Posted by: Fred ||
02/27/2025
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#1
I recognize that indifferent lack of enthusiasm in the bedroom
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/27/2025 6:41
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#2
"Where's the ham?" Such a tiresome procession
Of men who all asked the same question
And claimed they were robbed!
"Sir, the artist has daubed
Very clearly, there, 'Serving suggestion.'"
[ToloNews] The Ministry of Interior has confirmed to TOLOnews that three foreign nationals and their Afghan interpreter have been arrested in the country.
Abdul Mateen Qane, the spokesperson for the Ministry of Interior, told TOLOnews that the detainees include two British citizens who hold Afghan identification documents, an American of Chinese origin, and their translator.
According to Abdul Mateen Qane, these individuals were arrested for "specific reasons," and efforts are ongoing to resolve their cases.
The spokesperson further stated: "Regarding the arrest of foreign nationals, two of them are British citizens with Afghan ID cards and passports, one is an American of Chinese origin, and a translator has also been detained for certain considerations."
Some experts believe that host countries have the right to detain foreign individuals if they violate local laws.
Zalmai Afghan Yar, a military affairs analyst, told TOLOnews: "Any foreign citizen traveling to Afghanistan who acts against governance policies will naturally be detained. I hope countries will not engage in confrontation over the enforcement of policies and will resolve these matters diplomatically. If they are guilty, they should be punished, and if not, they should be released."
Previously, a former Canadian soldier accused of violating Afghanistan’s law was arrested who was then released following Qatar ...an emirate on the east coast of the Arabian Peninsula. It sits on some really productive gas and oil deposits, which produces the highest per capita income in the world. They piss it all away on religion, financing the Moslem Brotherhood and several al-Qaeda affiliates. Home of nutbag holy manYusuf al-Qaradawi... 's mediation.
[KhaamaPress] On Tuesday, U.S. President Donald Trump ...The Hero of Butler, Pennsylvania... unveiled a new proposal for a U.S. residence card, called the "Golden Card." This new scheme is aimed at wealthy foreign investors and will cost around $5 million per card.
Trump introduced the concept in the Oval Office, telling news hounds that this "Golden Card" would replace the investor visa system that has been in place for the last 35 years, with a price tag of $5 million. Prob about the cost of care, feeding and the export of an illegal. Give it to the ones already here and let them find their way home. See how they do back there.
According to Trump, the target group for this new program will be wealthy and successful individuals who will spend large amounts of money, pay high taxes, and create jobs. He believes the program will be highly successful.
Howard Lutnick, the U.S. Secretary of Commerce, explained that the "Golden Card," which is now referred to as Trump’s "Golden Card," would replace the EB-5 visa within two weeks. This visa, introduced in 1990, was designed to attract foreign investment.
The new "Golden Card" aims to prevent fraud and "nonsense" related to the EB-5 visa program, with the ultimate goal of granting U.S. citizenship. This will increase the cost for investors entering the U.S. and ensure a more secure immigration process.
The Golden Card initiative could potentially change the landscape of foreign investment in the U.S. However,
there's more than one way to stuff a chicken... it still requires approval from Congress regarding citizenship terms. Meanwhile,
...back at the barn, Bossy's udder had begun to ache... wealthy Russians, among others, will be eligible for the program.
While Trump believes the program will be successful in attracting investment, concerns about the potential for fraud and the implications of offering citizenship to wealthy individuals continue to be points of debate.
"Imagine if we sell a million of them. That's $5 trillion, and that pays off our debt, drives down interest rates and makes America amazing," Lutnick said.
#3
The law authorizing the EP-5 program was passed in 1990. It was amended a number of time. The provisions requiring investment in the US with a lower amount of investment if it is made in a high unemployment area, the requirement to provide jobs, etc. have proven difficult, to administer and enforce.
The new plan seems to be much simpler. There are many rich people who want a legal residence in the USA but the $5M is a lot. I estimate the revenue to the USA would be below $5B/year, which is not to be sneezed at but not the Trillions being touted.
Posted by: Lord Garth ||
02/27/2025 9:48
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[ShabelleMedia] Somali National Army (SNA) forces, alongside local militia fighters, delivered a significant blow to Al-Shabaab militants today, repelling several attempted attacks in the Hirshabelle state of Somalia.
The militants had launched suicide bombings targeting various locations, but their efforts were foiled by the combined resistance of national forces and local clan militia, according to a statement issued by the Somali Ministry of Information.
More than 70 Al-Shabaab fighters were killed in preemptive counterattacks carried out by the SNA and local militia in the areas of Caddow-Guray in the Hiiraan region, Ceel Cali Axmed, and the town of Alkowsar in the Middle Shabelle region.
The Somali National Army, armed with intelligence about the militants’ planned suicide bombings, successfully disrupted each attack as planned, leaving the battlefield littered with the bodies of militants, including key commanders.
During the operations, a large amount of weaponry was seized, and several military vehicles used by Al-Shabaab were destroyed.
The Somali government is still assessing the full scale of the damage inflicted on the enemy, which will be shared with the Somali people in an official update shortly.
[Garowe] An underground bunker believed to have been the main operation center for ISIS top leadership was discovered by Puntland ...a region in northeastern Somalia, centered on Garowe in the Nugaal province. Its leaders declared the territory an autonomous state in 1998. Puntland and the equally autonomous Somaliland seem to have avoided the clan rivalries and warlordism that have typified the rest of Somalia, which puts both places high on the list for Islamic subversion... forces on Monday, military officials confirmed, releasing footage of the hideout, which has since been abandoned by the bad boys.
The hideout, officials say, probably housed the ISIS leaders in Sheebaab, a town that has since fallen to local troops, who took firm control, Monday. To conceal the bunker, vegetables were planted above it, making it an ideal organizational hub for leadership. Vegetable Leadership: It's not just the Biden Regime
A Puntland soldier filmed the site, and the footage has gone viral on social media. The cave is well connected with electrical power and has beddings, a confirmation that it was recently abandoned following a series of Arclight airstrike ...KABOOM!... s in the region.
The discovery was made after the forces seized Sheebaab in Togga-Jeceel as the operation entered the third phase — and probably the most consequential part of this timely but challenging campaign.
According to officials, the captured base in Sheebaab was ISIS’s largest command center in Somalia, housing leadership, a court, training camps, and operational coordination. Images show it functioned as the de facto headquarters of ISIS’s self-declared "Wilaya of Somalia".
The hideout had air ventilation pipes and was camouflaged with vegetation to resemble a farm, officials say. The forces seized fuel, weapons, and medical supplies left behind at a hospital used by ISIS bad boys.
Two mass graves were discovered in Sheebaab, according to the Puntland counterterrorism operation report. The graves are believed to be linked to past airstrikes targeting bad boy positions, reportedly carried out by the US and the UAE in the last few months.
Puntland's top military commander, Gen. Aadan Abdi Hashi, led the operations against bad boys, standing at ISIS’s largest command center in Sheebaab, where he lauded the forces for their commitment to eradicate terrorism in the state.
A fortified ISIS hideout cave, resistant to airstrikes, has also been discovered. Early this month, the US Africa Command confirmed the death of Ahmed Maeleninine, a senior ISIS operative who is believed to be a close associate of Abdulkadir Mumin, the global leader of ISIS bad boys.
[KhaamaPress] German media reported that a group of 155 Afghan local staff members who worked for the German government were transferred from Islamabad to Berlin on Tuesday. According to Bild newspaper, another group of Afghan refugees is expected to be transferred from Islamabad to Germany next month.
The group flew from Islamabad to Berlin on Tuesday, February 25, with a stopover in Dubai. Bild reported that there are no direct flights from Afghanistan to Germany, and the next flight from Pakistain to Germany is planned for March.
Some of those transferred to Berlin had worked for the German government before the German forces left Afghanistan in 2021. These individuals were part of the local staff employed by the German government in Afghanistan.
The Bild newspaper also noted that the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the Christian Social Union (CSU) have criticized these flights. German politician Thorsten Frei warned that the federal government is bringing in people from Afghanistan instead of focusing on deporting Afghan criminals.
Reports indicate that Germany has accepted over 48,000 Afghans since the fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban ...Arabic for students... . Of these, 38,000 are individuals identified as "at risk" by the German government.
The Christian Democratic Union (CDU), led by Friedrich Merz, won the recent German elections, with the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) making significant gains.
The AfD’s rise has sparked concerns among migrants colonists about potential changes in immigration policies. The transfer of Afghan refugees to Germany continues, reflecting the country’s ongoing commitment to those at risk in Afghanistan.
However,
those who apply themselves too closely to little things often become incapable of great things... with the AfD’s increased influence, the issue of immigration and refugee policies is becoming more contentious. Election outcomes could shape future policies, balancing humanitarian efforts with concerns over security and immigration control, potentially impacting Germany’s domestic and international stance on refugees.
Around 3,000 Afghans with German admission permits are currently waiting in Islamabad for their transfer to Berlin. This ongoing refugee process continues to be a significant issue in Germany’s foreign policy and immigration strategy. The government’s approach has sparked debate over the consistency of its policies regarding Afghan refugees.
[KhaamaPress] A former Afghan intelligence officer, who had worked with U.S. forces for 13 years, was arrested due to the new immigration policies under the Trump administration. Upon visiting the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) office for his annual check-in, he was informed that his temporary residency permit had been revoked.
The officer’s situation is a direct result of the immigration policy changes implemented after Trump’s return to the White House in January 2025. These new regulations have significantly impacted the cases of Afghan refugees and asylum seekers.
As part of the policy shift, Trump issued an executive order suspending the resettlement program for Afghan refugees, including halting all flights for eligible Afghans seeking resettlement in the United States. Furthermore, reports indicate that the Trump administration closed the U.S. State Department office responsible for resettling refugees who had worked with U.S. forces.
These changes have caused significant concern among Afghan refugees and other migrants colonists who are seeking the safest way to settle in the U.S. Many individuals, including this officer, who had collaborated with U.S. forces, are now facing serious challenges regarding their immigration status.
The Trump administration’s refugee and resettlement policies have created considerable uncertainty for those who worked alongside U.S. forces, including Afghan nationals who assisted with intelligence and military operations. These individuals, who had been promised protection, now face the risk of deportation or detention under the new regulations.
The suspension of the refugee resettlement program has left many individuals stranded, unsure of their future and safety. With limited avenues for legal recourse, they find themselves in precarious situations as they navigate the shifting policies.
The actions of the Trump administration have sparked widespread criticism, especially from advocates for refugees and human rights When they're defined by the state or an NGO they don't mean much... organizations. Many argue that these policies betray the promises made to those who risked their lives working with U.S. forces and jeopardize their safety and well-being.
#3
It really is a sad culture, but there are man others just as sad.
* Valve job and by-pass on the widow maker went flawlessly yesterday. I'm out of ICU and watching kudlow over top of my hp notebook. Thanks for your thoughts and prayers.
* Highly recommend the Cardio Team at Kennestone Hospital in Marrietta, Ga. for Cardiac issues. They are 'old man' friendly and the chow is excellent.
#6
Valve job and by-pass on the widow maker went flawlessly yesterday. I'm out of ICU and watching kudlow over top of my hp notebook. Thanks for your thoughts and prayers.
So very glad, Besoeker. I prefer missing you dreadfully starting a long time in the future
[ShabelleMedia] Somalia’s National Intelligence and Security Agency (NISA), with support from international partners, conducted Arclight airstrike ...KABOOM!... s targeting an al-Shabaab ... al-Qaeda's tentacle in East Africa... convoy in the Middle Shabelle region, the government said on Wednesday.
The precision operation struck bully boy vehicles in Sigato and Labi Aw-Hasan, areas between Ruun-Nirgood and al-Kawther districts, destroying several vehicles carrying heavy explosives and killing the forces of Evil on board, according to a statement from Somalia’s Ministry of Information.
One vehicle, a Toyota Prado was reportedly destined for an attack on a mosque in al-Kawther, the ministry said. al-Shabaab, an al-Qaeda-linked group, has a history of targeting religious sites, including mosques in El Ali Ahmed, Daru-Nimca, Buuloburde, Bahdo, and Qayib.
[IsraelTimes] Hamas is making preparations for the possibility of renewed fighting against Israel in Gaza, appointing new commanders to replace those killed, making deployment plans and beginning some work to rebuild tunnel systems, The Wall Street Journal reports.
The paper says the terror group is preparing for the possibility of the ceasefire’s collapse, and distributing pamphlets to new recruits that explain the use of weapons and guerilla warfare.
[IsraelTimes] An anti-government protest group has called for a civil disobedience to begin in Jerusalem on Sunday, after the Gaza ceasefire and hostage deal’s first phase is set to expire, to stop the “thwarting” of the deal and “abandonment” of the hostages.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has largely held off on negotiating the deal’s second phase, which would see Hamas release remaining living hostages, preferring to extend the ongoing first phase. The premier’s right-wing flank has threatened to topple the government should it proceed to the second phase, which would require Israel to withdraw fully from Gaza.
Demanding Israel “rise to phase two,” the protest group calls on its volunteers to come to join the “days of rage” by car, prepare food for a possibly long stay, and support protesters on the ground.
According to the message, Shift 101, which has held several silent pro-hostage deal protests, will gather on Jerusalem’s Azza Road — near the prime minister’s residence — at 4 p.m. Sunday, followed by an open-ended “rage protest” starting 7 p.m. "Break out the Soylent Green Scoopers!"
Since November, the “civil disobedience” group has been registering volunteers at weekend protests on Tel Aviv’s Begin Road and holding numerous tutorials on nonviolent disobedience tactics.
It has previously also called for a general strike and for parents to refrain from sending children to school. It advocates “nonviolent, determined civil disobedience that will lead to the fall of the government.”
In messages to volunteers, the group has repeatedly called for protesters to prepare for a “command day” that would see “thousands of soldiers on foot and battalions of cars” gather in Jerusalem, “when hostage families give the signal.”
It’s unclear how many volunteers have joined the group and which, if any, hostage families are affiliated with it.
[IsraelTimes] The United States imposes sanctions on six entities based in Hong Kong and China that it accuses of being involved in an Iranian drone procurement network as the Trump administration implements its “maximum pressure” campaign against Tehran.
The US Treasury Department says the entities are engaged in the procurement of unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) components on behalf of an Iranian firm under US sanctions, Pishtazan Kavosh Gostar Boshra, and its subsidiary Narin Sepehr Mobin Isatis, adding that the firms are key suppliers of Iran’s UAV and ballistic missile programs.
“Iran continues to try to find new ways to procure the key components it needs to bolster its UAV weapons program through new front companies and third-country suppliers,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent says in a statement.
“Treasury remains committed to disrupting the schemes that enable Iran to send its deadly weapons abroad to its terrorist proxies and other destabilizing actors.”
[PJMedia] Journalist Andy Ngo has revealed that a member of a now infamous transgender terror cult has been arrested and charged, but under a false name, apparently protecting the bloodthirsty radical.
A member of the violent mostly peaceful transgender terror cult "Zizians," two other members of which murdered Border Patrol officer David Maland in Vermont last month, has reportedly been charged under an incorrect name and birthdate. Ngo exposed the fraud on X and explained that he had tried to bring the serious errors to the attention of the proper authorities since the errors could potentially give the attempted assassin, Tessa Berns, an edge in her upcoming trial.
"Breaking: I name the real identity of arrested ’Ziz’ terror cult member ’Suri Dao.’ I've known the name for weeks and held back while seeking comment from prosecutors and the defense. Prosecutors charged her under the WRONG IDENTITY, and the defense will exploit that," Ngo posted on X on Feb. 22. He had already shared Berns’s name and some details about her.
According to Ngo, Berns uses plural pronouns now and claims to be non-binary. "Weeks ago, I contacted the Solano County DA's office after my investigation led me to discover that Ziz trans terror member ’Suri Dao’ was actually being charged under a fake identity and fake birthday — something her defense will exploit at trial to make jurors question if prosecutors have the right person over the 2022 attempted liquidation of Curtis Lind and the killing of fellow ’Ziz’ member Amir ’Emma’ Borhanian," Ngo explained.
Borhanian, a Google employee who had Antifa ...the armed wing of the Democratic Party... ties and repeatedly endorsed killing "Nazis," was rubbed out by octogenarian Curtis Lind, who was defending himself from a sword attack by Borhanian and fellow Zizians. While Lind survived being impaled and having his eye gouged out, the elderly man was subsequently stabbed to death, apparently by Zizians, according to Ngo. Borhanian was mourned by leftists as a supposedly innocent transgender victim of gun violence, and his family raised $20,000 on GoFundMe.
Ngo wrote of Borhanian’s fellow Zizian, "I can now confidently report that ’Suri Dao’ is the alias of Tessa Berns, a 24-year-old female award-winning former child genius from Denver, Colo. Berns was adopted from China by a well-to-do white lesbian couple. As a teen, she was vocal about her support for open borders. She was awarded a full scholarship to attend Arizona State in 2019." The woke mind sickness radicalized Berns.
Ngo wrote of Borhanian’s fellow Zizian, "I can now confidently report that ’Suri Dao’ is the alias of Tessa Berns, a 24-year-old female award-winning former child genius from Denver, Colo. Berns was adopted from China by a well-to-do white lesbian couple. As a teen, she was vocal about her support for open borders. She was awarded a full scholarship to attend Arizona State in 2019." The woke mind sickness radicalized Berns.
"When she was arrested over the deadly and violent mostly peaceful attack, she gave law enforcement an alias," Ngo continued. "Her family has been uncooperative in confirming Berns' identity to prosecutors." But he says he has the receipts.
What makes this situation particularly difficult is that all "members of the ’Ziz’ group use multiple aliases. Berns attempted to escape from custody and is being housed in a special medical ward," Ngo added.
Berns, who has previously used both male and female pronouns, now identifies as a trans nonbinary and uses the pronouns "they/them." A former alias she utilized was "Elizah." Her lawyer has attempted, Ngo accused, to hide Berns’s real legal name from both the court and the prosecutors.
The journalist ended, "Berns' lawyer Brian Ford told me: ’All I can offer you is what I have said before: I have only ever known my client to be Suri Dao. Other than that, I am sure that Suri would prefer not to be in the news at all. They are not overly involved in any of this.’"
[PJMedia] Imagine toiling anonymously away on a game-changing tool for government transparency and accountability, playing a "game" with billions of dollars at stake — people have been murdered for far less — when suddenly your identity is revealed for the world to see. What would you call that
DataRepublican (small r) calls it "Tuesday afternoon."
Regular readers here know that over the last several weeks, I've become a huge fan of Data Republican's tireless work. On her initiative (and at her own expense), she's made it possible for anyone, anywhere to investigate the dirty money flows that start with your paycheck, travel through Washington, and from there into the hands of countless questionable NGOs.
It's a miracle of our digital age that an amateur sleuth — albeit a highly talented one — can create those tools and make them universally available. Data R is the kind of person that, in a sane republic, we'd pin medals on. Instead, someone painted a target on her back.
"I have been doxxed," Data R revealed on Tuesday. "Rather than let others control the narrative, I am addressing this directly."
"My name is Jennica Pounds. I recently resigned from my job to pursue DOGE-adjacent efforts full-time. While my background check is still in progress, my ultimate goal is to work with the Administration to cut waste and improve efficiency."
I hesitated over republishing her name here, even though Jennica's post has been viewed (as of this writing) 4.5 million times. It just feels somehow tawdry, participating even in some tiny way in what happened, in no small part because she "gave up everything for this—my safety, my career—because I believe in what I am doing."
While these online games normally disgust me too much to play along, the stakes are too high to let Jennica's doxxer remain anonymous on my page:
This is the Youtube channel of the guy who doxxed you. He's a big fan of USAID. pic.twitter.com/yUrGGsCr0B
It was just from reading her post last night that I learned Data R is deaf and was doxxed by another deaf person following her (somewhat) disguised appearance on a News Nation video podcast. She was on the show to discuss a $17 million USAID grant to an NGO and "the only thing they did with $17 million was make a terrible muppet show" that garnered 200 views per episode. That's 200, not 200 thousand or anything.
"Now you know why they doxxed @DataRepublican," Vigilant Fox posted at the previous link, "she’s exposing the entire corrupt NGO system."
More supportive tweets at the link.
Maybe the most touching of all was United States Attorney for the District of Columbia Ed Martin, a Missouri Republican, who replied to Jennica's announcement, "Please contact me or my office." Martin and Data R, you'll be pleased to know, have established communications.
Another data guy, Richard Crowe, added, "Upon further reflection, I realized the doxxing was an indirect attack on all of us. If Data were to retire from this role (which is completely understandable, given tonight's events), the American people would lose her insights to better understand what is being hidden."
Don't worry, she isn't giving up. "I am not backing down and I look forward to serving the Administration," Jennica assured her followers.
Consequences all around. They both can afford it, but losing will sting a little.
[FreeBeacon] Roger Waters called veteran reporter John Ware a 'lying, conniving Zionist mouthpiece' who supports 'genocide of the Palestinian people'
A British court determined in a preliminary ruling that Pink Floyd frontman Roger Waters defamed John Ware, a veteran journalist who made a documentary critical of Waters's anti-Semitic history, when he called Ware a "lying, conniving Zionist mouthpiece" who supports the "genocide of the Paleostinian people." The development puts both Waters and the Hamas ..always the voice of sweet reason... -friendly network Al Jazeera on the hook for damages.
In the Tuesday ruling, the British High Court of Justice found that Waters's "statements are defamatory" because they were offered as fact, not opinion. The decision sets the stage for Ware to receive financial compensation not just from Waters but also from Al Jazeera, the Arab network funded in large part by the Hamas-friendly nation of Qatar ...an emirate on the east coast of the Arabian Peninsula. It sits on some really productive gas and oil deposits, which produces the highest per capita income in the world. They piss it all away on religion, financing the Moslem Brotherhood and several al-Qaeda affiliates. Home of nutbag holy manYusuf al-Qaradawi... . Waters's comments targeting Ware came during a 2024 interview on the Al Jazeera network, which Ware sued in addition to Waters. The case could go to trial to determine damages, though barrister Simon Myerson predicted that Waters and Al Jazeera will settle with Ware.
Ware, a documentarian who produced a 2023 film examining Waters’s vast anti-Israel advocacy, sued the musician and Al Jazeera last year. Waters appeared on Al Jazeera to bash Ware’s film and accused the journalist of "cheerleading the genocide of the Paleostinian people like almost more than anyone else on earth."
Ware’s documentary, The Dark Side of Roger Waters, was produced for the Campaign Against Antisemitism, a British nonprofit that combats Jew-hatred. In it, Ware examined the singer’s long history of anti-Israel activism and embrace of anti-Semitic imagery. Waters, for instance, dressed in Nazi regalia during a 2023 show and displayed an inflatable pig emblazoned with Jewish stars. Ware’s documentary detailed the musician’s plans to add other slogans and symbols to the pig, including "dirty kike," "follow the money," and "scum."
His Nazi cosplay earned a rare rebuke from the Biden administration State Department, which described Waters as having a "long track record of using antisemitic tropes to denigrate Jewish people."
In the wake of Oct. 7, Waters said Hamas's terror attack was justified and accused Israel of "making up stories" about widespread rape and torture on that day.
"Was it justified for [Hamas] to resist the occupation? Yeah," Waters said just a month after the attack. "They are absolutely legally and morally bound to resist the occupation since 1967."
Referring to reports that Hamas raped women, killed babies, and tortured civilians during its rampage through Israel, Waters downplayed the revelations.
"We don't yet know what happened," he said at the time. "Maybe there were some individual cases of civilians getting killed."
Waters is also a leading supporter of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement, an anti-Semitic global campaign to wage economic warfare on the Jewish state.
[NewsMax] Military contractors have proposed helping the execution of President Donald Trump ...They hit him with slander, they impeached him twice. Nancy Pelosi tore up his State of the Union address on national TV. They stole an election and put his adherents in jail. They vilified him. They couldn't crucify him, so they shot him. Still, they can't keep him down... 's mass deportations of illegal migrants colonists, according to a report.
Before the Jan. 20 inauguration, a group of contractors gave Trump advisers a 26-page summary of a plan that would cost $25 billion, Politico reported.
The group is led by former Blackwater CEO Erik Prince and Bill Mathews, the former chief operating officer of Blackwater, which provided security, training and logistical support to U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan following the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
The contractors' proposal included the use of "processing camps" on military bases, a private fleet of 100 planes, and a "small army" of private citizens empowered to make arrests, the outlet added.
Politico reported that White House officials were in talks with military contractors, particularly as Congress works to agree on a budget and secure funding for the border and immigration.
Nearly 500,000 illegal aliens per month would need to be deported to achieve the contractors' goal of 12 million deportees before the 2026 midterms.
"To keep pace with the Trump deportations, it would require a 600% increase in activity. It is unlikely that the government could swell its internal ranks to keep pace with this demand ... in order to process this enormous number of deportations, the government should enlist outside assistance," the plan said.
[IsraelTimes] In fresh scrutiny of controversial film, report accuses broadcaster of ‘whitewashing’ terror support with what an Israeli diplomat calls ‘intentional mistranslations’
A controversial BBC documentary on life in Gaza has again come under scrutiny, as a report Monday accused the filmmakers of “whitewashing” references to terrorism, Jihad, Hamas and prejudice against Jews in the English translation of the original Arabic dialogue.
The film, “Gaza: How To Survive a War Zone”, was pulled from BBC‘s online streaming service last week after a Telegraph report found that the documentary’s narrator was the son of a major Hamas governmental figure.
On Monday, a new report in the Telegraph found that the English translation of the film repeatedly mistranslated certain words in an attempt to “whitewash” the statements of the ordinary Gazans who were interviewed in the documentary.
According to the Telegraph, all mentions of the word “Jews” were translated to “Israelis” or “Israeli forces,” and all mentions of “Jihad” were translated to “battle” or “resistance.”
The mistranslations were first highlighted by the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis (CAMERA), a US-based pro-Israel media watchdog, which offered more accurate translations of the film’s original Arabic to contrast the BBC’s version.
In the film, a fleeing Gazan woman tells the cameraman that “the Jews invaded our area,” but the BBC translated the quote to “the Israeli army invaded our area.”
A few minutes later, a Gazan boy tells the interviewer that “the Jews came, they destroyed us, Hamas and the Jews”. However, this quote was translated in the BBC’s subtitles as “the Israelis destroyed everything, and so did Hamas.”
Later in the film, a woman shows the camera footage of slain Hamas terror chief Yahya Sinwar’s last moments before he was killed by the IDF in October of last year, saying in Arabic that “his face was covered and his weapon was ready, prepared for Jihad,” but the BBC’s subtitles translated Jihad, which means holy war, to “battle.”
The same woman said that arch-terrorist Sinwar “was engaging in resistance and jihad against the Jews,” but the subtitles read “he was fighting and resisting Israeli forces.”
After the mistranslations were reported, the Telegraph quoted Orly Goldschmidt, a diplomat at the Israeli Embassy in London, as saying that the mistakes were “intentional mistranslations” by the BBC, adding that “it reflects a very serious and systematic issue, which has taken root at the BBC, with regards to its anti-Israel bias.”
The original scrutiny of the film, which led to its removal from the BBC’s streaming platform, was because the documentary’s main narrator and central figure, 14-year-old Abdullah Al-Yazouri, is the son of Ayman Al-Yazouri, deputy minister of agriculture in the Strip’s Hamas government.
This connection was first revealed by journalist David Collier, who called the film’s narrator “the child of Hamas royalty.”
The elder Al-Yazouri’s LinkedIn profile says he has been deputy agriculture minister in Gaza since July 2021 and before that worked as an assistant to the deputy minister in Gaza’s education ministry. Hamas controls all government institutions in Gaza.
After initially saying the film would remain available to view with “some details” added, the broadcaster later succumbed to widespread criticism and removed the film.
The International Centre of Justice for Palestinians, a pro-Palestinian NGO, condemned the criticism of the documentary, saying that despite Ayman Al-Yazouri being “a civil servant in Gaza’s Agriculture Ministry,” that “does not negate Abdullah’s lived experience as a child in Gaza nor does it invalidate his testimony.”
After the film was removed from the platform, UK opposition leader Kemi Badenoch wrote a letter to the BBC asking if the broadcaster used license fees paid by the British public to make payments to Hamas, the Daily Mail reported.
Badenoch’s letter called for a probe into any “potential collusion with Hamas” and “the possibility of payment to terrorists.”
According to the Daily Mail, the BBC said it could not immediately answer her question and was carrying out “further due diligence” on how the program was made.
Badenoch also said anti-Israel bias in the BBC’s reporting of the conflict was not an “isolated incident” and called for rooting out the “systemic and institutional bias against Israel.”
The UK public broadcaster has been criticized for its refusal to describe Hamas as terrorists, even though the group’s military wing is proscribed by the United Kingdom as such, and even after the widespread documentation of its systematic targeting of civilians on October 7, 2023.
#3
I'm so old I remember when the Beeb was regarded as a reliable source of information. I'm not saying they were, we just still thought of them that way.
[IsraelTimes] IAEA raises alarm over production of close to weapons grade material, says time is running out for diplomatic recourse to impose new restrictions on program
Iran’s stock of uranium close to weapons grade has jumped since it announced a dramatic acceleration in enrichment in December, and there has been no progress on resolving outstanding issues, two reports by the UN nuclear watchdog said on Wednesday.
The stock of uranium enriched to up to 60 percent fissile purity, close to the roughly 90% of bomb grade, has been a long-standing concern for Western powers, which say there is no civil justification for enriching uranium to such a high level. Iran ...a theocratic Shiite state divided among the Medes, the Persians, and the (Arab) Elamites. Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979. The nation is today noted for spontaneously taking over other countries' embassies, maintaining whorehouses run by clergymen, involvement in international drug trafficking, and financing sock puppet militias to extend the regime's influence. The word Iran is a cognate form of Aryan. The abbreviation IRGC is the same idea as Stürmabteilung (or SA). The term Supreme Guide is a the modern version form of either Duce or Führer or maybe both. They hate JewsZionists Jews. Their economy is based on the production of oil and vitriol... says it seeks nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.
While US President Donald Trump ...Perhaps no man has ever had as much fun being president of the US... ’s administration has said it plans to pressure Iran over its nuclear program, the ineffective International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has said time is running out for diplomacy to impose new restrictions on Iran’s activities.
"The significantly increased production and accumulation of high enriched uranium by Iran, the only non-nuclear weapon state to produce such nuclear material, is of serious concern," the IAEA said in a passage that, unusually, was included in both its quarterly reports on Iran.
Those confidential reports, sent to member states on Wednesday and both seen by Rooters, showed that while the stock of 60% material grew by half, there was no real progress on resolving long-running outstanding issues, including the unexplained presence of uranium traces at undeclared sites.
The stock of uranium refined to up to 60% in the form of uranium hexafluoride grew by 92.5 kilograms (204 pounds) in the past quarter to 274.8 kilograms (606 pounds), one of two confidential IAEA reports said.
That is enough in principle, if enriched further, for six nuclear bombs, according to an IAEA yardstick. There is enough for more weapons at lower enrichment levels.
Where before its latest acceleration, Iran was producing between 6 and 9 kilograms (13 and 20 pounds) of uranium enriched to up to 60% per month, now that figure is between 35 and 40 kilograms (77 and 88 pounds), a senior diplomat said. This is just short of the 42 kilograms that is enough in principle for one bomb, if refined further.
One of the reports spelled out the lack of progress on the outstanding issues such as explaining the uranium traces, which the IAEA has been asking the Islamic Theocratic Republic to do for years.
"Iran states that it has declared all of the nuclear material, activities and locations required under its Safeguards Agreement. This is inconsistent with the Agency’s assessments," it said.
"The Agency is, therefore, at an impasse with regard to resolving these outstanding safeguards issues."
During his first term as president, Trump withdrew the US from a landmark deal between Iran and major powers that placed strict limits on Tehran’s nuclear activities in exchange for sanctions relief. After Trump pulled out in 2018, Iran breached and far surpassed those limits.
With the deal now largely in tatters, European powers are seeking to either have the US help agree on new limits on Iran’s nuclear program or use a mechanism in the deal to reimpose all sanctions before the deal expires in October.
There are signs that a military option to deal with the concerns around the nuclear program may be on the table. A British Telegraph report on Tuesday said Iran is now on high alert as it braces for a potential attack by Israel and the US on its nuclear facilities.
According to the report, Tehran has deployed additional air defense system launches around key nuclear and missile sites. An official told the newspaper, however, that there was an understanding in Tehran that Iran’s already-weakened air defenses "may not be effective in the event of a large-scale strike."
[IsraelTimes] Defense minister says strikes are part of new policy aimed at ‘pacifying southern Syria;’ strike in Lebanon’s Beqaa Valley targets ‘blatant violation’ of ceasefire, military says
Airstrikes targeted sites near Damascus in Syria and deep inside Leb ...Formerly inhabited by hardy Phoenecian traders, its official language is now Arabic, with the usual unpleasant side effects.... late Tuesday, the Israel Defense Forces said in a statement.
In Syria, the strikes hit military storage sites that presented a "threat," while the Lebanese bombing targeted Hezbollah operatives who were violating the terms of a ceasefire, the military said.
Syrian and Lebanese sources reported that a number of people were killed in the attacks.
"The presence of military assets and forces in the southern part of Syria constitutes a threat to the citizens of the State of Israel," the Israeli military said. "The IDF will continue to act to remove any threat to the citizens of the State of Israel."
Defense Minister Israel Katz also confirmed that Israel was carrying out Arclight airstrike ...KABOOM!... s in southern Syria after blasts were reported in several areas south of Damascus.
"The Air Force is attacking strongly in southern Syria as part of the new policy we have defined of pacifying southern Syria — and the message is clear: we will not allow southern Syria to become southern Lebanon," his spokesperson said in a statement referring to the volatile situation in Lebanon where Iran-backed terror group Hezbollah has repeatedly provoked conflicts, most recently a war last year.
"We will not endanger the security of our citizens," Katz said. "Any attempt by Syrian regime forces and the country’s terrorist organizations to establish themselves in the security zone in southern Syria — will be met with fire."
Israeli planes struck the town of Kisweh, approximately 20 kilometers (12 miles) south of Damascus, a Syrian security source and Syria TV said. The security source said a military site was targeted, without providing further details.
Additional Israeli air raids hit a town in the southern province of Daraa, residents and Syria TV said.
Residents of Damascus and Rootersnews hounds in the city heard the sound of airplanes flying several low passes over the capital and a series of blasts.
There was no immediate comment from Syrian authorities.
UK-based war monitor Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that Israel had launched strikes on multiple areas in Syria. They included the countryside outside of Damascus, several points in southern Syria, and on the border between Syria and Lebanon.
The observatory, a British-based outfit of unclear funding, reported that two soldiers with the new Syrian government’s security forces and two non-combatants were killed in the strikes.
It said that the deaths were caused by Israeli strikes at a "military unit’s headquarters southwest of Damascus."
A video shared on social media reportedly showed demonstrators marching in Damascus after the strikes and calling on the new Syrian government to bomb Tel Aviv in response to the attacks.
Any Syrian army forces that move south of Damascus will risk "facing an Israeli response by fire," an Israeli official told The Times of Israel.
"We are not going to allow jihadists near our border, we are not going to allow threats to the Druze in Syria... and we will not allow another October 7 to happen in the Golan," said the official.
The strikes come after several Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, demanded in recent days the demilitarization of southern Syria and warned that Israel would prevent the Syrian army from moving south of Damascus.
On Sunday, Netanyahu warned Syria’s new leadership against moving troops into southern Syria.
The premier vowed Monday that Israeli forces would remain "for the foreseeable future" in a buffer zone established on the border after the fall of the Assad regime in December.
"We will not allow the presence of the HTS organization or the new Syrian Army in the area south of Damascus," he said, referring to Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, formerly al-Nusra, before that it was called something else ...al-Qaeda's Syrian affiliate, from which sprang the Islamic State... , the rebel group that led the overthrow of the Assad regime.
"Southern Syria will be demilitarized," Netanyahu declared in a live video broadcast to the AIPAC conference in the US.
In the weeks after rebels stormed into Damascus, Israel carried out multiple air raids to destroy Syrian army assets, saying the move was to prevent the weapons from falling into the hands of those who might pose a threat to the country.
The IDF has also worked to gather or destroy weapons that were left behind by fleeing Syrian army soldiers at military posts in the buffer zone.
HEZBOLLAH ’VIOLATIONS’
The IDF also said it carried out an airstrike against a group of Hezbollah operatives in Lebanon’s Beqaa Valley.
The strike was carried out after the military said it identified the operatives at a "strategic weapons" manufacturing and storage facility belonging to the terror group.
The operatives’ activity at the site is a "blatant violation" of the ceasefire agreement between Israel and Lebanon, the IDF said.
Lebanese state media said that the Israeli strike killed at least two people in the country’s east.
"An enemy drone carried out an airstrike on the town of Shaara... near the eastern Lebanon mountain range, killing two people and wounding two" others, said the state-run National News Agency.
Lebanese terror group Hezbollah began attacking across the border on October 8, 2023, the day after allied Paleostinian terror group Hamas ..the braying voice of Islamic Resistance®,... led a massive invasion of southern Israel in which it killed some 1,200 and took 251 hostages.
Hezbollah rocket and drone attacks forced the evacuation of 60,000 northern residents, killed dozens of people, and caused significant damage. Israel hit back with air strikes, and by September the conflict escalated into open war, during which Israel decimated Hezbollah’s leadership and stockpiles. The war ended in a late November ceasefire, which has largely held despite mutual accusations of violations.
Under the November 27 truce agreement, Israeli forces were to withdraw from southern Lebanon while Hezbollah was to remove its military infrastructure from the area. Troops remain in five points deemed "strategic" by the Israeli military.
[IsraelTimes] 5 workers wear shirts reading ‘Does our code kill kids, Satya?’ over provision of AI, cloud services, as recent report claimed army used Microsoft models to select bombing targets
Five Microsoft employees were ejected from a meeting with the company’s chief executive on Monday for protesting contracts to provide artificial intelligence and cloud computing services to the Israeli military.
Confusing Microsoft with a college campus.
The protest came after an investigation by The News Agency that Dare Not be Named claimed last week that sophisticated AI models from Microsoft and OpenAI had been used as part of an Israeli military program to select bombing targets during the recent wars in 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 a rusty iron fist by Hamas with 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... and Leb ...home of the original Hezbollah, which periodically starts a war with the Zionist Entity, gets Beirut pounded to rubble, and then declares victory and has a parade.... , triggered by the Hamas ..the braying voice of Islamic Resistance®,... terror group’s devastating October 7, 2023, attack.
The story also contained details of what it said was an errant Israeli Arclight airstrike ...KABOOM!... in 2023 that reportedly struck a vehicle carrying members of a Lebanese family, killing three maiden of tender yearss and their grandmother.
I seem to recall the car belonged to a Hezbollah big turban…
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella was speaking about new products at an employee town hall meeting at the company’s corporate campus in Redmond, Washington. Workers standing about 15 feet to his right then revealed t-shirts with words that spelled out the question "Does Our Code Kill Kids, Satya?" when their wearers stood side-by-side. Cute. "Allahu Akhbar" didn't work?
Photos and video of the incident, which was live streamed throughout the company, shows Nadella kept speaking and did not acknowledge the protesters. Two men quickly tapped the workers on the shoulders and ushered them out of the room.
"We provide many avenues for all voices to be heard," Microsoft said in a statement provided to the AP. "Importantly, we ask that this be done in a way that does not cause a business disruption. If that happens, we ask participants to relocate. We are committed to ensuring our business practices uphold the highest standards."
Microsoft did not answer Tuesday when asked whether the employees involved in the protest would face disciplinary action.
They should have done immediately, or there will be even more of this kind of thing. The moment calls for punishment, not discussion — basic psychology of management stuff.
The company also previously declined to comment about the AP’s February 18 story about its contracts with the Israeli military.
In October, Microsoft fired two workers for helping organize an unauthorized lunchtime protest at its headquarters over the Gaza war, in which the workers called Israel’s campaign against Hamas a "genocide" and accused Microsoft of complicity in it. Israel has strenuously denied all accusations of genocide.
Video from the event, shared by a Jewish employee on her Times of Israel blog, showed one of the protest’s 30-40 participants shoving a modified Lebanese flag in her face and telling her, "Kiss the flag, Nazi."
Iran proxies creating a hostile work environment. The Justice Department could have fun with that.
At the time, Microsoft said that it had ended the employment of some people "in accordance with internal policy" but declined to give details.
How are people to know the rules, if they aren’t explained?
A group of workers has been raising concerns within the company for months about Microsoft providing services to the Israeli military through its Azure cloud computing platform.
Management makes philosophical decisions. Workers get to comply or leave — fussing is not one of the two choices.
The AP’s investigation included exclusive details drawn from internal company data and documents, including that the alleged usage of AI models by the Israeli military through Azure increased nearly 200 times after the Hamas terror group’s October 7, 2023 attack — in which thousands of Death Eaters killed some 1,200 people and took 251 hostages — starting the war.
Congratulations on making the cut, Microsoft!
The AP’s report was shared and discussed among Microsoft employees on social media and within the company’s internal systems. In a community forum designated for employees to raise concerns with big shotship, an employee shared links to the AP report.
More than a dozen others questioned whether the company was violating its stated principles to defend human rights ...which often include carefully measured allowances of freedom at the convenience of the state... and not to let its AI models be used to harm people, according to screenshots reviewed by the AP.
Abdo Mohammed, a researcher and data scientist who was one of the Microsoft workers fired over the October vigil, said the company is prioritizing profits over its own human rights commitments.
"The demands are clear," said Mohammed, who works with a group of Microsoft workers called No Azure for Apartheid. "Satya Nadella and Microsoft executives need to answer to their workers by dropping contracts with the Israeli military."
Looking for matching tariffs, it appear to me. Trade deficits are downstream from that.
[Daily Mail, where America gets his news] European auto shares fell today after Donald Trump unveiled a plan to slap a 25 per cent tariff on cars and other goods from the European Union last night.
The US President declared that the bloc was established just to 'screw' his country as he announced the massive levy, prompting the European Commission to vow it would counter the measures 'firmly and immediately'.
The exchange of words and impending tariffs fanned fears of an escalating trade war, sending shares of some of the biggest European carmakers sliding.
Stellantis, Volkswagen and Porsche all reversed 2 per cent, while Ferrari fell more than 6 per cent after Exor sold a roughly 4 per cent stake in the luxury automaker for 3billion euros ($3.14billion).
The pan-European STOXX 600 Automobiles and Parts Index slid 3.3 per cent as of 1015GMT, while the wider STOXX Europe 600 retreated 0.58 per cent - though it began to pick back up again later in the day.
French government spokeswoman Sophie Primas said a trade war is in no-one's interest and said the European Union 'was not created to bother the United States' but went on to affirm: 'If we must respond, we will respond.'
Fears of a trade war came as Sir Keir Starmer, on his way to meet President Trump in Washington DC, pointed out that the UK does not have a trade deficit with the US - which could mean it is spared from the White House's wrath.
Despite other carmakers taking a hit after Trump's comments, Rolls-Royce soared 16 per cent after the British engine-maker lifted its mid-term targets and beat 2024 profit-growth expectations.
Speaking in his first cabinet meeting yesterday since returning to the White House, Trump said the tariffs would hit the EU 'very soon'.
'It will be 25 per cent, generally speaking, and that will be on cars and all other things,' he told reporters yesterday.
He added: 'The European Union was formed in order to screw the United States, that's the purpose of it. And they've done a good job of it. But now I'm President.'
Trump said the EU had 'really taken advantage' of America by not accepting its cars or farm products, adding: 'We have about a $300million deficit with the European Union'.
Asked if the bloc would retaliate, he replied: 'They can't; I mean they can try, but they can't.'
The President claimed the US is the 'pot of gold' that everyone wants and when faced with retaliation it can 'go cold turkey' and not buy any more, winning the trade war.
His America First policy has already seen him announce tariffs of 25 per cent on all steel and aluminium imports.
He has also imposed 10 per cent tariffs on goods from China and is still threatening to hit Canada and Mexico with rates of 25 per cent despite putting them on hold after the US's closest neighbours agreed to strengthen their borders against drug and gun smuggling.
Trump has also threatened 'reciprocal tariffs' matching those of any country that imposes taxes on American firms, which could mean the UK suffers particularly badly as it charges VAT at 20 per cent on almost all goods.
However the US does not have a trade deficit with the UK as it does with the EU, potentially making it less of a target for the President's ire.
Total trade in goods and services between the two countries was worth £294billion in 2024.
#5
During Trump Admin 2017-2021 about $90B was collected in custom duties by USA.
During Biden Admin 2021-2025 about $175B was collected in custom duties by USA.
Probably will go to $300B during current Trump Admin.
I suspect EU countries collected more during first Trump admin than the USA collected but I don't have the figures (and can't trust the info I do have from EU countries).
Posted by: Lord Garth ||
02/27/2025 15:24
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#6
/\ President wants the old Chrysler plant in Belvidere, Ill to build cars again. Jeep built the last one that rolled off them assembly line a few years ago.
Wonder if the fat arssed gov of Ill would be agreeable to a Tesla or a jeep.
Egregious nonsense. Donald Trump complained to Merkel that no Chevrolets or Fords are sold in Germany.
That's not true. Of course Fords are sold in Germany, they are just not very popular because they are boring cars.
The background to Chevrolet's withdrawal in 2016 is that General Motors wanted to strengthen the position of Opel (manufactured in Germany) and its British sister brand Vauxhall. Most recently, the technically similar but significantly cheaper Chevrolet models had been competing strongly with the two traditional brands. Chevrolet now only offers special cars, such as the Corvette and Camaro sports cars, on the European market, via the dealers of GM's luxury brand Cadillac. The latter has expanded in Europe and introduced new models.
I should know that because one of my cars is a Cadillac Escalade. And I like it.
Posted by: European Conservative ||
02/27/2025 17:25
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#10
Thanks for buying American EC. I have a few Waffenfabrik built items around here somewhere. Need a few more.
[Daily Mail, where America gets its news] A Montana man who 'firebombed' his neighbor's home while high on meth was ordered 110 years in prison for attempted murder.
Paul Ailport, 65, drove his flaming pickup truck - rigged with a 300 pound steal beam and a 228-shot 'triple cannon' firework - into his neighbor's home just after 9:15am on November 10, 2023. He had been awake for three days straight on a drug-fueled bender, according to neighbors.
The crash set the house ablaze and the beam catapulted into the Pablo property's bathroom - barely missing the head of Anna Schiele, who was 19 years old at the time, who was stepping into the shower when the chaos erupted. Anna's boyfriend and her parents Ron and Annette Schiele jumped into action and pulled her out of the room as she was becoming engulfed by the fire.
After everyone rushed outside for safety, Ron ripped Ailport - who was bloodied and battered - out of the charred makeshift bomb, leaving his two prosthetic legs stuck in the vehicle.
'That day that I pulled him out of the burning vehicle he wanted us to shoot him. He didn't plan on living through it,' Ron told DailyMail.com.
Court records also reveal that Ailport 'stated that they should have let him die in the fire,' the Cowboy State Daily reported.
The incident was an intentional attempt at harming the family, witness accounts and court evidence suggests.
In December 2024, Ailport entered an Alford plea deal, meaning he maintains his innocence but faces the same consequences as if he pleaded guilty.
The fire starter was finally given his sentence by a state judge on February 13. He was given 100 years at Montana State Prison for attempted murder and an extra 10 years for 'weapons enhancement.'
Ron and other residents of the area told the Cowboy State Daily that Ailport had been tormenting the neighborhood for at least a year-and-a-half before plowing into Ron's house.
Ailport was already facing charges including criminal endangerment and possession of dangerous drugs for allegedly firing a gun towards a neighbor's property with high, the Lake County Leader reported.
He once asked a neighbor which bedroom Ron slept in because he was planning on packing up his truck with gas and propane to 'blow them up and kill them all,' according to court documents obtained by the Cowboy State Daily.
Ron had even filed a restraining order against his estranged neighbor, but it did nothing to de-escalate their feud.
'A lot of sleepless nights,' he told the outlet. 'Every little sound. Is that him? Is he coming here now? At two in the morning.
Neighbors noticed a pattern of Ailport's psychotic behavior - including firing gunshots, driving over other people's lawns and making violent threats - and blamed it on his meth consumption.
Despite reporting various strange incidents to the police, Ron said authorities did not take proper action until it was too late.
'It's just mind blowing that they couldn't do anything prior to, basically waiting until the incident happens, hoping that everybody lives through it, and then they'll do something about it,' he told the Cowboy State Daily.
Ailport's wife Delfina has spoken out about her husband's gut-wrenching actions, claiming he battles severe mental illness.
'That was really frightening what Paul did to them. But it just shows how mental illness just gets thrown in the back corner again like usual. That's what's really sad. He’s sick,' Delfina told Cowboy State Daily.
'Paul was one of the victims that fell through the cracks of the system, you know, of mental illness.'
But Ailport was seemingly obsessed with fire and violence from a young age, a poem he wrote as a child has revealed.
In 1973, The Missoulian newspaper published a poem titled The Fire written by Ailport in the eighth grade.
According to the Cowboy State Daily, the bloodcurdling poem reads: 'I had a little rocket which I set afire one day.
'It cruised around and landed in some hay. It set the hay ablaze and I fell back in a daze.
'The fire overcame me but no one heard my plea. I died that night - very sadly.'
Bad, politicized science was the excuse for worse government regulation.
[Daily Mail, where America gets its news] ... but could spell global disaster
The Trump Administration may soon do away with a major scientific finding that has been the basis for hundreds of billions in government spending on climate change.
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lee Zeldin is reportedly lobbying for the White House to strike down the 'endangerment finding,' a 2009 scientific conclusion which found that gases leading to global warming pose a threat to public health and welfare. The finding has served as the justification for government regulations limiting the emission of greenhouse gases since the Obama presidency.
According to three anonymous sources who spoke with the Washington Post, Zeldin has recommended that President Trump repeal the endangerment finding - clearing the way for the undoing of countless climate regulations now in place throughout America.
Both the Obama and Biden Administrations used this 2009 ruling to impose new limits on the emissions produced by cars, factories, and power plants.
However, government spending watchdogs have detailed how much money this has cost taxpayers, with lawmakers imposing costly new rules on American companies while also handing out billions in grants and subsidies to climate-focused initiatives.
In the Biden-era Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 alone, nearly $400 billion over the next decade was ticketed for slashing carbon emissions. Just two years later, the American Action Forum calculated that the EPA's newest tailpipe emissions rule would cost $870 billion over a two decade period.
Conservatives have argued that the government's strict regulations aimed at combating climate change have harmed the country financially, burdening both consumers and manufacturers with higher costs to meet federal emissions standards. Tom Pyle, president of the oil and gas advocacy group American Energy Alliance, told the Washington Post, 'They unfortunately didn't do this in the first term, so I'm pleased to see that they're working on this in the second term.'
Conversely, supporters of the reforms have cited the benefits of stronger regulations, including improvements to public health and contributing the worldwide effort of slowing climate change.
Vickie Patton, general counsel for the Environmental Defense Fund, argued, 'Americans are already suffering devastating impacts from the climate pollution that is fueling worsening disasters like heat waves and floods, more intense fires and hurricanes, and dangerous smog levels.'
'Such an effort would be reckless, unlawful, and ignore EPA's fundamental responsibility to protect Americans from destructive climate pollution. We will vigorously oppose it,' she added in a statement.
The seemingly impending rollback on US climate regulations has been in the works for over a month.
On President Trump's first day of his second term, he signed an executive order authorizing Zeldin to review the 'legality and continuing applicability of' the endangerment finding.
It was part of the administration's 'Unleashing American Energy' directive which tasked the federal government with finding and eliminating obstacles to the production of oil, natural gas, coal, hydropower, biofuels, and nuclear energy.
EPA spokeswoman Molly Vaseliou did not comment on the report, but did say that the agency was complying with the January 20 executive order.
Earlier this month, the Trump Administration notified more than 1,100 EPA employees that they could be dismissed 'immediately' at any time.
That group included scientists and experts who research and enforce policies related to air pollution, hazardous waste cleanup, and environmental emergency response.
Members of two influential EPA advisory committees which provide scientific guidance to the head of the agency were ousted in January.
This month, the administration reportedly refused to allow federal scientists and diplomats to attend a major climate change conference in China scheduled for March.
David Uhlmann, who led EPA enforcement during the Biden presidency, said that 'when viewed alongside everything else taking place, [the changes] are yet another unfortunate attack on public servants who have dedicated their careers to public health and environmental protection.'
Myron Ebell, the leader of Trump's EPA transition team during the president's first term, noted that striking down the endangerment finding would likely make overturning Joe Biden's climate policies a smoother process.
'If you want to go back and redo one of these rules, you're going to have a very spirited court battle if you ignore the endangerment finding,' Ebell said. 'So I think they really need to do this.'
However, Sean Donahue, an attorney for environmental groups which support the endangerment finding, believes any effort to repeal the 2009 scientific finding would be struck down in court.
The Environmental Defense Fund sent a 10-page letter to Zeldin last week noting that the endangerment finding has already survived multiple court cases over the years.
In 2007, the US Supreme Court ruled that the EPA has the authority to regulate carbon dioxide, methane, and other greenhouse gases as pollutants under the Clean Air Act.
[Daily Mail, where America gets its news] California's high-speed rail, Boeing's long overdue Air Force One replacement and new EVs for America's aging postal vehicle fleet may all soon be canceled by DOGE.
As DOGE combs through federal spending to identify areas of waste, fraud and abuse, Republicans on Capitol Hill have been suggesting legislative solutions to problems encountered by Elon Musk's group.
A top DOGE senator is now proposing a plan to cut billions in taxpayer dollars from flowing to delayed and costly projects that may never be completed.
The proposal called the 'Billion Dollar Boondoggle Act of 2025' would require the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to review projects that are either five years behind on schedule or at least $1 billion over cost, Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, told DailyMail.com.
The bill would 'require an annual report of taxpayer-funded projects that are over budget and behind schedule,' according to the bill's text.
The goal of the measure is to shine a light on projects that appear to be problematic and then to have the OMB director assess whether the initiatives are still worth pouring taxpayer dollars into.
If enacted agencies would need to submit files on their over-budget and delayed projects to the OMB within a year, what Ernst believes is much needed fiscal management.
'From its boondoggles to off-the-rails projects, Washington can’t seem to ever make the trains run on time or on budget,' Ernst told DailyMail.com in a statement.
[Daily Mail, where America gets its news] This time a Southwest plane and a private jet narrowly avoided colliding at Chicago’s Midway Airport on Tuesday afternoon.
It’s a sickening reminder of the American Airlines regional crash with a military helicopter in DC that killed 67 last month – and of a spate of other accidents these past weeks.
And the most terrifying thing about this tragedy and these close calls is that we in the aviation industry saw them coming.
As a former commercial pilot, crash investigator and expert in accident causation, I have seen the safety buffer that took decades to build steadily eroded in recent years.
It started with declining standards at Boeing – turning out planes with defects, such as the Boeing 737 Max, that led to the deaths of 346 people in two crashes in less than six months in October 2018 and March 2019.
Last January, a door-sized panel blew out in a 737 Max mid-flight with near-catastrophic consequences.
But the truth is the experts have been raising the alarm for years.
A key contributing factor to the problems we are experiencing in our airspace system is the chronic shortage of air traffic controllers.
I feel for these controllers. They are over-worked and over-stressed – they know that if they make a mistake someone could die.
But its undeniable that the buffer of safety in which we once felt so secure has been eroded.
Another valid concern is that regional and national airlines are hiring pilots and promoting them through the ranks with less experience than ever before.
I’m not aware of any studies that focus on the impact of limited experience on flight safety, but the truth is that, without positive measures to address the problems in our skies, accidents will keep happening and more frequently.
Make no mistake there is still a pretty good safety buffer in place in our skies but it’s shrinking, and we need to act now if we want to stop it from shrinking further.
Shawn Pruchnicki is an Assistant Professor at The Ohio State University in the College of Engineering. He was a Delta connection pilot for 10 years and trained in accident investigation at the NTSB Academy. He has testified to the US Senate on the current Boeing safety culture and manufacturing problems and his research into aviation safety has been published including by NASA and the FAA.
#1
I recall an article stating Racism Against Whites was the cause for the shortage of air traffic controllers b/c they were only hiring DEI and white candidates were not even considered.
[FoxNews] Police made an arrest after a call by an activist group for nationwide protests against Tesla CEO Elon Musk
A 40-year-old woman was arrested after police say they found a number of explosives at a Colorado Tesla dealership, the latest incident in a string of apparent protests against Tesla CEO and DOGE leader Elon Musk.
Lucy Grace Nelson was charged with explosives or incendiary devices use, felony criminal mischief and criminal attempt to commit felonies, according to a news release from the Loveland Police Department.
An "extensive investigation" was initiated Jan. 29 after the dealership was vandalized several times, with incendiary devices found at the business, according to authorities.
Police and jail records list Nelson as a female, though the department noted an alias of "Justin Thomas Nelson."
The photo at the link shows pink-streaked hair framing a male-pattern receding hairline and what appears to be a small patch of a beard on the tip of a masculine chin. That could be the result of taking hormones, I suppose
After the alleged initial incident Jan. 29, there were subsequent incidents Feb. 2 and Feb. 7, progressively becoming more severe.
Loveland Police Department Public Information Officer Chris Padgett told Fox News Digital in incidents prior to Nelson's arrest, there were "very offensive messages, derogatory in nature" left at the dealership.
During police surveillance, Nelson was allegedly spotted Monday night with additional incendiary devices, along with materials attributed to vandalism, according to Padgett.
She was arrested without incident, Padgett said.
After being booked into jail, Nelson was issued a $10,000 cash surety bond.
"The Loveland Police Department continues to work closely with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives' Denver Field Division with Federal charges likely to follow," according to Loveland Police.
Padgett said the department is not sure if others are involved, but there is no threat to the community.
Indivisible, an organization founded by former Democratic congressional staffers, has been urging liberals to stage demonstrations against Musk, Fox News Digital previously reported.
So we have violent trangender, a Democratic activist group… sounds like Antifa/Black Bloc to me.
eThe activist group published a "tool kit" with protest recommendations, including a section about how to "take the fight to Elon."
It specifically includes steps for planning and executing a demonstration at Tesla dealerships, showrooms and factories.
"Members of the House of Representatives will be back on your home turf from Friday, February 14th, through Sunday, February 23rd, and it’s our opportunity to remind them who they work for," according to the group's website. "Fighting back against the Trump-Musk coup is going to take all of us."
The protests come after the Department of Government Efficiency began slashing spending at various federal agencies at the direction of President Donald Trump,
[FoxNews] Dremone Francis is back on the streets, despite being charged with capital murder in the death of a Harris County deputy, after Judge Hilary Unger granted him bond
The Houston Police Officers' Union slammed a local judge on Wednesday for her "indefensible decision" to set bond for a man charged with capital murder in the 2024 ambush death of a Harris County deputy.
Judge Hilary Unger of the 248th District Criminal Court, who the police union described as "rogue," set bond at $1 million total for Dremone Francis back in November 2024 in direct opposition to prosecutors' request for a no-bond hold. As of Wednesday, Francis has posted bail and is out of jail.
Francis is one of two men accused in the death of Harris County Deputy Fernando Esqueda. He is charged with capital murder and tampering with evidence, and Unger set bail at $500,000 for each charge.
"This is not just a case of judicial incompetence—it is a disgraceful betrayal of public trust and a direct threat to every law-abiding citizen in Harris County. Let’s be crystal clear: Francis was not just some low-level offender - he was an active participant in the cold-blooded ambush and execution of a law enforcement officer," the union said.
Esqueda was shot and killed while conducting surveillance in an unmarked police car in July 2024. Francis and his co-defendant, Ronnie Palmer, are accused of shooting at the deputy's car so many times that it was riddled with bullet holes, Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez said at the time. Esqueda was rushed to a local hospital where he died.
"If this case doesn’t warrant a no-bond decision, then what does?" the police union asked.
While Palmer remains in jail without bond, Francis is free to roam. In addition to his capital murder charge, Francis had previously been convicted of manufacturing and delivering drugs. He also had his probation "unsatisfactorily terminated" in 2022.
The police union stated that there have been 162 homicides in Harris County since 2021 where the suspect was out on bond when the murder took place and accused Unger, who is up for re-election in 2026, of being an activist judge who is "gambling with public safety."
"This is not an isolated case. Judge Unger has a history of prioritizing criminals over victims, undermining law enforcement, and making our streets more dangerous," the union said. "If we don’t stop judges like her now, we will continue to see repeat offenders and violent criminals emboldened by a system that refuses to hold them accountable."
Unger is known for letting repeat offenders out on bond and ran her election campaigns on prioritizing "alternatives to incarceration with an eye towards rehabilitation, a reduction in recidivism, and an increase in community safety."
Is there any Soros Open Society Foundations funding in her campaign history? For years they bankrolled prosecutors who believed in protecting criminals from consequences, so it would make sense if they added flooding the system with like-minded judges.
The National Police Association has written about Unger in the past, calling out her decisions that have allowed dangerous criminals to return to the community.
The most notable case, according to FOX 26 Houston, is from 2021 when Andrew Williams, who was out on bond for separate capital murder and aggravated assault charges from 2019, stole a purse from 71-year-old Martha Medina then ran her over with his car, which killed her.
Williams was out of jail because he had posted the $150,000 bond set by Unger. Texas law allows for bond denial in capital murder cases.
The Houston Police Officers' Union said on Wednesday that it "will not stay silent" in the wake of Unger's most recent decision.
"We will fight alongside the Harris County Deputies’ Organization (FOP 39) to demand real bail reform and judicial accountability. We will make sure that Judge Hilary Unger’s name is remembered for this reckless decision, and we will make sure the people of Harris County never forget it either," the union said.
[FoxNews] Trump says Venezuela has failed to take in violent illegal immigrants from the US
President Donald Trump says he is reversing a Biden-era grant allowing Chevron to operate within Venezuela on Wednesday.
Trump detailed the decision in a lengthy post on Truth Social, stating that Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro had not upheld his end of the bargain.
"We are hereby reversing the concessions that Crooked Joe Biden gave to Nicolás Maduro, of Venezuela, on the oil transaction agreement, dated November 26, 2022, and also having to do with Electoral conditions within Venezuela, which have not been met by the Maduro regime," Trump wrote.
"Additionally, the regime has not been transporting the violent criminals that they sent into our Country (the Good Ole’ U.S.A.) back to Venezuela at the rapid pace that they had agreed to," he added.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio later said on X that he will provide foreign policy guidance to terminate all Biden-era oil and gas licenses "that have shamefully bankrolled the illegitimate Maduro regime."
"I am therefore ordering that the ineffective and unmet Biden "Concession Agreement" be terminated as of the March 1st option to renew. Thank you for your attention to this matter!" Trump continued.
Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodriguez described the decision as "inexplicable" in a statement on Telegram, arguing it was a "failed decision."
"The U.S. government has made a damaging and inexplicable decision by announcing sanctions against the U.S. company Chevron," Rodriguez said.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio later said on X that he will provide foreign policy guidance to terminate all Biden-era oil and gas licenses "that have shamefully bankrolled the illegitimate Maduro regime."
Playing hardball.
Chevron exports about 240,000 barrels per day of crude from its Venezuela operations, over a quarter of the country's entire oil output.
As we watch events unfold, let's go over some clear patterns in how Trump does things back to Trump I and is continuing these patterns. Today's lesson is on leverage.
Leverage in negotiation is a very simple concept. You need to have benefits to offer or costs to impose on your…
— Blume Industries CEO Balding 大老板 (@BaldingsWorld) February 25, 2025
… to impose on your counter party to persuade them to take your preferred course of action. The bigger the benefit you can offer or cost you can impose the bigger the leverage you have over your counter party. Why do small states want nuclear weapons? It gives small states massive leverage and massive relative to their size.
Trump is clearly obsessed with obtaining leverage when entering into a negotiation (I am using the word here negotiation broadly so it need not be formal contract negotiation for instance). Take a recent example, recent reports have that Trump was pushing Mexico to impose tariffs on Chinese goods threatening significant tariffs on Mexico if they did not cooperate. The threat of losing the American market is much larger than the threat of never having the Chinese market for Mexico. Trump has leverage over Mexico. This type of leverage is clearly prominent in how Trump approaches interactions.
However, it isn't enough to build leverage capabilities but one must be able and willing to exercise leverage. Just having leverage isn't enough if you aren't willing to use it. I think every country now takes Trump pretty seriously when he threatens to do X because he has shown he has the willingness to execute such threats of conferring benefits or imposing costs. However, this leads to a secondary question for both Trump and the world leaders.
For those being threatened, they must figure try to figure out how serious he is and what will satisfy him in a negotiation. In other words, what do they have to do to not see the threat executed. Trump has a slightly different and trickier game, he needs to make sure his threats do not become predictable (something we see he is aware of rhetorically but that's another thread) other wise it becomes like a tell at a poker game. Put another way, some times it needs to be a small threat that he places high value on and executes rapidly if not addressed and in other cases it needs to be a large threat that he backs down from because he had no significant intent to follow through. They key point for Trump is to not become predictable to counter parties but rather they take all threats with similar levels of seriousness.
To take an example, I personally deem Trump's threat of leaving NATO and pulling US troops out of Europe as a large threat with low probability of execution that he will execute. However, look at how it is received. European leaders are taking it very seriously and are rapidly moving on plans to demonstrate their seriousness to Trump to address defense short comings and back Ukraine. European leaders are not sure whether this is a high probability or low probability threat because his negotiation threats are not predictable.
One aspect of this that people continually forget is that Trump is less predictable than other world leaders or groups. Take an example. European countries and the EU as an institution will predictably meet, form a committee charged with forming a committee to write a white paper to make recommendations that member states will ignore that the EU will then form another committee to investigate why. Totally predictable. They do not use leverage and they are predictable.
Trump is the exact opposite: he will use leverage and is not predictable in specifically how. Keep this unpredictability in mind when someone tells you they know exactly what he is going to do
[FoxNews] Legendary actor Gene Hackman and his wife Betsy Arakawa were found dead in their New Mexico home. Officials say no foul play is suspected but an investigation is ongoing.
Oscar-winning actor Gene Hackman was found dead alongside his wife, classical pianist Betsy Arakawa, and their dog in their Santa Fe home on Wednesday afternoon.
Hackman was 95 at the time of his death, and his wife 63. The office confirmed that foul play is not suspected as a factor in the deaths at this time, but the cause of death has not been determined. An investigation is ongoing.
"On February 26, 2025, at approximately 1:45 p.m., Santa Fe County Sheriff’s deputies were dispatched to an address on Old Sunset Trail in Hyde Park, where Gene Hackman, 95 and his wife Betsy Arakawa, 64, and a dog were found deceased," the Santa Fe County Sheriff's office told Fox News Digital early Thursday morning.
Hackman was best known for his Oscar-winning performances in "The French Connection" and "Unforgiven." He appeared as villains, heroes and antiheroes in dozens of dramas, comedies and action films from the 1960s until his retirement in the early 2000s.
Eugene Alden Hackman was born Jan. 30, 1930, in San Bernardino, California, and grew up in Danville, Illinois, where his father worked as a pressman for the Commercial-News. His parents fought repeatedly, and his father often used his fists on Gene to take out his rage, according to the Associated Press. The boy found refuge in movie houses, identifying with Errol Flynn and James Cagney as his role models.
When Gene was 13, his father waved goodbye and drove off, never to return. The abandonment was a lasting injury to Gene. His mother had become an alcoholic and was constantly at odds with her mother, with whom the shattered family lived (Gene had a younger brother). At 16, he "suddenly got the itch to get out." Lying about his age, he enlisted in the U.S. Marines.
An article on the Department of Defense's website said doing that "was a fairly common practice before the advent of computer records" and that Hackman served from 1947 to 1952 as a field radio operator and broadcast journalist.
"In the 1940s, he was stationed in Qingdao, China, and then Shanghai. Part of his duties, he said, was destroying Japanese military equipment so that the communists couldn't obtain it," the article also reads.
With a high school diploma he earned during his time as a Marine, Hackman studied journalism at the University of Illinois. He dropped out after six months to study radio announcing in New York. After working at stations in Florida and his hometown of Danville, he returned to New York to study painting at the Art Students League. Hackman switched again to enter an acting course at the Pasadena Playhouse.
Back in New York, he found work as a doorman and truck driver, among other jobs, while waiting for a break as an actor.
Hackman’s first starring film role came in 1970 with "I Never Sang for My Father," as a man struggling to deal with a failed relationship with his dying father, Melvyn Douglas.
When not on film locations, Hackman enjoyed painting, stunt flying, stock car racing and deep sea diving. In his latter years, he wrote novels and lived on his ranch in Sante Fe, on a hilltop looking out on the Colorado Rockies.
One thing I’ll say for our side of the political equation. We seem to have become slightly more immune to psy-ops, or perhaps less willing to go along with anything the left tries to prod us into doing.
These days, it looks like when they need a patsy they have to actually recruit and pay them, which they’ve apparently been doing to get people to "talk back" to Republican representatives at townhalls, or use bots. Now the AI bots are getting better, but you can still tell if the person you’re arguing with on FB has an account made yesterday and no followers. (Okay, normally made after the election, but still.)
And despite the dire warnings — really? — that the government would "collapse" in six weeks (awfully precise there chum. Kash, are you monitoring these?) that was suddenly everywhere after Carville flapped his lips, and which seemed to imagine that US governments like British can "fall" before elections. (Was this ops run by a Britisher? Did Carville have a senile moment? Was he fed the wrong line? Or does it indicate something far more sinister? Again Kash, are you monitoring this?) even the most squishy of squish blogs on the right has not run with panic.
And the whole "people are mad at DOGE" also isn’t taking.
The screaming that if the right touches Medicaid it’s done, that this worked before is the left drinking their own ink and/or trying to panic the right. It is important to remember that no, it didn’t work before. What worked in 2018 and 2020 was FRAUD. Massive, industrial quantities of fraud, served from a firehose. I can’t be the only one who remembers polls held open for two weeks after the election in 2018. What, are all of you more ADD than I? How do you remember to dress in the morning?
If we solve the fraud — Mr. President, more needs to be done — then curtailing Medicaid is certainly not going to bring the government "down" (even if that were possible.)
Frankly, this whole "Medicaid can’t be touched, or people will turn" is nonsense. As with social security, medicare, etc, the vast majority of people my age and younger (and I’m sixty two, rapidly approaching the point at which MOST people are younger than I) never counted on any of the social net programs. Since the eighties, we expected there would be nothing for us when we qualified.
AND thinking people are super invested in "government paid health care" ignores how much more cynical we got about health care in general in the last five years. I desperately need to go see a dentist, but have been putting it off, because I remember dentists closing because they couldn’t figure out a way to make us wear masks during procedures. And the other doctors? the last time I got asked to wear a mask was two months ago at my PCP. And the receptionist said the doctor might refuse to see me if I wouldn’t wear it. (I know the doctor. She ALSO wasn’t wearing a mask. Because she’s not crazy.) Then there was the crazy time mid 21 when a doctor tried to convince my husband they could do his physical over the phone as thoroughly as in the office.
Look, it’s not happy making, because it’s one of the things we still need, but the medical profession has lost a ton of confidence and prestige over this insanity. And people are way more hesitant to seek "care." (Which might prevent iatrogenic issues, but hey. Better or worse than the fact people are putting off needed care? I don’t know.) So, saying "We’ll take away your free medical care" is not as scary as it used to be. On top of which, frankly, we now know how much medicaid was being used to look after illegal immigrants who just came in and got top of the line care. And if that’s cut, there’s probably still enough for every citizen and legal resident.
The fact is that the left is mostly trying to panic our politicians and make them buckle. I urge those cooked-spaghetti kneed idiots to stand firm. Borrow someone else’s spine if you need to. Because you have no idea how bad things will get if you cave now, and therefore Trump can’t clean up the mess y’all have been creating for a century or so. You don’t want to know. Trump is the VERY POLITE REQUEST.
Despite my moments of blind, red-veil rage, I do NOT want the tumbrils to roll. Once you start feeding madame Guillotine, you can’t stop for a long time, and you’ll be fed to it yourself.
As for the right wing bloggers even the squishy, gooey-center ones, who are for now holding firm. I need you to continue holding firm. Remember they’ve got nothing. The only way they controlled us before was by use of an absolutely coordinated propaganda machine that went from the news to actual fiction books, all publishing the same narrative at the same time.
They tried that in 2020 and it failed, even with the panic created by the "pandemic." It failed to the point they needed to fraud openly and in front of G-d and everyone. (And if you refused to see it or talk about it, shame on you. Also sign up for remedial math. Because it really was obvious.) They tried it again in 2024 with everything at their disposal, trying to create "inevitability" for Kamala. They convinced the Europeans and every "reputable" source in the US. And yet they failed, spectacularly.
Because people have tuned them out. They’ve seen them in action. They’ve seen the masks off for eight years now, and once the mask if off you can’t put it back on.
If you’re scared, if you’re a squishy gooey "right" wing person, if you’re afraid, if you feel like panicking, I want you to stand in front of your mirror every morning and practice saying "I really don’t are, Margaret." Or come here and I’ll give you the needed righteous kicking. I have a lot of aggression to work off, anyway, thank you for volunteering.
The truth is that Medicaid, aye, and social security too, are going to go away. They are unsustainable. They could have worked if the left hadn’t forgotten they needed every-larger generations to sustain it. Instead they wanted to plunder the young and at the same time reduce population and at the same time sideline legal workers in favor of illegals who don’t contribute (no, really) to any of these social programs, but do take from them.
The left is dying at its own hands, drowning in a pool of incoherence and self hatred. We understand the self hatred. Heck, I even understand the incoherence since they were fed a lot of contradictory bullshit and forbidden to think about any of it.
But I really don’t care [Margaret.]
As when you’re faced with a pet who is going to die in a few days, in pain, your choice is to give it one clean shot, or let it linger and die ugly. And at that, I don’t think the plan is even to kill these "social net" dinosaurs outright, but to put them on palliative care: saving them just enough for those who desperately need it, until they die a gentle death as those few who counted on them pass.
This is the GENTLE option. If we do nothing, if we don’t investigate, if we don’t cut back, it’s going to collapse suddenly and explosively and leave a lot of people in desperate straits.
Same for the government, all of it, honestly. Yes, I know a couple of people who were doing needed functions for the government and who are right now in limbo. But the whole thing was so bloated, convoluted, overfed and over-wasteful it was going to collapse anyway.
It should never have been created, is the problem, and btw, my friends who are in limbo say the same "it sucks, but it’s needed to save the country. And in the long run my job is less important than saving the country."
Yes, it’s going to hurt. It’s going to hurt a lot.
Thing is, people are already hurting. Badly hurting. I don’t know the real numbers, but I know what I see around me. My sons’ generation and younger is drowning, particularly the males. They either have no jobs; have jobs in seriously exploitative situations; are being treated as inherently bad for being born with a penis. Girls aren’t much better off, though academia and make-work have absorbed a bunch of them.
People are starting to see that what they thought was the economy is a painted floor and they’ve been running midair a long time.
There’s a feeling of subdued panic everywhere. None of us are being told the truth, but seriously, do an inventory of the young — 35 and younger — people you know. How many are solidly established as a proportion? Yeah, yeah, they’re young, but by 35 people were firming up, even in my generation, and boy we thought we were late.
As for the older... my generation was hit hard by layoffs every few years, which kept people from any real savings for retirement. And the H1B thing has been brutal to those in tech jobs.
We’re now hitting retirement age, and most of us know we’re going to have to work until we drop in our traces, if only we can continue finding work.
You can’t make it worse by cutting the illusion of security. In a way it’s a relief when the truth is finally told.
Which is why all the left’s demands we panic, and their whispers that "the government will fall" are finding no purchase. Yes, what DOGE is finding is horrifying, but we’ve suspected it so long, we’re just relieved someone is talking about it at last.
Don’t give the left an opening. What they want is impossible. We can’t go back to sleep. We can’t go back to the pre-2020 world, no matter how much nicer it seemed. That world isn’t there anymore, and we too have changed in ways they forced us to.
If we let them propaganda us into destroying the current cutbacks and clean up — chainsaw go brrrrrrrrrrrrrrt — we’ll only be put on the sure path to hell to heads on pikes.
Even if most of those heads would be lefty ones, it won’t be all of them. In the end that kind of collapse always claims more lives than you can imagine, and more indiscriminately than you think: it always ends up door to door and intimately personal.
The only way to spare us that horror is to stay the course. To hunch one shoulder and say "I really don’t care, Margaret." And forge on.
It’s the right thing to do, but more importantly, it’s the only thing to do.
Because the alternative is unthinkable.
Posted by: Grom the Affective ||
02/27/2025
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[AyPee] Tens of thousands protested in Romania’s capital on Sunday against a top court’s decision last month to annul the presidential election after an outsider candidate unexpectedly emerged as the frontrunner.
Many of the demonstrators in Bucharest honked horns and waved Romania’s blue, yellow, and red flags, while others brandished placards bearing slogans such as “Democracy is not optional” and “We want free elections.” Many also demanded the resumption of the presidential race from the second round.
The protest comes a month after the Constitutional Court made the unprecedented move to annul the election just two days before a Dec. 8 runoff. The far-right populist Calin Georgescu shocked many when he won the first round on Nov. 24, after which allegations of electoral violations and Russian interference emerged.
George Simion, the leader of the far-right Alliance for the Unity of Romanians, said at the protest on Sunday, “We are protesting against the coup d’état that took place on Dec. 6.
“We are sorry to discover so late that we were living in a lie and that we were led by people who claimed to be democrats, but are not at all,” Simion, whose party organized the protest on Sunday, told reporters. “We demand a return to democracy through the resumption of elections, starting with the second round.”
[THEGATEWAYPUNDIT] In August 2024, The Gateway Pundit's Patty McMurray first reported on a Democrat-funded voter registration group accused of turning in hundreds of suspected fraudulent voter registrations—this time in Ohio!
** You can read the full TGP August report here.**
The Gateway Pundit discovered that a group called Black Fork Strategies, which operates across the state of Ohio, was being investigated by the Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose over another alleged fraudulent voter registration campaign.
On their website, Black Fork Strategies brags about registering a stunning 125,000 voters in Ohio since 2018.
The Hamilton County Board of Elections has turned over several suspicious voter registration applications Ohio Secretary of State's Public Integrity Division.
According to Hamilton County Board of Elections members, the voter registrations in question were recently turned in by the self-described ''progressive'' voter registration organization Black Fork Strategies.
Hamilton County Director of Elections Sherry Poland discusses three issues she identified with voter registrations tied to Black Fork Strategies, which she claims is running voter registration drives throughout the state of Ohio.
In one example, Ms. Poland explained how they received a voter registration from Black Fork Strategies, and the name of the registrant was 'Henry Kissinger.'
''We did do a match, the voter registration database as compared to the DMV database, and it was a mismatch on every item listed, any identifying information listed on this registration form. So we again asked Black Fork Strategies for the canvasser who submitted this registration form, and that is on your summary sheet.''
Next, Sherry Poland held up a large stack of voter registrations about an inch thick to show how many registrations one canvasser from Black Fork Strategies turned in with that all appeared to have the same handwriting.
''Lastly, we've received a number of registrations, and there's a table copy for each of you. The stack of registration forms appears to have the same handwriting. And they were all submitted by the same canvasser, who is, again, the contact information listed on your summary.''
Ms. Poland explained that they've reached out to the Southwest regional field director for Black Fork Strategies, telling her fellow board members, ''When we first noticed these suspicious registrations, we asked her to come to the office.
Democrat BOE member Joseph Mallory added, ''I've heard of other counties in the state having to deal with suspicious registrations. I think we should refer the matter to the Secretary of State's Public Integrity Office for further investigation.''
#2
These groups frequently hire 'voter finders' and give them $ for each voter registered. It is an inducement for fraud.
Posted by: Lord Garth ||
02/27/2025 10:02
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#3
Aided by mail-in ballots. The same canvasser who submitted the fraudulent registrations knows the names to put on the fraudulent cheat-by-mail ballots, sits at his/her/its kitchen table and fills them all out, then mails them.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
02/27/2025 12:04
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#4
La Rose will make an example of this vendor. He has his eye on higher office.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
02/27/2025 18:44
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[NYPOST] NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch raged Wednesday against an ''unsustainable'' revolving door of recidivism driving Big Apple crime — singling out a violent mostly peaceful maniac with 70 past busts who allegedly tried to rape a woman on a train.
The city's top cop gave a sweeping address on public safety and the challenges facing the NYPD during the Association for a Better New York's ''Power Breakfast'' in Midtown, teasing a return to quality-of-life-focused ''broken windows'' policing and a plan to beef up the department's rapidly depleting force.
But Tisch didn't stop with plans — she also ripped New York City district attorneys and 2020's controversial state bail reforms that she said put violent mostly peaceful offenders back on the streets ''over and over again.''
NYPD cops last year made the most felony arrests in 26 years, only to see suspects spat back out by the criminal justice system, she said.
''Before they can even finish that paperwork, their perp is back out on the street, immediately returned to the neighborhood and the people that they just victimized,'' she told the crowd gathered at the Association for a Better New York's ''Power Breakfast'' in Midtown.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[Regnum] The creator of the Blackwater PMC, American entrepreneur Eric Prince, said on February 26 that Ukraine's chances of regaining its lost territories are slim.
The Kiev regime should have started peace talks a year and a half ago, Prince told Hillsdale College President Larry Arnn in an interview published on the college's website.
"The chances that the Ukrainians will be able to get all their territories back are zero. The Russians will never give up Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson, Mariupol, the traditional Russian-speaking regions. They won't give up Crimea either," the founder of the PMC said.
Kyiv should remember that an "imperfect peace" is better than any war, Prince said. He called the current fighting a war of attrition and stressed that Russia has far more resources than Ukraine.
As reported by the Regnum news agency, US President Donald Trump previously stated that it would not be easy for Ukraine to regain its lost territories. At the same time, he admitted that the Kiev regime “maybe” will be able to “get something back.”
On February 26, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov ruled out the possibility of freezing military actions along the contact line. This contradicts the Russian Constitution, the minister emphasized. Earlier, he noted that Russia does not intend to make territorial concessions to Ukraine.
In June 2024, President Vladimir Putin noted that one of the conditions for Russia's negotiations with Ukraine would be a statement by the Kiev regime about abandoning its plans to join NATO. Also, to begin negotiations, Kiev must recognize territorial realities and withdraw troops from the territories of the regions that returned to Russia in 2022 (DPR, LPR, Kherson and Zaporizhia regions), the head of state said.
In September 2024, Secretary of the Russian Security Council Sergei Shoigu noted that Moscow would not conduct any negotiations with Kiev until it drove Ukrainian terrorists out of the Kursk region.
The combat capability and effectiveness of the Russian Armed Forces units have increased sharply since the beginning of the conflict in Ukraine. This was stated by the founder of the American private military company Blackwater, Erik Prince, the Hillsdale College YouTube channel.
“The Russian army is now much better and more dangerous than it was at the beginning of the conflict,” the entrepreneur noted.
He noted that Russia has significantly more people and ammunition than Ukraine. At the same time, according to Prince, the defense industry of the United States and Western European countries is lagging in development, suffers from high production costs, which limits its effectiveness.
“I think this should be a wake-up call for America,” the PMC founder added.
Prince assessed Ukraine's chances of regaining its lost territories as "near zero." He noted that Kyiv should have agreed to a peace deal a year and a half ago, since the Ukrainian Armed Forces are currently waging a war of attrition.
As reported by the Regnum news agency, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on December 19 that the Russian army's combat readiness is currently the highest in the world, and the same applies to the Russian defense industry. He noted that the country is increasing production of everything needed for the army and navy, and is doing so confidently and quickly.
In the Global Firepower military power rating, Russia remained in second place, behind only the United States. The “strength index” of the Russian army, according to the rating, is 0.0788. The American military power indicator was 0.0744. Russia is followed by China, India, South Korea and the United Kingdom — the top six has not changed since last year.
The head of the Bureau of Military-Political Analysis, Alexander Mikhailov, said in January 2024 that the Russian army is superior to all others in terms of combat capability. According to him, Russia has the greatest nuclear potential and the most powerful and fastest delivery systems.
[NYPOST] The Trump administration says it is eliminating more than 90% of the U.S. Agency for International Development's foreign aid contracts and $60 billion in overall U.S. assistance around the world, according to an internal memo obtained by The News Agency that Dare Not be Named.
It details the outcome of a 90-day review ordered by President Donald Trump ...The cad! Twice caught beating wimmin!... of all the money provided by USAID and the State Department for development and aid work overseas.
The move leaves few surviving USAID projects for advocates to try to save in what are ongoing court battles. The Trump administration outlined its plans in both the memo and court filings Wednesday.
The Washington Free Beacon was the first to report the cuts.
Worth noting, korrespondent.net has compiled its Invasion of Ukraine series into separate months, beginning May 9th, 2023. Linked in the title.
[Korrespondent] 22.23 The demining coalition has already raised EUR51 million out of the EUR130 million planned for 2025. This was reported by the press service of the Ministry of Defense.
19:37 Russian troops carried out an airstrike on the village of Zolochiv in the Kharkiv region on February 26, three people were injured, 30 houses were damaged. This was reported by the Kharkiv Regional Military Administration on Wednesday, February 26.
19:00 Ukraine uses its own countermeasures to every action of the Russian aggressors. Our military responded to a larger number of "shahids" with FPV drones. This was stated by the commander of the Unmanned Systems Forces, Colonel Vadim Sukharevsky, in an interview for LIGA.net .
18:25 The United States will check Russia's readiness to end the war in Ukraine. And to do this, it is necessary to find out the demands of the Russian side. This was stated by US Secretary of State Mark Rubio in an interview with Fox News . It has now been agreed that teams of US and Russian diplomats will discuss what needs to be done to end the war in Ukraine, the Secretary of State noted.
17:59 The Finnish Ministry of Defense has launched a new program to support Ukraine, which includes an order for the Finnish defense industry worth 660 million euros. The Finnish ministry reported this on its website on Wednesday, February 26.
17:50 The American side has invited President Volodymyr Zelensky to visit the United States. Preparations are currently underway. The Ukrainian leader said this during a conversation with journalists. He would like to "coordinate the position of Ukraine and the United States" before Donald Trump speaks with Vladimir Putin.
17:47 A group of men of military age and two smugglers were detained near the border with Hungary. This was reported by the State Border Service of Ukraine on its website on Wednesday, February 26.
17:02 Since the beginning of the day, 58 combat clashes have occurred on the front in 10 directions. The General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine reported the details in an operational summary as of 16:00.
16:39 Ukrainian military have struck a number of strategic facilities of the Russian invaders in the temporarily occupied Crimea and in the Krasnodar Territory of the Russian Federation. This was reported by the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. This concerns strikes on the military airfields of Saki and Kacha, as well as on the Tuapse Oil Refinery.
16:20 The final version of the agreement with the US on mineral resources does not provide for "any debts" on the part of Ukraine. This was stated by President Volodymyr Zelensky. At the same time, one of the points of the agreement with the US contains a mention of security guarantees for Ukraine.
15:27 President Volodymyr Zelensky held another Headquarters of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief concerning current challenges . He said this today at a meeting with journalists.
14:39 Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov criticized the idea of peacekeepers in Ukraine. For some reason, he believes that such an approach will "heat up the conflict."
14:00 Russian troops attacked the city of Konstantinovka with aerial bombs. At least five civilians were killed, said Vadim Filashkin, head of the Donetsk OVA.
13:55 The Security Service and the National Police detained three FSB henchmen who committed contract arson in the Kiev and Dnepropetrovsk regions.
The enemy's main targets were relay cabinets that ensured the smooth movement of trains, in particular military trains of the Defense Forces. To commit sabotage, the defendants used flammable mixtures that they prepared according to FSB instructions.
13:45 The names of the spouses who died today in Kryukovshchyna in the Kyiv region due to a Russian attack have become known to the general public. They turned out to be surgeon Pavel Ivanchev and his wife, journalist Tatyana Kulik. Ukrainian war correspondent Andrey Tsaplienko reported this on his Telegram channel on Tuesday, February 26.
13:36 Russian invaders suffered huge losses in the village of Kotlino, Pokrovsk community, Donetsk region. This was reported by the operational-strategic group of troops (OSGV) Khortitsa. During the assault actions, our paratroopers cleared the settlement.
13:11 High-level diplomats from the US and Russia will meet in Istanbul on February 27, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said at a briefing in Doha. The main topic will be the resumption of "normal activities" of embassies in both countries, he said.
12:50 The share of refugees planning to return to Ukraine has fallen to its lowest level since Russia's full-scale invasion, at 43%. Only 20% of Ukrainians are completely confident that they will return, according to a survey by Info Sapiens.
At the same time, the share of those who definitely do not plan to return to Ukraine has increased - there are already 13.5% of them, which is almost twice as many as in January 2024. Another 20% are unlikely to return.
Almost half of those wishing to return to Ukraine (44%) have not yet decided on the timing of their return.
11:49 A Russian attack on the Kyiv region on the evening of February 25 killed two people and injured two others; an investigation has been launched. This was reported by the Prosecutor General's Office on its Telegram channel on Wednesday, December 26.
11:20 The issue of liberating Crimea in the context of Ukraine's territorial integrity, sovereignty and security remains on the agenda. Russia has failed to "normalize" the occupation of the peninsula. President Volodymyr Zelensky wrote about this on Telegram .
10:33 France, Great Britain, Germany and other European countries are ready to send troops to ensure a ceasefire between Ukraine and Russia. This was stated by French Finance Minister Eric Lombard, Bloomberg reports . He believes that the United States has agreed to support the deployment of European peacekeeping troops in Ukraine.
10:20 The Security Service neutralized an FSB agent group that was spying in the Kiev, Kharkov and Lviv regions on Russia's instructions. The attackers adjusted missile attacks on Ukrainian Armed Forces locations.
9:58 Sicheslav paratroopers took control of the village of Kotlino near Pokrovsk: they drove the Russians out of the village. This was reported by the Airborne Assault Troops of the Armed Forces of Ukraine on their Facebook page.
09.16 At night, Russian troops attacked Ukraine with 177 Shahed-type attack UAVs and drone imitators of various types of directions. Air defense forces shot down 110 drones, another 66 were lost.
As a result of the Russian attack, the Kyiv, Kharkiv, Kirovohrad and Sumy regions suffered.
08.50 Operators of the 3rd regiment of the Special Operations Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine destroyed about a platoon of Russian soldiers during a raid on an industrial complex in the Donetsk direction.
08:15 Over the past 24 hours, aviation, missile forces and artillery of the Defense Forces hit 17 areas of concentration of personnel, weapons and military equipment, two command posts, an artillery facility, an ammunition depot and two electronic warfare/radar systems of the Russians.
07:53 In the Kiev region, as a result of a night attack by Russian drones, one person was killed and two others were injured.
The body of the deceased was found during the extinguishing of a fire in a two-story private house in the Buchansky district. In another locality, a girl born in 2005 was hospitalized with a wound to the back of her head. A man born in 1981 received a wound to his right hand.
07:36 As of February 26, 2025, the total combat losses of Russian troops on the territory of Ukraine were estimated at 870,700 people (+1,170 per day).
07:15 In Russia, air defense forces allegedly shot down 128 drones overnight. This was reported by the press service of the Russian Defense Ministry. The drones attacked the Kursk, Bryansk regions, Krasnodar Krai of Russia and occupied Crimea.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[Regnum] A group of physicists from the US and Switzerland announced that they had obtained the first evidence that parallel worlds exist. This was reported by the portal News Frol.
In particular, scientists have found anomalous quantum fluctuations in a particle accelerator that cannot be explained by the laws of physics.
According to experts, the obtained research may indicate the existence of an invisible “shadow” universe that interacts with earthly reality at the subatomic level. Or it may be bad math.
Among scientists, the discovery is already being called a "revolution in physics," comparing it to the discovery of gravitational waves. If the hypothesis is confirmed, it will change humanity's understanding of the nature of reality, and may open the way to new technologies and even interdimensional travel, the authors concluded.
As reported by the Regnum news agency, scientists will be able to subtract one second from world time; the need for this will arise in a few years due to the abnormal growth of the Earth's rotation speed. This was reported on February 17 by the general director of the All-Russian Research Institute of Physical, Technical and Radiotechnical Measurements (VNIIFTRI) Sergei Donchenko. "scientists will be able to subtract one second from world time." I do that when I walk into the kitchen and forget what I was going there for
The Earth's rotation speed is constantly slowing down or accelerating, and at the moment it is in acceleration mode. At the same time, science cannot answer exactly why this is happening. One of the reasons for this phenomenon may be global warming, melting glaciers and redistribution of water mass, Donchenko added.
Chinese specialists processed the information received from the Chinese rover Zhurong and concluded that it is quite possible to find the coast of an ancient ocean on Mars. This was written by the American scientific research journal PNAS.
#4
A very speculative nugget (not a reviewed paper) reported by REGNUM which is known for misunderstanding many things and propagandizing other things.
Posted by: Lord Garth ||
02/27/2025 9:52
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#5
And in none of those variances is Marvel a success.
#6
The Earth's rotation speed is constantly slowing down or accelerating
Huh? Is this a poor translation? I take it one should read "constantly" as "consistently" or "regularly", not "invariantly" (as in the mathematical reading of "constantly").
[Breitbart] Police believe Cal Fire captain Rebecca Marodi was allegedly stabbed to death by her wife who then fled to south of the border to Mexico.
As Breitbart News reported earlier this month, Marodi was found fatally stabbed at her home in Romana near San Diego just roughly several weeks after she helping to put out the devastating wildfires in the Pacific Palisades and Altadena. According to ABC7, police now believe that Marodi’s wife, Yolanda Olenjniczak, committed the murder, which home security cameras reportedly captured on video.
She still remains at large and previously served jail time after being convicted of involuntary manslaughter in 2003 for the stabbing death of her husband. Picture at the link...
Posted by: The Walking Unvaxed ||
02/27/2025
00:00 ||
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[11165 views]
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And the suspect, when you look at the pic remember she is 5'2" and 160 lbs, so have your settings on landscape.
Violence, infidelity, and separation. Of all the gays I knew growing up, only one is with a partner here at mid-life, and she had to go through the shits.
presume federal LEOs came on flights sometimes to get info from some of the foreign guests
Posted by: Lord Garth ||
02/27/2025 9:33
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#4
^ That would imply it was all one big honey pot.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
02/27/2025 11:58
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#5
Would Bill Clinton operate a honey pot?
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
02/27/2025 11:58
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#6
^4
not all a Federal honey pot,
some people (perhaps including Bill Clinton) were going to be blackmailed by Epstein or his pals
some people were there just to enjoy the sex and didn't care if anyone knew
some people (the young women and girls) were there to earn money
Posted by: Lord Garth ||
02/27/2025 12:25
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#7
And some went at least once, whether for the eminent and interesting guests, or to pitch the rich ones for donations to pet projects. Mr. Epstein was fond of being known as a benefactor for scientific research, as I recall.
The pose is of the John's favorite, err, doll, in a personal whimsical personality of the doll, with the John painted into where the doll would be, and set in the John's business background.
#13
^ that action alone should result in removal of Security access
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/27/2025 18:03
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#14
"The FBI's NY Field Office said it gave
@AGPamBondi
all its Jeffrey Epstein Files. It lied to her, says Bondi. That may be because Epstein appears to have been running a sex blackmail operation, or honeytrap, for intelligence agencies. The FBI has used honeytraps for decades..."
#16
She should have US Marshals gear up and raid the FBI office. Send them all to Gitmo for enhance interrogation via belt sander's. It's not real torture if you don't lose body parts.
#17
I wonder how infested US Marshalls are? Not a slight, just seems how things are.
Seems like there is some expectation of needing arrests. I'm taking a role of patience; an immediate roundup of political enemies, IMHO, would not look great especially without ironclad evidence and popular support. I am coming from the view of the ability of the establishment to mass produce narrative, the concept of web mapping, and that the charge of Alexander vs. Darius III was set up by playing the flanks first.
#18
What's needed is the after action report on the scrub of Epstein's island and disclosure of any files seized. There also needs to be polygraph interviews of the scrub participants inquiring whether any files were destroyed on site.
[FoxNews] A top ranking Chinese official called for more 'reunification' efforts against Taiwan
Taiwan dispatched naval, land and air forces on Wednesday after China launched a live-fire exercise zone just 40 nautical miles off of Taiwan's coast.
Taiwan's defense ministry says it only became aware of the exercise when local Taiwanese vessels were warned to stay out of the area after the drills had begun. The drills are centered off the coast of the Taiwan port city of Kaohsiung. Taiwanese officials say China "blatantly violated international norms" by unilaterally designating the drill zone.
"This move not only poses a high risk to the navigation safety of international flights and ships at sea, but is also a blatant provocation to regional security and stability," the defense ministry said in a statement.
As part of the drill, Taiwan says it detected 32 Chinese military aircraft carrying out joint exercises with warships. Chinese officials have so far not acknowledged Taiwan's complaints.
The drills around Taiwan are only the latest example of Chinese aggression this month. The country's military has also launched live-fire drills off the coast of Vietnam as well as between New Zealand and Australia, forcing commercial flights between the two countries to be diverted.
Wednesday's exercise came just days after the Chinese Communist Party’s fourth-ranked leader, Wang Huning, called for greater "reunification" efforts. China has long maintained that Taiwan is a rebel territory belonging to Beijing.
China must "firmly grasp the right to dominate and take the initiative in cross-strait relations, and unswervingly push forward the cause of reunification of the motherland," Huning said, according to a translation by Chinese state media.
Chinese President Xi Jinping has repeatedly said in recent years that he is willing to take over Taiwan by force.
China's drills come one day after Taiwan's coast guard (CGA) detained the Chinese crew of a Togolese-registered vessel suspected of severing an undersea fiber optic cable connecting the islands of Taiwan and Penghu on Tuesday.
The CGA says the vessel, the Hong Tai 168, had been loitering within roughly 925 meters of the cable since 7 p.m. local time on Feb. 22. A coast guard vessel was dispatched to the ship at 2:30 a.m. on Tuesday, demanding that the vessel leave the area, Taiwan's state-owned media said.
Coast guard officials received confirmation that the Taiwan-Penghu No. 3 undersea cable had been cut at 3 a.m. Tuesday, and they began efforts to detain the ship's Chinese crew. All eight crew members were Chinese nationals, according to the coast guard.
[Breitbart] Millions of taxpayer dollars were poised to be completely wasted, going toward efforts to drive “social and behavior” changes in Uganda and develop “socially responsible” behaviors in Colombia, the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) announced this week.
“US taxpayer dollars were going to be spent on the following items, all which have been cancelled,” DOGE announced, providing a list of several ways the U.S. government was poised to waste hard-earned taxpayer dollars. For example, $42 million was expected to go to Johns Hopkins to “research and drive ‘social and behavior change’ in Uganda.” Another $25 million was set to “‘promote biodiversity conservation and promote licit livelihoods’ by developing ‘socially responsible’ behaviors in Colombia.”
Further, $40 million was set to “improve the social and economic inclusion of sedentary migrants,” and a whopping $520 million was allotted for a consultant to do what DOGE described as “ESG investments in Africa and ‘mobilize private sector resources and expertise.'”
The taxpayer money that was set to be wasted overseas does not end there, as DOGE also revealed that $69 million was set to go to the Eurasia Foundation for “digital transformation activity” in Europe.
Other discoveries, per DOGE’s list, include:
-$32mm to Internews for programs including “media enabling democracy, inclusion, and accountability in Moldova” and the promotion of “sustainable media outlets”
-$7mm for the American Bar Association to promote the “resilience” of the “Eurasian legal sector and civic society”
-$45mm to “address the needs, opportunities, and challenges identified by activists and other civic actors engaged in nonviolent collective action”
-$52mm for the World Economic Forum
According to DOGE’s official website, the total estimated savings rings in around $65 billion thus far. DOGE says this savings is a combination of what it describes as “fraud detection/deletion, contract/lease cancellations, contract/lease renegotiations, asset sales, grant cancellations, workforce reductions, programmatic changes, and regulatory savings.”
The figures, currently updated twice a week, has an “agency efficiency” leaderboard showcasing which agency has led to the most total savings. As of Wednesday, the Department of Education was in first place, followed by the General Services Administration (GSA) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The number one agency with the least total savings is the Department of State, followed by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and Department of Transportation (DOT).
Linked article is available only through a VPN
[EngMilRu] The Armed Forces of the Russian Federation continue the special military operation.
In Khar'kov direction, units of the Sever Group of Forces defeated units of a mechanised brigade of the AFU and a territorial defence brigade close to Volchansk, Dolzhik, and Zolochev (Khar'kov region).
The AFU lost more than 30 troops, two tanks, an armoured fighting vehicle, four motor vehicles, three artillery guns, and a Grad MLRS.
Units of the Zapad Group of Forces improved the tactical situation. The Russian Armed Forces inflicted losses on manpower and hardware of two mechanised brigades of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, two territorial defence brigades, and a national guard brigade close to Kupyansk, Petropavlovka, Monachinovka, Kondrashovka, Podvysokoye, Kopanki, and Zeleny Gai (Khar'kov region).
The AFU losses amounted to more than 200 troops, eight motor vehicles, and two field artillery guns. Two Zakhist-AF and Anklav electronic warfare stations as well as an ammunition depot were eliminated.
Units of the Yug Group of Forces took more advantageous lines and positions. Russian units hit three mechanised brigades, a mountain assault brigade, and an airmobile brigade near Serebryanka, Aleksandropol, Nikolayevka, Seversk, Konstantinovka, and Chasov Yar (Donetsk People's Republic).
The AFU losses amounted to up to 185 troops, a Strela-10 anti-aircraft missile launcher, a motor vehicle, and three field artillery guns. An electronic warfare station and an ammunition depot were neutralised.
The Tsentr Group of Forces' units improved the situation along the front line. Five mechanised brigades, an assault brigade, an assault regiment of the AFU, a special forces brigade, and two national guard brigades were hit near Mirolyubovka, Zverevo, Novaya Poltavka, Kotlino, Krasnoarmeysk, Novoaleksandrovka, Peschanoye, Uspenovka (Donetsk People's Republic).
The enemy losses amounted to more than 325 troops, two tanks including a German-made Leopard tank, two armoured fighting vehicles including a U.S.-made MaxxPro armoured vehicle, a pick-up truck, and two artillery guns.
Units of the Vostok Group of Forces continued advancing into the depth of enemy defence. Russian forces engaged a mechanised brigade of the AFU and a territorial defence brigades hit near Andreyevka, Burlatskoye (Donetsk People's Republic) and Gulyapole (Zaporozhye region).
The enemy losses amounted to up to 175 troops, an armoured fighting vehicle, a motor vehicle, four field artillery guns including a 155mm Polish-made Krab self-propelled artillery system, and an ammunition depot.
The units of the Dnepr Group of Forces engaged manpower and hardware of two mechanised brigades, a mountain assault brigade, and three coastal defence brigades of the AFU close to Stepnoye, Ponyatovka, Dneprovskoye (Kherson region), Novodanilovka, and Novoandreyevka (Zaporozhye region).
The AFU lost up to 90 troops, seven motor vehicles, an artillery gun, an electronic warfare station, and a counter-battery radar.
Operational-Tactical Aviation, attack unmanned aerial vehicles, and Missile Troops and Artillery of the Russian Groups of Forces engaged the infrastructure of military airfields, depots of unmanned aerial vehicles as well as clusters of Ukrainian manpower and hardware in 139 areas.
Russian air defence systems shot down five French-made Hammer guided bombs, 19 Czech-made Vampire MLRS projectiles, and 185 aircraft-type unmanned aerial vehicles.
In total, since the beginning of the special military operation, 656 aircraft, 283 helicopters, 44,616 unmanned aerial vehicles, 597 anti-aircraft missile systems, 21,742 tanks and other armoured fighting vehicles, 1,522 MLRS combat vehicles, 22,042 field artillery guns and mortars, and 32,121 units of support military vehicles have been neutralised.
The Armed Forces of the Russian Federation continue the operation to neutralise AFU formations on the territory of Kursk region.
The units of the Sever Group of Forces liberated Orlovka and Pogrebki.
Russian units hit formations of a heavy mechanised brigade, a motorised infantry brigade, five mechanised brigades, an assault brigade, two air assault brigades, two territorial defence brigades, and two assault regiments of the Armed Forces of Ukraine near Gogolevka, Guyevo, Zaoleshenka, Kubatkin, Kurilovka, Lebedevka, Makhnovka, Mirny, Nikolskiy, Novaya Sorochina, Oleshnya, Rubanshchina, Sudzha and Yuzhny. Three enemy counter-attacks were repelled.
Operational-Tactical, Army, and Artillery strikes engaged AFU manpower and hardware close to Agronom, Bondarevka, Viktorovka, Dmitryukov, Zamostye, Kazachya Loknya, Kositsa, Malaya Loknya, Martynovka, Melovoy, Nikolayevka, Cherkasskaya Konopelka, Cherkasskoye Porechnoye as well as Basovka, Belovody, Zhuravka, and Yunakovka (Sumy region).
The AFU lost over 270 troops, two armoured personnel carriers, 13 armoured fighting vehicles, 26 motor vehicles, eight artillery guns, a mortar, a radar, 12 UAV command posts, and two ammunition depots during the day.
Since the beginning of hostilities in Kursk direction, the AFU losses amounted to more than 63,595 troops, 381 tanks, 288 infantry fighting vehicles, 243 armoured personnel carriers, 2,055 armoured fighting vehicles, 2,211 motor vehicles, 485 artillery guns, 52 MLRS launchers, including 13 of HIMARS and seven of MLRS made by the USA, 23 anti-aircraft missile launchers, one self-propelled anti-aircraft system, ten transport-loading vehicles, 116 EW stations, 15 counter-battery warfare radars, eight air defence radars, 50 units of engineering and other materiel, including 19 counterobstacle vehicles, one UR-77 mine clearing vehicle, five bridge launchers, one engineering reconnaissance vehicle as well as 14 armoured recovery vehicles, and one command post vehicle.
The operation to neutralise the AFU units is in progress.
[IsraelTimes] Lawsuit against gaming competitions that shut out a Zionist Jewish competitor aims to open a new front in the court battles over antisemitism and anti-Israel activism
In the fall of 2021, professional gamer Felix Hasson was hiking in the West Bank’s Wadi Qelt, a valley cut through the biblical landscape’s limestone hills between Jerusalem and Jericho.
The Jewish-American Hasson, then a teenager, was listening to Kanye West’s latest album, "Donda," during the hike.
"In the west bank bumpin carti... i got to introduce these settlements to off the grid," he posted on Twitter, referring to a song on the album featuring rapper Playboi Carti. (At the time, West, now known as Ye, had not yet posted any antisemitic tirades online.)
The tweet and others would surface more than two years later, after Hamas ..the braying voice of Islamic Resistance®,... ’s October 7, 2023, invasion of Israel, getting Hasson banned from several high-level online gaming competitions, according to a federal lawsuit filed in December in New York. Hasson is suing the competitions for excluding him in a case that his legal team hopes will set a legal precedent for other industries — online and off. The case also illustrated the evolving tactics in legal battles over antisemitism and anti-Zionism as both Israel’s advocates and its opponents take to the courts.
Hasson, a 21-year-old from New York, is a professional gamer specializing in Nintendo’s Super Smash Brothers Ultimate. He began competing in online tournaments in 2020, and by 2022, was ranked third in Israel while residing there during a gap year.
Playing under the pseudonym T_pot, Hasson was ranked 19th in the world for gamers playing as Terry, one of Smash’s characters.
The lawsuit argues that, although Hasson’s family is from the US, he considers Israel his "ultimate place of national origin" due to his Jewish ethnic and religious identity. That definition would protect Hasson’s Zionism under Title II of the US Federal Civil Rights Act of 1964. The law ensures equality in "public accommodations," including sports arenas, without discrimination based on race, color, religion or national origin.
"What we’re doing is we’re really pushing for case law that when you tell a Jewish person that you’re not going to include them in your place of public accommodation because they support Israel, that alone constitutes discrimination," said Hasson’s lawyer, Matthew Mainen.
Hasson grew up on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, where he attended events hosted by the area’s branch of the Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidic movement. He told The Times of Israel he had dreamed of becoming a competitive gamer since the sixth grade. He tried different games before settling on his strongest, Smash, around 2020.
After the tweet posted during his West Bank hike, Hasson shared several other pro-Israel posts. He called a meme shared by the IDF "based," and joked about Paleostinian Smash players using bombs in the game in a jab at Hamas rockets. On October 7, he said on X, formerly Twitter, "gaza got something big coming their way for sure," and two months later, laughed at an X post showing a user celebrating the Hamas attack, then lamenting the IDF response.
Hasson said that another gamer had seen one of his posts about Israel, then dug up the others and contacted tournament organizers. In December 2023, the other gamer shared screenshots of Hasson’s posts and asked organizers for Luminosity, a gaming company, "why is this racist zionist weasel allowed at your events?"
"Israel is committing genocide and anyone who cheers it on should be treated with appropriate scorn," he said.
In response, a Luminosity organizer said Hasson had been removed from an upcoming event in New York.
"Have been running events all day, just got to this and he has been removed," a tournament organizer posted on X, following the statement with a thumbs-up emoji.
The announcement "gained a lot of traction," Hasson said, prompting other competitions to follow suit. None of the organizers spoke to him before removing him, he said. Nearly all of the competitions Hasson was banned from were held in person.
"For the weeks after it happened, several weeks, I just felt a constant tightness in my chest, just really worried," Hasson said. The cancellations took place during his winter break from college, and his mother worried about him returning to campus.
"What if news of this had gone around campus, and then what if my safety was in danger?" he said. "Like, ’Oh, he’s a Zionist, get him.’ It was very, very unpleasant, frightening."
ZIONISM = JUDAISM?
The lawsuit said Luminosity has allowed players who posted anti-Israel vitriol online to continue competing, despite the ban against pro-Israel Hasson. Posts shared by players named in the lawsuit said, "Israel is evil," mocked Israel’s counter-offensive in 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 a rusty iron fist by Hamas with 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... with Holocaust imagery, defended Hamas, shared conspiracy theories saying Israel caused most of its October 7 casualties, called Israelis "colonial oppressors," and accused Israel of genocide.
The pattern repeated with several other gaming forums that banned Hasson, but not gamers who espoused anti-Israel vitriol. One organizer, from the Waypoint gaming cafe in New York, accused Hasson of "incitement to hate and violence" and told him that all tournaments in the New York region had unanimously decided to ban him from competitions, the lawsuit said. Mainen said the double standard constituted "disparate treatment," an illegal form of discrimination.
Jewish legal advocates have sought to define Zionism as a facet of the Jewish faith, and not a political belief, to protect pro-Israel Jews, and combat anti-Zionism, under US civil rights protections. The argument has been widely used in cases involving Title VI, which bars discrimination in programs that receive federal financial assistance, to combat anti-Zionism on campuses that get government funding. It has not been effectively tested under Title II, though, said Mark Goldfelder, the director of the National Jewish Advocacy Center (NJAC), the legal group backing Hasson.
"What we did in this case is we used public accommodations law to try and make it clear that excluding Zionists from whatever space it might be, including in this instance, e-platforms, would constitute a violation of Title II," Goldfelder said. "We want to take this Title II approach, public accommodations law, and bring it into the fuller civil rights conversation."
He hopes that, if the lawsuit is successful, it will extend Title II protections for pro-Israel Jews to forums such as music venues, sports competitions and bookstores, where Jewish, "Zionist" authors have been excluded. Mainen pointed to a pro-Israel activist in Oakland, Caliphornia, an impregnable bastion of the Democratic Party,, who was ejected from a pro-Hamas cafe for wearing a hat with the Star of David.
"The precedent that this case might set would really focus in on not just video games, but any place that’s offering services that’s attempting to deny them on the basis of someone’s support for Israel," Mainen said. "It’s going to be the launch point for a lot of cases in the future."
The lawsuit could also affect the gaming industry directly and other digital spaces. Jewish gamers have reported widespread antisemitism online, and NJAC has been approached for legal protection from people being abused in the metaverse.
"There’s really no statute right now to rely on, but as the lines between virtual reality and what I would call ’our world’ become increasingly blurred, e-sports, just as much as anything else, is a place where people can experience discrimination," said Ben Schlager, senior counsel at NJAC.
The lawsuit also aims to challenge Section 230 of the Communications Act of 1934, a federal law that protects online platforms from civil liability for third-party content by its users. Facebook cannot be sued, for example, if one user defames another on its platform. The law only protects the service providers if they are acting in "good faith," however, meaning they are not liable for decisions on content moderation if those decisions are made in a fair and reasonable way.
"You’re banning them because you want to discriminate against them. We would argue that that’s bad faith. You can’t racially discriminate, you can’t nationally origin discriminate, you can’t religiously discriminate against someone," Mainen said. "It’s been tough to successfully challenge, but we think that this discrimination component is going to be able to pierce the immunity of internet service providers."
Mainen pointed out that US Supreme Court Judge Clarence Thomas has signaled he is open to challenging such discriminatory bans.
"We’re willing to take this all the way up to the Supreme Court. We see an invitation from Justice Thomas," he said.
LAWFARE TO OPEN NEW FRONTIERS
The lawsuit could mark a new front in the legal battle being waged over the Israeli-Paleostinian conflict, and related discrimination, in the US. Jewish groups like NJAC, the Lawfare Project and the Brandeis Center have used the courts to advocate for Jews, efforts that have gained steam since October 7. On the other side, groups like Paleostine Legal, the Council on American-Islamic Relations ... the Moslem Brüderbund's American arm ... and the New York Branch of the American Civil Liberties Union have filed lawsuits for pro-Paleostinian activists. Some universities, like Columbia, are being battered from both sides.
Samuel Estreicher, the director of the Center for Labor and Employment at New York University’s School of Law, is not involved in the Hasson case. He reviewed the lawsuit and said that Zionism was a political idea, not religious, but that Title II could apply to the case due to Hasson’s religious identity. Title II covers religion, but not politics, he said.
"If you’re treating Jews differently because they adopt certain views with respect to Israel, differently than other groups, then that’s a basis for religious discrimination under Title II, I would argue," Estreicher said.
He added that the case, if successful, could set a precedent by putting gaming forums under public accommodations law. It could also open the door to further, similar Title II cases involving Jewish issues. The precedent could be influential, but would be non-binding, meaning other courts would not be required to follow the same decision in similar cases, he said. Title II was an important tool for advocates in the civil rights era, but is not widely used today, he added.
The lawsuit filed in New York’s federal Southern District Court requested that the court declare that the bans against Hasson were unlawful, that the gaming forums take him off the blacklist, and pay $1 million in damages to Hasson.
Luminosity and Waypoint did not respond to requests for comment and did not yet have legal representation listed in the case.
Hasson said he is still banned from competing in New York, but plays in Texas, where he attends Houston
...a city in Texas, named after Sam Houston, who would drop deader than he is now if he could see how it turned out... ’s Rice University and keeps a mezuzah on his door. He knows the gaming community in Houston, which welcomes him as a player and defends him when out-of-towners try to eject him from the area’s competitions. Other gamers have also highlighted the case, pointing out the double standard organizers applied against Hasson.
Hasson said he hopes the lawsuit will result in an apology, his reinstatement in competitions, and send a wider message.
"I hope that by winning this case, it sends the message that you’re allowed to voice positive feelings about Israel and not fear that the entire community will shut you down and kick you out forever," he said.
[Breitbart] A newly inaugurated, allegedly state-of-the-art international airport in one of Pakistan’s most restive regions appears to have no significant plane traffic in it since its first arrival in late January, multiple reports revealed this week, and has left locals confused and concerned for what it means about their future.
The New Gwadar International Airport is located in Balochistan, home to a separatist terror group and a port that the Chinese Communist Party has identified as critical to its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Pakistan is one of the most enthusiastic participants in the BRI, a global debt trap scheme in which China ensnares poor countries into its control using predatory loans, and has its own wing of the BRI named after it: the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).
The government of Pakistan has steadfastly supported the development of CPEC with the exception of the term of former Prime Minister Imran Khan, a radical Islamist populist who dramatically cut the BRI budget in his government, although not without paying lip service to China’s alleged wisdom and development foresight. It has faced tremendous challenges to finance BRI projects and significant security problems, particularly in Gwadar, where the separatist Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) has made Chinese citizens a target.
The New Gwadar International Airport is estimated to have cost Pakistan $240 million in Chinese financing to build.
Islamabad went ahead with officially opening the airport in October 2024, anyway, and it welcomed its first flight on January 21. The Indian newspaper Hindustan Times reported on Tuesday, expanding on earlier coverage from the Associated Press (AP), that the airport appears to get almost no use, describing it as the home of “ghost terminals” and seemingly no airplanes.
“The city continues to struggle with basic infrastructure issues, including unreliable electricity and a shortage of clean water, while the airport’s large capacity seems unnecessary for the area’s small population,” it observed.
The AP, visiting Gwadar, found the locals confused about the project at best, and alarmed at their potential displacement or colonization at worst.
“An airport with a 400,000 passenger capacity isn’t a priority for the city’s 90,000 people,” the agency observed. “People are on edge; activists claim there are forced disappearances and torture, which the government denies.”
Claims that the project created “local” jobs have gone unproven and locals lament that the airport has nothing to do with them.
“The port has been around for 20 years and now the international airport has been constructed, but not one person from Gwadar has been employed there … not even as a watchman,” one man, Abdul Ghafoor Hoth of the Balochistan Awami Party, told the AP.
The Chinese government promoted the BRI as a way for Pakistan to eradicate terrorist violence, particularly radical Islamic terrorism. In Balochistan, the growing Chinese presence, and accompanying Pakistani military operations, appeared to have inspired a new wave of terrorism against Chinese colonialism. When the U.S. State Department designated the BLA a terrorist organization, it listed several attacks targeting Chinese nationals by the group, including “a suicide attack in August 2018 that targeted Chinese engineers in Balochistan, a November 2018 attack on the Chinese consulate in Karachi, and a May 2019 attack against a luxury hotel in Gwadar, Balochistan.”
The BLA continued to attack Chinese targets in subsequent years, including Chinese outposts unrelated to the BRI. In one of the most shocking such attacks, a female suicide bomber identified as Shari Baloch attacked the Confucius Institute at the University of Karachi in April 2022, killing four people, three of them Chinese nationals. The BLA took responsibility for the attack; Confucius Institutes are academic centers the Chinese government uses to spread communist ideology.
The opening of the New Gwadar International Airport fell victim to security complications, as well. On October 6, 2024, just as officials had planned to inaugurate the project, terrorists detonated an improvised explosive device in Karachi, in an attack directly targeting a convoy carrying Chinese workers arriving in Pakistan. The bombing killed two Chinese citizens and injured several others.
The attack outraged the Chinese government, which blamed the BLA for the attack and demanded Islamabad “conduct a thorough investigation of the attack … severely punish the perpetrators … [and] take practical and effective measures to ensure the safety of Chinese citizens, institutions and projects in Pakistan.”
Locals speaking to the AP complained that, in the aftermath of the attack, Gwadar has seen an influx of Pakistani military officials who harass locals in an attempt to prevent further attacks.
“The city is a jumble of checkpoints, barbed wire, troops, barricades, and watchtowers,” AP said of Gwadar. “Roads close at any given time, several days a week, to permit the safe passage of Chinese workers and Pakistani VIPs.”
“We are asked to prove our identity, who we are, where we have come from,” one local lamented. “We are residents. Those who ask should identify themselves as to who they are.”
Pakistan held an inauguration ceremony for the airport “virtually” in October following the convoy bombing. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif attended the virtual ceremony alongside Chinese Prime Minister Li Qiang and celebrated the airport as “another gift from China.”
A month after that ceremony, the Pakistan Express Tribune reported that the Pakistan government had no plan for commercializing the airport to welcome airlines or to develop businesses such as restaurants and other stops within the airport for passengers.
#2
Well, my first question would be Why do you want to fly there?
Posted by: ed in texas ||
02/27/2025 8:45
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#3
A possible future Chinese Communist Party Military Base for Logistical and Support Operations.
When the Pakis can't pay for it, the Chinese BRI contracts state that it will become property of the CCP. Like a lien, the property becomes owned by the debt holder. So your thinking is correct.
The Chinese Belt & Road 'initiatives' only seem to be targeted at countries with unstable finances, so rather insidious in their nature.
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
02/27/2025 9:56
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#4
This airport is likely a major long term financial liability, whether for Pakistan and/or China.
Posted by: Lord Garth ||
02/27/2025 10:08
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#5
Because your commander ordered you to fly in transports full of soldiers?
#6
Don't forget those fish eat a lot of the mercury that spouts from Chinese coal fired power plants and store it in their bodies for the Chinese to eat.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
02/27/2025 12:20
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#7
The chinese export their locally-procured mercury laden fish to the rest of the world, and send their fleets to the cusp of foreign territories with less polluted economies (Argentina and Latin America especially) for their domestic seafood stocks.
[IsraelTimes] Military says strike targeted operative who ‘repeatedly’ violated truce terms, as Lebanese media says one killed, one wounded in drone strike on road in north of country
The Israeli Air Force announced Wednesday that it struck a "central terrorist" in Hezbollah’s Unit 4400, which is responsible for transporting and smuggling Iranian weapons into Leb ...The Lebs maintain a precarious sectarian balance among Shiites, Sunnis, and about a dozen flavors of Christians, plus Armenians, Georgians, and who knows what else?... The strike in the al-Qusayr area of northern Lebanon came after the operative "repeatedly violated" the current ceasefire, including being involved in weapons smuggling to the Iran-backed terror group.
The military said that the Hezbollah operative was attacked "while planning more smuggling."
The army, which has recently carried out Arclight airstrike ...KABOOM!... s in the area of the Syria-Lebanon border, added that Unit 4400 is continuing to smuggle arms to Hezbollah "in a manner that constitutes a threat to Israel’s security."
Lebanese national news agency NNA reported that "an enemy drone targeted a vehicle on the Hermel-Qusayr road, leaving one dead and one maimed" in the northeast of the country.
The attack came after Israel carried out a similar operation the day before, which left two dead in eastern Lebanon, in the Janta region, Lebanese media said.
According to the Israeli army, Tuesday’s strikes targeted Hezbollah murderous Moslems after the IDF identified the operatives at a "strategic weapons" manufacturing and storage facility belonging to the terror group.
The operatives’ activity at the site was a "blatant violation" of the ceasefire agreement between Israel and Lebanon, the IDF said.
Lebanese state media said that the Israeli strike killed at least two people in the country’s east.
"An enemy drone carried out an airstrike on the town of Shaara... near the eastern Lebanon mountain range, killing two people and wounding two" others, said the state-run National News Agency.
[IsraelTimes] The IDF names the “central” Hezbollah terrorist targeted earlier in an airstrike on the Al-Qusayr area of southern Lebanon as Mahran Ali Nasruddin, of the terror group’s Unit 4400, which coordinates weapons smuggling.
The military says this means transferring arms from Iran and its proxies in the region, particularly via Syria.
It notes that many senior members of the unit have been killed during the war, including its commander and the latter’s expected successor.
Nasruddin played a “significant” role in weapons smuggling and has been directly involved in collaborating with smugglers working at the Syria-Lebanon border.
[IsraelTimes] Court says ‘sufficient and reliable information’ that Muhammad Deif was killed last July, will reissue warrant ‘should information become available that Mr. Deif is still alive’.
The International Criminal Court on Wednesday scrapped an arrest warrant issued against Hamas ..the well-beloved offspring of the Moslem Brotherhood,... ’s late military chief Muhammad Deif, who was killed in an Israeli Arclight airstrike ...KABOOM!... last year.
The decision by The Hague-based court came after prosecutors earlier this month told its judges they had "sufficient and reliable information" that Deif was killed last July in 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 a rusty iron fist by Hamas with 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... "As a result, the Chamber decides to terminate the proceedings against Mr Deif and renders the arrest warrant... against him without effect," presiding judge Nicolas Guillou said in a written decision.
Hamas did not confirm Deif’s death until late last month when the group issued a statement announcing the "martyrdom" of the shadowy leader. "He's always smelled like that"
Judge Guillou added the order was "without prejudice to pursuing again, should information become available that Mr. Deif is still alive."
Hamas did not officially confirm Deif’s death until last month, more than six months after his killing in a July 13, 2024 airstrike, with the terror group previously denying he had been killed.
Deif, along with Hamas’s Gaza leader Sinwar, was an architect of Hamas’s October 7 massacre in southern Israel, when thousands of bully boyz broke through the border and killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians, while taking 251 people hostage to Gaza.
He had topped Israel’s most-wanted list since 1995 for his involvement in the planning and execution of a large number of terror attacks, including many bus bombings in the 1990s and early 2000s.
Until the July strike, Deif had survived seven Israeli attempts on his life over the years, some of which had maimed him.
Despite the IDF announcing that it had killed Deif in August, the ICC issued an arrest warrant for him on November 21 along with warrants for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defense minister Yoav Gallant.
The ICC listed the charges against Deif as crimes against humanity of murder, extermination, torture and sexual violence as well as war crimes of murder, cruel treatment, torture, hostage-taking, outrages upon personal dignity and sexual violence.
Netanyahu and Gallant were both charged with war crimes of starvation as a method of warfare and intentionally targeting a civilian population, and crimes against humanity of murder, persecution and other inhumane acts during the war in Gaza.
Israel has strongly rejected the substance of the allegations, insisting that it has funneled massive amounts of humanitarian aid through the crossings along the Gaza border and that any problems with the distribution of that aid to the Paleostinian civilian population were a result of inefficient operations by the aid organizations on the ground, difficulties arising from the ongoing conflict in the territory, and the looting of aid by Hamas and other terrorist organizations.
Israel has also rejected allegations that it targets civilians, insisting that civilian casualties caused by the operation have resulted in large part due to Hamas’s tactic of embedding its fighters and installations within Gaza’s civilian infrastructure.
The ICC was established in 2002 as the permanent court of last resort to prosecute individuals responsible for the world’s most heinous atrocities — war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide, and the crime of aggression.
The court’s 125 member states include Paleostine, Ukraine, Canada, and every country in the European Union ...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing... , but dozens of countries don’t accept the court’s jurisdiction, including Israel, the United States, Russia, and China.
#1
10/7 was a well documented undeniable war crime.
Israel is a state actor.
If the ICC had wanted to show any semblance of even making an effort to implement something like equitable justice it would have issued arrest warrants for the leadership of the state actors behind 10/7, concurrently with issuing arrest warrants for Israeli leaders.
The ICC / Rome Statute is de facto an alliance against Western civilization.
It is a cargo cult court that tries to look like a court but doesn't function like a Western judicial institution.
#2
If I recall correctly, the State of Palestine is a member of the ICC, though I believe they mean the Palestinian Authority, not Hamas in Gaza. Nonetheless, as the last-elected government of Gaza, Hamas is actually the legal authority over there, and therefore could be considered a state actor as well. Or possibly a sub-state actor — “governor” rather than “president”… It would be a fun argument to make, for someone with the right credentials and actual knowledge. ;-)
That assumes the bodies were indeed hostages from Israel. Israel started the testing overnight.
[NYPOST] Hamas released the bodies of four dead Israeli hostages Wednesday night local time without the ghoulish public ceremonies it has been holding during the exchanges.
The bodies of hostages Tsahi Idan, Ohad Yahalomi, Itzik Elgarat and Shlomo Mantzur were handed over to the Red Cross after midnight, local time, Arab and Israeli media outlets reported.
The exchange came after Hamas' military wing agreed to hold the scheduled release without touting the victims' coffins as props in their propaganda parades in Gaza.
Egypt will be their first destination until some other countries may welcome them.
Israel said to return body of Gazan woman that Hamas sent instead of Shiri Bibas
[IsraelTimes] Palestinian medics quoted by Reuters say that Israel has sent the body of an unidentified Gazan woman that Hamas handed over in place of slain hostage Shiri Bibas to a hospital in the Gaza Strip, following the return of Bibas’s remains over the weekend.
Israel starts releasing over 600 prisoners who were slated to be freed Saturday, but source says they won’t all be released until the bodies are ID’d, in what may be last handover of first stage
In exchange for the remains of the four slain hostages, Israel agreed to free hundreds of Paleostinian prisoners whose releases had been held up by anger in Jerusalem over Hamas ..a regional Iranian catspaw,... ’s handling of previous handovers, though statements from Israeli and Paleostinian officials left unclear whether all the detainees would be released simultaneously as sought by Hamas.
The transfer, the last of the multi-phased ceasefire’s initial stage, began late Wednesday night, when the Red Thingy headed to the handover site in 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 a rusty iron fist by Hamas with 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. After receiving the coffins, the Red Thingy transferred them to the Israel Defense Forces, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said early Thursday morning.
The bodies were handed over at the Kerem Shalom Crossing with "Egyptian mediation," according to the Prime Minister’s Office.
Israel then began carrying out its initial forensic investigation. The families of the four hostages were being updated constantly and were supposed to receive official notifications once identifications were made.
The remains to be returned Wednesday night include the body of Shlomo Mantzur, 85, thought to be the oldest hostage taken on October 7. Israeli military officials announced on February 11 that Mantzur had been killed during the October 7 attack and his body was being held by snuffies in Gaza.
The bodies of Itzik Elgarat, Tsahi Idan and Ohad Yahalomi are also to be returned to Israel. Elgarat was 69 at the time of his kidnapping; Idan and Yahalomi were both 49. Their deaths had not previously been announced by the Israel Defense Forces.
In return for the four, Israel said it was planning to free over 600 Paleostinian prisoners, including dozens serving multiple life terms for their roles in deadly terrorist attacks.
Paleostinians said some 620 prisoners would go free, while Hebrew-language reports in Israel put the number at 602. Israeli authorities did not respond to requests for clarification on the discrepancy.
The group had been initially slated for release on Saturday in exchange for six living hostages freed by Hamas. However,
there's no worse danger than telling a mother her baby is ugly... Netanyahu ordered their release delayed Saturday night, demanding an end to "humiliating" Hamas ceremonies that have seen the terror group put hostages on display in front of crowds, including exhibiting the bodies of mother Shiri Bibas and her young sons last week.
Egypt, which has been mediating to help resolve the impasse, facilitated the delicate transfer. Officials said earlier that the bodies would go from Gaza to Egypt and then to Israel.
SIMULTANEOUS EXCHANGE?
Hamas said the exchange would take place simultaneously, but Israeli officials indicated otherwise, possibly arguing another snarl for the fragile agreement.
In a statement, the Israel Prisons Service said that it would only free the Paleostinian prisoners after the bodies of the four hostages arrived in Israel, though some already began to be released to the West Bank and Jerusalem before the Prime Minister’s Office confirmed the IDF received the remains.
An Israeli source quoted in some Hebrew-language media outlets said the bodies would need to be positively identified before the prisoner release was completed, a process that could take several hours. The measure reflected a lack of trust in Israel after Hamas last week handed over the body of a Gazook woman rather than that of Shiri Bibas. The terror group claimed the switch was the result of an error and sent the slain mother’s body to Israel late Friday.
Unlike last week, the Health Ministry said it was preparing to help identify the hostages at the Kerem Shalom crossing on the Gaza border rather than at the National Institute of Forensic Medicine (Abu Kabir) in Jaffa. Once identified, the bodies will be transported to Abu Kabir for post-mortems to identify causes of death, it said.
According to the Walla news site, a team from Abu Kabir had been dispatched to the Kerem Shalom crossing for the task. Depending on the state of the remains, a field identification could prove impossible, necessitating their transfer to the facility for further examination, which could add hours or days to the process, Walla reported.
Hamas has used the events to broadcast its still-extant rule over the Strip despite a 15-month military campaign by Israel to dismantle and disarm the terror group.
HARDENED TERRORISTS
Of the prisoners slated to be released, 50 are serving life sentences for deadly attacks against Israelis.
The roster includes the longest-serving inmate likely set to be freed: Nael Barghouti, who has spent a total of 44 years in Israeli custody for killing 27-year-old Israeli bus driver Mordechai Yekuel in his vehicle near Ramallah in 1978. Ammar Zaban, a prominent figure in Hamas who headed the al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades during the Second Intifada, was also set to be freed.
Zaban, who will be deported, was sentenced to 27 life terms for his involvement in numerous terror attacks, including the 1997 suicide kaboom in Jerusalem’s Mahane Yehuda market, which killed 16 people.
Nearly 100 of the ex-inmates were slated for deportation upon their release.
Another 445 inmates who were detained in Gaza following October 7 but never charged were also set to be freed.
On Saturday, Israel Prison Service chief Kobi Yaakobi instructed guards to dress Paleostinian prisoners slated for release with shirts sporting a verse from Psalms written in Arabic: "I pursued my enemies and overtook them, and did not turn back until their destruction."
WHAT’S NEXT?
Hamas has so far released 30 hostages — 20 Israeli civilians, five soldiers, and five Thai nationals — during the ceasefire that began in January. Israel has released hundreds of terror convicts and other Paleostinian inmates in exchange.
The terror group freed 105 civilians during a weeklong truce in late November 2023, and four hostages were released before that in the early weeks of the war.
Eight hostages have been rescued alive from captivity by troops, and the bodies of 41 have also been recovered, including three mistakenly killed by the Israeli military as they tried to escape their captors, and the body of a soldier who was killed in 2014. The body of another soldier killed in 2014, Lt. Hadar Goldin, is also still being held by Hamas.
Hamas will still be holding 59 hostages, including 24 believed to still be alive. Aside from Goldin, all were kidnapped on October 7, 2023, as Hamas-led snuffies carried out a deadly attack across southern Israel, killing some 1,200 people and devastating whole communities.
Under the ceasefire outline agreed to by Israel and Hamas last month, the remaining living hostages are set to be released in a second stage of the deal for an undetermined number of Paleostinian prisoners, alongside a full Israeli military withdrawal from Gaza. A third stage would see the remaining bodies sent back to Israel while ending the war and plotting out Gaza’s reconstruction.
The prospects for a second stage are unclear, however, with Netanyahu repeatedly warning that Israel is prepared to return to fighting if more hostages are not let go.
An Israeli official said Israel would demand that Hamas disarm and cede civilian rule of Gaza before moving to the deal’s second stage, but also said the ceasefire in its current form could be extended if Hamas continues releasing hostages under the rubric established in phase one.
The alternative would be a return to all-out war, the official told The Times of Israel, with Jerusalem giving Hamas until March 8 to release more captives.
In the US, President Donald Trump ...They hit him with slander, they impeached him twice. Nancy Pelosi tore up his State of the Union address on national TV. They stole an election and put his adherents in jail. They vilified him. They couldn't crucify him, so they shot him. Still, they can't keep him down... expressed dismay that bodies were being returned, appearing non-plussed at the families campaigning for the bodies of their slain loved ones.
"They think they’re doing us a favor by sending us bodies," Trump said of Hamas during a cabinet meeting. "This is a vicious group of people."
"I’ve spoken to a lot of the parents and a lot of the people involved. They want those bodies almost as much and maybe even just as much as they wanted their son or their daughter," he added. "It’s incredible the level that they want the bodies of these people. They’re dead. They’re dead."
#1
Summary:
Murderers are handing over the bodies of their victims. An as a reward, 97 of their follow Murderers will be released, to help them murder even more?
#4
Once all the hostages or their bodies are returned, Israel will have no reason to hold back. Hamas knows this. I doubt that Hamas will ever release all the hostages.
[THEGATEWAYPUNDIT] Elon Musk's DOGE uncovered another huge scandal involving a former ICE employee-turned Biden official.
According to DOGE, the HHS has been paying an empty migrant facility in Pecos, Texas, $18 million a month since March 2024.
The shady deal was brokered by a former ICE employee-turned Biden transition team member.
DOGE said the sketchy contract was terminated, saving taxpayers more than $251 million per year.
Per DOGE:
A former ICE employee and Biden transition team member joined Family Endeavors in early 2021 and helped secure a sole-source HHS contract for overflow housing from licensed care facilities.
As a result, Family Endeavors' cash and portfolio of investments grew from $8.3M in 2020 to $520.4M in 2023.
Since March 2024, HHS has paid ~$18M/month to keep the Pecos facility open despite sitting empty.
With national licensed facility occupancy now below 20%, HHS was able to terminate this contract, saving taxpayers over $215M annually.
And now HHS or DOJ can work to claw back some of what was overpaid. And possibly the recipient can be sent to jail…So much winning!
Posted by: Fred ||
02/27/2025
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[NYPOST] An MS-13 gangbanger who was on the lam after allegedly killing his roommate was caught by ICE agents who were sweeping the area as part of deportation raids in the notorious migrant town of Colony Ridge, Texas.
Cops say Luis Miguel Perez, 34, murdered his roommate Monday on a nearby rural road, ran into the woods and then knocked on a neighbor's door and asked for a drink and a ride out of town, according to ABC13.
The neighbor then called 911, alerting cops who had already been searching the area for hours.
[NYPOST] A machine gun fanatic living in the country illegally was charged Wednesday with supporting ISIS — after his ex-wife ratted him out for getting a ''sham'' green-card marriage to a Bronx stripper, The Post has learned.
Mansuri Manuchekhri, a Tajikstan-born truck driver living in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, funneled $70,000 to ''ISIS-affiliated individuals'' between December 2021 and April 2023 — believing that the money was going to the families of slain ISIS fighters, the feds charged.
He also allegedly boasted to his terror-sympathizer buddies overseas about his firearms prowess.
''Thank God, I am ready, brother,'' Manuchekhri, 34, texted a Turkish contact alongside a 17-second video of him firing an assault rifle at a target at a New Jersey shooting range, according to a federal complaint.
''I go for training at least once or twice a week,'' he boasted to the same man alongside a similar video, court papers allege.
Federal agents uncovered a photo on Manuchekhri's iCloud of him proudly pointing two AK-47 rifles into the air, court papers show.
The alleged terror sympathizer entered the country from Tajikistan in June 2016 on a non-immigrant tourist visa and remained in the country after it expired that December, authorities said.
He then married a Bronx stripper in a ''sham marriage'' in March 2017, yet his efforts to obtain legal status in the country failed because he failed to provide supporting documents, according to the complaint.
One of the men that Manuchekhri schemed to funnel the cash to was arrested by Turkish authorities for a terrorism attack car bombing on the Jan.28, 2024 Roman Catholic Church in Istanbul, the feds said.
Manuchekhri also told his ex-wife that he admired Sayfullo Saipov, the Uzbek national who committed an infamous terror attack in New York City in 2017, the complaint alleges.
Manuchekhri faces up to 45 years in prison on charges of conspiring to provide material support to ISIS, possessing firearms while unlawfully in the United States, and immigration fraud.
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02/27/2025
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[NYPOST] Several dozen keffiyeh-clad anti-Israel protesters took over a building on the Barnard College campus early Wednesday evening to protest the expulsions of two students who stormed a Columbia University class in January and threw around flyers loaded with hateful rhetoric.
Videos circulating online, posted by Columbia Students for Justice in Paleostine on X, show the masked students lining a hallway in Milbank Hall, the oldest building on campus, beating drums and loudly chanting through megaphones.
One of the X posts made by the group — which proclaims "long live the student intifada" in its bio — includes a list of demands, among them a reversal of the expulsions, amnesty for students punished during last year’s anti-Israel campus protests and a public meeting with Dean Leslie Grinage and Barnard President Laura Rosenbury.
The group’s demands also include "abolition of the corrupt Barnard disciplinary process and complete transparency for current, past, and future disciplinary proceedings."
The pro-Hamas ..not a terrorist organization, even though it kidnaps people, holds hostages, and tries to negotiate by executing them,... student group claimed in a follow-up post that Barnard public safety has "harassed and shoved" several students, and knocked at least one to the ground. "Who are they really protecting?" the manic social media post read in all-caps.
The campus coalition Columbia University Apartheid Divest, led by Columbia’s branches of Students for Justice in Palestine and the anti-Zionist Jewish Voice for Peace, says in a statement that students are staging an “emergency sit-in” outside the dean’s office. The protest group tells participants to wear a mask and avoid swiping their university ID.
Jewish students post online that they have been blocked from entering the building and attending classes.
BREAKING: 50+ COLUMBIA STUDENTS FLOOD ADMIN OFFICE OF BARNARD COLLEGE DEMANDING
1. Immediate reversal of the two Barnard students’ expulsions. 2. Amnesty for all students disciplined for pro-Palestine action or thought. Drop all the charges now! 3. A public meeting with Dean… pic.twitter.com/QKSBQ6jIUg
— Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine (@ColumbiaSJP) February 26, 2025
The protesters left Milbank Hall in the night “without further incident,” Barnard President Laura Rosenbury says in a statement.
“But let us be clear: Their disregard for the safety of our community remains completely unacceptable,” she says.
The school had warned that if the students were not gone by 9:30 p.m. officials could be forced to take “additional, necessary measures to protect our campus.”
The student group Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine said on the social platform X that protesters dispersed after the administration agreed to meet with them this afternoon.
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02/27/2025
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#1
Time To Send A Clear Message To Future Idiots.
As we know, HAMAS is funded by IRAN and many of these Protests and/or the Leaders are being funded by them.
* So announce, since the protesters are supporting a Federally Listed Terrorist Group.
As such, they will be arrested and indited as supporters of HAMAS, a known Terrorism Group. USC aiding and abetting Terrorist Groups
* Students, for criminally seizing control of a College Campus Bldg. and disrupting the Educational process of the student body. They will be expelled from the College. Their transcript will clearly state why. Plus. They will be banned from acquiring Federally (FDIC Bank) issued Student loans for 5 years.
* If they are interlopers and not registered Students. Then the state will issue Criminal FELONY Trespass charges and full payment of all damages and loss of income.
The Fed's will do a $$$$ audit of all involved for possible Terrorist funding and protest related expenses.
* If the College Board refuses to take steps to halt the Terrorist supporting illegal activity. Then Federal shall take steps to freeze current and halt all future federal funding.
* Any Facility supporting the students shall have their Teaching Certifications suspended for 3 to 5 years.
* All persons involved will be added to the US Terrorist Watch List and have their travel and Passports suspended until court proceeding have been completed.
#2
Barnard College, officially titled as Barnard College, Columbia University, is a private women's liberal arts college in the borough of Manhattan in New York City.
[NYPOST] President Trump argued on Wednesday that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth should ''fire every single'' US military general involved in the Biden administration's botched withdrawal from Afghanistan.
The Pentagon chief was seated to Trump's left during a Cabinet meeting at the White House, when a news hound asked about the current employment status of the generals tasked with organizing the August 2021 US exit from Afghanistan.
''I'm not going to tell this man what to do but I will say that if I had his place, I'd fire every single one of them, Pete,'' Trump responded.
#1
Don't forget, he had already given the orders to prepare to withdrawal based upon the Taliban meeting conditions. The general officers at the time ignored that order. When Biden gave the order, they had to improvise because of that disobedience.
#5
The withdraw was absolute slop, and would likely have been worse if there wasn't a huge payoff for a ceasefire to evacuate IMHO, but a story like that would be egregiously obvious to even Normies, no slight on them, trying to wake them up: people scraping by to go home and do family things don't have the luxery of time to proper research.
[WashingtonTimes] The Supreme Court delivered a reprieve to President Trump late Wednesday, temporarily blocking a lower-court order that the administration pay nearly $2 billion in foreign assistance grant money by midnight.
The Justice Department had sought a delay, saying the deadline imposed by U.S. District Judge Amir Ali was impossible to meet and trampled on the president’s powers.
But the challengers, led by global health and AIDS groups, said some of them face “extinction” if they don’t get more federal money right now. They also said those relying on them will “face starvation, disease and death.”
The justices, in a brief order, told the health organizations to file a response to the Justice Department’s arguments on Friday.
The case is the second challenge to Mr. Trump’s executive actions to reach the justices, little more than a month after he took office.
This challenge stems from Mr. Trump’s Jan. 20 executive order calling for a large freeze of foreign-assistance money. He said he wanted to conduct a review to ensure the money aligned with his goals.
On Feb. 13 Judge Ali, a Biden appointee, issued a temporary restraining order halting the pause. After more back-and-forth, Judge Ali ruled on Tuesday that the federal government was still recalcitrant in releasing the money and ordered it out the door by the end of Wednesday.
That money was to cover obligations that were already in place before the State Department carried out Mr. Trump’s pause.
Mr. Trump’s lawyers first asked the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia to delay the midnight order and, when that failed, rushed to the justices.
Acting Solicitor General Sarah M. Harris said the district court had “moved all the goalposts” by issuing an extraordinary order to pay out the money.
She said the government “is committed to paying legitimate claims.”
But she said the judge’s order would short-circuit the careful scrutiny Mr. Trump wants to deliver.
“As a result, the government faces the possibility of being forced to expend enormous sums of taxpayer dollars without knowing whether those payments are for legitimate expenses,” Ms. Harris argued.
#4
How about a new law that says any national injuction by a district court that gets overturned results in a 10 year felony conviction, disbarment and loss of citizenship.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[NewsFront] 21:37 Around 20.50 Moscow time by air defense systems on duty destroyed two Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles:
one over the territory of the Republic of Crimea and
one over the Black Sea. 20:44 FPV operator Severy destroys an expensive reconnaissance drone of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
20:16 From 19.15 to 19.50 Moscow time by air defense systems on duty destroyed seven Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles over the territory of the Republic of Crimea.
19:33 The Russian Armed Forces have driven the enemy out of the settlement of Zaporozhye, –MAP.
19:02 Advancement of the Russian Armed Forces near Andreyevka, –MAP.
18:44 Servicemen of the reconnaissance unit of the North group of forces with the help of UAVs discovered a canopy of camouflage nets, under which was located a combat armored vehicle of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
The detected target was quickly destroyed by FPV drone crews using fiber optics.
18:11 Advance of the Russian Armed Forces in the South Donetsk direction near Skudnoye, Novosilka and Novopol, –MAP.
17:49 On frames: launching a missile strike by the Iskander OTRK (with a cluster warhead) at the training site of the 422 UAV crews against the Ukrainian Armed Forces' UAVs at an abandoned airfield (near the city of Zaporozhye).
17:18 Advance of the Russian Armed Forces west of Leonidovka, –MAP.
16:44 Calculation of the Buk-M3 air defense missile system of the Center group destroyed HIMARS multiple launch rockets in the Krasnoarmeysk direction.
16:26 Pokrovskoe (Krasnoarmeyskoye) direction. Left flank.
Intense counterbattles in the Kotlino-Udachnoye area.
Our units are repelling enemy counterattacks and seeking to expand control of the territory. Both the enemy and our units have brought additional forces to this area.
The situation is very tense. However, in Udachny, the battles have shifted to the center, although they are mostly positional. The enemy's videos with outdated data do not correspond to the real situation.
The enemy's attempts to jump into Kotlino in the style of "a la Peschanoye" do not give him positive results. Assault groups in such attempts are usually destroyed along with their equipment.
However, although the enemy's activity has somewhat decreased, the tension in the area has not decreased. Both sides admit the possibility of a sharp increase in actions from the outside and the introduction of significant reserves into the battle.
In the area of Zverevo, Peschanoye and Belgiyka, the LBS is unchanged, although the intensity of the fighting here is not weakening. Our units are trying to retake the area of the railway embankment south of Zverevo and northeast of Peschanoye. The enemy is intensively using drones and artillery against Peschanoye.
15:54 Around 14:30 Moscow time, air defense systems on duty destroyed two Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles over the territory of the Belgorod region.
14:59 Drone drivers of the Rubicon Center showed, what remains of the Ukrainian Armed Forces equipment on the Yunakovka-Sudzha road in the border area of the Kursk region.
13:19 Units of the North group of forces during offensive operations released settlements of Orlovka and Pogrebki.
12:28 The Russian Armed Forces have driven the enemy out of the Goly Log gully south of Maryevka, –MAP.
11:36 The Russian Armed Forces have driven the enemy out of the Goly Log gully, south of Maryevka, –MAP.
11:28 Ministry of Defense RF:
Crews of 152mm 2S19 Msta-S self-propelled howitzers of the 25th Combined Arms Army destroyed armored vehicles, crews of SPG-9 mounted anti-tank grenade launchers, 120mm mortars and Ukrainian Armed Forces personnel.
The crews of the Uragan MLRS of the 1st Guards Tank Army destroyed a MLRS combat vehicle, a temporary deployment point, a concentration of manpower and enemy armored vehicles.
11:06 Andreevka liberated, at the moment, the clearing of basements on the western outskirts of the village from the remnants of the Ukrainian Armed Forces is being completed.
11:06 Operator of the UAV GV "Sever" discovered in a forest plantation of Ukrainian soldiers' BBM "Humvee" and transmitted the target coordinates to the FPV calculation of the Severyans. The kamikaze drone on fiber optics quickly flew in and hit the target.
10:05 The Russian army has occupied Novaya Sorochina in the Kursk region, –MAP.
10:05 Assault units of the "North" group continue successfully to dislodge the enemy in the Khar'kov direction.
9:25 Information on strikes carried out by the Ukrainian Armed Forces on the Belgorod Region over the past 24 hours:
In the Borisovsky district, in the village of Kazachye-Rudchenskoyereleased4 munitions in one attack, also one drone was shot down by the air defense system. No consequences.
In the Valuysky municipal district, the settlement of Urazovo, the villages of Dvuluchnoye, Dolgoe, Kukuyevka, Logachevka and Posokhovo were attacked by 41 drones, of which 37 were shot down and suppressed.
In the village of Kukuyevka, 4 units of special equipment were damaged, in the village of Posokhovo - a water supply infrastructure facility.
In the Volokonovsky district, eight rounds of ammunition were fired at the settlement of Malinovo, the villages of Borisovka, Tishanka, the farms of Gayevka and Davydkin during two attacks and attacks were carried out using six drones. three private houses, two outbuildings, a passenger car, a commercial facility and a power line were damaged.
In the Grayvoronsky municipal district, the settlement of Gorkovsky, the villages of Bezymeno, Novostroevka-Vtoraya and Novostroevka-Pervaya were subjected to three attacks, during which 11 munitions were fired, and were attacked by two drones.
Tonight in the village of Novostroevka-Pervaya, as a result of explosive devices dropped from a drone, one private house and a car were damaged.
In the Krasnoyarsk region, two artillery shells were fired at the village of Prilesye, the villages of Grafovka, Demidovka and Kolotilovka, and 10 drones were attacked. A social facility was damaged.
In the Shebekinsky municipal district, the settlement of Leninsky, the villages of Arkhangelskoye, Voznesenovka, Murom, Novaya Tavolzhanka and Rzhevka were subjected to one shelling, during which seven7 munitions were fired, and were attacked with the help of 36 drones, 32 of which were shot down and suppressed.
In the village of Murom, wo private houses were destroyed and one was damaged, in the village of Arkhangelskoye, a private house was damaged.
Air targets were shot down by the air defense system over the Yakovlevsky municipal district. In the settlement of Tomarovka, one private house and a car were damaged as a result of falling debris.
09:16 Soldiers of the Tula 106th Airborne Division from the previously liberated Sverdlikovo broke through the defense of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, entered Lebedivka, reached the center and are advancing in the direction of the eastern part, clearing out the Ukrainian Armed Forces strongholds and driving out the occupiers.
8:36 Snipers of the "East" group of forces supported offensive of assault groups in the South Donetsk direction.
Having waited for the assault to begin, the riflemen suppressed the enemy's firing points and machine gun crew, ensuring the safe approach of our assault troops. The snipers also destroyed the enemy reserve, which was moving forward to reinforce.
8:21 According to operational information from the unit of the 79th Mechanized Brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, consisting of a battalion abandoned the territory of the village of Constantinople under pressure from our forces and dispersed along the strongholds in the direction of Razliv and Bogatyr.
8:20 Around 07.20 Moscow time by air defense systems on dutydestroyed two Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles over the territory of Krasnodar Krai.
8:17 Frontline report for the morning of 02/26/2025
Zaporizhzhya Front. Over the past 24 hours, no information about changes in the LBS has been received, –MAP.
Donetsk Front. Russian troops continue to expand their zone of control northwest of Velyka Novosilka. Fighting continues in Constantinople, Russian troops have slightly slowed the pace of the offensive, but long-range weapons are actively working on enemy positions.
In the Pokrovsk direction, the Ukrainian Armed Forces are trying to counterattack, showing activity in several areas. There are also reports of a possible counterattack by Ukrainian troops in Dzerzhinsk, but this information has not yet been confirmed.
Chasov Yar direction. No significant changes in LBS. Fighting continues in Chasov Yar and on the flanks.
Kursk Region. Russian troops have liberated Pogrebki, and the territory that has come under the control of the Russian Armed Forces is being cleared. Also, the adjacent Orlovka has been liberated from the area. There are also advances by Russian troops in the Lebedevka area.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[Regnum] The Russian side rules out freezing the Ukrainian conflict along the contact line. This was stated by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on February 26 at a press conference following his visit to Qatar.
The head of the Foreign Ministry explained that this contradicts the provisions of the Russian Constitution.
"There were ideas like 'let's leave the line of contact - this is Russian, and this is Ukrainian.' Firstly, this will not happen, we have a Constitution based on the expression of the will of the people," Lavrov pointed out.
Secondly, he said, what remains of Ukraine should also be freed “from racist laws.”
The Foreign Minister also added that Russia is not considering any settlement options that involve the presence of EU peacekeepers in Ukraine. Lavrov pointed out that the Europeans are trying to impose such an approach in order to further escalate the conflict.
As reported by the Regnum news agency, the official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry Maria Zakharova on February 6 called the freezing of the Ukrainian conflict or a temporary ceasefire unacceptable. The diplomat explained that Western countries would use such a pause to strengthen the military potential of the Kiev regime.
Russian Ambassador to France Alexei Meshkov said that the West is trying to freeze the conflict in Ukraine in order to rearm the Kiev regime, but Russia will not fall for this trick.
The Governor of Zaporizhia Oblast, Yevgeny Balitsky, believes that if the special operation is frozen, a threat will arise for both Russia and the entire Russian world. The head of the region emphasized that he is against any freezing of unresolved conflicts. According to Balitsky, if the Ukrainian conflict is not resolved today, our children will have to finish it later.
On January 20, Russian President Vladimir Putin noted that Moscow is ready for negotiations on the settlement of the Ukrainian conflict, but the goal of this dialogue should be long-term peace, not a short-term truce. The head of the Russian state added that the legitimate interests of the Russian Federation must be taken into account.
The Kiev regime has faced a problem — there are practically no men left for mobilization. Now the Ukrainian Armed Forces will recruit volunteers for money. This was stated on the air of the Polish radio station RMF FM by the Ukrainian Ambassador to Warsaw Vasyl Bodnar.
The diplomat explained that the authorities are looking for funding to attract people under 25 years of age to the Ukrainian army.
Bodnar explained that it is impossible to act only within the framework of mobilization - the majority of those who should receive a summons have already been mobilized.
The ambassador admitted that the necessary number of people who could be obtained through mobilization no longer exist.
As reported by the Regnum news agency, the TCC employees forcibly mobilized two priests of the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) in Ukraine. This was reported on February 23 by the publication "Strana.ua".
On February 20, military commissars took away the protodeacon of the Holy Trinity Kitaevsky Monastery, Father Andrei Batsula, who was then taken to the Desna training center, and there is currently no contact with him.
The day before, UOC priest Pavlo Kushnirchuk was forcibly taken away from Zhitomir Oblast. The priest's wife reported on social media that her husband was taken away in the direction of Chernihiv and that there is currently no contact with him either.
On February 23, a resident of the settlement of Dobrovolye (Ukrainian name - Bogoyavlenka) in the Donetsk People's Republic, liberated from Ukrainian forces, Oleg Gimanov said that TCC employees lured men out and handed them summonses under the pretext of allegedly providing humanitarian aid, which in fact no one was going to give out.
A captured serviceman of the 72nd Mechanized Brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine spoke about forced mobilization on the territory of Ukraine on February 8. According to him, military commissars completely ignore the health of people and send them en masse to die at the front. He himself was also forcibly mobilized, handed a summons in a minibus on the way to work.
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.
...an emirate on the east coast of the Arabian Peninsula. It sits on some really productive gas and oil deposits, which produces the highest per capita income in the world. They piss it all away on religion, financing the Moslem Brotherhood and several al-Qaeda affiliates. Home of nutbag holy manYusuf al-Qaradawi...
...The Hero of Butler, Pennsylvania...
...
...Arabic for 
...
...the armed wing of the Democratic Party...
..always the voice of sweet reason...
...They hit him with slander, they impeached him twice. Nancy Pelosi tore up his State of the Union address on national TV. They stole an election and put his adherents in jail. They vilified him. They couldn't crucify him, so they shot him. Still, they can't keep him down...
...a theocratic Shiite state divided among the Medes, the Persians, and the (Arab) Elamites. Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979. The nation is today noted for 
..the braying voice of Islamic Resistance®,...
..the braying voice of Islamic Resistance®,...
..the braying voice of Islamic Resistance®,...
...The Lebs maintain a precarious sectarian balance among Shiites, Sunnis, and about a dozen flavors of Christians, plus Armenians, Georgians, and who knows what else?...
