[Business Insider] Being rich is really about two things.
In my Rich Habits Study, I interviewed 233 wealthy individuals (177 of whom were self-made millionaires) with at least $160,000 in annual gross income and $3.2 million in net assets. I found that becoming and staying rich tends to come from two actions:
1. Accumulating wealth.
2. Keeping the wealth you've accumulated.
The first step, getting rich, requires that you forge certain specific habits that make getting rich possible. In my book "Change Your Habits Change Your Life," I share some of the stories about how these self-made millionaires accumulated their wealth, but some of the most important Rich Habits for accumulating wealth include:
Pursuing daily growth. Daily self-improvement is a hallmark of self-made millionaires. They read at least 30 minutes a day to gain knowledge. They also devote significant time every day to practicing and perfecting their skills.
#1
Not to be confused with personal behaviors that include -
1. Alcohol and drug abuse
2. procreating before having the means to put food on the table, clothes on your back and a roof over your own head.
3. blowing off education opportunities
4. doing what kept your sperm and egg donor, their sperm and egg donors, and their sperm and egg donors, poor.
Part of being rich is comprehending that so many of us are the 1 percenters of history, let alone the world, and stop falling for all the cons others push to sell you envy and guilt.
[Krebs on Security] Avanti Markets, a company whose self-service payment kiosks sit beside shelves of snacks and drinks in thousands of corporate breakrooms across America, has suffered of breach of its internal networks in which hackers were able to push malicious software out to those payment devices, the company has acknowledged. The breach may have jeopardized customer credit card accounts as well as biometric data, Avanti warned.
According to Tukwila, Wash.-based Avanti’s marketing literature, some 1.6 million customers use the company’s break room self-checkout devices — which allow customers to pay for drinks, snacks and other food items with a credit card, fingerprint scan or cash.
#1
Why do something as uncool as carry around some change or a few $1 bills in your pocket for vending machines when you can go around with your pants down around your ankles?
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
07/08/2017 14:42
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#2
PrePaid Debit Cards... Limit the money at risk. If I was travelling more I would seriously considering getting one just for casual purchases.
[American Thinker] Black Lives Matter used the Fourth of July for its denigration of "racist" America. Accusations of American racism typically begin with references to the trans-Atlantic slave trade, although they do not end there. While the indictment is popular among those who disdain America, most people know less about the slave trade than the intensity of their contempt for America and white people would seem to indicate.
A majority of "white America" are descendants of people who came to America during the great waves of European immigration from 1880 to 1924. Over a hundred million white Americans trace their ancestry to immigrants who passed through Ellis Island, which didn’t open until 1900. Most white Americans are descendants from people who came to these shores long after slavery was extinguished.
The indictment of all white people for the evil of slavery because they share skin color with slave owners is an indulgence in absurdity. We are told not to judge all Muslims as terrorists or all blacks responsible for the crimes of individual blacks. Yet, for whites, the collective guilt is unending. It is propagated in our universities under the now theological dictates of white privilege and white guilt.
The Eastern and Southern Europeans who came here primarily during the period of 1880-1924 had no participation in the slave trade except to have had some of their forbearers taken as slaves by Muslim slavers from North Africa and the Ottoman Empire. For over two hundred years, during the mid-1600s to the 1830s, Barbary Muslims trafficked in white European Christians. The Ottoman Muslims trafficking in White Christian slavery started even earlier, in the 15th century. All in all, Muslims enslaved more than two million white European Christians.
Barbary slavers nearly depopulated the coastal villages of Southern Europe and went as far north as Iceland and Scotland to conduct slave raids. Ottoman Turks went into Russia to procure slaves.
#1
My forebears arrived on American shores after the Civil War was over. Regardless of race peddlers' arguments to the contrary, I feel no guilt for anything that happened before...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
07/08/2017 12:19
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#2
I dare say most Americans held captive, kidnapped, suffering impressment, cast into slavery in foreign lands have historically longed to return to their native soil and freedom.
Those here in the States claiming slave origins and heritages from the Niger Delta, Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea and Gabon, West Central Africa (Republic of Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo and Angola) and elsewhere, seem to.possess little or no longing to return to native lands.
#6
I'll agree to reparation payments. Here's the deal:
1. You surrender US citizenship
2. You take your check
3. You leave the US.
4. You may not visit or apply for citizenship here. EVER. Any attempt carries automatic death penalty.
I have zero guilt for anything that happened outside of my life. You wanna play the victim game, I'm sure my family was slaves to the Roman Empire far longer than yours was so FOAD.
#7
I lived in Lomé, Togo for 2 years. There are 2 main ethnic groups - the Kabye in the north and the Ewe in the south. While the Kabye were (and still are) more warrior-like, it was the Ewe that sold the Kabye to the slavers after capturing them. 400 hundred years later the Kabye are still talking about what the Ewe did to them.
BLM - I had a direct descendant die flighting for the Blue at Chickamauga. Mom's side didn't get here until the 1890s. Every generation has served this nation including mom and dad (USAF), brother (101st), other brother (USMC) and me (USMC).
I don't owe you squat.
Posted by: Bangkok Billy ||
07/08/2017 15:36
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[WAPO] PAMPLONA, Spain -- Two Americans were gored and several other people were injured Saturday during the second running of the bulls at this year’s San Fermin festival in the northern Spanish city of Pamplona, officials said.
The regional government of Navarra said that a 22-year-old American man identified with the initials J.C. was in serious condition at a nearby hospital after being gored. Another 35-year-old American identified as B.H. was in stable condition after being gored.
Televised images showed a bull thrusting its horn into a man’s buttocks before flipping him into the street, while another man’s arm was impaled and he was dragged for several meters (yards) before the bull flung him off and stormed over him.
Three other Americans, two Frenchmen and three Spaniards -- all men -- needed treatment at the hospital for injures received during the frantic and crowded run of thrill-seekers.
On Friday, two Americans and a Spaniard were gored on the first running. All three were treated for non-life-threatening injuries.
[NYT] A man trying to evade a parole officer jumped from the eighth floor of a building in a Manhattan housing complex on Friday, sustaining only a broken ankle in the fall, the police said.
At around 3 p.m., the man, whose name was not immediately released, jumped from a window at the Lincoln Houses development on Park Avenue in Harlem, opposite the elevated Metro-North Railroad tracks. He fell onto a grassy patch set behind iron gates, and was handcuffed by police as he lay on the ground, according to witnesses who were at the complex on Friday.
Several people said they thought the man was new to the complex.
"I guess he thought he could fly," said a 60-year-old woman who provided only her given name, Dee. "He was on the ground and handcuffed, looking up."
The man was taken to NYC Health + Hospitals/Harlem, where he was in stable condition, the police said.
Jumping out of tall buildings to evade the police has been tried before, including once in the same Harlem complex more than a decade ago. A 21-year-old man, Tyrell Harris, jumped out a 14th-story window at the Lincoln Houses in 2005 after a gun battle with the police. He survived the impact, but died at St. Luke’s Hospital.
h/t Gates of Vienna
The RMV released figures this week after medically testing 1,481 migrants to determine whether or not they had lied about being under the age of 18. Of the total number, it was revealed that 1,215, or 86 per cent, of the individuals tested were adults.
#1
Simply not a new modus for the left. When Billy Jeff was prexy, 25 year old gang bangers killed during drug deals in Chi-pig and Detoilet were slotted as "child gun deaths" in DOJ stats...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
07/08/2017 11:13
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#2
That's noteworthy is Swedes checking & reporting the results.
#3
That's noteworthy is Swedes checking & reporting the results.
Yes. They do so strongly dislike creating social disharmony. They must still be in shock over that music festival shutting down permanently over the repeatedly demonstrated appetite of migrant lads for sexually molesting local girls. And as I recall, when Britain checked it was around 75%.
#4
Probably a model of what Obama's illegals immigrant 'children' would be classified as well. Remember they wouldn't let Congresscritters in or photos taken of the temp holding facilities.
[RT] The report from the London based radio station comes after aspiring model and business student Resham Khan was attacked last month while sitting in her car with her cousin Jameel Muhktar.
The incident, which happened on the day Khan turned 21, saw the two attacked with sulphuric acid while stuck in traffic.
The Metropolitan Police is investigating the attack as a hate crime, and has just released new pictures of suspected attacker John Tomlin, 24.
Three days after the attack, Khan, who is set to receive £30,000 (US$38,500) in donations after a fundraising campaign was launched for her following the horrifying attack, said on Twitter: "I'm devastated. I keep wondering if my life will ever be the same."
Another acid attack victim is now calling for the law to treat acid attacks as it does knife attacks.
Moved to Opinion because Richard Fernandez is a columnist.
The Fisher Body Plant in Detroit
[PJMedia] David Gerlenter writing in the Wall Street Journal says something self-evidently true. The Left seems to have won every single culture battle fought.
Although the right reads the left, the left rarely reads the right. Why should it, when the left owns American culture? Nearly every university, newspaper, TV network, Hollywood studio, publisher, education school and museum in the nation. The left wrapped up the culture war two generations ago. Throughout my own adult lifetime, the right has never made one significant move against the liberal culture machine.
The late Andrew Breitbart noticed the same thing. Observing that "politics is downstream from culture" he argued the Left has made us the villains of our own stories.
Our lives -- indeed, our very species -- has storytelling wound into our DNA. ... Popular culture is delivered to us in the form of story via books, TV, film, music, video games, and new media. ...
Thus we come to politics ... the vast majority of those with the power of content creation are Liberals. ... Liberals control story. ...What is some of that messaging? Think about movies and TV. Corporations are evil -- using unwitting poor Africans for pharmaceutical testing (Constant Gardener) or dumping toxic chemicals into nature (Erin Brockovich, A Civil Action) or responsible for the end of mankind (Rise of the Planet of the Apes). American soldiers are bloodthirsty lawbreaking maniacs (Any military film). The CIA conducts illegal, secret operations that have nothing to do with protecting America. Radical Muslim terrorists are never villains. Trial lawyers are crusading do-gooders. David Letterman and Saturday Night Live ridicule the Right 95% of the time. Jon Stewart pretends to be centrist, but in fact jumps all over the Right far more often than the Left.
Liberal political candidates are the embodiments of those Liberal tenets. The goal is to associate them in voter minds via the vehicle of popular culture.
Even before Breitbart's warning there was Orwell who understood that the Left's ultimate ability was to uproot the past and plant their chosen seed for the future. His famous dictum "he who controls the past controls the future. He who controls the present controls the past" is an unsurpassed indictment of groupthink totalitarianism. There seemed no doubt they would succeed. Within its bubble the Left's control of culture is so absolute they can watch 1984 without realizing it's about them....more
A Tampa man was sentenced to four months in jail Friday after participating in an inauguration day riot that injured six police officers and cost tens of thousands of dollars in damages in Washington D.C.
Dane Powell, 31, was captured on video carrying a black flag while throwing rocks and bricks at D.C. police officers and shattering store windows during the 30-minute riot that spanned 16 city blocks, prosecutors said. He was also dressed in black and had part of his face covered. Ban the anonymity of a mask and these cowards won't riot
Assistant U.S. Attorney Jennifer Kerkhoff said Powell was spotted in Logan Circle the day before President Trump's inauguration with gas masks and carrying the same black flag seen in the video, the Tampa Bay Times reported.
"He initiated violence," Kerkhoff said. "He came to the District of Columbia to engage in violence by hiding his face, throwing rocks and running. He's a violent coward." Yep. Now with a Felony record
Powell asked Judge Lynne Leibovitz for "leniency" and asked for "forgiveness for anyone who was scared, hurt or felt threatened," the Times reported.
Powell's attorney Ashley Jones told the court her client, who spent nine years in the Army, did not travel to D.C. to riot, but to protest peacefully. She also blamed police officers for inciting violence.
"Mr. Powell's motivation was to protest the inauguration," Jones said. "And during that protest he got carried away."
According to the Tampa Bay Times, Powell pleaded guilty in July to assault on a police officer and inciting a riot, which are considered felony charges.
Authorities said 234 people were arrested during the riots and of those, 198 cases are pending. Good. Make examples of them
Posted by: Frank G ||
07/08/2017
08:46 ||
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#1
In most states, a felony conviction forfeits the right to vote. There are exceptions like Minnesota which promotes felons to vote, but only if they vote (D).
#2
P2K,and in Virginia where our slimeball Democratic governor restored the voting rights of a bunch of felons. When the legislature took him to court and won, he simply pardoned them all.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
07/08/2017 15:23
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#3
"while throwing rocks and bricks at D.C. police officers"
Just four months? Is this Germany or what?
Posted by: European Conservative ||
07/08/2017 18:16
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[Hot Air] In Warsaw, as Ed Morrissey points out, Trump offered leaders from Poland and numerous other European countries long-term LNG deals to diversify their supplies and avoid creating undesirable political leverage with a certain large country to the East that has not hesitated to cut off natural gas supplies for political reasons.
Trump didn’t mention that nation. He didn’t have to. It contains six letters beginning with R and ending with a.
"America stands ready," Trump declared at a news conference, "to help Poland and other European nations diversify their energy supplies, so that you can never be held hostage to a single supplier."
In previous years, Russia has turned off natural gas exports to certain countries whose policies displeased Putin. This approach of Trump’s is another part of his tougher talk on trade, which seems to be working, as we wrote here.
Liquefied natural gas exports are a key part of this president’s energy program and trade policy, which he intends to use to help balance trade deficits and exert favorable leverage on trading partners, China, for instance, where the U.S. buys $300 billion more per year than it sells.
The United States has had an insatiable appetite for energy imports over the years. But thanks to the technical developments of fracking that tap into previously unreachable sources, the U.S. now has an immense abundance of natural gas.
It can be moved, of course, through pipelines domestically or, in special conversion facilities deeply chilled, exported in liquid form and then returned to a gaseous state by foreign customers.
By an amazing coincidence, the first massive load of U.S. LNG is due to dock in Britain Saturday. Another landed in Poland last month. Lithuania expects one soon, all among some two dozen new nation customers around the globe.
It’s all from the first LNG conversion facility in Sabine Pass, Louisiana, an $11 billion plant. Five more such plants are under construction and four others fully permitted. Each facility produces both construction and permanent jobs and, according to one analysis, some $20 billion per year in value-added economic activity. If memory serves, more new jobs fit with Trump’s economic plans too.
Additionally, natural gas burns cleaner than coal. So, the effects of fuel-switching both domestically and abroad are substantial on greenhouse gas emissions and conventional air pollutants, even without a Paris accord.
LNG export deals are privately negotiated. But Trump is so eager to push them, he jokingly offered Thursday to work out a deal on the spot with Polish President Andrzej Duda. "I think we can enter a contract for LNG within the next 15 minutes," Trump said. "Do you have anybody available to negotiate?"
Duda laughed, but saw contracts soon between the Polish government and U.S. companies. "I believe that after the conclusion of those negotiations, there will be a long-term contract for U.S. LNG deliveries to our LNG terminal," he said.
#3
LNG is significantly higher cost than pipeline gas, but it's good to have at least some alternative supply, whether against political, mechanical failure or natural disaster risks. Available sources are West Australia, West Africa, or Qatar. Limiting factors are regassification facilities (lots of NIMBYism there) and tanker shortages.
[AyPee] WASHINGTON (AP) -- The FBI and the U.S. Army investigated complaints from four women that Hall of Fame basketball coach Bob Knight groped them or touched them inappropriately during a visit to a U.S. spy agency in 2015, an investigation that concluded a year later without charges, The Washington Post reported Friday.
One of the women, whose name The Post did not disclose, told the newspaper that Knight groped her on the buttocks shortly before he gave a speech to staffers at the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency at its headquarters in Springfield, Virginia. The woman also filed a discrimination complaint against the NGA and the Defense Department in which she claimed she was pressured to drop the matter, The Post reported.
An attorney representing Knight, James Voyles, acknowledged to The Post that FBI agents interviewed Knight at his home in Montana last year and said the investigation was dropped shortly thereafter.
"There is absolutely no credible evidence to support this in our opinion, these allegations," Voyles said, adding that the FBI agents "reported to their superiors that there was no basis for any further action, period."
Knight, 76, did not comment to The Post, but his wife, Karen Knight, told the newspaper in a text message: "Bob did nothing wrong and there is NO evidence to prove that he did. Case closed."
#4
Couldn't prove he did it, couldn't prove he didn't, therefor no recommendation for action against either him or accusers (four accusers is suggestive of a problem, but don't recall a history of that kind of accusations against Knight.)
And for sure whatever the Norks have, the Ayatollahs have, too. IF this is true, they probably co-developed this.
North Korea demonstrated its ability to reach the continental US with a nuclear-capable ballistic missile on July 4, but close analysis of launch footage may point to another dangerous technological development.
Unlike other North Korean missiles, the intercontinental-range Hwasong-14 missile uses a "shroud," or a hollow cover instead of a more solid nosecone, researchers have discovered.
ICBMs generally use shrouds if one is "planning on launching multiple reentry vehicles or added countermeasures," David Schmerler, a research associate at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies told Business Insider.
Shrouds usually indicate that a missile has multiple, independent reentry vehicles for a payload, according to Schermler. A missile with multiple nuclear warheads can not only do more damage to its target, but also pose a greater challenge for missile defenses.
While Schmerler said there is "no indication" that North Korea has developed technology to miniaturize warheads such that it could fit multiple nukes in a single missile, it could have installed countermeasures in the shroud that would render US defenses all but useless. So we've spent bazillions of dollars on something even the Norks can defeat. Nice.
A typical countermeasure, like a handful of mylar balloons that inflate with one of them surrounding the warhead, greatly limit missile defenses' ability to deter or defeat threats. When a missile interceptor heads towards the warhead, a crowd of balloons release, making it difficult for the interceptor to find the warhead. I'm guessing this happens above the atmosphere where even the balloons are still ballistic?
No North Korea statements have announced work on countermeasures, according to Schmerler. But shrouded missiles can easily lend themselves to countermeasures.
"If you want to fit countermeasures, penetration aides, or chaff, you would need more space" in the tip of the warhead, said Schmerler.
In the clip below, watch for the shroud dropping off the missile after the first stage, and then the interstage of the missile drop off.
*Decoys are very highly overrated.
*We shoot at the missile, not the warheads.
*It took decades to figure out MIRVs, and the testing to get it right is long, detailed, and slow. And, BTW, really really obvious.
In summary: No MIRVs, at least not yet.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
07/08/2017 6:53
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#2
Good chance their missiles would have multiple re-entry vehicles after they get whacked by our countermeasures. Or even after they break up on their own.
#4
Assumption of mini-nukes.
Bio-canisters are easier.
Posted by: Skidmark 2017-07-08 09:58
Very good point, sir. Back in the day, I knew a surprising number of analysts (in and out of uniform) who firmly believed that a good number of Soviet missiles had nerve gas or bio warheads.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
07/08/2017 12:04
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"An expert on nuclear-tipped missiles told Business Insider that that the 'shroud' seen on the missile is usually indicative of 'multiple reentry vehicles or added countermeasures.'"
[NYPos] It took only a few hours in Germany -- where he rushed to, off almost without telling anyone -- for Mayor de Blasio to discover what New Yorkers have known all along: He isn’t actually needed at home.
Or, as the mayor put it in a transatlantic call-in to Brian Lehrer’s radio show, "All the issues that need to be attended to, I am attending to . . . regardless of where I am."
In other words, no one actually needs Bill de Blasio to be at City Hall. Which is how he justifies spending his mornings at the gym in Brooklyn and jaunting off to protest global summits in Europe.
He may be right. After all, as his GOP opponent, Assemblywoman Nicole Malliotakis, noted: "He can’t even run the city when he’s here."
And that’s not the only revelation de Blasio has experienced in Hamburg. He’s also discovered something else every New Yorker has known for decades: Ignoring low-level, quality-of-life crimes destroys the city’s quality of life.
So the same mayor who professes his allegiance to Broken Windows policing -- but helped decriminalize such offenses as public urination -- now says he wishes he could ban panhandling because it makes him so "frustrated."
"I’m saying that not as a matter of policy, I’m saying that as a human being," de Blasio suggested. "I think it’s off-putting."
#1
Kaiser Wilhelm, or as teh NY Post calls him, Mayor Putz
Posted by: Frank G ||
07/08/2017 7:57
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#2
The New York Post must not think much of de Blasio. Another article was posted on 7-7 entitled: Comrade de Blasio doesn’t care about New York. A wag posted: "And we don't care much about him either."
#3
He’s also discovered something else every New Yorker has known for decades: Ignoring low-level, quality-of-life crimes destroys the city’s quality of life.
Also - homeless population in NYC up by nearly 40 percent this year.
He may have totally lied about the details, but it must be true somewhere else.
A sheriff in Missouri is firing back at a now-suspended newspaper columnist who claimed to experience what "minority motorists" must feel when getting pulled over by cops, saying he was lucky he didn’t "get shot" during a recent traffic stop.
Boone County Sheriff Dwayne Carey has refuted a June 30 opinion column by longtime Columbia Daily Tribune columnist Bill Clark, who was stopped 10 days earlier for failing to use his turn signal. Clark, an 84-year-old white man, suggested in the column that he might’ve been pulled over because of his "liberal bumper stickers," an obvious sign of an "aging hippie with a weed habit," he claimed.
"I’m lucky I didn’t get shot," Clark wrote. "Sirens wailed and when I stopped, two officers were out of the sheriff’s vehicle. When I reached over to turn off the radio and then take my wallet out of my pocket to produce the driver’s license and insurance card, I realized my hands were not at the top of my steering wheel. Danger lurked and official arrogance was to follow."
Clark, who claimed he received a "good dose of arrogance" during the stop, said he understands how someone could lose respect for cops after the stop, saying his life "seemed to be in danger" during the interaction with two deputies.
"When you are in the shoes of the minority, you learn a lot more about their journey," Clark wrote.
But a review of dashcam video told a different story, according to Carey, who contacted the newspaper’s managing editor, Charles Westmoreland, to disagree with Clark’s version of events. Carey also released the 11-minute video and penned an 1,800-word response to Clark’s column, blasting it as "sensationalism" and disputed the claims of "arrogance" on behalf of the deputies.
"In his column he indicates, ’I’m lucky I didn’t get shot,’" Carey wrote. "There is never a weapon drawn, the deputies don’t take a position of cover, there are no loud verbal commands, no panic or anything else for that matter by the deputies. Would you agree this is sensationalism at its best? I say yes!"
[New Jersey.com} For two days next week, Gov. Chris Christie is scheduled to sit in as a guest host on sports-talk radio station WFAN 660-AM New York, an appearance a station spokeswoman called an audition.
Christie is slated to be heard on Monday and Tuesday instead of afternoon host Mike Francesa, the radio station posted on its website. The two days will be audition days, Jaime Saberito, a station spokesperson, said Friday, as Francesa is set to leave the station once his contract ends later this year.
Christie will host the 2 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. show along with Evan Roberts, a WFAN host. He isn't the only one slotted to audition next week. Mike Valenti from WXYT-FM 97.1 in Detroit, former National Football League quarterback Chris Simms, SNY's Brian Custer and NFL Network and WFAN contributor Kim Jones will also audition next week, the station said. Roberts and his midmorning co-host, Joe Benigno, are also scheduled to audition in the afternoon slot, the station said.
Mark Chernoff, the station's program director and vice president of its parent company, CBS Radio New York, previously told The Record he would consider the governor, whose term ends in January 2018.
"If he's interested and we're interested, it's worth pursuing," Chernoff said in February.
[Guardian] It is a blossoming bromance. In what one US-based critic called a "first Tinder date", Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin talked for two and a quarter hours on Friday instead of their scheduled 30 minutes.
"I think there was just such a level of engagement and exchange, and neither one of them wanted to stop," US secretary of State Rex Tillerson said afterwards. "Several times I had to remind the president, and people were sticking their heads in the door. And they sent in the first lady at one point to see if she could get us out of there, and that didn’t work either."
There were sighs of relief in Washington that Trump, an erratic and volatile president with little foreign policy experience, had avoided a major gaffe. The news website Axios summed it up: "Trump survives the Putin meeting."
But diplomats and experts said this was hardly cause for celebration. Thomas Countryman, former US acting undersecretary for arms control and international security, commented: "It’s an indication of how rapidly our standards are falling when we’re reasonably pleased that President Trump has not made an obvious error."
Pre-meeting hype had focused on whether Trump would confront Putin over Russia’s interference in the US election. He delivered, according to Tillerson, pressing the issue repeatedly. But Putin denied it and Tillerson later admitted that the two leaders had focused on how to move on from here. There seemed little indication that Trump had held Putin’s feet to the fire.
Trump had accepted Putin’s assurances, Countryman said: "It certainly was the minimum that any US president should have done in this situation. I’m glad he brought it up. What we don’t know ‐ and may never know ‐ is what he replied when Vladimir Putin looked him in the eye and falsely said: ’It was not us.’" Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov claimed Trump had accepted Putin’s assurances, although the US disputed that.
#1
and who is Thomas Countryman? The perfect Al-Grauniad interview on matters Trump:
In 2011, President of the United States Barack Obama nominated him to be Assistant Secretary of State for International Security and Nonproliferation and, after senate confirmation, he was sworn in as Assistant Secretary on September 27, 2011.[2]
He is fluent in Serbo-Croatian, Arabic, Italian, Greek, and German.[2] On January 27, 2017, while on his way to a conference on arms control, he was relieved of his duties by the President
Posted by: Frank G ||
07/08/2017 8:07
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#2
Leave Syria to Russia. That should keep them occupied for a while.
Posted by: European Conservative ||
07/08/2017 18:22
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[Don Surber] Forgive me for imposing upon the president's magnificent speech in Warsaw my 24-hour rule on commenting on breaking news. This rule is generally placed only on crime stories, but I thought his words worthy of something more than a gee-whiz-that-was-a-great-speech post.
Upon further review I was correct, for the president answered a question that has puzzled the nation for many years:
Why do they hate us?
A student goes to school to major in public policy or education or social psychology. She graduates, decides to become a teacher herself. Goes through all the hoops, does all the theses, and finally becomes a public school teacher or a professor at some local community college.
When she finally gets to her goal, she finds out that a guy who owns the local plumbing business or a small chain of shoe stores makes several times her salary. Suffused with anger, she tells herself, "How can this be? I'm SO much smarter than those guys, I worked SO hard to get where I am, and those morons are making a lot more than I do! It's not fair, I deserve to be the one who makes the most money and has the most stuff! THIS CAPITALIST SYSTEM IS WRONG!"
Never for a moment does she consider that there might not be anything wrong with the system, that maybe her smarts aren't so great, and maybe what she does isn't so damned special, and maybe her neighbors making thousands of independent decisions are a better way of allocating and directing where money goes in society than a few stuck up "educators" using the power of the state to force people to give the most money to educators.
Nations can act in the same way. From where I sit, many people in European countries are a lot like the woman in my example. "It's just plain wrong", they tell themselves, "that those crass, gun toting, God-believing, coarse, ignoramus Americans have done so well, so much better than us". The left in those countries, of course, but others as well.
Too often we get caught up in the weeds when it comes to motivations. Nearly all of the time look to economics and you'll find your answer.
Posted by: no mo uro ||
07/08/2017 6:01
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#2
The core of why they hate us is honestly very simple. In their heart, they know they are inferior. They are weak, add nothing of value to the human race and are too afraid to change so instead they will happily drill holes in the bottom of the boat to sink us all so nobody realizes they are weak, spineless vermin unworthy of the race of humanity.
[REUTERS] A police officer wounded in a shooting rampage in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, last year that left three officers dead sued Black Lives Matter movement leaders on Friday, accusing them of inciting violence that spurred the attack.
The lawsuit filed in a U.S. district court in Louisiana named DeRay McKesson and four other Black Lives Matter leaders as defendants and sought at least $75,000 in damages.
It came on the one-year anniversary of one of the deadliest days in modern U.S. history for law enforcement. On July 7, 2016, a black man angered by what he saw as deadly racial bias in U.S. policing launched a downtown Dallas sniper attack, killing five officers deployed at a protest decrying police shootings of black men.
McKesson was not immediately available for comment and Black Lives Matter leaders have denied accusations that their movement promotes violence against police.
About 10 days after the Dallas shooting, a decorated ex-U.S. Marine sergeant opened fire on police in Baton Rouge, killing three officers.
Baton Rouge had been hit by waves of protests after two police officers earlier that month killed a black man, Alton Sterling, under questionable circumstances. The incident was caught on video and sparked national debate.
The officer wounded in Baton Rouge, who was not named in the lawsuit, was shot by "a person violently protesting against police, and which violence was caused or contributed to by the leaders of and by 'BLACK LIVES MATTER'," the filing said.
Gavin Long, the black gunman who killed the Baton Rouge officers and was later shot dead, identified himself as a member of an African-American offshoot of the anti-government, mostly white Sovereign Citizen Movement, documents showed.
Last year, McKesson and two other activists sued the Baton Rouge police department and other officials over the arrests of nearly 200 demonstrators during mostly peaceful protests over police killings.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/08/2017
01:47 ||
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I post this because I have family and friends in Illinois.
From TFA
[DanielJMitchell] Looking at this grim situation, the state legislature decided it had to act.
Unfortunately, the politicians in Springfield decided that action meant stepping on the accelerator while driving in the wrong direction. Democrats in the state legislature (joined by some big-government Republicans, just like in Kansas) just overrode Governor Rauner’s veto and imposed a huge tax hike on a state that already has one of the nation’s highest tax burdens.
This will hasten the state’s collapse. See more at the link
#1
In 2014 it was estimated that every household in the state of Illinois would have to pay $88,000.00 to bail out underfunded Public Sector Unions plus all other underfunded obligations at that time. The double barrel effect is that both the state and the city of Chicago are deep in the red. Not sure what the number is per household in 2017.
#2
When the pension checks start bouncing Florida and Nevada will feel the impact. With no state taxes, sunny weather.... Florida and Nevada attract many 'young' Chicago retirees.
#3
A swirling drain graphic is appropriate for Illinois now.
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
07/08/2017 8:34
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#4
The financial problems of Illinois go back to the 1950's. One of the contributors (and there are many) was the consolidation of school districts, the establishment of mega-schools, busing, and the educational bureaucracies that accompany large consolidated schools.
#6
And the state constitution that says that retirees' benefits cannot be cut. No matter what. So if the fire departments, police departments, current teachers all have to be laid off, because ALL of the money goes to pay pension benefits - oh, well.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
07/08/2017 15:41
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#7
..change the constitution. Where's the graft in that. Instead just indenture the rest of the population. Serfdom to unions.
Startling new evidence from German intelligence reports shows the Tehran regime is working to illegally obtain technology and know-how to advance its nuclear weapons and missile programs, despite the 2015 agreement to curb its nuclear program. Now why, pritheetell, would they do such a thing if they aren't supposed to be working on nuclear weapons?
A report from the state of Hamburg holds that "there is no evidence of an complete about-face in Iran’s atomic polices in 2016" [after the Islamic Republic signed the JCPOA deal with Western powers in 2015, aimed at restricting Tehran’s nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief]. Iran sought missile carrier technology necessary for its rocket program."
The report noted that the federal prosecutor filed criminal charges against three German citizens for violations of the export economic law due to the deliveries of 51 special valves to Iranian company that can be used for the Islamic Republic’s sanctioned Arak heavy water reactor. The installation, the intelligence officials wrote, "can be used to develop plutonium for nuclear weapons." Iran pledged, under the JCPOA deal, to "dismantle the [Arak] facility," the intelligence report states.
On the proliferation of atomic, biological and chemical weapons, a second report from Baden-Wurttemberg’s state intelligence agency report states: "Regardless of the number of national and international sanctions and embargoes, countries like Iran, Pakistan and North Korea are making efforts to optimize corresponding technology."
The 181-page document outlines the technology Iran is seeking: "Products and scientific know-how for the field of developing weapons of mass destruction as well [as] missile technology."
Iran’s illegal procurement and terrorist activities are cited 49 times in the report and range from cyberwarfare to espionage to support of the EU- and U.S.-classified terrorist organization Hezbollah.
The Baden-Wurttemberg report provides detail on Iran’s development of ballistic missiles with the aid of a Chinese front company. A Chinese import-export business approached a company in the southern German state that manufactures "complex metal producing machines" to buy equipment.
Berlin’s Federal Office for Economic Affairs and Export Control requested an end-use receipt for the Iranian purchase. The intelligence agency informed the engineering company that the merchandise was set to be unlawfully diverted to Iran. "This case shows that so-called indirect-deliveries across third countries is still Iran’s procurement strategy," wrote the intelligence officials.
Posted by: gorb ||
07/08/2017
00:35 ||
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#1
Anz, ze chermans are only too villingk to zell it to zem...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
07/08/2017 8:15
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A police officer wounded in a shooting rampage in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, last year that left three officers dead sued Black Lives Matter movement leaders on Friday, accusing them of inciting violence that spurred the attack.
The lawsuit filed in a U.S. district court in Louisiana named DeRay McKesson and four other Black Lives Matter leaders as defendants and sought at least $75,000 in damages.
It came on the one-year anniversary of one of the deadliest days in modern U.S. history for law enforcement. On July 7, 2016, a black man angered by what he saw as deadly racial bias in U.S. policing launched a downtown Dallas sniper attack, killing five officers deployed at a protest decrying police shootings of black men.
McKesson was not immediately available for comment and Black Lives Matter leaders have denied accusations that their movement promotes violence against police.
About 10 days after the Dallas shooting, a decorated ex-U.S. Marine sergeant opened fire on police in Baton Rouge, killing three officers.
Baton Rouge had been hit by waves of protests after two police officers earlier that month killed a black man, Alton Sterling, under questionable circumstances. The incident was caught on video and sparked national debate.
The officer wounded in Baton Rouge, who was not named in the lawsuit, was shot by "a person violently protesting against police, and which violence was caused or contributed to by the leaders of and by 'BLACK LIVES MATTER'," the filing said.
Gavin Long, the black gunman who killed the Baton Rouge officers and was later shot dead, identified himself as a member of an African-American offshoot of the anti-government, mostly white Sovereign Citizen Movement, documents showed.
Last year, McKesson and two other activists sued the Baton Rouge police department and other officials over the arrests of nearly 200 demonstrators during mostly peaceful protests over police killings.
BARA: A member of the tribal peace committee was killed while another sustained injuries in a hand grenade blast on Friday in Khyber Agency.
Levies sources said that the incident occurred in Zakha Khel area of Khyber Agency. "The hand grenade was in the possession of a member of the peace committee when it went off, killing him and injuring another," he said.
The body and injured were later shifted to the Agency Headquarters Hospital.
[IsraelTimes] None of the nine countries known or believed to possess nuclear weapons – including Israel – support legally binding pact.
To loud applause and cheers, Elayne Whyte Gomez, president of the UN conference that has been negotiating the legally binding treaty, announced the results of the “historic” vote — 122 nations in favor, the Netherlands opposed, and Singapore abstaining.
It will be opened for signatures in September and come into force when 50 countries have ratified it, she said.
But all nuclear states and NATO members have boycotted the negotiations except for the Netherlands, which voted against it.
Whyte Gomez said 129 countries signed up to take part in drafting the treaty, which represents two-thirds of the 193 member states. But all nuclear states and NATO members have boycotted the negotiations except for the Netherlands, which has US nuclear weapons on its territory and was urged by its parliament to send a delegation to the negotiations.
None of the nine countries known or believed to possess nuclear weapons — the United States, Russia, Britain, China, France, India, Pakistan, North Korea and Israel — is supporting the treaty.
JEDDAH: A new era is dawning on the people of Benghazi, Libya’s second-largest city, after the military leader in the country’s east, Khalifa Haftar, said his National Libyan Army had fully liberated Benghazi from terrorism.
Libyan political analyst Mohammed Akila Al-Imami told Arab News: “One of the factors that helped Haftar liberate the city is the international isolation of Qatar, which forced its followers in Libya to stop their militant activity.”
He added: “The tough situation that has surrounded Benghazi for the past three years culminated on Thursday in liberating the pockets that were fortified in the areas extending from the port of Benghazi to the Zirea area that’s adjacent to the Sabri area.”
The area “extends over 20 km from northwest Benghazi toward the east, and over 5 km from the north toward the southwest,” Al-Imami said.
“This residential area was the last resort for extremists who chose to bear arms against their citizens and were linked to Al-Qaeda… They dug tunnels under the houses they occupied and placed snipers on the roofs.”
The eastern Parliament in Tobruk appointed Haftar as leader of the Libyan army after he refused to recognize the Government of National Accord in Tripoli, headed by Fayez Al-Sarraj.
Al-Imami said Haftar’s army enjoys increasing public support, and has been able to attract many volunteers and officers who graduated from the military academy.
The liberation of Benghazi has come at a high cost, with an estimated death toll of 5,200, he said, adding that the city’s people hope for a unified Libya.
[AlAhram] An Egyptian national security officer was rubbed out on Friday by gunnies in the governorate of Qaliubiya, according to an interior ministry statement.
The person or persons unknown, who were riding a cycle of violence, shot the senior policeman while he was on his way to the mosque in the town of al-Jabal al-Asfar in the northern part of Greater Cairo.
This'll be Hasm or one of the other military "offshoots" of the Muslim Brotherhood that appeared last year.
The attack came hours after the Egyptian military said 26 soliders were killed or injured by boom-mobiles near a checkpoint in the North Sinai city of Rafah.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
07/08/2017
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[AlAhram] Ottoman Turkish police detained 29 suspected Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... group murderous Moslems in raids in Istanbul on Friday, the country's state-run news agency ...and if you can't believe the state-run news agency who can you believe?... reported.
Anadolu Agency said 22 of the murderous Moslems detained are foreign nationals, but the report didn't provide details on their nationalities. Seven of them are Ottoman Turkish citizens.
The suspects were detained in a police swoop targeting 20 different addresses around Istanbul, the agency reported. Police seized IS documents, digital material and one firearm during the raids.
It said the suspects are believed to have fought with IS in Syria and were making plans to return to the conflict-torn country.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
07/08/2017
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[Ynet] Officials say suspected Kurdish Death Eaters have detonated an improvised bomb in southeastern The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... as the armored vehicle of a district official was passing by. No one was hurt in the attack.
The blast occurred Friday in the town of Baykan in the mostly Kurdish province of Siirt. It came days after two ruling party officials serving in district organizations were killed in attacks also blamed on the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK.
Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu said an operation was launched in the area to catch the assailants, adding that such attacks would not "end (Turkey's) patience and determination" in the fight against the PKK.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
07/08/2017
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[Ynet] Ottoman Turkish authorities have seized or appointed an administrator to 965 companies with total annual sales of some 21.9 billion lira ($6 billion) in the year since an attempted coup in July 2016, Deputy Prime Minister Nurettin Canikli said on Friday.
Under the emergency rule imposed after the coup, Ottoman Turkish authorities took control of companies suspected of having links to followers of 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... , the US-based Moslemholy man blamed by Ankara for the failed military takeover.
The 965 companies under state management control, based in 43 provinces across The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... , have assets totalling some 41 billion lira ($11.3 billion) and employ 46,357 people, Canikli said in a written statement.
Turkey took control of a bank, industrial companies and media firms as part of the crackdown on companies accused of links to Gulen. He has denied involvement in the putsch.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
07/08/2017
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...also known as Aaron Daniels, Harun Muhammad, and Abu Yusuf, was another one who told his best friend, the FBI informant, all about his activities and plans. Naturally, this got him arrested at the most damning moment of his life thus far...
20, of Columbus, was arrested Nov. 7 as he tried to leave his city to travel to Libya to join the militant group, the department said in a statement.
A criminal complaint against him said Daniels sent $250 in January 2016 to an Islamic State operative
...actually to a Beirut intermediary for the formerly living Islamic State recruiter and attacks planner Abu Isa al-Amriki -- you can imagine what the communication looked like, dear Reader...
and had communicated his commitment to violent overseas jihad.
Daniels pleaded guilty in US District Court in Columbus and faces up to 20 years in prison when he is sentenced, officials said.
Darwin award material for sure.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
07/08/2017
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[IsraelTimes]Three convicts are members of the Nordic Resistance Movement, a violent far-right group.
A Swedish court on Friday sentenced three neo-Nazi activists for up to eight-and-a-half years in prison over kabooms against refugee shelters that left one person seriously injured.
"All three defendants have a common background in the Nordic Resistance Movement and have gotten to know each other through the movement’s activities," said a district court in Sweden’s second largest city, Gothenburg.
The Nordic Resistance Movement, founded in 1997, is described as the most violent Nazi organization in Sweden by the Swedish anti-racism magazine Expo.
Sweden, which took in the highest number of refugees per capita in Europe in 2015, saw dozens of arson attacks against refugee centers that same year. The culprits have rarely been caught.
The three men, aged 23, 50 and 20, were sentenced to eight years and six months, five years, and one year and six months in prison, respectively.
Two kabooms and one attempted attack took place between November and January.
The first incident occurred on November 11 when a bomb went off outside a Gothenburg building run by a far-left association. No one was injured in that blast.
This was followed by a second kaboom against an asylum home in a Gothenburg suburb on January 5. One staff cleaner was left with serious injuries to his legs.
A third bomb outside another asylum home located on a Gothenburg campsite failed to detonate on January 25.
Sweden, which took in the highest number of refugees per capita in Europe in 2015, saw dozens of arson attacks against refugee centers that same year. The culprits have rarely been caught.
"The defendants have realised that their actions posed danger to people’s lives and health," the Gothenburg court said, adding DNA traces from the 23-year-old were found on the bombs.
The Swedish intelligence service Sapo estimates that hundreds of violent hard boyz in Sweden come from far-right movements.
The Nordic Resistance Movement has nearly 200 active members, according to Expo.
#3
They should have said they were Muslims, welcoming new arrivals in a particularly Islamic way.
Posted by: Rob Crawford ||
07/08/2017 11:23
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#4
Once Christians are beaten in Eden,
Indigenous Shiites of Sweden --
More peaceful, of course,
Than those hateful old Norse --
Might, indignant, start smitin' the heathen.
[St. Louis Post Dispatch] ST. LOUIS • The minimum wage in St. Louis will revert to $7.70 an hour on Aug. 28, with Gov. Eric Greitens announcing on Friday that he will allow a bill blocking the city’s increase to become law without his signature.
When the Legislature sends the governor a bill, he has several options. He can sign it, veto it or take the middle course -- without action before a constitutional deadline, the bill automatically takes effect.
The bill in question bans local minimum wages, requiring all cities and municipalities in Missouri to stick to the statewide standard.
Minimum wage workers in St. Louis are making $10 an hour after winning a two-year legal fight against business groups who challenged a 2015 city ordinance authorizing an increase.
Under that city law, the wage was set to rise again in January to $11 an hour, then increase annually with inflation.
"It will kill jobs," Greitens said of the increase. "And despite what you hear from liberals, it will take money out of people’s pockets."
Both workers and businesses alike now face a jarring change ahead. It’s unclear whether many businesses as of Aug. 28 will seek to reduce pay to employees who have recently received increases.
It’s a situation the Missouri House had sought to avoid by fast-tracking its version of the bill to the Senate in March, in the hopes it could be signed into law before a court’s injunction on the increase was lifted in St. Louis. But the Senate didn’t take up the bill until the final hours of the 2017 legislative session.
#1
Someone in Jefferson City understands economics? (which by the way, your capital name is 'triggering', ever think of changing it? - do I need to put a /sarc on that?)
[TownHall] Senator Pat Toomey (R-PA) gave an extremely candid response Wednesday evening at a Town Hall meeting when asked about the Senate GOP’s struggle to repeal and replace Obamacare despite years of complaining about it.
"I didn’t expect Donald Trump to win, I think most of my colleagues didn’t, so we didn’t expect to be in this situation," Senator Toomey said. I seem to recall some 54 individual votes (possibly more), all failed, by the House to repeal Obamacare. Someone must have thought it needed some rejiggering.
Toomey conceded that the GOP’s lack of preparedness with the healthcare bill was "a valid criticism," adding that "part of the reason is you’ve seen how difficult it is to get a Republican consensus."
"Given how difficult it is to get to a consensus it was hard to force that until there was a need to and so that’s what we’ve been working on," Toomey explained.
"I will also say that there’s been a new wrinkle in this," he continued. "The early version, the early idea of how we would handle this difficult challenge was to pass a repeal bill that would be pretty much a clean repeal, stabilize the individual market, and set the repeal several years hence and have the opportunity in the meantime to work out the reforms. That’s all been collapsed now into a shorter timeframe."
Toomey, was a member of the Senate GOP’s working group on healthcare. He said he believes the Senate is still "several weeks away from a vote." Senate GOP "working group?" And please tell us what the "working group" has accomplished.
The Pennsylvania Senator also commented on President Trump’s friction with the media, pointing out that "every President has had tension with the press. I think it’s best to ignore it."
"My assessment is it’s mixed," Toomey said of Trump’s Presidency so far.
#1
This guy wouldn't be in office were it not for Trumps coat tails.
Posted by: Regular joe ||
07/08/2017 4:29
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#2
What he is saying is that the GOPe is just another side show of the WWE. The stunts are real, but it's orchestrated and fake, as in predetermined outcome. Enjoy the show peasants.
#3
PeeAye would be almost as red as Texas if Pissburgh and Eerie could be pawned off on WV and OH and Philthy could be annexed to NJ. Nuke Scranton and Allentown. Job done.
Instead, we get a progression of Snarlin Arlen clones and the notoriously dim-witted Casey clan.
I'ma movin' to FL. Nuff said...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
07/08/2017 9:34
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#4
Didn't expect him to win or worked hard for an acceptable establishment Hillary win?
#5
M. Murcek - Erie's congress critter is Mike Kelly, a Republican. He was voted in after Kathy Dahlkemper voted for Obamacare.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
07/08/2017 15:39
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#6
Translation: "So, we hadn't had a chance to consult with our ownersmasters sponsors at the insurance companies so that they tell us what they wanted."
Posted by: ed in texas ||
07/08/2017 18:39
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...also known as human shields, making ISIS responsible for putting them in danger according to the Geneva Conventions...
[Ynet] The Pentagon says US-led coalition Arclight airstrikes have killed a total of 603 civilians since the air campaign against 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 was launched in 2014.
The report released on Friday says coalition strikes between April 19 and May 23 that were assessed during the month of May killed 119 civilians.
The report says nearly half of all those civilian deaths occurred in or near djinn-infested Mosul ... the home of a particularly ferocious and hairy djinn... , but did not further specify locations. The coalition defines a credible casualty assessment as one that "more likely than not" resulted in civilian deaths.
The report added that in each case "all feasible precautions were taken and the decision to strike complied with the law of armed conflict."
Allegations of civilian casualties have spiked in Iraq and Syria in recent months as military operations against IS in Iraq's Mosul and also Syria have accelerated.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
07/08/2017
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[IsraelTimes] Dozens of jihadist fighters storm remote military outpost with suicide boom-mobile and heavy machine gun fire.
Islamic Death Eaters attacked a remote Egyptian army outpost in the Sinai Peninsula with a suicide boom-mobile and heavy machine gun fire on Friday, killing at least 26 soldiers in the deadliest attack in the turbulent region in two years.
At least four university students were killed and one other was wounded in a clash between government forces and the Taliban in Khwaja Sabz Posh district in Faryab province, local officials confirmed on Friday.
Khwaja Sabz Posh district governor Abdullah Masoumi said the incident took place in Chenarhai Sharaf Beg village in Khwaja Sabz Posh district when a group of student were traveling from Balkh to Fayab district, but he said they were trapped in the clash between security forces and the Taliban.
One of the students was wounded in the incident, he said.
The district governor added that two Public Order Police force members were wounded and a military tank was burnt in the conflict.
What's the difference between them and actual goose-stepping fascists? Nationalism, that's about it. The Left are Internationalists. What a difference two letters at the beginning of a word make.
[Rooters] Police gained the upper hand in Hamburg early on Saturday morning after a day of running festivities with anti-capitalist protesters seeking to disrupt the city's G20 summit of global leaders.
Heavily armed police commandos moved in after activists had spent much of the day attempting to wrest control of the streets from more than 15,000 police, setting fires, looting and building barricades.
With meetings between leaders of the club of 20 largest global economies finished for the day, police stormed the last holdouts, who had gathered in the Schanzenviertel district, an area known for its left-wing activism and culture of squatting.
With two months to go before she seeks re-election, 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... had hoped to cement Germany's growing global leadership role with a demonstration of its unwavering commitment to free speech, assembly and dissent by holding the summit in the center of a city with a proud radical tradition.
Protesters torched cars and lorries, smashed windows in banks, looted retail stores and hurled paving slabs and other objects before police managed to restore order. Some 197 officers were maimed after two days of festivities in the port city. Police made 19 arrests and detained dozens more.
Standing in a nearby falafel restaurant, Mohammad Halabi, 32, a Syrian who arrived in Germany as a refugee some 18 months before, surveyed the scene with disbelief.
"They are crazy. I can't believe my eyes," he said. "They have such a beautiful country and they're destroying it."
But G20 participants said they had never seen protesters closer to such a summit than in Hamburg and praised the work of police in keeping the event safe, suggesting Merkel's gamble had paid off.
Most of the 100,000 protesters were peaceful, hoisting signs saying the G20 leaders were not welcome, or engaging in mass bicycle processions through the city center wearing brightly coloured uniforms.
But in the night's most dramatic scenes, police pursued members of the radical Black Bloc movement, which wants to overthrow capitalism, across scaffolding as they sought refuge on rooftops. Below, burning barricades billowed thick smoke.
The summit is due to conclude on Saturday.
Posted by: Herb McCoy7309 ||
07/08/2017
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#1
The American is Luke Rudkowski. He does good work. He was on hand for the April 15 2nd Battle of Berkeley and he provided the best livestream by far. This isn't the 1st time he's been accosted by Antifa blackshirts
Posted by: Rex Mundi ||
07/08/2017 8:44
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#2
Nazi - I don't think you really understand what the word stands for, other than a hateful pejorative you toss off on your target.
#6
A Polish-American, being beaten up by Germans. While they call him a Nazi. Jeez, you can't make this stuff up.
Posted by: Herb McCoy7309 ||
07/08/2017 10:46
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#7
From Krakatoa, AoSHQ
If the fascist antifa and their liberal puppet masters manage to drum up the civil war they are agitating for, I guess at least I can look forward to setting my own hours.
Monday - Sharpen pointy sticks, weave grass nets.
Tuesday - Rest up, because, Tuesday.
Wednesday - hump day! Hobo/Hippy hunt!
Thursday - Use pointy sticks to prod captured hobos/hippies on Gilligan Island treadmill generator to power tv and vcr playing Gilligan's Island.
Friday - Release hobos and hippies in pot field with lots of rolling papers, and a single lighter.
Saturday - drink, eat, sleep.
Sunday - Rest, pray next week will be as good as last week.
Repeat.
Posted by: Rex Mundi ||
07/08/2017 11:34
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Sulaymaniyah (IraqiNews.com) An imam of a mosque has been killed in Sulaymaniyah of Iraqi Kurdistan, the Kurdish Islamic Group announced.
“Unknown gunmen opened fire on Friday at noon against imam of al-Rahman mosque, al-Sheikh Ahmed Deiri, as he was leaving the mosque, located in Qal’et Duza district, north of Sulaymaniyah, causing his immediate death,” Ribawar Hamad, spokesperson of the group, told AlSumaria News.
“Deiri has been in charge of the Islamic scholars at the Kurdistan Islamic Group,” Hamad added.
Despite being stable, violent incidents occasionally occurs at Sulaymaniyah.
Hawija (IraqiNews.com) Islamic State has burnt the ninth emir of Diyala province to death over reluctance in fulfilling duties ordered by the group, a local source from Kirkuk said on Friday.
Speaking to AlSumaria News, the source said “IS militants burnt on Friday the emir of Diyala at Hawija, southwest of Kirkuk after a decision was made the group’s so-called legislative court.”
“The execution of Diyala emir was attributed to being reluctant in fulfilling his duties and failing to achieve victories over the past few months,” the source said indicating information that attributes the emir death on opposing the designation of a Syrian national leader to supervise IS states, including the one in Diyala.
Tal Afar (IraqiNews.com) Islamic State has canceled the Friday prayers at all mosques in Tal Afar town, west of Mosul city and pledged posting an audio recording for the group’s leader to show he is still alive, a local source said.
“IS militants have banned the Friday prayers at all of Tal Afar mosques after a curfew was imposed in the wake of heavy shelling against procession of a prominent Arab leader there,” the source from Nineveh province told AlSumaria News on Friday.
In related news, the source, who preferred anonyimity, said, “IS distributed brief statement vowing to post a new audio recording for its leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi to show he is still alive.”
The militants, according to the source, “began to feel that Baghdadi’s disappearance and growing news over his death raise concerns of the group leaders and members, especially in Tal Afar, which could create divisions and conflicts on posts and profits.”
News reports circulated over the past few weeks have claimed that Baghdadi was killed in an airstrike in Syria.
Earlier this week, a source was quoted as saying that non-Iraqi IS militants executed the last local leader in Tal Afar and the town is currently run by Arab and foreign members after eliminating all the Iraqi leaders.
Tal Afar is one of the important strongholds still held by IS in Nineveh since August 2014. Prolly sounded like this
Posted by: badanov ||
07/08/2017
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London – Even the producers of the Johnny Depp-helmed “Pirates of the Caribbean” film franchise have not reached the heights of criminal imagination as the Houthis and Saleh militias in their threats to maritime traffic in Bab al-Mandab.
The strait, which witnesses 7 percent of the world’s maritime traffic, is the scene of a non-traditional war that is threatening the passage of some 25,000 ships annually and 4.7 million oil barrels daily, said a US Energy Information Administration report.
Saudi military expert Amro al-Ameri said that trade ships are the most vulnerable to the militia attacks because international law does not allow them to be armed.
He warned that the Houthi attacks are not limited against Arab Coalition ships, but they are a violation of international and maritime laws, which threatens world peace. He therefore underlined the need for political escalation from the entire world, not just the Arab Coalition, to confront the threat.
Ameri said that warships can confront the Houthi boats as they are equipped to deal with marine warfare. The difficulty lies in protecting civilian or trade ships, he said, because they travel in a “peaceful manner and are simply crossing the strait.”
They are not prepared for a confrontation with the Houthi threat and they often have a small crew that can just manage the operation and navigation of the vessel, he added.
Furthermore, international law prohibits these ships from carrying or stocking weapons and they should therefore be placed under its protection, he demanded.
“Iran’s threats to international maritime navigation should be interpreted politically before being interpreted militarily. The policy of political blackmail is one that Tehran adopts in promoting its revolutionary pride on the internal scene,” explained Ameri.
“On the international scene, it aims to bleed the US politically and force it to adopt a political approach that would yield political geo-strategic gains for it in the Arab Gulf and Arab and Red Seas,” he stressed.
Ameri said that the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, which was signed by 132 countries, ensures the freedom of navigation in all of the world’s straits.
Article 38 of the Convention stressed: “All ships and aircraft enjoy the right of transit passage, which shall not be impeded.”
According to Abdullah al-Juneid, a political researcher at Jordan’s CMT Studies Center, said that Iran is seeking to achieve geo-strategic goals in the Hormuz Strait, Arab Sea and Bab al-Mandab.
To that end, it has employed the “Qader” rocket that the Houthis have used in their criminal attack against an Emirati relief vessel, Swift, in the Red Sea on October 1, 2016, he continued.
Similar rocket attacks targeted a US destroyer and Arab Coalition ship.
The Qader rocket has a range beyond that of the Red Sea, meaning that several coastal locations can fall in the line of fire if these rockets are mounted on speedboats, he warned.
“Iran has even developed remote-controlled booby-trapped boats that were used to attack a Saudi frigate near the Hodeidah coast,” al-Juneid said.
This same tactic was used to target a Saudi oil platform in the Red Sea.
Until Britain categorically refuses to admit any migrants who arrive illegally from France, and France and Europe expeditiously sort through their migrants, immediately sending home those they are not going to accept, this kind of thing will only get worse. There are reportedly five million preparing to enter Europe illegally -- and if only 1% of them plan to commit or support jihad...
[AlAhram] Gay Paree authorities are evacuating some 1,500 migrants colonists from makeshift street camps as Europe contends with an upsurge in new arrivals particularly from Libya.
Police say the migrants colonists camped in the La Chapelle neighborhood on Gay Paree' northern edge are being taken Friday to temporary shelters in the region where they will be given medical checkups and guidance. City Hall says it is the 34th such operation in the past two years.
Under a heavy summer heat, groups of primarily African men and a few families lined up to board buses with a mixture of relief and apprehension. "We Need Dignity" read a handwritten sign next to a mattress stretched across cobblestones and surrounded by litter.
Tents, sleeping bags and rudimentary cardboard structures housing migrants colonists have sprung up on sidewalks and boulevards in the area. City authorities estimate that dozens of people fleeing conflict and poverty in Africa and the Middle East pour in daily to the French capital.
Many continue on to the port of Calais to try to cross to Britannia, but many stay in Gay Paree in hopes of finding unofficial work or to seek asylum.
In a statement, Gay Paree police said such unauthorized camps "present serious risks for the security and health of their occupants as well as neighborhood residents."
About 350 police and 100 other officials are involved in Friday's operation. The migrants colonists will be given "proposals for orientation" to other sites scattered around La Belle France where they can try to seek legal paths to residency, police said. Some may eventually be deported.
Arrivals have grown this summer around Europe, notably as more people are taking the risky sea journey from Libya. Top EU officials are meeting Friday in Estonia to try to find solutions.
Gay Paree Mayor Anne Hidalgo is pressing the national government for a law enshrining more robust measures to accommodate the migrant flow and provide better humanitarian conditions.
President Emmanuel Macron's government is expected to announce a set of measures to respond to the migrant crisis next week.
A center opened last year in northern Gay Paree to help asylum-seekers has provided temporary shelter for 12,000 people but is not large enough to care for everyone.
[Philadelphia News and Opinion] Normally, when we get a press release from a local theater company about its latest work, the press release includes, you know, the name of the play. But Philly theater company Lightning Rod Special bucked that trend this week went they sent us a notice announcing its musical comedy about abortion, which debuts in August at the Painted Bride.
"We were going with ’Fetus Chorus,’" explains co-creator Alice Yorke, pictured below. "But there were a lot of mixed feelings about it. The best comment we got was, ’I understand you want to provoke your audience, but do you want to do that in the theater or before they even get there?’"
The abortion musical has its roots at the Pig Iron School for Advanced Performance Training, where Yorke and the co-creators studied. Yorke says it was there that she developed a character of an "irate gun-toting fetus running around and shouting about how it would kill anyone who tried to hurt it."
In those early days, there was also a Busby Berkeley-inspired song-and-dance kick-line of fetuses, though Yorke isn’t sure that it will be included in the final version.
Yorke, a 31-year-old South Philadelphia resident, tells Philly Mag that the company is currently debating other titles. Her favorite is "The A Word." Others in the mix: "Baby Girl," "Mine," "Monster," and "Wanted."
Now, if you’re thinking that this is just some pro-choice propaganda, Yorke downplays that idea.
"We’re definitely, as makers, on one side," Yorke admits. "But we’re trying to ride a funny line. This isn’t self-congratulatory. I want us to examine why we feel this way. I want people to reckon with themselves. This is a show about personhood, the right to bodily autonomy, and the violence of the partisan politics that surrounds this issue."
#2
A red-headed fetus. It giggled:
When stainless met stainless, it tickled.
It really was silly...
How funny for Philly
If Alice's feet had been pickled!
#5
An edge, a vagina, a veggie
(whatever... the lines are so stretchy!),
And scanning (like tanning!)
For gender (just planning!)...
The image was smudgy (don't judge me!).
Housekeeping Note: I've added a notation on the line for each gun in each state denoting the highest number of that category available for private sale. I suspect this number will go down some in the coming months, but you never know what will happen in a complex market environment such as used firearms for private sale.
Erudite former special operations blogger Hognose died a few weeks ago of a massive heart attack, but thankfully the Weapons Man blog lives on. Mentioned recently is the author's contention that the usual statistic of 300 million firearms owned by US citizens is actually double, possibly as high as 660 million firearms. You can read their explication here.
Pistol ammunition prices were mixed. Rifle ammunition prices were mixed.
Prices for used pistols were mixed. Prices for used rifles were higher across the board.
New Lows:
None
Pistol Ammunition
.45 Caliber, 230 Grain, From Last Week: -.03 Each
Cheapest, 50 rounds: Ammo 2 U, CCI, FMJ, Brass Casing, .20 per round
Cheapest Bulk, 500 rounds: J&G Sales, Own Brand, FMJ, Steel Casing, .20 per round (From Last Week: Unchanged (2Q, 2017))
.40 Caliber Smith & Wesson, 180 Grain, From Last Week: Unchanged (5 Weeks)
Cheapest, 50 rounds: Ammo Valley, Own Brand, RNFP, Brass Casing, Reloads, .18 per round
Cheapest Bulk, 500 rounds: Ammo Valley, Own Brand, FMJ, Brass Casing, Reloads, .18 per round (From Last Week: Unchanged (5 Weeks))
9mm Parabellum, 115 Grain, From Last Week: -.01 Each
Cheapest, 50 rounds: Patriot Outfitters Guns, Own Brand, FMJ, Brass Casing, Reloads .14 per round
Cheapest Bulk, 1,000 rounds: SG Ammo, Barnaul, FMJ, Steel Casing, .14 per round (From Last Week: Unchanged (2Q, 2017))
.357 Magnum, 158 Grain, From Last Week: -.01 Each After Unchanged (1Q, 2017)
Cheapest, 50 rounds: Outdoor Limited, Tulammo, FMJ, Steel Casing, .23 per round
Cheapest Bulk: 1,000 rounds: Outdoor Unlimited, Tulammo, FMJ, Steel Casing, .22 per round (From Last Week: -.02 Each After Unchanged (5 Weeks))
.38 Special, 158 Grain, From Last Week: Unchanged (9 Weeks)
Cheapest, 50 rounds: Highland Lakes Ammo, Own Brand, FP, Brass Casing, Reloads .24 per round
Cheapest Bulk: 1,000 rounds: Western Arms & Ammo, Own Brand, TMJ, Brass Casing, Reloads .24 per round (From Last Week: Unchanged (2Q, 2017))
Rifle Ammunition
.223 Caliber/5.56mm 55 Grain, From Last Week: -.01 Each
Cheapest, 20 rounds: Ammomen, Wolf WPA, FMJ, Steel Casing, .19 per round
Cheapest Bulk, 500 rounds: Outdoor Unlimited, Wolf WPA, FMJ, Steel Casing, .19 per round (From Last Week: -.01 Each After Unchanged (2Q, 2017))
.308 NATO 150 Grain, From Last Week: Unchanged (2 Weeks)
Cheapest, 20 rounds: Outdoor Unlimited, Tulammo, FMJ, Steel Casing, .32 per round
Cheapest Bulk, 500 rounds: Outdoor Unlimited, Tulammo, FMJ, Steel Casing, .32 per round (From Last Week: Unchanged (2 Weeks))
7.62x39mm AK 123 Grain, From Last Week: -.01 Each After Unchanged (1Q, 2017)
Cheapest, 20 rounds: Ammo King, Wolf WPA, Steel Casing, FMJ, .20 per round
Cheapest Bulk, 1,000 rounds: Outdoor Unlimited, Wolf WPA, Steel Casing, FMJ, .19 per round (From Last Week: -.01 Each After Unchanged (1Q, 2017))
.30-06 Springfield 145 Grain. From Last Week: Unchanged (2Q, 2017)
Cheapest, 20 rounds: Outdoor Unlimited, Wolf WPA, Steel Casing, FMJ, .54 per round
Cheapest Bulk, 500 rounds: United Nations Ammo, Wolf WPA, Steel Casing, FMJ, .54 per round (From Last week: Unchanged (1Q, 2017))
.300 Winchester Magnum 150 Grain, From Last Week: Unchanged (3 Weeks)
Cheapest, 20 rounds: Selway Armory, Prvi Partizan, Brass Casing, SP, .82 per round
Cheapest Bulk, 1,000 rounds: Ammo Liquidator, Winchester, Brass Casing, SP, .87 per round (From Last Week: Unchanged (4 Weeks))
.338 Lapua Magnum 250 Grain, From Last Week: -.18 Each After Unchanged (4 Weeks)
Cheapest, 20 rounds: Ammo Liquidator, Federal Eagle, Brass Casing, JSP, 2.17 per round
Cheapest Bulk, 200 rounds: Wholesale Hunter, Federal American Eagle, Brass Casing, HP, 2.36 per round (From Last Week: Unchanged (2 Weeks))
.22 LR 40 Grain, From Last Week: Unchanged (8 Weeks)
Cheapest, 50 rounds: Ammo King, Aguila, RNL, .04 per round
Cheapest Bulk, 500 rounds: Ammo King, Aguila, RNL, .04 per round (From Last Week: Unchanged (8 Weeks))
#2
Wow! A 0.460 BB gun. One should not have a need for a suppressor with this gun. I've got a little Beeman Tempest single shot air gun but it's about as much fun as one can have with his/her clothes on. I've used in inside the house in a little shooting gallery set-up and in the backyard. It helps keep the shooting skills sharp.
#3
Look, I love Ambrose, and got the audio of Undaunted Courage.
16 hour round trip. Didn't get past St. Louis. Narrator, text, whatever, had to take breaks to keep from dozing.
It isn't bad; it is very detailed. Driving across the high plains after two days of celebration is not the ideal time to contemplate choices and changes in provisions. Like I said: 16 hours. St. Louis.
Military forces massing around Tripoli, planning to overthrow the Presidency Council (PC) and re-install Khalifa Ghwell in power halted their advance after PC head Faiez Serraj ordered forces in the capital to resist them and called on “friendly countries” to take action “to ensure the security of the capital and to protect civilians in the event of any recklessness by these rogue groups”.
The PC described the militants as “outlaws”, saying they would be be dealt with decisively with force.
The call to friendly countries has been interpreted as a request to western powers to bomb the militants.
Several different forces are said to have rallied to the offensive. Apart from Saleh Badi’s Samoud forces from Misrata, another Misratan commander, Mohamed Issa, was said to be in Tarhouna today rallying the Kani brigade and the forces of Salah Marghani, while Zawia Islamist commander Abu Obeida Al-Zawi was said to be preparing his forces. So too was Amazigh Islamist leader Said Kuwejil whose militiamen were forced out of the capital along with all the other militias supporting Ghwell at the end of May.
Badi himself was reported to be in Gharyan trying to encourage forces there to join the movement, while there were claims that Ghwell had provided a number of vehicles to militants in Emsalata to ensure they joined as well.
Altogether, it was reported that some 300 armed vehicles supporting Ghwell had moved towards Tripoli yesterday. Those coming from Misrata were reported to have stopped Garabulli, some 60 kilometres weat fo Tripoli, following Serraj’s warning.
This evening, though, there were reports that armored vehicles belonging to the Benghazi Defence Brigades had entered the Nakeel resort near Tajoura. Residents in the area also reported hearing jets flying overhead.
During the day, the PC mobilised its security services in the ministries of interior and defence and the Presidential Guard. Two of the most powerful militia leaders supporting the PC, those led by Haitham Tajouri and Abdul Ghani Al-Kikli (Ghneiwa) have moved forces into several locations in the capital. Ghneiwa reinforced positions on the Airport Road, in Abu Sleem and in Hadba.
Serraj also discussed plans with senior commanders to confront the threat from the Ghwell forces. The commanders of the central and western military regions, Mohammed Al-Haddad and Osama Al-Juwaili, also looked reviewed strategy with interior minister Arif Khoja.
Whether they are prepared to bomb the militants, the Ghwell push appears to have cause some alarm among the PC’s international allies. Following the PC statement, British ambassador Peter Millett tweeted: “Tripoli is calm. Agree that criminals pose threat to civilians. Important that they will no cause violence.”
This was echoed by the Italian embassy which said: “Stop playing with the security of the capital. Respect its citizens and their safety. Tripoli belongs to all.”
UNSMIL followed suit, saying it was “disturbed by reports of armed groups mobilising around Tripoli. Remind parties of duty to protect civilians under International Law.” It also reiterated its support for the PC.
[LibyaHerald] The victory celebrations in Benghazi have been marred by the death of a woman and child hit by spent bullets fired off by triumphant soldiers and police.
Besides the two dead, Jalaa hospital reported that eight people had been injured not all of them by spent rounds. At least two people were injured by the many fireworks let off in the street.
Convoys of hooting cars including police patrol vehicles with sirens blaring continued to parade around the city until the early hours of this morning and the celebrations resumed after Friday prayers. A large number of people gathered in Kish square, chanting, cheering, waving flags and giving out sweets. Two years ago demonstrators in the same square were hit by mortars fired from militant-held Sabri and nine people were killed.
Because school is now out for the holidays, those children who were not taking year-end exams seemed to be everywhere, many giving military salutes with either hand.
The municipality and civil society organisations have been meeting to plan the clean-up and restoration of their city. However, apart from the sewerage that has flooded out from broken drainage pipes and formed noxious ponds in both Suq Al-Hout and Sabri, where the militants made their final stand, there is a considerable danger from unexploded ordinance, mines and boobytraps that hard-pressed Libyan National Army (LNA) engineers have not yet had time to clear.
The liberation of the city, bar the last militant remnants holed up in a few buildings in Sidi Akribesh, has probably meant most for the few inhabitants who refused to leave when militants seized control of their district. LNA members posted footage of one family emerging tearfully and an old lady be hugged by a soldier as she wept with relief.
Nevertheless, some home owners have risked triggering explosions and already gone back to their Sabri properties, either to see what is left of them or because they can no longer afford to stay as internally displaced people elsewhere in the city.
It appears also that not everyone has entered Sabri with honest intentions. The LNA said today they had arrested a suspected looter in possession of a flat screen television set.
[LibyaHerald] Three soldiers attached to Libyan National Army (LNA) and two of their friends were found shot dead today in Wadi Rabie, near Tripoli International Airport.
The three were members of Brigade 103, which belongs to the LNA’s western command. In a statement this evening mourning them, it said they had been shot “treacherously.”
Naming four of them as Ghassan Shahima, Wajdi Shahima, Ahmed Al-Alem and Ahmed Al-Yacoubi (the identity of the fifth man has not been announced), it said they were originally from Tajoura and had been visiting friends and family in the capital for the first time in a long time. They had then gone missing, only to be found dead at dawn this morning.
It vowed to avenge their deaths which it blamed on Tripoli’s militias. It did not state which ones.
Wadi Rabie, consisting mainly of farms, is largely in the hands of militias opposed to both the Presidency Council and the LNA.
Brigade 103, formerly Brigad 101, is operating in the Bir Ghanem area, 90 kilometres southwest of the capital.
[ARA News] Dr. Nasr Haji Mansour, a senior SDF advisor, said in an exclusive interview with ARA News that until now 25 per cent of Raqqa city has been retaken.
“More than 25% of Raqqa city is liberated from ISIS terrorists. It looks like it [the anti-ISIS Raqqa operation] will last a little bit more, may be one month if surprises won’t happen, and if the advancement goes like this,” Mansour said.
Also, US Colonel Joe Scrocca, the Coalition’s Director of Public Affairs, confirmed the SDF’s rapid advance.
“The SDF [Syrian Democratic Forces] is making significant progress on several axes against heavy ISIS resistance in Raqqa,” Col Scrocca said.
The colonel refused “to put a timeline on these efforts” but struck a positive note, saying: “The liberation of Raqqa will be a significant achievement in the Coalition’s mission to defeat [ISIS] by, with, and through our partner forces.”
Lieutenant General Stephen Townsend, the commander of the anti-ISIS Coalition, told CBS news last week that the battle for Raqqa was just getting under way. “I think we’re in the first 25-30% of the campaign for Raqqa […] We’re just getting started.”
Canadian Armed Forces Brigadier General D.J. Anderson told reporters on Thursday that the SDF has made significant progress.
“Our partner force in Raqqa, the Syrian Democratic Forces, have just completed the first month of offensive operations to defeat ISIS in their self-declared capital,” he said.
“The SDF have taken about 45 square kilometers of ground from ISIS in and around the city of Raqqa this past week. On Monday night, the SDF gained a foothold into the old city of Raqqa by breaching the ancient al-Rafiqa Wall, and they are now progressively pushing further into the city,” he said.
“The SDF are exerting pressure on ISIS from four different fronts throughout the city. With a push to the east along the southern portion of the Euphrates River, ISIS is now completely encircled by SDF forces,” said General Anderson.
“The fight in Raqqa is going well, but we know there will be tough days ahead. However, I’m confident that our partner forces are up to the task,” he concluded.
Posted by: Frozen Al ||
07/08/2017
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[REUTERS] Sears Holdings Corp (SHLD.O) is closing eight of its namesake department stores and 35 Kmart locations to cut costs and square footage in an effort to return to profitability, Chief Executive Officer Eddie Lampert said on Friday. Close stores = increased profits.
The store closings are in addition to 150 the company announced in January. Once the largest U.S. retailer, Sears has struggled with years of losses and declining sales as shoppers have shifted from the mall to the web. The company said in February it would cut costs this year by at least $1 billion. Zero stores = infinite profits
Shares of Sears fell as much as 4.8 percent in afternoon trading. Just ask Montgomery Ward.
"This is part of a strategy both to address losses from unprofitable stores and to reduce the square footage of other stores because many of them are simply too big for our current needs," Lampert wrote in a blog post. (bit.ly/2u03gDc)
A Sears spokesman declined to say how many jobs would be lost from these store closures. He said employees who are eligible would receive severance and be able to apply for open positions at area Sears or Kmart stores.
Lampert added that Sears expects to open more smaller-format stores while shrinking its large, less-competitive ones. He said Sears was on track to meet its cost-cutting targets.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/08/2017
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[3 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
60 years ago, I enjoyed going to the local Sears. It was a multi-floor that had everything except the car service in one building. It was fun to roam around.
#3
...And yet somehow, the KMart right around the corner from us has survived the axe once again. At the rate things are going, I expect one of these days they'll rebrand as Highlander Mart.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
07/08/2017 12:29
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#4
I can remember the sporting goods section of a Montgomery Wards having a barrel with Mauser rifles sticking out of it for sale. Times, they have changed.
Posted by: Frozen Al ||
07/08/2017 13:08
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#6
Sears was doomed when they stopped sending out the catalogues with the hole in the corner to hang it on a nail in the outhouse...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
07/08/2017 15:24
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#7
Al, actually, while x/0 is infinity for x not = 0, 0/0 is indeterminate- in other words, an accountants dream - it can be anything you want it to be.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
07/08/2017 15:25
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#8
...I remember a briefing at one job where they outlined our goals for 'lean manufacturing' - a 10% reduction in costs and workforce every year for the next ten years, with a 10% yearly INCREASE in production. (That's exactly how they explained it, BTW)
I did the math, and pointed out that meant in 10 years we would be making 100% more product every year at no cost and with no one working there.
For some reason, I was no longer employed there not long thereafter.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
07/08/2017 15:31
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#11
I talked to an old friend lately about some problems he had with Sears. I basically eventually wound up at "If all you can get there is Chinese crap, why not go to Harbor Freight where it's at least priced more appropriately?"
Since Stanley Black & Decker now own 'control' Craftsman, Might as well buy tools etc from Harbor Freight as they apparently all come from the same places
Mosul (IraqiNews.com) Two Iraqi journalists and a policeman were killed on Friday in an attack by the Islamic State militants, south of Mosul, a security source said.
In remarks to Shafaq News, the source said “correspondent of Houna Salahuddin channel, Harb Hazzaa, and photojournalist, Sou’dad al-Tikriti, were killed as IS militants attacked al-Imam village, in Qayyarah, south of Mosul.”
The attackers, including snipers, used different weapons, the source said adding that a policeman was killed, while three others were wounded.
Other sources said that Ali Akab, a photojournalist at the media service of Salahuddin province, was also injured during attacks that have been launched by the militants since Thursday.
The militants, according to the sources, are still besieging a team of journalists along with police personnel in al-Imam village.
Brigadier General Saad Maan, spokesman for the Ministry of Interior, said security leaders are in communication with the militants to release those besieged and that troops have been deployed near them.
On Wednesday, twenty-five tribal forces personnel were killed and injured in an attack launched by IS in the same village.
Iraqi troops had liberated Qayyarh in August.
Last month, an Iraqi and French journalists were killed, two other French journalists were wounded as an IED blast occurred in Mosul’s Old City.
MOSUL/TIKRIT: Daesh militants attacked a village south of Mosul, killing several people including two journalists, even as they were about to lose their last redoubt in the city to an Iraqi military onslaught, security sources said on Friday.
The assault on Imam Gharbi village appeared to be the sort of diversionary, guerrilla-style strike tactics Daesh is expected to focus on as US-backed Iraqi forces regain control over cities Daesh captured in a shock 2014 offensive.
Security sources said Daesh insurgents had infiltrated Imam Gharbi, some 70 km south of Mosul on the western bank of the Tigris river on Wednesday evening from a pocket of territory still under their control on the eastern bank.
The journalists were killed and two others wounded as they covered the security forces’ counterattack to take back the village on Friday. An unknown number of civilians and military were also killed or wounded in the clashes.
“Iraq is among the top three most deadly countries for the fourth year in a row,” the Committee to Protect Journalists said of 2016.
And Reporters Without Borders, another media rights watchdog, termed it “one of the world’s most dangerous countries for journalists.”
An Iraqi officer said: “It is confirmed that there are more than 10 families kidnapped by Daesh members, among them women and children, and there are martyrs and wounded among the civilians and journalists and security forces.”
The fighting forced the UN-affiliated International Organization for Migration (IOM) to suspend relief operations at two sites where it houses nearly 80,000 people near Qayyara, just north of Imam Gharbi, a UN statement said.
IOM spokesman Joel Millman said local staffers were instructed to stay home and not enter the camps following a curfew and restrictions on movement imposed by Iraqi authorities.
He said six water-tanker trucks commissioned by the Ministry of Displacement and Migration were prevented from entering the Haj Ali camp, where temperatures have reached the low 50 degree Celsius in recent days.
Humanitarian groups have repeatedly suspended operations in and around Mosul since the fight to retake the city from Daesh began last October.
Daesh has clung to a slowly shrinking pocket on the Tigris west bank, battling for every meter with snipers, grenades and suicide bombers, which forced Iraqi troops to fight house to house in densely populated blocks.
Airstrikes and artillery salvos continued to pound Daesh’s last Mosul bastion on Friday, a Reuters TV crew said.
Adhel Abu Ragheef, a Baghdad-based expert on terrorist groups, said Daesh was likely to carry out “more of these raid-type attacks on security forces to try to divert them away from the main battle,” now in Mosul and then in other areas west of Mosul including near the Syrian border still under Daesh control.
The UN predicts it will cost more than $1 billion to repair basic infrastructure in Mosul. Iraq’s regional Kurdish leader said on Thursday in a Reuters interview that the Baghdad central government had failed to prepare a post-battle political, security and governance plan.
The offensive has damaged thousands of structures in the Old City and destroyed nearly 500 buildings, satellite imagery released by the UN showed.
In some of the worst affected areas, almost no buildings appear to have escaped damage, and Mosul’s dense construction means the extent of the devastation might be underestimated, UN officials said.
Posted by: badanov ||
07/08/2017
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The Baghlan-Kunduz highway was reopened to traffic on Friday after four days of clashes between government forces and the Taliban, local officials said.
Taliban had established check posts in Omarkhail and Madrassa villages in Ali Abad district along the highway, said Sayed Qurban Musawi, executive officer of Pamir 20th Division.
The check posts were removed and the Taliban suffered heavy losses in the battle, Musawi added.
“At least 23 militants were killed and 13 others were wounded (in the offensive). The security forces have foiled the mines planted on the highway by the insurgents. The highway is opened now,” he stated.
Kunduz security officials also said all the villages close to the Baghlan-Kunduz highway have been cleared of militants.
“We conducted an operation against their (militants’) check post and killed eight of them. Others escaped. Ten of them are wounded and are in bad condition,” said Alimshah Adib, head of Afghan Public Protection Force in Kunduz.
“A military outpost should be established here in order to prevent a comeback by the Taliban,” said Jan Agha, the police chief for Ali Abad district.
Kunduz residents their houses were used as strongholds by insurgents in the four-day fighting, leaving damages to houses.
Civilian houses in Ali Abad district in Kunduz
“Taliban’s stronghold was in this house. There were heavy and light weapons in this house,” said Nazar Mohammad, a resident of Kunduz.
The fighting was intense in Madrassa and Omarkhail villages in the past four days compared to other parts of the province, local officials said.
The battle in Kunduz started on Sunday when the Taliban attacked security forces’ outpost in parts of the province, including the outskirts of Kunduz city.
A mother of two children was killed in the Lelonai area of Shangla, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, on Friday afternoon, in what police suspect was an honour killing.
An official in the Alpuri Police Station, Arif Khan, told Dawn.com that a girl, identified as Zainab Bibi, was believed to have been shot dead by her brothers-in-law.
Khan said the police suspect that Zainab was killed on suspicion of having relations with a man named Mehmood, who had been killed in February this year by Umar Zada, Zainab's husband, and his brother.
Zainab had been married to Zada for about six years and the couple had two children together.
Khan said a police team had been dispatched to the scene of the crime, while the victim's body had been taken to District Headquarter Hospital Alpuri for a post-mortem examination.
Two accused had been nominated in the killing of the girl, namely Rehmat Khan and Sultan-e-Room. Police have lodged an FIR in the case and are hunting for the culprits.
Police and security forces on Friday launched a crackdown in Quetta and adjoining areas, arresting 98 suspects after the target-killing spree that claimed five lives over a 24-hour period.
There has been no claim of responsibility for the killings as yet.
"Police and Frontier Corps conducted a search operation in Killi Ismail and adjoining areas and detained 98 suspects in connection with recent targeted killings," Deputy Inspector General (DIG) Razzaq Cheema told DawnNews.
He said that two brothers of a banned militant outfit's commander were among those detained by police for interrogation.
Police and Frontier Corps had launched the joint operation following the targeted killing of a Balochistan Constabulary personnel.
"We will set the innocent people free after interrogation", Cheema assured, adding that security had been tightened in and around Quetta in the aftermath of the targeted killings.
Security challenges
Balochistan has faced a number of security challenges in recent months, with security personnel in the province often being targeted in roadside explosions.
Earlier this month, three security officials were injured after an improvised explosive device (IED) seemingly targeted their vehicle in the Johan area of Kalat.
Days later, two navy sailors were martyred and at least three others were wounded when their vehicle was attacked in the Jiwani area of Gwadar district.
In May, at least 10 labourers were killed in Balochistan's Gwadar district when unidentified assailants opened fire at the construction site where they were working.
[IsraelTimes] Russian FM says president accepted counterpart’s assurances that there was no meddling; Tillerson claims Russians asked for proof of interference.
Aaaaaannnnd the ball is smashed in the faces of those back home making the accusation. Show your evidence, guys.
[Ynet] Europe's bailout fund has approved the payment of 8.5 billion euros ($9.6 billion) in rescue loans to Greece, a long-delayed installment under the country's third international bailout.
Friday's approval by the European Stability Mechanism was the final formality before the funds can be released to the debt-laden country. The first disbursement of 7.7 billion euros is to be made Monday, with 6.9 billion earmarked for servicing debts and the remainder for clearing arrears, the fund said.
Greece reached a deal with international lenders last month on implementing more austerity measures, including tax hikes and pension cuts, in return for the installment.
The disbursement of the remainder will come after Sept. 1 if Greece "makes significant progress" in clearing arrears using its own resources as well as bailout funds.
#1
Greece reached a deal with international lenders last month on implementing more austerity measures, including tax hikes and pension cuts, in return for the installment.
And as long as we're dreaming, I'd like a pony.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
07/08/2017 15:40
Comments ||
Top||
Baghdad (IraqiNews.com) Two civilians were wounded in a bomb blast that occurred in southern Baghdad, a police source said on Friday.
“A bomb planted on the side of the road near a market in al-Suwaib region, south of Baghdad, exploded on Friday morning, leaving two civilians injured,” the source, who preferred anonymity, told AlSumaria News.
“Police and ambulances headed to the accident spot. The injured were transferred to hospital for treatment,” the source added.
More than 700 Iraqis were killed and wounded during the month of June as result of violence and armed conflicts, according to a monthly count by the United Nations Assistance Mission in Iraq (UNAMI) which excludes security members deaths. Baghdad ranked the second place with 22 deaths and 88 injuries.
According to a previous count by UNAMI, 824 Iraqis were killed and wounded during the month of May.
Bombings and armed attacks are seen on on almost a daily basis against security members, paramilitary groups and civilians since the Iraqi government launched a wide-scale campaign to retake IS-occupied areas in 2016.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[NYT] A man trying to evade a parole officer jumped from the eighth floor of a building in a Manhattan housing complex on Friday, sustaining only a broken ankle in the fall, the police said.
A Tampa man was sentenced to four months in jail Friday after participating in an inauguration day riot that injured six police officers and cost tens of thousands of dollars in damages in Washington D.C.
[Hot Air] In Warsaw, as Ed Morrissey points out, Trump offered leaders from Poland and numerous other European countries long-term LNG deals to diversify their supplies and avoid creating undesirable political leverage with a certain large country to the East that has not hesitated to cut off natural gas supplies for political reasons.
[AyPee] WASHINGTON (AP) -- The FBI and the U.S. Army investigated complaints from four women that Hall of Fame basketball coach Bob Knight groped them or touched them inappropriately during a visit to a U.S. spy agency in 2015, an investigation that concluded a year later without charges, The Washington Post reported Friday.
[Guardian] It is a blossoming bromance. In what one US-based critic called a "first Tinder date", Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin talked for two and a quarter hours on Friday instead of their scheduled 30 minutes.
Startling new evidence from German intelligence reports shows the Tehran regime is working to illegally obtain technology and know-how to advance its nuclear weapons and missile programs, despite the 2015 agreement to curb its nuclear program.
A police officer wounded in a shooting rampage in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, last year that left three officers dead sued Black Lives Matter movement leaders on Friday, accusing them of inciting violence that spurred the attack.
[TownHall] Senator Pat Toomey (R-PA) gave an extremely candid response Wednesday evening at a Town Hall meeting when asked about the Senate GOP’s struggle to repeal and replace Obamacare despite years of complaining about it.
[Philadelphia News and Opinion] Normally, when we get a press release from a local theater company about its latest work, the press release includes, you know, the name of the play. But Philly theater company Lightning Rod Special bucked that trend this week went they sent us a notice announcing its musical comedy about abortion, which debuts in August at the Painted Bride.
[LibyaHerald] The victory celebrations in Benghazi have been marred by the death of a woman and child hit by spent bullets fired off by triumphant soldiers and police.
[SouthFront.org] 
A mother of two children was killed in the Lelonai area of Shangla, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, on Friday afternoon, in what police suspect was an honour killing.
