lawmakers, who also passed on a white paper from a citizen’s initiative called “Stop Operation Soros” which alleges U.S. money has been funding hard-left causes in the country -- including violent riots in the streets, as well as a Macedonian version of Saul Alinsky’s far-left handbook “Rules for Radicals.”
In an extensive 40-page dossier, the group alleges USAID money is being used to fund activists and exclusively left-wing media groups as a way to sway the country’s politics.
The Open Society Foundations did not respond to a request for comment from Fox News.
#3
Forget the orange jump suit. He's so old it wouldn't matter much anyway.
I'm thinking civil asset forfeiture. After all it's his money (how many billions?) that's causing the trouble. Take it ALL away and knock a zero or two off the debt.
[An Nahar] A jihadist group has executed 41 fighters from al-Qaeda's former Syria affiliate and allied factions in infighting between the faceless myrmidons in Syria's Idlib province, a monitor said on Friday.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the Jund al-Aqsa group had captured the fighters and shot them to death in the town of Khan Sheikhun on Monday.
The deaths were only confirmed on Friday amid fierce fighting between the jihadist factions, said the Britannia-based monitoring group.
Jund al-Aqsa has been locked in festivities with former al-Qaeda affiliate Fateh al-Sham ...formerly al-Nusra, the current false nose and mustache of al-Qaeda in the Levant... since Monday, after tensions erupted between them over influence in the rebel-held province of Idlib.
Fateh al-Sham is fighting alongside several allied groups in a coalition dubbed Tahrir al-Sham, and the festivities have spread beyond Idlib to neighboring Hama province.
The Observatory said the festivities had killed 125 fighters from both sides, including the 41 executed by Jund al-Aqsa.
Jund al-Aqsa is reviled by most rebels in the region, and is designed a "terrorist group" by Washington.
Despite that, in October Fateh al-Sham announced it had taken Jund al-Aqsa under its wing, although festivities between the two groups erupted shortly afterwards.
In January, Fateh al-Sham also battled other rebel groups in Idlib during 10 days of festivities that killed dozens of fighters.
The fighting reflects the increasingly strained relations between different factions in Idlib province that once fought alongside each other against Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Leveler of Latakia... 's forces.
Idlib province is held almost entirely by opposition factions, and was captured by an alliance of fighters dubbed the Army of Conquest, led by Fateh al-Sham.
Posted by: Fred ||
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[AA.TR] The crucial conditions for life exist on the dwarf planet Ceres, which orbits among the mob of asteroids between Mars and Jupiter, researchers reported on Friday.
In the study’s results, the international team of astronomers said that the discovery means that primitive life may have formed on Ceres, which is the largest space object in the asteroid belt.
This large region populated by asteroids and minor planets ranges between 179.5 and 329 million kilometers (111.5 and 204.43 million miles) away from Earth, depending on where Earth is in its year-long orbit around the sun.
The research was published Friday in the journal Science.
"Ceres has evidence of ammonia-bearing hydrated minerals, water ice, carbonates, salts, and now organic materials," Simone Marchi, an author of the paper and a senior research scientist at Southwest Research Institute in Texas, said in a statement. "With this new finding Dawn has shown that Ceres contains key ingredients for life."
These organic compounds, the "key ingredients for life", were detected by a spectrometer on NASA’s Dawn spacecraft. Dawn launched in 2007 and has been orbiting around Ceres for the past two years.
"The combined presence on Ceres of ammonia-bearing hydrated minerals, water ice, carbonates, salts, and organic material indicates a very complex chemical environment, suggesting favorable environments to prebiotic chemistry," wrote Michael Kuppers, a planetary scientist with the European Space Agency (ESA), in a commentary piece published alongside the research.
The study’s authors are not sure how the compounds actually formed on Ceres, though it appears that the molecules likely developed organically on the dwarf planet as opposed to being transplanted via an asteroid collision.
These compounds, which are very similar to molecules found on Earth, would probably not survive the intense heat generated by a crashing asteroid.
The finding now cements Ceres, which formed about 4.5 billion years ago, as the hot new location for scientists searching for extraterrestrial life.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/18/2017
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#1
Perhaps they should see if conditions are right for life to continue on planet EARTH FIRST and not LIE!
[SCMP] The Indonesian woman enjugged Please don't kill me! for suspected involvement in the killing of the North Korean leader’s half brother in Malaysia was duped into thinking she was part of a comedy show prank, Indonesia’s national police chief said on Friday, citing information received from Malaysian authorities.
Tito Karnavian told news hounds in Indonesia’s Aceh province that Siti Aisyah, 25, was paid to be involved in Just For Laughs style pranks, a reference to a popular hidden camera show.
He said she and another woman performed stunts which involved convincing men to close their eyes and then spraying them with water.
"Such an action was done three or four times and they were given a few dollars for it, and with the last target, Kim Jong-nam, allegedly there were dangerous materials in the sprayer," Karnavian said.
"She was not aware that it was an liquidation attempt by alleged foreign agents," he said.
Karnavian’s comments come after a male relative of Aisyah said in an Indonesian television interview that she had been hired to perform in a short comedy movie and travelled to China as part of this work. Indonesian Immigration has said Aisyah travelled to Malaysia and other countries, which it did not specify.
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Baghdad (IraqiNews.com) Two civilians were wounded on Friday when an explosive device hit a road north of Baghdad, according to police sources, as bloody attacks continue to rock the capital on a near-daily basis.
The device was placed on the side of a road in al-Shaab region, north of the capital, the sources told Alsumaria News.
Iraq saw an increase in violence since Islamic State militants took over large areas of the country in 2014. Baghdad has been witnessing almost daily bombings targeting civilians and security personnel.
Nobody has claimed responsibility yet for the Friday bombing, but IS militants have said they had been responsible for several bloody explosions and attacks that hit the capital in the past months, bringing the governorate municipal and security officials under critics’ fire.
A most recent attack on Thursday, which was claimed by the extremist group, left 45 dead and 50 injured in al-Bayyaa region, southwest of Baghdad.
The United Nations Assistance Mission in Iraq (UNAMI) said violence in the country left nearly 382 dead, including security members, and 908 injured during January. Baghdad was the most affected province with 128 deaths and 444 injuries, according to the organization.
[NYPost] Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is cleaning house at the State Department, according to a report.
Staffers in the offices of deputy secretary of state for management and resources as well as counselor were shown the door Thursday, according to CBS News.
Many of those let go were on the building’s seventh floor -- top-floor bigs -- a symbolically important sign to the rest of the diplomatic corps that their new boss has different priorities than the last one.
The staffing changes came as Tillerson was on his first foreign trip -- attending a G-20 meeting in Bonn, Germany.
"As part of the transition from one administration to the next, we continue to build out our team. The State Department is supported by a very talented group of individuals, both Republicans and Democrats," State Department spokesman RC Hammond told CBS.
"We are appreciative to any American who dedicates their talents to public," he added.
This week’s round of firings marks the second time State Department personnel have been cleared out since President Trump took office last month.
Four top officials were cleared out of the building at the end of January.
"As is standard with every transition, the outgoing administration, in coordination with the incoming one, requested all politically appointed officers submit letters of resignation," a State Department spokesman said at the time.
So all they had to do was stamp given ones "Resignation Accepted," and send Security to walk them out the door.
Posted by: Vast Right Wing Conspiracy ||
02/18/2017
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#3
Getting rid of the appointees and strap-hanging contractors is certainly a healthy beginning. The virus that haunts the institution and it's parent company in McLean will take much time and be more difficult to deal with.
#5
It may be dawning on some of them with a party line vote in Congress Civil Service Tenure can be wiped out. Or if a stroke of the pen made them Civil Service a stroke of the pen could unmake them.
#13
Trump ordered a hiring freeze around day one so they will have to be replaced by people from lower down the totum pole, people used to taking orders than giving orders so that will be ok.
#14
Staffers in the offices of deputy secretary of state for management and resources as well as counselor were shown the door Thursday, according to CBS News. According to CBS news?
If true, it's been needed for a long time. Under the last two Secretaries, State has been a mess.
[GEO.TV] Chief Minister Punjab 1.) Little Orphan Annie's bodyguard
2.) A province of Pakistain ruled by one of the Sharif brothers
3.) A province of India. It is majority (60 percent) Sikh and Hindoo (37 percent), which means it has relatively few Moslem riots.... Shehbaz Sharif on Friday claimed that the perpetrators of the Lahore Chairing Cross attack have been caught, adding that one of them belongs to Afghanistan while the other is from FATA’s Bajaur Agency, aka Turban Central ...Smallest of the agencies in FATA. The Agency administration is located in Khar. Bajaur is inhabited almost exclusively by Tarkani Pashtuns, which are divided into multiple bickering subtribes. Its 52 km border border with Afghanistan's Kunar Province makes it of strategic importance to Pakistain's strategic depth... .
The CM Punjab was addressing a presser in Lahore. He said that the planning of the attack took place in Afghanistan.
CM Punjab said that the suicide kaboomer came from Afghanistan to perpetrate the attack that claimed at least 14 lives, including that of two senior police officials on February 13.
He said that the prime minister is raising the issue of terrorism with the Afghan government. He added that the terrorism in Pakistain is coming from terrorist networks in Afghanistan.
Shehbaz said that the army, Rangers and police all are the assets of the country.
He further said that the government would support the decision to extend the tenure of military courts.
The confession statement from the controller of the Lahore attack identified as Anwar also has surfaced.
During the video, the controller is being asked some questions regarding the attack. Responding to questions, the controller said he belongs to Kunar province ... which is right down the road from Chitral. Kunar is Haqqani country..... in Afghanistan.
When asked when he was provided the suicide jacket, he said that it reached him 25 days ago.
The controller said that he was given the suicide jacket by a member named Arif of the banned Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistain’s splinter group Jamatul Ahrar.
Anwar said that he helped the suicide attacker reach Lahore from Beautiful Downtown Peshawar ...capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (formerly known as the North-West Frontier Province), administrative and economic hub for the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan. Peshawar is situated near the eastern end of the Khyber Pass, convenient to the Pak-Afghan border. Peshawar has evolved into one of Pakistan's most ethnically and linguistically diverse cities, which means lots of gunfire. ’s Torkhum Ada.
On Thursday, a picture showing one of the alleged controllers of the Charing Cross suicide kaboom had been released. A reward of Rs 1 million has also been announced for information pertaining to the controller.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/18/2017
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[AA.TR] Princess Cristina, the older sister of Spain’s King Felipe VI, was cleared of all charges in a major corruption trial on Friday, but her husband was sentenced to over six months in jail by a Spanish court.
Inaki Urdangarin -- the monarch’s brother-in-law -- was convicted by the Mallorca court of perversion of justice, embezzlement, fraud, influence peddling and tax fraud.
Public prosecutors had not been seeking charges against the princess but the court did, however, find her civilly responsible, meaning she will have to pay a €265,088 ($282,170) fine.
Urdangarin’s final sentence is less than a third of what public prosecutors originally demanded -- 19 and a half years.
The verdicts are in relation to a corruption ring surrounding Urdangarin’s non-profit organization, the Noos Institute, which siphoned off more than €6 million ($6.4 million) in public funds.
Fifteen other defendants -- including former politicians and business people -- stood trial alongside the Spanish royals. Several were acquitted, but others were convicted, among them Diego Torres -- Urdangarin’s former business partner -- who was sentenced to more than eight years in prison.
The case began in 2010 and is the first in which a member of Spain’s royal family stood accused.
Friday’s sentences are not final and may be appealed.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/18/2017
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(KUTV) A video of a baby left in a locked car in Southern Texas has gone viral and so has the reason why the parents of the child weren't arrested.
A couple from Saudi Arabia was watching a movie at a theater in Corpus Christi, Texas on Saturday night. While they were watching the movie, they left their baby locked inside, according to police. While the baby was unharmed, it hasn't stopped people from being outraged at why officers didn't hold the couple, who is not from this country, accountable.
"It wasn't an accident and there wasn't an arrest ... it seems this time, culture played an unexpected factor," KIII-TV reports.
As police respond and get into the car to check on the baby, a woman records video and posts it to Facebook.
"Someone left their baby in the car," says a woman.
Police were called to the parking lot around 11 p.m. on Feb. 11. The couple was found inside the theater with their 4-year-old child inside.
"It is a violation of law to leave a child unattended in a vehicle," Kirk Stowers of Corpus Christi police told KIII-TV 3News. "There were no arrests made last night."
The reason? It was something police weren't expecting to hear.
"What they found out is that the family is from Saudi Arabia and they said that this is culturally acceptable for them -- it's normal."
Authorities aren't sure how long the family has been living in the United States, but decided to show "cultural sensitivity" and let the family go this time. Police are filing the case as an active criminal investigation and plan to follow up with the parents and see if it "really is normal in Saudi Arabia" to leave a child unattended in a car.
"If it was someone who grew up in the United States, of course the outcome may be very different," a Stowers, a spokesman for the Corpus Christi Police Department said.
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/18/2017 7:27
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#3
"They were from Mexico, Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador .... and they said that this is culturally acceptable for them -- it's normal." - to ignore the laws of other countries.
#4
If you leave a baby unattended in a locked car in Saudi Arabia, the baby will be cooked even faster than is South Texas. So no, I don't buy the "cultural" argument.
Al
Posted by: Frozen Al ||
02/18/2017 11:50
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[AA.TR] North Korea has criticized the Malaysian government over the delay in returning the body of Kim Jong-nam, the murdered half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Pudge Jong-un ...the overweight, pouty-looking hereditary potentate of North Korea. Pudge appears to believe in his own divinity, but has yet to produce any loaves and fishes, so his subjects remain malnourished... North Korean Ambassador to Malaysia, Kang Chol said Friday that Malaysia was delaying the return of Jong-nam's body, who was allegedly poisoned to death in Kuala Lumpur International Airport last Monday.
They're upset about the delay. They're a lot more upset over the prospect of an autopsy...
Malaysia has also violated human rights ...not to be confused with individual rights, mind you... by conducting a post-mortem Thursday on Jong-nam without the consent of North Korea, Chol told news hounds gathered outside Kuala Lumpur General Hospital, where Jong-nam's body is being kept.
"We did not approve the post-mortem. This is the culmination of the violation of the human rights and infringing upon our citizen, disregarding the elementary international laws and the consular laws," he said.
The ambassador said North Korea would also reject the outcome of the post-mortem, as it was not approved by the country. Chol said the Malaysian government was delaying the handing-over process even after the autopsy.
Chol also attacked South Korea, claiming it was behind the delay.
"The South Korean puppet authorities [...] are distorting the public opinion, resorting to the tricky plots to defame the image of North Korea with this incident," he said.
Kim Jong-nam, 46, died in Malaysia on Monday. He was allegedly assaulted by two women while at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport while waiting to fly to Macau to meet his family.
The Malaysian authorities are still investigating the case.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/18/2017
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#1
Tricky Plots Haiku
I hear tricky plotz
I hear them, there, in my sox
My hair, stop it now
#4
Their right. The problem won't be solved through greater LE resources. Police protection is after the event. Sadly, nor will it be solved anytime soon. Decades of Government dependence by design has decimated the nuclear family. A tribal culture has taken root and groups like BLM are fertilizer for the next generation.
Glen Brooks, a Chicago Police Department area coordinator, ducked behind sandbags stood behind barbed wire at Firebase Richard Daley in front of a sometimes hostile crowd shouting "Off the pigs!" for the third time this week, calling on the community to help curb the city's gun violence. Then he ran for his life when rounds of bullet started flying.
University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill administrators condemned a flier found on campus encouraging violence against Donald Trump supporters, calling it antithetical to free speech.
The cartoon features two scenes: one in which a man's "Make America Great Again" hat is stolen and burned, and another in which a neo-Nazi is bludgeoned by a bat bearing the inscription "Bash the Fash."
#3
Ahhh,, my college; at least this is a reasonable response (not their norm), but it still illustrates a problem with the student body they admit and how they are educated.
[TheFederalist] Buried deep beneath the Michael Flynn hysteria this week was Judicial Watch’s release of newly obtained State Department documents related to the Benghazi terrorist attack on September 11, 2012. One email confirms--again--that the Obama administration knew the day after the attack it was not a random act of violence stemming from an anti-Muslim video. That was the excuse shamefully propagated by top Obama administration officials (including the president himself) and swallowed whole by a media establishment desperate to help Obama win re-election six weeks later.
According to the summary of a call on September 12, 2012 between State Department Under-Secretary Patrick Kennedy and several congressional staffers, Kennedy was asked if the attack came under cover of protest: "No this was a direct breaching attack," he answered. Kennedy also denied the attack was coordinated with the protests in Cairo over the video: "Attack in Cairo was a demonstration. There were no weapons shown or used. A few cans of spray paint."
It’s somewhat ironic--galling?--that this email was disclosed the same day the anti-Trump universe was spinning into the stratosphere over Flynn’s resignation as President Trump’s national security advisor. It begs for a little trip down memory lane, to a kinder, gentler time when the media gave a great big pass to another national security advisor in the days after four Americans, including an ambassador, were murdered in Libya by Islamic terrorists under her watch.
Lying to Us Only Matters If We Dislike You
Fun fact: While Trump press secretary Sean Spicer fielded 55 questions on February 14 related to the Flynn debacle, Obama’s press secretary Jay Carney received only 13 questions from reporters on September 12, 2012, three of which were set-ups to blast Mitt Romney’s criticism of the administration after the attack. 55 to 13. Continues.
Posted by: Vast Right Wing Conspiracy ||
02/18/2017
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[DroneLife.com] Aerovironment, a manufacturer of unmanned aircraft systems for both military and commercial applications, shared details regarding its ongoing pilot programs which are entering their third year and have guided development of the AV DSS platform. The company also displays its Quantix™ drone and AV Decision Support System™ (AV DSS) to World Ag Expo and National Farm Machinery Show attendees this week, highlighting the fully-integrated ecosystem’s powerfully-simple operations and innovative data analytics capabilities.
"Our extensive work with early adopter agriculture customers continues to inform the architecture for our Quantix drone and AeroVironment Decision Support System," said Jon Self, vice president of Commercial Information Solutions at AeroVironment. "The pilot programs allow us to learn how to integrate drone technology into the way growers operate and is helping us to develop some very specific analytics. Our results and experience from working with multiple crops guide our design to give farmers an intuitive solution that is the first of its kind in the marketplace." Obviously a technology and application worthy of close monitoring.
[al-Manar] SANA news agency reported that the allied forces on Thursday established control over al-Kallabiyeh farms and advanced 2 kilometers south of al-Bayarat are, some 20 kilometers to the west of Palmyra city, in Homs eastern countryside.
Heavy losses were inflicted upon ISIL terrorists during the clashes which preceded the advance.
The agency noted that the army units found weapons belonging to ISILterrorists in al-Bayarat al-Gharbiyeh, including “Hell” cannons, a number of rifles, a sniper rifle, a 12,7mm machinegun, a PKC machine gun ammunition and RPG rounds.
The army engineering units continued dismantling the IEDs spreading in the areas the army established control of, according to SANA.
Posted by: badanov ||
02/18/2017
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Posted by: Frank G ||
02/18/2017 7:32
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#4
From Das Boot (IIRC):
"Our masters in Berlin spend their time thinking up new names for Churchill. What's the latest? Drunken. Syphilitic! I must say, for a drunken syphilitic he's putting up a hell of a fight."
Snark of the day.
Posted by: Matt ||
02/18/2017 8:18
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#5
Don't think we ever really got a clean bill of health for Hillary.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
02/18/2017 10:53
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#6
I can understand how he can come to this conclusion. The President has been screwing the disease infected Democrats these past few weeks and being infected with an STD is not much of a leap.
Posted by: Joe of the jungle ||
02/18/2017 14:23
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[DAWN] WHEN we are being hit by a wave of terrorist attacks, what does the government do?
Why, send the cops chasing after kite-flying kids and enforcing the ban on Valentine’s Day, of course. Never mind that we are a laughing stock around the world, with cartoons showing armed coppers grabbing red balloons with hearts painted on them.
You’d think with so much death and destruction caused by jihadists, our judges and police force would have their hands full. But never let it be said that we don’t have our priorities right: clearly, the danger from young men and women giving each other chocolates and Valentine’s cards is far greater than that posed by vicious killers.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred ||
02/18/2017
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Those are the words of someone who should know, the leader of the aggressor squadron at Red Flag, the man who tries to kill U.S. forces. Lt. Col. Tyler Lewis, commander of the 57th Adversary Tactics Support Squadron at Nellis Air Force Base, echoed comments we’ve heard before, that he often had no idea he was going to die until he was declared dead. Why? The F-35’s combination of stealth, Electronic Warfare, cyber and sensors lets them find, target and destroy an enemy plane from beyond visual range.
For example, more fourth generation fighters died in one day than did F-35As during the entire exercise through Feb. 2. It began Jan. 23.
(While working on this, I found a great quote by Capt. Stephanie Anne Fraioli that explains the fundamental difference between a fourth- and a fifth-generation aircraft: "With fourth-generation fighter airframes, speed and energy equaled life and survivability. In the fifth-generation realm, information equals life.")
Most Red Flag coverage so far has focused on a statistic we’ve all heard. The F-35As at the Air Force’s toughest combat training exercises are killing enemy aircraft at a rate of 15-1. But one of the pilots flying the F-35s -- Lt. Col. George Watkins, 34th Fighter Squadron commander -- says: "The kill ratio isn’t that important. We are more focused on the SAM and IADS threat." Think Russian-made S-300s and 400s.
At this Red Flag, Watkins and Lewis said the Joint Strike Fighter faces the most dangerous IADS threats they’ve ever encountered at an exercise. The plane’s EW suite helps it find the threat, then they can use their stealth and jamming to "get in a lot closer to these threats than anyone else can," Watkins told reporters. Then they can use their cyberwarfare capabilities, about which no one will talk on the record, and EW to neutralize the IADS. Or they can use a missile or bomb or a combination of all four.
I asked Lewis if his plane had been neutralized or affected by F-35 cyber attacks during this Red Flag. After a long pause, he chuckled and didn’t answer.
Also, the F-35s can gather the threat information and pass it to those less fortunate fourth-generation aircraft or, Watkins told us, "we can use stealth, jamming etcetera to get in a lot closer to these threats than anyone else can get."
One of the little discussed of the F-35’s effectiveness is mission planning. Capt. Fraioli, whom I quote above, notes that mission planning plays a central role in making stealth (Low Observability to the professionals) effective during a combat mission. "Up until about six months ago mission planning was fairly difficult to do day to day because we have to decrypt everything," Watkins said. Now they can change the data on a mission to mission basis. He also noted that the F-35As flying at Nellis had flown "126 missions without losing a single flight to maintenance" during this Red Flag.
On Tuesday we’ll be getting another shot at the F-35A pilots to discuss the exercises, which ended today.
#2
I would like to know if Lt. Col. Tyler Lewis was flying a Cessna 172RG or some such? Article doesn't mention what he was flying.
Oh wait, the article mentioned 4th and 5th generation aircrafts. So presumably the 'Flying Turkey' is a 'fifth generation' aircraft, in which case, what are the 'fourth generation' aircrafts? It's a safe bet it's not the F-18 as it's already proven to outperform the F-35. That leave the original F-16 series (later series is superior to earlier versions) or maybe the F-111?
Something smell here as they refuse to identify the other aircrafts.
Oh I know, maybe the F-15 achieved their "kill ratio" of 15 to 1 against L-4s. Against any modern fighter planes (both propeller and jet) The Flying Turkey fared poorly? Perhaps the P51 and the P38 would also fare well against the F-45?
Really from what I've been reading about Red Flag, It's like a scripted wresting match where the outcome is guaranteed in favor of the F-15. Too much information missing or redacted from the various reports that I could find.
#3
Another article had most of the OPFOR flying F-16 Block 32. An older F-16 that simulates the technologies that most countries fly but is fairly obsolete to our F-16s. They also have some older F-15s they fly as well.
#5
It's good news indeed if our fifth generation fighter can get a 15:1 loss ratio against older, early-4th generation fighters.
Now, if only we can persuade our opponents to fly older, early-4th generation fighters...
Posted by: Steve White ||
02/18/2017 10:33
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#6
Really from what I've been reading about Red Flag, It's like a scripted wresting match where the outcome is guaranteed in favor of the F-15. Too much information missing or redacted from the various reports that I could find.
It's been a while since my last RED FLAG trip, but the drill then and now is that breaking the rules to try and guarantee an outcome is a immediate-transfer-to-Thule level no-no. Nothing is scripted that isn't explicitly so in order to prove or disprove a theory.
For instance, I was present in the Observation Area (AKA the God Room) when a flight of F-15s - my unit in fact, the old 71 TFS - got its ass handed to it by the Aggressors, and lost a strike force of RAAF F-111s to boot.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
02/18/2017 13:04
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#7
I read somewhere that back in the day the US Navy tested artillery readiness and accuracy in exercises in calm sea, presumably with little or no wind.
Does the tradition continue?
Posted by: james ||
02/18/2017 13:38
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#8
I keep wondering what would happen in a battle with all this silicon wonderstuff if somebody sets off an EMP weapon nearby.
I realize it's supposedly hardened; hardening is like bulletproof, the key is how big and how close.
Posted by: ed in texas ||
02/18/2017 14:54
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#9
Russia has the best hackers in the world, so what happens to the flying iPhone if we get in a dust up with the Russkies??
A computer that can fly, imagine that...killing bad guys over the horizon. So what happens if one of these Killer Turkeys gets up close and personal with a MIG 31? or some such Sukhoi or other that is also "fifth generation" and happens have an onboard gun if its missiles don't lock and you have a visual?
#10
The abilities they are listing sound optimum for a stealthy penetration light bomber. Comes in sneaky singly, or in pairs, and scoots for home. While the pilot is watching Netflix on those big screens. Air-to-air, not so much, what happens after the first kill "spots" them? CAS? Loitering?
[An Nahar] The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... 's religious affairs agency said Friday it had recalled six holy mans from Germany for exceeding their authority but lashed out at German police for raiding the homes of preachers suspected of spying for Ankara.
The Diyanet agency's chief Mehmet Gormez vehemently denied there had been any wrongdoing by the holy mans, saying his organization was the target of a defamation campaign.
German police this week raided the homes of four Turkish Moslemholy mans suspected of spying for President Sultan Recep Tayyip Erdogan the First ... Turkey's version of Mohammed Morsi but they voted him back in so they deserve him... 's government on the movement of U.S.-based preacher Fethullah Gulen ... a Turkish preacher living in Pennsylvania whom the current govt of Turkey considers responsible for all the ills afflicting Turkey and possibly the entire world... , whom Ankara blames for a coup bid last year.
The imams, who were not named, are accused of reporting to Diyanet on Turkish followers of Gulen, through the Turkish consulate in Cologne ...a lovely city in Germany. They invented perfume there... "The holy mans did not engage in any illegal act," Gormez told news hounds in Ankara, adding that information had been shared with Germany.
But he said: "Six holy mans who were evaluated to have exceeded their authority were sent back to their posts in Turkey."
This was "to maintain the mutual trust between two countries and as a gesture of goodwill," Gormez added.
He emphasized that they had never participated "in any act of intelligence-gathering or espionage", but confirmed that the six recalled included the four holy mans whose homes were raided.
Gormez indicated that they had already been recalled before the raids took place, slamming the police actions as subject to "political and media pressure."
He expressed hope that German officials would help in "sensibly ending this unreasonable and pointless process."
Gormez gave no details on how the recalled holy mans had exceeded their authority.
German police made no arrests in the raids but confiscated written material and data storage devices.
German media said imams belong to Ditib, an organization controlled by Ankara that manages some 900 mosques or religious communities in Germany. Diyanet sends holy mans to work in its mosques.
The range of its influence has on occasion caused controversy in Germany, as with similar organizations in the Netherlands and Austria.
The raids came at a time of high tension between Ankara and Berlin with Chancellor Angela Merkel ...current chancellor of Germany and the impetus behind Germany's remarkably ill-starred immigration program. Merkel used to be referred to by Germans as Mom... 's government repeatedly criticizing the scale of the crackdown in the wake of the July 15 failed coup.
Prime Minister Binali Yildirim is heading to Germany at the weekend and is expected to meet Merkel.
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02/18/2017
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[GEO.TV] Now ridden with blood, victims' clothes, and half-eaten food, the compound that leads to the main hall of the shrine was brimming with around 1,000 people when it was crossed by the jacket wallah.
Sifting through intelligence reports and strings of information pieced together, we have tried to retrace how the attack was carried out and why the attacker was not apprehended.
The shrine of Sufi saint Lal Shahbaz Qalandar, built in 1356 in honour of one of Sindh’s most revered poet, philosopher, and Sufi saint, is also one of the most famous in Pakistain. It is a place that welcomes all, regardless of their religion, cast, or creed.
Originally from Persia, it is believed that Saint Syed Muhammad Usman Marwandi resided in Sindh during the 13th century. Lal Shahbaz Qalandar or ’Laal Saeen’ (as he is remembered by his followers) preached peace and tolerance.
The shrine of Lal Shahbaz Qalandar, decorated with traditional Sindhi Kashi-tiles with inlaid mirror work and a grand golden gate donated by then Shah of Iran, Raza Pehalvi, is brimming with devotees every Thursday, especially in the evening.
The attack
It was around 6:30PM when the attacker entered through the golden gate of the shrine, investigation reports have revealed. Clad in a burqa, the bomber managed to make his way inside without being searched since there were no female security personnel present at the entrance. The golden gate is one of the main gates of the premises.
The suicide kaboomer managed to wade through the crowd without catching attention, more so because the main lights were turned off for the dhamaal, a ritual in which people are usually in a trance. Everyone's attention was focused on the dhamaal, even those who were not could not have spotted a suspicious person entering the main hall as a large number of people kept entering and leaving the area.
Inside, the hall was crammed with men and women revering the dhamaal, with children running across while others tugging at their mothers' dupattas, not knowing death loomed moments away.
By the precision of movement traced in investigation reports, it appears the attacker had surveyed the area. The timing and spot also appeared pre-planned, as a large number of people from different social and economic backgrounds visit the shrine on Thursdays. Although the shrine is one of the most famous in the country, none of its main entry points were guarded, which made it easier for the terrorist to carry out his nefarious plan.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/18/2017
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[DAWN] THE terrorist violence unleashed across the county culminated on Thursday with a devastating attack on the shrine of Lal Shahbaz Qalandar in Sehwan, Sindh. The country is at war. While high officials of the state have vowed to take the fight to the bully boyz and Lions of Islam with renewed vigour, it is apparent that an urgent overhaul is needed in the state’s approach. From the scale and geographical spread of the recent attacks across the length and breadth of the country, it appears that myrmidon networks have either been rebuilt or that they were not depleted to the extent claimed by the state in the first place. The two metrics of anti-militancy success most touted by the state were the overall decline in terrorist incidents and the number of bully boyz killed. While eye-catching, those numbers conceal a great deal about the extent of myrmidon activity, particularly the network of facilitation that hides attackers, and arms and helps them to reach their targets. So, the first thing that should be determined is why the recent wave of bombings, whether deliberately coordinated or opportunistically coincidental, is taking place. A fierce response by the state must be rooted in an honest, accurate assessment of the militancy problem in its latest manifestation.
Unsurprisingly, the military leadership has turned instantly to Afghanistan and the problem of anti-Pakistain militancy sanctuaries there. There will almost certainly be some evidence linking at least some of the recent attacks to myrmidon leaders and fighters in the Pak-Afghan border region; bully boyz invariably congregate and are concentrated in areas where the state’s influence is relatively scarce. But the reactive nature of the Pak demand to capture or eliminate bully boyz is familiar and worrying. The Afghan government and US forces in that country can surely do more to prevent anti-Pakistain bully boyz from operating on Afghan soil, but it appears to be a policy problem tied to the overall issue of militancy in the region. Pakistain cannot and should not accept the current state of affairs and the indifference that 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.... has shown towards its core concerns. Afghanistan must be made to understand and accept that the fight against militancy is a common war that requires regional effort and coordination. Yet, does Pakistain truly make the diplomatic and security effort needed to persuade Afghanistan in what amount to peaceful interruptions between waves of violence? Six months from today, will Pak officials be as determined to seek and win Kabul’s cooperation?
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred ||
02/18/2017
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Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan
[GEO.TV] The compound of Union Council Nazim in the area of Totalai of Buner district was attacked with a hand grenade in the wee hours of Saturday.
The kaboom caused by the hand grenade caused the roof of the compound to collapse, trapping two people in the debris.
Rescue operation is underway to dig out the two people stuck underneath the debris.
According to police, a hand grenade was thrown by faceless myrmidons on the house of Totalai Union Council Nazim, the kaboom led to the roof collapsing upon the two asleep people inside.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/18/2017
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Top|| File under: TTP
[DAWN] THE mind-numbing, soul-destroying Sehwan tragedy has left so many so debilitated and bereft that even an expression of outrage seems a big ask. Lal Shahbaz Qalandar’s shrine painted crimson with the blood of devotees brought together by their love of the Divine. It could not have happened.
They were engaged in dhammal, a devotional dance performed as an expression of love in a trance-like state. But in our beloved, yet blighted, land, that was enough to invite carnage. I can’t even begin to imagine the pain of those who lost loved ones.
My own reaction was simple as I tried to sit down and do the weekly ritual of writing this. Chuck it. What’s the point? Yes, what is actually the point of saying the same thing over and over when there is nobody listening, when there are no takers for what you are offering?
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred ||
02/18/2017
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Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan
[AA.TR] Recent sustained bombing by Syrian regime warplanes have destroyed six hospitals in the southwestern city of Daraa, a civil defense official said on Thursday.
Muhammed Yusuf, a civil defense figure in the opposition-held part of the city, told Anadolu Agency Bashir al-Assad regime forces had conducted intensive assaults over the last 20 days.
Yusuf also claimed Russian jets had joined raids on residential areas in Daraa. Almost 40 percent of the city is under opposition control.
He said only one emergency unit was able to serve people among the destroyed hospitals in the opposition-held part of the city.
Yusuf did not give information about casualties.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/18/2017
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[RefugeeSettlementWatch] We told you earlier this morning that refugee contracting agencies (see list below) are closing some of their satellite offices.
The UN/US Refugee Admissions Program is numbers-driven since refugees arrive in the US with federal funding attached to each one--administration of that money (your money) is left to the ’non-profit’ resettlement agencies. As the Trump Administration cuts the numbers, there is commensurate reduction in funding for non-profit groups!
Here we learn in New York that the federal contractors who operate in the state are looking to state taxpayers to make up their loss of federal funding.
Why aren’t they out raising private money from all of the ’humanitarians’ they claim want this program?
If you live in New York state you better let your state legislators know what you think!
From the Poughkeepsie Journal (hat tip:Jim):
ALBANY ‐ Democratic lawmakers on Wednesday called for a $12 million boost in state funding for upstate’s refugee resettlement agencies.
[snip]
Be sure to keep an eye out in your state for the legislature or state assembly to try to slip funding in for non-profit groups that should have been raising private money (for their ’religious charitable’ work) for decades!
Here are the nine major federal contracting agencies now desperate for more of your money:
Church World Service (CWS)
Ethiopian Community Development Council (ECDC) (secular)
Episcopal Migration Ministries (EMM)
Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS)
International Rescue Committee (IRC) (secular)
US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI) (secular)
Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services (LIRS)
United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB)
World Relief Corporation (WR)
Posted by: Vast Right Wing Conspiracy ||
02/18/2017
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#1
Hat in hand, eh? Here is a training video for when funds get low.
[Daily Excelsior] Security forces today tossed in the clink You have the right to remain silent... a Death Eater, who was involved in a murder and recovered arms and ammunition from his possession. Two police men were maimed in a grenade attack in Nowgam area of Srinagar this evening.
Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Baramulla, Imtiaz Hussain, said that the Death Eater, Irshad Ahmad Bhat son of Fayaz Ahmad Bhat of Wailoo, Pattan in North Kashmire, was arrested in a joint operation by Police, Army and CRPF.
"One AK series rifle, 2 AK magazines, one Chinese pistol, one pistol magazine, four hand grenades and other ammunition were recovered from the possession of the Death Eater", he said.
The SSP said that the Death Eater was also found involved in firing incident in village Gundari Pora Pattan on August 11, 2016 wherein the accused had fired upon two persons, Abdul Rehman Wani son of Mahda Wani and Aftab Ahmad Bhat son of Abdul Rashid Bhat of same village accusing them of defying hartal ... a peculiarly Bangla combination of a general strike and a riot, used by both major political groups in lieu of actual governance ... call by playing cards. "Both the person had received gunshot wounds but survived after immediate hospitalization", he said.
He was also involved in murder case of 25 year old Zakir Ahmad of Mehmoodpora, Pattan. "On 09/11/2016 dead body of one Zakir Hussain Badoo aged about 25 years S/o Ghulam Ahmad Badoo R/o Mehmoodpora, Pattan was found lying on roadside in the outskirts of the village", he said.
The SSP said that the dead body bore gunshot wounds on chest and prima facie appeared to be the case of murder. "Case FIR No 207/2016 under Sections of 307 RPC and 7/27 Arms Act was registered in Police Station Pattan.After medico-legal formalities investigation into the matter was taken up. During the course of investigation it surfaced that the dear departed was killed by pistol fire by one of his acquaintances having Death Eater affiliations", he added.
Evidence-both oral and circumstantial pointed towards the involvement of one Irshad Ahmad Bhat son of Fayaz Ahmad Bhat of Wailoo, Pattan in North Kashmire.
The accused and victim have been knowing each other for long. They had fallen out on some sensitive issue which led to heated argument on the date and time of incident and thereafter Irshad fired upon him point blank from his pistol which hit the chest of victim who died on spot.
"The accused offender Irshad has been an active Death Eater of Hizbul-Mujahideen terrorist outfit who had joined Death Eater ranks after killing of his Death Eater father Fayaz Ahmad Bhat in inter gang rivalry in year 2015", he said.
Militants this evening hurled a grenade on a police party in Nowgam area of Srinagar injuring two police persons. Police said that murderous Moslems hurled grenade on the police party and bravely ran away under the cover of darkness. Senior Police and para-military officials reached the spot to assess the situation.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/18/2017
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Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistain Proxies
[BREITBART] Former CIA operative and 2016 third-party presidential candidate Evan McMullin
...who got a whopping 0.53% of the national vote, then on January 25, 2017, announced the formation of Stand Up Republic, a "nonpartisan" watchdog organization meant to ensure that the Trump administration upholds democracy and tells the truth, according to Wikipedia...
took to Twitter and CNN on Wednesday to defend rogue intelligence agents who break the law to leak classified information, saying President Donald Trump ...New York real estate developer, described by Dems as illiterate, racist, misogynistic, and what ever other unpleasant descriptions they can think of, elected by the rest of us as 45th President of the United States... "presents a threat to the country."
In response to President Trump’s tweets earlier Wednesday, in which he alleged that elements of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and National Security Agency were engaged in "Russia"-style political operations, McMullin tweeted:
Tweets can be seen at the link.
The obvious implication was that McMullin believes that intelligence and law enforcement agents are entitled to break the law based on their own views that the President of the United States is a threat to the Constitution and in cahoots with Russia.
Mcmullen reiterated his views on CNN, where he purported to speak for the concern of the agents doing the leaking:
"I’ll tell you what their concerns are. There concerns are that Donald Trump presents a threat to the country because of his -- what they see as his relationship with Vladimir Putin ...Second and fourth President and sixth of the Russian Federation and the first to remain sober. Putin is credited with bringing political stability and re-establishing something like the rule of law, which occasionally results in somebody dropping dead from polonium poisoning. Under Putin, a new group of business magnates controlling significant swathes of Russia's economy has emerged, all of whom have close personal ties to Putin. The old bunch, without close personal ties to Putin, are in jail or in exile or dead... and the relationship of his team to other Russian intelligence officers."
McMullin cited a New York Times ...which still proudly displays Walter Duranty's Pulitzer prize... report indicating that Trump campaign aides had contact with Russian intelligence -- without also noting that the same report indicated there was "no evidence" that the "Trump campaign was colluding with the Russians on the hacking or other efforts to influence the election."
Any CIA man, current or former, who believes the words emitted by the New York Times in the order they were emitted isn't worth the gold paper his official deputy star was cut out of.
He went on to make the very claim denied by the Times article, telling Baldwin Trump "ran a campaign that was assisted by a foreign adversary -- our greatest foreign adversary."
Pressed by host Brooke Baldwin as to whether there were "too many leaks," McMullin said that intelligence officers were bound by an oath to defend the country and the Constitution against "domestic and foreign enemies." That included "a security threat coming from the White House."
An obviously sympathetic Baldwin then asked McMullin: "Are any of these people you’re talking to just even worried about him even getting intel briefings, period?"
McMullin said that they are -- and seemed to admit, in the process, that he is speaking with intelligence officials who may be leaking information.
During the presidential campaign, McMullin was a leader in the "NeverTrump" movement, consisting of conservatives who rejected Trump as the Republican Party nominee. Though he hoped to flip Utah, among a few other states, to 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... by relegating Trump to third place, Trump won in that state and elsewhere.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/18/2017
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#1
Ed McMuffin has the sense of an ass.
He is just another democrat poser phony.
[AA.TR] An anti-Islamophobia ...the irrational fear that Moslems will act the way they usually do... motion proposed by the Canadian government stalled Thursday in Parliament and now awaits a new proposal next week from the opposition Conservative party.
The motion, M-103, was tabled in Parliament by MP Iqra Khalid, a Moslem.
It asked the government to "recognize the need to quell the increasing public climate of hate and fear", and condemn Islamophobia, along with other racist and religious discrimination, according to the Canadian Press wire service.
It was endorsed by the National Council of Canadian Moslems that previously called on Members of Parliament to support the motion in light of the recent shooting at a Quebec City mosque where six were Moslems were killed and 19 injured, CTV television news reported.
The motion is non-binding, meaning it is not enshrined in law and is more of a guideline, but is an important symbolic rejection of "discrimination and prejudice against Moslems", said Conservative MP Michael Chong.
But Chong's Conservative colleagues were worried the motion could lead to infringement on free speech, that the motion does not define "Islamophobia" and might also prove problematic to Canada’s ability to denounce terrorism.
"Motion 103 will not prevent anyone from criticizing Islam or radical Islamic terrorists," Chong said, as reported by CTV.
There is also criticism that one religion is being singled out for special treatment.
Conservatives want to replace Islamophobia to include "Moslems, Jews, Christians, Sikhs, Hindus and other religious communities," the Ottawa Citizen newspaper reported Thursday.
But Khalid said the motion tackles more than just Islamophobia and by passing the motion, the government recognized the need to speak out.
"We need to recognize that we have a problem and we need to tackle it," Khalid said, as reported by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
To prove her point, Khalid told the House of Commons on Thursday she has received more than 50,000 emails, many of them containing discrimination or threats.
I have asked my staff to lock the office behind me as I now fear for their safety," she said, as reported by the CBC. "I have asked them not to answer all phone calls so they don't hear the threats, insults and unbelievable amount of hate shouted at them and myself."
The motion also calls for the formation of a committee to study how the government could institute measures to fight racism and collect more data for hate crime reports.
Before the debate, the Liberal government took the unusual move of holding a presser in the foyer of the House of Commons. Cabinet Minister Melanie Joly said the government is throwing its "strong and clear support" behind the motion.
"There is no place for hatred and no tolerance of abuse," Joly said.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/18/2017
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#1
They want to kill all the Jews, a lot of Christians, and enslave everybody else - and we are phobic?
#2
Virtue signalling. It will get watered down to meaningless verbiage and all the players will be busy slapping themselves on the back. Meanwhile the serious players will be concerning themselves, not with "Islamaphobia" whatever that might mean, but with Islamacide.
A few weeks ago Samuel J Culper's rant was posted in the Western Rifle Shooters Association blog. It was about misconceptions in the event of a hot civil war in the U.S. Among his contentions were that domestic enemies could cause of a lot of havoc once armed, and the fact that they don't seemed to interested in firearms at the moment doesn't mean they won't be. You should read the whole thing, a profanity-laced reminder that some people don't belong in marketing, even if it is for firearms training.
One reader remarked:
You could hand out guns to that mob wholesale, and all you’d get would be an armed mob, instead of a largely unarmed one.
There wouldn’t be any fair fighting; they’d be taking casualties from blocks away, from “rooftop Koreans” using semi-autos and bolt guns, behind cover and concealment, and at fit distances for men to shoot.
That armed mob would become a target-rich impact area, and scatter to the four winds after a volley. They wouldn’t be doing any infiltration, house to house, reduction of strongpoints, etc.
They’ll be unassing the area at the speed of Nike tennis shoes, and trying to find their car keys, or flag down Uber to GTFO of Dodge.
It will be known as the Battle of Who Run.
A lot of them would still be laying in the street the next morning, and then the shit would really hit the fan.
The survivors would be rounded up like rabbits, and run to ground from hedge to hillside, after the hue and cry went up on local police nets, and fare about as well as the Children’s Crusade.
I'd say that would go for both sides. I can see casualties for both sides in the early going easily rising to 75-90 percent, even with tactical training. One side may have military training and additional tactical training, but the other side will take casualties without so much as blinking. All you'd wind up with is a lot of blood in the streets.
My regard for firearms trainers has evolved, from seeing them as a group of well-trained men offering a much-needed product to seeing a bunch of well-trained yahoos who want to impart their spec ops/law enforcement experience to the legal yahoos they will be training. And those trainees will likely be among the 90 percent shot, either from friendly fire or from their domestic enemies.
Subsequent to that, Culper's associate John Mosby offered some helpful advice on firearms training, juxtaposing the importance of accurate fire with speed of fire. I suspect a lot more goes into the equation than that, such as approach maneuvers, cover and concealment and target acquisition, but this exposition is a very good place to start training.
Loads.
Rantburg's summary for arms and ammunition:
Prices for pistol ammunition were mostly steady. Prices for rifle ammunition mostly steady.
Prices for used pistols were mixed. Prices for used rifles were lower across the board.
New Lows:
Virginia: .308 NATO (AR-10 Pattern Semiautomatic): DPMS Oracle LR-308: $750
Pistol Ammunition
.45 Caliber, 230 Grain, From Last Week: Unchanged (4Q, 2016)
Cheapest, 50 rounds: Outdoor Limited, Tulammo, FMJ, Steel Casing, .24 per round
Cheapest Bulk, 500 rounds: FedArm, Own Brand, TMJ, Brass Casing, Reloads, .23 per round (From Last week: Unchanged (4 Weeks))
.40 Caliber Smith & Wesson, 180 Grain, From Last Week: -.01 Each After Unchanged (6 Weeks)
Cheapest, 50 rounds: Freedom Munitions, Own Brand, FMJ, Brass Casing, Reloads, .21 per round
Cheapest Bulk, 500 rounds: LAX Ammunition, Own Brand, Brass Casing, Reloads, .21 per round (From Last Week: +.01 Each
9mm Parabellum, 115 Grain, From Last Week: Unchanged (4Q, 2016)
Cheapest, 50 rounds: Outdoor Limited, Tulammo, FMJ, Steel Casing, .15 per round
Cheapest Bulk, 500 rounds: FedArm, Own Brand, TPMJ, Brass Casing, Reloads, .14 per round (From Last Week: Unchanged (2 Weeks))
.357 Magnum, 158 Grain, From Last Week: Unchanged (4 Weeks)
Cheapest, 50 rounds: Outdoor Limited, Tulammo, FMJ, Steel Casing, .24 per round
Cheapest Bulk: 1,000 rounds: Outdoor Limited, Tulammo, FMJ, Steel casing, .24 per round (From Last Week: Unchanged (4 Weeks))
.38 Special, 158 Grain, From Last Week: Unchanged (5 Weeks)
Cheapest, 50 rounds: Parabellum Research, Own brand, LRN, Brass Casing, Reloads, .26 per round
Cheapest Bulk: 500 rounds: Outdoor Unlimited, Prvi Partizan, LRN, Brass casing, .26 per round (From Last Week: +.02 Each After Unchanged (2 Weeks))
Rifle Ammunition
.223 Caliber/5.56mm 55 Grain, From Last Week: Unchanged (2 Weeks)
Cheapest, 20 rounds: Outdoor Limited, Wolf WPA, FMJ, Steel Casing, .21 per round
Cheapest Bulk, 500 rounds: Outdoor Limited, Wolf WPA, FMJ, Steel Casing, .20 per round (From Last Week: Unchanged (3 Weeks)
.308 NATO 150 Grain, From Last Week: Unchanged (4 Weeks)
Cheapest, 20 rounds: Alamo Ammo, Tulammo, FMJ, Steel Casing, .31 per round
Cheapest Bulk, 500 rounds: LAX Ammunition, Tulammo, FMJ, Steel Casing, .32 per round (From Last Week: Unchanged (4 Weeks)
7.62x39mm AK 123 Grain, From Last Week: Unchanged (2 Weeks)
Cheapest, 20 rounds: Ammo King, Wolf WPA, Steel Case, FMJ, .20 per round
Cheapest Bulk, 1,000 rounds: Outdoor Unlimited, Wolf WPA, Steel Case, FMJ, .20 per round (From Last Week: Unchanged (2 Weeks))
.30-06 Springfield 145 Grain. From Last Week: Unchanged (5 Weeks)
Cheapest, 20 rounds: SG Ammo, Wolf WPA, Steel Case, FMJ, .65 per round
Cheapest Bulk, 500 rounds: Ammo Liquidator, Wolf WPA, Steel Case, FMJ, .56 per round (From Last week: Unchanged (4 Weeks))
.300 Winchester Magnum 150 Grain, From Last Week: -.05 Each
Cheapest, 20 rounds: Ammunition Depot, Prvi Partizan, Brass Case, SP, .95 per round
Cheapest Bulk, 1,000 rounds: Ammo Liquidator, Hornady Whitetail, Brass Case, SP, 1.04 per round (From Last Week: Unchanged (3 Weeks))
.338 Lapua Magnum 250 Grain, From Last Week: Unchanged (2 Weeks)
Cheapest, 20 rounds: Outdoor Unlimited, Federal, Brass Case, JSP, 2.30 per round
Cheapest Bulk, 200 rounds: Target Sports USA, Prvi Partizan, Brass Case, FMJ, 2.40 per round (From Last Week: Unchanged (5 Weeks)
.22 LR 40 Grain, From Last Week: -.01 Each After Unchanged (3 Weeks)
Cheapest, 50 rounds (5 Box Limit): Gander Mountain, Federal, RNL, .05 per round
Cheapest Bulk, 325 rounds: Ammomen, Federal Champion, RNL, .06 per round (From Last Week: Unchanged (5 Weeks))
#1
...but the other side will take casualties without so much as blinking.
Really? The free stuff brigade is not about work or sacrifice. They won't be blinking as much as their commissars drive them into the fire zone - see: Enemy at the Gates. Once you burn through their thugs and anarchists, there's not a lot of depth in their team. You think the rich and well to do are going to be on the front lines? The academics? the journalists?
Defending miles of power lines and gas pipelines, bridges and overpasses, rail junction is going to take a lot of disbursed manpower. Without those, cities starve, freeze and roast. The natural habitat is fundamentally altered.
I don't see a quick civil war. It'll degenerate into something similar to Iraq, dealing with a insurgency till the borders are really sealed and the tolerance for the natural destruction and nihilism of the Left is ended. Do on to them, what they did to everyone else in the 20th Century.
#4
There are many forms of wide spread violence. Violent adversaries will try to destroy one or the other with deadly force. Some of the population will stay and many of them will become casualties. Others will flee and become refugees. During this time the Pale Horse of Death is at full gallop.
After the US civil war of the North vs the South the descendent sons and daughters witnessed the mass death and destruction and said "Not in our lands anymore." And all acts of war against them, they made sure the resulting violence occured in the far lands of the aggressor to protect our innocent from terror.
The new generation however is importing the ideologies of violence in a pact for power with the demonics. So the danger of the return of the pale horse of death, terror and desolation returns to our lands again unless their are peace keepers who have the courage to do what it takes to keep the pale horse of death at bay. The Satanic Demonics are mighty and powerful that even the holy angels fear, but by the grace of the good and mighty God that the American people have feared and worshipped in past by entire generations, victory over death will be ours.
#5
Plenty of examples of confident, well trained, well organized forces going into harms way against the forces of evil and coming up short. And dead.
History is replete with those, so there is no reason to think the average US gunowner wouldn't suffer as much as his opponent.
Official forces, such as kops and soldiers will first defend their own supply lines and positions, assuming they show up at all, not gas lines and not power lines. Pretty much what their opposition would do.
Everyone would be left on their own to adhere to whichever side is feeding who.
#7
Organization matters, as the review of Days of Rage points out. One side already has a leg up on organization. Again. There is intimidation long before there's much blood on the streets.
Posted by: james ||
02/18/2017 19:18
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Top||
#8
"but the other side will take casualties without so much as blinking" Sorry, not buying that one. When at 500+ yards away from their goal people's heads start exploding and spattering blood and brain tissue around the nearby followers, better then 95% of them will stop, turn and start running.
[SCMP] The body of Kim Jong-nam, the assassinated brother of North Korea’s leader, will not be released until his family have provided DNA samples, Malaysia said on Friday, despite a request from Pyongyang.
Detectives in Kuala Lumpur are trying to get to the bottom of the cloak-and-dagger murder that South Korea says was carried out by poison-wielding female agents working for their secretive northern neighbour.
Forensic specialists were on Friday carrying out tests on samples from the dead man’s body to try to determine the toxin that was apparently sprayed in his face as he readied to board a plane earlier this week.
North Korean diplomats have objected to the postmortem examination, Malaysian officials say, but Kuala Lumpur has stood firm, and said on Friday it would not release the body until procedures were complete.
"So far no family member or next of kin has come to identify or claim the body. We need a DNA sample of a family member to match the profile of the dead person," Selangor state police chief Abdul Samah Mat said. "North Korea has submitted a request to claim the body, but before we release the body we have to identify who the body belongs to."
Laboratory technicians working on blood and tissue samples would "conduct the analysis as soon as possible", Dr Cornelia Charito Siricord of the science ministry’s chemistry department told national news agency Bernama.
Police were meanwhile questioning two women ‐ one travelling on a Vietnamese passport and the other on an Indonesian document ‐ as well as a Malaysian man.
The drama erupted on Monday morning as Jong-nam, the estranged elder brother of Kim Pudge Jong-un ...the overweight, pouty-looking hereditary potentate of North Korea. Pudge appears to believe in his own divinity, but has yet to produce any loaves and fishes, so his subjects remain malnourished... , readied to board a plane to Macau. Malaysian police say the 45-year-old was jumped by two women who squirted some kind of liquid in his face.
Jong-nam told staff he was suffering from a headache and was taken to the airport clinic grimacing in pain, according to Malaysian media citing CCTV footage from the airport. He was rushed to hospital suffering from a seizure but was dead before he arrived.
South Korea has pointed the finger of blame at the North, citing a "standing order" from Jong-un to kill his sibling and a failed liquidation bid in 2012 after he criticised the regime.
Posted by: Fred ||
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[ARA] The Iraq security forces have nearly 5,000 more members to assist as hold forces in Eastern djinn-infested Mosul ... the home of a particularly ferocious and hairy djinn... and eventually in the fight against ISIS in Western Mosul following recent graduation ceremonies at Taji, Besmaya, Erbil, and Al Asad Airbase, the US-led anti-ISIS coalition said on Friday.
At Taji and Besmaya, nearly 2,000 Nineveh coppers were trained by Australian and New Zealand soldiers and are poised to assist in the fight against ISIS in Mosul.
"Task Group Taji IV is proud to see them develop into an effective security force, ready to take the fight to ISIS," said Australian Col. Richard Vagg, commander TG Taji IV.
"The police trainees are determined to defend their country against ISIS," said Col. Vagg. "They’re young and determined ‐ many of them come from Mosul where they’ve lost family members to ISIS’s campaign of terror."
Over the past month, the Coalition provided infantry-based tactics, techniques and procedures to men who will play a major role in defending, holding and stabilizing areas liberated from 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.... ’s (ISIS) myrmidons.
In Besmaya, Spanish Coalition members led Nineveh police forces’ training.
In addition, 3,000 Iraqi security forces graduated from patrol and clearing techniques training at Al Asad Airbase led by the efforts of Danish, British, Latvian, Estonian and American forces.
The government of Iraq, supported by the US-led multi-national coalition, launched the Mosul offensive in Oct. 2016 to liberate Iraq’s second-largest city which was taken by ISIS in June 2014.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/18/2017
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Top|| File under: Islamic State
[An Nahar] Leaders of the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... group are leaving their Syrian stronghold of Raqa, fleeing in the face of the Arab-Kurd offensive backed by the international coalition, the U.S. Defense Department said Friday.
"We are starting to see now that a lot of senior ISIS leaders, a lot of their babus bureaucrats... are beginning the process of leaving Raqa," said Pentagon front man Navy Captain Jeff Davis, using an alternate acronym for the jihadist group.
"They have definitely taken note of the fact that the end is near in Raqa," he told news hounds, describing a retreat that seems "very organized, orderly."
After a string of major losses in both Iraq and Syria, the jihadists' two main strongholds of djinn-infested Mosul ... the home of a particularly ferocious and hairy djinn... and Raqa are both under attack from forces backed by a U.S.-led coalition.
After a massive, four-month campaign, Iraqi forces are tightening the noose on Mosul, while in Syria, the Arab-Kurd alliance, the Syrian Democratic Forces, has been advancing to cut off IS access in Raqa.
According to the Pentagon front man, that objective is nearly complete, with the Islamic State group now controlling only one road, in the southeast of the city.
Located along the north bank of the Euphrates River, the road links Raqa to Deir Ezzor, said Davis, who did not give precise details about the extent of the jihadists' retreat.
Roads in the north and west are blocked by the Syrian Democratic Forces, and in the south, by the destruction of bridges on the Euphrates, he said.
While the isolation operations on Raqa have made progress, the coalition has not announced its plan for recapturing the city.
Still unknown is what role the armed wing of the Kurdish Democratic Union Party, the YPG, will play in the U.S.-backed Arab-Kurd alliance.
The YPG, considered a terrorist group by The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... , fights the Islamic State group in northern Syria as well as Ankara's forces.
Turkish President Sultan Recep Tayyip Erdogan the First ... Turkey's version of Mohammed Morsi but they voted him back in so they deserve him... has proposed that the coalition replace the YPG with Turkish forces.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/18/2017
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Top|| File under: Islamic State
President Trump on Friday said that the U.S. is looking into a “big order” of Boeing’s F/A-18 Super Hornets that may have stealth capabilities. Trump made the comments during a tour of a Boeing plant in South Carolina. The message appeared to be also directed at Lockheed Martin, the maker of the F-35 and corporate rival, Bloomberg reported.
“We are looking seriously at a big order,” Trump said, referring to the F/A-18. He said, “If the price (of the F-35) doesn’t come down, we would. The F-18’s a great plane and now put a stealth component onto it.”
Reince Priebus, the White House chief of staff, was seen at the factory holding a brochure for the F/A-18 XT, which is the advanced Super Hornet, DefenseNews.com reported.
How would the F-35 do against the XT? 15 to 1 kill ratio?
Trump has called the costs of the F-35 program “out of control.” He has been critical of both Lockheed and Boeing and appears to be comfortable pitting the two aerospace giants against each other.
Dennis Muilenburg, the CEO of Boeing, said in January that he has spoken to Trump about the Air Force One program and “discussed fighter aircraft.”
The U.S. Air Force plans to buy 1,763 of the F-35A model jets, Bloomberg reported. The report said that there is likely not much Boeing could do to compete with the fifth-generation F-35, which is equipped with a more advanced radar system.
The Dallas Morning News reported that Lockheed cut about $600 million from the F-35 program. The planes used to cost $102 million each, now they are under $100 million.
The F-35 program made up 20 percent of Lockheed's total 2015 revenue of $46.1 billion. And U.S. government orders made up 78 percent of its revenue last year. The F-35 program directly or indirectly supports more than 146,000 U.S. jobs, according to the company's website. Lockheed assembles the F-35s in Fort Worth, Texas.
In December, Trump tweeted Thursday that based on the “tremendous” cost overruns of Lockheed Martin’s F-35 program, he had asked the aerospace giant's competitor, Boeing, to "price-out a comparable F-18 Super Hornet."
Posted by: Steve White ||
02/18/2017
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#1
...Not entirely sure how this is gonna go - what makes sense is if the USN buy is throttled back and refilled with SuperDuper Hornets. There are actually some benefits there - we get a mature, proven airframe on deck in bigger numbers and a combat-capable airframe a lot sooner. We also get away from the potential horror show of all of Naval Aviation's combat airframes being the same damned airplane. Downside - the cost for the rest of the Killer Turkey program goes up. Interesting times...
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
02/18/2017 17:17
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#2
Yep, and except for the stealth gizmos and gadgets on the Superduper Hornets, the maintenance crews on carriers can repair a Hornet with their eyes closed they are that familiar with the bird...yep and not so much transition training for the jet jockeys...
#5
To expand, China has stolen and also developed stealth, advanced radar and comms capabilities. Without what the F-35 is intended to be, and is a lot of the time, our military is only ready to face 2nd rate opponents. China is rapidly threatening to be more than that and other adversaries will arise as well.
Don't make the mistake of fighting the last war, which was against an incompetant middle eastern junkyard.
#6
Competition is good. Make those LockMartin bastards sweat. Boeing is no better, but letting them fight for the business, will give the sailor and aviator options that they would not have if we sole source the future to the F-35.
Even if we never buy another F-18 we will have mixed fleets of aircraft for a long time. Buying a few more F-18s would just extend that time, and give us, the people, leverage on the contractors.
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President Trump on Friday said that the U.S. is looking into a “big order” of Boeing’s F/A-18 Super Hornets that may have stealth capabilities. Trump made the comments during a tour of a Boeing plant in South Carolina. The message appeared to be also directed at Lockheed Martin, the maker of the F-35 and corporate rival, Bloomberg reported.
