#8
"...got lifeless eyes, black eyes, like a doll's eye."
Posted by: Bangkok Billy ||
07/14/2021 19:56
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#9
"Should you chance #2 to peruse --
Not to give any Burgers the blues
Who disdain female ink! --
Tell me, please, what you think
Of that nice floral top... and tattoos."
Not a big fan myself, but gotta admit... the momentary startlement was not entirely unpleasant.
Posted by: Ann Ruthersquank9708 ||
07/14/2021 20:41
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And now for an occasional foray into the slow crash & burn now known as Shep Smith's television career....
[Daily Beast, via Ace] - Whether it’s a poor time slot, behind-the-scenes squabbles, an outdated news format, a slower post-Trump news cycle, or just a once-popular anchor taking his frustrations out on staffers, CNBC insiders have a lot of reasons for why Shepard Smith’s show has failed to capture major ratings. But one thing many agree on is that it has not met the bosses’ expectations.
Embrace the power of 'and'!
In the nine months since he went on the air for NBCUniversal’s financial news network, Smith has put out a slickly produced, no-nonsense evening news show that prizes on-the-ground reporting over the talking-head panel fights that define many of his cable news competitors.
Some serious B.S. and ass-kissing paragraphs ensue, so let's cut right to the good stuff::
And the show has faced its fair share of internal friction, some of which has centered on the host himself. Smith is seen as a pro with high news standards prone to generous gestures—he famously sends his employees several hundred dollars every year as a holiday bonus—but amid a wider re-evaluation of bullying in media workplaces, some staffers have complained that he is difficult to deal with.
At least two people with direct knowledge of the situation described Smith as having regular "temper tantrums." When CNBC announced Smith was joining the business news channel, it tapped Sandy Cannold, a veteran TV producer, to help helm the show along with co-executive producer Sally Ramirez, a veteran of local television. But according to multiple people familiar with the matter, Cannold departed less than six months in, and clashed at times with Smith in front of staff.
Other employees were also frustrated when, in recent weeks, the show laid off two of the few non-white employees on its production team.
Smith’s underperformance in the ratings hasn’t come as a surprise to cable-news insiders.
Stacey Abrams & big in the same sentence? Redundant to the extreme!
[Townhall] - Georgia Republicans got a big win over Democrats in a special election for a state House seat on Tuesday night. Republican Devan Seabaugh defeated Democrat Priscilla Smith in the election for House District 34 with 63 percent of the vote.
Former Senator Kelly Loeffler (R-GA), who recently launched a nonprofit organization aimed at registering and reaching voters, Greater Georgia, celebrated the GOP's win. Loeffler’s group played a major role in turning out Republican votes.
"I congratulate Representative-elect Devan Seabaugh on his hard-earned — and much-deserved — victory in State House District 34 as a champion for pro-growth, conservative values under the Gold Dome," said Loeffler. "From the outset of this special election, Greater Georgia began organizing a mass-mobilization effort to help build awareness and get out the vote. Between our registration and voter outreach efforts, we engaged thousands of voters to help successfully defend this seat."
...
While Republicans saw major turnout and success, failed 2018 gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams and her organization, Fair Fight, were handed a loss on Tuesday night.
Just a little thin on the Stacey Abrams angle; I was expecting something with much more heft...
#6
In the American date system, month/day/year, today is 7/14/21, according to math the first three multiples of the number 7, proving America is racist.
#7
#3 Skid, they will probably find their way to the U.S.--Mexico border and make their way across for a fee. They might claim asylum. Although, he might not remember it, "The Big Guy" invited them several months back.
[The National Interest] Key Point: The combination of bolt action full-sized rifle and submachine gun was useful in the trenches of World War I...
During World War II, the beleaguered German Army fielded a revolutionary new infantry weapon designed to make the German soldier the most powerful on the battlefield. The Sturmgewehr-44, or StG-44 was the first mass produced assault rifle. The weapon, urgently needed as Germany found itself increasingly losing the war, was a template for future weapons, including today’s AK-74M and M4 carbine.
At the outbreak of World War II, the German Army fielded two infantry small arms: the Karabiner Modell 1898 kurz, otherwise known as the 98k bolt action carbine, and the MP series of submachine guns. The 98k was a shorter, handier version of the Gewehr 98 rifle used during the Great War. It weighed 8.2 pounds, had a five round internal magazine, and an effective range of 600 yards. The MP series, including the MP-38, MP-40, and MP-41, were a new design of compact, folding stock submachine guns. The guns weighed approximately nine pounds, fired from a 32 round detachable magazine and had effective ranges of approximately 200 yards.
[SOFrep] On July 11, 1941, President Roosevelt appointed William “Wild Bill” Donovan to head up a civilian intelligence-gathering organization. And the face of American intelligence would change forever.
#1
My favorite stories about him came from the upper end of the Depression. He was making a mid 6 figure income as a corporate lawyer. But he would drop everything including but not limited to meetings in progress if any of his boys from the 69th showed up.
A lot of them on hard times he made sure they left with a 'loan' or took them downstairs to sit with them while they had a decent meal. Haven't been a fan of his bureaucratic offspring for some time. But the man himself was as fine an officer in as dire a time as we have ever fielded.
[Aljazeera] The Taliban says it has captured the strategic border crossing of Spin Boldak along the frontier with Pakistan, continuing sweeping gains made since foreign forces stepped up their withdrawal from Afghanistan. Improving the ISI's logistics chain
The Afghan interior ministry on Wednesday, however, insisted the armed group’s attack had been repelled and government forces had control.
But Pakistani authorities confirmed to Al Jazeera that they have sealed their side of the country’s border crossing with Afghanistan at the Chaman-Spin Boldak frontier.
"The Taliban presence can be seen at Afghan border along with Pakistan in Chaman
“ ... because they rode up from their Pakistan training camps in Paki army trucks, with all their ISI-issued gear...”
and no Afghan [government] forces are there at the Afghan border side," local administration official Arif Kakar told Al Jazeera.
#1
I may have written a comment or two previously about the Paks bitching and moaning about UAV surveillance flights being too close to the border. This is the location I was referring to. What a sorry arsed tribute to the American soldiers who gave their lives in this region. A pox on the politicians and decision makers who permitted this to happen. There is nothing in that area worth a warm bucket of camel piss.
I would be remiss if I did not mention the Albanian SF who actively patrolled this AO and took absolutely NO shit (ROE be damned) from anyone. Always a treat to see a DShK mounted on a MRAP flying a small Albanian flag on the whip.
Little known travesty, the Albanian SF were deployed in a mounted infantry role and not integrated into the greater SOF-Klingon effort.
I suspect it’s been much like that at all the border crossings, Besoeker, though of course you’re right to not to extrapolate. It will be very interesting to see if the old Northern Alliance warlords can repeat their previous exploits after a twenty year hiatus.
#6
It will be very interesting to see if the old Northern Alliance warlords can repeat their previous exploits after a twenty year hiatus.
The rate at which the Taliban is advancing, it's going to control a land mass 10x the size of Afghanistan in the next few weeks. We'll see how that pans out.
[IsraelTimes] Move comes amid international pressure to increase assistance to the Strip, follows meeting between Israeli, Egyptian foreign ministers; 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... i envoy reaches Gazoo ...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with an iron fist by Hamaswith about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response... on Sunday night.
#1
Is the assistance due to the calm or to international pressure? I expect we'll find out soon, once the calm goes away (the international pressure won't.)
[People Magazine] Former President Jimmy Carter and his wife Rosalynn are marking 75 years of marriage alongside some close friends.
Bill and Hillary Clinton traveled to Georgia to visit the happy couple, who celebrated their anniversary on Wednesday, in honor of the milestone occasion.
Hillary, 73, saluted the 39th President of the United States, 96, and his wife, 93, with a thoughtful message on her Instagram page. "all that time, and Rosalynn never had a girlfriend, I mean assistant, like Huma"
"Such a joy to celebrate these two special people, and their incredible bond, yesterday in Georgia," the former First Lady captioned a photo of herself and Bill, 74, posing alongside the joyful Carter couple. "Happy 75th anniversary, Jimmy and Rosalynn!"
The Carters are now the longest-married presidential couple in history.
#2
I know. Like Carter or not, 75 years of marriage is a great example to set and deserves to be celebrated!
Posted by: Tom ||
07/14/2021 11:20
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#3
Yes, 75 years of marriage should be honored. Let's see they would have gotten married when he was 21 and she would have been 18. Not exactly a Jerry Lee Lewis kind of marriage. (Ya'all know we down here in the South don't have access to copiers according to the VP even today).
[American Thinker] On July 17, 1996, TWA Flight 800, a Paris-bound 747 out of JFK, blew up off the coast of Long Island. It seemed somehow fitting that James Kallstrom, the public face of the FBI investigation into the plane's destruction, would die two weeks before the 25th anniversary. As a patriot, a Vietnam vet, and an outspoken critic of all things Clinton, Kallstrom once held promise as the insider most likely to come clean. He never did.
As to my own involvement with this story, until the evening of February 23, 2000, I was as naïve as a CNN anchor. Before that evening, I would have dismissed out of hand anyone who dared suggest that elements of the FBI and CIA would conspire with the White House and the New York Times to cover-up the cause of so public a disaster.
February 23, 2000 was the night my education began.
#2
It appears that the Navy's SAM warheads are about 150 pounds. That's about 2.5 times the 155mm shell, for comparison.
Presumably that's because the missile won't necessarily hit, due to maneuvering, and needs enough punch to do the job with a proximity hit.
So, would not a Navy SAM blow the thing to pieces? It's not like the missile is trying to catch a hard-twisting fighter aircraft going 700 mph. A solid, full contact hit should have made the thing into tin foil, no?
How about a MANPAD?
They're on the black market and might more accurately explain the A/C blowing itself up.
It would be a horrible act of war and Clinton would have had to take action, against somebody. Who? Likely wanted to hot have to, considering no way to know.
Back in the day, I spent some time in a Nike Hercules unit. I don't think you can lose a missile and have to have your load-out replenished without a fair amount of paperwork.
And a whole ship's company never, ever lets on about the whole thing.
Posted by: Richard Aubrey ||
07/14/2021 8:43
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#3
...Okay, a few points:
*TWA 800 was out of the effective engagement envelope of a Stinger. Even had it not been, Stinger's comparatively small warhead would have detonated away from the plane as it would have been homing in on the engines. To put this in perspective, the much larger warheads on the two Soviet AAMs that brought down KAL 007 did not tear the plane apart, and in fact the bird held together far better than one would have expected.
*Looking at the USN SAM theory, a night launch would have lit up the night sky for miles around - it would have looked like heat lightning. Then, as mentioned, we need every last man on the ship to keep their mouths shut unto eternity, as well as the folks at the dozens of radars that would have seen it. Finally go here for a discussion of the development of the RIM-66 SAM warhead. Please note the pic at the very top of the page - that's what one of these beasts looks like going high order.
My own belief is that there was either a bomb in the cargo bay, or there was some weird malfunction that Boeing and the FAA either couldn't identify (likely) or covered up (unlikely). I hold to the bomb theory - to hide that would have required the fewest number of people and had the most reason to happen.
One last thing: my father used to say that the number of truly and completely successful conspiracies throughout history can be counted on the fingers of one hand...and involved no more than a handful of people.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
07/14/2021 10:28
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#4
I suspect that it was not a cover-up of a known cause but a fear of discovering a cause that might have forced action in an unwanted direction that led to force-feeding the narrative. I think the same thing about the JFK assassination.
#6
I am not at all certain concentrating on a US Navy mishap is the correct vector or theory. If you wish to cloud something in obscurity, blame it on an incorrect actor.
I'm with Mike on this one. An electrical short in the fuel system should NOT leave traces of cyclotrimethylenetrinitramine (RDX), nitroglycerin, and the third a combination of RDX and pentaerythritol tetranitrate (PETN).
1.16.4.8 Examination of Explosive ResidueExamination of recovered wreckage revealed trace amounts of explosive residue on three samples of material from three separate locations in the airplane wreckage. These
material samples were submitted to the FBIís laboratory in Washington, D.C., with many other material samples for analysis. The pieces on which these traces were found were described by the FBI as a piece of canvaslike material and two pieces of floor panel; however, the exact locations of the traces were not documented. According to the FBIís laboratory report,219 analysis of each of the three material samples revealed that they contained traces of different explosives: one contained cyclotrimethylenetrinitramine
(RDX), one contained nitroglycerin, and one contained a combination of RDX and pentaerythritol tetranitrate (PETN).
#7
The Stinger is all-aspect homing. Any a/c is warmer than the background unless you're shooting up sun. So, theoretically, you could hit the nose.
A proximity fuse is for the machine to decide it's not going to get a contact hit. A fat, slow target which is not maneuvering will allow for contact.
I was talking about a SAM, not an AAM.
The 81mm mortar round weighs about ten pounds, and the Stinger's head about two thirds of that.
The point of the Stinger is to disable an aircraft and, with luck, cause it to self-destruct as when the turbines going a bazillion rpm get busted loose.
The feds had three separate and contradictory explanations for the explosive residue. One was that the a/c had shuttled guys to and from Gulf 1. And whatever they brought in with their gear and boots stayed there for five years of contact with other stuff which would have taken some off, cleanings, ventilation and submersion in the North Atlantic. Yup.
Then there was the bomb training which, by definition, does not leave RESIDUE. But the wispy, thready, faint vapor the dog was supposed to be following was supposed to survive however long from the test, plus submersion.
Then the guys hauling up the pieces and the ships had residue, presumably from some live fire exercise, which got smeared on the pieces.
If it had been one of our missiles, we have a problem. Someplace there's a missile warehouse with 99 missiles which is supposed to have 100. And the guy in charge signed for 100 when he took over. Or he signed for 99 plus a pile of paperwork in the empty slot--being facetious. He doesn't want the cost of even a Sidewinder taken out of his pay.
Have you ever seen a captain taking over a company? All over the arms room, the supply room, counting the desk chairs, etc. He OWNS those rifles.
It would take a hell of a lot of hiding to put the order to pretend 99 is 100 out of sight. And a verbal wouldn't do it. Nobody's going to want to be unable to explain where a MANPAD, AAM or SAM went to when he was supposed to be controlling them.
And whoever fired it needs one to refill his loadout, or his arms room. They're one short at Otis AFB. Who's signing for that? Or on some carrier.
As has been said, you really need to fear the little men with the brief cases who believe with all their being that 2+2=4. Because they have to sign it.
I note Cashill has one of the witnesses saying she heard a CRACK simultaneously with the flash. Might have been a figure of speech, but sound takes five seconds to travel one mile. You can see the diff at a fireworks show from the other side of the parking lot.
I also like Glenmore's point that maybe you don't want to know. See ArrowAir at Gander in 1985. Supposed to be icing but some clown in DC wanted the records sealed for seventy freaking years.
Posted by: Richard Aubrey ||
07/14/2021 12:21
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#8
No giant conspiracy, just an inability to define the problem. There is no way a ship full of sailors, or even the control room could keep this quiet. The USG not being able to pin it down leads to them being silent and that drives speculation...
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
07/14/2021 15:09
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[Just The News] The Department of Justice and the FBI should be held accountable for their ongoing misconduct by having their funding slashed by half, said Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch.
"[T]he Justice Department's been a disaster for a number of years," Fitton told the John Solomon Reports podcast. "The FBI has been out of control. There's been zero accountability for the misconduct that we've been talking about for years now.
"So it's no surprise that you have politicized prosecutions that we're seeing tied to January 6, the targeting of Tucker Carlson, the FBI thinking they can ... go in and, you know, take your banking records without permission."
#2
It'd be a good start at rooting out the problem of a big and corrupted government. Maybe a declaration that the Dem Party and a part of the Pub Party is a criminal organization as well. Throw in prosecutions for wrongdoing to clean up the mess called D.C.
h/t Instapundit --> UPI --->UPI
July 12 (UPI) -- Neither remdesivir nor hydroxychloroquine boosts recovery in patients hospitalized with COVID-19, according to the findings of a clinical trial led by the World Health Organization, and published Monday by the Annals of Internal Medicine.
Nearly 8% of patients treated with hydroxychloroquine and just over 7% of those given remdesivir died in the hospital, the data showed.
In comparison, between 4% and 7% of those who received "standard care" -- typically treatment with steroids and other drugs to reduce inflammation and manage respiratory symptoms -- died during their hospital stay, the researchers said.
Similarly, 10% of those given remdesivir and 15% of those who received hydroxychloroquine required mechanical ventilation to breathe, compared with 7% to 11% of those treated with standard care, they said. For a true, non-vaccine cure to COVID try the following folk remedy
(1) Mix wasabi powder with jalapeno tabasco until you obtain a uniform slurry.
(2) Fill a turkey buster with the slurry.
(3) Inject it into the digestive tract from the alimentary end.
#1
Yes, once again we learn that if you wait for the disease to take serious hold, its not going to be helpful. It's to be taken when the first signs are identified before it takes serious hold. Waiting kills.
#2
It's now also widely known which study "results" will be looked upon with favor by the dispensers of grants.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
07/14/2021 7:55
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#3
Neither remdesivir nor hydroxychloroquine boosts recovery in patients hospitalized with COVID-19
Well yea! Once hospitalized and hooked up to a ventilator, you have become a statistic. I believe R&H are prescribed to prevent the need for hospitalization.
To me and likely many others, given the World Health Organizations clear political agenda obedience, repeated failures to present timely and factually correct data.
#5
#2 & #3 There isn't any evidence that HCQ works as prophylactic. The entire magic cure hysteria was started by an in vitro experiment and received no support from in vivo experiments. Reviewed in
Gbinigie, K., & Frie, K. (2020). Should chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine be used to treat COVID-19? A rapid review. BJGP open, 4(2).
Do I need to spend $ 35.00 to find out it's just like all the other studies where they gave patients a lethal dose and pretended they proved something in their paper?
(I blew my budget last week buying a used copy of the PDR).
#9
some of the pro HCQ people have stated that many of the studies
- didn't administer the HCQ at the right time, which is just after first diagnosis
- didn't give a sufficient dosage of HCQ
some time ago I read thru some of the studies; I was horrified by the general bad design and incomplete follow up - perhaps this happens when there is so much study money that there is no incentive to think the problem all the way through
Posted by: Lord Garth ||
07/14/2021 10:22
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#10
The article costs $ 35.00 I don't have.
No it doesn't - just click on the link that I've provided and download.
This IS the most pathetic excuse I've heard from one of you covid-sceptics yet.
#11
There's just the link at the top that goes to UPI which also has a link to the abstract at the journal but they want money for enough details to show that this is basically scientific fraud.
As a side question: Do you realize that all the people you're pushing as experts, who say we're all Covid Skeptics, in _this_ country, are also simultaneously pushing Remdesivir as the Standard of Care here? The same Remdesivir that this study says also doesn't work...
Anyway, I looked at the paper, it says they used 2400 mg in the first 48 hours when the online version of the PDR says the limit should be 2000 mg in the 1st 48 hours.
This 2010 PDR I bought doesn't seem to have an entry but I think I know where one is that does. BBL.
#13
I'm going out the door. Note the French study cited in one of the links in comment 5 used _wildly_ different dosages for profalaxis than the Norwegian study you're citing.
#15
Well, I had a chinese-american friend who was briefly looking stuff up on chinese and russian search engines for me and was finding studies in both chinese and russian on the subject, where it's away from the censorship of goolag, but it doesn't do me much good because I can't read Russian and Chinese.
#16
>"Finally, if HCQ worked we would hear about it -
>from one of the poor countries where they can't
>afford anything else!"
It's more like, the "poor" countries that refused to commit suicide by malaria because Dr. Fauci suddenly decided the drug was dangerous have a mysteriously lower death rate per million people than anywhere else. But they all signed up for the Sino Vax and are having outbreaks now.
Cambodia's had a thousand or so deaths, but mostly since March of this year. I suspect because all the ways the antimalarial drugs protect against transmission don't function when the virus is injected.
#17
The original studies were such obvious hitjobs that the Lancet had to retract them both:
"On June 4th, the Lancet and the New England Journal of Medicine retracted two high-profile COVID-19 papers after critics challenged the data in those studies. The Lancet paper found COVID-19 patients treated with hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine were associated with more deaths and adverse effects, resulting in the World Health Organization halting its clinical trials that use hydroxychloroquine to treat COVID-19 patients. The NEJM study found that certain blood pressure drugs, including ACE inhibitors, were not associated with an increased risk of death among COVID-19 patients. Last month, the New York Times profiled Dr. Sapan Desai, founder of Surgisphere, the company that supplied the data for both retracted studies. Desai is a co-author on both the Lancet and NEJM papers. The Times story should be a case study on the importance of “normative errors” and why they cannot be brushed aside in medicine (or, frankly, anywhere else).
The Times article details a history of normative errors by Dr. Desai according to different sources. Former colleagues said he often did not follow through on directives about treating patients and was dishonest when confronted. In one instance, he didn’t return pages to the nurses while he was on call, and when asked about why he missed them, Desai said he was busy resuscitating an infant by performing a rare and complicated procedure: an incident the charge nurse and another doctor present for his explanation said never occurred. Several doctors recalled Dr. Desai saying he had a law degree—and a license plate listing it among his credentials: M.D., J.D., and Ph.D.—but there is no evidence of this being true. He became involved in at least four medical malpractice cases that are still pending, including three filed last year.
As for the Surgisphere data, Desai said his data analytics product, called QuartzClinical, accumulated a registry with patient data from more than 1,200 hospitals and health centers, with data about more than 240 million (the WSJ reports 240 billion) patient encounters in 45 countries. One former Surgisphere employee told the Times that by the end of 2019, she knew of only one hospital that had signed a contract with QuartzClinical.
Typically, nobody shows up with the degree of corruption out of the gate to falsify and publish data concerning treatments for hospitalized patients in life-and-death situations. There’s usually a history of normative errors preceding it. If the accounts of colleagues and critics are correct, Desai left a trail spanning at least two decades in his wake."
#18
If that "folk remedy" is used (whether or not it has any effect on COVID-19) one result is certain: The patient will have 100% amnesia for whatever he thought might have been wrong with him before he took the stuff.
Posted by: Bubba Lover of the Faeries8843 ||
07/14/2021 20:51
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#19
g(r)omgoru you have officially lost all credibility.
findings of a clinical trial led by the World Health Organization
[IsraelTimes] Exchange of fire in West Bank town follows arrest operation that netted 5 suspects; no injuries to Israeli forces.
Undercover and regular Border Police forces clashed with Paleostinian button men in the West Bank during a heavy exchange of fire early Monday morning, hitting several of the attackers, Israel Police said in a statement.
Police said members of its paramilitary unit "neutralized a number of terrorists" who had shot up the force during an arrest operation in the city of Jenin. The attackers also hurled bombs at the Border Police units.
At least six button men were hit, according to the statement, which did not give an assessment of their injuries. An M-16 rifle was recovered from one of the button men involved in the clash.
There were no injuries to Israeli forces, police said.
The firefight erupted when Israeli forces carried out a predawn joint operation with the IDF to arrest five terror suspects in Jenin. The Paleostinians were wanted for questioning by the Shin Bet security service.
Having arrested the suspects, Israeli forces were withdrawing when they came under "massive fire" from Paleostinian button men who also hurled explosives at the forces.
"Forces responded with fire at several of the button men who were identified as being armed and firing, and also at button men who threw or were holding bombs," the statement said.
Gunfire was also directed at armored vehicles used by the Israeli forces and one was so badly damaged that it became unusable. Other forces were able to extract the vehicle while under fire, police said.
The statement did not provide any further details about the arrest operation, the nature of the activities and what the suspects were wanted for.
[IsraelTimes] Group’s leader, Mohammed Badie, among those found guilty of charges related to killing coppers, organizing mass jailbreaks during Egypt’s 2011 uprising; no further appeal possible.
Egypt’s highest appeals court on Sunday upheld the life sentences of 10 leaders of Egypt’s outlawed Moslem Brüderbund, including the group’s head, the state-owned MENA news agency reported.
Whew! Another case reaches its final appeal and its final ruling, and now they only need to deal with all the others still in process. I can’t think of a Hell more deserved than this for these.
In 2019, a Cairo criminal court had convicted all 10, including the group’s leader, or supreme guide, Mohammed Badie, of charges related to killing coppers and organizing mass jailbreaks during Egypt’s 2011 uprising. That revolt culminated in the ouster of longtime autocrat Hosni Mubarak ...The former President-for-Life of Egypt, dumped by popular demand in early 2011... The defendants were found guilty of helping around 20,000 prisoners escape, and of undermining national security by conspiring with foreign holy warrior groups — the Paleostinian Hamas, one of the armed feet of the Moslem Brüderbund millipede, and Leb ...an Iranian colony situated on the eastern Mediterranean, conveniently adjacent to Israel. Formerly inhabited by hardy Phoenecian traders, its official language is now Arabic, with the usual unpleasant side effects. The Leb civil war, between 1975 and 1990, lasted a little over 145 years and produced 120,000 fatalities. The average length of a ceasefire was measured in seconds. The Lebs maintain a precarious sectarian balance among Shiites, Sunnis, and about a dozeen flavors of Christians. It is the home of Hezbollah, which periodically starts a war with the Zionist Entity, gets Beirut pounded to rubble, and then declares victory and has a parade. The Lebs have the curious habit of periodically murdering their heads of state or prime ministers, a practice dating back to the heady human sacrifice days of Baal Moloch. In 2020 Hezbollahblew up a considerable portion of Beirut and many of its inhabitants when its ammonium nitrate faci8lity exploded. They blamed it on... somebody else. It wasn't them though. Trust them on that... ’s Hezbollah.
Meanwhile, ...back at the comedy club, Boogie ducked another tomato... the Court of Cassation acquitted eight middle-rank leaders of the nation’s oldest Islamist organization, who were sentenced earlier to 15 years in prison.
All of the sentences, which the court considered on appeal, are final.
Sunday’s rulings upheld the latest of several life sentences for Moslem Brüderbund leaders. They had gone on trial several times since the crackdown on the group in 2013 following the military ouster of Egypt’s first democratically elected president, the late Mohammed Morsi. Morsi had hailed from the group’s ranks. His one-year rule had proven divisive ...politicians call things divisive when when the other side sez something they don't like. Their own statements are never divisive, they're principled... and provoked nationwide protests.
Tens of thousands of Egyptians have been arrested since 2013, and many have fled the country. Morsi himself was a defendant in the prison-break case, but he collapsed in a courtroom and died while appearing in a separate trial in the summer of 2019.
Last month, the Court of Cassation upheld the death sentence ...the barbaric practice of sentencing a murderer to be punished for as long as his/her/its victim is dead... for 12 people involved in a 2013 protest by Islamists, including several senior Moslem Brüderbund leaders.
Rights groups in Egypt and abroad have denounced the trials and death sentences as a mockery of justice.
[PJ Media] Although COVID deaths in Europe and North America are down, thanks to the availability of vaccines and growing herd immunity, the long shadow of the pandemic still hangs over the international order. The "fragile states" are reeling not only from the disease but from the lockdowns and fall in economic activity.
North Korea, the world’s only self-proclaimed coronavirus-free nation, said it was facing a "grave" viral incident and a "tense" food situation. This was seen by the BBC as an admission it is in real trouble.
Meanwhile, "Haiti, the poorest nation in the Western hemisphere, has earned another grim distinction: it’s the only one that hasn’t vaccinated a single resident against Covid-19," writes Bloomberg. "Haiti was among the 92 poor and middle-income countries offered doses under the Covax Facility. But the government initially declined AstraZeneca PLC shots, citing side effects and widespread fears in the population."
...The "international community," already hard-pressed by its own domestic concerns, is in no mood to donate more aid, send troops, or accept more refugees from the Caribbean, the Middle East, North Africa, or Afghanistan. The well is running dry. Even before the latest trouble, the left-wing Nation wrote: "Haiti Has Been Abandoned—by the Media, the US, and the World." It underscores how deep the fatigue is: when the media gives up, who’s left?
Hanging like a cloud over the future of the "global world" is the question of the pandemic’s origin and whether — or when — a similar crisis might be due. The BBC’s preview of the intelligence community’s 90-day report to Joe Biden on the disease’s origins suggests it may be inconclusive. "There is no definitive piece of evidence — no Covid-positive bat or a confirmed first human case — to show conclusively how it started." We know how it started - the Wonderful Wizards of Wuhan institute begrudged the necessary funds for bio-security for their bio-weapons lab. And then the super-humanitarian wizards of China's ruling clique went out of their way to spread it to the rest of the World.
...We don’t know anything definite, but Dr. Zeynep Tufekci, writing in the New York Times, noted that a Chinese lab accident started a pandemic once before—the 1977 H1N1 "Russian flu," which, fortunately, killed only 700,000 people worldwide.
...With this question unlikely to be resolved publicly, at least
for years if not decades, a new era of uncertainty dawns over the West. Even the Washington Post has stopped pretending we’re going back to "normal." "The economy isn’t going back to February 2020. Fundamental shifts have occurred," and not in a good way.
...More likely this could be the end of the old global world, the vanished landscape of old norms that Joe Biden was supposed to restore. Neither social media nor Hollywood could save it. It died under the rise of China, the corruption of Washington, the stasis of Europe, and the madness of Woke culture. COVID, when it came, was simply the coup de grace for the whole teetering edifice.
We are emerging from the pandemic, not by the door through which we entered, but into an unfamiliar landscape. The only good news is that Chinese failed to produce a domestic vaccine - which (IMO) is the only thing that can keep them for doing something like this again, only this time deliberately.
h/t HotAir
[Newsweek] - One of today's most vexing federal lawsuits is Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, which has brought anti-Asian discrimination to the forefront of our discourse. Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA) contends that Harvard's "race-conscious" admissions process violates the Constitution by disadvantaging Asian American applicants based solely upon their race, while Harvard argues that campus diversity goals justify its race-conscious process.
Much of the reasoning behind Harvard's admissions process comes from critical race theory (CRT), a theory of race that actually originated at Harvard University. CRT teaches that America is divided into privileged and oppressed racial groups. All negative aspects of modern society flow from that overly simplistic dichotomy.
Under the CRT framework, "white supremacy" covers many different phenomena. Everything from blatant discrimination to the existence of English grammar to choosing not to riot are sometimes included under the term. And in the words of "anti-racist" activist and author Ibram X. Kendi, "The only remedy to racist discrimination is anti-racist discrimination. The only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination. The only remedy to present discrimination is future discrimination." In order to combat white supremacy—however broadly defined—critical race theorists view "anti-racist" discrimination as the only legitimate response. To put it another way "We know we can't compete on the level playing field".
However, with the emergence of several racial groups that have come to be just as successful as whites, critical race theorists have come up with the term, "white adjacency." Robin DiAngelo, author of the now-infamous book White Fragility, defines it this way: "The closer you are to whiteness—the term often used is white-adjacent—you're still going to experience racism, but there are going to be some benefits due to your perceived proximity to whiteness. The further away you are, the more intense the oppression's going to be." According to CRT advocates, Asian Americans are the most "white-adjacent" minority.
...The idea of "white adjacency" hinges on the overwhelming success of Asian Americans in this country. It emerges from the fact that Asian Americans have the highest per-capita income, lowest per-capita crime rates and highest rates of college education. In fact, Asian Americans score better on average than whites on all of these metrics. And that's (IMO) one of the reasons why bastions of the Establishment, like Harvard, cooperate with "African-American" rabble rousers. The Establishment doesn't feel threatened by "African-Americans" (affirmative action gifts can always be taken away). The principal goal of any ruling class is to stay the ruling class - every other consideration is secondary.
Let me go out on a limb & predict that - in a few years - Harvard will start discriminating against (some) "Hispanics".
#1
p.s. CRT knows perfectly well what to do with Asian Americans.
Discrimination in places like Harvard, and physical attacks on the street by their "African American" thugs.
#2
Someone didn't get the talking points, the Marxist simply classify Asians as the new whites. Interesting how they separate out Hispanics of whom most consider themselves white while playing this Newspeak game.
Re household income, that's only true, "from a certain point of view". The white number includes Hispanics. The ethnicities lower down the scale from Nigerians are Arabs and Hispanics. The numbers aren't controlled for household size. Three generations living and working under one roof? One household.
#9
They also don't know what to do with African Immigrants who succeed.
Something I noticed the other day, you don't see middle class successful black people on the news. It is either someone from the elite grifter class, your Sharptons and Obamas, or it is Dwantavious and Shawniqua from the 'hood engaging in unsocial behavior.
One place you *do* see middle class blacks lately is on social media as they righteously rip the local school board/teacher's union a new one for trying to permanently handicap their children's future prospects. I take that as a good sign.
[JPost] - "I didn’t come here to appease anyone. My responsibility is to do what is right for Israel’s economy," declared Finance Minister Avigdor Liberman at the beginning of a briefing for journalists in Jerusalem. "I am not expecting to be popular, but I am prepared to do what is necessary. The most important thing is to make the treasury normal again, after two-and-a-half years without stability."
"My dream would be to maintain 5% economic growth for the next four years," Liberman added.
Liberman discussed the treasury’s plans for the upcoming years, as well as the many controversies and surprises that have already come up during his first 30 days in office. And there have been many.
Liberman enflamed the ultra-Orthodox community last week when he revoked child care subsidies for fathers studying full-time in yeshiva, saying that both parents must now work or study in a non-religious educational institute for at least 24 hours a week in order to receive the benefit. Necessary background - they don't actually study in ultra-orthodox yeshivas - at most, it's rote memorization.
[TASS] The remains of Napoleon’s close friend General Charles-Etienne Gudin, killed during the Russian campaign of 1812, were delivered to Paris on Tuesday in the run-up to France’s national holiday, a TASS correspondent reported.
The ceremony in Le Bourget Airport was attended by the general’s descendants, French government members and military commanders, as well as Russian diplomats.
The general will be honored on December 2, during a ceremony at Hotel des Invalides, a complex of museums and monuments devoted to the military history of France.
Cesar Charles Etienne Gudin de la Sablonniere was born on February 13, 1768. He studied at the Brienne military school (France) together with Napoleon Bonaparte. During the Russian campaign of 1812 he was hit by a cannonball in the battle of Valutino near Smolensk and lost both legs. Gudin was evacuated to Smolensk, where he died a short while later. His grave was considered to have been lost.
In November 2019, DNA tests in France confirmed that Gudin’s remains were unearthed in the process of archeological excavation near Smolensk.
Archeological excavation in Smolensk has been underway since May 2019 under the aegis of the Franco-Russian forum Trianon Dialogue, founded at the initiative of Russian President Vladimir Putin and French President Emmanuel Macron. The expedition’s organizers are the Foundation for the Development of Russian-French Historical Initiatives, the Russian Academy of Sciences, and the Russian Military-Historical Society.
In July 2019, General Gudin’s direct descendant, Alberic d’Orleans, informed that he had asked the French authorities for reburying the remains of his ancestor at the Hotel des Invalides in Paris, which alongside museums contains a cemetery of senior military officers and Napoleon’s tomb.
[IsraelTimes] Isaac Herzog and Ottoman Turkish president pledge to maintain contact ’and ongoing dialogue’ despite differences, after years of strained ties.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
07/14/2021
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[IsraelTimes] Shots fired from vehicle as it goes through Qalandiya checkpoint, gunman flees but is apprehended shortly after; guard hit by shrapnel in hand.
A security guard was lightly injured in a drive-by shooting at the Qalandiya checkpoint in the West Bank north of Jerusalem late Tuesday, police said.
The attacker fled after the shooting toward Jerusalem. A short while later, police and Border police carrying out searches found the vehicle abandoned and the suspect hiding nearby, police said.
A pistol was found in the car. The man, identified as a 36-year-old resident of the nearby Kafr Aqab, was taken in for questioning.
The guard was hit in the hand by shrapnel and lightly maimed, medics said. He was treated at the scene.
Video from the incident shows a white car slowing down as it goes through the checkpoint. As it reaches the guards, at least one shot rings out, and the car speeds away.
Police said several shots were fired.
It appears that the other guards at the crossing did not open fire on the car.
The incident came after last month a Paleostinian woman was rubbed out at the checkpoint. The woman ran at guards manning the crossing while brandishing a knife and ignored multiple calls to halt, Israel Police said at the time.
The checkpoint, between Jerusalem and Ramallah, has seen numerous stabbing and shooting incidents over the years.
#1
Another brilliant idea - the distributed manufacturing of major components of this aircraft. Imagine surgery where you are sent to one hospital to be anesthetized, then transferred to another to be cut open, to yet another for the procedure, yet another to be closed up and finally another for postop. Brilliant...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
07/14/2021 7:59
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#2
I worked for the company that made the tooling for 2 of the main fuselage sections; our tolerances on these were half of what was then typical. These tools all came from the same mold (all high temp composite). So logic would dictate any misalighment due to tolerance stack would be relatively constant and shimming processes in place. Something else in play here i think.
Boeing used to be a brand name in aeroplanes. Now their planes fall out of the sky and the parts don't fit together. The IRS, the FBI, the DOJ, the EPA, major league sports, Boeing... feel free to add your own 'favorites'... it's as if everything we built over the last century is turning to shite. I gotta say that doesn't seem like a positive trend.
#4
^^^ Social Engineering, Diversity, Inclusiveness…etc. etc. These things are a cancer hollowing us out from the inside, brought to us by the Left. There is only one solution. One.
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Mark Milley received a warning call from a retired military buddy on election night 2020 as returns were coming in
'You’re surrounded by total incompetence,' the friend warned. 'There's fourth-rate people at the Pentagon. And you have fifth-rate people at the White House' Is he fighting all that incompetence, or standing at attention and saluting?
The friend wanted to impress upon Milley that he was 'an island unto yourself right now. You are not tethered. Your loyalty is to the Constitution' Which means what to him in this situation?
Milley's election night was chronicled in the new book, I Alone Can Fix It: Donald J. Trump's Catastrophic Final Year by Carol D. Leonnig and Philip Rucker
It also said that Defense Secretary Mark Esper got an NBC News story killed because his firing could have 'worrisome repercussions' amid election turmoil
Esper had been on the chopping block with Trump since June when he refused to use the Insurrection Act on Black Lives Matter protesters
The authors write that it was Rudy Giuliani who encouraged Trump to announce himself the winner of the election before the full results were in
The journalists also wrote that Trump 'seemed to truly believe he had been winning,' before mail-in ballots put Biden ahead That’s “mail-in ballots”, because they were fake votes of various kinds. Had they been real they would have put Biden ahead, but they weren’t.
#8
Sure isn't gonna help some street rapper thug's rep is it?
We know that for both animals and humans a gaudy display makes you a chick magnet. There is a theory in evolutionary biology that an extravagant characteristic that is also a handicap announces that not only are you hot, but even with this handicap you are so fit for reproduction that the girls just melt. A classic example is the male peacock's tail which is certainly lovely, but really slows you down trying to get away from predators like zebras or whatever it is that eats peacocks.
A man carrying a Hello Kitty rifle or Lego Glock simply does not care. Do you want to be the one to tell Bad Bad Leroy Brown his gun looks silly? "Go ahead, mother*bleep*er! Say 'Lego gun' one more time. I dare ya!"
[The Liberty Daily ] A mural of the late Black Lives Matter icon George Floyd has been struck by lightning and has collapsed. Eyewitnesses confirmed that nobody was near the mural when it was struck nor when its pieces fell to the ground.
The Toledo mural, completed in June 2020, was struck by lightning in the middle of the day on Tuesday, leaving a charred wall where Floyd’s face was before. It was a direct hit; artwork to the left and right of the mural appeared unblemished.
— The Grand Old Tribune 🇺🇸 (@GrandOldTribune) July 14, 2021
According to local WTOL:
Toledo Fire and Rescue responded to the scene at Summit and Lagrange Streets, where a large mural dedicated to George Floyd — who was killed by Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin last year — had collapsed.
The piece was created by Toledo artist David Ross just about one year ago. He said the artwork stands as a memorial and reminder to never forget what happened that day in May of 2020.
A witness who saw the wall fall told TFRD they had seen a lightning bolt strike the building. The department later confirmed the strike to be the cause of the collapse.
No word from BLM yet as to whether they’ll blame systemic racism in Heaven for the event.
Pater Noster
qui es in caelis,
sanctificetur nomen tuum.
Adveniat regnum tuum.
Fiat voluntas tua,
sicut in caelo et in terra.
Panem nostrum quotidianum da nobis hodie,
et dimitte nobis debita nostra,
sicut et nos
dimittimus debitoribus nostris.
Et ne nos inducas in tentationem:
sed libera nos a malo.
#11
^ From Latin to English
Our Father
Who art in heaven
Hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come,
Thy will be done,
On earth, as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread,
And forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive those
who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation,
But deliver us from evil. Amen
[ToloNews] At least four non-combatants were killed and five others were maimed in a blast in Kabul city on Tuesday afternoon, police confirmed in a statement.
The blast occurred about 2:50 pm local time in Sar-e-Chawk area on Maiwand Street in Kabul's PD1, the statement said.
"The type of the blast and the target is not yet clear" the statement said, adding that "investigations are underway."
No group including the Taliban ...mindless ferocity in a turban... has grabbed credit for the blast.
[KhaamaPress] As the conflict between the Taliban ...Arabic for students... and Afghan government Force’s members rages in southern Kandahar province, the misery has left over five thousand families homeless who have left their homes and properties and relocated to Kandahar city.
The families now left behind all they had in districts and believe to be looted.
Provincial sources in Kandahar province say that the Taliban fighters have been waging war now in PD7 of Kandahar province and got even closer to the central prison of the province.
The Taliban turbans now believed to be controlling Arghistan, Khurabak, Khakriz, Maiwand, Panjwaee, Maroof, Ghorak, and Shawalikot districts of Kandahar province.
Provincial officials in Kandahar province on the other hand say that reinforcement has been sent and the security situation of the province will soon be brought under ANDSF’s control.
Thousands of people in Kandahar province displace at a time when on the parallel move thousands of households leave their homes and property in all war-hit provinces across the country.
Local residents in southeastern Paktia province say that in some districts, fallen to the Taliban, the local residents have not been allowed to relocate to safe areas or to Kabul.
[GatewayPundit] On Monday night Garland Favorito, the founder of the election integrity group VoterGA, announced he will hold a press conference on Tuesday morning.
VoterGA will review highlights of its amended ballot inspection complaint and provide proof that election fraud occurred in the November 2020 election.
The press conference will start at 10:30 AM Eastern.
On Tuesday morning VoterGA sent out a statement of their findings before the press conference.
The voter integrity group found that the Fulton County Georgia recount included a 60% error reporting rate.
VoterGA also found THOUSANDS of fraudulent Biden ballots.
The press release:
New Evidence Reveals GA Audit Fraud and Massive Errors
ATLANTA GA – Petitioners in a lawsuit organized by VoterGA to inspect Fulton County ballots have added stunning claims in their amended complaint and provided new evidence from public records that show Fulton County’s hand count audit of the November 3 rd 2020 election was riddled with massive errors and provable fraud.
Most new allegations and evidence are based on a VoterGA data team’s analysis of Fulton’s November 2020 mail-in ballot images made public after petitioners won a court order on April 13th and VoterGA lobbying efforts led the Georgia General Assembly to make all images public under Open Records Requests beginning March 25th.
The team’s analysis revealed that 923 of 1539 mail-in ballot batch files contained votes incorrectly reported in Fulton’s official November 3rd 2020 results. These inaccuracies are due to discrepancies in votes for Donald Trump, Joe Biden and total votes cast compared to their reported audit totals for respective batches. Thus, the error reporting rate in Fulton’s hand count audit is a whopping 60%.
One type of error discovered involved duplicate results reporting for batches of ballots. The team found at least 36 batches of mail-in ballots with 4,255 total extra votes were redundantly added into Fulton Co. audit results for the November election. These illicit votes include 3,390 extra votes for Joe Biden, 865 extra votes for Donald Trump and 43 extra votes for Jo Jorgenson.
But it is not simply a case of errors. The VoterGA team found 7 falsified audit tally sheets containing fabricated vote totals for their respective batches. For example, a batch containing 59 actual ballot images for Joe Biden, 42 for Donald Trump and 0 for Jo Jorgenson was reported as 100 for Biden and 0 for Trump. The seven batches of ballot images with 554 votes for Joe Biden, 140 votes for Donald Trump and 11 votes for Jo Jorgenson had tally sheets in the audit falsified to show 850 votes for Biden, 0 votes for Trump and 0 votes for Jorgenson.
Fulton Co. failed to include over 100,000 tally sheets, including more than 50,000 from mail-in ballots, when the results were originally published for the full hand count audit conducted by the office of the Secretary of State for the November 3rd 2020 election. Those tally sheets remained missing until late February when the county supplemented their original audit results.
Petitioners contend that Fulton County did not provide drop box transfer forms for at least three pickup days when obligated to do so via an Open Records Request. Those missing forms are still
needed to provide chain of custody proof for about 5,000 ballots.
The VoterGA data team also found over 200 Fulton County mail-in ballot images containing votes not included in the hand count audit results for the November election. All these anomalies are now included in the Fulton County ballot inspection lawsuit as additional counts of how the Equal Protection and Due Process Constitutional rights of Georgia voters were violated.
#3
Jim Hoft (GP) is a curious dude. Gay, but Republican and Conservative. Prone to hyperbolic articles that don't pan out, but also gets real news that is nearly "bombshell" status and not published elsewhere.
Posted by: Frank G ||
07/14/2021 11:47
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#4
The Gateway Pundit article is built around the VoterGA press release., which would have been sent to far more addresses than just his. But the mainstream media and the leftwing new media are ignoring developments as hard as they can. And the firehose of information coming out about all the horrible things the Democrats and the Left have been doing that it’s easy enough to lose track.
#1
Officers selected and promoted in a peacetime bureaucratic system rather than based upon wartime performance as we've been at war for 20 years. This is what 'equity' gets you. War is not fair or equitable.
perhaps things are nearly as bad in the submarine fleet and naval air
Posted by: Lord Garth ||
07/14/2021 9:58
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#3
I've heard generally similar stories from recently retired Air Force friends and family. (Obviously not 'ship-handling' but loss of mission focus in favor of social focus.)
#8
Bowline is discriminatory against those who don't know to say bo-line or b-owe line.
Head is so sexist I can't even.
Why can't they do the Choose Your Own Adventure PE Course like the more illuminated Air Force? Not everyone is good at swimming or needs to know how. Not like we they aren't going to have Rachel Lavine vests, right?
[SHAFAQ] The Central Criminal Court for Corruption cases of Baghdad/al-Karkh sentenced the head of Economy, Contracts, and Investments in the Ministry of Electricity (MoE) to four years in prison.
A statement of the Supreme Judicial Council said that the indictee was charged for obtaining funds in exchange for facilitating the conclusion of a contract between the Ministries of Electricity and Industry.
"The indictment was issued in accordance with decree 160 of 1983, inferring articles 132/3 of the Penal code 111 of 1969 amended.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/14/2021
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[ToloNews] As most of the northern provinces are witnessing heavy festivities between government forces and the Taliban ...mindless ferocity in a turban... , President Ghani said during a visit to Balkh province that "the Taliban’s backbone will be broken" and all areas captured by the group will be retaken soon.
President Ghani visited Balkh province on Tuesday to review the northern provinces' security situation and said that the security situation across the country will improve significantly in the next three months.
President Ghani's trip to Balkh comes as heavy festivities are underway between government forces and Taliban in most of the northern provinces, including Balkh.
During the trip President Ghani met with a number of civil society activists, women's rights activists, and journalists, and stressed the need for national cohesion and unity in the country.
"The Afghan government's plan to stabilize the whole situation is still in effect. The president had a meeting with the youth, women, Ulema, and teachers moments ago, and the details we have about it--about economic and security issues--will be shared soon," said Fazel Mahmoud Fazli, head of the Administrative Office of the President.
In the last month the capitals of 9 districts of Balkh province fell to the Taliban and the Taliban got closer to the gates of Mazar-e-Sharif, the center of Balkh.
Following the escalation of Taliban attacks in Balkh, residents of the province took up arms to support the defense and security forces in fighting against the Talibs.
Mohammad Farhad Azimi, the governor of Balkh, said: "A delegation from the Ministry of National Defense, the Ministry of Interior, the National Directorate of Security ...the Afghan national intel agency... and also from the Security Council accompany him on this trip."
He added: "They will discuss and exchange views on a better security plan for the protection of Hairatan Crossing and other lost districts as well."
With the president's visit to Balkh, the city of Mazar-e-Sharif became semi-closed, and the roads leading to Balkh province were blocked. Residents of Mazar-e-Sharif criticized the road closures, saying they had faced many problems.
Abdul Qayyum, a resident of Mazar-e-Sharif, said: "They are welcome but roads in Mazar-e-Sharif city and in the rest of the province are closed to traffic and people. Instead of giving us bread and water, they took it from us."
Khairullah, one of the drivers in Mazar-e-Sharif, said that if he met the president he would say to him: "You are the president, will you find a piece of bread for us or you would take the bread from us, the bread that costs us the callouses on our hands?"
President Ghani assured the people of Afghanistan that the security situation in the country will improve within the next three months.
I suspect he's completely right. Journalists have dusted off their Saigon 1975 template and are just filling in the blanks. Heck, maybe the Taliban is operating based on the Saigon 1975 template based on a hope and a prayer. What they're missing is that they're not equipped like North Vietnam was in 1975. My guess is that in 3 *years*, journos will be reporting the same kinds of things they're reporting today. Could direct Pakistani intervention, with uniformed Pakistani army units jumping in, tip the scales? Sure. Heck, Biden might even try to cover it up. But the idea that these Taliban raids constitute control - I'm skeptical.
Remember that attack on the Florida disco that killed 50? All it took was one man. If there were tens of thousands of Taliban in Florida, they could have killed hundreds of thousands of people. For weeks, they could probably credibly say they hold Florida, as the authorities try to take back all the places where they're holed up without killing all the civilians taken hostage. It's Taliban bluster - an ancient technique hoping to stampede their adversaries into surrendering. I think they'll have a tough time winning. We've just pumped too much equipment into Afghanistan - and all the provincial leaders are battle-tested mujahideen who have engaged in large-scale corruption precisely for this situation - so they don't have to rely on a balky central government for supplies when the Taliban comes calling. Far better to have your own private army (aka militia) than to rely on the government's.
Posted by: Frank G ||
07/14/2021 21:08
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#4
^ Hope you're right, Robert
I don't think they're fighting for honor. They're fighting for their lives. The quick way to end the Taliban would have been to slaughter the Pashtuns and push them into Pakistan. The problem is what happens when we leave and the Pakistanis send the Pashtuns back over the border, this time with Pakistani regulars backing them up. Pakistan has 200m people. Afghanistan has 40m. Anyhow, Strategypage suggests that the Taliban are staging what amounts to a Mazar-e-Sharif-style pogrom:
So far this year civilian deaths are up 40 percent compared to 2020. Most of the increase comes from the Taliban policy of killing non-Pushtun civilians while offering Pushtun civilians the option of surrendering without violence. This is the custom in Afghanistan and characterized the unfinished civil war that ended in 2001 when the Americans intervened on the side of the largely non-Pushtun Northern Alliance. The Taliban are confident it will be different this time, because they hmore drug money and access to Pakistan for illegal import items and access to the outside world.
I respect Strategypage, but disagree that Taliban drug money can match Uncle Sam's $400m a month. Not to mention the huge amounts of cached equipment and ammo that are the fruits of 20 years of salting away by each of the provincial warlords. We talk about corruption like it's this great evil.
In Afghanistan, if you're not corrupt, you're the patsy. When push comes to shove, you'll be pushed off the podium because you have no army of your own and no weaponry. Don't think of these people as citizens in a nation state where the government gives everyone a fair shake.
Think of these warlords as barons under King John. When he comes for you, you'd better have a big enough army to kick his ass back to where he came from, because he will take everything you own unless you stop him.
Your trip'n man...what ever your on I want some...you got anymore to share...your wife is beautiful...she got a sister...Like dude this is the 21st Century...there is no government/military autonomy..the world is being run by committees of the rich...and its all good...$ is just flow'n in...no need to push the toons anywhere...for what...and upset their military industrial complex ?
[SHAFAQ] A security source reported, on Tuesday, that two policemen were killed in an armed attack north of the Iraqi capital, Baghdad.
The source told Shafaq News Agency, "Two policemen were killed in an armed attack in an orchard of Tal Al-Tasah in Tarmiyah district, north of Baghdad."
He added that the two victims, that are brothers, were not killed during their duty, and they were wearing civilian clothes, suggesting that ISIS militants were behind the attack.
[SHAFAQ] The head of the Kurdistan Islamic Group bloc in the Iraqi parliament, Salim Hamza, hinted at concerns of an "open war" between the U.S. and Iraqi armed factions.
Hamza told Shafaq News Agency, "the military escalation between the armed factions and the Americans will have an impact on the security situation in Iraq in general, and this effect will certainly have an impact on the issue of holding early parliamentary elections on time."
"The parliamentary elections require calm and security stability. This military escalation between the factions and the Americans creates many security problems. There is political and popular fear of the 'open war' between the factions and the Americans because of its many negative effects on the political and electoral situation."
Posted by: Fred ||
07/14/2021
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#2
Oh goody, another new war. Just what we need. After Afghanistan, they're used to being at war all the time and are going to keep trying to start new ones. The idea of being at peace is dead as Dillinger.
#2
I guess about 500 Turkish troops are there. I think all near the Hamid Karzai international airport which is about 25 miles south of Bagram Airfield, the military airport.
Probably Turkey has several contingent infantry units, maybe a designated division assigned to back up.
Posted by: Lord Garth ||
07/14/2021 21:02
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Mujahideen Brigades announced it will be conducting military maneuvers in the #Gaza Strip beginning tomorrow and lasting up to the end of the month. pic.twitter.com/7rDBWvc831
#2
Tomorrow the IAF will announce they are holding close ground support drills in the Gaza strip beginning tomorrow and lasting up to the end of the month.
[PJMedia] With the heat rising, more illegal immigrants colonists are dying as they attempt to cross the border, usually of dehydration and sometimes of hypothermia.
Preliminary numbers obtained by Jaeson Jones, host of Tripwires & Triggers, tell us there have been 109 bodies of illegal immigrants colonists found in June, up from 61 in May. The stats come directly from U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP). That brings the total for fiscal year 2021 to 321 bodies discovered by CBP—and there are three months to go. No one has an estimate of how many others die and are never discovered.
IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT
Illegal immigrants colonists frequently traverse through desert and ranchland to avoid detection by CBP. The Rio Grande Valley sector in southern Texas and Arizona’s Tucson sector account for most of the summer deaths, which generally spike in tandem with illegal crossing numbers. Over the past 20 years, the highest number of deaths recorded by CBP was 492, in fiscal year 2005, and the lowest was 251 deaths in 2015.
Deputy Sheriff Don White’s main focus in Brooks County, Texas, is to find the bodies of dead immigrants colonists. Brooks County is about 70 miles north of the U.S.—Mexico border. It’s also where a lot of bodies are found.
Sherriff White recovered 15 bodies in June. So far this year, the county has found 52, a substantive increase over 2020, when 34 bodies were recovered over the whole year.
"June was a cool month with lots of rain," Sheriff White told the Epoch Times on July 11. "July and August will be the worst for heat, and it’s quite possible that the 52 recoveries we have so far may dramatically increase."
White, who runs the nonprofit Remote Wildlands Search and Recovery, said the body count would be "considerably higher than it is now" if it wasn’t for the CBP EMTs’ quick response to 911 calls.
WAY TO GO, BIDEN
In May 2021, CBP conducted 7,084 rescues along the border. The agency has rescued 35 percent more illegal immigrants colonists thus far in the current fiscal year than in all of fiscal 2020.
From October 2020 to May 2021, Border Patrol snagged roughly 1 million illegal aliens, according to CBP.
#5
I was on a jobsite today and a twin-engine aircraft, on descent, flew overhead. The Mexican job-boss looked up and said "INS!" He, and the rest of the crew laughed heartily.
INS is a joke to too many people, and this encourages tragic and needless deaths.
[ZeroHedge] Groups allied with the Biden administration are planning on working directly with cellphone network providers to ‘fact check’ private SMS messages if they contain “misinformation about vaccines.”
The revelation is made in a Politico article which explains how the White House is preparing to characterize “conservative opponents of its Covid-19 vaccine campaign as dangerous and extreme.”
The decision to ramp up the information war against vaccine skeptics was made after conservatives showed resistance to the Biden administration’s plan to go “door-to-door” to increase vaccination rates.
“Biden allied groups, including the Democratic National Committee, are also planning to engage fact-checkers more aggressively and work with SMS carriers to dispel misinformation about vaccines that is sent over social media and text messages,” states the report.
“The goal is to ensure that people who may have difficulty getting a vaccination because of issues like transportation see those barriers lessened or removed entirely.”
Posted by: George Orwell1984 ||
07/14/2021
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#1
IOW, the government is allowing/encouraging private organizations to block free speech. One would think that SCOTUS would make short work of this.
I'd be happy the FED's would just seriously enforce what they are already getting paid to do. eg. Enforcing the NO CALL LIST and shutting down the abuse on my dime.
While the US Socialist seek to become Big Brother
some other history on this date:
National Socialism
1933: All German political parties, except the Nazi Party, were outlawed.
UNITED AMERICANISM
1980: The Republican National Convention opened in Detroit, where nominee-apparent Ronald Reagan told a welcoming rally he and his supporters were determined to 'make America great again.'
Yep! Ronnie said it 1st and Donnie proved it can be done.
[WSJ] The Texas Senate advanced a bill imposing stricter voting rules Tuesday, a day after their Democratic counterparts in the state House fled the state to prevent the bill’s final passage.
Dozens of House Democrats have vowed to stay in Washington, D.C. until the special legislative session ends Aug. 7 in order to kill the bill, which must pass both chambers. The House cannot approve legislation without a two-thirds quorum of its 150 members. The remaining House members voted 76-4 Tuesday morning to send law enforcement to find absent Democrats and return them "under warrant of arrest, if necessary."
Some Democratic senators were also absent Tuesday, but the body had enough members to conduct business and voted 18-4, along party lines, to pass the bill in its chamber.
Both chambers of the Republican-controlled Texas legislature, in a special legislative session that began last week, filed similar versions of the bill, which would broadly tighten voting rules across the state. Gov. Greg Abbott ... governor of Texas. Abbott is a Republican. His 2014 Dem opponent, state senatrix Wendy Davis, thought the absolute, most pressing, most important issue facing the state was abortion. Abbott beat the pantyhose off her. His 2018 opponent, Lupe Valdez didn't dwell too heavily on abortion, but she lost too... called the special session after Democratic House members walked out before a voting deadline at the end of the regular legislative session in May, denying the body a quorum needed to vote on the proposed legislation.
Texas Democrats start singing “We Shall Overcome” during their press conference in DC after leaving the state to prevent quorum on an election integrity bill pic.twitter.com/Jy8OvPvyw9
#3
Change the quorum rules - one half, plus one. Repubs should be allowed to drag these asswipes back to the House floor by their hair and pull the fuckin' roots out.
#4
And change the laws, abandoning the legislature during a session should be punished as a resignation from their office, a fine of not less than $10 million or 50% of ALL their assets, a felony conviction that removes voting, gun rights and the ability to hold office with jail time of 5-10 years.
#8
That rendition of "We Shall Overcome" was a little pitchy, Dog.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
07/14/2021 11:44
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#9
Change the law so that abandoning the legislature during a session is counted as an abstention.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
07/14/2021 11:46
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#10
#8 So true, and an early Snark O' The Day candidate
Posted by: Frank G ||
07/14/2021 11:56
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#11
If they want to play games - declare the seats vacant and schedule new elections within a month.
Thinking alike here, from the other thread, I concluded when they left the state during session, they resigned.
Only I'd want the special election this Friday as GOP hit the blocks today getting required signatures. Hit quick while they are disorganized and full of themselves.
#12
Some Democrats "sing," a few hum,
And several just stand, looking dumb,
But I can't look away!
Oy vey, ey, ey, ey, ey, ey...
I'm verklempt and, indeed, overcome.
Democrats are worried they'll hurt themselves in Florida — and more broadly in the midterms — if they mishandle the situation in Cuba. https://t.co/UOkKYqGPOt
[SHAFAQ] An official security source in Saladin reported today that 16 employees and officials of various degrees had been arrested in the governorate on charges of forgery.
The source told Shafaq News Agency, "A force from Baghdad that is likely belonging to Major General Ahmed Abu Ragheef's anti-corruption committee, in cooperation with the National Security Agency, and based on judicial arrest warrants, arrested 16 employees, including officials in several departments in Saladin on charges of corruption and forgery."
The source confirmed that the arrests were mostly in the Real Estate Registration Directorate in Saladin and several other departments, noting that the detainees were subject to security investigations.
It is noteworthy that Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi formed an anti-corruption committee headed by Major General Ahmed Abu Ragheef, and arrested several officials and employees in different governorates on charges of corruption, fraud, and waste of public money.
3 members of the #Iran-backed Liwa Fatemiyoun were killed near #Syria’s al-Mayadin in the eastern countryside of Deir ez-Zor, which is under government control, due to the explosion of an IED in their car.https://t.co/NzWcuK474v
— NORTH PRESS AGENCY - ENGLISH (@NPA_English) July 13, 2021
[AmericanMilitaryNews] North Korea ...hereditary Communist monarchy distinguished by its truculence and periodic acts of violence. Distinguishing features include Songun (Army First) policy, which involves feeding the army before anyone but the Dear Leadership, and Juche, which is Kim Jong Il's personal interpretation of Marxism-Leninism, which he told everybody was brilliant. In 1950 the industrialized North invaded agrarian South Korea. Twenty-one countries of the United Nations eventually contributed to the UN force opposing the invasion, with the United States providing around 90% of the military personnel. Seventy years later the economic results are in and it doesn't look good for Juche... is ordering citizens to start producing their own food to prepare for a long-term food shortage that could last for three years, but ordinary people say that the government is shirking its responsibility, sources in the country told RFA.
RFA reported in April that authorities were warning residents to prepare for economic difficulties as bad as the 1994-1998 famine which killed millions by some estimates, but experts said that the situation was dire, but nothing like the 1990s.
The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization estimated in a recent report that North Korea would be short about 860,000 tons of food this year, about two months of normal demand.
Continued on Page 49
#1
Abolish the national government, and let the villages form their own governments. Divide the land equally among the people, but let them sell their shares to other people within the same village. Allow them to work for wages. Get back to a pre-industrial farming economy.
Abandon the cities for now, let the city dwellers move to the country and work for wages. Disband the army and give every adult a rifle - there are probably enough to go around.
#6
No worries, all the CHinese Red Cross food aid will be coming over the border any moment, that's what allies are for....oh wait, they actually don't give a shit!
#7
Agriculture in the Soviet Union(Wiki): "Hedrick Smith wrote in The Russians (1976) that, according to Soviet statistics, one fourth of the value of agricultural production in 1973 was produced on the private plots peasants were allowed (2% of the whole arable land).[33] In the 1980s, 3% of the land was in private plots which produced more than a quarter of the total agricultural output.[34] i.e. private plots produced somewhere around 1600% and 1100% as much as common ownership plots in 1973 and 1980. Soviet figures claimed that the Soviets produced 20–25% as much as the U.S. per farmer in the 1980s.[35]"
The North Korean apparatchiks could wake up and do something sensible... No, Not Enough Juche™! Whatever they do will probably make things worse.
Posted by: Chris ||
07/14/2021 20:31
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#9
Maybe this is a good thing. I have this twisted vision of the future where Pudge becomes the Godfather of North Korea and leads his people into the modern world, sort of like Lee Kuan Yew and Singapore, but more corpulent. Stranger things have happened. Remind yourself that Dennis Rodman is already part of this story.
Side Note: The world owes the NKor people a debt of gratitude for taking part in a grand economic experiment. Experiments on humans have gotten a bad rap (especially since that business with the Soylent Corporation) so it isn't often you can divide them up into groups and do A/B testing.
In this case, we took two identical populations and gave one communism and the other a market economy. South Korean won hands down on pretty much any axis you can think of. Sorry about all the famine and thank you for your participation.
[ToloNews] People's Resistance® Front’ forces led by Mohammad Ismail Khan,
...one of the Northern Alliance/Jamiat-e Islami warlords, the Herat Tajik was an Afghan National Army captain under the Communists, mujahideen commander against the Soviets, twice governor of Herat province — first for the mujahideen, then after the Taliban were defeated — and finally Hamid Karzai’s Minister of Energy and Water. He no doubt expected that at 75 he would be sitting back and enjoying less active maneuvers as an elder statesman...
an ex-Jihadi leader, have been deployed alongside security forces in some parts of Herat ...a venerable old Persian-speaking city in western Afghanistan, populated mostly by Tadjiks, which is why it's not as blood-soaked as areas controlled by Pashtuns... city to prevent the Taliban ...mindless ferocity in a turban... from entering the city.
Armed with light and heavy weapons, the forces warn the Taliban that they will be killed if they get closer to the city of Herat.
Mohammad Ismail Khan says the Resistance® Front forces are coordinating their activities with security agencies.
"The government is busy with ensuring security and peace to protect people and the country. To prevent any clash between security forces and the People Resistance® Front forces, and to be able to jointly defend the city of Herat, we mutually coordinate things," said Mohammad Ismail Khan, the leader of the People's Resistance® Front.
Sayed Ahmad, a member of the People's Resistance® Front, said: "Until the last drop of blood, we are going to defend our country, our people, and our city with high morale."
Abdul Shakur, another member of the People's Resistance® Front, said: "Under no circumstances will we allow the Taliban to enter Herat city. We assure our people that they can continue their normal life."
The role of the public forces in ensuring security and preventing the Taliban from advancing in Herat is considered vital by the Afghan government and residents of the province.
"After the formation of the people’s mobilization against the Taliban, there has been partial security in Herat city. Compared to last week, the security situation is better now and people’s life has come back to normal," said Maroof Herawi, a resident of Herat province.
"We need people’s help, cooperation, and support to ensure a lasting security," said Eraj Faqiri, a resident of Herat.
Hassan Majrooh, who is a military analyst, said: "If the people's mobilization would have a regular and systematic organization and management, and perform activities based on regular leadership and orders--and would not be under any personal orders--it can be very effective in defending the country and the people."
Meanwhile, ...back at the Hubba Hubba Club, Nunzio wondered: Where the hell was Chumbaloni? And where was his $600?... security officials in Badghis say Taliban attacks on Qala-e-Naw city have diminished, and security forces have reduced Taliban threats by establishing a security belt around the city.
"The Taliban once again launched multiple attacks on the temporary checkpoints on one of the security belts around the city of Herat, but security forces pushed back these attacks. The Taliban feared lots of casualties," said Shir Aqa Alokozai, the police chief of Badghis district.
As the Taliban has taken large swathes of territory in the western part of the country, hundreds of residents of Herat province have been mobilized against the Taliban fighters.
[Rudaw] An Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear western pols talk they're not really Moslems.... (ISIS) leader was arrested in the eastern province of Deir ez-Zor by internal security forces (Asayish), the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) said on Monday.
The Asayish arrested an ISIS leader "known to plan liquidations and finance terror," read a tweet from the SDF.
The SDF added that weapons and equipment were also seized in the operation.
ISIS seized control of large swathes of Iraq and Syria in 2014. The last of its so-called caliphate was defeated in Syria in 2019, but the group remains a threat on both sides of the border, particularly in Deir ez-Zor, which is controlled by both the SDF and regime forces.
The terror group maintains a "significant presence" in rural farming areas under SDF control, the Pentagon said in its latest quarterly report on anti-ISIS operations.
A spate of murders have been recorded across the province in recent months. Several of the dead were part of the SDF.
The SDF arrested 22 ISIS suspects in a two-day military operation in Deir ez-Zor late last month.
Earlier in June, the force said that they had arrested eight ISIS members in multiple operations, including a leader who was planning operations in Deir ez-Zor.
In late May, they arrested 24 ISIS suspects across 53 locations in the province.
A total of 34 operations were conducted against ISIS in the first half of this year, the SDF said on Wednesday, with 245 suspects arrested and three killed.
#UPDATE: Reuters: “A senior Iranian Revolutionary Guard commander urged Iraqi Shi'ite militias to step up attacks on U.S. targets during a meeting in Baghdad last week, three militia sources and two Iraqi security sources familiar with the gathering said” https://t.co/OKKk3oUqlU
[WSJ] Alleged scheme targeted Masih Alinejad, a Brooklyn-based critic of Tehran who has rallied opinion against Iran’s compulsory head scarves for women
Iranian intelligence agents plotted to kidnap a U.S.-based human-rights activist and critic of the Islamic Theocratic Republic and forcibly return her to Iran, federal prosecutors said, marking an escalation of Iran’s attempts to silence dissidents around the world.
The alleged scheme targeted Masih Alinejad, an Iranian-American who has used her social-media profile, Western government contacts and cable news appearances to rally opinion against Tehran’s treatment of women and the government policy of compulsory head scarves.
In an interview, Ms. Alinejad, who lives in Brooklyn, said federal agents informed her of the alleged kidnapping scheme last year and told her it was the first known attempt by Iranian officials to carry out a kidnapping plot on American soil.
On Tuesday, federal prosecutors announced the kidnapping conspiracy charges against an Iranian intelligence official, Alireza Farahani, and three Iranian intelligence assets, all of whom remain on the lam in Iran. It couldn’t be determined if the men have U.S. attorneys.
A fifth individual, Niloufar Bahadorifar, a Caliphornia, an impregnable bastion of the Democratic Party, resident, was charged with providing financial services that supported the kidnapping scheme and conspiring to commit fraud, money laundering and sanctions violations, though he isn’t charged with the kidnapping plot. Mr. Bahadorifar’s attorney declined to comment.
Intelligence officer and three agents charged in Manhattan court with plot part of wider effort to also target dissidents in Canada and UAE.
An indictment in Manhattan federal court alleges that the plot was part of a wider plan to lure three individuals in Canada and a fifth person in the United Kingdom to Iran. Victims were also targeted in the United Arab Emirates, authorities said.
Goodness — they certainly are ambitious.
The identities of the alleged victims were not released.
Iran’s mission to the United Nations ...a lucrative dumping ground for the relatives of dictators and party hacks... did not immediately respond to a request for comment. State media in Tehran did not immediately acknowledge the alleged plot, though 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... has become more aggressive in recent years about seizing opposition journalists and dissidents abroad amid tensions over its tattered nuclear deal.
According to the indictment, all of the targeted victims had been critical of Iran.
Although not charged in the kidnapping plot, Niloufar Bahadorifar, also known as Nellie, was arrested July 1 in Caliphornia, an impregnable bastion of the Democratic Party, on charges that she has provided US financial and other services to Iranian residents and entities and some financial services supported the plot and violated sanctions against Iran, according to a release.
The indictment said Bahadorifar, 46, originally from Iran, works at a California department store. Bahadorifar’s lawyer, Assistant Federal Defender Martin Cohen, declined to comment.
Bahadorifar has pleaded not guilty "Wudn't me." to charges lodged at the time of her arrest and been released on bail, authorities said. She still faces arraignment on charges in Tuesday’s superseding indictment.
The Iranian intelligence officer, who remains a runaway, was identified as Alireza Shavaroghi Farahani.
Farahani, 50, and three other defendants tried since at least June 2020 to kidnap the US citizen of Iranian origin who lives in Brooklyn, the indictment said. If caught and convicted, the four could all face life in prison.
Farahani and the network he led on multiple occasions in 2020 and 2021 lied about his intentions as he hired private Sherlocks to surveil, photograph and video record the targeted US resident and her household members, the indictment said. It said the surveillance included a live high-definition video feed of the journalist’s home.
The indictment alleged that the government of Iran in 2018 tried to lure her to a third country so a capture would be possible, even offering money to her relatives to try to make it possible. The relatives, the indictment said, refused the offer.
Authorities said Iranian intelligence services has previously lured other Iranian dissidents from La Belle France and the United States to capture and imprison critics of the Iranian regime and have publicly grabbed credit for the capture operations.
They noted, as did the indictment, that an electronic device used by Farahani contains a photograph of the New York resident alongside pictures of two other individuals. Those individuals, the indictment said, were captured by Iranian intelligence authorities. One was later executed and the other was imprisoned, it said.
The others charged in the kidnapping plot were identified as Mahmoud Khazein, 42, Kiya Sadeghi, 35, and Omid Noori, 45, all from Iran.
According to the indictment, Sadeghi researched a service offering military-style speedboats that could perform a maritime evacuation out of New York City that would ultimately reach Venezuela ...a country in Central America that sits on an enormous pool of oil. Formerly the most prospereous country in the region, it became infested with Commies sniffing almost unlimited wealth. It turned out the wealth wasn't unlimited, the economy collapsed under the clownish Hugo Chavez, the murder rate exceeded places like Honduras and El Salvador. A significant proportion of the populace refugeed to Colombia and points south... , whose de facto government has friendly relations with Iran.
Khazein, it said, researched travel routes from the New York resident’s home to a waterfront neighborhood in Brooklyn and the location of her residence relative to Venezuela and Tehran.
[Warzone] Nearly two years ago, Congress told the U.S. Army to pump the brakes on its plans to dramatically cut the size of its obscure and generally underappreciated fleets of amphibious landing ships, landing craft, and a variety of other maritime assets, which are also referred to as "the Army's Navy." This came after The War Zone first reported that the General Frank S. Besson class Logistics Support Vessel USAV SSGT Robert T. Kuroda was up for sale, a listing that was quickly taken down from the General Services Administration's auction website. Now, a number of Army vessels are available for purchase again, showing that the service is moving ahead again with at least some of the previously planned divestments.
A banner advertisement currently on the GSA Auctions website says that a total of nine Landing Craft Mechanizeds (LCM), eight Landing Craft Utilitys (LCU), four small tugs, one large tug, and a crane barge, will be up for bid between July 7 and July 16, 2021. At the time of writing, all of these vessels are listed on the site.
[BBC] Democratic politicians in Texas have left their state en masse in an effort to prevent Republicans there from passing a law to tighten voting rules.
The move will temporarily paralyse the state's House of Representatives, which requires at least two-thirds of the 150 members be present for a vote.
At least 50 House Democrats boarded two private jets from Austin to Washington DC on Monday.
The move comes amid a wave of voting restrictions in Republican-led states.
Republicans argue the measures are essential for election security but Democrats see them as an attack on the right to vote.
The bill in Texas would ban 24-hour polling places and expand the authority of partisan poll watchers. A first vote is planned later this week.
The House lawmakers took off on Monday afternoon. When they landed in Washington DC, the Democrats said they would not return until the 30-day special session had ended next month.
Under Texas House rules, absent politicians can be arrested and returned to the house floor. But the authority responsible does not have jurisdiction outside Texas.
In response to the exodus, Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan, a Republican, said the House would use "every available resource" to secure a quorum.
PROBABLY ONLY DELAYS THE INEVITABLE
Texas Democrats are again attempting to prevent state Republicans from passing new voting restrictions - and where they're going says everything about their ultimate objective.
This fight, in their view, will be won or lost in Washington DC - where Democrats have control - not in Texas, where Republicans call the shots. And not only could federal legislation override the proposed changes to Texas voting laws, it would also block enacted measures in Georgia, Arizona and other key presidential battleground states.
There has been concern among liberals that the Biden administration is not taking seriously the threat state-level voting laws pose to Democratic candidates in forthcoming elections - and has not shown a willingness to take aggressive action in Congress to push through new national rules.
It is, however, a symbolic move. It probably only delays the inevitable in Texas and is unlikely to change the dynamic in Washington, where the Republican Senate minority has more effective means to block the Democrats than simply leaving town.
#7
The local CBS news last night interviewed several of the four Dems who stayed, citing obligations to their constituents.
Posted by: Bobby ||
07/14/2021 9:41
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#8
It is, however, a symbolic move. It probably only delays the inevitable in Texas and is unlikely to change the dynamic in Washington
In other words, it's just "grievance theater," generically known as the hollow gesture. But the dem politicians and their useful idiot voters have an insatiable appetite for it.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
07/14/2021 10:15
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#9
I'd like to smack the taste out of all those twats grinning ear to ear on that jet. Spiteful, petty asshole.
Posted by: Chris ||
07/14/2021 11:27
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#10
Arrest them all. They are obstructing the wheels of the government. Toss them in the clink until Washington, D.C. releases the Jan. 6th insurrectionists (Trump supporters) (sarc) from jail.
#11
They resigned from their obligation to represent in good faith, leaving the positions unoccupied until a special election can be concluded, thus changing the required count for a quorum.
And if the Texas Pubs are really on it, they are as we speak getting the minimum number of signatures required for those districts, with the special election this Friday, and there is only one name on the ticket.
*Chris, notice nobody has a mask, not even dangling for the pictures.
#12
The Socialist bill in Congress is a clear power grab - We The Party. They'll have to demonstrate a clear and unquestionable proof of massive voter suppression to SCOTUS to justify that grab. It'll be challenged to there no matter what the Party does.
[Epoch Times] The Constitution of the United States established the American form of government and radically changed the ideas of where the rights of citizens originate. It’s founded on the idea that the role of government is to protect God-given rights.
Yet now, the doctrine that constitutes America is under assault. Freedom of speech is being worn down through corporate—government censorship, freedom of belief is being suppressed with lockdowns, the right to bear arms is being called into doubt, and the numerous rights of Americans are in jeopardy.
Join host Joshua Philipp as he speaks with experts including Dinesh D'Souza, Victor Davis Hanson, Rick Green, Trevor Loudon, Mary Grabar, Thomas K. Lindsay, Kevin Roberts, Craig Parshall, Dustin Bass, and K. Lloyd Billingsley in "America Rewritten." Try it; you'll like it.
Posted by: Bobby ||
07/14/2021
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[AlAhram] When a match is made, the app 'introduces the families together with the presence of service consultants', who will 'accompany' the couple for four years after marriage
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... on Monday unveiled an Islamic dating application aimed at facilitating "lasting and informed marriage" for its youth, state television ... and if you can't believe state television who can you believe?
reported.
Called Hamdam -- Farsi for "companion" -- the service allows users to "search for and choose their spouse," the broadcaster said.
It is the only state-sanctioned platform of its kind in the Islamic republic, according to Iran's cyberspace police chief, Colonel Ali Mohammad Rajabi.
While dating apps are popular in Iran, Rajabi said that all other platforms apart from Hamdam are illegal.
Developed by the Tebyan Cultural Institute, part of Iran's Islamic Propaganda Organization, Hamdam's website claims it uses "artificial intelligence" to find matches "only for bachelors seeking permanent marriage and a single spouse".
Tebyan head Komeil Khojasteh, speaking at the unveiling, said family values were threatened by outside forces.
"Family is the devil's target, and (Iran's enemies) seek to impose their own ideas" on it, he said, adding that the app helps create "healthy" families.
According to Hamdam's website, users have to verify their identity and go through a "psychology test" before browsing. "Do you like Lavendar Oil?"
When a match is made, the app "introduces the families together with the presence of service consultants", who will "accompany" the couple for four years after marriage.
Registration is free, as Hamdam has "an independent revenue model," the website said without explaining further.
Iran's authorities, including the supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei ...the very aged actual dictator of Iran, successor to Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini... , have warned several times against the country's rising age of marriage and declining birth rates.
In March, Iran's conservative-dominated parliament passed a bill titled "population growth and supporting families."
It mandates the government to offer significant financial incentives for marriage and to encourage people to have more than two children, while limiting access to child sacrifice abortion.
The law awaits approval by the Guardian Council, which is tasked with checking that bills are compatible with Islamic law and the constitution.
#2
fertility rate has been decreasing in Iran for decades
age at marriage has been increasing
probably these trends accelerated last year with covid, inflation and economic contraction
Mullocracy considers this a threat
Posted by: Lord Garth ||
07/14/2021 9:56
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#3
/\ Is Iran suffering from a "Lost Generation Effect" like France and England after the loss of human resources in WW1? The use of "human wave tactics" by the Iranians in the Iran-Iraq War was not a way to raise the next generation...
[KhaamaPress] UK’s secretary of defense Ben Wallace said that 100 British troops will stay in Afghanistan along with the 650 US troops to protect UK’s Kabul-based embassy.
Wallace announces the remarks only days after British Prime Minister Boris Johnson ...pro-Brexit British prime minister, succeeding no-Brexit Theresa May. BoJo is noted as much for his sparkling personality and his hair as for his Conservative policies.... officially ended his military mission in Afghanistan, in a speech in the British parliament.
Prior to that, United States had said that its troops will stay in Afghanistan until the security of the Kabul international airport is handed over to the Ottoman Turkish Forces.
Ben Wallace, UK’s defense minister on his visit to the US, Pentagon, with his counterpart said that both countries were on the same track to leave Afghanistan by the end of August.
Wallace has also thanked United States forces for what they have done in Afghanistan in the past 20 years.
Ben Wallace and Llyod Austin met only hours after a milestone took place in the drawdown process of the US from Afghanistan. In Kabul RS’s longest-serving commander, General Scott Miller stepped down and devolved his role to General Frank McKenzie.
As negotiations over handing Kabul’s airport security to Ottoman Turkish is going smooth between the US and The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire... , the Taliban ...mindless ferocity in a turban... has been opposing the move and reiterates that Turkey as a NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A single organization with differing goals, equipment, language, doctrine, and structure.... member state should not have a military presence in Afghanistan.
[Kremlin.ru] Russian Federation president Vladimir Putin wrote an article posted on the Kremlin website, that he considers the separation between Russia and Ukraine "as a great common misfortune, as a tragedy."
In the article Putin points out:
The Bolsheviks treated the Russian people as an inexhaustible material for social experiments. They dreamed of a world revolution, which, in their opinion, would abolish nation-states altogether. Therefore, borders were arbitrarily cut, and generous territorial "gifts" were handed out. Ultimately, what exactly were the leaders of the Bolsheviks guided by, cutting the country, no longer matters. You can argue about the details, the background and logic of certain decisions. One thing is clear: Russia was actually robbed.
Putin writes that modern Ukraine was a creation of Soviet Bolsheviks under Lenin: "We know and remember that to a large extent it was created at the expense of historical Russia. Suffice it to compare which lands were reunited with the Russian state in the 17th century and with which territories the Ukrainian SSR left the Soviet Union."
He goes on to characterize the Declaration on the Formation of the USSR, and then in the Constitution of the USSR in 1924 to ne a "dangerous time bomb," in its requirement that allows signatories of the Declaration to opt out of the Soviet Union.
Putin writes:
The "parade of sovereignties" began. On December 8, 1991, the so-called Belovezhskaya Agreement was signed on the creation of the Commonwealth of Independent States, in which it was announced that that "the USSR as a subject of international law and geopolitical reality ceases to exist." By the way, Ukraine has not signed or ratified the CIS Charter, adopted back in 1993.
Concerning Crimea, Putin write, "In 1954, the Crimean region of the RSFSR was transferred to the Ukrainian SSR - in gross violation of the legal norms in force at that time."
About pre 2014 Ukraine, Putin writes:
Until 2014, hundreds of agreements and joint projects worked to develop our economies, business and cultural ties, to strengthen security, and to address common social and environmental problems. They brought tangible benefits to people - both in Russia and in Ukraine. This is what we considered the main thing. And that is why we fruitfully interacted with everyone, I emphasize, with all the leaders of Ukraine.
Even after the well-known events in Kiev in 2014, they instructed the Russian Government to think over the options for contacts through the relevant ministries and departments in terms of preserving and supporting our economic ties. However, there was no counter desire, so there is still no one.
Nevertheless, Russia is still one of the three main trade partners of Ukraine, and hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians come to us to work and are welcomed here with cordiality and support. This is how the "aggressor country" turns out.
The entire, translated article can be found here.
The link is to a personal wargame blog. My blog at ffz.1dogstar.net, kept kicking back the article, so I posted it elsewhere. Sorry.
An Introduction
In 1932 and 1933, millions of Ukrainians were killed in the Holodomor, a man-made famine engineered by the Soviet government of Joseph Stalin. The primary victims of the Holodomor (literally "death inflicted by starvation") were rural farmers and villagers, who made up roughly 80 percent of Ukraine's population in the 1930s. While it is impossible to determine the precise number of victims of the Ukrainian genocide, most estimates by scholars range from roughly 3.5 million to 7 million (with some estimates going higher). The most detailed demographic studies estimate the death toll at 3.9 million. Historians agree that, as with other genocides, the precise number will never be known.
[MSN] Consumer prices just posted their largest one-month jump in nearly 13 years, a fact that might tempt some to conclude that a white-hot U.S. economy is on the brink of runaway inflation.
But a spike in the June 2021 consumer price index reading may, in fact, be little cause for alarm.
That's because a significant reason for the overall prices increase is thanks to a dizzying rise in one isolated area of the economy: Used car prices. [It is surprising to me but even the bond market is stable and at very low rates, e.g. below 1.4% for the 10 year T bond]
A hot June 2021 consumer price index may not be cause for alarm thanks to a dizzying, but isolated, rise in used car prices.
"The headline CPI numbers have shock value, for sure; however, once you realize that a third of the increase is used car prices, the transitory picture becomes more clear," wrote Jamie Cox, managing partner at Harris Financial Group.
The Labor Department reported on Tuesday that its CPI rose 5.4% from a year ago, the largest jump since August 2008.
BREAKING! US core #inflation rose to 4.5% in June, higher than expected and the highest level since 1991. Headline #CPI also higher than expected at 5.4%! pic.twitter.com/yIiBuYSZ53
Box of donuts says Blamtifa are doing AAR. Mission accomplished in 2 hours. Prep Check.
Glad to see Kim is still blogging and as apocalyptic in tone as ever. Hope his sources are safe and well-fed, because this could be the beginning of South Africa's version of the Zimbabwe War Veterans fiasco. It would not be surprising if Ramaphosa orchestrated the whole thing in order to have an excuse to do what he wanted from the beginning - seize the property of any non-black in the country (including stuff belonging to Indians and coloreds) so as to enlarge his personal bank account.
[BenarNews] Indonesian security forces were on the hunt for three suspected members of a pro-Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear western pols talk they're not really Moslems.... turban group who escaped a raid that killed two other suspects in Central Sulawesi province over the weekend, officials said Monday.
Members of a joint military and police task force killed the two suspects — identified as Rukli and Ahmad Gazali — and who were linked to the Eastern Indonesia Mujahideen (MIT)
Continued on Page 49
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[ToloNews] Afghan cops continue to fight the Taliban ...Arabic for students... around Ghazni and Kandahar cities as the group claims to have taken over more districts in Khost, Farah and Bamiyan ...a place in Afghanistan that used to have some historically interesting statues of the Buddha carved into a mountainside. Then the holy men showed up and now all they have is some big holes... provinces.
Reports say that the Taliban has taken over Saighan district in Bamiyan, Malistan district in Ghazni, Purchaman district in Farah and Musa Khel district in Khost in the past 24 hours.
Meanwhile, ...back at the Senate, the partisans of Honorius went for their knives and the partisans of Stilicho went for the doors... the Afghan Ministry of Defense said that the security forces during various operations have killed over 261 Taliban fighters in various regions of Afghanistan in the past 24 hours and repulsed several offensives by the group.
"Saighan and Kuhmard districts have collapsed, the people have major concerns about it," said Sajjad Foladi, a resident in Bamiyan.
"Bamiyan was affected by the psychological war, more than 20,000 families of Bamiyan have sought refuge in other districts," said Mohammad Reza Ibrahim, a university lecturer in Bamiyan.
"The situation in Ghazni is not good, the enemy has taken up positions in the residential areas," said Ghulam Hussain Changez, a member of Ghazni provincial council.
"The war has reached inside the city, many districts are collapsing," said Mohammad Osman, a civic activist in Kandahar.
"The districts will collapse one by one if the Afghan govt does not bring change to the management of the war," said MP Baktash Eshchi.
"The security and defense forces are focusing on those areas where the enemy prefer to target them; there has been a program to defend and launch offensives in those areas," said Rohullah Ahmadzai, a defense ministry front man.
Battles have also been reported in Faryab province.
Meanwhile, ...back at the Senate, the partisans of Honorius went for their knives and the partisans of Stilicho went for the doors... Marshal Abdul Rashid Dostum ...ethnic Uzbek warlord who distinguished himself fighting the Soviets and the Taliban. The story that he had a bad guy run over with a tank is an exaggeration. It was an armored personnel carrier... has said that the Taliban will face a strong retaliation.
(victorygirls) One year ago this week, the LHD-6 Bonhomme Richard caught fire in the San Diego Harbor. It took four days to fully extinguish the fire and the Navy scrapped the ship rather than repair it. No cause for the fire has been released. A Covid outbreak on the U.S.S. Roosevelt led to the resignation of the Acting Secretary of the Navy. This and other mishaps led four Republican lawmakers to commission a survey of sailors. The results are depressing.
The four Republican lawmakers are all serious men and all have military experience. They are:
—Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas, U.S. Army Captain, eight years service.
Continued on Page 49
#3
We used to make fun of the Soviet addiction to demoting the junior officer that made the original mistake and their superior officers all the way to the regional overall commander. A very Asian practice that some ancient Chinese emperor would have approved of. The same Emperor would probably be heard complaining that ..."No one shows initiative! I have to order everything myself!"
#4
It starts with the Naval Academy where over the last decade there has been one scandal after another. It appears that in an effor to change the culture of the Academy the Democrats are nominating their worst and their dimmest.
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.
1960 CADILLAC COUPE DEVILLE, PURCHASED NEW BY HOLLYWOOD ACTRESS ANN RUTHERFORD 
[The National Interest] Key Point: The combination of bolt action full-sized rifle and submachine gun was useful in the trenches of World War I...
[Aljazeera] The Taliban says it has captured the strategic border crossing of Spin Boldak along the frontier with Pakistan, continuing sweeping gains made since foreign forces stepped up their withdrawal from Afghanistan.
[IsraelTimes] Move comes amid international pressure to increase assistance to the Strip, follows meeting between Israeli, Egyptian foreign ministers; 
[IsraelTimes] Exchange of fire in West Bank town follows arrest operation that netted 5 suspects; no injuries to Israeli forces.
...an Iranian colony situated on the eastern Mediterranean, conveniently adjacent to Israel. Formerly inhabited by hardy Phoenecian traders, its official language is now Arabic, with the usual unpleasant side effects. The Leb civil war, between 1975 and 1990, lasted a little over 145 years and produced 120,000 fatalities. The average length of a ceasefire was measured in seconds. The Lebs maintain a precarious sectarian balance among Shiites, Sunnis, and about a dozeen flavors of Christians. It is the home of Hezbollah, which periodically starts a war with the Zionist Entity, gets Beirut pounded to rubble, and then declares victory and has a parade. The Lebs have the curious habit of periodically murdering their heads of state or prime ministers, a practice dating back to the heady human sacrifice days of Baal Moloch. In 2020 Hezbollahblew up a considerable portion of Beirut and many of its inhabitants when its ammonium nitrate faci8lity exploded. They blamed it on... somebody else. It wasn't them though. Trust them on that...
[IsraelTimes] Shots fired from vehicle as it goes through 
...mindless ferocity in a turban...
...Arabic for 
...mindless ferocity in a turban...
-www.kaifineart.com-1.jpg&f=1&nofb=1)
[PJMedia] With the heat rising, more illegal im
... governor of Texas. Abbott is a Republican. His 2014 Dem opponent, state senatrix Wendy Davis, thought the absolute, most pressing, most important issue facing the state was abortion. Abbott beat the pantyhose off her. His 2018 opponent, Lupe Valdez didn't dwell too heavily on abortion, but she lost too...
[AmericanMilitaryNews] 
...mindless ferocity in a turban...
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling 
[WSJ] Alleged scheme targeted Masih Alinejad, a Brooklyn-based critic of Tehran who has rallied opinion against Iran’s compulsory head scarves for women
...a country in Central America that sits on an enormous pool of oil. Formerly the most prospereous country in the region, it became infested with Commies sniffing almost unlimited wealth. It turned out the wealth wasn't unlimited, the economy collapsed under the clownish Hugo Chavez, the murder rate exceeded places like Honduras and El Salvador. A significant proportion of the populace refugeed to Colombia and points south...
[Epoch Times] The Constitution of the United States established the American form of government and radically changed the ideas of where the rights of citizens originate. It’s founded on the idea that the role of government is to protect God-given rights.
...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 
...mindless ferocity in a turban...
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling 
...Arabic for 
