[JPost] - The IDF will be establishing a new Iran Command as one of the top priorities of Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Aviv Kochavi’s multiyear Momentum Plan, which aims to obtain a considerable military advantage over Israel’s foes.
The new Iran Command will be led by a major general and will be dedicated to and focused on analyzing threats posed by Iran and planning Israel’s campaign against the Islamic Republic.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru ||
02/13/2020
15:56 ||
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For Besoeker
[WYFF4] Maesaiah Thabane, the first lady of the tiny mountain kingdom of Lesotho, always knew how to make an entrance.
After weeks in hiding in South Africa, allegedly helped by a recently appointed spokesman who sneaked her away in a government-issue car, Thabane crossed back into Lesotho Feb. 4, passing a phalanx of security forces, and promptly handed herself over to special police.
Later that evening, crown prosecutors charged Thabane with the 2017 murder of Lesotho's previous first lady -- her husband's previous wife -- Lipolelo Thabane, and the attempted murder of another woman.
Maesaiah Thabane was taken into custody.
The first lady's legal team didn't respond to phone calls and text messages from CNN over several days.
The shocking details of the case have gripped this country of fewer than 2 million people, which is entirely surrounded by South Africa, forced Prime Minister Thomas Thabane to promise his resignation and opened the lid on the murky power politics that have long dominated Lesotho's culture.
Unknown assailants gunned down Lipolelo Thabane outside her house in June 2017, just two days before her estranged husband was inaugurated for his second term as PM.
Lipolelo Thabane was shot dead two days before her estranged husband’s inauguration for a second term as PM.
The couple had been separated for some time, but had never formally divorced, and a court had ruled that Lipolelo should keep the benefits and perks that came with the position of first lady.
Her murder paved the way for Maesaiah, who had been in a relationship with the prime minister for several years, to take on that role.
#4
NY Governor says he WILL give Feds access to state DMV records if Trump reverses ban on 175,000 New Yorkers accessing trusted traveler schemes
So Cuomo will do something for Trump if Trump does something for Cuomo. Hey, isn't that like one of those quid pro quo thingies? I hear you can get in trouble for that.
[Mil.com] Legendary actor and activist for veteran causes Gary Sinise was honored by the Congressional Medal of Honor Society with its Patriot Award on February 5th at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California.
The Congressional Medal of Honor Society is a group made up of Medal of Honor recipients. Each year they present the Patriot Award to "those persons, who through their life's work, have distinguished themselves as Americans who are dedicated to freedom and the ideals represented," according to a Department of Defense release.
The Patriot Award committee also looks to honor individuals who demonstrate of the six values embodied by the Medal of Honor: courage, sacrifice, commitment, integrity, citizenship and patriotism. Most recently that was Sinise.
"I've made such good friends amongst this incredible group of people, and to have them acknowledge me is just a great, great honor," Sinise said during the ceremony.
#2
Indeed, well deserved. Sinese is a good, hard-working, humble guy; working hard for vets. Refreshing in a time when so many in Hollywood are Meatheads.
[American Thinker] With impeachment receding in his rear-view mirror, and with the Democrat party fielding the weakest and most socialist crop of candidates since 1972, President Trump is feeling his oats. No wonder, then, that he’s got Bill Barr’s Justice Department working overtime to drain the Swamp.
In a recent interview with Lou Dobbs, Nunes obliquely suggested that the same attorneys who apparently railroaded the Roger Stone trial and then pressed for a seven-to-nine-year sentence for Stone’s first time, non-violent, generic D.C. offenses, will soon find themselves in the hot seat.
Nunes promised Dobbs (and his audience) that the Justice Department’s exposure of the cruel and disproportionate sentencing request for Stone "is not going to be the only example" of the questionable acts in which the Mueller team engaged
We think there's other examples of things that they did during the Mueller investigation that I think you and your listeners and the American people will be very interested to learn in the coming weeks as we start to unpeel the onion of what the Mueller team was really doing.
What’s especially concerning about what these corrupt government officials did is something Nunes calls the "obstruction of justice trap":
#1
Has anyone noticed that through none of this unpleasantness does Roger Stone look the least bit concerned or worried? It's almost as though he's enjoying the entire process. He's certainly not an idiot. I wonder why this could be ?
[Jerusalem Post] Local med-tech start-up P-Cure is working hard to break economic barriers so that proton radiation therapy becomes accessible to all eligible cancer patients.
Based in Shilat, near Modi’in, P-Cure makes the most advanced type of proton therapy available.
"We truly believe that this is a new era of radiation therapy of cancer," CEO and founder Michael Marash told The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday.
The company, he explained, has developed technology that "unprecedentedly removed economic barriers prohibiting proton therapy use in the mainstream clinical practice."
Marash highlighted that P-Cure’s manufactured proton therapy solution "is the only 360-degrees gantry-less proton therapy system that fits into any operating radiation oncology department."
Proton therapy is the most technologically advanced method of delivering radiation treatments to cancerous tumors that is available today.
"The unique characteristics of how protons interact within the human body allow it to deliver curative radiation doses while reducing doses to healthy tissues and organs, resulting in fewer complications and side effects than standard radiation therapy," Marash explained. "Understanding how proton therapy works provides patients and physicians with insight into the clinical advantages of this treatment modality."
[Jerusalem Post] The new Drone Dome C-UAS system of Israeli defense company Rafael, which uses laser technology to intercept maneuvering targets, performed successfully in all scenarios upon recent testing.
The system managed to use target detection, identification, and interception with a high-power laser beam, proving to be a solution for securing air space from hostile drones.
The new infrastructure is modular and is made up of electronic jammers and sensors which allow for total neutralization of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). The system is now fully operational and deployed globally.
[Town Hall] - You know, these Deep State dorks want to be thought of as cunning operators with savage skills, but most of them are more like Barney Fife stumbling on a loaded AK-47 while hopped up on Aunt Bea’s famous hash hush puppies. They tried yet another hack ploy with the Roger Stone sentencing, and found themselves outplayed yet again like Joe Biden going up against Bobby Fischer. All Trump did is follow a basic rule they taught me and every other infantry guy down at Fort Benning.
You charge into the ambush. Full bore, no hesitation.
When you find yourself in a kill zone, you don’t futz around trying to figure out a plan. You do that and you die.
You don’t run away, because then you get shot in the back and die tired.
You determine the direction of fire and charge into it.
You might get killed, but that’s a consequence of walking into an ambush. The simple fact is that the only way you have a chance of coming out of it unventilated is to charge the SOBs ambushing you.
Which Trump did.
Here’s how these weasels laid their ambush. These rump doofuses on the Mueller coup accomplice team were preparing a sentencing memo for the judge in the Roger Stone case. Now, let’s leave aside the fact that the ghastly, targeted prosecution of this harmless gadfly treated justice like hobos treat the sidewalks of the Cesspool-By-The-Bay. Let’s pretend this was not a scummy political persecution for "crimes" that establishment suck-ups commit with impunity. Let’s forget all that and pretend his conviction was legit rather than another seedy attempt by Hillary-loving bureaucrats to get at Trump via his associates.
That’s a lot of disbelief to suspend, but go with it. Okay, the sentencing memo gives the government’s perspective on the appropriate sentence based on such factors as the sentencing guidelines, the effect of the crime, the prior crimes of the convict, and other factors like age. For these non-violent offenses by a first-time offender of age 67, which caused zero harm, and were related to the "collusion" that even Mueller’s pack of scummy Democrats were forced to admit was a lie, you would expect somewhere from a few months to a couple of years in Club Fed. And apparently that’s what the persecutors briefed to their bosses, because in a high-vis case like this, flunky attorneys brief their bosses at the DOJ.
These hacks instead asked for 7 to 9 years.
Literally no one on earth could say in good faith that was remotely appropriate for this case. None, at least not without lying. It’s equal to a death sentence, but then it’s a Trump associate so there are apparently special rules. And you’ll notice few of the Dems whining about this say this is an appropriate sentence ‐ at least not with a straight face.
They did it to make Trump react. They knew the establishment and its submissive media would freak out. They thought they could derail his most epic run ever.
Well, Trump reacted. He tweeted the manifest and undeniable truth ‐ that the liberal persecutors were treating Lady Justice like Harvey Weinstein treated eager starlets, except without the sop of a minor supporting role in a Gwyneth Paltrow flick.
Trump charged right into the ambush.
The reaction was predictable, especially after the DOJ brass realized these punks had bait and switched their sentencing recommendation. The DOJ promised to revise the recommendation and the media and liberal pols went nuts. This is the same media and the same liberal pols who want actual criminals to go free, who think arresting illegal alien thugs is a crime against humanity, and who want to close our prisons and turn them into Billy Jack-esque Rainbow Schools to teach hugging and climate paranoia to children.
Then he questioned the judge’s impartiality, which you are not allowed to do because of reasons unless its Gorsuch or Kavanaugh. Then it’s totally principled, the principle being "the elite gets its way."
So, we got the #ImpeachBarr hashtags and the Very Serious Lawyers on Twitter and CNN explaining how undoing this breaking of norms and rules is a terrible breaking of norms and rules. As a lawyer, let me give you some free advice ‐ take Twitter lawyer advice with a grain of salt. And that grain should be approximately the size of Mothra.
...We hired Trump to break the establishment paradigm that pretends our so-called betters are about the rule of law when they really just use the law to rule. If there is a "norm" or "rule" that requires us to look away and ignore when liberals twist and pervert the power of their positions to pursue politically motivated vendettas, then such "norms" and "rules" should not just be broken.
#1
You charge into the ambush. Full bore, no hesitation.
This. Schlichter is brilliant at times, and this is one of them.
Trump's greatest sin in the eyes of our elites is that he refuses to turn tail and run when he's being ambushed by them and the Deep State.
And when they and their minions in the press throw their Shitshow shite at him, he hurts it back -- in spades.
When Cruella DeBotox pulls her deranged stunts, he calls her out in playground taunts that repay in her own currency.
For some reason our idiot elites consider such a response to be "violating norms." Right: the same way that 18c European generals cried and called foul on Napoleon for relentlessly attacking their carefully orchestrated military minuet formations.
BLUF:
[Harvard to the Big House] Given the above facts, either: Foto of MG Chen Wei at right.
‐ A coronavirus spontaneously mutated and jumped to humans at a wet market or deep in some random bat cave which just so happened to be 20 miles from China’s only BSL-4 virology lab, a virus with an unusually slippery never-before-seen genome that’s evading zoological classification, and whose spike-protein region which allows it to enter host cells appears most like a bio-engineered commercial product, that somehow managed to infect its first three and roughly one-third of its initial victims despite them not being connected to this market, and then be so fined-tuned to humans that it’s gone on to create the single greatest public health crisis in Chinese history with approaching 100 million citizens locked-down or quarantined ‐ also causing Mongolia to close its border with its largest trading partner for the first time in modern history.
‐ Or, Chinese scientists failed to follow correct sanitation protocols possibly while in a rush during their boisterous holiday season, something that had been anticipated since the opening of the BSL-4 lab and has happened at least four times previously, and accidentally released this bio-engineered Wuhan Strain ‐ likely created by scientists researching immunotherapy regimes against bat coronaviruses, who’ve already demonstrated the ability to perform every step necessary to bio-engineer the Wuhan Strain 2019-nCov ‐ into their population, and now the world. As would be expected, this virus appears to have been bio-engineered at the spike-protein genes which was already done at UNC to make an extraordinarily virulent coronavirus. Chinese efforts to stop the full story about what’s going on are because they want the scales to be even since they’re now facing a severe pandemic and depopulation event. No facts point against this conclusion.
According to China Central Television (CCTV), soldiers of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Hubei Garrison in the Central Theater Command deployed to Wuhan on Feb. 2, where their first task was to transport more than 200 metric tons (about 220 tons) of goods to the city’s supermarkets.
The previous day, the People’s Liberation Army Daily reported that Chen Wei, China’s top expert in biological warfare, has been leading the efforts to overcome the deadly, pneumonia-like pathogen for the last nine days.
Chinese authorities confirmed the outbreak of the novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) on Dec. 31, 2019, but recently published studies show that the first patient was diagnosed on Dec. 1. So far, the virus has spread to at least 27 countries, while all provinces and regions of China have confirmed cases.
Wuhan is the provincial capital of Hubei. With the virus spreading, all of Hubei and its more than 58 million residents are under quarantine, as well as at least three major cities in coastal Zhejiang Province. The two provinces do not share a common border.
#6
Ref #4: Yes, "intentional" or accidental, or a combination.... (unexpected recurrence in test population(s). Certainly a possibility. Something to be studied.
[Red State] ...Trump responded, "That the Democrats are crooked, they’ve got a lot of crooked things going, that they’re vicious, that they shouldn’t have brought impeachment and that my poll numbers are 10 points higher because of fake news like NBC, which reports that news very inaccurately, probably more inaccurately than CNN if that’s possible."
#4
Trump got hired because voters wanted Trump to kick arse and get something done to clean up the mess that is D.C. Thank you DJT for taking on this mess.
#5
The difference between Bush and Trump. I recall, with distaste, the video clips of reporters repeatedly heckling asking Bush during the run up to the 2004 election: "Tell us what you did wrong during the last period ...? So we can use it as election material for the DNC..." Bush smiled and ignored it like a gentleman while Trump counter punches like a street brawler -- sometimes you just need to punch a bully to stop the bullying.
[The Star] WHILE many people zero in on those who eat wild animals for the novel coronavirus outbreak, I beg to differ. I would blame it on the lack of hygiene awareness among the Chinese, which I dare say is one big problem.
Although some workers have returned to work since last Friday, many companies are observing the flexible working hours or have their employees working from home.
The banks open two or three days a week for counter-related or self-serving machine services.
Schools and educational institutions remain closed.
A majority are still in “self quarantine” as part of the precautionary measures against the spread of the virus.
This quarantine would not have happened if the people practise good hygiene.
The SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) outbreak 17 years ago that claimed hundreds of lives has not changed their bad habits.
Spitting is one bad habit of the Chinese that annoys me the most, not just the disgusting mucus on the floor but also the loud irritating throat-clearing sound.
I have always wondered why must they “tell the whole world” in doing so.
If you happen to be in Beijing, check out the streets, especially the entrance or exit of subway stations, and you will see patches of dark spots. I can bet these are dried mucus already mixed with dust and dirt.
Coughing or sneezing without covering one’s mouth is common in public areas and restaurants, and all these bad habits contributed to the spread of the virus.
[Aljazeera] Israel's latest propaganda war is being waged through slick tv shows on various media service providers such as Netflix and HBO.
While racist depictions of Arabs and the glorification of Israel is not new in the film and TV industry, there has recently been a surge in programmes venerating the Israeli secret services while demonising Palestinians as threats to global security and erasing their history.
The most well-known is the Israeli Netflix series Fauda (meaning chaos in Arabic) which has been a global hit. The series follows an undercover Israeli special forces unit known as the "musta'ribim", who disguise themselves as Palestinians to infiltrate Palestinian towns, villages and protests. They are particularly known for blending into protests dressed as young Palestinian men and kidnapping protesters. Fauda has been heavily criticised for dehumanising Palestinians and completely erasing the military occupation by failing to show any of the massive and visible infrastructure built across the West Bank and Gaza to keep Palestinians contained.
Another TV show, on HBO, called Our Boys, dramatises the infamous events surrounding the killing of three teenage Israeli settlers and the subsequent killing of a Palestinian boy, Mohammed Abu Khdeir. Many praised the show for being critical of Israel, particularly after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu denounced it as "anti-Semitic". However, the series not only reinforces the Israeli narrative but also shows Israel's secret police agency Shin Bet as a defender of the rule of law. Similar Netflix programmes such as The Spy (starring Sasha Baren Cohen) also glorify the Israeli secret services as an agency of good fighting the bad, which inevitably happens to be all the neighbouring Arab countries.
The latest addition to the list of TV shows supporting Israel in its propaganda war against the Palestinians is Netflix's The Messiah. In the show, a messiah-like figure from the Middle East causes concern for the CIA and the Shin Bet. In the first episode, he is seen to lead a group of Palestinian-Syrian refugees to Syria's border with presumably the occupied Golan Heights. A fictional CNN reporter declares that "as displaced Palestinians they claim they are entitled passage into the West Bank as rightful citizens". Yet Palestinian refugees in Syria come from historic Palestine, now recognised as Israel, and they do not demand to become citizens of the West Bank. Rather they demand their right to return to their villages and towns of origin from which they were displaced in 1948 - a right that is inalienable and enshrined in international law.
[Free Beacon] Liberal groups and high-powered New York attorneys swooped into Detroit this week to help the city fight a lawsuit over its voter roll irregularities, which included thousands of deceased individuals appearing on the rolls.
The League of Women Voters of Michigan and its Detroit chapter filed a motion to intervene on behalf of Detroit city clerk Janice Winfrey and Director of Elections George Azzouz. Winfrey and Azzouz were sued in December by the Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF), an election integrity group. The officials had ignored PILF's requests to inspect Detroit's voter registrations after the group discovered thousands of ineligible voters on the city's rolls.
The Brennan Center for Justice, a progressive policy institute at New York University School of Law, will help the League fight PILF's lawsuit. Myrna Pérez, the center's director of voting rights and elections programs, and Eliza Sweren-Becker, counsel in the center's Democracy Program, signed on to the motion. New York-based attorneys from the Paul Weiss law firm, where former Obama attorney general Loretta Lynch is a partner, also joined the motion.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
02/13/2020 13:58
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#6
^ Dude, that's racist as herr. Everybody knows they can't say "lollapalooza."
"Long life to the Emperor..." "Banzai!"
"...and also his subjects. But why?"
"Late misunderstanding
A little demanding
On all who were willing to die."
#7
A shogun, not long of Nagawa
Was queried: To what owes your powa?
Quoth he, the Inscrutable
(With logic indisputable),
"Hanky-wanky 1 hou-ah in show-ah!"
[BBC] JOHANNESBURG ‐ Uganda scrambled to respond to the arrival of the biggest locust outbreak that parts of East Africa have seen in decades, while the United Nations warned Monday that "we simply cannot afford another major shock" to an already vulnerable region.
An emergency government meeting hours after the locusts were spotted inside Uganda on Sunday decided to deploy military forces to help with ground-based pesticide spraying, while two planes for aerial spraying will arrive as soon as possible, a statement said. Aerial spraying is considered the only effective control. "Fried up, they taste like Cicadas," he enthused
The swarms of billions of locusts have been destroying crops in Kenya, which hasn’t seen such an outbreak in 70 years, as well as Somalia and Ethiopia, which haven’t seen this in a quarter-century. The insects have exploited favorable wet conditions after unusually heavy rains and experts say climate change is expected to bring more of the same.
Keith Cressman, the UN Food and Agriculture Organizations senior locust forecasting officer, said Kenya has received "waves and waves of swarms" since the beginning of the year from the Horn of Africa and "over the weekend they moved on the side of Mount Kilimanjaro across the border into Tanzania."
"Also over the weekend they moved into northeastern Uganda," he told a news conference at UN headquarters in New York. "We’re expecting any day they will move across the border into the southeast corner of South Sudan," where another several million people face hunger as the country struggles to emerge from civil war.
A medium-size swarm of locusts can eat the same amount of food as the entire population of Kenya, Cressman said and "that swarm in one day can eat the same amount of food as everybody here in the tri-state area, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and New York. So not taking action in time ‐ you can see the consequences."
UN officials warn that immediate action is needed before more rainfall in the weeks ahead brings fresh vegetation to feed new generations of locusts. If left unchecked, their numbers could grow up to 500 times before drier weather arrives, they say.
#1
....while two planes for aerial spraying will arrive as soon as possible, a statement said. Aerial spraying is considered the only effective control.
WASHINGTON (AP) ‐ Attorney General William Barr has agreed to testify before the House Judiciary Committee next month, appearing for the first time before the panel as questions swirl about whether he intervened in the case of a longtime ally of President Donald Trump. AG Barr is the Dem's 25m, intermediate target. The long-range target is federal prosecutor John Durham.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., released a letter Wednesday to Barr "to confirm your agreement to testify" on March 31. In the letter, Nadler and committee Democrats write that they have concerns that Barr has misused the criminal justice system for political purposes.
"In your tenure as attorney general, you have engaged in a pattern of conduct in legal matters relating to the president that raises significant concerns for this committee," Nadler and the Democrats wrote.
The Justice Department confirmed Barr would testify. His appearance will be the first before the House Judiciary panel since he became attorney general a year ago, and since he declined an invitation to testify about special counsel Robert Mueller’s report after it was released.
The Democrats said they plan to ask Barr about the department’s decision this week to overrule four federal prosecutors and lower the amount of prison time it would seek for Trump’s confidant Roger Stone. The four prosecutors immediately quit the case, in which Stone was convicted of lying to Congress, witness tampering and obstructing the House investigation into whether the Trump campaign coordinated with Russia to tip the 2016 election.
They said they will also ask Barr about his department’s announcement that it is taking information that Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani is gathering in Ukraine about the president’s Democratic rival Joe Biden and his son. The House voted in December to impeach Trump because of his pressure on Ukraine to investigate Democrats; the GOP-led Senate acquitted him this month.
#4
I can understand their discomfort. Barr is probably locked and loaded for the usual 'October Surprise' the Donks normally try to play on the Trunks. Except this time, its their turn and with someone who knows its war by other means and plans to play it as such rather than turn the other cheek.
#6
I'm puzzled why Barr would agree to be the target of an all-day (if not longer) mudslinging fest. But my inner optimist has suggested that maybe Barr knows that Durham will have issued a few dozen indictments before then, including (we can only hope) all of the Mueller shysters for malicious prosecutions, lying to the courts, etc., etc.
#10
Barr, Durham, et al, better get indictments going that will stick. It's all OODA Loop. When you react, you lose initiative. You need to take back the initiative from the dems, then you get inside their OODA loop so they react. Then you pick up the tempo and in reacting the dems start making mistakes. Just like John Boyd's lessons from dog fighting in the Korean War.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
02/13/2020 16:52
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[BBC] The largest coronavirus outbreak outside mainland China is not in a country, but on a cruise ship.
It's been more than a week since the Diamond Princess went into lockdown, after a previous passenger tested positive for the virus after disembarking.
With almost 500 out of 3,700 people on board tested, 174 people have now tested positive for coronavirus. Those still on board are in quarantine for another week.
But it's not just the Diamond Princess.
DOZENS MORE CATCH VIRUS ON QUARANTINED CRUISE SHIP
On another cruise ship in Hong Kong, 3,600 passengers people were quarantined because of fears that people on board might have the virus.
They were only allowed to disembark after tests came back negative.
And a cruise ship carrying more than 1,450 passengers, which left Hong Kong on 1 February, was turned away from ports in Japan, Taiwan, Guam and the Philippines, despite having no infections on board. It has now been told it can dock in Cambodia.
Cruise ships have for years been referred to as "floating Petri dishes" - places ripe for the exchange of germs, and the spreading of illness.
[Federalist] Ruth Bader Ginsburg is about to lose her feminist card. Ironically, it’s for departing from her usual legal schtick to reinforce that what the law says matters, instead of giving authorities license to do whatever the heck they want.
On Monday, Ginsburg reinforced previous assertions that the legal deadline for passing a 1970s and 1980s constitutional amendment to ignore sex distinctions has passed.
"I would like to see a new beginning. I’d like it to start over," Ginsburg said about the so-called Equal Rights Amendment Monday." There’s too much controvery about latecomers ‐ Virginia long after the deadline passed ‐ plus a number of states have withdrawn their ratification. So if you count a latecomer on the plus side, how can you disregard states that said, ’We’ve changed our minds’?"
When Congress went through its part of the amendment authorizing process for the ERA, its authorization included a deadline for ratification by the states. Supreme Court precedent says such deadlines for ratification are legally valid. Still, today’s left chooses to ignore the parts of the law they don’t like while using the parts of it they currently find to their liking, or making things up if they don’t like the law at all.
So on Tuesday, Vox senior correspondent Ian Millhiser, who claims to focus on the Constitution, proclaimed that because of her remarks, "Justice Ginsburg’s feminist legacy teeters on a knife’s edge."
Nice little feminist legacy you got there, Justice Ginsburg. You wouldn’t want to endanger it by disagreeing with where the left is now, would you? After we’ve spent so many years buttering you up so you’d do just what we insisted. I mean, we’ve put out documentary after biopic after book after museum exhibit hailing you as the feminist hero! And now you’d let a little thing like the obvious meaning of multiple laws and court decisions stand in the way of doing what we want?
"Ginsburg’s comments are likely to be the death knell for the ERA," Millhiser writes further. "...Ginsburg also made her somewhat surprising remarks in a moment when the bulk of her feminist accomplishments are endangered by an increasingly conservative Supreme Court."
#1
Remember the three rules of The Shitshow, and apply them to Vox's purported expert on the Constitution:
1. absurdity and bizarre violation of rules of logic - as in, SCOTUS judges are supposed to simply ignore the central provision of a statute because, uh, "feminist legacy";
2. gross incompetence to the point of clownishness - as in near-total ignorance of judicial review and other basic Constitutional law concepts;
3. ridiculous, over-the-top virtue signaling - as in a dude getting his panties in a wad over someone's "feminist legacy"
[Right Scoop] Rev. Robert M. Grant Jr., who pastors The Father’s Way Church in Warrenton was invited to pray before the Virginia House of Delegates yesterday morning and gave Democrats an earful as he prayed for over five minutes, condemning both abortion and gay marriage in his prayer. I’ve got it cued up to 3:36 where he begins praying against abortion:
Democrats got so annoyed by his prayer that one of them shouted "Is this a prayer or a sermon?" about the point he starts praying against gay marriage.
According to MRC, some Democrats walked out of the chamber. That isn’t visible on the video, but what you do see in the background is the Speaker banging the gavel to stop the prayer before it’s done and proceed to the Pledge of Allegiance. The pastor’s mic is cut and he slowly realizes what’s going on.
#2
Hopefully, Virginia will get cleaned up soon politically. Their government doesn't seem to be representing most of the people. Virginia, like the country, is mostly red with some blue high-density population areas scattered throughout. If voter fraud and election rigging is cleaned up for the next election, who knows how Virginia might look.
#7
From the pews rang a Democrat rant:
"This isn't the usual 'can't!'"
[Psst! Mr. Jones, wake up! You're on!]
"But I sent you a sword,
A Republican horde,
And--" "G-ddammit, not that kinda 'grant!'"
[The Hill] Conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh is catching heat online for comments he made while discussing Democratic presidential hopeful Pete Buttigieg’s electability if he were to face off against President Trump in the coming election.
During his nationally syndicated program on Wednesday, Limbaugh took aim at Buttigieg while sounding off on the leading Democratic presidential candidates and their performances in the primary race thus far.
"You’ve got Fauxcahontas way back there in the background barely out of the tepee bringing up the tail end," Limbaugh said, referring to Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) "Biden’s gone. So you’re faced with a dyed-in-the-wool socialist who’s not even a Democrat [and] a gay guy, 37 years old, loves kissing his husband on debate stages," he continued, referring to former Vice President Joe Biden, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Buttigieg, respectively.
"Can you see Trump have fun with that? And [Sen.] Amy Klobuchar [D-Minn.]. So you are whoever the grand pooh-bahs in the Democrat Party are," he added.
"You’re looking at your options today, and you’re asking, 'OK, can we win with Klobuchar? We don’t want to put Klobuchar up there because she doesn’t have a prayer,'" he said before shifting gears back to Buttigieg, saying, "Then they’re sitting there, and they’re looking at Mayor Pete, a 37-year-old gay guy, mayor of South Bend, loves to kiss his husband on the debate stage. And they’re saying, 'OK, how’s this gonna look, a 37-year-old gay guy kissing his husband onstage next to Mr. Man Donald Trump? What’s gonna happen there?'"
"They gotta be looking at that," Limbaugh continued, "They’ve gotta be saying that despite all the great progress and despite all the great 'wokeness' and despite all the great ground that’s been covered, America’s still not ready to elect a gay guy kissing his husband on the debate stage president. They have to be saying this, don’t they?"
Buttigieg's campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Hill.
The comments by Limbaugh drew swift criticism on Twitter and prompted the phrase "Mr. Man" to trend on the social platform later on Wednesday.
#1
I discovered Rush in 1995, the first time I lived in Los Alamos, on my car's radio - by accident. And was smitten - a radio host, let alone an American radio host, who's makes sense!
A woman who literally f---ed her way into the heights of California politics.
A fortune-hunting Anglo named Robert Francis who pretends to be a Chicano boy with a childish nickname.
A Lenin impersonator who apes Ilyich's outstretched arm pointing the way to the brave new Bolshevik future.
A billionaire 60x over who is on track to spend nearly half a billion - JUST to win the primary races to become the nominee of the leftist Party of the Working Man.
The Democrats and their media whores put up these obscene clowns, and then they go on the attack against those who, like Limbaugh or Schlichter or Trump, have the rude honesty to call it what it is: a complete, utter, total Shitshow.
#4
I figure after 8 years of the 'first black president', we might want to put the brakes on the next iteration of 'first whatever' that's the Dem. flavor of the month.
#6
I figure after 8 years of the 'first black president', we might want to put the brakes on the next iteration of 'first whatever' that's the Dem. flavor of the month.
Sure, Raj, but the voters gave us Barack Obama after Bill Clinton anyway.
Dave Morrison from Blue Collar Logic; a California liberal who became a conservative. A little long ~ 5 minutes but it speaks to some of the issues with Mayor Pete.
[Washington Examiner] Conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh teared up on air after discussing how several fans offered to donate lungs after he recently announced he has lung cancer.
"That is mind-boggling," Limbaugh, 69, said Wednesday on his show after his producer told him a caller offered to give him a lung. The host said his producer, James "Bo Snerdley" Golden, told him he was being offered two lungs per day since his announcement a week ago that he has advanced lung cancer.
"Well, you all just continue to stop me dead in my tracks. I continue to get emails and flowers and cards. I mean, it’s voluminous. And it is so touching," the host said. "I mean, people recounting experiences they had 30 years ago, 25 years ago, and this is why I said last Friday, last week, how lucky I am, and people have trouble understanding that. But believe me, everything that’s happened to me is a blessing. And I hear things like that, and I don’t know what to do with it."
During the State of the Union, first lady Melania Trump presented Limbaugh with a Presidential Medal of Freedom. The award is given to "individuals who have made specially meritorious contributions to the security or national interests of the United States, to world peace, or to cultural or other significant public or private endeavors."
Limbaugh recently inked a new "long-term" contract for his show, which he has hosted for over 30 years.
[IsraelTimes] Database was four years in the making; Israelis vow to fight ’anti-Semitic’ list, while Paleostinians hail ’victory for international law’.
Nearly four years in the making, the United Nations ...a formerly good idea gone bad... High Commissioner for Human Rights on Wednesday unexpectedly published a list of more than 100 companies that conduct business in Israeli settlements in the West Bank.
Israeli reacted angrily to the publication of the blacklist, denouncing the UN body responsible for compiling it and vowing to protect Israeli financial interests. The Paleostinians, meanwhile, celebrated a "victory for international law."
Most of the 112 companies on the list are Israeli, including all major banks, state-owned transportation companies Egged and Israel Railways Corporation, and telecommunications giants Bezeq, HOT and Cellcom. It also lists medium-size companies such as restaurant chain Café Café and Angel bakeries.
The blacklist also names 18 international enterprises, such as Motorola, Airbnb, Trip Advisor, Expedia and General Mills (all from the US), Alstom (from La Belle France) and Greenkote (from the UK).
Businesses may ask to be delisted if they can prove that they no longer provide material support to Israeli settlements, the office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet of Chile, said Wednesday. The list will be updated annually.
Paleostinian Authority Foreign Minister Riyad al-Malki, welcomed the list.
"The publication of this list of companies and parties working in the settlements is a victory for international law," he said in a statement posted on the ministry’s Facebook page. He also urged member states of the UN Human Rights Council to study the list and recommend and instruct the companies cited on it to terminate their operations in the settlements.
In March 2016, the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva passed a resolution requesting the compilation of a database listing "activities that raised particular human rights One man's rights are another man's existential threat. concerns" in the Paleostinian territories. Such activities were defined as providing material and services that would support the expansion of, or help "maintain," Israel settlements.
Other activities that got companies on the list include the use of the West Bank’s natural resources "in particular water and land," the pollution of Paleostinian villages and "captivity of the Paleostinian financial and economic markets, as well as practices that disadvantage Paleostinian enterprises, including through restrictions on movement, administrative and legal constraints."
Israel, the US and the UK for years tried to block the publication of the blacklist. It was unclear why it was published this week.
"I am conscious this issue has been, and will continue to be, highly contentious," said UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Bachelet.
"However, by candlelight every wench is handsome... after an extensive and meticulous review process, we are satisfied this fact-based report reflects the serious consideration that has been given to this unprecedented and highly complex mandate, and that it responds appropriately to the Human Rights Council’s request contained in resolution 31/36," Bachelet said, referring to the council resolution that asked for the report.
The database’s publication this week marks a major setback for Israel’s settlement movement, coming only three months after the Europe ...the land mass occupying the space between the English Channel and the Urals, also known as Moslem Lebensraum... an Court of Justice ruled that the labeling regime for Israeli products from the West Bank is legally binding.
#3
48 hours from now: Trump announces that he will award the Presidential Medal of Freedom to the CEO's of each company and will add HRA to the list of terrorist organizations. (The Don's pretty good at keeping score, too.)
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02/13/2020 7:58
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#4
"UN Human Rights agency"...
Agency that tries to prop up dictators, get money for kid sex and kill jews.
#5
As a Marine recruit in 1966 I saw billboards proclaiming "Get the U.S. out of the UN." I didn't really understand. I've seen the light. Throw that dirty trash into the East River. Chop chop!
[Jpost] Hamas, a contraction of the Arabic words for "frothing at the mouth", cyber-cells used Trump's plan and Soleimani's liquidation to target PA officials.
The Boston-based company revealed several cyber-warfare operations targeting organizations and individuals in the West Bank and the Gazoo ...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with an iron fist by Hamaswith about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response... Strip ‐ including Paleostinian Authority officials ‐ in a report from its Nocturnus Research Group titled "New Cyber Espionage Campaigns Targeting Paleostinians."
According to Cybereason, having identified the targets, the Hamas unit would hack into the victims' mobile phones, gaining access to their microphones and cameras as well as files and information stored on the devices.
Cybereason says it monitored the attacks, discovering they were carried out in a similar way to previous attacks the unit committed against Israeli strategic assets. The unit, says the company, is a politically-motivated cell that has acted against various targets across the Middle East since 2012.
The cell reportedly used new malware called Pierogi first discovered in December 2019 by Cybereason, resembling patterns of action used in the past by MoleRATs.
The Israeli researchers discovered confirmation that Pierogi made use of the Ukrainian language, having reason to believe it was created by Ukrainian-speakers, falling into the hands of the pro-Hamas cyber cell through the dark web.
"These tools allow their users to spy on their victims and control their devices, leaking information, stealing content and files," says a source from the Nocturnus Research Groups. "In the last years, we have been witnessing an increase in the level of abilities and overall sophistication among the cells operating in the Middle East."
The source added that the attacks carried out by the cells "are not yet as sophisticated as those sponsored by world powers, but it is clearly visible that there is learning and acquisition of advance cyberwarfare abilities."
Cybereason was founded by Lior Div (CEO), Yossi Naar (CVO) and Yonatan Shitrit Amit (CTO) in 2012. The company develops systems that gather information from all servers and stations in an organization, analyzing their behavior in real time. Using that information, the product identifies malicious activity, revealing the timeline of the attempted cyberattack. The company's clients include individuals, international banks and corporations, including ones included in Fortune 500. The company has raised $400 million from SoftBank, Lockheed Martin and other investors. The corporation's offices are located in Tel Aviv, Boston, London, Sydney, Tokio and other cities.
According to the report, a Hamas cyber-warfare unit working under the names "The Gaza Cybergang" and "MoleRATs" targeted Paleostinian officials using content related to US President Donald Trump ...His ancestors didn't own any slaves... 's "Deal of the Century" and the liquidation of IRGC Quds Force commander Qasem Soleimani alongside other topics relating to the Israeli-Paleostinian conflict.
[AnNahar] Indonesia has said it will not bring home nearly 700 hundred nationals who joined the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear western pols talk they're not really Moslems.... group in the Middle East over security fears, but added it would still consider repatriating young children.
The issue sharply divided the world's biggest Moslem majority nation with its president saying this week that he was not in favour of bringing back suspected bully boyz and their families who went to Syria and other countries to fight for the group's now crumbled caliphate.
Security affairs minister Mahfud MD said that some 689 Indonesians -- including women and kiddies -- in Syria would not be allowed to return home due to security concerns in a country that suffered repeated attacks by IS-loyal groups.
"We've decided that the government has to provide security assurance to 267 million Indonesian citizens," the minister said Tuesday, after a meeting with President Joko Widodo near Jakarta.
"If these foreign terrorist fighters return home they could become a dangerous new virus," he added.
The government would consider repatriating children 10 years old or younger on a "case by case basis", he added, without elaborating.
Critics of the plan said it was better to bring imported muscle home and rehabilitate them instead of risking that they could be further radicalised abroad.
Except that it’s already been established that most of the time de-radicalization and rehabilitation do not occur.
"If they're not managed well by the government, there is a possibility they'll be used as proxies by powerful groups that could threaten Indonesia and other countries," said terrorism expert Taufik Andrie.
Indonesia has long struggled with Islamist militancy and the country hosts dozens of murderous Moslem groups loyal to IS and its violent ideology.
In 2018, family jacket wallahs from an IS-linked group detonated explosives in several churches in the country's second-largest city Surabaya, killing more than a dozen people.
Last year, two bully boyz also linked to IS unsuccessfully tried to assassinate Indonesia's chief security minister, while in November a suicide bomber went kaboom! at a busy cop shoppe, killing himself and injuring at least a dozen people.
#2
And yet the left is walloping the UK for not accepting the terrorist bride. If Muslim countries know better than to do something foolish like this, then how is it wrong?
Posted by: Herb McCoy ||
02/13/2020 6:57
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#3
...because for the Left, their enemy is the same as IS's, Western Civilization.
[AlAhram] al-Ahram Weekly reports on Sinai’s second terrorist attack this month
Thanks to the efforts of the army Egypt is no longer among the top 10 countries affected by terrorism. The Egyptian army itself now ranks ninth among the strongest armies in the world.
The Armed Forces repelled a terrorist attack on a security installation in North Sinai on Sunday. According to local sources, the incident took place in al-Gora, south of Sheikh Zuweid.
In a press statement Military Spokesman Colonel Tamer al-Rifaai attributed the army’s success to "the vigilance of the guards who made it possible for the security force at the installation to intercept and engage the terrorists, killing 10 and destroying a four wheel drive vehicle."
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: trailing wife ||
02/13/2020
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#1
Al Gora was once the home of the Multinational Force and Observers (MFO) paid for by the United States and emplaced in Sinai. It was there to observe activity and maintain the peace between Egypt and Israel. It was a very large base. I suppose the relevance of the MFO is now nil.
A chicken shop worker convicted of planning terror attacks in London drafted a “to-do list” of what he would do when he got to heaven, including choosing a palace, consummating his relationship with 72 wives and meeting God. See the full list here: https://t.co/BrBKZjMHMk
A chicken shop worker convicted of planning terror attacks in London drafted a “to-do list” for what he was going to do when he got to heaven, according to a document published by the BBC.
Top of his list was to choose his main palace, consummate his relationship with 72 wives, feast and meet God.
Entitled: “Plans for Jannah (Heaven in Arabic)” the list details:
• Tour entire property in Jannah and choose main palace
• Meet all wives and name and choose main 2
• Decorate main palace
• Meet all family and feast
• Meet all friends and feast
• Meet all Ambiya [prophets] and Sahaba [companions of prophet Mohammed]
• Meet Allah [God]
• Visit Jannah market
• Spend time with wives
• Choose quests to embark upon
• New form of entertainments
The list is surrounded by verses from the Quran, sayings from Islam’s Prophet Mohammed and a scarcely legible definition of heaven.
Mohiussunnath Chowdhury, a 28-year-old former Uber driver, was convicted of preparation for an act of terrorism, collecting information useful to someone preparing an act of terrorism and disseminating terrorist publications after an undercover police operation that lasted five months.
He prepared for “martyrdom” by planning for attacks on Madame Tussauds wax museum in London, a Gay Pride parade and an open-top tour bus.
Sneha Chowdhury, his sister, was also convicted of failing to disclose information about acts of terrorism.
It's wish fulfillment from a low-status man who has nothing in life.
If he had something to strive towards, something to work for, something to worry about, he never would have taken up terrorism as a hobby. But he's got nothing. A meaningless life, full of emptiness. The abyss stared into him.
Posted by: Herb McCoy ||
02/13/2020 15:03
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#11
BBC on "right wing" manifesto: "Experts describe the gunman's writings, replete with words sometimes used by NAZIS, as 'likely to induce involuntary goosestepping in an ignorant, unwary public,' but, trust us, IT'S FULL OF SWASTIKAS!"
On left wing manifesto: "A troubled young idealist who had long struggled with mental illness, his writings reveal an intense concern for the plight of blah blah blah."
On Muslim manifesto: Verbatim reprint of dingbat's take on what awaits pious martyrs in Muslim Vegas heaven.
[The Drive] Many of the exact details about the incident are still unclear, but U.S. Air Force F-15 combat jets executed a show of force during a standoff between U.S. troops and a mob aligned with Syria's dictator Bashar Al Assad at a checkpoint, which had spiraled into a brief gunbattle. That skirmish left one Syrian dead and an American with very minor injuries. A Russian military patrol that was in the area was also on the scene during the shooting, which follows weeks of similar standoffs between U.S. and Russian personnel in northeastern Syria.
The U.S.-led coalition ostensibly fighting ISIS in both Syria and Iraq confirmed that the incident had occurred at a checkpoint near the town of Qamishli, which is situated right on the Syrian-Turkish border in Syria's northeastern corner. Syrian state media said that the altercation had taken place specifically on a stretch of road in the village of Khirbet Ammu, to the east of Qamishli. The U.S. forces were traveling in a convoy in a mix of M-ATV and MRAP mine-resistant wheeled armored vehicles at the time.
There was also a report on Feb. 9, 2020, that U.S. forces had begun building a new, semi-permanent outpost in the city of Hasakah, a major hub and capital of the province of the same name, roughly 45 miles southwest of Qamishli.
[Aljazeera] Matamoros, Mexico - Preparing for lunch hour, Maria* adds firewood to her wide mud stove shaded by a tarp shelter amid hundreds of similar structures home to asylum seekers like her, waiting for months in this camp with hopes to cross the border, just a few paces away, into the United States.
Maria, 38, serves grilled meat, rice, salad and tortillas for lunch to some of her neighbours encamped on the bank of the Rio Grande in Matamoros, Mexico, just across from Brownsville, Texas.
Dozens of other cooking fires like Maria's burn throughout the camp all day. Hundreds of mismatched camping tents cluster between the scraggly mesquite trees, picked clean for firewood. Families without tents sleep under plastic tarps hoisted over branches and tied to wooden stakes in the mud.
"The Federal Executive shall have the exclusive power to compel any foreigner whose remaining he may deem inexpedient to abandon the national territory immediately and without the necessity of previous legal action."
Posted by: Herb McCoy ||
02/13/2020 6:54
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[Page Six] Prince Harry is reportedly in talks with banking giant Goldman Sachs — the start of what a PR guru predicts could be a billion-dollar empire.
The Duke of Sussex — who is believed to have been paid more than $1 million to attend a recent summit hosted by JP Morgan — first held talks with Goldman Sachs in November, according to the Mirror.
It suggests the 35-year-old prince and his wife, Meghan Markle, 38, were considering their financial futures months before their stunning January announcement that they were quitting the royal family, the paper notes.
Potentially, the talks could be to get Harry as the latest high-profile speaker at the bank’s “Talks at GS” series, the UK paper notes. Speakers are not paid for their appearance, but sources told the Mirror that it will pave the way for a lucrative future relationship. Previous speakers have included stars such as Gwyneth Paltrow and business leaders such as Dropbox co-founder and CEO Drew Houston.
A royal insider confirmed the talks to the Daily Mail — but insisted it was on behalf of one of Harry’s charitable patronages.
#2
Why is this "grifting"? If Goldman Sachs wants to shower them with money, that's their business. I'm pretty sure they have calculated this carefully.
Posted by: European Conservative ||
02/13/2020 6:41
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#3
Probably shower them with children for sex parties, too. Flights to private creepy island optional.
Posted by: Herb McCoy ||
02/13/2020 7:25
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#4
EC - you're probably right, given that the former prince and his wife are private citizens now who no longer have influence or public office to trade.
The correct term is not grifting but prostitution: Harry is clearly seeking to engage in transactions by which he publicly dramatizes his pain at his mother's death -- and indirectly, his wife's bogus accusations of "racism" against his family -- in return for cash.
#6
Calling all Goldman Sachs shareholders--be sure to let them know what you think about this!
Posted by: Tom ||
02/13/2020 14:19
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#7
To paraphrase a much beloved blogger here, "I don't want to hear about one more goddamn teacher having to buy classroom supplies out of his / her pocket until this shit stops..."
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
02/13/2020 15:15
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#8
Wasn't GS given the sweetheart deals in the 2008-9 bailouts? Just asking.
[Defense Post] The U.S. Defense Department is requesting $111.2 million from Congress to develop the so-called Next Generation Squad Weapons (NGSW) to replace the M4A1 Carbine, M16 and M249 Squad Automatic Weapon (SAW) by the end of 2023.
The budget request, made public on Monday, February 10, asks more than double last year’s funding for the NGSW program and includes $35.8 million for procurement.
One aim of the NGSW is to give U.S. Army infantry greater effective range by replacing the squad’s 5.56 mm NATO-chambered weapons with rifles that fire a new and unique 6.8 mm round.
The Army in August 2019 selected Textron Systems, General Dynamics and Sig Sauer to develop prototypes for the new line of weapons.
The Defense Department intends the funds to complete prototyping for the new rifle, automatic rifle (AR) and ammunition and will select one of the three versions by the end of 2021.
"The new more lethal carbine and Squad Automatic Weapon (SAW) provides Brigade Combat Teams with additional capability when engaging an adversaries [sic] ground forces," the request reads.
The M249 SAW was introduced in 1984 to give infantry squads a belt-fed weapon with a high rate of fire. The U.S. Marine Corps has already begun replacing the M249 with the new M27, a variant of Heckler and Koch’s HK 416. The Army has said it has no plans to adopt the M27.
The overhaul comes amidst a strategic shift from two decades of fighting insurgencies in the Middle East towards preparation to counter the evolving capabilities of Russia and China.
#4
When I was in during the early 90s, the SAW was a Belgium made piece of shit. It constantly had springs pop out of the top belt feed cover. Had to carry a bag of the fuckers with you and replace them during firefights.
Colt took it over and they got better, but I'm still no big fan of them.
#5
The Army 'planners' didn't want the squads to have an M60 machine gun. About the same reason the Old Army didn't want the troops on the frontier to have repeaters even if the natives got hold of them.
#6
Just think if way back when the decision was made to go with a scaled up M3
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
02/13/2020 14:23
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#7
Can't decide on a uniform. Can't decide on a weapon. Can't decide on a vehicle. Can't decide on a helicopter. Can't decide on a division or a brigade. Can't decide on a man or a woman.
#9
Can't decide on a ...
The Real money is in the cost-plus development projects. Guaranteed cash flow while you "research" and maybe you will sell something at the end... maybe.
[CBS] Washington ‐ Justice Department officials have been "quietly" reviewing records and documents from Ukraine for "several weeks," a source familiar with the matter tells CBS News.
The source said staff outside of Main Justice in Washington have been assigned by Attorney General William Barr to review the Ukraine matter, adding that the review is being handled by the U.S. Attorney's Office in Pittsburgh and is separate from U.S. Attorney John Durham's probe into the origins of the FBI's Russia probe.
The new review includes some material provided by Rudy Giuliani, the president's personal attorney, but goes beyond matters regarding former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter, who served on the board of a Ukrainian energy company.
President Trump urged the president of Ukraine to investigate the Bidens and supposed Ukrainian election interference in a July 2019 phone call that eventually led to his impeachment. Democrats charged him with abusing his power by pressuring a foreign leader to investigate his domestic political opponent.
But calls to investigate the Bidens and events in Ukraine have gained new life in the wake of Mr. Trump's acquittal in his Senate impeachment trial.
On Sunday, Senator Lindsey Graham, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, told "Face the Nation" that Barr had established a process for Giuliani to submit information that he collected in Ukraine to the Justice Department. Graham warned that any material coming from the former Soviet republic "could be Russian propaganda."
On Monday, Barr said the Justice Department had "an open door to anybody who wishes to provide us information that they think is relevant" and had established an "intake process in the field" for receiving and verifying material from Ukraine. He said any information from Giuliani or others would be "carefully scrutinized by the department and its intelligence community partners so that we could assess its provenance and its credibility."
"We have to be very careful with respect to any information coming from the Ukraine," Barr said at an unrelated press conference. "There are a lot of agendas in the Ukraine. There are a lot of crosscurrents. And we can't take anything we receive from the Ukraine at face value.'
Democrats reacted with fury over the Justice Department's willingness to examine material about Ukraine and the Bidens, accusing the administration of once again targeting the president's political rivals based on spurious allegations. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler wrote a letter to Barr expressing his "serious concern" over the situation and demanding answers about the "intake process."
"As you know, the Department has formal, established channels by which to receive information and begin investigations," Nadler wrote. "This new channel to Mr. Giuliani would seem to be a significant departure from those traditional channels."
#1
Seems like there is a lot of attention focused on Ukraine-U.S. corruption. Maybe something will come of it. In the HRC email debacle, Comey laid out a great case and then basically said "Move on, nothing to see here."
[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] Saudi cleric Sheikh Adel al-Kalbani, former Imam of the Mecca Grand Mosque, said that a cleric can make mistakes just as politician could, when asked about changing or retracting fatwas (edicts), the latest changes and reforms in Saudi Arabia and the beliefs of some of its clerics. Pope Francis: "You're telling me?"
“A cleric can make a mistake just like a politician could. He can be convinced of something and advocates for it, and after a while he can retract it because his convictions have changed,” al-Kalbani said on Sunday in an interview on Saudi channel Rotana.
“A cleric who finds the (Islamic) Sharia-based evidence which convinces him of an idea, is not at fault,” al-Kalbani added, who was once a part of the Sahwa movement.
Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman announced three years ago during a panel discussion held in the first annual Future Investment Conference in October 2017, that the Kingdom will witness many changes and reforms.
He vowed to lead the Kingdom to return to moderate Islam and to reject the “destructive ideas” which infiltrated Saudi Arabia when the Sahwa (Awakening) movement gained momentum in 1979 coinciding with the Iranian revolution.
WOMEN RIGHTS Some of the major social changes seen in Saudi Arabia include the lifting of the ban on women being allowed to drive, no longer needing permission of their male guardians to travel and encouraging them to enter the work force.
Al-Kalbani, however, said: “A woman can go out to work making sure to preserve her dignity, but she is not fit for every job.”
He also refused allowing girls and boys to attend the same schools, saying: “Don’t put fuel next to the fire.”
His comments, specifically about refusing to apologize for old fatwas regarding women’s issues, received some backlash, as Saudi women took to social media to express their anger.
A Twitter user named Jawharah replied to a clip of his interview on the social media platform saying: “They wasted our lives with their cursed fatwas and our time are still wasted because of them..”
Another user with the handle @00freee00 replied: “You were part of Sahwa which was a main cause of our suffering.. We will not forgive you until judgement day.. If you had any decency you would compensate the women who you were the cause of their suffering..”
Iran will respond forcefully to any Israeli action against its interests in the region, says Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi, according to Mehr news agency.https://t.co/IDT8Yhlxtl
#2
Mousavi might be taken seriously except for the fact that over the past few years Israel has been taking out Iran's agents and even Iran's own troops regularly with airstrikes. Probably at least once or twice a month.
Posted by: lord garth ||
02/13/2020 15:19
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"Then what exactly are Iran's interests in the region?"
[Rudaw] Fearful of attacks by Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear western pols talk they're not really Moslems.... (ISIS), 24 residents of the Diyala province village of Qalla stand guard throughout the night - a practice that has become routine since October 2017, when Peshmerga forces were driven out of the region by the Iraqi Army.
"Our situation is bad. We stand guard until the morning. We are ready for any task given to us," said villager Saman Mikael.
There is an 8 kilometer security void between the Diyala province towns of Khanaqin, Jalawla, and Qaratapa. The ungoverned space is a result of the collapse in communications between Iraqi and Kurdish forces.
Kurdish officials say ISIS remnants have capitalized on the security gap.
"It has been a long time since ISIS [Islamic State] returned to the region including Qaratapa, Jabara, Kolajo, all the way to Khanaqin in large numbers. The presence of ISIS in the region is the result of rivalries between us and the Iraqi Army leading to a security vacuum," said Shamal Abdulrahman, a local Asayesh head.
In recent weeks, the Iraqi Army has started building observation posts in the open terrain. According to Iraqi Army intelligence, ISIS has established the so-called ’Retaliatory Group’, a force made up of 15 snipers. ISIS murderous Moslems are under orders to target security forces and civilians, the army says.
Peshmerga officials want the Iraqi Army to build observation posts in coordination with Kurdish forces.
"The security void should be filled. The Iraqi Army had better establish watch posts in areas that maintain a security vacuum," Peshmerga commander Brig. Gen. Kamal Mohammed said. "ISIS [Islamic State] is capitalizing on the security voids ‐ not places where the Peshmerga are present. To fill the security voids, we have designated certain places for the Iraqi Army to go."
ISIS murderous Moslems have also upped their kidnapping campaign. At the last turn of the month, murderous Moslems kidnapped nine civilians in the Garmiyan region of Diyala, where they regularly establish fake checkpoints. The fate of the civilians remains unknown.
Another evidence that Hezbollah, although it has killed much more Sunnis than Jews, is committed to the entire annihilation of Israel. Behind the scenes, Hezbollah is also committed to promote the Iranian expansionist drive in the Middle East https://t.co/Fwqr0zTq9V
Posted by: Fred ||
02/13/2020
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#1
It should not be forgotten that Assad hates Erdogan and vice versa. It began when Assad's father destroyed the Muslim Brotherhood base at Homs, Syria, killing 20,000 and forcing Brotherhood survivors to flee to Turkey. There they found protection that continues under Erdogan.
Contracts found of mercenary #Chadian rebels fighting with the #GNA 1) the amount of 3000 LYD or 2070 USD per month each 2) the mercenaries not having military numbers or ranks 3) the contracts is done on a group of 30 not as individuals 4) Contact party GNA officer#Libyapic.twitter.com/8LWa8V7BQj
Posted by: Fred ||
02/13/2020
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#1
Notice that while the info appears in Arabic, in the sheet to the left there are paragraphs that begin with western numbers (1,2,3, etc.) rather than arabic numbers. Very strange.
[Jpost] An estimated 10,000 children are trained in Gazook terrorist camps each year, while at least 160 have died digging terror tunnels into Israel.
A coalition of non-governmental organizations is urging the public to help stop the use of Paleostinian children as soldiers and war resources by their leaders and terror groups in the region.
There are an estimated 300,000 child soldiers across 20 countries world-wide, including any person under 18 who is either recruited or used by an armed force or gang in any capacity, according to the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
Continued on Page 49
Didn’t Pakistan once have female pilots? Perhaps they would be better served letting the girls take over.
[DAWN] A Pakistain Air Force (PAF) trainer aircraft crashed on Wednesday while on a routine training mission near Takht Bhai in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa's Mardan district, the PAF said in a statement.
A spokesperson for the PAF added that the pilot ejected safely before the crash
"A board of inquiry has been ordered by Air Headquarters to determine the cause of [the] accident," the blurb said.
This is the third PAF training aircraft to have crashed while on a routine training mission in less than two months. If they crash so often, it's good the pilots have crash training
Last Friday, a PAF Mirage aircraft, which was on a routine operational training mission, had crashed near the Lahore-Multan ...Home of the Multan Sultans... Motorway. The pilot had managed to eject safely in that incident as well.
Earlier in January, a PAF aircraft had crashed while on a training mission near Mianwali. Both pilots, Squadron Leader Haris bin Khalid and Flying Officer Ibaadur Rehman, aboard the PAF FT-7 aircraft had bit the dust in the crash.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/13/2020
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#1
Unfortunate. The survival part, that is.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
02/13/2020 18:20
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[Jpost] Two reports highlight how extremism and anti-Jewish hatred is taught to youth in the Middle East; Saudis show improvement since last report.
Paleostinian textbooks delegitimize the State of Israel, demonize Israel and the Jews, and call for a violent struggle for the liberation of Paleostine, according to the latest report by the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center at the Israeli Intelligence Heritage and Commemoration Center.
The study, written by Arnon Groiss and initiated by the Center for Near East Policy Research, was published this week. It is the last in a series of studies done in the framework of a project that began in 2015 to examine the attitude of the Paleostinian Authority’s curriculum to the Jewish-Israeli "other" within the Israeli-Paleostinian conflict. In this final report, the study checks this attitude as reflected in teachers’ guides issued by the PA’s Ministry of Education.
Continued on Page 49
[Rudaw] Iraqi security forces have launched a new operation targeting the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear western pols talk they're not really Moslems.... (ISIS) group’s sleeper cells in areas of Anbar province bordering Syria and Jordan, military officials announced early Wednesday. It will not include the US-led coalition or the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF).
Ooooohhh — bold move.
The areas have seen a recent uptick in holy warrior activity, including bombings, ambushes, kidnapping, extortion, and arson.
In a attempt to save the Turkish lira, #Erdogan has requested the #GNA to depots 1.5 billion dollars in Turkish banks by next week. The money transfer will come through #libyan accounts in the #UK ,#France ,#Italy Via financial officer
[KhaamaPress] The Special Forces of the National Directorate of Security ...the Afghan national intel agency... (NDS) arrested 9 sympathizers of the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear western pols talk they're not really Moslems.... of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) terrorist during an operation in Kabul city.
According to a statement released by NDS, the Special Forces of the Directorate arrested the ISIS sympathizers during a raid which they recently conducted in Gulbahar Center.
Haris collected a considerable amount of money in European countries under the pretext of supporting the poor Muslims and channeled the funds to ISIS group in Afghanistan.
Led by Haris who is based out of Afghanistan, the group had established a shop ’Dar-ul-Hejab’ in the second floor of Gulbahar Center, a property dealership in Qala-e Musa and a money exchange shop in Sarai Shahzada.
The statement further added that Haris had established the businesses with the support of Mohammad Edris in Kabul city in a bid to provide financial support to the terror group.
The National Directorate of Security also added that Haris collected a considerable amount of money in Europe ...the land mass occupying the space between the English Channel and the Urals, also known as Moslem Lebensraum... an countries under the pretext of supporting the poor Moslems and channeled the funds to ISIS group in Afghanistan.
The detained ISIS sympathizers transferred the funds to various provinces of Afghanistan to help cure the maimed ISIS fighters and their family members, NDS added.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
02/13/2020
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Fox Business Network says its report that US President Donald Trump announced a conditional decision for a peace deal with the Taliban in Afghanistan is wrong.https://t.co/Js0yS9YvnK
[KhaamaPress] The U.S. President Donald Trump ...the Nailer of NAFTA... has conditionally approved a peace deal with the Taliban ...Arabic for students... group, more than a year after Washington entered into direct peace negotiations with the Taliban politicians.
Afghan and American officials privy of the development have told The New York Times
...which still proudly displays Walter Duranty's Pulitzer prize... that deal will only be signed if Taliban prove their commitment to a durable reduction of violence.
The officials further added that Taliban group will have to prove its commitment over a test period of about seven days later this month in a bid to pave the way for the signing of the deal.
The deal, if signed, will result in gradual withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan and the subsequent launch of direct negotiations between Taliban and Afghan leaders.
A senior Taliban leader has also confirmed to Times that were positive movements during the latest round of negotiations with the U.S. representatives.
This comes as Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Tuesday apprised Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah ...the former foreign minister of the Northern Alliance government, advisor to Masood, and candidate for president against both Karzai and Ghani. Dr. Abdullah was born in Kabul and is half Tadjik and half Pashtun. He also held the meaningless salaried sop position as CEO of Afghanistan, while Ghani was president... about the developments in U.S.-Taliban peace talks focused on reduction of violence.
The Office of Chief Executive said in a statement that Secretary Pompeo apprised Chief Executive Abdullah about the developments during a telephone conversation.
The statement further added that Secretary Pompeo expressed hopes that the recent developments would pave the way for the signing of a bilateral agreement, launch of intra-Afghan talks and attainment of eternal peace in Afghanistan, the statement added.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/13/2020
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#1
At least Fox issued a correction. More than you can say for their Shitshow peers.
[DAWN] A Lahore anti-terrorism court convicted Jamatud Dawa leader Hafiz Saeed ...founder of Lashkar-e-Taiba and its false-mustache offshoot Jamaat-ud-Dawa. The United Nations declared the JuD a terrorist organization in 2008 and Hafiz Saeed a terrorist as its leader. Hafiz, JuD and LeT are wholly-owned subsidiaries of the Pak intel apparatus, so that amounted to squat. He is periodically placed under house arrest so it looks like the govt is doing something. Once the heat is off they let him go.... in two terror-financing cases on Wednesday.
He was slapped with a prison sentence of five-and-a-half years and a fine of Rs15,000 in each case. The sentences of both cases will run concurrently. The court also granted him the benefit of Section 382-B of the Code of Criminal Procedure (reduction of period of sentence of imprisonment). Malik Zafar Iqbal, the secretary of al-Anfaal Trust, has also been convicted in the same cases and has been awarded similar punishment.
They were convicted under the Anti-Terrorism Act Section 11-F(2) ‐ pertaining to membership, support and meetings relating to a proscribed organization ‐ and 11-N (punishment under Sections 11-H to 11-K).
Section 11H relates to fundraising for the purpose of terrorism, 11-I is about the use and possession of money or other property for terrorism, 11-J relates to funding arrangements which result in money being made available for terrorism, while 11-K relates to money laundering.
The Jerusalem Post explains why this pet of the ISI, mastermind of the 2008 Mumbai massacre that killed 160 over four days, is suddenly convicted of anything:
The Islamist leader was the first high profile figure convicted on terrorism financing charges in Pakistan, which denies regular accusations that it shelters militants.
The unprecedented ruling came ahead of a meeting of a world financial watchdog, Financial Action Task Force (FATF), next week to decide whether to blacklist Pakistan over a failure to curb terrorism financing.
Amid pressure from the FATF to take action against Saeed's militant groups, Pakistan charged him in December with collecting funds for his organizations, which are listed as terrorist organizations by the United Nations. He pleaded not guilty.
"Hafiz Saeed and another of his close aides have been sentenced in two cases of terrorism financing," prosecutor Abdul Rauf Watto told Reuters.
Saeed has denied any involvement and says his network, which spans 300 seminaries and schools, hospitals, a publishing house and ambulance services, has no ties to militant groups.
Saeed and his group's charities had entered into the country's politics under a plan backed by Pakistan army in a bid to integrate the militants in mainstream society. They contested the 2018 general election under a new name, Milli Muslim League (MML), but did not secure any seats.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/13/2020
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#1
From the JP link: The unprecedented ruling came ahead of a meeting of a world financial watchdog, Financial Action Task Force (FATF), next week to decide whether to blacklist Pakistan over a failure to curb terrorism financing.
So, the Paks are tossing him under the bus to avoid being blacklisted by the FATF. But as Fred notes, once the heat is off, they'll let him out.
[BBC] As Wuhan - the Chinese city at the centre of the coronavirus outbreak - remains under lockdown, groups of volunteers have stepped in to help by taking patients to hospital and acting as taxis for health workers who have no transport.
The BBC spoke to one such volunteer, a man surnamed Zhou, who described how the network of volunteers emerged as normal life in the city shut down.
2. Effectively, this means the govt is giving doctors greater discretion to clinically diagnose patients. Previously, they could only confirm cases with the nucleic acid test kits. But a govt expert said recently these were only 30-40 percent accurate.
#3
ZeroHedge whom I do not trust any further than I can throw their server just published a very good article about this virus. It is a LONG article but it clearly states what I said two days after the outbreak. This virus is manmade, it is a manipulated virus originating from a supposedly BioHazard Level IV biological research facility that is essentially within a couple of blocks of the infamous meat market.
The General in charge of the PLA's bioweapons program has taken over the lab in Wuhan and has brought in the PLA to run the containment etc., of this virus.
A graph in the ZeroHedge article indicates that the virus infection is approaching an exponential rate.
The precursor virus was stolen from a lab in Canada by the Chinese and all of the Chinese staff of that lab were fired when the theft was discovered. The fired staff almost in toto were running the "research" lab in Wuhan.
This is a biological weapon that was accidentally released before they could perfect a vaccine for it.
Let's all hope the PLA, the EU, and the US can adequately contain this mess.
Tied to this is the potentially high number of infected individuals coming in from Latin America.
Lastly the Anti-Vaxxers and their pathological germ phobic behavior with their children leave their children with underdeveloped immune systems and exposure to this virus for them in particular will be catastrophic.
#5
Lastly the Anti-Vaxxers ...leave their children with underdeveloped immune systems and exposure to this virus for them in particular will be catastrophic.
I had been calling it Coronavirus 2019 (or 2020), others had called it nCov2019 or other things
The WHO now calls it COVID 2019 and the CDC agrees
regarding the origin
The vast majority of the persons who were first found to be infected had visited the Huanan seafood and live animal market in Wuhan. I've never visited this (and have no desire to go) but if you've seen pictures of this, it will go a ways toward convincing you of the plausibility of this market as the source. ZeroHedge's theory that the Bioweapon went first to the market is possible but IMO quite unlikely.
Posted by: lord garth ||
02/13/2020 9:10
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#9
the main reason I discount ZH's theory is that there is no need for it -- virus mutation, infection, etc. can all Huanan market in Wutan
the SARS virus is now reliably traced via DNA retro tracing to bats
another reason is that creating a virus as a military weapon is a terrible idea for a lot of reasons
- risk to your own high value medical team that works at the lab
- risk to your own population
- the fact that if you did come up with a weapon it would mutate in uncontrollable ways and almost certainly would not do what you designed it to do
this is not to say that all research in virology is bad, in fact such research is obviously worth doing
and yes, in medicine as in other fields you get people who are megalomaniac or careless and so it is not impossible that ZH is correct
Posted by: lord garth ||
02/13/2020 10:01
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North Korean leader Kim Jong-un quickly placed those returning from China in a quarantine. But according to reports an official was spotted breaching the order
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/13/2020 13:31
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#13
Federal Reserve is now closely monitoring global risks the virus is causing. Economies collapsing yet anyone???
The chairman of the Iowa Democratic Party announces his resignation after a disastrous caucus process beset by technical glitches led to a dayslong delay in reporting the results, inconsistencies in the numbers and no clear winner.https://t.co/yHlUpCi9iL
#3
Time to get electronics and software out of our voting entirely. Sunup to sundown poll hours on election day, no "early voting," absentee ballots require an affidavit of need (medical, business travel)
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
02/13/2020 13:24
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#4
"Absentee voting in NY and voting again in FL, CO, CA, MT" not acceptable answers.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
02/13/2020 13:27
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#5
..absentee ballots require an affidavit of need
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.