Cause of Death: Covid
[NY Post] At least 13 people were killed as people tried to flee as cops raided a Lima, Peru, nightclub that was open despite coronavirus restrictions, officials said.
The victims were crushed to death or asphyxiated when around 120 people tried to escape the Thomas Restobar club Saturday night through the only entrance door, national police and government officials said. Was Great White playing?
There were also at least six people injured, including three officers, as clubgoers became trapped between the door and a staircase leading to the street.
"In these circumstances when people begin to fight to get out, it's tumultuous, everyone goes against each other," Orlando Velasco of the National Police told local radio station RPP.
Peru shuttered nightclubs and bars in March and then banned extended family gatherings Aug. 12, as the country grapples with the second-highest coronavirus infection rate in Latin America.
The country has recorded 585,236 confirmed infections as of Saturday, doubling the number on July 2, according to a tally from Reuters.
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/23/2020
12:44 ||
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#6
"President Trump recently ordered a 12,000-troop reduction in American military personnel stationed in Germany. That leaves about 24,000 American soldiers still in the country." 12,000/(12,000 + 24,000) = %30
"Perhaps, but Merkel surely cannot be surprised. Six years ago, all NATO members pledged to spend 2 percent of their GDP on defense. Yet only eight of 29 so far have kept their word.
Germany spends only about 1.4 percent of its GDP on defense. As NATO’s largest, wealthiest and most powerful European member, it sets the example for the rest of alliance."
(Reuters) - Louisiana residents were ordered on Sunday to evacuate low-lying coastal areas as back-to-back hurricanes were forecast to bring strong winds and rain, striking the state within days of one another this week.
Tropical Storm Marco, which is forecast to hit the Louisiana coast with hurricane-force winds on Monday, will be followed by Storm Laura, now over the Dominican Republic and expected to travel across Hispaniola and Cuba and strengthen to a hurricane before striking Louisiana on Thursday.
Twin hurricanes arriving at the U.S. coast within days "could result in a prolonged period of hazardous weather," National Hurricane Center forecaster Stacy Stewart warned on Sunday.
Officials in Louisiana’s coastal Lafourche Parish ordered a mandatory evacuation for residents of low-lying areas at noon on Sunday. The U.S. Coast Guard also raised its warning for the Port of New Orleans, calling for ships to make plans to evacuate some areas.
The potential for flooding and evacuations added to worries about the spread of COVID-19. Tulane University, the largest private employer in New Orleans, said it will close its testing center on Monday due to potential flooding and power outages and called on students to maintain social distancing guidelines.
#1
“This is another incidence where you just should have left,” Judd said. “But when you came back to the house that’s not your home, and you tried to break in to get a girlfriend who didn't want to go with you, and you’re shot and killed while breaking into the house with a tire iron, that was a bad choice. And it’s the last bad choice he’ll make.”
[Boston Globe] "We can confirm that there is an open investigation of abusive sexual contact involving Sgt. Fernandes," said Lieutenant Colonel Chris Brautigam.
The Brockton soldier missing for five days from Fort Hood in Texas was the victim of sexual abuse and had been reassigned to a new unit within his brigade for his safety, an Army spokesman said Saturday evening.
Sergeant Elder N. Fernandes, 23, had been transferred to "ensure he received the proper care and ensure there were no opportunities for reprisals," Lieutenant Colonel Chris Brautigam, a First Cavalry Division spokesman, said in an e-mail.
An investigation is underway into the alleged assault, he said. "We can confirm that there is an open investigation of abusive sexual contact involving Sgt. Fernandes," said Brautigam.
#1
was the victim of sexual abuse and had been reassigned to a new unit
No mention of a 'prior' Article 15-6 investigation into the alleged abuse. Evidently you have to come up missing or deceased. What about charging and reassigning the perpetrator(s) or jilted, burly boy friend. This LGBTQIA....Army is A-Ok !
[Deutsche Welle] Some 2,000 people attended a concert in the city of Leipzig organized by scientists seeking to study the risk of virus transmission during large events. There are high hopes as large entertainment venues remain shut.
Scientists from the German University of Halle observed conditions on Saturday at an experimental concert in the eastern city of Leipzig, where they hope to learn more about the risk of infection at large events.
The study comes as events and large gatherings remain banned in Germany until at least November. Most concert organizers and entertainment industry staff have seen their work dry up in recent months.
Popular German singer Tim Bendzko volunteered to play three separate concerts over the course of the day, which would test different configurations of the event.
CHASING AEROSOLS AND CONTACT TRACING
The experiment involved 2,000 concertgoers, who were mostly young, healthy and not belonging to any high-risk group.
Attendees had to provide a negative COVID-19 test result prior to the concert and their temperature was taken upon arrival at the venue. They wore FFP2 face masks during the event and were fitted with contact-tracing devices, which would complement sensors on the ceiling of the venue that collected data on their movements.
"We want to study how much contact the participants have with one another during the concert - which is actually still not clear," research lead Stefan Moritz said.
Fluorescent disinfectant was also distributed. "After the event, we can see with ultraviolet lamps which surfaces glow in particular, meaning they were touched particularly often," Moritz added.
Halle scientists also tracked the movement of aerosols; the smallest particles in the air that can carry the virus.
THREE CONCERT SCENARIOS
Scientists ran three scenarios at each concert. The first scenario was meant to resemble concerts before the pandemic, without any coronavirus measures.
The second scenario involved viewers following health and safety guidelines, while the third scenario involved a reduced number of attendees who were kept 1.5 meters apart from each other.
Data collected on Saturday will be fed into a mathematical model, which should help scientists evaluate the risks of the virus spreading in a large concert venue. The results are expected this fall.
The aim of the experiments is to find out whether concerts and other large events could be allowed to resume while avoiding high infection risks.
"It's all about taking an evidence-based approach," said Michael Gekle, dean of the medical faculty at Halle University.
[IsraelTimes] In new book ‘The Better Half’ Dr. Sharon Moalem says genes, not behavior, responsible for women’s increased longevity and immune response, but also heighten effects of ‘Long Covid’.
Long Covid as he describes it sounds exactly like Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS), which strikes significantly more women than men, and which most often seems to be triggered when the immune system for some reason does not reset back to normal after revving up in response to an infection. And goodness knows that neurasthenic, derived from an old term for CFS, became a common descriptor in the 1920s after the Spanish flu pandemic, suggesting that it suddenly became a fairly common thing rather than the rarity it is historically. So something to look for a rash of after this is over, along with all those with the usual cardiac problems that can develop after someone has a bad flu. And hopefully the frantic research into Covid-19 disease processes and treatments will discover things that have considerably broader benefits than just this disease.
Both sexes stand to benefit from more research. We can only study one sex to help another if we accept there are underlying differences that we can’t change that have a biological origin.
The morbidity that women face because of autoimmune diseases is pretty severe. With lupus it’s a 9:1 ratio, with muscular dystrophy it’s 4:1. All of these conditions make life unbearable at times. We need to understand how it is that men don’t develop those conditions. "and make sure they do. Equal suffering!"
Behavior aside, if we accept there are basic biological differences, if we see that the male immune system is pacifist by nature, that it doesn’t turn on itself, then we can think about how to apply that pacifism to the female physiology.
[California Globe] California is rich in natural resources which once powered the state: natural gas deposits in the Monterey Shale formation; geothermal energy, abundant rivers and waterways such as the San Joaquin River Delta and hydroelectric dams; the Pacific coastline; 85 million acres of wildlands with 17 million of those used as commercial timberland; mines and mineral resources, vast farming and agricultural lands, and hunting and fishing.
But California politicians and appointed agency officials, under pressure from radical environmental organizations and lobbyists, decided to ignore the energy producing natural resources, and instead move to an all-electric grid, and the only approved “renewable energy:” solar and wind energy.
A meteorologist friend, Anthony Watts, said Tuesday, “we are on the cusp of a massive failure of the electricity grid in California.” Anthony Watts is a senior fellow for environment and climate at The Heartland Institute, and has been in the weather business both in front of, and behind the camera as an on-air television meteorologist since 1978, and currently does daily radio forecasts. Watts is also proprietor of the award-winning website, Watts Up With That?
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
08/23/2020
09:40 ||
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#12
Ever notice how places that go all in on green power end up with shortages and unreliable, expensive electricity? South Australia (which is in Australia) is a most excellent example.
[ZeroHedge] ....Like other EU members, Ireland's strict response to the virus suppressed cases quickly after an initial outbreak, but as life begins the steady return to normal, cases have bounced back slightly, reviving the public's fervent support for the rules, and their fury with anybody - particularly those in positions of power - who flouts what is widely seen as a patriotic duty, although it probably wasn't masks alone that helped Ireland overcome the first wave.
In keeping with that spirit, a major political scandal in Ireland erupted this week when the country's top government officials was outed for attending a formal dinner where social distancing rules - including mask wearing and restrictions on crowd sizes - weren't enforced.
But the issue continues to escalate. Ireland's national police force confirmed Friday night that it was "investigating an event" held in the city of Galway on Wednesday evening that may have breached coronavirus-related health laws - an obvious reference to the parliamentary Oireachtas Golf Society dinner which was held at a hotel in Galway.
Minister for Agriculture Dara Calleary - who was in his job barely a month - has resigned, as has the vice chair of Ireland's upper house, Jerry Buttimer.
The day before the dinner, the government ratcheted up the restrictions on indoor gatherings to just six people, while Weddings and some cultural events, including plays and concerts, could be attended by up to 50 people. The rules created some confusion, but there was little doubt that the Oireachtas Golf Society dinner was in poor taste.
My father died from cancer during lock down. Visiting him in hospital with any regularity was VERY difficult. We were allowed no more than TEN people at his funeral. The attendees of #golfgate dinner make a mockery of the sacrifices made during the pandemic.
— Will Murphy (@Yuphrum) August 22, 2020
Per local media reports, the event space originally included a partition to separate the group and keep numbers in each section to below 50, but they were apparently removed for the speeches at the event, resulting in the rules being broken. 81 people reportedly attended the dinner.
Dara Calleary has resigned as agriculture minister after only a month in the job.....
#1
It's good to know they have something important to worry about.
The protocol should be, have a oversize gathering? Test everybody.
If you have positives, isolate them.
Other than that, get a life.
Posted by: ed in texas ||
08/23/2020 13:07
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[ZERO] Actress Rose McGowan has gone on a massive, multi-day Twitter rant against Hillary Clinton, Harvey Weinstein, Bill Clinton, Kamala Harris, the Democratic Party, and former "Charmed" co-star Alyssa Milano.
McGowan - who alleges Harvey Weinstein raped her (he did settle with her for $100,000 in October, 2017 before sending an Israeli intelligence agency, Black Cube, to spy on her) - wrote in a Friday tweet:
"I was raped by a TOP Democratic donor. Hillary Clinton shut down NBC's exposé of HW with one call from her spokesperson," adding "I strongly believe Joe Biden is a rapist. DNC had Bill Clinton, serial abuser of young women (Epstein & others). You want to be pro-Dem? I know more than you will ever know about their evil..."
Days earlier, the disaffected actress then slammed the Democratic party, tweeting: "What have the Democrats done to solve ANYTHING? Help the poor? No. Help black & brown people? No. Stop police brutality? No. Help single mothers? No. Help children? No. You have achieved nothing. NOTHING," adding "Why did people vote Trujmp?
...in full Abraham Naveed Quraishi. Interestingly, Qureyshi and variants is overwhelmingly a Pakistani family name meaning someone who is a member of the Prophet Mohammed’s tribe — and I suspect that in Pakistan it’s false advertising...
was arrested for inciting a riot and resisting arrest in June after he threw ammunition at the police. Police allegedly discovered he was carrying a loaded gun without a permit.
He drove a car to the protest and parked it outside police headquarters. Police later discovered a Molotov cocktail inside the car.
... Quraishi had a roommate, Seanfrancis Ziegenbein,
...known to his mother, when he has misbehaved, as Seanfrancis Kavanaugh Ziegenbein...
23, was also charged with making or discharging a destructive device after allegedly setting off a Molotov cocktail in a St. Pete parking lot. Seanfrancis Ziegenbein. For real?
[YNet] - White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany announced on Sunday that U.S. President Donald Trump will hold a press conference revealing a significant breakthrough in the treatment of COVID-19.
She noted that the press conference will also be attended by U.S. Health Secretary Alex Azar and Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner Stephen Hahn.
The press conference will be held at 1am Israel time [1800 DC]. A bit early for October Surprise?
#2
Hmmm, just a few days after not one but two vaccines were developed in Russia. In any case, I hope Fauxi & Scarf Lady are no where near this press conference.
And who knows? It may be a nothing burger. Stock futures on alert.
[JustTheNews] Days after a major China espionage case, a former Army Special Forces officer was charged Friday with conspiring with Russian intelligence officials to leak U.S. military secrets over a 15-year period that began under President Bill Clinton ...former Democratic president of the U.S. Bill was the second U.S. president to be impeached, the first to deny that oral sex was sex, the first to have difficulty with the definition of the word is... and ended under President Barack Obama How much damage could he do in four years?... Eight, then... Peter Rafael Dzibinski Debbins, a retired Green Beret, "allegedly conspired with agents of a Russian intelligence service" from December 1996 to January 2011, the Justice Department announced in a late Friday news release.
"During that time, Debbins periodically visited Russia and met with Russian intelligence agents," the DOJ said. Debbins reportedly received a codename from the Russian government and even "signed a statement attesting that he wanted to serve Russia," the department said.
The announcement comes just a few days after DOJ announced the arrest of former CIA officer Alexander Yuk Ching Ma in Hawaii on charges of spying for China.
"Two espionage arrests in the past week — Ma in Hawaii and now Debbins in Virginia — demonstrate that we must remain vigilant against espionage from our two most malicious adversaries — Russia and China," Assistant Attorney General for National Security John Demers said Friday.
"Debbins violated his oath as a U.S. Army officer, betrayed the Special Forces and endangered our country’s national security by revealing classified information to Russian intelligence officers, providing details of his unit, and identifying Special Forces team members for Russian intelligence to try to recruit as a spy," Demers continued. "Our country put its highest trust in this defendant, and he took that trust and weaponized it against the United States."
FBI Assistant Director of the Counterintelligence Division Alan Kohler, meanwhile, called Debbins's alleged crimes "a shocking betrayal by a former Army officer of his fellow soldiers and his country."
Debbins could face life in prison if convicted of conspiring to provide United States national defense information to agents of a foreign government.
Debbins was accused of providing Russian intelligence agents information that he obtained as a member of the U.S. Army, including information about his chemical and Special Forces units. In 2008, after leaving active duty service, Debbins disclosed to the Russian intelligence agents classified information about his previous activities while deployed with the Special Forces.
Debbins also provided the Russian intelligence agents with names and details about his former Special Forces team members so that Moscow could evaluate whether to approach the team members to see if they would cooperate with the Russian intelligence service.
#3
Perhaps they meant... special services. Fellas who hand our basketballs at the post gym. Something not quite wright about the 'periodic Russian travel' and security clearances. I'm going with special services.
#5
Debbins’ mother was born in the Soviet Union, and Debbins met his wife in the Russian city of Chelyabinsk, where they were married in 1997, according to the indictment.
#6
Bes, the First Special Services Force would like to talk to you. Apparently they received multiple requests to put on concerts while they were holding part of the line above Anzio.
Posted by: Rob Crawford ||
08/23/2020 15:16
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#7
This guy was working for the Russians before he graduated college. Why did his TS not catch that? He joined to be a spy for mother russia. He will have a long time to count every brick in Leavenworth...
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
08/23/2020 20:11
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#8
Yet another example of a PR not catching a spy. If he reported everything and all was favorably adjudicated, then, well, there we are.
#10
He was promoted to Captain in 2001, same year he transferred from a Chemical WF company to Special Forces. In 2004 or 2005, he was busted for some kind of security violation, relieved of command and eventually kicked out but with an honorable discharge. In 2010, his security clearance was restored, and he was listed as in the reserves then.
[Babylon Bee] U.S.—With Epstein’s infamous assistant Ghislaine Maxwell awaiting trial and testimony in prison, many celebrities, politicians, and entertainment industry elites are rushing to make pedophilia generally acceptable before they’re outed as patrons of Epstein’s notorious island.
"I’m not going to lie, this is going to be an uphill climb," said actor and director Rudy Allan, "but it’s absolutely necessary in order to prevent the entire world from seeing us as depraved perverts. Well, actually, I guess we don’t mind that so much as we just want depravity and perversion to be considered completely valid sexual orientations. I mean, we’re pretty much there already, just have to check off one last box."
According to Allan, the movement is gaining unprecedented cooperation from across industries and international political positions. From an unnamed prince in a small country off the coast of France, to fashion industry moguls, to famous musicians and actors, the push to make pedophilia mainstream is gaining traction.
"The gay rights movement took 30-40 years, but the transgender movement really only took about 5-10 years," said a hopeful former US President from Arkansas who preferred to remain anonymous. "At that rate, we should be able to make this thing happen by the end of the year!"
"Honestly, the timing couldn’t be better," says Oscar-winning actor Kelvin Smacey. "If this whole Epstein Island thing had come out before we had fully integrated things like transgender children and Drag Queen Story Hour into mainstream values, we’d be totally doomed. Nowadays, we’ve got so many letters crammed into the whole ’LGBTQETC+’ thing, nobody even notices if we slide a ’P’ in there somewhere!"
In addition to those subtle changes, the ramp-up includes bolder strategies, such as a California proposal that will make it okay for 22-year-olds to have relations with 13-year-olds, a new streaming series about an 11-year-old girl defying her family’s outdated traditions by dancing sensually, or simply tweeting pro-pedo slogans like "love has no age" from popular drag queen associations.
While the momentum has recently increased, Allan says they’ve been laying down the groundwork for decades.
"I mean, we’ve got award-winning movies and shows featuring minors in sexual situations," Allan says. "We’ve got drag shows for toddlers, school curriculum developed to get children thinking about exploring their sexuality really early on, and clothing lines designed to show off their bodies. We’ve implemented various strategies to reduce parental influence and protection over their children by weakening the family structure and encouraging promiscuity. And that’s not even mentioning abortion. Like, once you’re okay with casually slaughtering babies by the millions, how is anyone going to take issue with objectifying kids?"
According to Allan, next steps include Kidnapper Story Hour at the library, human sacrifices at public schools, a competitive reality TV series called Six-Year-Old Strippers, and outlawing millstones within 40 miles of any large body of water.
#3
Bee is getting.... ambiguous. Twice in two days I've been caught reading a "real" article only to find it's the Bee. Isn't satire supposed to be obvious?
#6
There are some Bee articles that are so obvious I can pick them out from the headline. There are some that I need to read almost the whole article to get it.
I do check the source whenever the article seems a little off.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
08/23/2020 15:31
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[HotAir] Tennessee Governor Bill Lee quietly signed into law increased penalties for protesters. Lee, a former businessman, was elected in 2018. The bill signed into law is a no-nonsense response to two months of frequent protests outside the Capitol. The increased penalties include losing the right to vote for breaking certain laws while protesting.
Instead of looking the other way or encouraging and supporting protests that often turn violent or destroy property, like blue state governors and lawmakers are doing, this red state’s General Assembly held a special three-day legislative session last week to pass bills on COVID-19 liability immunity and telemedicine and included this bill to address protests. The Tennessee General Assembly is a majority Republican body. Governor Lee said there are some portions of the bill that he “would have done differently” but agreed to make the proposal law effective immediately with his signature.
The bill specifically addresses illegally camping on state property (like at the Capitol) and aggravated rioting.
Most notably, the new law now states that those who illegally camp on state property would now face a Class E felony, punishable by up to six years in prison, rather than a misdemeanor. Felony convictions in Tennessee result in the revocation of an individual’s right to vote.
The bill also imposes a mandatory minimum 45-day hold if convicted of aggravated rioting; enhances the fine for obstructing emergency vehicles from accessing highways; requires a court to order restitution for damaging state property; and creates a Class C felony offense for aggravated assault against a first responder — which carries a $15,000 fine and mandatory minimum 90-day prison sentence.
The governor said a provision requiring a warning to those camping illegally strengthened the bill, and cited the discretion of prosecutors and judges.
[ZERO] Colleges that are reopening campuses this fall understand outbreaks of COVID-19 are certainly possible on school grounds and in the surrounding communities. To safeguard students against the virus, Albion College, located in Albion, Michigan, is requesting all students to download a smartphone app that tracks their location to create a "COVID-bubble."
#3
Albion College, located in Albion, Michigan, is requesting all students to download a smartphone app that tracks their location to create a "COVID-bubble."
[OneIndia] The security forces have wrecked havoc on terror groups in the Valley. This year alone 26 top commanders have been bumped off by the security forces in the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir ...a disputed territory lying between India and Pakistain. After partition, the Paks grabbed half of it and call it Azad (Free) Kashmir. The remainder they refer to as "Indian Occupied Kashmir". They have fought four wars with India over it, the score currently 4-0 in New Delhi's favor. After 72 years of this nonsense, India cut the Gordian knot in 2019, removing the area's special status, breaking off Ladakh as a separate state, and allowing people from other areas to settle (or in the case of the Pandits, to resettle) there.... J&K's Director General of Police, Dilbagh Singh said that two murderous Moslems of the Lashkar-e-Tayiba were rubbed out in the past three days along with four other terrorists. He also said that infiltration of murderous Moslems from across the border had decreased by half this year.
This is thanks to the alertness of the forces and the excellent border management. Due to this for the first time the level of infiltration has come down by 50 per cent when compared to the past, Singh also said.
He said that the local recruitment has gone down a lot and also added that the children in the Valley are listening to their advise to stay away from the gun. We have successfully broken the leadership structure of the murderous Moslems in Kashmir. 26 top commanders have been killed in encounters across the Valley so far, Singh also said. On the killing of Lashkar-e-Tayiba terrorist Naseeruddin, Singh said that he was involved in the killing of six CRPF personnel in two separate terror strikes. He was also involved in the murder of a local police man. We had reports that he was planning to carry out a big strike in North Kashmir, Singh also said.
In the past four days, three encounters have taken place across Kashmir in which four murderous Moslems of A and A+ category have been killed. These were top commanders and were part of the list of top 10 murderous Moslems operating in Kashmir. Their killing is a big relief for the people. Commenting on the killing of Sajjad Ahmed Mir, a Lashkar commander, he said that he was luring the youth to take up arms. We have picked up several such youth and ensured that at least 16 of them were brought back to the mainstream. We will continue to bring more such youth back into the mainstream, Singh also said.
[OneIndia] The Bombay High Court has quashed the FIRs against 29 foreign nationals who attended the Tablighi Jamaat A peaceful group of itinerant Deobandi preachers who form one of al-Qaeda's recruiting arms... event in Delhi's Nizamuddin Markaz in March.
While quashing the FIRs, the court said that there was no evidence to show that they violated visa conditions and propagated Islam or were responsible for the spread of COVID-19 in the country.
The judges deny the much-touted, in jihadi circles, soft jihad of the plague? How ... interesting.
"A political government tries to find a scapegoat when there is pandemic or calamity and the circumstances show that there is probability that these foreigners were chosen to make them scapegoats," the Aurangabad Bench of the Bombay High Court said.
A Division Bench comprising Justices M G Sewlikar and T V Nalawade was hearing a petition against the foreign and Indian nationals booked under The Epidemics Act, Disaster Management Act and The Foreigners Act for attending the Markaz event. FIRs against seven Indian nationals were also quashed by the court.
The petitioners from various countries said that they had come on a valid visa issued by the Indian Government. We had come to experience Indian culture, tradition, food and hospitality. We were screened at the airport in accordance with the procedure and even informed the local authorities about our stay. We had said that we are here only to observe religious practices of Islam, the petitioners also told the court. The police however said that they had violated the visa norms.
"It appears that the state government acted under political compulsion and police also did not dare to exercise powers given to them under provisions of procedural law like the Criminal Procedure Code and substantive laws," the court said.
There was non-application of mind and the government cannot give different treatment to citizens of the different religions of different countries. On why these persons were given shelter in Mosques, the court said, " giving shelter to such persons could not have been treated as offence, commission of the act of disobedience of orders."
"The material discussed shows that no such nuisance was created by the foreigners or Indian Moslems and only an attempt was made by others to create such atmosphere against them," the Bench also said.
"A political government tries to find the scapegoat when there is pandemic or calamity and the circumstances show that there is probability that these foreigners were chosen to make them scapegoats. The aforesaid circumstances and the latest figures of infection in India show that such action against present petitioners should not have been taken. It is now high time for the concerned to repent about this action taken against the foreigners and to take some positive steps to repair the damage done by such action," the court also noted.
The court also refused to grant a stay order for an appeal as the procedures to grant permission for the foreign nationals for their return and arrangement for flights would anyway take time.
In a situation like the current pandemic, instead of being more tolerant and sensitive towards guests, they were lodged in jails by making allegations that they were responsible for violation of travel documents and for spreading the virus when no such evidence was found, the court also said.
[OneIndia] Five intruders who were trying to cross over into Indian territory from Pakistain were shot down by the Border Security Force (BSF) at Tarn Taran district in Punjab.
The personnel from the BSF's 103rd battalion have also recovered an AK-47 series rifle and a pistol from the site from where the intruders were killed. The incident occurred near the Dal village Bhikhiwind sub-division.
Suspicious movement was observed across the fence on the other side of the border near the Dall Border outpost at around 5 am today. While they were challenged, they continued their movement, which prompted the BSF personnel to open fire.
Following the incident a search operation was carried out. Five dead bodies were found. An AK-47 and a rucksack was also recovered. With regard to the motive of these persons there is no clarity as yet. An official told OneIndia that the search is still in progress and both their motive as their nationality is being ascertained.
[WIRED] Some 750 million genetically modified mosquitoes will be released in the Florida Keys between 2021 and 2022 in an attempt to stop the spread of diseases like zika.
CNN reported that the genetically modified bugs, called OX5034, have been "altered to produce female offspring that die in the larval stage, well before hatching and growing large enough to bite and spread disease." Since it’s the female of the species that bite, they are the ones that carry diseases. Males, the outlet reported, eat nectar.
The bugs were modified by Oxitec, a U.S.-owned company based in Great Britain, and will also be released in Harris County, Texas, starting next year. As CNN reported, the Environmental Protection Agency "granted Oxitec’s request after years of investigating the impact of the genetically altered mosquito on human and environmental health."
"Winning the growing war against disease-spreading mosquitoes will require a new generation of safe, targeted, and sustainable tools for governments and communities alike. And as we’re learning with the devastating COVID-19 crisis, it is critical to aggressively address global public health challenges head-on with a broad coalition of stakeholders. Our aim is to empower governments and communities of all sizes to effectively and sustainably control these disease-spreading mosquitoes without harmful impact on the environment and without complex, costly operations. The potential for our technology to do so is unmatched, and this EPA approval will allow us to take the first steps towards making it available in the US," Oxitec CEO Grey Frandsen explained when the bugs were approved by the EPA.
"This is an exciting development because it represents the ground-breaking work of hundreds of passionate people over more than a decade in multiple countries, all of whom want to protect communities from dengue, Zika, yellow fever, and other vector-borne diseases," he added.
Despite years of testing and approval from the federal and local governments, environmental activists still claim the genetically modified mosquitoes are a bad idea.
LAFAYETTE, La. (AP) — The mother of a man fatally shot by Louisiana police said her son was intelligent, shy and had sought therapy for social anxiety. Her lawyers said they plan to sue over the death of Trayford Pellerin, who police said had a knife and was trying to enter a convenience store.
The shooting Friday night was captured on video, and the state ACLU condemned what it described as a "horrific and deadly incident of police violence against a Black person." Both the ACLU and the Southern Poverty Law Center quickly called for an investigation.
Pellerin’s death prompted a crowd of protesters to gather Saturday and demonstrate against the latest fatal police shooting. Officers in riot gear fired smoke canisters on Saturday night to get the crowd to disperse, Trooper Derek Senegal said. No tear gas was deployed, he said.
At a news conference late Saturday, local officials said the protest began peacefully, but violence later erupted with fireworks shot at buildings and fires set in the median of the road.
"Our intent is not going to be to just let people disrupt our town and put our citizens and our motorists and our neighborhoods in danger," Interim Police Chief Scott Morgan said.
Arrests were made, Morgan said, but an exact number wasn’t immediately available.
"We do support people’s First Amendment rights," Lafayette Parish Sheriff Mark Garber said. "However, when it comes to the destruction of property, we are not going to have Lafayette set on fire."
On Friday night, Lafayette officers followed Pellerin, 31, on foot as he left a convenience store where he had created a disturbance with a knife, Louisiana State Police said. Stun guns failed to stop him, and the officers shot Pellerin as he tried to enter another convenience store, still with the knife, according to a news release.
Pellerin became anxious in groups and may have been frightened by the officers, Michelle Pellerin told The Advocate. He had sought professional help earlier this year, she said.
"Instead of giving him a helping hand they gave him bullets," national civil rights attorney Ben Crump told the newspaper. He and Baton Rouge attorney Ronald Haley said they have begun their own investigation by interviewing witnesses. Some said Pellerin was not armed, Haley said.
The family believes Pellerin may have been having a mental health crisis, Crump said.
#2
her son was intelligent, shy and had sought therapy for social anxiety. ... had a knife and was trying to enter a convenience store. ...family believes Pellerin may have been having a mental health crisis
#4
Going into another convenience store with a knife in hand. WHAT did they expect.
Grew up on a farm. Soon a lot of African Americans moved in all around the farm. Saturday nights was party time for them, every Saturday night. Every Saturday night there was gun fire. Finally pop sold the farm and moved us into town after an African American cut the heart out of another African American next door to our home on a Saturday Night with a steak knife.
In general the African American cultural center piece has been violence whether you want to hear that or not. They always vote Democrat and when Democrats win all hell breaks loose. The majority pride themselves in their gangsta culture. I see no change in the future, only that that culture will be acceptable to you or else.
Drugs, mental health issues, and criminal behavior. When the body-cam footage comes out, we'll see the cops were doing their job but the burned out buildings and looted stores will remain. We've seen this movie before.
#10
They can continue their protest as Hurricane Marcos comes ashore tonight.
Posted by: ed in texas ||
08/23/2020 13:18
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#11
It would be interesting to see some of the antifas come down to Lafayette, where the Cajun population has been diligently working on their hunting skills for the last 250 years or so. Also, any survivors may get to visit the Louisiana State pen at Angola, which would surely give them a fresh perspective on BLM. But antifa only plays home games.
Posted by: Matt ||
08/23/2020 14:42
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#12
Gators are hungry you know. And the gator hunters need some bait. Chicken goes in the pot. Antifa goes on the hook:p
#13
That cultural characteristic,
The crazy check, bounces ballistic.
One lunatic? Tragic!
A million? Add magical
Thinking and press ["Doh!"]: Statistic.
[Townhall] Don't kid yourself. Don't be fooled by the bravado. Democrats behind the scenes are scared and getting more desperate by the day because there are so many signs of a coming Donald Trump victory.
The signs are everywhere.
Polls show an overwhelming majority of Americans don't want to defund police. They want law and order. They support police. Even 80 percent of black voters overwhelmingly disagree with defunding police.
Does anyone with a brain or common sense think this is a good sign for Joe Biden or Democrats? Do you think all these Americans who support the police, want more law and order, and want more police funding are leaning to "law and order Trump" or "defund the police Joe Biden"?
Polls show 83 percent of Americans support President Trump and Housing and Urban Development Secretary Dr. Ben Carson's ending of former President Obama's program designed to fill the suburbs with high-density low-income housing, bringing crime and drugs to the neighborhoods of suburban moms and dads.
Does anyone with a brain or common sense think this is a good sign for Biden or Democrats? Do you think these millions of suburban American homeowners who don't want to see their home value destroyed or their neighborhood turned into war zones like Chicago, Detroit or Baltimore are going to vote enthusiastically for Joe Biden?
Remember, Biden's presidential platform actually puts in writing his goal to supercharge Obama's "destroy the suburbs" program. Biden wants to bring Frankenstein back to life, except twice as big. Goodbye to your safe, peaceful suburban life. Trump wants to protect your neighborhood. I wonder who suburban moms and dads will vote for.
#2
My 93 y/o mother-in-law(MIL) was talking with her younger sister about her assisted-living lockdown/imprisonment. After six months of no personal contact MIL said, "Why am I still here? Why has God kept me alive?" To which her 86 y/o sister replied, "Why? Well to vote for Trump of course."
#5
My 104 MIL has been locked down for 5 months. Her children can not visit and her state of mind is slowly deteriorating. Her intellect is still sharp even though she is a democrat. The family needs to help her vote this year!
[Washington Examiner] The Trump administration’s tax break for underprivileged neighborhoods has attracted an estimated $75 billion dollars in private investment, potentially lifting 1 million people out of poverty, according to a White House study.
Opportunity zones were created in the tax overhaul of 2017, offering capital gains advantages to investors as a way to encourage new businesses, housing, and jobs.
President Trump has hailed their success. But critics say the biggest beneficiaries are billionaire financiers and warn that a small number of the most attractive zones are attracting the bulk of the money.
A study by the White House Council of Economic Advisers, obtained by the Washington Examiner and due to be published on Monday, estimates that $75 billion has been raised by funds set up to invest in the zones — money that would likely have been directed elsewhere without the breaks.
"The CEA estimates that opportunity zone designation alone has caused a 1.1 percent increase in housing values," it says. "Greater amenities and economic opportunity behind the housing value increase will be broadly enjoyed, and for the nearly half of OZ residents who own their homes, the increase provides an estimated $11 billion in new wealth."
#1
This is because California has no money to pay fire fighters. Kamala used inmates as a form of slavery by keeping them in jail longer than their sentences as forced labor for the government of California. But now that the government released them they have no alternate public safety solution in place.
[OneIndia] Dawood Ibrahim lives in Bloody Karachi ...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It is among the largest cities in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous... . The admission comes from the Pakistain government for the first time after years of denial that he is not on their soil.
The admission by Pakistain came in a list of 88 banned terror groups that were disclosed as part of its efforts to get out of the tough financial sanctions for helping bandidosholy warriors and their organizations.
Continued on Page 49
[OneIndia] The ISIS operative arrested in Delhi was in touch with his handlers for a long time. He was in direct touch with the handlers of the ISIS in Afghanistan through social media platforms.
The operative identified as Abdul Yusuf Khan alias Abu Yusuf was nabbed following an encounter with the Delhi Police. He is a resident of Balrampur in Uttar Pradesh.
Deputy Commissioner Pramod Singh Kushwaha said that the operatives was arrested with Improvised Explosive Devices by the Special Cell of the Delhi Police. He said that the arrest took place following an exchange of fire at Dhaula Kuan.
His handlers were Yusuf Alhindi and Abu Huzafa. Alhindi, it may be recalled was killed in Syria. Abu Yusuf was the owner of a cosmetic shop in Uttar Pradesh. He was radicalised online following which he got in touch with his handlers.
He was asked to carry out an attack, following which he was to go to Syria. He had already readied passports for his wife and four children. Following the attack, he and his family were to fly into Syria, the police have learnt.
He was instructed by his emir to strike on August 15. He was however unable to do so owing to heavy security. He had decided to put his plan on hold and strike at another time. However concrete intelligence led to nabbing, following which a major strike was averted.
The police had received information about his movement in the ridge area between Dhaula Kuan and Karol Bagh. Following this a trap was laid to nab him.
The operative was on a bike when he was intercepted. It was found that he had the IED in a pressure cooker. Following the incident search operations were carried out in several locations of Delhi. The National Security Guard (NSG) Commandos and the Bomb Disposal Squad who will analyse the IED have been deployed in the Buddha Jayanti Park in the Ridge Road area. Sniffer dogs also continue to keep a tight vigil in the area.
Following the incident, a high alert has been sounded in UP and the police have been instructed to remain alert.
The Delhi Police said that the arrested operative is in his early 30s and appears to be highly radicalised by the ISIS ideology. From his possession we have recovered a 30 bore pistol, 4 live cartridges. During the initial round of questioning, he has been providing us with multiple identities and addresses. He will be booked under the provisions of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, Explosives Act and relevant provisions of the Indian Penal Code, the Delhi Police also said.
[BenarNews] A 28-year-old woman believed to be married to the leader of the Eastern Indonesia Mujahidin (MIT), 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.... bad boy group, has been arrested on terrorism-related charges in Central Sulawesi province, police said.
Ummu Syifa, the wife of MIT chief Ali Kalora, was taken into custody in late July along with another suspect during a raid by elite counterterrorist police force Densus 88, which caught her allegedly trying to deliver money and food to MIT fighters in the mountainous Poso regency, officials said.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: trailing wife ||
08/23/2020
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#1
Good to have clarification. I had been wondering at the headline just what the Massachusetts Institute of Technology was doing with militants in Indonesia.
Posted by: Tom ||
08/23/2020 14:18
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[Jpost] Hamas, a contraction of the Arabic words for "frothing at the mouth", leader Ismail Haniyeh ...became Prime Minister of Gaza after the legislative elections of 2006 which Hamas won. President Mahmoud Abbas dismissed Haniyeh from office on 14 June 2007 at the height of the Fatah-Hamas festivities, but Haniyeh did not acknowledge the decree and continues as the PM of Gazoo while Abbas maintains a separate PM in the West Bank... on Saturday met Ottoman Turkish President His Enormity, Sultan Recep Tayyip Erdogan the First ...Turkey's version of Mohammed Morsi but they voted him back in so they deserve him. It's a sin, a shame, and a felony to insult the president of Turkey. In Anatolia did Recep Bey a stately Presidential Palace decree, that has 1100 rooms. That's 968 more than in the White House, 400 more than in Versailles, and 325 more than Buckingham Palace, so you know who's really more important... in Istanbul, according to Ynet.
Haniyeh's deputy, Saleh al-Arouri,
...about whom the Times of Israel adds: Hamas No. 2 Saleh al-Arouri, a top military commander in the Palestinian terror group has a $5 million US bounty on his head...
and head of The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...Qatar's satrapy in Asia Minor... 's national intelligence organization Hakan Fidan, also attending the meeting, according to the report. The report did not mention the topics discussed during the meeting.
Betcha the imminent reconquest of Israel was somewhere on the agenda.
[Jpost] Incendiary balloons were launched throughout Saturday, sparking 35 fires in Israeli towns surrounding the Gazoo ...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with an iron fist by Hamaswith about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response... Strip, according to Israeli media.
Experts from the Fire and Rescue Services determined after examining the sites that all 35 fires were caused by incendiary balloons.
On Friday, which saw a similar number of fires, teams of volunteers and members from various authorities spread out in order to contain the fires and prevent them from spreading to nearby towns.
The teams operating to contain the fires include members from the Fire and Rescue Services, the Jewish National Fund, the Nature and Parks Authority and the IDF.
On Saturday evening, rocket alert sirens sounded in southern Israel, in what has become a daily occurrence.
[Jpost] Rocket alert sirens sounded in southern Israeli city of Sderot on Saturday evening, according to the IDF Spokesperson's Unit. The projectile, which was launched from Gaza towards Israel failed to make it to its target and landed in Gaza.
“Once the rocket goes up
Who cares where it comes down?
That’s not my department,”
Says Wernher von Braun.
[Red State] ...conducting the interview at the CIA facility is an interesting decision. Why not question him at DOJ or FBI HQ? The CIA is not a law enforcement agency. John Brennan no longer works for the CIA. Any CIA records that may have been needed over the course of the interview could have been made available in a secured facility at both those locations.
But that "records" excuse may have been the very justification given for the selection of the CIA HQ as the location for the interview.
DOJ and the FBI HQ are in Washington DC. CIA Headquarters is in Langley, Virginia.
If you are geographically challenged, you can read the distinction as "United States District Court for the District of Columbia" v. "United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia." If John Brennan offered any false answers to the investigators during the interview, the venue for that "false statement" crime is in the EDVA, not in DC federal court.
Guilty Lawyer Sent Anti-Trump Texts To A 'Lover' Too
Kevin Clinesmith was referred to as 'Attorney 2' in a 2018 Inspector General report, which described in detail anti-Trump text messages he sent to an unnamed lover while the campaign was in full swing.
Clinesmith in the 2018 report expressed his disdain for the incoming President Trump with the phrase 'Viva le resistance' and opined that then-Vice President-Elect Mike Pence was 'stupid.'
His lover texted back: 'Screw you Trump,' and added that Hillary Clinton 'better win ... otherwise i'm gonna be walking around with both of my guns.'
She also labeled Trump's supporters in Ohio 'retarded,' and in a fit of pique over being asked to work on Inauguration Day, she added: 'F*** Trump.'
Special Counsel Robert Mueller later fired Clinesmith for his anti-Trump bias, citing the lawyer's comment to another official after the 2016 that 'the crazies won finally.'
#4
Brennan might be smart enough to have never sent email or texts to the operatives.
I wonder whether there are tapes of phone conversations.
Posted by: lord garth ||
08/23/2020 12:25
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#5
/\ Assuming conversations in a SCIF, not so sure about that. But, we do have those "national-technical" means...same gang that has Hillary's e-mails.
#6
Durham bowing to Brennan's obvious (home team advantage) venue in McLean set a very poor visual as well as precedent. He should have made the SOB come downtown.
What little confidence I had in the Durham effort continues to ebb away.
[Al Ahram] Iraq's Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi had just embarked on a state visit to Washington when button menrubbed out the young protest leader Reham Yacoub in her car in Basra on Wednesday.
Yacoub, 29, was an outspoken critic of the Iran-backed militias whose power and influence Kadhimi has been trying to rein in since taking office in May.
The attack was the third on activists in the southern city in a week. Tahseen Oussama, 30, was bumped off on Aug. 14 and four others were shot at while together in a car Monday.
Her killing cast a pall over the prime minister's trip to the United States. The violence reignited anti-government protests in Basra and the U.S. State Department publicly urged Kadhimi to hold the militias accountable, just two days after he sacked the Basra police and national security chiefs and formed a special committee to investigate the attacks.
"The reality is the PM and his team are unable to control these groups," said Renad Mansour, director of the Iraq Initiative at Chatham House.
"Removing a police chief ... is not even scratching the surface of the problem."
Kadhemi's visit was intended to cement U.S. support for his government and while he was there, five U.S. firms, including Chevron Corp, signed agreements with Iraq aimed at boosting its energy independence from Iran.
"The PM is hoping he can go to the U.S. and sign a bunch of deals and say this is how he can fix things, but it doesn't look good that while you're away young activists are being killed by militias and forces under your government," said Mansour.
Most of the militias come under Iraq's Popular Mobilisation Forces, an umbrella grouping of paramilitary forces. Although formally integrated in Iraq's security forces, in practice they operate independently and have resisted all attempts to curb their influence.
Neither do they tolerate any dissent from the population. Yacoub and Oussama were killed two weeks after a national umbrella grouping of activists, to which both belonged, announced it would form a political party to challenge the dominance of militia groups in parliament.
The Basra killings come after Husham al-Hashemi, a well-known security analyst and government advisor, was bumped off outside his Baghdad family home in July by men on a cycle of violence.
Kadhimi talked tough after Hashemi's killing, pledging to hunt down his assailants and keep the gangs in check. But there have been few developments since.
His efforts to employ law and order to restrain the groups earlier in the year also backfired.
When Iraqi forces arrested 14 fighters in June for their alleged involvement in rocket attacks on U.S. installations, their comrades drove vehicles into the heavily fortified Green Zone to pressure Kadhimi for their release. All but one were let go.
In May, an arrest raid in Basra on the Iran-aligned Tharallah group, accused of shooting protesters, also failed to result in any prosecutions. In both cases judges cited a lack of evidence.
"The situation in Iraq has devolved to the point that button men can roam the streets and shoot well-connected members of civil society with impunity," said Belkis Wille, senior Crisis and Conflict researcher at Human Rights Watch.
"One has to question whether the federal government is even capable of reining in the violence at this point."
Posted by: Fred ||
08/23/2020
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[PJMedia] An Egyptian government-appointed village mayor has just ruled that a Christian family must sell its home and leave their village, in what is being described as a strange and unprecedented incident for that village.
This happened during a traditional "reconciliation session." In Egypt, local authorities and involved parties in a dispute often meet outside of courtrooms in an effort to resolve matters and restore peace before getting the law involved.
The case revolves around a Christian youth who accidentally ran over and killed a Moslem girl in the narrow roads of the village of Hawarat al-Maqta. Despite the fact that such accidents are very common in the chaotic and near lawless roads of Egypt; despite the fact that even the girl’s father acknowledged that it was an accident and is not accusing the Christian youth; and despite the fact that these sessions are informal and meant to find the most equitable solution before the courts get involved—Mayor Hanni Snofar of Fayum governorate, who was invited to the session, ordered not just the expulsion of the youth, but his entire family, who must sell their home as soon as possible and essentially go into "exile."
According to the August 15 report:
It was just another reconciliation session but it turned into a courtroom with the animated mayor ordering the selling of the Christian family’s home and their expulsion. By what right does the mayor judge and issue mandatory decrees to expulse a family, force them to sell their home, and create other problems? Do we no longer have judiciaries to rule on such cases?
Needless to say, if the Moslem girl had been accidentally killed by a Moslem youth, no one would be ordered to sell their home and move.
Reconciliation sessions are regularly used against Egypt’s Christians—particularly when they are attacked, by pressuring them to drop charges against their persecutors. This is so common that a 2009 book is entirely devoted to it. According to a review of the book, which is titled (in translation), Traditional Reconciliation Sessions and Copts: Where the Culprit Emerges Triumphant and the Victim is Crushed:
In some 100 pages the book reviews how the security apparatus in Egypt chooses to "reconcile" the culprits and the victims in crimes where churches are burned; Coptic property and homes plundered, and Copts themselves assaulted, beaten and sometimes murdered; and when even monks are not spared. Even though it stands to reason that such cases should be seen in courts of law where the culprits would be handed fair sentences, this is almost never allowed to take place. And even in the few cases which managed to find their way into the courts, the culprits were never handed fair sentences since the police invariably fell short of providing any incriminating evidence against them.
The farcical scenario of reconciliation sessions has thus without fail dominated the scene where attacks against Copts are concerned, even though these sessions proved to be nothing but a severe retreat of civil rights.
Politically speaking, the authorities’ aim—through the reconciliation sessions—to secure a rosy facade of the "time-honoured amicable relationships between Moslems and Copts," implying that they live happily ever after. The heartbreaking outcome, however, is that the only winners in these sessions are the trouble mongers and fanatics who induce the attacks in the first place and who more often than not escape punishment and emerge victorious. The Coptic victims are left to lick their wounds.
[IsraelTimes] The military confirms an IDF drone went down in Lebanese territory today.
"There is no concern of information leaking," the IDF says in a statement.
It doesn’t specify what caused the drone to crash.
The statement comes shortly after Hezbollah claimed to have downed the drone near the Lebanese village of Ayta ash Shab and said it was in possession of it.
Forget about live debates
[Breitbart] The Democrat nominee for president is living up to his "Basement Joe Biden" nickname as his campaign says he may never work for votes in person before the election.
CNN reporter MJ Lee cited a campaign aide, who said that Biden may never appear at a rally this fall.
"It is just entirely not clear that we are ever going to see either Joe Biden or Kamala Harris participate in a traditional campaign rally," she said. this is worse than animatronic Ginsburg
As Lee spoke, the banner below her read, "Campaign aide: Not sure if Biden will hit campaign trail this fall."
CNN reported that the Biden campaign has "new confidence" that he can effectively reach voters by conducting live streams from his basement or back porch.
The news seems to buttress a report that Biden will not be leasing a campaign plane to conveniently shuttle him to appearances.
Citing Axios, Breitbart News reported this week that Biden has not traveled by air for some time "and thus has no need to lease an aircraft with the Democratic nominee's name and logo emblazoned on the side, a candidate tradition for decades, people familiar with the plans tell Axios."
"Biden aides say he hasn't completely ruled out flying between now and November ‐ and that the campaign could change course if individual states change their guidelines," Axios reported.
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/23/2020
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Followup on the Wednesday Die Welt reports
[LI] Huge Hezbollah-bound shipments of ammonium nitrate handled by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and Al Quds Forces, Western intelligence agencies say.
While the mainstream media has largely shied away from reporting Iran-backed terrorist group Hezbollah’s apparent link to this month’s deadly Beirut blast, German newspaper Die Welt has published a detailed account citing Western intelligence agencies linking the Lebanese terrorist outfit to the carnage that killed more than 200 people and left thousands injured.
#3
Ere curried Roast Beef was the Englishman's food,
We danced in the nude, drunk on mead, blue-tattooed,
And Romans and Normans and Hindoos were screwed!
Racist Roast Beef of old England,
And immigrant-bashing Roast Beef!
#2
Throwing his hat in the ring for 2020. "What really fuels change are the sacrifices we make of people like you. We don’t have to accept a system that drowns out your voice. We can obliterate it. Join us."
#4
If you go through and read, this storm was completely unrelated to the cyclones coming up. Just another happy day on the gulf coast. As far as the upper Texas coast, we're screwed down, but not expecting much.But then, we weren't explecting much from Harvey, either.
Posted by: ed in texas ||
08/23/2020 11:28
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#5
Pumping out my ponds to fill the water wagon.
Be good to get a waterspout.
#7
Houston is safe from Marco and probably safe from Laura also.
New Orleans not so much.
Posted by: lord garth ||
08/23/2020 12:42
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#8
^ New Orleans is to hurricanes
as a trailer park is to tornados
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/23/2020 12:58
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#9
^ Ouch, Frank. The issue this time around is not so much the force of the storm(s) as the ability of the pumps to keep up with the volume of water. The recently appointed chief engineer (Korban) seems to have his head on straight, but some cynics believe that the actual pump operators just randomly push buttons. It's sort of a cargo cult drainage system.
Posted by: Matt ||
08/23/2020 14:24
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[ChinaScope] Radio Free Asia (RFA) published an article explaining the reason that the U.S. closed China’s Consulate in Houston.
The article stated that the U.S. has known that the staff members at the consulate were conducting suspicious activities, but, for a while, it did not take any action. The Second Department of China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA), which is the PLA’s intelligence unit, sent staff members from a large network company, with fake IDs, to China’s Consulate in Houston. Those technicians used a large video platform’s backend data to identify people who might participate in the Black Lives Matter (BLM) and ANTIFA’s protests and then created and sent them customized videos on how to organize riots and how to do promotions.
The purpose was to “weaponize” big data technology. It delivered relevant materials precisely to those people who were most likely to participate in the protests, while other people could not even find those videos.
RFA did not spell out the company names. A Twitter account said the technicians were from Huawei and the video platform they used to identify candidates and push videos to was TikTok.
Sources:
1. Radio Free Asia, August 7, 2020
https://www.rfa.org/cantonese/news/ear/ear-straw-08062020081345.html
2. Twitter, @Raymond999USA
#2
Fake Huawei employees / CCP agents, manipulating the BLMers...
So how many & which of the BLM movements' promoters and finders are themselves in the pay of the CCP?
[Jpost] The Saudi-led coalition on Saturday intercepted and destroyed an explosive-laden drone and a ballistic missile fired by Yemen ...an area of the Arabian Peninsula sometimes mistaken for a country. It is populated by more antagonistic tribes and factions than you can keep track of... 's Iran's Houthi sock puppets ...a Zaidi Shia insurgent group operating in Yemen. They have also been referred to as the Believing Youth. Hussein Badreddin al-Houthi is said to be the spiritual leader of the group and most of the military leaders are his relatives. The legitimate Yemeni government has accused the them of having ties to the Iranian government. Honest they did. The group has managed to gain control over all of Saada Governorate and parts of Amran, Al Jawf and Hajjah Governorates. Its slogan is God is Great, Death to America™, Death to Israel, a curse on the Jews They like shooting off... ummm... missiles that they would have us believe they make at home in their basements. On the plus side, they did murder Ali Abdullah Saleh, which was the only way the country was ever going to be rid of him... s towards Soddy Arabia ...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in the Soddy national face... 's southern region, state news agency SPA reported, citing a coalition front man.
Turki al-Maliki was quoted as saying the missile was heading towards the southern Saudi city of Jizan. Yemen has been locked in conflict since 2014 when the Iran-aligned Houthis seized Sanaa, the capital, and then much of the country's north. Fighting escalated in March 2015 when a Saudi-led coalition intervened to restore the government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi
This doesn’t seem an approach likely to succeed against men of violence...
[EN.ALGHADEER.TV] Mediators from West Africa’s regional bloc arrived in Mali on Saturday for talks aimed at reversing a coup that has been condemned abroad but celebrated by many in a country battling an Islamist insurgency and simmering political unrest.After three days of calm in the capital Bamako after Tuesday’s ouster of President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, police used tear gas on Saturday when a scuffle broke out between a group of 50 pro-Keita protesters and local residents who threw stones, an eyewitness told Rooters.
The 15-nation Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) has taken a particularly hard line on the coup. The bloc quickly shut borders and ended financial flows this week — a move diplomat said was as much about warning opponents at home as stabilizing Mali.
"They cannot tolerate this taking place. They are taking it very personally. It is on their doorstep and they think they are next," one regional diplomat said.
The presidents of Ivory Coast and Guinea are among those pushing for a tough response, another diplomat said, as both have faced violent mostly peaceful public protests to their third-term bids and want the bloc to show it will not tolerate power grabs in its own backyard.
All eyes are on the visit by an ECOWAS delegation led by Nigeria’s former President Goodluck Jonathan ... 14th President of Nigeria. He was Governor of Bayelsa State from 9 December 2005 to 28 May 2007, and was sworn in as Vice President on 29 May 2007. Jonathan is a member of the ruling People's Democratic Party (PDP). He is a lover of nifty hats, which makes him easily recognizable unless someone else in the room is wearing a neat chapeau.Other than that he's pretty useless as the Boko Haram debacle shows.. "We’ll continue to engage Malian stakeholders until lasting peace is found," Jonathan said in a tweet shortly after landing at Bamako airport on Saturday afternoon.
A junta of military officers has controlled the country since Tuesday when the mutineers detained Keita at gunpoint and forced him to resign. They have promised to oversee a transition to elections within a "reasonable" amount of time.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/23/2020
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Donald Trump’s march through the institutions continues.
[Al Ahram] More than a dozen journalists with the U.S. government's premier international broadcaster may soon be forced to leave the United States as their visas expire with no action from the agency's new leadership.
Some 16 Voice of America journalists will have to return to their native countries in the coming weeks unless the government agrees to either renew their visas or extend grace periods for them to depart, according to congressional aides. Several of the journalists, from China and Indonesia notably, could face difficulties at home because of their work for VOA, the aides said.
Rep. Eliot Engel, the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, complained Friday that the U.S. Agency for Global Media, which oversees VOA and its sister outlets, had ignored congressional requests for an explanation as to why the usually routine visa renewals had not been processed. Shut up, LOSER. Engel (D-Unemployed Jan 2021)
In addition, he said not even the affected journalists had been given details of their status. There are roughly 80 foreign VOA employees in the United States, but the documents of the 16 are among the first to come up for renewal, according to congressional aides who were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
Engel, D-N.Y., also appealed to the departments of State and Homeland Security to extend grace periods for those journalists whose visas have already expired so they are not forced to leave without having the time to make adequate arrangements.
``It's unconscionable that a U.S. government agency would create such fear and uncertainty for people whom we asked to do a job,`` Engel said in a statement. ``Congress's attempts to seek answers from USAGM on this matter have been met with silence. It's clear that the agency is just trying to run out the clock until these journalists are forced to leave.``
Engel blamed USAGM's new chief, conservative filmmaker Michael Pack, for the situation. Pack, an associate of President Donald Trump ...Perhaps no man has ever had as much fun being president of the US... 's former political strategist Steve Bannon, has come under fire from both Democrats and Republicans for major changes he has made to the agency since he took over in June following a contentious confirmation process in the Senate.
``Michael Pack's failure to seek visa extensions for these journalists means that they must leave the country, some of them going home to nations where governments regularly silence and harass journalists,'' Engel said. ``Mr. Pack still has time to act to resolve this situation, but make no mistake, he is accountable for what comes next. Any harm that comes to these brave individuals will be a direct result of Michael Pack's inaction.''
#4
... to nations where governments regularly silence and harass journalists
They could 'learn to code', right? Isn't what they told all the blue-collar workers?
Another mass brawl breaks out in downtown Portland. Proud Boys and other right-wing groups rush in and fight #antifa, who are pushed back. Bats, sticks and pepper spray are used in the brutal melee. #PortlandRiotspic.twitter.com/2BgrE2YmOT
After additional comrades arrive, #antifa move in for a preemptive strike against the right-wingers. Another pepper spray and shield bashing fight occurs. #PortlandRiotspic.twitter.com/eXclfpdkmk
I’m not entirely sure what happened here but it looked like antifa were trying to throw a firework explosive at the right-wing side but it blew up in their faces instead. #PortlandRiots#antifapic.twitter.com/BLrmTKodMM
Mass antifa vs. right-wing brawl at the Justice Center in downtown Portland. Numerous conservative groups held a pro-police rally but it was crashed by #antifa, who threw eggs, rocks, feces & urine. Both sides pepper sprayed each other for more than an hour. #PortlandRiotspic.twitter.com/M7SQy2N1lD
Leftists Storm Suburbs, Shine Lights Into Homes While Screaming: 'Out Of Your House, Into The Streets!'
[DAILYWIRE] Hundreds of far-left activists stormed a residential neighborhood in Portland, Oregon, on Friday night as they shined lights into people’s home and screamed, "out of your house, into the streets!" Videographer BG On the Scene captured numerous videos of the night’s action and identified those who were marching as Black Lives Matter protesters.
Journalist Andy Ngo identified them as being part of antifa. The far-left activists wore black and carried shields, at least one of which could briefly be seen with a hammer and sickle symbol on it.
"Out of your house, into the streets!" the activists screamed as they marched through the residential neighborhood. They repeated the chant countless times throughout the area.
Lots of videos at the link.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/23/2020
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#8
Interestingly, some people are saying that they feel like Antifa might be both sides in these. That they are setting up a false flag incident to really try and institute a crack down on the 'right wingers'.
#9
Agent provocateurs from the revolutionary Marxist playbook working to draw aggressive reaction from law enforcement and pro American elements for media and propaganda purposes. If you can’t provoke it, fake it, it’s all irevolutionary theater for Marxist subversives who have been breeding in Portland for years thanks to dark money from people like Soros and the ChiComs.
#10
#8 I don't know if that's entirely true, but to judge from the Andy Ngo videos there was a lot of pushing, shoving, and spraying but not too much else. And I haven't seen any reports of Portland hospitals being overwhelmed with concussions and broken bones, although from the videos one Antifette may be visiting her dentist in short order.
Posted by: Matt ||
08/23/2020 13:50
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#11
The Best & The Brightest™ v 2.0
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
08/23/2020 18:06
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#12
Let's see if they do a catch and release on the "right wingers" like they do for the lefties.
#5
^Brazil is not America. The major ethnic groups are white European immigrants in the South and Latin immigrants in the North. The South is wealthier than the north but in places like the favelas of Rio there is a lot of violence and crime and throughout the nation where favelas exist.
[SEATTLETIMES] Seattle Mayor Jenny Summer of Love Durkan ...Democrat Maress of Seattle, who allowed a chunk of the downtown of her city to be turned into an autonomous combat zone... , after vetoing Friday the revised 2020 budget approved last week by the City Council, called for new collaboration with council members, with whom she’s often been at odds."The people of Seattle expect us to work together," Durkan said during a Friday afternoon news conference, adding that she had spoken to Council President M. Lorena González on how to "make changes in a more thoughtful, deliberate way."
The council’s adjustments to the budget would have cut up to 100 coppers, slashed the salaries of police command staff and also scrapped the city’s Navigation Team, which performs outreach to people experiencing homelessness and clears encampments. Durkan strongly opposed those measures. Seattle Police Department Chief Carmen Best retired in objection to them.
Durkan described the council’s cuts to police as imprudent, saying they had "no plan for how the city will bridge gaps in the police response that will be caused if we lose 100 coppers" and "no plans for how the city will address encampments or RVs that pose a public safety risk."
She also objected to cutting the salaries of SPD’s command staff.
The mayoral veto will also stop some $14 million in additional funding the council had intended for community organizations.
"Look, it’s a loan I’m not sure we can repay," Durkan said, adding that she did not think the city could get money out of the door by year’s end and that the city faced a challenging budget shortfall.
The money would have been loaned between city departments and could have been accounted for in future budget cuts to the police department or elsewhere. Durkan said she is concerned about funding and continuing core city services during the next budget cycle.
Best’s resignation from the top post at SPD, for the moment, seems to have forced a detente in the frosty relationship openly acknowledged by both the mayor and many city council members.
Council members will have 30 days to reconsider the vetoed legislation, negotiate and then vote again. The council needs a two-thirds vote to override the mayor’s veto.
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08/23/2020
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[ToloNews] To prevent a demotion from the Financial Action Task Force’s (FATF) grey record to the blacklist, Pakistain has issued an order for full compliance with UN Security Council sanctions against Afghan Taliban ...Arabic for students... and groups associated with the bad boy group.
The UN sanctions list covers Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, head of Taliban’s political office in Qatar
Continued on Page 49
[ALMASDARNEWS] On Friday, the Ottoman Turkish Religious Affairs Administration confirmed that the Chora Monastery in Istanbul will be converted into a mosque for prayer.A representative of the administration told Russia’s Sputnik, "this building, which was stationed in it until 2019, a museum and its affiliated institutions, will be handed over, according to a presidential decree, to the Department of Religious Affairs of our circuit."
It is noteworthy to mention that the Chora Monastery is a Byzantine church in Istanbul, which was converted 74 years ago into a museum, and it is one of the oldest surviving Byzantine monuments that have witnessed several eras. It is located in the western part of Fatih municipality.
The church was converted into a mosque for a period of 434 years before it was converted (the mosque) in 1945 into a museum. In 2019, the Supreme Administrative Court — the State Council, in The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the decaying remnant of the Ottoman Empire... , decided to convert the museum into a mosque.
The presidential decree came in July of this year to support this trend. The museum (mosque) contains many paintings and mosaics, and its building is divided into three main sections: the entrance hall or nave, the main body of the church, and a side chapel, and the building has six domes.
In a related context, the Supreme Administrative Court in Turkey had annulled, on July 10, the decision of the Council of Ministers issued on November 24, 1934 to convert the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul from a mosque to a museum.
Ottoman Turkish President His Enormity, Sultan Recep Tayyip Erdogan the First ...Turkey's version of Mohammed Morsi but they voted him back in so they deserve him. It's a sin, a shame, and a felony to insult the president of Turkey. In Anatolia did Recep Bey a stately Presidential Palace decree, that has 1100 rooms. That's 968 more than in the White House, 400 more than in Versailles, and 325 more than Buckingham Palace, so you know who's really more important... announced that he had signed a decree to convert the Hagia Sophia museum into a mosque.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/23/2020
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#1
Might dress like a square, but he's gnatty,
One wacky tabacky jihadi:
That 'stache is mad ratty,
His minaret's batty,
And, dammit, he rolls like a Fatih!
[THESUN.CO.UK] A HUSBAND who was walking with his new wife to buy toothpaste in New York was hit in the spine by a stray bullet and will likely never walk again.
Footage shows Sam Metcalfe, 33, laying on the ground at Flatbush intersection in Brooklyn, seconds after being caught in the crossfire of a gang fight.
While Metcalfe survived the shooting, an 18-year-old suspected gang member, Malcolm Amede, died.
The tragic shooting on Wednesday is the latest incident of increased gun violence in New York City, where homicides have surged by 29 percent between January and August compared to the same time last year with 244 fatalities.
The city’s five boroughs have also seen an 84.6 percent rise in shooting victims to 1,017 during those dates compared with the same period in 2019, The Wall Street Journal reported.
A GoFundMe account started to help Metcalfe and his wife, Sabrina, described how the tragic events unfolded.
Crowdfunding organizer Krysta Zagorski said the couple left their Brooklyn apartment to go to the store and get some toothpaste.
"She told him he didn’t need to come but he wanted to hold the umbrella for her because it was raining and the umbrella was broken.
"While crossing an intersection less than five minutes from their building, shots rang out and Sam was hit.
"The intended victim (not Sam) was also shot multiple times and died as a result."
Zagorski continued: "Almost immediately, Sam couldn’t feel his legs.
"We now know that the bullet hit his kidney and stopped when it hit his spine.
"They removed his kidney but his condition is too fragile to attempt to remove the bullet just yet.
"Doctors are still trying to stop the bleeding and Sam will likely never walk again."
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08/23/2020
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Terrorizing them with terror, as is commanded, without actually lifting a finger.
[KhaamaPress] A list that includes names of several prominent Afghan politicians is spreading over social media as if the Taliban ...mindless ferocity in a turban... wants to eliminate them.
Former NDS director Rahmatullah Nabil and former Finance Minister Hazrat Omar Zakhilwal, whose names are on the list, have also tweeted it.
The List includes the names of ex NDS director Rahmatullah Nabil, ex-Minister of Finance Hazrat Omar Zakhilwal, Abdul Karim Khurram former Minister of Information and Culture, Mohammad Amin Weqad, ex parliament member Hamayun Hamayun, Ahmad Zia Masood, NAI Director Mujeeb Kheltwatgar, University professor Faiz Mohammad Zaland, political observers and analysts Nazar Mohammad Motmayen, Waliullah Shaheen, Khalil Safi, Pajhwok director Danish Karokhail, Asif Ashna, Doctor Fayaz Safi and previous Taliban official Sayed Akbar Agha.
According to the statement attached to the list, the Taliban’s cultural commission has proposed a target list and the Taliban leadership has approved the names for elimination.
"we are all aware of these ignorant games through the domestic and foreign mercenaries," Rahmatullah Nabil, a former NDS chief tweeted.
Zakhilwal, another political figure whose name is on the list, said that those behind the game should understand we know whose work it is and we will take that seriously.
This comes as Suhail Shaheen a Taliban spokesperson in 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... rejected these assertions and accused the Afghan government to be behind it.
Afghan authorities have not yet commented in this regard.
[Al Ahram] A surprise ceasefire announcement by Libya's rival administrations offers a glimmer of hope for peace, but analysts caution scepticism after years of violence and as multiple foreign forces back opposing sides.
Fayez al-Sarraj, head of the UN-recognised Government of National Accord (GNA), based in the west in the capital Tripoli ...a confusing city, one end of which is located in Lebanon and the other end of which is the capital of Libya. Its chief distinction is being mentioned in the Marine Hymn... , and Aguila Saleh, speaker of the eastern-based parliament backed by Libyan National Army (LNA) commander Khalifa Haftar ...Self-proclaimed Field Marshal, served in the Libyan army under Muammar Qadaffy, and took part in the coup that brought Qadaffy to power in 1969. He became a prisoner of war in Chad in 1987. While held prisoner, he and his fellow officers formed a group hoping to overthrow Qadaffy, so it's kind of hard to describe him as a Qadaffy holdover. He was released around 1990 in a deal with the United States government and spent nearly two decades in the United States, gaining US citizenship. In 1993, while living in the United States, he was convicted in absentia of crimes against the Jamahiriya and sentenced to death. Haftar held a senior position in the anti-Qadaffy forces in the 2011 Libyan Civil War. In 2014 he was commander of the Libyan Army when the General National Congress (GNC) refused to give up power in accordance with its term of office. Haftar launched a campaign against the GNC and its Islamic fundamentalist allies. His campaign allowed elections to take place to replace the GNC, but then developed into a civil war. Guess you can't win them all. Actually, he is, but slowly... , each announced a ceasefire on Friday.The leaders, in separate statements, said they wanted to end fighting and hold elections, drawing praise from the UN, the EU and several Arab countries.
Emhemed Shoaeb, a key member of talks that led to the last major agreement in 2015, said the announcement was a step "in the right direction" that showed a "desire to break with the madness" of the past.
European Union ...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing... diplomatic chief Josep Borrell described it as a "constructive first step forward".
But international pressure has sought to bring Libya's leaders to an agreement several times in past years, and a lasting deal has yet to be reached.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/23/2020
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#1
Rationally, a peace agreement would result in the division of Libya into two states: Tripolitania in the east, and Cyrenaica in the west, with the south being subject to division. However, such an agreement would solidify the hold the Muslim Brothers and Islamist movements have on Tripolitania, and thus would be a threat to Europe, the Mahgreb and the Sahil. Look for both sides to add armaments and the war should continue in about three weeks. It should be bloodier than ever.
...the fashionable, formerly Catholic, bottle-blond Palestinian expat who ran off and married the elderly PLO Number 1 in a queer sort of patriotism, then lived to regret it...
the widow of former PLO leader Yasser Arafat,
...formally Mohammed Yasser Abdel Rahman Abdel Raouf Arafat al-Qudwa al-Husseini. Born in Cairo in 1929, and educated there, died in 2004 in a French hospital. The flamboyant and brutal USSR-trained terrorist failed to destroy Israel in the service of Arab transnational socialism under the guise of Palestinian national liberation, though he was lauded internationally for his efforts. After founding Fatah sometime in the 1950s, Arafat was chairman of the PLO from 1968 until he died, probably of AIDS from unusual interactions with his personal guards, though his people claimed Israel had poisoned him. Whether the child of the wife he took near the end of his life was also his has never been tested, nor the rumour that she inherited his ill-gotten millions...
has apologized for the burning of Emirati flags in protest of the normalization deal between the UAE and Israel. The apology, which appeared on Instagram account called "officialsuhayasserarafat," was welcomed by some UAE citizens but criticized by several Paleostinians.
Some Paleostinians expressed concern over the harsh response of the PA leadership to the Israel-UAE accord. They accused the PA leadership of an "overreaction" and warned that scenes of Paleostinians burning UAE flags and photos of bin Zayed would cause great damage to the Paleostinians, particularly those living in the Gulf.
PLO Secretary-General Saeb Erekat ...negotiated the Oslo Accords with Israel. He has been chief Paleostinian negotiator since 1995. He is currently negotiating with Israel to establish a de jure Paleostinian state... appealed to Paleostinians not to harm the symbols of the UAE. "The Emirati flag is a symbol that must be respected, and so are all other symbols of Emirati illusory sovereignty," he said.
Erekat’s statement came after many Gulf citizens strongly condemned the Paleostinian leadership’s campaign of incitement against the UAE. Several UAE and Saudi academics, journalists and political activists accused the Paleostinians of being "ungrateful" and denounced the burning of Emirati flags and pictures of bin Zayed.
Suha’s apology, however, drew sharp criticism from other Paleostinians, including bigwigs in the West Bank who said that she was not entitled to speak on behalf of the Paleostinian people.
Some Paleostinians claimed that the apology was a sign of the close relationship between Suha Arafat and Mohammed Dahlan, the deposed Fatah operative who serves as special adviser to bin Zayed. Based in Abu Dhabi, Dahlan is considered an archrival of Abbas.
Suha, who does not hold any official position in the Paleostinian Authority, has been living in Malta for the past decade.
After the death of her husband in 2004, she and her daughter, Zahwa, moved to Tunisia and obtained Tunisian citizenship. In 2007, Tunisia revoked her citizenship. Four years later, the Tunis Court of First Instance issued an international arrest warrant for her in connection with a corruption scandal that involved the former Tunisian first lady, Leila Ben Ali.
#2
Her daughter graduated from university last year, so expenses should be down, Clem, and supposedly she gets a pension of €10,000/month from the Palestinian Authority. But really, there’s no way of knowing.
(disarm any hostile groups)!!! This phrase make this a legitimate operation! These acts must be directed to the Militias which killing and stealing in #Tripoli for years! https://t.co/itPuiDMeSb
[Al Ahram] Ottoman Turkish air and naval forces conducted joint training exercises in the Aegean Sea, the country's Defense Ministry said Saturday, amid strains with neighbor Greece over hydrocarbon discoveries.
F-16 fighter jets took part alongside warships to "enhance, maintain and improve the operational capability of joint inter-forces operations,'' the ministry tweeted.
The announcement came as NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. It's headquartered in Belgium. That sez it all.... members The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire... and Greece are facing off in the eastern Mediterranean Sea over gas and oil exploration and a day after Turkey declared significant gas discoveries in the Black Sea.
Two weeks ago, Turkey sent a warship-escorted research vessel to prospect in waters where Greece claims exclusive rights to the underlying seabed. Athens responded by sending its own warships to the area and placing its military on alert. La Belle France also sent warships and planes to join drills with Greek forces.
Greek officials said Friday that the United Arab Emirates would also dispatch fighter jets to the southern Greek island of Crete for joint training next week.
Relations between Greece and Turkey have traditionally been tense. The two have come to the brink of war three times since the mid-1970s, including once over drilling exploration rights in the Aegean Sea that separates the two countries.
Posted by: Fred ||
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#1
This will escalate until someone starts using the Guns of Navarrone.
Russia says a second Covid-19 vaccine is on its way which 'avoids the side-effects of the first one'.
Earlier this month, Vladimir Putin rushed to launch the Sputnik5 vaccine in a blaze of publicity, but criticism soon followed after test subjects reported numerous side effects.
Russia's release of the drug was met with widespread scepticism as to its efficacy and its likely the second vaccine, dubbed EpiVacCorona, will be similarly doubted.
The World Health Organization said last month that a working vaccine will not be available until at least early 2021.
Russia is developing EpiVacCorona in a former top-secret Soviet biological weapons research plant in Siberia, which is now a world-leading virology institute.
Clinical trials of Russia's second vaccine will be completed in September but 57 volunteers who used as human guinea-pigs report no side-effects, scientists have claimed.
[Al Ahram] Belarusian strongman Alexander Lukashenko on Saturday ordered his defence minister to take "stringent measures" to defend the country's territorial integrity after mass protests erupted against his claim to election victory.
The 65-year-old authoritarian leader, who said he won a sixth presidential term with 80 percent of the vote in the August 9 ballot, made the comments during an inspection of military units in Grodno, near Belarus's border with Poland, according to the president's press service.
Lukashenko denounced the recent mass protests, which he said were receiving support from Western countries, and ordered the army to defend western Belarus, which he described as "a pearl".
"It involves taking the most stringent measures to protect the territorial integrity of our country," Lukashenko said.
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#1
I'm currently in Wallbridge Fire Evac Warning Zone. Next 24 hrs are important. Air attack did fantastic work today and may have turned the tie in our area.
Posted by: Rex Mundi ||
08/23/2020 1:55
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#2
I'm going to guess that the government in CA didn't learn their lesson about forest fire management measures last time and instead poured that money into illegals. Am I wrong?
#11
And for the bigger stuff you cannot haul out....We used this one to generate 21 tons of chips an hour for a chip fired heating plant.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
08/23/2020 16:36
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#12
more firebreaks would help but a lot of this is because people have moved into rural areas that are difficult to protect, e.g., the two biggest fires currently are just east of the coastal range
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Jose Gandarilla, Susana Luna, Crystal Araujo, Sara Loretz and Crystle Parstch-Lucchesi were all arrested on numerous charges including Looting, Grand Theft, Conspiracy to commit crime and Burglary.#CZULightingComplexpic.twitter.com/SgOGinII8O
#2
Looting during a evacuation is a special kind of evil. People’s entire life’s possessions are vulnerable because government ordered their departure and therefore has an obligation to protect and DETER looting most aggressively. San Francisco in -1906 had soldiers who were authorized to shoot on sight any looters. Seems about right.
[IsraelTimes] Israeli education watchdog IMPACT-se claims German report examining Paleostinian schoolbooks for the UK is riddled with errors, overlooks anti-Semitism and incitement to violence.
A post-Brexit row, described as "a comedy of errors," has broken out between the European Union ...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing... and Britannia over a review of Paleostinian school textbooks that was commissioned before Britannia left the EU on January 31, 2020.
Continued on Page 49
[ToloNews] Kabul witnessed four explosions on Saturday that killed at least one security force member and maimed six others--including a civilian--and an assault by button men on a vehicle killing an MoD official and his driver, amid hopes for potential peace talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban ...the Pashtun equivalent of men... The first blast happened at around 6:30 am in Sarak-e-Naw area in Kabul’s PD5 (police district 5), Kabul police said in a statement.
The blast targeted a private vehicle in which one security force member was killed and two others, including a civilian, were maimed, police said.
The second blast happened in Hangarha Roundabout in Kabul’s PD15 at around 7:20 am, leaving two coppersmaimed, police said.
The third explosion happened in the Company area in Kabul’s PD5 and had no casualties, according to the statement.
Also in the afternoon, the Kabul police headquarters confirmed the report of a kaboom in Bagh-e-Bala in PD2 of Kabul.
The Afghan Ministry of Interior said that an IED was placed in a cycle of violence in Bagh-e-Bala in PD2 and two people were maimed as a result of the blast.
Also today, a commander of the logistics department of the Ministry of Defense and his driver were killed in a gun ambush in Kabul.
[Al Ahram] Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko said on Saturday he would close factories that have seen worker protests, the Russian RIA news agency reported, his latest attempt to quell a wave of opposition rallies since contested elections this month.
Lukashenko also suggested he would fire the workers concerned.
"If a factory is not working then let's put a lock on its gate from Monday, let's stop it," RIA cited Lukashenko as saying in the town of Grodno near the border with Poland. "People will calm down and we will decide whom to invite (to work) next."
In the biggest challenge to Lukashenko's 26 years in power, people have taken to the streets in many Belarusian towns, including in its capital Minsk, for nearly two weeks, protesting against the result of an Aug 9 election that they say was rigged to give the president re-election.
Some workers at a number of state factories have also joined protests.
Lukashenko has denied any fraud in the vote.
His main opponent in the election, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, has fled to neighbouring Lithuania. Without naming anybody, Lukashenko said on Saturday that arrangers of the country-wide rallies "are sitting abroad in neighbouring countries" and enjoying political support from those countries' leaders.
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[ALMASDARNEWS] The Ottoman Turkish military launched a new attack in the northern countryside of the Aleppo Governorate on Saturday, a source told al-Masdar News from the administrative capital.According to the source, the Ottoman Turkish military utilized their artillery launchers to target the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) and People’s Protection Units (YPG) near the key town of Tal Rifa’at in northern Aleppo.
The source said there were no casualties reported from the Syrian Arab Army, nor have they responded to this latest attack by the Ottoman Turkish Armed Forces in the Aleppo countryside.
The Ottoman Turkish military has sporadically targeted the Tal Rifa’at area in northern Aleppo, despite an ongoing ceasefire in the area.
The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the occupiers of Greek Asia Minor... maintains that the YPG is an offshoot of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), who was at war with the Ottoman Turkish military during the latter part of the 20th Century.
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Not even BLM/Antifa, but just nice Democrat girls being violent meangirls. Videos at the link.
[PJMedia] The viral video is disturbing. In it, a seven-year-old boy and his mom chase a woman and her friend to retrieve the boy’s Trump hat that she’s just stolen off his head. The hateful woman mocks and toys with the boy. It is by any definition a gratuitous act of hate.
Now 21-year-old Oliva Winslow is arrested and charged by the Wilmington, Delaware police department for second-degree robbery, second-degree conspiracy, and endangering the welfare of a child.
The incident captured on tape happened outside the Chase Center in Wilmington on Thursday night, the last night of the Democratic National Convention.
A group of pro-Trump folks gathered outside of the venue where Biden was honored with the Democratic nomination.
Then came Winslow and her friend, who destroyed some of the group members’ signs and snatched the Trump hat away from the seven-year-old boy.
WDEL TV reports the perpetrator’s friend began to stomp on the boy’s hat. When the boy reached down to grab it, she stomped on his hand. Police are still looking for her.
Two other Trump supporters were struck by the closed fists of two other anti-Trump people who came to shut down the peaceful gathering.
#2
Though nobody knows the criteria,
Some victims are clearly inferior.
"What makes ya say that?"
Asks a weary gray cat
From his scratching post out in Siberia.
[ol' Colin's bewhiskered puss here]
#3
Although... heard a few minutes of a fairly recent podcast the other day, and damned if he didn't sound grrrreat. First time I'd tuned in since YT zapped him, and for a disconcerting moment wondered -- totally serious here -- whether it was himself or some youngster to whom he'd passed the mantle. Nice to hear someone (apparently) thriving during all this mess. Inspirational, almost.
[Al Ahram] Sudan's government is ready to cooperate with the International Criminal Court (ICC) for those accused of war crimes to appear before the court, Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok said on Saturday, a list that includes ousted President Omar al-Bashir ...Former President-for-Life of Sudan He came to power in 1989 when he, as a brigadier in the Sudanese army, led a group of officers in a bloodless military coup that ousted the government of Prime Minister Sadiq al-Mahdi and eventually appointed himself head cheese. He fell out with his Islamic mentor, Hasan al-Turabi, tried to impose shariah on the Christian and animist south, resulting in its secessesion, and attempted to Arabize Darfur by unleashing the barbaric Janjaweed on it. Sudan's potential prosperity has been pissed away in warfare that has left as many as 400,000 people dead and 2.5 million displaced. Hee was overthrown by popular consent in 2019. Omar has been indicted for genocide by the International Criminal Court but nothing is expected to come of it... The country has also come a long way towards being removed from the U.S. state sponsors of terror list, Hamdok said in a televised address he gave on the anniversary of his ascent to office.
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[BREITBART] A judge ordered a do-over election held in November for a city council seat in Paterson, New Jersey, due to the apparent winner and a sitting councilman being charged with voter fraud.State Superior Court Judge Ernest Caposela issued the ruling on Wednesday, according to the News Agency that Dare Not be Named (AP).
"It was the right ruling. That past election was fraught with fraud," Mayor Andre Sayegh remarked, according to CNN ...formerly the Cable News Network, now who know what it might stand for... "The City will comply with the judge’s decision and we created the Mayor’s Election Awareness Team to preserve the value of the vote in Paterson," he noted.
The AP article continued:
Alex Mendez had won a special election on May 12 to fill the seat, but claims of voter fraud were soon raised. An investigation was then launched after the U.S. Postal Service’s law enforcement arm told the state attorney general’s office about hundreds of mail-in ballots located in a mailbox in Paterson, along with more found in nearby Haledon.
In June, Breitbart News reported that election fraud charges were announced against Paterson City Councilman Michael Jackson (D), Councilman-elect Alex Mendez (D), Shelim Khalique, and Abu Razyen:
Mendez, 45-years-old, has been charged with second-degree election fraud, third-degree fraud in casting mail-in votes, third-degree unauthorized possession of ballots, third-degree false registration or transfer, third-degree tampering with public records, and fourth-degree falsifying or tampering with records.
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[THEBAGHDADPOST] Head of Libya's Presidential Council Fayez El Sarraj called for early presidential and parliamentary elections in March.
Sarraj announced a comprehensive ceasefire all over Libya, saying that Sirte and Jufra should be demilitarized.
Also, Libyan Parliament invited all conflicting parties in Libya to abide by ceasefire due to the spread of coronavirus (aka COVID19 or Chinese Plague) ...the twenty first century equivalent of bubonic plague, only instead of killing off a third of the population of Europe it kills 3.4 percent of those who notice they have it. It seems to be fond of the elderly, especially Iranian politicians and holy men... , as well as living and economic difficulties.
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[Al Ahram] Three attacks in the last 24 hours have left at least 17 dead across Colombia in regions contested by narcos, criminal groups and dissidents of the demobilized FARC guerrillas, officials and local media reported on Saturday.
Separate attacks each reported leaving six people dead took place in the Colombian provinces of Narino and Cauca, while a further five people were also reported killed in Arauca province.
"We don't know if the dead form part of an organization or if they are family members," General Nairo Martinez, commander of the Army's Hercules Task Force, told local Caracol Radio in reference to the killings in Narino.
President Ivan Duque lamented the deaths in a message via his Twitter account.
"We are pained by the deaths caused by the violence driven by drug trafficking and terrorism," he said.
The attacks were also condemned by Human Rights Watch Americas director Jose Miguel Vivanco.
"The security situation is deteriorating noticeably," Vivanco said via Twitter.
Eight people were rubbed out by an unidentified gang in a contested drug trafficking area in Narino province a week ago.
Another five people were killed in an attack in a neighborhood in the east of the city of Cali on Aug. 11.
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08/23/2020
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Top|| File under: Commies
[Al Ahram] Suspected Islamist Lions of Islam killed 13 people during raids on two villages in eastern Congo, the army and a village chief said, the latest in a spate of attacks the United Nations ...a lucrative dumping ground for the relatives of dictators and party hacks... says may constitute war crimes.
The Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), ...an Islamist group that started out in Uganda. They don't appear to be affiliated with al-Qaeda or Islamic State. They just like killing infidels...
a Ugandan gang operating in North Kivu province in Democratic Republic of the Congo ...formerly the Congo Free State, Belgian Congo, Zaire, and who knows what else, not to be confused with the Brazzaville Congo aka Republic of Congo, which is much smaller and much more (for Africa) stable. DRC gave the world Patrice Lumumba and Joseph Mobutu, followed by years of tedious civil war. Its principle industry seems to be the production of corpses. With a population of about 74 million it has lots of raw material... , have killed more than 1,000 civilians since the start of 2019, according to U.N. figures.
Militiamen tied up the victims in the villages of Kinziki-Matiba and Wikeno, 10 km east of the city of Oicha, before killing them in the attack on Friday afternoon, said Chui Mukalangirwa, a local village chief.
"We beg the authorities to put an end to this bloodbath," he said.
The army helped civilians bury the bodies and is looking at deploying more units in the area, army front man Antony Mwalishayi said.
The ADF has operated in the dense forests near the Ugandan border for more than three decades. Late last year the Congo army launched a large-scale operation against them, sparking a violent mostly peaceful backlash against civilians.
Several attacks attributed to the ADF have also been claimed by Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear western pols talk they're not really Moslems.... , although researchers and analysts say there is a lack of hard evidence linking the two groups.
The insecurity has forced hundreds of thousands to flee their homes and complicated Congo's response to the COVID-19 pandemic as well as an Ebola epidemic that has killed more than 2,200 people.
[THEBAGHDADPOST] Iraq’s new prime minister and President Trump refrained on Thursday from setting a schedule for withdrawing American troops from the country, as they grappled with the threat posed by remnants of ISIS and the ongoing need to train Iraqi forces.
"We definitely don’t need combat troops in Iraq," said Mustafa al-Kadhimi, who met with Mr. Trump for the first time Thursday. "But we do need training and capacity enhancement and security cooperation."
Mr. Trump, who has repeatedly talked about extracting U.S. forces from "endless wars," was just as careful not to set an end date for the American military presence, which was triggered by the advance of ISIS bully boyz in 2014.
When a news hound asked about his timetable for withdrawing the 5,200 U.S. troops in Iraq, Mr. Trump turned to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who said that the U.S. forces would leave "as soon as we can complete the mission."
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08/23/2020
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Top|| File under: Govt of Iraq
[ALMASDARNEWS] Two new arrests have been made in connection to the August 4th explosion at the Port of Beirut, the AFP reported on Friday.
Citing a judicial source, the AFP report said, "Judge Fadi Sawan today interrogated the defendant, Hanna Faris, and the defendant, Eng. Naela al-Hajj, and issued two arrest warrants against them."
Fares holds the post of director of the Beirut region in the customs administration, and al-Hajj is responsible for the company that undertakes the maintenance work of ward number 12, where the earth-shattering kaboom occurred.
Thus, the number of those issued arrest warrants against them in this file rises to six, including Director General of Customs, Badri Daher, and Director of Beirut Port, Hassan Quraytem.
The Lebanese authorities are still investigating the horrific explosion at the port, which killed 181 people and injured more than 6,500 others, to find out the causes of the earth-shattering kaboom and those responsible for storing huge quantities of ammonium nitrate six years ago without preventive measures.
French Sherlocks and the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation are participating in the investigations being conducted by the judiciary, after 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... refused to conduct an international investigation.
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08/23/2020
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Top|| File under: Hezbollah
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.
(Reuters) - Louisiana residents were ordered on Sunday to evacuate low-lying coastal areas as back-to-back hurricanes were forecast to bring strong winds and rain, striking the state within days of one another this week.
[Boston Globe] "We can confirm that there is an open investigation of abusive sexual contact involving Sgt. Fernandes," said Lieutenant Colonel Chris Brautigam.
[California Globe] California is rich in natural resources which once powered the state: natural gas deposits in the Monterey Shale formation; geothermal energy, abundant rivers and waterways such as the San Joaquin River Delta and hydroelectric dams; the Pacific coastline; 85 million acres of wildlands with 17 million of those used as commercial timberland; mines and mineral resources, vast farming and agricultural lands, and hunting and fishing.
...former Democratic president of the U.S. Bill was the second U.S. president to be impeached, the first to deny that oral sex was sex, the first to have difficulty with the definition of the word 
[Babylon Bee] U.S.—With Epstein’s infamous assistant Ghislaine Maxwell awaiting trial and testimony in prison, many celebrities, politicians, and entertainment industry elites are rushing to make pedophilia generally acceptable before they’re outed as patrons of Epstein’s notorious island.
...a disputed territory lying between India and Pakistain. After partition, the Paks grabbed half of it and call it 
A peaceful group of itinerant Deobandi preachers who form one of al-Qaeda's recruiting arms...
[WIRED] Some 750 million genetically modified mosquitoes will be released in the Florida Keys between 2021 and 2022 in an attempt to stop the spread of diseases like zika.
[Townhall] Don't kid yourself. Don't be fooled by the bravado. Democrats behind the scenes are scared and getting more desperate by the day because there are so many signs of a coming Donald Trump victory.
...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 
...Turkey's version of Mohammed Morsi but they voted him back in so they deserve him. It's a sin, a shame, and a felony to insult the president of Turkey. In Anatolia did Recep Bey a stately Presidential Palace decree, that has 1100 rooms. That's 968 more than in the White House, 400 more than in Versailles, and 325 more than Buckingham Palace, so you know who's really more important...
[PJMedia] An Egyptian government-appointed village mayor has just ruled that a Christian family must sell its home and leave their village, in what is being described as a strange and unprecedented incident for that village.
[ChinaScope] Radio Free Asia (RFA) published an article explaining the reason that the U.S. closed China’s Consulate in Houston.
...a Zaidi Shia insurgent group operating in Yemen. They have also been referred to as the 
Goodluck Jonathan
...Perhaps no man has ever had as much fun being president of the US...
...Democrat Maress of Seattle, who allowed a chunk of the downtown of her city to be turned into an autonomous combat zone...
...Arabic for 
...Turkey's version of Mohammed Morsi but they voted him back in so they deserve him. It's a sin, a shame, and a felony to insult the president of Turkey. In Anatolia did Recep Bey a stately Presidential Palace decree, that has 1100 rooms. That's 968 more than in the White House, 400 more than in Versailles, and 325 more than Buckingham Palace, so you know who's really more important...
...mindless ferocity in a turban...
...Self-proclaimed Field Marshal, served in the Libyan army under Muammar Qadaffy, and took part in the coup that brought Qadaffy to power in 1969. He became a prisoner of war in Chad in 1987. While held prisoner, he and his fellow officers formed a group hoping to overthrow Qadaffy, so it's kind of hard to describe him as a Qadaffy holdover. He was released around 1990 in a deal with the United States government and spent nearly two decades in the United States, gaining US citizenship. In 1993, while living in the United States, he was convicted in absentia of crimes against the Jamahiriya and sentenced to death. Haftar held a senior position in the anti-Qadaffy forces in the 2011 Libyan Civil War. In 2014 he was commander of the Libyan Army when the General National Congress (GNC) refused to give up power in accordance with its term of office. Haftar launched a campaign against the GNC and its Islamic fundamentalist allies. His campaign allowed elections to take place to replace the GNC, but then developed into a civil war. Guess you can't win them all. Actually, he is, but slowly...
...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire...
Russia says a second Covid-19 vaccine is on its way which 'avoids the side-effects of the first one'. 
...the Pashtun equivalent of men...
...the occupiers of Greek Asia Minor...
...Former President-for-Life of Sudan He came to power in 1989 when he, as a brigadier in the Sudanese army, led a group of officers in a bloodless military coup that ousted the government of Prime Minister Sadiq al-Mahdi and eventually appointed himself head cheese. He fell out with his Islamic mentor, Hasan al-Turabi, tried to impose shariah on the Christian and animist south, resulting in its secessesion, and attempted to 
[BREITBART] A judge ordered a do-over election held in November for a city council seat in Paterson, New Jersey, due to the apparent winner and a sitting councilman being charged with voter fraud.State Superior Court Judge Ernest Caposela issued the ruling on Wednesday, according to the 
...the twenty first century equivalent of bubonic plague, only instead of killing off a third of the population of Europe it kills 3.4 percent of those who notice they have it. It seems to be fond of the elderly, especially Iranian politicians and holy men...
[Al Ahram] Three attacks in the last 24 hours have left at least 17 dead across Colombia in regions contested by 
...formerly the Congo Free State, Belgian Congo, Zaire, and who knows what else, not to be confused with the Brazzaville Congo aka 
...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 
...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...
