[RedState] We've been seeing some big polls over the past few days that have had good news for former President Donald Trump: the NYT/Siena, Emerson, and even the Quinnipiac poll (which tends to lean left). NYT and Emerson were looking at swing states with Trump ahead. Quinnipiac looked at the national vote and had Trump up by 1 point with likely voters.
There was also the Gallup poll that found Trump was more popular than Kamala Harris, the Teamster polls, and the other unions' members also showing support for Trump.
I think the more people see of Harris and the more she talks, the more people realize that they don't want to sign aboard that train — that she's basically a vacuous pantsuit. She talks about being a "middle-class kid" and "dreams and aspirations." But what she doesn't talk about is specifics that make any sense. I think more and more people are starting to realize that about her if they didn't know it before. The Stephanie Ruhle interview proved it; even with a softball interviewer, Kamala still couldn't cut it.
Plus, this is one of those rare times when you can judge what both have done in office. That comparison does not go well for Kamala Harris. People remember they had it better under Trump. They don't like what has happened under Biden-Harris, so it's pretty hard to paint herself as a "change agent" or a "new way forward" when she's the one there now who has messed everything up. There's the ever-present question: Why didn't you do it now, while you've been in office?
When you're running away from yourself and your own record, it tends not to come across well.
[The Federalist] This week, federal agents in New York arrested rapper and music mogul Sean "Diddy" Combs on charges of, among other things, alleged arson, bribery, kidnapping, forced labor, and sex trafficking. The federal indictment comes after Combs has faced months of civil lawsuits alleging sexual crimes, including trafficking, abuse, and rape.
Raids by federal agents on Combs’ homes in Los Angeles and Miami uncovered drugs, high-powered firearms, ammunition, and evidence supporting the claims made in civil lawsuits that Combs oversaw "Freak Offs," prolonged, allegedly coerced sexual exploits at his properties. Among other findings, the raids reportedly uncovered "more than 1,000 bottles of baby oil and lubricant."
According to The Independent, Combs’s lawyer described him as "an innocent man with nothing to hide." Attorney Marc Agnifilo told The Independent in an email, "We are disappointed with the decision to pursue what we believe is an unjust prosecution of Mr. Combs by the U.S. Attorney’s Office."
Combs, 54, rose to fame in the 1990s as a rapper and music producer. Formerly known as "Puff Daddy" or "P. Diddy," among other names, he is credited with launching the careers of some of the biggest names in music through his recording label, "Bad Boy Entertainment." He also launched a successful apparel line, Sean John.
#5
Yea, I mean we elected a man in 2016 who has been accused by 23 women of sexual assault and has been convicted of it by 1 in court, so yea, the USA culture is in the pits.
He even bragged on tape about sexual assault and everyone here but me thinks he's better than Jesus.
#6
Well, Fat Bob, it was guys doing lockerroom bragging talk, but being as you're a NPC cypher, you wouldn't know. They also changed the laws/rules so an unattractive attention whore bankrolled by Reid Hoffman (D-Wh0re) could bring ancient innuendo charges. Trump has better taste. Didn't happen. Not better than Jesus, just better than your ilk
Posted by: Frank G ||
09/26/2024 17:36
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#8
Where was all this when I was forced to watch "I Want to Work for Diddy?"
Where was it? I was on an island, feeling like I was the only one on sane pills, watching this trash yuck it up on a yacht, knowing what was what, and everyone like look how sophisticated?
Posted by: Super Hose ||
09/26/2024 20:57
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#10
Let me stretch a band,
There was a show about who could be the personal assistant to Sean Combs. "I Want to Work for Diddy." I guess we have an idea of what that job entails.
[FOX] Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz on Wednesday did not deny that federal government confidential human sources were in the crowd during the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021.
Horowitz was testifying on Capitol Hill on Wednesday morning before the House Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government. The Department of Justice watchdog testified alongside an FBI whistleblower and the president of Empower Oversight, Tristan Leavitt.
The hearing was set to focus on how the FBI has used its security clearance adjudication process to allegedly purge its ranks of conservatives and whistleblowers, and allegedly punish those with views contrary to that of FBI leadership.
Horowitz, though, testified that he had "not made such a finding."
A bit more to this alley parking story from NewsX:
What Really Happened?
The man, who chose to remain anonymous, spoke to the publication about the event. He explained that he went outside after being informed that federal agents were present but wasn’t sure why. Upon exiting, he saw two men he identified as Secret Service agents to his right and noticed a black SUV with Department of Homeland Security plates.
A Secret Service representative spilled the beans to the publication saying, “The Secret Service cannot provide the details on our means and methods of protection, but we can confirm that at no time were any Secret Service protectees in the vehicle while the individual was walking down the alleyway. These claims are inaccurate. The photo in question was upon departure and not during the alleged incident.”
The security guard said he didn’t realize Obama was inside the vehicle until he got closer and spotted the former president using a laptop in the passenger seat. Startled, he quickly walked away from the SUV and greeted the agents.
Later, the guard said he passed the SUV again before returning to the bar mitzvah. About 30 minutes later, his supervisor instructed him to surrender his credentials and his license to carry a concealed weapon for the Secret Service.
Obama later dined at the restaurant with his daughters, Malia and Sasha. The security guard noted what he considered a “clear security lapse” on the part of the Secret Service, remarking that no one was stationed at the rear of the vehicle or covering the stairwell.
This incident involving Obama occurred just days after another concerning event, where shots were fired into Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign office in Arizona. The incident happened after midnight, with damage reported at the Democratic National Committee (DNC) campaign center near Southern Avenue and Priest Drive in Tempe. The Tempe Police Department confirmed the details to the New York Post.
#1
Malia and Sasha were actually attending the bar mitzvah. Secret Service failed to coordinate with bar mitzvah security, then used dinner at the Wolf as a cover for action.
#5
This incident involving Obama occurred just days after another concerning event, where shots were fired into Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign office in Arizona. The incident happened after midnight, with damage reported at the Democratic National Committee (DNC) campaign center near Southern Avenue and Priest Drive in Tempe. The Tempe Police Department confirmed the details to the New York Post.
That didn't take long. Tomorrow will be named a group inspired by the 'Denver Plot' is claiming the shots.
Posted by: 3dc ||
09/26/2024
03:15 ||
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[11154 views]
Top|| File under: Tin Hat Dictators, Presidents for Life, & Kleptocrats
#1
Here’s the text of that unbelievable statement. This is disturbing, its shocking how SpaceX is being targeted by the FAA.
"The FAA requires a license modification if an operator proposes a change that is material to public safety. A change is material to public safety if it alters or affects the following: class of payload; type of launch or reentry vehicle; type or quantity of hazardous material; flight trajectory; launch site or reentry site or other landing site; or any system, policy, procedure, requirement, criteria, or standard that is safety critical.
A proposal to conduct a return to launch site for the booster, if the FAA has not previously evaluated and authorized it for prior flights, is a change that is material to public safety. A change of a vehicle's thermal protection system (TPS) may be a material change if the TPS is a safety critical system or component that could affect public safety
Breaking News: 9.25.2024 Palm Beach County, Florida at the Supervisor of Elections office the current SOE Wendy Link has an American Patriot removed from a Pre Canvassing meeting for asking questions. Look at the manner in which these Deputy Sheriffs manhandle this Mother…#newspic.twitter.com/hdvPPX08KP
#6
That's Jason Nordean aka Rufio Panman. He was a prime target of Biden's crushing of the Proud Boys. Current residence is the Garland Archipelago serving a hefty sentence for the crime of breathing. Side note - he would score an additional KO that day plus a TKO. Antifa nearly died that day. So close.
Posted by: Rex Mundi ||
09/26/2024 11:29
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#7
#5 Will the robotic dogs drop robotic fleas that will bite Russians where it hurts the most?
Hossein Bash, a top figure close to Nasrallah, responsible for Hezbollah’s finances and media management, has allegedly fled to Israel with all the organization’s maps and a significant sum of money.
#2
It’s not like he’s even pretending he has a real job to do anymore. No reason for him to go to staff meetings, since at best all they will do is pretend to listen to him.
#4
I quit drinking coca cola, pepsi and others 20 years ago. I worked in a chemical plant that made the syrup. I know what's in it.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
09/26/2024 12:46
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#5
I like an occasional sugar-free Pepsi (doesn't have that metallic taste like diet Pepsi) and even use Sugar-Free Canada Dry Tonic with my Titos. My A1C dropped to 6
Posted by: Frank G ||
09/26/2024 13:01
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#6
You mean the company that brought us "Be Less White" and other bigoted blatherings..
If you like a cola, Jarritos is superior anyways and is made with sugar.
Quit box food and corn syrup, and a couple months later when you treat yourself to a box sandwich and drink; you'll taste how awful they are.
[TAC] On May 9, 1754 — just about a month before the Albany Congress was set to meet — Benjamin Franklin published his famous Join or Die political cartoon in The Pennsylvania Gazette, symbolizing his now long-forgotten call for a colonial union. Although it was rejected in the coming months, Franklin believed the plan could have radically changed the course of American history.
As he wrote in 1789, had his plan been accepted the Colonies would have been "sufficient to their own Defence," rendering "an Army from Britain," as "unnecessary." As a result, Franklin noted, there would have been no excuses for the Stamp Act and the many other revenue-raising internal taxes to follow either:
"The Pretences for framing the Stamp-Act would then not have existed, nor the other Projects for drawing a Revenue from America to Britain by Acts of Parliament, which were the Cause of the Breach, and attended with such terrible Expence of Blood and Treasure: so that the different Parts of the Empire might still have remained in Peace and Union"
In the decade following the 1740s, Indian tribes loosely allied with France attacked a number of colonial settlements, primarily in New England and western New York. At the same time, the British colonies had formed an alliance with the Six Nations — or the Iroquois Confederation — primarily centered in present-day upstate New York, but also extending further south and west.
By the early 1750s, however, the peace was tense, at best.
In 1751 Franklin wrote to James Parker, suggesting that "securing the Friendship of the Indians is of the greatest Consequence to these Colonies." He opined that a formal Union of the colonies was needed to get the job done, "so as to form a Strength that the Indians may depend on for Protection, in Case of a Rupture with the French; or apprehend great Danger from, if they should break with us."
He also lamented the possibility that "ten or a Dozen English Colonies" might reject such a plan, despite the fact that the six nations had formed a Union and "that it has subsisted Ages."...
🚨KAMALA HARRIS @KamalaHarris VISITED THE HOME OF THE LAWYER @SubodhChandra WHO FILED CRIMINAL CHARGES AGAINST PRESIDENT TRUMP AND JD VANCE FOR HAITIAN MIGRANTS🚨
… against President Trump and JD Vance today is Friends with Kamala Harris, Hosted her at his house, and refers to Kamala Harris’s husband Doug Emhoff
@SecondGentleman
as his “brother in law🚨
Today, a pro invasion nonprofit called the Haitian Bridge Alliance filed criminal charges against President Trump and JD Vance
@JDVance
for their claims that Haitian migrants are eating peoples pets in Springfield, Ohio.
In their press release,
@HaitianBridge
said they have hired Ohio-based civil rights attorney Subodh Chandra.
Who is Subodh Chandra?
He’s an open Kamala Harris supporter who fundraises for her publicly. In social media posts, he said Kamala Harris came to his home and met with his mother and called her “Auntie”, and he said he considers Doug Emhoff to be his brother in law, and Meena Harris
@meena
to be his neice.
Chandra has also received a commendation from former FBI director Robert Mueller, who carried out countless witch hunts against President Trump and his associates.
Chandra is a leftist political activist who has a long history of partisan activities with Kamala Harris, Robert Mueller and other Leftists engaged in the since discredited lawfare against President Trump.
That’s how you know these “criminal charges” are purely political.
Did Kamala Harris instruct her good friend
Subodh Chandra to file criminal charges against Trump in the key state of Ohio to help her Presidential campaign?
Kamala and Subodh are very close as you can see.
This is what you call a political witch hunt.
President Trump’s lawyers should file sanctions against Subodh Chandra for filing frivolous criminal charges for the sake of assisting his friend Kamala Harris’s Presidential campaign.
This is unethical behavior by a lawyer who should be disbarred.
#3
Fake person visits fake organization, finds much in common.
But by all means - who did make those phone calls? See, I think it as made by the traffickers to shake down the local government to play along and deny Trump. Many threats were international - so who does international, I ask?
#5
So it only takes a bug to beat Biden in a debate and force him out of the White House?
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
09/26/2024 11:45
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#6
Is Tolerating Commies Working for America?
I dont think so, I think we need to get back to zero tolerance. Communism and the Constitution cannot co-exist, giving Commies Constitutional Protections when they seek to replace and destroy it, is akin to suicide. We need to treat the enemy within as the Enemy. No Quarter.
#2
He won't send them pallets of cash, so there's that.
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
09/26/2024 6:54
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#3
Oh, come ON. What an obvious false flag.
Iran isn't our enemy.
Our enemy is the DC swamp.
Iran is Israel's enemy.
I've had quite enough being someone else's fool and fighting other people's battles.
AMERICA FIRST!
A new whistleblower has revealed that the U.S. Secret Service is actively interfering in the election by informing Trump they couldn’t secure a rally for him in the critical state of Wisconsin.
Meanwhile, Kamala Harris recently held a rally in the same state, raising questions… pic.twitter.com/qQ5ST1jB4g
… Kamala Harris recently held a rally in the same state, raising questions about why the Secret Service claims they cannot protect Trump or provide adequate staffing for his event.
Protecting Candidate Trump requires them to actually use their skills becaue there really are people trying to kill him. Thus far, thank goodness, it seems those who talk of killing the vice president are all talk, but nothing more.
Here's my conversation with @VivekGRamaswamy about Trump vs Harris, government efficiency, immigration, education, war in Ukraine, and the future of conservatism in America.
We disagree a bunch of times in this conversation and the resulting back-and-forth is honest, nuanced,... pic.twitter.com/JfUuaLMRzN
After weeks of attacks against Bangladeshi Hindus, the country’s Islamists have started fighting against each other in the Baitul Mukarram National Mosque in Dhaka.
One seriously hopes the Virgin Islands are not sending their best to Congress in this one.
… great replacement theorists, Christian nationalists, white fragility, fascists, and the twice impeached convicted felon, former president and would-be dictator Donald Trump."
[IsraelTimes] IDF says warship intercepted another drone heading for southern resort city; Iran-backed Iraqi coalition claims responsibility
A drone launched from Iraq struck the Eilat port on Wednesday, causing damage and lightly wounding two people, the military and medics said.
The Israel Defense Forces said that a second drone launched in the attack was intercepted by one of the Navy’s Sa’ar 5-class corvettes over the Red Sea.
The drone that hit the port area injured two civilians, a 68-year-old and a 28-year-old, the Magen David Adom ambulance service said. Both men were listed in good condition and did not require hospitalization, MDA added.
The Iran-backed Islamic Resistance® in Iraq took responsibility for the attack, claiming to have launched drones at a "vital target" in Israel’s southernmost city.
It was the latest in a spate of daily drone attacks this week claimed by the Iran-backed group and came as fighting has sharply escalated between Israel and another Iranian proxy, Leb ...an Iranian satrapy currently ruled by Hassan Nasrallah 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 dozen flavors of Christians, plus Armenians, Georgians, and who knows what else? It is the home of the original Hezbollah, which periodically starts a war with the Zionist Entity, gets Beirut pounded to rubble, and then declares victory and has a parade. The Lebs have the curious habit of periodically murdering their heads of state or prime ministers... ’s Hezbollah terror group.
Footage showed the explosive-laden drone exploding as it hit Eilat, sending smoke rising from the port area and damage to a warehouse.
The incoming drones set off sirens in the city. Shortly before the sirens blared, interceptor missiles were launched in the area, eyewitnesses said.
The same coalition of pro-Iran ...a theocratic Shiite state divided among the Medes, the Persians, and the (Arab) Elamites. Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979. The nation is today noted for spontaneously taking over other countries' embassies, maintaining whorehouses run by clergymen, involvement in international drug trafficking, and financing sock puppet militias to extend the regime's influence. The word Iran is a cognate form of Aryan. The abbreviation IRGC is the same idea as Stürmabteilung (or SA). The term Supreme Guide is a the modern version form of either Duce or Führer or maybe both. They hate JewsZionists Jews. Their economy is based on the production of oil and vitriol... gangs in Iraq has claimed to have launched numerous drones at Israel amid the war against Hamas ..the well-beloved offspring of the Moslem Brotherhood,... in the Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with an iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response... Strip and the fighting in the north, most of which failed to cross Israel’s border, were downed by air defenses, or hit open areas.
The Iran-backed group fired several drones at Israel late Tuesday and early Wednesday, some of which were intercepted by the IDF. One of the drones set off rare sirens overnight in the small town of Sapir along the border with Jordan in Israel’s southern Arava desert. The IDF said that the drone, which entered Israeli airspace from the eastern direction, impacted in the Arava region without causing any injuries. The group took responsibility for the attack, saying it launched it at a "target" in the Jordan Valley.
Drone warnings also set off sirens in the Golan Heights overnight, with the group taking responsibility. The IDF later said that two drones from Iraq struck open areas in the northern Golan Heights, after setting off sirens in Ein Zivan and Merom Golan. The drone impacts sparked fires in open areas, but no injuries were caused.
Then on Wednesday morning, Israeli fighter jets shot down a drone that entered Israeli airspace south of the Sea of Galilee, the IDF said. Sirens had sounded in the Golan Heights community of Eliad amid the incident.
According to the military, the drone had flown toward Israel from the east, possibly launched from Iraq, and entered Israeli airspace from Syria. No damage or injuries were caused.
Drones from the east arrived on Monday as well with the IDF saying they were intercepted. On Sunday, two cruise missiles and a pair of drones were fired at the Golan Heights and another drone headed south. All were intercepted and there were no injuries in any of those attacks which were also claimed by the Islamic Resistance® in Iraq.
Earlier this month, the the Iraqi militia claimed a drone attack it said targeted the port city of Haifa on Israel’s Mediterranean coast. That drone was also shot down before it entered Israeli airspace, the IDF said at the time.
Last week an Israeli fighter jet intercepted a drone near the Sea of Galilee that had been launched from Iraq, the IDF said.
Eilat has also come under attack by other Iran-backed groups amid the war in Gaza, including 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 and a group in Syria linked to Lebanon’s Hezbollah.
In April, a drone launched from Iran struck a building in a naval base in Israel’s southernmost city. Slight damage was caused to a building in Eilat Bay, and there were no injuries the IDF said.
In November, a school in Eilat was hit by a drone launched from Syria, and in March, a cruise missile fired from Yemen struck an open area north of the city.
After more than 11 months of cross-border violence — beginning October 8, when Hezbollah started firing rockets at Israel in support of its ally Hamas, one day after Hamas carried out a massacre in Israel — that avoided an all-out war, Israel and Hezbollah have stepped up fighting in recent days, with hundreds of rockets fired at Israel and intensive IDF Arclight airstrike ...KABOOM!... s on Hezbollah sites in Lebanon, as well as the targeted liquidations of a number of the terror group’s leaders.
[GEO.TV] The US military is not providing intelligence support to Israel for its operations in Lebanon, the Pentagon said on Wednesday. "We don't wanna get involved!"
Pentagon spokesperson Sabrina Singh also said no Israeli ground incursion into Lebanon appeared imminent, but referred reporters to Israel for questions about its operations and plans. "Because they're not telling us anything. They don't want their plans to leak to the Hezbullies."
Asked about whether the United States was supporting Israel's operations in Lebanon, including with intelligence support, Singh said: "No. No support." "No, no! Certainly not!"
"When it comes to Lebanon, the U.S. military has no involvement in Israel's operations," Singh said. "Really, we're pussies."
[CNN ...formerly the Cable News Network, now who know what it might stand for... ] Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz ...Kamala's smarmy-looking running mate, governor of Minnesota, who decided to retired rather than to deploy with his National Guard unit, then claimed to have been in Iraq and Afghanistan. One man's socialism is another man's neighborliness.... , the Democratic vice presidential candidate, has made at least three false claims over the last two weeks about the Republican vice presidential candidate Sen. JD Vance of Ohio and Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump ...The tack in the backside of the Democratic Party... Two of Walz's false claims are related to Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation think tank's detailed right-wing blueprint for the next Republican administration. Project 2025 has been the subject of multiple false or misleading claims from Vice President Kamala Harris who got her start in politix between former Oakland mayor Willie Brown's' knees ' campaign this summer.
The campaign declined to comment for this article.
TRUMP, PROJECT 2025 AND PREGNANCIES
Walz claimed in a speech in North Carolina last Tuesday: ''And now Trump is trying to create this new government entity that will monitor all pregnancies to enforce their child sacrifice abortion bans.'' He made an even more dramatic claim in a speech in Wisconsin on September 14: ''Think about what they're saying in Project 2025: you're going to have to register with a new federal agency when you get pregnant.''
Facts First: Walz's claims are false. Project 2025 does not propose to make people register with any federal agency when they get pregnant. And there is no indication that Trump is trying to create a new government entity to monitor pregnancies.
Project 2025 is firmly anti-child sacrifice abortion; it proposes, among other things, to criminalize the mailing of child sacrifice abortion medication and devices. But it does not propose to require people to register their pregnancies with the federal government.
The Project 2025 policy document, released in 2023, proposes that the federal government take steps to make sure it is receiving detailed after-the-fact, anonymous data from every state on child sacrifice abortions and miscarriages. The vast majority of states already submit anonymous child sacrifice abortion data to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on a voluntary basis — the CDC has collected ''child sacrifice abortion surveillance'' data for decades — and all states already submit some anonymous miscarriage data under federal law.
Minnesota, the state run by Walz, is one of the states that voluntarily submits child sacrifice abortion data to the CDC. And Minnesota posts anonymous child sacrifice abortion and miscarriage data on the state health department's website every year.
The Project 2025 policy document says the existing federal Department of Health and Human Services should ''use every available tool, including the cutting of funds, to ensure that every state reports exactly how many child sacrifice abortions take place within its borders, at what gestational age of the child, for what reason, the mother's state of residence, and by what method.''
The document also says the department “should also ensure that statistics are separated by category: spontaneous miscarriage; treatments that incidentally result in the death of a child (such as chemotherapy); stillbirths; and induced abortion.” And it says, “In addition, CDC should require monitoring and reporting for complications due to abortion and every instance of children being born alive after an abortion.”
In the context of the CDC, the word “monitoring” is used to mean statistical tracking. For example, the existing CDC web page that displays anonymous state-by-state abortion data says, “Since 1987, CDC has monitored abortion-related deaths” through its Pregnancy Mortality Surveillance System. Neither “monitored” nor “surveillance” means the CDC is spying on individuals during their pregnancies.
Trump dodged the question when asked in a Time magazine interview earlier this year whether states should monitor women’s pregnancies to ensure compliance with an abortion ban, saying “I think they might do that” but that “you’ll have to speak to the individual states.” Walz is free to criticize Trump for this answer, but nowhere in the interview did Trump make an actual proposal to create a new pregnancy-monitoring government body.
Heritage Foundation Vice President Roger Severino wrote on social media earlier this month that Project 2025 “merely recommends CDC restore the decades-long practice of compiling *anonymous* abortion statistics for all states” – and noted that Minnesota already compiles such data.
Walz didn’t explain the basis for his claim about Project 2025 seeking a “new” federal agency to monitor pregnancies, but it’s possible he was inaccurately referring to a separate anti-abortion proposal in Project 2025 to rename the United States Agency for International Development’s Office of Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment – to the “Office of Women, Children, and Families” – and have the office led by an “unapologetically pro-life” official.
USAID is an agency that handles foreign aid, not domestic affairs.
VANCE’S COMMENTS ABOUT POWER
In a Saturday speech in Pennsylvania, Walz said, “My opponent, Senator Vance, had a quote that – you read it, you hear it, gloss over it. But think about how deeply disturbing this is. He said that when they get power and they will use the Project 2025, they need to be ruthless when it comes to the exercise of power.”
Facts First: Walz’s claim is false. Vance never said they “will use” Project 2025 in this comment about ruthlessly exercising power. In fact, Vance made the comment before Project 2025 was even created. He spoke in May 2021; Project 2025 was launched by the Heritage Foundation in April 2022, and the project’s extensive policy recommendations were released in April 2023.
Walz is entitled to mount an argument that Trump and Vance would use Project 2025 if elected; both have close ties to the people behind the initiative. But Walz asserted here that there is an actual “quote” in which Vance declared “they will use the Project 2025.” There is not.
Here’s what Vance actually said in the May 2021 interview with conservative publication The Federalist: “I think the thing that we have to take away from the last 10 years is that we really need to be really ruthless when it comes to the exercise of power.” He added that, since conservatives have “lost every major powerful institution in the country, except for maybe churches and religious institutions,” achieving real change “will require us completely replacing the existing ruling class with another ruling class.”
CNN noted in July that a social media post from Harris campaign had wrongly claimed these same Vance remarks showed him endorsing Project 2025. Vance said in July, days before he became Trump’s running mate, that Project 2025 includes “some good ideas” and “some things that I disagree with.”
In the Saturday speech in Pennsylvania, Walz said, “We saw Senator Vance lead an audience when he said, ‘Well, they reduced interest rates this week. How terrible is that?’ And he got the crowd booing. Who boos for lower interest rates?”
Facts First: Walz’s claim about Vance is false. Vance did not respond to the Federal Reserve’s September rate cut by saying “how terrible is that,” and he did not goad a crowd into booing the cut; rather, the crowd at a Vance event last Wednesday in Raleigh, North Carolina appeared to independently start booing after a reporter asked Vance for his reaction to the cut (and asserted in the question that the cut would “alleviate inflation for a lot of people”).
Vance had started responding to the question in a neutral tone, saying, “Well look, my reaction is …” But the crowd booed the question and he paused briefly. Vance then said that the Fed’s half-point reduction wasn’t enough to make up for the inflation families have faced in the Biden-Harris era. But he also said, “It’s better than nothing.”
So Vance certainly did not offer a particularly enthusiastic reaction to the rate cut, but he did not decry the cut as Walz claimed.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/26/2024
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[IsraelTimes] Atlantic story on first days of war says US intel discredited suspicions of Hezbollah infiltration, averting strike; claims MBS told Blinken he doesn’t care about Palestinian issue
In the opening days of the war, the US frantically tried to reach senior Israeli officials huddled to plan a major strike on Hezbollah to tell them they were not acting rationally and relying on bad intelligence, according to a US report Wednesday.
US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan eventually managed to pass a dictated note to Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer warning him against launching a preemptive strike against Hezbollah on October 11, according to the Atlantic, which provided further revelations on the 90-minute panic in Israel that evening over a suspected invasion by the Iran-backed terror group.
Without providing sources, The Atlantic reported that top Biden administration officials were persuading the government to avoid launching a preemptive strike on Hezbollah when Dermer informed Sullivan that Hezbollah paragliders had flown across the border — similar to Hamas ..the well-beloved offspring of the Moslem Brotherhood,... ’s October 7 massacre days earlier — and fired shots at a funeral.
Meanwhile,
...back at the the conspirators' cleverly concealed hideout the long-awaited message arrived. They quickly got to work with their decoder rings... more than 2 million Israelis were sent to shelters over false sirens in northern communities warning of drone attacks on the evening of October 11. Fears were fueled by media reports that 15-20 drones from Leb ...an Iranian satrapy currently ruled by Hassan Nasrallah 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 dozen flavors of Christians, plus Armenians, Georgians, and who knows what else? It is the home of the original Hezbollah, which periodically starts a war with the Zionist Entity, gets Beirut pounded to rubble, and then declares victory and has a parade. The Lebs have the curious habit of periodically murdering their heads of state or prime ministers... supposedly crossed into Israeli territory.
The cabinet was poised to approve a preemptive strike on Hezbollah, but the claims of a Hezbollah infiltration could not be backed by the CIA or the US military, The Atlantic reported.
Sullivan failed to directly get a hold of Dermer, who was locked in the cabinet meeting. Instead, he dictated a short note to the minister through his chief of staff, which was said to read: "You’re not making rational decisions. You’re acting in the fog of war on the basis of bad intelligence."
With Israel still reeling from Hamas hard boyz storming across 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 Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response... border that Saturday and massacring at least 1,200 Israelis in border towns, the prospect of a similarly murderous mass invasion by Hezbollah along the northern border sparked panic in a country on edge.
Israeli fighter jets were already in the air when US President Joe The Big Guy Biden ...46th president of the U.S. You're a lyin' dog-faced pony soldier... managed to convince Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to stand down at the last minute, according to a Wall Street Journal report in December.
The Atlantic reported that Dermer informed Sullivan that the cabinet had called off the attack 45 minutes after receiving the note, thereby potentially avoiding all-out war with Hezbollah days after October 7.
’Do I care personally about the Paleostinian issue? I don’t’
The Atlantic also shared quotes from a January 8 meeting between US Secretary of State Antony Blinken ...71st United States secretary of state and a leading light of the corrupt and inept Biden administration. He previously served as deputy national security advisor from 2013 to 2015 and deputy secretary of state from 2015 to 2017 under the corrupt and inept Obama administration. He advocated for the 2003 invasion of Iraq while serving as the Democratic staff director of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee from 2002 to 2008. He was a foreign policy advisor for the Biden 2008 presidential campaign. During his tenure in the Obama administration, Blinken helped craft B.O.'s policy on Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the nuclear program of Iran. We all saw how well each of those worked. After leaving government service, Blinken moved into the private sector, co-founding WestExec Advisors, a lobbying firm... and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman
...Crown Prince and modernizer of Saudi Arabia as of 2016. The Turks hate him, so he must be all right, despite the occasional brutal murder of Qatar-owned journalists... , who expressed interest in normalization with Israel on the condition that Jerusalem would commit to allowing the establishment of a Paleostinian state. A Saudi official described The Atlantic’s account of the conversation as "incorrect."
MBS reportedly also told Blinken during the meeting in Saudi Arabia ...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula, largely made up of sand and oil rigs. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual haj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. Formerly dictatorial and steeped in Olde Tyme Religion, deferring to Salafist holy men on all issues, it has now done a 180 and is making a serious effort to modernize, so as not to be left in the sand by its Gulf Arab neighbors. The holy men have been shoved to the background and the nation is now still dictatorial but somewhat Frational. That doesn't make them trustworthy, but it's a start... he would not need the Israelis to commit to a total halt on counterterrorism raids in Gaza in exchange for a normalization deal.
"They can come back in six months, a year, but not on the back end of my signing something like this," he said, according to the report.
"Seventy percent of my population is younger than me," the de-facto Saudi ruler reportedly said. "For most of them, they never really knew much about the Paleostinian issue. And so they’re being introduced to it for the first time through this conflict. It’s a huge problem. Do I care personally about the Paleostinian issue? I don’t, but my people do, so I need to make sure this is meaningful."
Israel’s commitment to advancing a Paleostinian state is considered a key sticking point with the current right-wing Israeli government, which has repeatedly rejected the possibility of such a move, especially in the wake of the October 7 attack, saying that doing so would be tantamount to rewarding terrorism.
After the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war following the terror group’s deadly October 7 onslaught, Saudi Arabia largely put on ice US-backed plans for the kingdom to normalize ties with Israel, two sources familiar with Riyadh’s thinking said earlier this year.
But Saudi officials have continued to publicly and privately say since the start of the war that a normalization deal with Israel is still on its diplomatic agenda, while publicly pushing for a ceasefire in the Gaza war.
MBS, Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler, said just weeks before the fighting broke out that Riyadh was getting closer to a deal, but talks were essentially frozen in the first months of the war.
[IsraelTimes] Western and regional sources say Tehran has hosted multiple rounds of talks between Moscow and Yemeni terror group to discuss potential transfer of more precise Yakhont missiles
Iran ...a theocratic Shiite state divided among the Medes, the Persians, and the (Arab) Elamites. Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979. The nation is today noted for spontaneously taking over other countries' embassies, maintaining whorehouses run by clergymen, involvement in international drug trafficking, and financing sock puppet militias to extend the regime's influence. The word Iran is a cognate form of Aryan. The abbreviation IRGC is the same idea as Stürmabteilung (or SA). The term Supreme Guide is a the modern version form of either Duce or Führer or maybe both. They hate JewsZionists Jews. Their economy is based on the production of oil and vitriol... has brokered ongoing secret talks between Russia and 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... rebels to transfer anti-ship missiles to the terror group, three Western and regional sources said, a development that highlights Tehran’s deepening ties to Moscow.
Seven sources said that Russia has yet to decide to transfer the Yakhont missiles — also known as P-800 Oniks — which experts said would allow the terror group to more accurately strike commercial vessels in the Red Sea and increase the threat to the US and European warships defending them.
The Wall Street Journal reported in July that Russia was considering sending the missiles. Iran’s role as an intermediary has not been previously reported.
The Houthis have launched repeated drone and missile strikes on ships in the crucial Red Sea shipping channels since November, in what they say is a sign of solidarity with Paleostinians amid Israel’s war against Hamas ..the well-beloved offspring of the Moslem Brotherhood,... in Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with an iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response... following Hamas’s devastating assault on October 7. They have sunk at least two vessels and seized another, disrupting global maritime trade by forcing shipping firms to divert cargos and, according to industry sources, driven up insurance costs for ships plying the Red Sea.
In response, the United States and Britannia have struck Houthi positions but have failed to stop the group’s attacks.
Two regional officials aware of the talks said that the Houthis and Russians met in Tehran at least twice this year and that the talks to provide dozens of the missiles, which have a range of about 300 kilometers (186 miles), were ongoing with further Tehran meetings expected in coming weeks.
Russia has previously supplied the Yakhont missile to Iran-backed Hezbollah terror group in Leb ...an Iranian satrapy currently ruled by Hassan Nasrallah 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 dozen flavors of Christians, plus Armenians, Georgians, and who knows what else? It is the home of the original Hezbollah, which periodically starts a war with the Zionist Entity, gets Beirut pounded to rubble, and then declares victory and has a parade. The Lebs have the curious habit of periodically murdering their heads of state or prime ministers... One of the sources said the talks started under Iranian president Ebrahim Raisi, who died in a helicopter crash in May.
"Russia is negotiating with the Houthis for the transfer of Yakhont supersonic anti-ship missiles," said a Western intelligence source. "The Iranians are brokering the talks but do not want to have their signature over it."
Neither Iran’s UN mission nor the Russian Defense Ministry responded to requests for comment.
"We have no knowledge of what you have mentioned," said Mohammed Abdel-Salam, the official front man for Yemen’s Houthis.
A senior US official declined to name the specific systems that could be transferred, but confirmed that Russia has been discussing supplying missiles to the Houthis, calling the development "very worrisome."
A US Defense Department official said any efforts to bolster the Houthis’ capabilities would "undermine the shared international interest in global freedom of navigation and stability in the Red Sea and broader Middle East."
Russia and Iran have been nurturing closer military ties amid Russia’s war in Ukraine. Tehran has allegedly transferred ballistic missiles to Moscow for use against Ukraine, the United States said earlier this month.
One motivation for Moscow to arm the Houthis, three sources said, is the possibility that Western states could decide to allow Ukraine to use their weapons to strike farther into Russian territory.
The senior US official said the Russia-Houthi talks "seem to be related to our posture in Ukraine and what we’re willing or not willing to do" regarding Kyiv’s requests for the lifting of restrictions on its use of long-range US-supplied weapons to strike targets deep inside Russia.
Russian President Vladimir Putin ...President-for-Life of Russia. He gets along well with other presidents for life. He is credited with bringing political stability and re-establishing something like the rule of law, which occasionally results in somebody dropping dead from poisoning by polonium or other interesting substance. Under Putin, a new group of business magnates controlling significant swathes of Russia's economy has emerged, all of whom have close personal ties to him. The old bunch, without close personal ties to Putin, are in jail or in exile or dead from poisoning by polonium or other interesting substances... warned in June that Moscow could send advanced long-range weapons — similar to those the United States and its allies give Ukraine — to the West’s adversaries around the world.
The Yakhont is considered one of the world’s most advanced anti-ship missiles, designed to skim the sea’s surface to avoid detection at more than twice the speed of sound, making it difficult to intercept.
Fabian Hinz, an expert on ballistic missiles with the International Institute for Strategic Studies, said that the transfer of Yakhont missiles by Russia to the Houthis would be a "game changer" for regional security.
"The P-800 is a far more capable system than the anti-ship ballistic and cruise missiles the Houthis have used so far," said Hinz.
Not only could the Houthis fire them at US, British and other warships that have been protecting commercial vessels in the Red Sea from Houthi drone and missile attacks, but they can be used as land-attack weapons that Saudi Arabia ...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula, largely made up of sand and oil rigs. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual haj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. Formerly dictatorial and steeped in Olde Tyme Religion, deferring to Salafist holy men on all issues, it has now done a 180 and is making a serious effort to modernize, so as not to be left in the sand by its Gulf Arab neighbors. The holy men have been shoved to the background and the nation is now still dictatorial but somewhat Frational. That doesn't make them trustworthy, but it's a start... would see as a threat, Hinz said.
The senior US official said that a delegation of US officials discussed the Russia-Houthi negotiations with their Saudi counterparts during a visit to Saudi Arabia this summer, and that Washington has raised the issue with Moscow.
The Saudis have also conveyed their concerns directly to the Russians, three sources told Rooters. The Saudi government did not respond to a request for comment.
Hinz said Russia would need to help with the technical aspects of a missile delivery, including how to transfer and make them operational without the United States detecting and destroying the weapons. The Houthis would also need training on the system.
The senior US official warned of dire consequences if the transfer takes place.
"The Saudis are alarmed. We are alarmed, and other regional partners are alarmed," the official said. "The Houthis are already creating enough damage in the Red Sea, and this would enable them to do more."
The IDF says it targeted Hezbollah sites, including homes where the terror group stored munitions. It warned civilians ahead of carrying out the strikes.
The military says that the strikes carried out by fighter jets destroyed surveillance equipment, command rooms and other infrastructure used by Hezbollah to build an intelligence picture.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited. by Gregor Spitzen
[REGNUM] The entire leadership of the German Greens is resigning. Which is quite natural: after all, the party showed a simply disastrous result in the recent elections to the East German Landtags
The Greens failed to overcome the 5% threshold in Brandenburg, Saxony or Thuringia. And it is not surprising that the electorate in the former GDR territory gave the political adventurers a firm "no!"
What is surprising is how a party that has repeatedly demonstrated its hypocrisy and, at times, outright disregard for the opinions of its own voters in recent years has been able to play such an important role in German political life for so long.
"GREEN TRANSITION"
The Green Party was founded in 1980 in West Germany amid demonstrations for peace, nuclear disarmament and environmental protection, and initially did indeed champion the ideals of humanism and universal values. But in less than twenty years, it took a sharp turn toward militarism, taking an active part in organizing NATO's invasion of Yugoslavia with the total bombing of its civilian infrastructure.
With the start of the SVO in Ukraine, the ugly metamorphoses of the German "greens" received a new impetus: it got to the point that even the mainstream magazine Spiegel called the party leaders "olive-green" militarists, placing their images in camouflage uniforms on the cover of one of its issues.
But the icing on the cake, perhaps, was the transformation of one of the party’s founding fathers, Yoschka Fischer, who in his youth belonged to a group of radical pro-Palestinian activists, into one of the main apologists of Israel, consistently defending the right of the Jewish state to cannibalistic military operations with catastrophic losses for the civilian population.
However, let's not judge the "greens" too harshly, because for European politicians, "changing their shoes in mid-air" is more the norm than a deviation.
It is enough to recall Sir Winston Churchill, who at one time correctly assessed the political situation and switched from the Whigs to the Tories with the words: "Whoever was not a liberal in his youth is a heartless person. Whoever has not become a conservative in his maturity is simply a fool."
However, God bless it, politics. After all, as Vladimir Ilyich Lenin said, it is only a concentrated expression of economics. And we can now observe the main "achievements" of the "green" party precisely on the economic front.
The economic decisions of the Vice Chancellor and Minister of Economics of Germany Robert Habeck to dismantle German nuclear power, to abandon cheap Russian energy sources and replace them with super-expensive North American and Qatari LNG, as well as the notorious “green transition”, which cost Germany €180 billion, have put the country on the brink of economic collapse.
The abstract fight for ecology and climate protection is, of course, wonderful. However, when such ill-conceived initiatives plunge the country into recession and provoke deindustrialization with the subsequent loss of jobs and dismantling of entire industries, even the most narrow-minded voters are able to put 2+2 together and draw the right conclusions.
Moreover, even the most liberal Germans have recently begun to be openly annoyed by the green messianism and disregard for the opinions of their own citizens, the best illustration of which is the words of the head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Annalena Baerbock : “ I don’t care what my voters think about German aid to Ukraine.”
HYDRA HEADS
But does the failure in the regional elections and the resignation of the party leadership mean that the Greens will now play a significantly smaller role in German politics, and their ability to drive the German economy into depression with Green bills and anti-Russian initiatives will be significantly reduced?
Unfortunately no.
The fact is that the personnel changes in the leadership of the party, which was just practically spat in the face by voters in three German regions - Saxony, Thuringia and Brandenburg - are in some sense just the obligatory sacrifice on the altar of the "green" idea.
If the Greens had acted differently, neither the voters, nor their political partners, nor their sponsors from among the “fat cats” of German business, who are profiting from the “green transition” thanks to generous state subsidies, would have understood them.
However, the Green Party has not actually lost anything from the resignation of its leaders Ricarda Lang and Omid Nouripour. Quite the contrary.
The enormous 32-year-old Lang, who has neither a college degree nor any work experience in any kind of clear specialty, but who loves to talk about lofty matters with the aplomb of an ignoramus, has long been the object of pan-German hatred and caustic ridicule.
Nor did 49-year-old Nuripur manage to get a university degree: we have no doubt that this was not due to incomplete professional suitability or a significant lack of intelligence. It is simply the custom among German Greens: if studying is detrimental to political activism, so much the worse for studying.
The Greens could have painlessly sacrificed the empty and worthless talking heads in the post of formal party leaders, blaming them for all the failures and setbacks in party building. After all, there will always be talking heads willing to take up vacant positions in the party areopagus.
According to rumors, the vacancies of party leaders could be filled as early as November by Franziska Brantner, State Secretary for Economic Affairs and a close confidant of Economy Minister Robert Habeck, as well as Felix Banaschak, a member of the Bundestag who was previously the party leader in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia.
However, the real culprits of Germany's plunge into the abyss of economic crisis - the Minister of Economics and author of children's books Robert Habeck, the Minister of Foreign Affairs and a prominent intellectual Annalena Baerbock, the Minister of Agriculture Cem Özdemir, who is closely connected to American foundations, as well as Anton Hofreiter - the chairman of the Green faction in the Bundestag, a notorious Russophobe and one of the main warmongers in the German parliament - are clearly not going to resign. Moreover, Habeck clearly intends to fight for the post of Bundeskanzler next year.
Therefore, it is clearly premature to say that the Greens have sincerely realized that their policy is disastrous for Germany and its economy. The country will definitely suffer hardships with this company.
[BREITBART] Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said Wednesday on MSNBC's ''Morning Joe'' that former President Donald Trump ...dictatorial for repealing some (but not all) of the diktats of his predecessor, misogynistic because he likes pretty girls, homophobic because he doesn't think gender bending should be mandatory, truly a man for all seasons... should be extinguished from politics, which she clarified meant ''vote him out.''
Raimondo said, ''Tax policy, you have to work with Congress but if he decides he wants to do something crazy, like a 200% tariff, which will hurt Americans, raise prices and lose jobs, he could do it as president. Which is why honestly why I'm here in my personal capacity. The stakes are so high in this one. We cannot afford to put him back in the White House.''
She added, ''He's the one that overturned Roe. For me, you know, when I was the governor of Rhode Island, one of the first governors in the country back in 2019 to codify Roe in state statute in Rhode Island. I worked with the legislature, it was because he was president, and I feared exactly what would happen. I said women of Rhode Island would be protected. That's real protection, stepping up and leading. And what he says is the opposite. It is just another lie. How did we get here? Let's extinguish him for good. We have an answer, we have a remarkably talented candidate who is sincere, who is pragmatic, who is open. Let's just get it done.''
Host Mika Brzezinski said, ''And extinguish, you mean vote him out?''
Raimondo said, ''Yes, absolutely vote him out. Banish him from American politics. Yes just vote him out so he goes away.''
[REDSTATE] Surprise, surprise, Kamala Harris launched her campaign on the “RuPaul’s Drag Race” is using a network of fake news sites to help prop up her campaign and mislead voters about her level of support.
On Monday, the official "Kamala HQ" account posted a headline that read "Polish Pennsylvanians Endorse Kamala Harris Over Putin, Ukraine Concerns." The source was a supposed news outlet named "The Keystone Newsroom."
What the Harris campaign was trying to do was clear. Local news outlets are typically more trusted than national outlets by the residents of a given state. By pushing a headline bragging about a major endorsement from "The Keystone Newsroom," an air of credibility is given to the claim. The truth of the matter is far more insidious, though. Greg Price did some digging and figured out how the money is flowing and who is coordinating with who.
The game being played is simple. The Soros-funded "Courier Newsroom" starts a bunch of "local" news sites that are presented as completely unbiased and non-partisan. Those dark-money sites then publish positive headlines about Kamala Harris based on objectively false claims. In this case, the headline states that "Polish Pennsylvanians," a community of nearly 800,000 people, have endorsed her. The truth is that the "endorsement" was just a letter written by four Democrat politicians. At that point, the only thing left is for Harris' official campaign account to share the headline and pretend it's a huge win.
Is what they are doing illegal? No, but it's incredibly dishonest and unethical, and it shows just how astroturfed Harris' presidential run is. From the very beginning, everything undergirding her campaign has been fake, fake the glowing proclamations of "joy" from the mainstream press to the idea that she "won" an open primary, as proclaimed by Nancy San Fran Nan Pelosi Congresswoman-for-Life from the San Francisco Bay Area, born into a family of professional politicians. On-again-off-again Speaker of the House. It's not her fault when they lose, but it's her accomplishment when they win. Noted for her heavily botoxed grimace and occasional senior... uhhh... moments... What does that say about Harris' confidence level as we enter the home stretch of this election? It certainly doesn't project confidence. A campaign that believes it's winning going away doesn't have to use fake news sites to promote false headlines about made-up endorsements. Yet, that's exactly what Harris is doing.
I'd also ask where the mainstream press is. CNN ...formerly the Cable News Network, now who know what it might stand for... , the Times, MSNBC, etc. are obsessed with "misinformation," but they've got nothing to say when the Harris campaign is the one pushing it. Why, it's almost as if their push to censor free speech under the guise of protecting democracy is all nonsense.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/26/2024
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An the Biden Puppet Gov FCC just approved SOROS's purchase of 200+ US Radio stations with over 165M listeners.
[GEO.TV] US President Joe Biden said on Wednesday an all-out war was possible in the Middle East but there was also the possibility of a settlement in Israel's conflicts in Gaza and with Hezbollah. So there you have it, news you can use.
"An all-out war is possible, but I think there's also the opportunity - we're still in play to have a settlement that can fundamentally change the whole region," Biden said in an appearance on ABC's "The View."
Posted by: Fred ||
09/26/2024
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#1
And his "Team" is working on that "not inevitable" thingie.
[BBC] Two men have been tossed in the calaboose Into the paddy wagon wit' yez! for raping three maiden of tender yearss at house parties they threw for "vulnerable youngsters" in Plymouth in December 2017.
The one on the southwest coast of England, not any of the other ones.
Salih, 31, from Plymouth, was given a 19-year sentence for two counts of rape of two victims.
Saif Kahya, 32, from Liverpool, was given 12 years for the rape of another teenager.
Sentencing at Plymouth Crown Court, Judge Peter Johnson said the case had "brought back extremely painful memories" for those involved and it took "commendable inner strength" for them to come forward.
The court heard how the pair had given the girls, who were aged 16 and under at the time, drugs and alcohol at parties they had thrown.
Devon and Cornwall Police said the abuse came to light after a girl came forward and gave key evidence to police after she watched the BBC drama Three Girls, which described a high-profile investigation in Rochdale.
In August, Salih was convicted of two counts of rape of a female aged 15 or under.
Saif Kahya, 32, from Liverpool, was found guilty of one count of rape of a female aged 16 or over.
At the sentencing, prosecutor Dan Pawson-Pounds read out statements prepared by the victims.
'DAMAGED AND SULLEN'
One of the girls, who was 14 when she was raped by Salih, said afterwards she felt "dirty" and as if he had "taken away my childhood innocence".
In her statement, she said: "I can't control when I'm reminded of what he did to me. It's a memory I will never forget and have no control of. It's changed my life forever.
"I live with what he did to me every day in the back of my mind."
His second victim, who was also 14 at the time, said she felt "degraded".
She said: "I need to move forward and need the success of my life I always wanted.
"I won't let him stop me. I hope he knows he's changed my life forever."
Mr Pawson-Pounds also read out a statement from the then 16-year-old victim of Kahya.
She said: "Being raped isn't something I will learn to live with."
The court heard how she became a "recluse", she was once "bubbly and outgoing" but turned "damaged and sullen".
'LYING FLUENTLY'
Mitigating, lawyers for the two men, Ali Rafati and Hollie Gilbery, said the pair had no previous convictions. "They hadn't been caught yet" is a convincing argument?
They added both had lived in the community for seven years after the offence and there had been no reoffending. "We stopped because we were caught"
Judge Johnson said to Salih and Kahya: "Your lies were exposed for being utterly ridiculous.
"You have been lying fluently not only in interview but also under oath.
"You tried to deny the undeniable."
He also commended the witnesses and victims and said they "showed the most enormous courage and determination to see justice done".
#2
Napier said it best, regarding 'customs'-
“Be it so. This burning of widows is your custom; prepare the funeral pyre. But my nation has also a custom. When men burn women alive, we hang them. Let us all act according to our national customs.”
[PJMEDIA] Did you hear the story about a national law enforcement organization that came out and endorsed Kamala Harris It is time for us to do what we have been doing. And that time is every day ? The group, Police Leaders for Community Safety, made their endorsement Monday via blurb.
''This endorsement reflects Vice President Harris' track record and unwavering commitment to public safety and the rule of law,'' said Sue Riseling, Chair of Police Leaders for Community Safety. ''As police leaders who have led law enforcement agencies and the major national law enforcement leadership groups, we know first-hand what it will take to make our communities safer — and that includes having Kamala Harris as our next President."
The Harris-Walz campaign gloated over the endorsement.
The liberal media also fell over themselves reporting on it, pushing the narrative that it was a stunning snub of former President Donald Trump ...New York real estate developer, described by Dems as illiterate, racist, misogynistic, and whatever other unpleasant descriptions they can think of, elected by the rest of us as 45th President of the United States... ”A group of national law enforcement leaders have endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris weeks after the National Fraternal Order of Police backed former President Donald Trump," reported USA Today.
One outlet even claimed the group "normally backs Trump."
There's just one problem. This group didn't even exist until a few months ago. Even USA Today noted in its report that the Police Leaders for Community Safety organization "was created in [June] 2024 as a non-partisan 501(c)4, and describes itself as an organization that represents dozens of police officials."
Recommended: Did the Biden-Harris DOJ Put a Bounty on Trump's Head?
Founded in June of this year? Dozens of police officials?
USA Today pitched the endorsement as somehow on par with Trump's endorsement by the Fraternal Order of Police, which was founded in 1915 and has 373,000 members as of last year.
Even Fox News called the group a "leading law enforcement group," for some reason.
The organization - which says it is led by a diverse group of prominent police professionals who have been at the helm of numerous major national law enforcement leadership groups - highlights that its mission is to champion "policies to make communities and the people in them safer, improve and evolve policing, and safeguard the rule of law."
Clearly, the Police Leaders for Community Safety isn't in the same league as the Fraternal Order of Police, the International Union of Police Associations, or the National Association of Police Organizations. Yet the liberal media, and apparently, Fox News as well, bought into the ruse that this is an organization whose endorsement carries the same weight.
It doesn't. I wouldn't be shocked to find out this group was established specifically as a faux non-partisan organization that will routinely endorse Democrats ...every time you hear the phrase white people, white supremacy,white anything but paint, you're listening to a Democrat. Ask him/her/it to reimagine something for you; they do that a lot, though not well. They can hear a dog whistle a mile or two away. They invented the spoils system and Tammany Hall, and inspired the addition of the word (Thomas) Nasty to the English language. They want to stop continental drift and repeal the law of unintended side effects... , to serve as a counterbalance to the law enforcement groups that don't endorse the party that wants to defund them.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/26/2024
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"...Fox News as well, bought into the ruse."
And somehow Fox is different?
Posted by: S MAI ||
09/26/2024 9:39
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#3
How it works: When a Dem from the Donor Class maxes out his campaign contributions, one choice they have to continue their 'charity' is to dump a bunch of money into a 501C and start one of these political action groups.
That is how 'Law Enforcement Group Backing Kamala Harris' started. The group didnt exist a couple years ago. One might think that fact might be news, lies by omission, but legacy media is more interested in the narrative.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
09/26/2024 19:43
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#5
I won't link it.
Geeks and Nerds for Harris
It is up to you to follow through.
*Swiggle Kansas take is not responsible for excessive Cringe, generic music causing bad dancing, nausea, general gastrointestinal discomfort, three left feet, loss of food taste, shortness of height and or temperament. Do not watch if you will be operating a vehicle or construction vehicle, or have Work Clothes."
Violent Dallas Antifa member and new convict Meghan Grant (b. June 13, 1985) is using the account @AFAmother on X. AFA = Antifascist Action, the dog whistle that Antifa members use with one another.
[THECONSERVATIVETREEHOUSE] The federal judge who presided over — and threw out — the criminal classified documents case the Justice Department brought against Donald Trump is now set to oversee the case into the latest apparent assassination attempt against the former president.
U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon — a Trump appointee — was randomly assigned the attempted assassination case Tuesday after a grand jury in Miami returned a five-count indictment against Ryan Routh in connection with the Sept. 15 incident at the Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Florida.
The indictment charges Routh with attempted assassination of a presidential candidate, possessing a firearm in furtherance of a violent crime and assault on a federal officer, as well as two charges he already faced: being a felon in possession of a firearm and possessing a firearm with an obliterated serial number.
[THECONSERVATIVETREEHOUSE] In a heavily coordinated and strategic political visit to Pennsylvania, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky was essentially campaigning for Kamala Harris and a continuation of the Biden foreign policy which provides billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars to Ukraine. [AP Article Here]
Any non-pretending political pundit can see the transparency of the Zelensky visit to an ammunition factory in Pennsylvania when timed in context against the 2024 presidential campaign, with an overlay of Zelensky's comments about how a Trump-Vance victory would be detrimental to the interests of the Ukranian government.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/26/2024
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#1
I am tired of Donald Trump calling Zelensky a salesman. Zelensky is the leader of a nation that is under a brutal military invasion with whole towns being leveled to the ground, innocent families being bombed, hospitals being hit by missiles, a leader trying to save his country from slaughter. Biden and Harris and the DNC are corrupt. But at least they are hearing cries of innocent people under attack while Trump, Johnson and Greene come across as monsters for turning away from this brutal slaughter.
[Epoch Times] Former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris have each agreed to a separate town hall in early October hosted by Univision, the Spanish-language network announced.
Trump’s town hall will take place on Oct. 8, at 10 p.m. ET in Miami, while Harris’s town hall will be held on Oct. 10, at 10 p.m. ET from Las Vegas, according to Univision.
The events will be moderated by journalist Enrique Ace
Both town halls will air on their respective days with Spanish translation at 10 p.m. ET on Univision and stream on ViX’s Noticias 24/7 channel.
They will also be available in English on Noticias 24/7 Univision’s YouTube channel.
Univision said the audiences in attendance at both town halls will be comprised mainly of undecided Hispanic voters who will ask Trump and Harris questions about important issues facing the community and the nation. Should be interesting.
Posted by: Bobby ||
09/26/2024
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#1
So somebody can blow one without risking their candidate.
[GEO.TV] The United Nations said Wednesday that some 90,000 people had been displaced in Lebanon this week, as Israel pounds what it says are Hezbollah targets across the country and the Lebanese group attacks Israel. They're scared the missiles they have stored in their houses are gonna go up like the pagers did.
Since Monday, the UN's International Organisation for Migration has recorded "90,530 newly displaced persons", a statement said.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/26/2024
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#1
When any nation lets or is forced into having an Aggressive, Genocidal Terrorist Group setup camp on its soil. From which it then plans, controls and launches attacks on their adversaries. Don't expect things to stay safe and peaceful for long.
BTW: Where was the UN when Hezbollah openly set up shop in Lebanon, or HAMAS in GAZA?
A radical leftist teacher in Providence, R.I. was charged with child s—x crimes.
Joseph Gannon is accused of r—ping a student and having child s—x abuse content. On social media, he wanted police defunded and expressed hatred of Trump and Christianity. https://t.co/TNOQJfoHLr
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[Regnum] An international team of scientists from the United States, France, Australia, and Poland have discovered a new species of invasive flatworms that is spreading in the southern regions of the United States. The corresponding study was published in the scientific journal PeerJ.
The new species of alien worms, named Amaga pseudobama, was first discovered in North Carolina in 2020.
The worm resembles the invasive Obama nungara, which has spread widely across Europe. The name comes from an indigenous language in Brazil and means "leaf-like animal." The new species is a brown flatworm that averages several centimeters in length.
To identify the creature, specialists conducted a molecular study. During the analysis, it was discovered that the new species of worm differs significantly from Obama nungara at the genetic level.
It has been found not only in North Carolina, but also in Florida and Georgia. Scientists believe that the worm may spread to other southern US states.
Earlier, environmentalists warned of a catastrophe amid the invasion of alien worms in the United States. An analysis by experts showed that at least 70 species of worms live on the North American continent, posing a threat to local ecosystems.
If a disbelieving woman who is married has been captured in war, she becomes permissible for the Muslims after one menstrual cycle has passed, which serves to establish that she is not pregnant.
says Sheikh Mohamed Ali in a speech at the Al-Furqan Islamic Centre in Manchester,… pic.twitter.com/5pewO442eB
[IsraelNationalNews] US Senator Tom Cotton (R-AK) and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) say the Biden Administration is continuing to delay the delivery of vital military equipment to Israel.
In a joint letter to President Joe Biden, the two senators wrote: "We write to strongly condemn your administration's continued delay in providing critical military equipment and weapons to our ally Israel in the midst of an existential war. Delays of equipment that Israel requires to win its multi-front war against Iranian-terrorist proxies, compounded by statements by Administration officials blaming Israel for escalation, undercut Israel's efforts to restore deterrence by emboldening the Iranian-backed terrorists."
They wrote that they have reason to believe the administration is currently delaying three types of military weapons or equipment and proceeded to elaborate: "MK-84 bombs: Israel requires these bombs to hit Hamas's deeply buried tunnels and other military infrastructure in Gaza. Hezbollah also has significant military infrastructure that Israel must destroy.
"Apache attack helicopters: Despite ongoing discussions between the United States and Israel, your administration has failed to fast-track and approve the sale of Apache attack helicopters. Israel requested these helicopters last December, recognizing the increased need given the war in Gaza. That need has only increased with Hezbollah's escalation in the north.
"Caterpillar D9 tractors: We recently learned you are holding up tractors that the IDF uses to clear improvised explosive devices (IEDs) ahead of its troops. Israel puts armor on these tractors and uses them to save the lives of scores of Israel Defense Force (IDF) soldiers and civilians."
Senators Cotton and McConnell concluded their letter: "Further delays will endanger Israeli lives, increase the likelihood that the conflict will escalate further, and harm American national security interests. It's far past time to transfer to Israel the capabilities it needs to win."
Posted by: Grom the Reflective ||
09/26/2024
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#1
Any surprises here?
The New National Socialist Democratic Party has openly supported PRO-HAMAS Terrorists.
What will be their version of the Goose Step be,
a marching twerk?
[GEO.TV] Earlier today, Hezbollah launched missile towards Mossad headquarters in Tel Aviv, sending a message to the world.
"There is no de-escalation. There is no diplomacy. Just Hezbollah and the Israeli army attacking each other," says Al Jazeera reporter Imran Khan while reporting from Lebanon. With one side getting their ass kicked. Allah doesn't like you
Hezbollah has used one of their longer-range missiles, for the first time since October 8, when hostilities broke out between Israel and Hezbollah.
According to Al Jazeera, Hezbollah says they launched the missiles from their territory against the Mossad headquarters just outside Tel Aviv, in direct revenge for the walkie-talkie and pager attacks the world witnessed last week.
"Now it's only one missile, so it's more than likely to be a message from Hezbollah that they still have ballistic missile capability," Imran said. "The Israeli army says that their missile defence system actually intercepted it."
Imran emphasised that the fear for the Israelis is that "the missile defence system simply gets overwhelmed."
"They have to shoot up a missile to shoot down a missile. So if you send more than what the actual defence system can handle, then some of those missiles will land in Tel Aviv."
Posted by: Fred ||
09/26/2024
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#1
Imran Khan - I thought he was in prison in Pakistan.
[IsraelTimes] Ben Gvir threatens to withdraw his party from coalition if PM agrees to proposal by US, France and other nations for a 21-day lull to negotiate an end to fighting
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office swiftly denied as false a report Thursday morning that claimed officials expected a ceasefire between Israel and the Lebanese terror group Hezbollah within hours.
The United States, European Union ...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing... , and other allies including several Arab states had issued a joint call for a 21-day halt in the fighting in Leb ...an Iranian satrapy currently ruled by Hassan Nasrallah 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 dozen flavors of Christians, plus Armenians, Georgians, and who knows what else? It is the home of the original Hezbollah, which periodically starts a war with the Zionist Entity, gets Beirut pounded to rubble, and then declares victory and has a parade. The Lebs have the curious habit of periodically murdering their heads of state or prime ministers... , where a months-long border conflict has spiked in recent days, with Hezbollah bombarding Israel’s north and the Israel Defense Forces hitting the Iran-backed group’s infrastructure, much of which is embedded in civilian areas.
Headlines in various Hebrew media promised an imminent ceasefire based on a single report by Britain’s Sky News, which quoted unnamed US administration officials as saying they “expect” a three-week pause to be implemented “in the coming hours” in line with the joint call issued by the US, France, and several allies.
"This is an American-French proposal that the prime minister hasn’t even responded to," the Prime Minister’s Office said in a statement.
The statement also cast as "opposite from the truth" a Channel 12 report that Netanyahu had ordered the IDF to tone down strikes in Lebanon, saying the premier has empowered the army to keep striking with "full force," and that the fighting in Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with an iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response... will continue until all the war goals are reached.
Rocket fire from Lebanon continued during the day as Israeli warplanes pounded Hezbollah targets.
Foreign Minister Israel Katz backed up Netanyahu, asserting that "there will be no ceasefire in the north."
"We will continue to fight the Hezbollah terror group with full force until victory and the return of residents of the north to their homes safely," added Katz, who is standing in for Netanyahu during the latter’s US trip but who doesn’t appear to have authority to make operational decisions on the prosecution of the war.
Israel has made a priority of securing its northern border and enabling the return of some 70,000 residents displaced by near-daily exchanges of fire with Hezbollah, which began attacking after Hamas ..a contraction of the Arabic words for "frothing at the mouth",... ’s devastating October 7, 2023, onslaught, in solidarity with the Gaza terror group.
Headlines in various Hebrew media promised an imminent ceasefire based on a single report by Britannia’s Sky News, which quoted unnamed US administration officials as saying they "expect" a three-week pause to be implemented "in the coming hours" in line with the joint call issued by the US, La Belle France, and several allies. The lull was to be used for negotiations aimed at reaching a more permanent ceasefire.
Previous reports had quoted Israeli officials as saying the chances for a ceasefire were very slim, while others cited US officials as saying only that a decision from Israel and Lebanon on the ceasefire proposal was expected "within hours" — not that such a ceasefire would immediately come into effect.
The proposal was issued from the sidelines of the United Nations ...an organization conceived in the belief that we're just one big happy world, with the sort of results you'd expect from such nonsense... General Assembly, which is underway in New York.
Israel’s envoy to the UN and Lebanon’s prime minister, who is attending the assembly, had both welcomed the proposal.
The Sky report, and the joint statement from the plan’s architects calling for a lull in the fighting — a step vehemently opposed by Netanyahu’s voter base and his far-right coalition partners — set off a flurry of responses from Israeli political figures.
National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir threatened to withdraw his far-right Otzma Yehudit party from Netanyahu’s government if he agrees to a ceasefire in Lebanon.
Following a meeting with politicians from his party, Ben Gvir warned the prime minister that acceding to a temporary deal would cause him to cease cooperating with the rest of the coalition and "if the temporary ceasefire becomes permanent we will resign from the government."
"The most basic and understandable thing is that when your enemy is on his knees, you do not allow him to recover, but work to defeat him," Ben Gvir said, claiming that to pause the fighting "conveys weakness, endangers the security of your citizens, and proves that you do not intend to win."
He continued, "If the temporary ceasefire becomes permanent...all the Otzma Yehudit ministers and MKs will resign from the government and the coalition."
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich also declared he opposed the ceasefire proposal, insisting that continuing the war against Hezbollah was the only way forward.
"The campaign in the north should end with a single result: crushing Hezbollah and eliminating its ability to harm the residents of the north," Smotrich said on social media platform X. "The enemy must not be given time to recover from the heavy blows it has suffered and reorganize itself to continue the war after 21 days."
Culture Minister Miki Zohar of Netanyahu’s ruling Likud party said he hoped what he termed the "reports" were untrue, adding that agreeing to a ceasefire would constitute "a serious error that endangers Israel’s major security achievements in recent days."
Opposition Leader Yair Lapid said that Israel should partially accept the joint US-French call for an immediate truce but only for seven days and not 21, in order to keep Hezbollah from regrouping.
"The State of Israel should announce this morning that it accepts the Biden-Macron ceasefire proposal, but only for seven days so as not to allow Hezbollah to restore its command and control systems," he tweeted. "We will not accept any proposal that does not include removing Hezbollah from our northern border.
"Any proposal that is put forward must allow the residents of the north to immediately return safely to their homes and lead to the renewal of negotiations for a hostage deal" with Hamas, he continued.
Lapid’s statement came a day after he received a security briefing from Netanyahu.
Hezbollah is barred by UN Security Council Resolution 1701 from maintaining a military presence south of the Litani River. The Shiite terror group has blatantly violated that resolution and, since October 8, has regularly launched attacks on Israel from near the border.
It began its attacks a day after the war with Hamas erupted with a devastating cross-border terror onslaught in which 1,200 people, mostly civilians, were killed and 251 people were taken as hostages to Gaza.
So far, the skirmishes have resulted in 26 civilian deaths on the Israeli side, as well as the deaths of 22 IDF soldiers and reservists. There have also been several attacks from Syria, without any injuries.
Hezbollah has named 512 members who have been killed by Israel during the ongoing skirmishes, mostly in Lebanon but some also in Syria. Another 88 operatives from other terror groups, a Lebanese soldier, and dozens of civilians have also been killed.
Lebanese officials say some 600 people in the country have been killed in Israeli Arclight airstrike ...KABOOM!... s over the past few days, without differentiating between civilians and combatants. Lebanon’s foreign minister said the number of displaced Lebanese had soared to nearly 500,000 since Israel ramped up its military campaign.
[BBC] China says it carried out a rare test-firing of an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) into international waters, sparking protests from neighbouring countries.
The launch on Wednesday – its first in more than 40 years - was “routine” and not aimed at any country or target, according to Beijing. Chinese media reported the government also gave “relevant countries” notice.
But Japan said it had not received a warning and expressed concerns, along with Australia and New Zealand.
The launch contributes to tensions across the Indo-Pacific region, with analysts saying it highlights China's increased long-range nuclear capabilities.
The US warned last year that China has built up its nuclear arsenal as part of a defence upgrade. An intercontinental ballistic missile can travel more 5,500km - putting China within striking range of the US mainland and Hawaii.
But Beijing’s arsenal is still estimated at less than a fifth of the size of the US's and Russia’s, and China has long maintained that its nuclear maintainance is only about deterrence.
On Wednesday, Beijing announced that the long-range missile was fired at 08:44 local time (04:44 GMT). It carried a dummy warhead and landed in the designated area - believed to be in the South Pacific.
Beijing's defence ministry added the test launch was "routine" and part of its "annual training".
But analysts said China was last known to have test-fired an ICBM internationally in the 1980s. Typically, it tests internally - having previously fired ICBMs west into the Taklamakan Desert in the Xinjiang region.
“This sort of testing is not unusual for other countries, including the United States, but is for China,” nuclear missile analyst Ankit Panda told the BBC.
China’s “ongoing nuclear modernisation” already has resulted in substantial changes, he said. This launch now appears to also show a change in its approach.
It has sparked immediate reaction from other countries. Japan said it had received “no notice” and expressed “serious concern” about Beijing’s military build-up.
Meanwhile, Australia said the action was "destabilising and raises the risk of miscalculation in the region” and that it had sought “an explanation” from Beijing. New Zealand called it “an unwelcome and concerning development”.
Mr Panda said he doesn't believe China’s actions were primarily designed to send a political message - “but no doubt this will be a stark reminder to the region and to the US that nuclear dynamics in Asia are quickly changing”.
Other analysts went further, saying it was another wake-up call for the US and its allies in the region.
“To Washington, the message is that direct intervention in a conflict across the Taiwan Strait would involve the American homeland being vulnerable to attack,” said Leif-Eric Easley, an international relations professor at Ewha Women's University in South Korea.
For US allies in Asia, the “provocative test… demonstrates China’s capabilities to fight on multiple fronts simultaneously," he added.
"Timing is everything," Drew Thompson, a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore, wrote on X.
"[China's] statement claims the launch does not target any country, but there are high-levels of tension between China and Japan, Philippines, and of course perpetual tension with Taiwan."
While the relationship between Beijing and Washington has improved in the past year, China's increasing assertiveness in the region remains a sticking point. Tensions have ramped up between China and the Philippines as their ships have repeatedly collided in disputed waters.
Last month, Japan scrambled fighter jets after it accused a Chinese spy plane of breaching its air space, a move that it called "utterly unacceptable".
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[Regnum] The Russian Pacific Fleet has been replenished with two fourth-generation nuclear submarines, the Emperor Alexander III and Krasnoyarsk, the Russian Defense Ministry reported on September 25.
It is specified that the submarine crews were ceremoniously greeted by the Commander-in-Chief of the Navy Alexander Moiseyev and Deputy Minister of Defense Pavel Fradkov at their base - the port of the city of Vilyuchinsk in Kamchatka.
"The new nuclear submarines, which significantly increased the combat potential of their Pacific Fleet units, were brought to combat readiness within the planned timeframe and prepared to solve all tasks for their intended purpose, including in the difficult conditions of the Arctic," said Admiral Moiseyev.
Fradkov emphasized that these cruisers are superior to their counterparts.
"Emperor Alexander III" and "Krasnoyarsk" have no equal among other submarines of the same class. Now these vessels will perform tasks to ensure strategic deterrence and increase the combat potential of the country as part of the Pacific Fleet," Fradkov said.
As reported by the Regnum news agency, on September 16, as part of the Okean-2024 exercises, these submarines made an under-ice passage through the Arctic. The nuclear cruisers passed along polar routes from the Northern Fleet operational zone to the eastern part of the Arctic, passing the waters of six Arctic seas in difficult ice conditions.
On September 10, ships, coastal complexes and submarines of the Pacific Fleet and Northern Fleet practiced a joint strike on a simulated enemy during the Okean-2024 exercises. Before this, it was reported that over 400 warships, submarines and support vessels would take part in the Okean-2024 exercises.
[BBC] Just 20 herself and mother of a one-year-old boy, Samantha says that Jan Franco was one of many young people to lose their lives in the streets in recent months:
“So many young people have been killed this year," she explains.
“The violence is getting out of hand. They’re basically gangs, and they fall out with each other as gangs. That’s where it’s all coming from, these killings and deaths of young people.”
They often solve their quarrels with knives and machetes, she says.
“Almost no-one settles an argument with their fists anymore. It’s all knives, machetes, even guns. Things I just don’t understand,” her voice trails off.
The situation has been worsened by a new drug in Cuba called “quimico” – a cheap chemical high with a cannabis base. Samantha says that it’s increasingly popular among Cuban youth in the parks and on the streets.
Previously, even suggesting that Cuba had a problem with opioids and street gangs – especially to a foreign journalist – could land you in difficulties.
The Cuban authorities have always been fiercely protective of their island's reputation as crime-free and quick to point out that the streets are demonstrably safer than those of most cities in the US. Anything that highlights Cuba’s social problems is generally painted as biased criticism of their socialist system or as anti-revolutionary fabrications originating from Miami or Washington.
However, such has been the public perception of a worsening crime rate, a perception shared by many Cubans on social media, that the authorities have openly addressed it on state television.
In August, an edition of nightly talk programme Mesa Redonda – in which Communist Party officials are invited on air to deliver the party line – was titled Cuba Against Drugs.
During the broadcast, Colonel Juan Carlos Poey Guerra, the head of the interior ministry’s anti-drug unit, acknowledged the existence, production and distribution of the new drug, químico, and its impact on Cuba’s youth. He insisted the authorities were tackling the issue.
In another edition, on crime, the government denied the situation was worsening, claiming only 9% of crimes in Cuba were violent and just 3% were murders.
However, critics question the transparency of the government’s statistics and say there’s no independent oversight of the bodies which produce them or the methodologies they use.
For its part, the government largely blames the old enemy, the United States, for both the existence of synthetic opioids in Cuba and for the decades-long US economic embargo on the island which they say is the reason some Cubans have resorted to crime.
In a rare interview, the vice-president of Cuba’s Supreme Court, Maricela Sosa Ravelo, told the BBC the problem was being blown out of proportion on social media. She refuted the suggestion that many crimes go unreported through a lack of public confidence in the police.
“In my 30 years as a judge and magistrate, I don’t think that the Cuban people lack confidence in their authorities," she claimed, speaking inside the ornate Supreme Court building.
“In Cuba, the police have a high success rate in solving crimes. We don’t see people taking the law into their own hands – which happens in other parts of Latin America and elsewhere – which suggests the population trusts in the Cuban justice system,” she argued.
Again, though, that wasn’t the experience of another recent victim of opportunistic theft on Havana’s dimly lit streets.
Shyra is a transgender activist who is used to speaking out about rights in Cuba. She says that her story, of being robbed by a man brandishing a knife one evening, is common.
But it was the police response which disillusioned her the most.
I told them where they could find the attacker, showed them which direction he was headed in, what he was wearing. But they just didn’t pay me any attention.
“Just after I was attacked, I came across two motorcycle police in a side street," Shyra recalls. Despite her obvious distress, the police ignored her pleas for help, she says.
“They openly told me: ‘We’re not here for stuff like that.' It was such a shocking thing to hear because I told them where they could find the attacker, showed them which direction he was headed in, what he was wearing. But they just didn’t pay me any attention.”
#2
Cuba is not doing well (if you can say that Cuba was ever doing well) and is have experiencing one of their worst crisis since their revolution. Huge shortages of food, water, and basic goods. Cuba has seen record-breaking exodus of migrants in the past two years. Crime has soared as well.
[Daily Mail, where America gets its news] Secretary of State Antony Blinken was held in contempt of Congress by the House Foreign Affairs Committee for skirting a public hearing on the disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal.
He is the third Biden administration official to be formally reprimanded by Congress.
In June, Attorney General Merrick Garland was held in contempt of Congress for refusing to turn over Joe Biden audio tapes where he appeared 'elderly.' The Justice Department refused to prosecute its leader, ending the proceedings.
And earlier this year, the House approved two articles of impeachment against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas over his handling of the southern border crisis, which the Senate dismissed.
The House Foreign Affairs Committee has sought to bring in the chief diplomat following his handling of the military and civilian disaster killing 13 U.S. troops and hundreds of Afghans that has been compared to the fall of Saigon during the Vietnam war.
Chairman Michael McCaul, R-Texas, led the rebuke of Blinken after the agency has 'mischaracterized the accommodations' he gave the secretary, who 'ignored the committee for months.'
The chairman called Blinken's testimony a 'vital component' to his investigation into the 2021 Afghanistan withdrawal and the department's 'shortcomings during that period.'
Blinken is currently in New York City attending meetings connected to the U.N. General Assembly.
[Townhall - Kurt Schlichter] So, I went out and visited America last week. Leaving California is always interesting, and it’s quite a culture clash when you go back to someplace like rural Pennsylvania, where my family came from. Last week, we went back for a quintessentially American kind of event. My grandfather was being inducted into the Chambersburg High School Athletics Hall of Fame. He was a coach and athletic director there for something like 40 years. My little trip out of my LA blue bubble was a welcome reminder that all of America isn’t a nightmarish hellscape like California is.
So, we landed at Dulles and headed out to Gettysburg after spending a night in DC. I’ve been to Gettysburg about a million times. I actually have a scar on my forehead from where I fell as a little kid on the Peace Memorial. The drive was interesting because I saw a lot of Trump signs. There were a few Harris signs but a lot more Trump ones. You get out of the cities, and it’s bright red. You need to understand that the old joke is true about Pennsylvania. It’s liberal Pittsburgh and Philadelphia and Kentucky in between. These places are where normal people live. There was no weirdness. It was neat, clean, and orderly. Drug zombies weren’t staggering and shouting. There wasn’t trash everywhere. No bizarre transvestites were walking around. It was all normal. Read it all; it gave me hope.
So, what’s the takeaway about this little slice of America? Perhaps that normal people are not obsessed with the same idiotic things that the regime media tries to make us believe they are obsessed with. Perhaps America isn’t a racist, sexist hellhole. Perhaps America is a patriotic place full of people who love their country and love their community and take care of each other. I’m not pretending Chambersburg, or the rest of non-blue-city America is perfect. That would be ridiculous. But I’ve lived and traveled around the world, and compared to most of it, Chambersburg was paradise. We ought to remember that before we let the left destroy our country in a selfish pursuit of power.
Posted by: Bobby ||
09/26/2024
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[IsraelTomes] Gazan ministry sends truck carrying bodies back to border crossing, demands explanation of deaths; Israel does not comment on such cases
Israel on Wednesday reportedly returned the bodies of 88 Paleostinians killed in its military offensive in the Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with an iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response... Strip, which the territory’s Hamas ..the well-beloved offspring of the Moslem Brotherhood,... -run health ministry refused to bury unless Israel discloses details about who they are and where they were killed.
”We don’t want ‘em
You can have ‘em
They’re unknown to us”
The bodies were brought into Gaza in a container loaded on a truck through an Israeli-controlled crossing, but, according to Paleostinian officials, there was no information provided about the names or ages of the victims or the locations where they died.
From the attached list:
Body #1: Elderly male, no pants, head smashed in.
Body #2: toddler, female with red hair, no apparent cause of death.
Body #3: …
Health officials at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis refused to receive them and bury them, urging the International Committee of the Red Thingy to seek details from Israel.
"The health ministry halted the procedures to receive the container (carrying the bodies) until the completion of the full data and information about those bodies so their relatives can identify them," the Gazook ministry said in a statement.
The head of the Hamas-run Gaza government media office said health ministry officials told the driver of the truck to bring the bodies back to the Israeli crossing from which he had arrived. The truck then left the hospital.
"They must act according to the international humanitarian law and in a way that preserves the dignity of the deaders and their families," Ismail al-Thawabta told Rooters.
The Red Thingy said it wasn’t involved in the transfer process.
"We reiterate that all families have the right to receive news about their loved ones and bury them respectfully and in line with their traditions," said a statement issued by the ICRC.
Tell that to Hamas, O Red Thingy spokesperson. They’re the ones who kidnapped and killed, and are now holding unnamed bodies for ransom. But you don’t care about dead Jooos and those who associated closely enough with them to be kidnapped on October 7th.
Under international humanitarian law, the bodies of those who have died during an armed conflict must be handled with dignity. The law requires that they be searched for, collected, and evacuated, which helps ensure that people do not go missing, the ICRC statement added.
Let us point out to the distinguished spokesperson for the International Committee of the Red Cross that Israel is giving back the borrowed bodies without asking anything in return.
The Civil Emergency Service tasked with finding people missing under rubble, on roads, and in ruined buildings in Gaza says it has been notified of around 10,000 people missing during the nearly year-long Israeli assault on Gaza.
The military does not provide an explanation in such cases when bodies are returned to Gaza. However,
man does not live by words alone, despite the fact that sometimes he has to eat them... the military has announced when it has taken bodies from the Strip to try and identify if dead hostages are among them.
The war began on October 7 when Hamas-led Lions of Islam rampaged through southern communities, slaughtering some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking 251 hostages to Gaza. Israel launched its military operation, which has stretched for over 11 months, aiming to eliminate Hamas and bring back those kidnapped.
The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry says more than 41,000 people in the Strip have been killed or are presumed dead in the fighting so far, though the toll cannot be verified and does not differentiate between civilians and fighters. Israel says it has killed some 17,000 combatants in battle and another 1,000 Lions of Islam inside Israel on October 7.
Israel’s corpse count in the ground offensive against Hamas in Gaza and in military operations along the border with the Strip stands at 348.
#4
I'm sure Israel will cave. Cremation or burial at sea (ala; Osama Bin-Laden) might be distasteful for the Jews; but the bodies would be land buried in Israel if it ever achieved it's 1 State solution!
#5
the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry refused to bury unless Israel discloses details about who they are and where they were killed.
You need paperwork? Not a problem! This is the sort of thing that ChatGPT excels at creating. Sure, the output will be devoid of facts thanks to generative AI's ability to "hallucinate" (an industry term meaning "to make shit up"), but it is not like anyone is going to be fact-checking.
Actually, I am a bit surprised Hamass does not have a Tomb of the Unknown Martyr given their tendency to explode and the inherent difficulty of identifying bodies from their reconstituted pulverized parts.
[IsraelTimes] Military says commanders and members of rocket and propaganda divisions killed, as troops enter Beit Lahiya area in north to destroy Hamas infrastructure
Israeli troops killed more than 40 Hamas ..the braying voice of Islamic Resistance®,... operatives in the Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with an iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response... Strip while fresh raids were launched across the enclave, the Israel Defense Forces said Wednesday.
The military said the operatives who were killed over the past day were field commanders and members of other arrays in the terror group, including its rocket division and propaganda unit.
In the northern Gaza Strip, the IDF said it launched a new pinpoint operation in Beit Lahiya, aimed at destroying Hamas infrastructure there. Troops with the Gaza Division located three rocket launchers in the Beit Lahiya area, one of which was loaded with at least three rockets, the army said. Paleostinian medics said a woman was killed in an Arclight airstrike ...KABOOM!... on a house in the town earlier on Tuesday.
In central Gaza, the IDF said reservists with the 252nd Division launched several raids in Gaza City’s Sabra and Zeitoun neighborhoods, as well as on the outskirts of Nuseirat. The military said that the reservists located and destroyed several tunnels in the area.
In the southern Gaza Strip, the IDF’s 162nd Division continued to operate in Rafah and the so-called Philadelphi Corridor along the Egypt-Gaza border. In Rafah, the IDF said troops killed several button men spotted in a tunnel shaft, and located many weapons. Medics said at least eight Paleostinians were killed in two separate Israeli strikes on two houses in Rafah. One of those strikes killed a woman and her children, they added.
In another attack in Bureij, one of the Gaza Strip’s eight historic refugee camps, five Paleostinians were killed in a house hit by an Israeli missile, medics said.
[IsraelTimes] Emgage Action cites GOP candidate’s vow to reinstate a Muslim travel ban for decision; group says it mobilized 1 million voters in 2020 election
US Moslem advocacy group Emgage Action on Wednesday endorsed Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris Former Oakland mayor Willie Brown's' former mistress , saying former president Donald Trump ...They hit him with slander, they impeached him twice. Nancy Pelosi tore up his State of the Union address on national TV. They stole an election and put his adherents in jail. They vilified him. They couldn't crucify him, so they shot him. Still, they can't keep him down... posed a greater danger to the community with his promise to reinstate a travel ban affecting majority-Moslem countries.
The group, which endorsed US President Joe The Big Guy Biden ...46th president of the U.S. Former Senator-for-Life from Delaware, an example of the kind of top-notch Washington intellect to be found in the World's Greatest Deliberative Body.... in 2020 after first backing Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders
...The only first openly Socialist member of the U.S. Senate. Sanders was Representative-for-Life from Vermont until moving to the Senate for the rest of his life in 2006, assuming the seat vacated by Jim Jeffords. He ran for the 2016 nomination for president, to be cheated out of it by Hillary Clinton, then went back to being an Independent socialist, waiting for 2020 to roll around... , says it mobilized 1 million Moslem voters in that election.
Harris already won the endorsement of smaller Moslem groups, including the Black Moslem Leadership Council Fund and the American Moslem Democratic Caucus ahead of the November 5 election.
Trump’s campaign had no immediate comment.
He says he will reinstate the so-called travel ban that restricts entry into the United States of people from a list of largely Moslem-dominant countries. Biden rolled back the ban shortly after taking office in 2021.
The Biden administration, where Harris serves as vice president, has faced calls from both fellow Democrats ...every time you hear the phrase white people, white supremacy,white anything but paint, you're listening to a Democrat. Ask him/her/it to reimagine something for you; they do that a lot, though not well. They can hear a dog whistle a mile or two away. They invented the spoils system and Tammany Hall, and inspired the addition of the word (Thomas) Nasty to the English language. They want to stop continental drift and repeal the law of unintended side effects... and international allies throughout Israel’s campaign in Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with an iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response... to press Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government to ease the humanitarian situation in the Paleostinian enclave.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[Regnum] A member of a terrorist cell created by convicts in a Kalmykia penal colony has been arrested, the website of the Essentuki City Court reported on September 25.
“Based on the results of the court hearing, the court came to the conclusion that it was appropriate to choose a preventive measure in the form of detention for a period of 1 month and 4 days, until October 28, 2024, against the citizen,” the statement said.
According to the preliminary investigation, in 2013, a terrorist group called "Ahl al-Sunna wal-Jamaat" was created in the colony, which included more than 100 convicts. The members of the terrorist group spread extremist ideology, recruited new convicts, and also established the rules of the Sharia court on the territory of the colony.
Criminal cases have been opened against several dozen members and leaders of the terrorist cell, some of whom have already been sentenced to various terms of imprisonment.
As reported by the Regnum news agency, on August 23, in IK-19 in the Volgograd region, four criminals serving their sentences there took eight employees of the colony and four prisoners hostage. The attackers demanded $2 million, a helicopter and an air corridor to Georgia.
As a result of the emergency, four FSIN employees were killed, one of whom died in hospital.
The Rosgvardia special forces eliminated the criminals and rescued the hostages. Law enforcement officers restored order in the penal colony. The penal colony is currently operating as normal.
The Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation has opened a criminal case under two articles of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation.
#1
I feel there ought to be more about who Ahl al-Sunna wal-Jamaat is in the archives or out there on the internet, given it goes back at least to 2013, but I can’t find it. Possibly it is spelt differently — transliterations lead to variations always —but the possibilities I tried lead nowhere useful. Help!
#2
An unusual case. Buddhist make up half the Republic's population. There are some Christians and at last report there were only 5 percent Muslims. The presence of Kalmykia penal colony is a well kept secret, which is now out.
Posted by: S MAI ||
09/26/2024 18:18
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#3
transliterations lead to variations always /em>
Dealing with foreign names in a database is a persistent and vexing problem. Last time I poked at the problem, the two main approaches seemed to be the Soundex algorithm which tries to match words by their English sounds or phonemes, and the Levenshtein distance which uses the number of operations to convert one text string into another. Neither seems ideal for transliterated names. I wonder what techniques our intelligence services use.
The world would go around much faster than it does if people would just speak English like everyone else.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[Regnum] Despite difficult weather conditions, farmers in the Tyumen region
…somewhere in western Siberia…
harvested 1 million tons of grain, the head of the region, Alexander Moor, reported on September 25.
In his Telegram channel, the governor recalled that in the spring and summer the region faced several climate challenges at once.
"Despite the difficulties that arose due to the largest flood in the history of the region, as well as rainy weather, specialists took all necessary measures to preserve the harvest. Many thanks for your work!" - wrote Moor.
In 2023, the gross grain harvest in the Tyumen region amounted to 1.685 million tons of grain and leguminous crops.
As reported by the Regnum news agency, on May 22, the Kremlin press service published instructions from President Vladimir Putin on eliminating the consequences of floods in the Kurgan, Orenburg and Tyumen regions. The president ordered that funds from the federal budget be allocated for these regions, and also recommended providing time off and vacations to those affected by the floods to restore acceptable living conditions.
Agriculture Minister Oksana Lut previously reported that Russia could export up to 60 million tons of grain in 2024. Putin noted that the harvest volume in Russia is expected to be 132 million tons, compared to 148 million tons collected a year ago, and domestic consumption will be up to 90 million tons.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited. by Marina Akhmedova
Editor in Chief of regnum.ru
Egor Borisovich Prokhorchuk is a Russian geneticist, Doctor of Biological Sciences, and Dean of the Medical and Biological Faculty of the N. I. Pirogov Russian National Research Medical University. Prokhorchuk is also a member of the Synodal Commission on Bioethics of the Russian Orthodox Church.
In a conversation with the editor-in-chief of the Regnum news agency, Marina Akhmedova, Yegor Borisovich spoke about the interaction of science and religion, the possibility of eternal life, and the difficult ethical questions that new technologies pose to humanity.
- Egor Borisovich, what qualities should a person retain in himself so that he can live interestingly until old age?
- Be like children, then life will be interesting. The main thing is curiosity, spontaneity, sincerity and a pure heart.
- How can you do that? I see people entering middle age losing interest in life because they've seen it all.
- They take themselves very seriously. You have to be like children. Look for something new, new people and even new adventures in one place.
- Where can I find these adventures?
— The Lord will not abandon you, he will give you adventures. You need to listen to your intuition and treat people with care, as you would yourself. If your brain, arms and legs work, you can be interested in life until old age. And then your life will be very interesting until old age.
— Have you ever tried to stimulate your interest in life without it being connected to shocks?
— Everything is relative. I am 53 years old, I still feel an interest in life. In addition to what I do, I am interested in how the world works. I am interested in building houses, I am interested in people — not as objects, but as subjects. Every single person is interesting to me. At this age, I even unexpectedly make friends. These are the gifts life gives me.
— A question for you as a geneticist. I read a text in your Telegram channel where you wrote that at this stage, life extension does not seem possible.
— Compared to how people lived 300 years ago, our active life is certainly extended. But personally, I am simply not interested in consciously extending it.
- Why? You wouldn't want to live a very long time?
— As God wills. I don’t want it to be like in the book “Professor Dowell’s Head,” where the head lives separately from the person. And I don’t want it to be like in the TV series “Black Mirror,” where you can order a complete biological copy of a person who still has memories if they were shared on the Internet.
You can live long and meaninglessly, or you can live short and brightly. It doesn't depend on us.
Here is my grandfather, born in 1914. He died in 2012, when he was 98 years old. And he told me every time: "If only I could live another year." That is, you don't want to die equally, whether you're 40, 60, or 100.
But it still seems to me that we must do everything that is destined for us, and a certain period of time is given for this. The end will be the same for everyone, no matter how long you live.
Thank God, humanity today cannot decide questions of life and death. Because this would create new social inequality. Eternal life will be granted later. But not according to our reason, but by the grace of God.
— I finished reading a volume of Chekhov’s letters. I remember how he once wrote to his publisher: “I finished one thing, and the thought immediately starts to turn over in me like a heavy core: ‘You must write! You must write!’ But to whom must I write? Why must I write?” And then I thought that he had written little for me. Chekhov died at 44. But if he had lived at least another ten years, he would have managed to write much more.
— I also read some of Chekhov’s letters: “I’m sitting, drinking, talking a lot, the weather is beautiful, I don’t feel like working.” So everything is relative.
Other people wrote what Chekhov did not write. At least, that's how science works. Don't think that if Einstein hadn't existed, his laws wouldn't have been discovered.
In science, there is always a certain vector of development. You can't do anything perpendicular. There are always prerequisites and previous works. Yes, there are people who seem geniuses to us. But if they weren't there, discoveries would have been made anyway, just a little later.
Science is a completely collaborative endeavor. There is this giant pool of data that gets converted into hypotheses and probabilities, and all of this determines the massive movement of science. You can't get out of it perpendicularly.
Yes, in painting there was Giotto, who introduced perspective. But the entire development of Western European painting assumed that it would be introduced sooner or later. In Eastern painting (icon painting) there is a certain tradition that is observed. That is, before Giotto, painters approached perspective, and he made a leap. In science, it is the same.
— And now in science, can something be discovered perpendicularly?
— Imagine that you are now in the times of Yaroslav the Wise with a working mobile phone. For the people of that time, this would have been a perpendicular direction, but for us, it is no longer. We understand how semiconductors work. We remember how telephone communication developed. But it took a thousand years to go this way.
So life will still be more interesting than what I came up with. I have one hypothesis, I start looking at it, and it turns out that everything is not so, but even more interesting.
— What is the meaning of your life now?
— The meaning of life is a kind of banality. Life itself is a complex tangle of emotional and psychophysical interactions. Creativity, knowledge, communication with people, observation of nature — this is already a value. If we are not talking about its religious understanding.
— Are you a religious person?
— Every person is on a certain path to God. Remember what happened to the apostle Peter? "Before the first rooster crows, you will deny Me three times." But Peter was clearly a believer. As a member of the Synodal Commission on Bioethics, I can talk about this one way or another. But I am sure that the moment will come when every person will have to say whether he is a believer or an unbeliever. If he is an unbeliever, go for a walk. If he is a believer, throw him up against the wall.
— Have you ever had situations in your life when you had to check what choice you would make?
— Every day. When you are driving and someone cuts you off, what choice should you make regarding the driver: pray for him, just watch him go, or curse him? A person makes this decision every second. Like on a ship: you turn the steering wheel half a degree, it seems to you that nothing happened, and a day later it is already sailing in the other direction.
— How do you react when you are cut off?
- Of course, I try to react in a Christian way. But sometimes my humility is lacking.
— The average person has an opinion that science and faith are incompatible. But the great sociologist Pitirim Sorokin said: when faith and science interact, then the time of harmony will come. Doesn't your scientific activity contradict your faith?
— These are completely different concepts. Imagine again that you find yourself in the Middle Ages with a working mobile phone. How will people of that time perceive you?
— Will they kill you right away?
- No, you won't. You will be a god for them, descended from heaven, because you do amazing things. You can talk to a person who is a thousand kilometers away from you. And if you descend to them in a helicopter... They will not be able to comprehend this phenomenon, which goes beyond their world.
Science doesn't operate with that kind of distance. In my field, I can imagine what will happen in a year by going to conferences and reading papers and watching trends. But I can't imagine what will happen in ten years, much less in a hundred.
Look through the collections of scientific journals from the early 19th century - it's just ridiculous and sinful what they dreamed about. Almost none of it came true.
— I had a conversation about bioethics, in particular about IVF, with the Chairman of the Synodal Department for Church-Society and Mass Media Relations of the Moscow Patriarchate Vladimir Legoida. The Church does not welcome this procedure because it is believed that God does not participate when an egg is fertilized by a sperm. I had my own opinion on this matter. What do you think?
— My role in the Synodal Commission on Bioethics is very modest. I must share my scientific knowledge with people who can see something with their spiritual vision, and they could then, based on their spiritual experience, which I do not possess, give recommendations.
The scientific method of cognition has long been a part of our lives. Without the invention of electricity, we would not have even recorded our interview. Denying scientific facts would be madness for the church, because the church works with people. People live in a world that is structured according to certain laws, and denying these laws would be strange.
I gave birth to three children without IVF. We can talk about this procedure separately, but in general I answered your question about science and religion: my opinion as a scientist and my opinion as a child of the Russian Orthodox Church may differ.
Life for a scientist and life for God are as different concepts as "red" and "salty". Science cannot be approached from the point of view of faith. Science is about your experiment being able to be repeated in Moscow, Antarctica and Africa, regardless of the psycho-emotional state of the researcher.
Let's say an academic comes to me and says: "Believe me, my hypothesis is correct." I won't believe it. Where is your evidence? But in religion, it's the opposite. I will unconditionally trust the spiritual experience of the elder fathers. Because here I have no authority.
— And what the elders, wise with spiritual experience, say, cannot contradict scientific facts?
- It can. If you want specifics, let's look at it using IVF as an example. In this discussion, we were talking about what moment to consider the origin of life.
The egg itself is not a future person. It needs a sperm, which is also meaningless on its own. The sperm penetrates the egg and a complex combination is formed: before your egg was created, it mixed with chromosomes from your mom and dad. This is necessary for variability, for evolution.
A population is strong not because it has outstanding representatives, but because it can change and adapt to new conditions, which can change at any moment - it was cold, it became warm.
For example, it's February 2022. Conditions change. And the qualities that were needed before February are not very useful in the world after 2022. And if your population has those who live in both warmth and cold, you will have those who survive. And if everyone dies, then the population dies. It will deteriorate as a species.
Thank God, there were people left in the country who were able to live after February 2022 - and they actually saved the situation. Otherwise, the whole country would have perished.
So, these two altered genomes met. And the genetic material in this cell is the same as in the first approximation. That is, this DNA will be the same throughout your entire life.
— Does this mean that DNA defines a person? Is DNA a person or not?
— I believe that a person is much more than DNA.
There are twins. There are fraternal twins, there are identical twins. Fraternal twins are when two eggs are fertilized by two different spermatozoa, they are a brother and a sister. Identical twins are when an egg is fertilized by a spermatozoa, divides once, and from these two cells two people come from. That is, they have the same DNA, but they are completely different people.
- So, this is the soul?
— You reason like a journalist, and I reason like a scientist.
External factors greatly influence the genome. For example, one embryo was closer to the mother's heart, so the heartbeat was transmitted to one embryo more than to another. The same genome can function differently, depending on external conditions.
There are things that are in DNA. DNA determines the properties of a person as a physical object, but it does not determine his personality. Personality is determined by upbringing and life experiences.
— You have just listed the facts as a scientist. And what would you, as a believer, add to the definition “A person is something more than DNA”?
— I have consciousness and an internal mystical experience that says something. But these are very intimate things. I am not a preacher, I do not talk about these things. But I know that a person has a soul. Just like animals. It is just that a person has an immortal soul, and animals have a mortal soul. Animals do not need to be saved after death. Probably, for God they represent an auxiliary function in relation to people, rather than an intrinsic value.
— Is the auxiliary function that we eat them? Or that we love them?
— That we enjoy the beauty and complexity of the world. When you project something from a multidimensional object onto a plane, you see something, but it is very difficult for you to imagine the prototype. But these projections are so beautiful. Perhaps the prototype is even better.
— Returning to our mobile phones: I thought that we are so firmly entrenched in them that we no longer see these projections and cannot create prototypes.
- Well, you're not a Luddite (Luddites were people who destroyed machine tools in the early 17th century. - Ed.). You enjoy the benefits of civilization. And then they'll produce something else.
The conscious history of mankind is five thousand years old. Mankind has had many temptations to use useful objects for harm. Television can be used for education, or for stupefaction. An atomic bomb can be used to kill people, or it can be used to obtain heat and warm homes.
“And I’m still trying to connect you in my mind—I don’t want to separate you into a scientist and a believer.”
- No need. Let's go back to IVF.
Now, most people who make decisions in the church about the possibility or impossibility of assisted reproductive technologies proceed from the fact that human life begins at the moment of the fusion of sperm and egg. And the IVF procedure is associated with the fact that you fertilize not one egg, but dozens.
Some of them develop, some don't. If you have five, it's hard to choose just one. And before, five were always implanted, so that at least one would take root. And if four took root, then the remaining three children were aborted, because it's hard for a woman to carry five children at once. They were simply killed by abortion.
Now the technology has advanced. You can estimate the embryos' chances of development. If they have equal chances, by law you can leave a maximum of two. But three remain. What should be done with them?
- This is a big ethical question.
- Yes. Formally, they are frozen, but we understand what their fate will be - they will be thrown into the trash.
From a biological point of view, these are not people. On the 14th-15th day after implantation in the uterus, this is already considered a more or less composed person, and before that, it is not considered as such. That is, what is frozen is not a person.
And here, in addition to the theological and technical aspect, there is also a legal aspect - and it is the key one. Let's say there was a rich man. He died. He left behind children who inherited his fortune. Everything was divided, everything was fine. And then a notary comes and says: "You know, he has a dozen more frozen little people lying there. We need to share with them."
And then there's another question. If these are people, they may have genetic abnormalities. Then you're legally obliged to treat them. You have to edit their genome. And that's not safe. So this is not a question for scientists, but for those who consider embryos to be people.
Perinatal surgery is very developed in Moscow, when the child undergoes the most complex heart operations in the womb. He is not yet a born person, but he is already receiving help.
— It seems to me that in this case it is already clear that the child will live. But when we are talking about a two-day embryo that is in a test tube, it is not a fact that it will survive.
— An abortion up to 12 weeks can be done without indications. We understand that abortion is murder. Although we do not see this murder at all. This is dangerous logic.
— Do you advocate a ban on abortions? There is talk that abortions should be excluded from the compulsory medical insurance.
— I believe that we should not force a woman to have an abortion and should not create conditions that abortion is a norm of life. If a woman comes and asks for an abortion, she should be taken to a psychologist so that he can explain that the child should be saved. How do we treat a woman in general: as a mother or as an employee? This is a state issue.
Of course, women are involved in the economic life of the country. If all women went home to look after their children, our interview would not have taken place. Our economy would have collapsed. Even if a woman gives birth, she still goes to work afterwards.
A friend of mine died at the front. He was a priest. Unarmed. A Hymars came and killed him. He left behind six children. His wife did not work. Her job was to look after the children. But, I repeat, diversity is important in the population. A woman with one child brings a lot of benefit to the workforce.
Yes, we want our families to have at least three children. Two is only reproduction, but three is already a step forward. This issue cannot be resolved by prohibitions or permissions. It is a whole complex of scientific, economic and cultural problems.
— A question about parents. Is it possible to look at their genotypes and identify a predisposition to having healthy children?
- Predisposition is like fortune telling with Tarot cards.
Each of us is a carrier of thousands of genetic diseases. But we do not get sick because we have two chromosomes from mom and dad. If there is a mutation in one of the genes, the second chromosome compensates for it. This is a recessive trait of inheritance. But if your husband or partner carries a mutation in the same gene, then there is a high probability that a sick child will be born, because he will receive one and the second copy of the mutant one. A very high probability - 25%.
That's why consanguineous marriages are not allowed because we carry the same mutations. You also carry about a dozen of these mutations. But these diseases are very rare. For example, cystic fibrosis. Every 50th person on the planet is a carrier of this disease, and children are born 1 in 10 thousand. Why? If every 50th person is a carrier, then the probability that you will form a couple will be 50 times 50 - one in two and a half thousand marriages.
25% of children are born sick. 25,000 multiplied by 4, we get 10,000. Here is one in 10,000 - the frequency of birth of children with cystic fibrosis. But every 50th person is its carrier. And there are many such diseases.
Let's say your risk of asthma is 11% higher than the population average. What does that mean for you other than a disorder? Nothing. No medical recommendations can be given to you based on the results. Exercise, go outside, drink grapefruit juice. But here the situation is completely different. Here the disease will definitely occur when you know before marriage that you are a carrier.
This is a very big ethical problem.
— I helped a deeply religious family whose first child was born with spinal muscular atrophy. He was a wonderful baby. But in the third month, his mother began to notice that life was fading in him. His arms and legs were weak.
— What happened next?
— I helped them raise almost 30 million for Spinraza. When the baby was given his first injection, he died. It was an incredible tragedy. The parents love each other, but they are afraid that their next child could repeat his fate.
- Can I ask you some questions now?
- Let's.
— You collected 30 million, but the child died. Let's say you saved him. But do you know that in Kargopol (Arkhangelsk region) there is a very bad situation with children's clinics. There are 10,000 people there, quite a few children. For 28 million you could provide for the life of 1,500 children in this city in the near future. And how would you resolve this ethical problem?
— I have no choice in this situation. I am ready to help everyone. The boy was already born, a beautiful baby. He was already, how can you say that I will not help him? What choice do you have? If the situation with polyclinics in Kargopol is so bad, I am ready to give part of my salary to them and to the baby.
— When in ancient times a woman had to choose who to save during war or famine, she saved a man, not a child. Because children can be born again.
Of course, every family that faces such a situation will want to help their child. And society must train the muscle of compassion to help such children. If everyone is born healthy and happy, then the muscles of compassion will atrophy. But to pay huge amounts of money for an injection for the sake of one child?
— This is not a question for parents, but for the manufacturers of the drug.
— Do you know why the drug is so expensive?
- Yes, I know. I was interested in this.
— There are just few such children. And to make a drug, you need very expensive science. Drugs for cancer, which hundreds of millions of people suffer from, are a source of money for pharmaceutical companies and are cheaper. But when you have 10 people in the world who are sick, these investments will not pay off. This is capitalism. Everyone needs profit. That is why Spinraza is so expensive.
But let's continue. What does the family you were talking about want now? To have a healthy child?
- I don't know what they want. I left them in complete confusion. They were heartbroken and afraid of the future. They didn't know what to do.
— Let's say they knew before marriage that they could have a child and die. Not because they are bad, but because of a genetic lottery. Or because God gave them such qualities. And then everything depends on how ready they are to accept and fight it.
Judging by my pride, you might think that I am ready to put up with everything. But the statistics are that in Russia, 90% of mothers of children with Down syndrome abandon them. This is reality, not an illusion, as it should be, but reality.
By the way, in Denmark, where complex biomedical tests can be done before birth, the abortion rate for children with Down syndrome is the same as the refusal rate in Russia. Although Denmark has an amazing program to help such families: tax breaks, inclusive schools, help with socialization. That is, it is not about money or the environment. It is just that the human psyche is not ready for such difficulties.
— Do people abandon such children because they don’t want to face difficulties? Or because they don’t want their child to grow up unhappy?
- It doesn't matter. You can explain it any way you want, but you're either abandoning the child or killing it.
— I just now, excuse my conceit, imagined that I was accepted to the bioethics council. You say that abortion is murder. But is abandoning a child better than murder? How will a woman who abandons a child feel?
— We shouldn’t overestimate the importance of our minds and our words. To abandon a child, afraid of suffering, is a biological property of the human psyche. Anyone can get scared here. Even me. There was a big risk that my third child would be born with Down syndrome. I really didn’t want to find myself in such a situation.
Now, under one program, all women are tested. Research has shown that if 100 women are given this risk, one child can be born with Down syndrome. That's a lot. Research can lead to a lot of abortions.
There are pros and cons to this. But the cons are that you know for sure that it is so. You have no choice, you make a decision. Now I would not want to be in such a situation.
Thank God, everything went well. A wonderful girl was born. But I wavered at some point. I started thinking about what I would have done.
— And yet, when you have the opportunity to find out in advance about a child’s serious illnesses, is it good or bad?
— We talked about SMA and Down syndrome. Down syndrome cannot be predicted in advance. It can only be found out after the fact. But SMA could be predicted. If this family had known in advance that they were carriers of such a disease, would they have agreed to marry?
— What about love?
- And love is blind.
When you get married, you go to that person's house. You look at their family album. You smell them. You subconsciously evaluate their family, their appearance, their ethnic background. Genetics must be one of those factors.
You must decide: are you ready for the fact that the child may suffer, and you will suffer from the choice of what to do with him if he dies in your arms. Maybe you feel the strength to fight, you are a supporter.
And what options does the couple have? The first is to run away. Let's say the couple knows that they are SMA carriers. Run away. Life will take its toll anyway, you will find another person.
- It sounds very pragmatic.
— The second option: say that you don’t care. “I don’t believe in all this, as God wills, so it will be.” You get married, have a child, everything is wonderful. But if he is healthy, that’s one situation. If he is sick, you bear it as a cross. If he dies, that’s also your cross.
The state has two strategies on this matter. First: it warned you that you could give birth to a sick child. The state says: "Since we warned you, we will not help you." Second: "We warned you, but by giving birth to such a child you performed a feat, so we will help you." Both of these strategies can be considered.
The next story is when you use assisted reproductive technologies. You fertilize 4 eggs, 3 of which will not carry the disease. You say, "I'm not implanting this one, I'm throwing it out." The question arises: do we kill it or not?
It turns out that you are going against the Church. Although the Church does not forbid anything to anyone. It simply says that this is according to God's law, and this is not.
— Before this technology, a woman couldn't choose, she just gave birth. She didn't know that a child with Down syndrome could be born. She didn't commit murder, she wasn't guilty before God.
— We live in a world where diagnostics exist. We can detect cancer at an early stage. You can resign yourself to it: well, God gave us cancer, why fight it? But no, we go and do CT, MRI… And this applies not only to cancer, but also to other diseases — heart disease, for example.
Healthcare is moving forward. Medicines prolong our lives in a miraculous way. And returning to our question: the fact that a woman learned earlier does not make her more or less guilty. But what to do with this knowledge is a big ethical problem.
- That's what I'm talking about.
- But let's take cancer again. It was detected, it's a gift from God. What should we do, go against God? Let's not treat it.
- I disagree. When a person treats cancer, he does not kill anyone. But when he decides to have an abortion, he kills a child.
- Okay. And when a woman finds out that she is a carrier of SMA, her child has already died. What should she do?
- It's a monstrous choice. I'm trying to understand: if God gave people these technologies, then that's what he wanted.
- In that case, nuclear explosion technologies are also from God. The question is how to use them. Any technology can be used for good or for harm. That's how the world works.
— All these biotechnologies put people before a new choice.
- Any technology puts a person before a choice. Previously, a hundred peasants fed one landowner. Then the tractor arrived, the peasants became unnecessary. A revolution occurred because people needed to move to the city. They needed a change in the social system and economic formation.
And now artificial intelligence is coming. Most creative people will be unnecessary, texts are already being written for them.
In agriculture, they came up with GMOs. The point is not that you will grow a scorpion's tail. The point is that you can keep even fewer people on the land. You raise the productivity of agriculture so much that one person on the land will feed a thousand city dwellers. This is a political problem.
I recently drove through the Tver region and saw that people are leaving because there is no point in living there. Agriculture in the Tver region is incomparable to agriculture in Kuban. There is no point in raising cows there - milk is more expensive there. And if you want to increase the efficiency of agriculture, the territories will be devastated.
The question is how a person with a sincere attitude towards life can accept these technologies.
- And how?
— The Patriarch says: we have encountered a challenge where we cannot draw on patristic guidance. These questions have never been illuminated, there is nowhere to draw on. These are complex questions. And we ourselves must find answers to them.
And for this you need what we talked about at the beginning: you need to have the ability to learn about the world, communicate with people and engage in education. If you study something deeply, you can foresee a lot and use this knowledge to plan the life of the country.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited. by Oleg Shevchenko
[REGNUM] Russian General Eduard Totleben, the author of the defensive fortification system of Sevastopol, a genius of military fortification and an innovator of sapper warfare, recalled: “While the English were approaching Balaklava, the commander of the Balaklava Greek infantry battalion, Colonel Manto, was holed up in the ancient ruins. With one company of his battalion, including 80 combatants and 30 retired soldiers. They had 4 copper half-pood mortars with them. <…> The enemy vanguard, approaching Balaklava, was unexpectedly met with fire from Greek riflemen.”
This small but extremely important episode of the Crimean War bizarrely reflected the history of ancient Taurida. The enemy who invaded Crimea routed our field army in the battle on the Alma River - at the ancient Scythian fortress. But the Greeks - soldiers of the Russian army stopped the enemy's onslaught under the walls of the medieval Genoese fortress of Cembalo.
The famous first defense of Sevastopol began exactly 170 years ago, on September 25, 1854, with the feat of our one hundred and ten “Spartans” under the command of Colonel Ivan Manto.
The Russian infantry and artillerymen who fought off the first attacks by Fitzroy Raglan and Leroy de Saint-Arnaud certainly did not know that the siege would last 349 days and take the lives of more than two hundred thousand people. Historians still argue about the exact figures, easily adding and subtracting 10 thousand. Beautiful songs will be written about the war, hundreds of paintings will be created, masterpieces of prose will be born - starting with the "Sevastopol Tales" by artillery lieutenant Count Leo Tolstoy.
But that's not all.
The first large-scale use of the telegraph as a mass media tool, the first photographs as an element of ideological influence, the birth of the Red Cross and Sisters of Mercy service, the squadron of combat steamships - these are also the results of the siege of Sevastopol.
The only result that was not achieved was the goal of the Anglo-French-Turkish-Sardinian coalition that fought against us: to return Russia, so to speak, to the “borders of 1691” and block access to the Black Sea.
WHOSE KEYS?
In France, which in many ways "stirred up the mess", this war was called not the Crimean War, but the Eastern War. And this is more accurate, because military actions were conducted not only in the Crimea and the Black Sea, but also from Kronstadt to the Caucasus, and from Arkhangelsk to Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky.
De jure, the reason for one of the wars, candidates for the “zero world wars,” was a quarrel over the keys: who, the Orthodox or the Catholics, would unlock the doors of the Church of the Nativity of Christ in Bethlehem.
They’re probably still quarreling over that today, while the PLO/PA de-Christianizes the city around them. They’re definitely quarreling about who gets to in some church in Old Jerusalem, but at least the Jewish government keeps them safe while they do so.
Napoleon III "played" on the side of the papal throne (trying to match his great uncle's level of ambition). The Russian Empire defended the rights of the Orthodox.
The Ottoman Empire, which ruled Palestine, handed over control of the Bethlehem shrine to the French, to the annoyance of Nicholas I.
Petersburg demanded that Sultan Abdul-Mejid I observe the treaty, according to which Russia had the right to protect the Orthodox in Turkey. The "Padishah of the Faithful" - to put it simply - refused, and demanded that Nicholas withdraw his troops from Wallachia and Moldova. This time it was the Tsar who refused, and on October 16, 1853, the Sublime Porte declared war on Russia.
Initially, it seemed that the war would be yet another, the tenth Russian-Turkish war. And in this "format" Russia would probably have easily defeated the Ottomans. This was confirmed by the Battle of Sinop, in which Vice-Admiral Pavel Nakhimov utterly defeated the Turkish fleet.
The campaign in the Caucasus was quite successful: we can recall the defeat of the Turks at Akhaltsikhe, the capture of Bayazet and other battles where Russian troops defeated a numerically superior enemy. For example, in the battle at Kyuryuk-Dara, 18,000 Russians under the command of Vasily Bebutov defeated the 60,000 strong army of Mustafa Zarif Pasha and his British curator Richard de Guyon.
But there was one important "but" in the Eastern War. Initially, the then collective West was involved in the conflict with Russia.
"THE BATTLE OF CIVILIZATION AGAINST BARBARISM"
The British Empire of Queen Victoria and the Second French Empire of Napoleon III were not satisfied with the order in Europe established after the defeat of Napoleon I, under which the Russian Empire remained one of the hegemons of the continent. And on March 27, 1854, England and France declared war on Russia.
Moreover, the British initially did not hesitate in either means or expressions.
One of the leaders of English foreign policy, the future Prime Minister Viscount Palmerston pointed out: as a result of the war, Crimea, Circassia and Georgia should be torn away from Russia. And go to Turkey, but, considering the British interest in the Caucasus, these lands should become London's sphere of influence.
Finland should be "returned" to the old English ally, Sweden. The restored Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, in Palmerston's opinion, was to become a buffer between Russia and the German states - the "anaconda strategy " was not invented in the 20th century.
The Baltics were promised to Prussia, and the future Romania to Austria. It is not surprising that both German powers, allies of Russia in the Napoleonic wars, remained neutral in the Crimean War. And in the case of Austria, the neutrality was not at all benevolent (this is how Emperor Nicholas came back to haunt him for saving the Habsburg dynasty during the Hungarian revolution of 1848).
The Kingdom of Sardinia, the foundation of the future Italy, also joined the Western alliance, just as in the 20th century the Italians would join Hitler’s adventure in the East.
Projects to “contain” and dismember Russia, as in the 21st century, were covered up by the struggle for the cause of progress.
On March 31, 1854, the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Lord Clarendon, declared from the rostrum of Parliament: Great Britain, they say, is not at all afraid of the Russian threat to the Indian colonies and does not need anything for trade, but only nobly and highly principledly wages “the battle of civilization against barbarism.”
On April 22, the "civilizers" subjected Odessa to a barbaric bombardment from the sea. On Holy Saturday, 28 allied ships approached the shore, burned the civilian ships in the port, and attempted to land troops. Fire from Russian shore batteries disrupted the landing, and the allied squadron retreated to the Crimea.
WHY SEVASTOPOL?
On July 26, the first battle took place between two dozen Anglo-French ships and the coastal fortifications of Sevastopol. But the Western alliance risked landing on land only almost two months later. On September 14, the 60,000-strong expeditionary corps began to be transported to the coast near Yevpatoria.
Having managed to defeat the Russian troops of Prince Menshikov at Alma, the corps of de Saint-Arnaud and Raglan rushed towards Sevastopol – and for good reason.
If we allegorically compare Russia to a palace, and Novorossiya from the Danube to the Don to a gate, then the Crimean peninsula plays the role of a castle, and the fortress city of Sevastopol plays the role of a keyhole.
By taking Sevastopol, the enemies would have "torn off the castle", would have gained access to the Black Sea region, which was critically important for Russia, and would have been ready to destroy the entire structure of the empire. In this case, Palmerston's plan to "decolonize" the recently developed lands of Novorossiya would not have looked so fantastic.
After all, it was not Zbigniew Brzezinski who was the first to guess that what makes Russia an empire is control over what is now Ukraine and access to the Black Sea, control over Crimea and Sevastopol.
When Admiral Vladimir Kornilov sank the Black Sea Fleet on the Sevastopol Bay line, he “broke the key in the well,” predetermining all the failures of the Europeans under the walls of the ancient stronghold.
On September 23, 1854, the beauty and pride of Russian shipbuilders, the sailing heroes of many naval battles - five battleships, "Uriil", "Tri Svyatelitelya", "Silistriya", "Selafail", "Varna", and two frigates, "Sizopol", "Flora" - were sunk at the entrance to Sevastopol Bay. Later, our sailors sank other ships. See here for an explication of that action.
Admiral Kornilov died on October 5 during the shelling of Malakhov Kurgan by the Anglo-French forces, but the deed was done, Sevastopol was protected from the sea.
"WE SHOOT WOMEN AND CHILDREN, DON'T BE SURPRISED"
Meanwhile, on land, the battle was ongoing. Attacks were followed by counterattacks. Enemy sappers dug underground tunnels to blow up fortifications, counter-drifts were dug towards them, designed to lay a mine under the enemy tunnels, and in response, the enemy tried to destroy the Russian sappers.
Around Sevastopol, a gigantic layered pie of battle unfolded underground: explosions, collapses, suffocation, terrible fights in the cramped underground passages... Thousands of tons of earth were dug by the hands of women and children and became defensive fortifications of a first-class field fortress, against which attacks were broken.
Thousands of cannonballs and bombs swept away the quarters of Sevastopol, destroyed the walls of the fortifications, and once again the whirlpool of battles on the ground, underground and the furious struggle of large-caliber artillery began.
The large-scale destruction of the city seemed to be a "reminder of the future" - of the coming wars. The second heroic defense of Sevastopol, in 1941-1942, is very similar to the first, both in the duration of resistance and in its tenacity. The Russian soldier demonstrated tenacity that will surprise our European enemies a hundred years later, and now.
Historian and writer Yuri Davydov, in his book about Nakhimov, cites a letter from a French soldier who took part in the siege of Sevastopol:
"Our major says that by all the rules of military science it is high time for them (the Russians) to capitulate. For every cannon they have, we have five cannons, for every soldier - ten. And you should have seen their guns! Probably our grandfathers who stormed the Bastille had better weapons.
They have no shells. Every morning their women and children go out into the open field between the fortifications and collect cannonballs in sacks.
We start shooting. Yes! We shoot at women and children. Don't be surprised. But the cannonballs they collect are meant for us! And they don't leave."
The same Frenchman spoke about what the “first Russian war correspondent” Leo Tolstoy wrote about on the other side – about “war in its true expression – in blood, in suffering, in death.”
Despite the hunger (the French know that in the city the siege norm is: “small pieces of bread are divided among five” ), our soldiers respond to each assault with a counterattack and force the Anglo-French to retreat behind the fortifications.
The same letter tells how a seriously wounded Russian sailor, who was captured, tried not only to escape, but to blow up barrels of gunpowder.
“It is hopeless to fight with such people,” wrote a French military man.
But the European press, which in the mid-19th century was already the “fourth estate”, presented the matter quite differently.
TsIPSO 1854
You can fight with fakes too. The first photomontage for propaganda purposes, the first fakes, staged shots also come from Sevastopol. Here is this photo.
The viewer was horrified. He thought that thousands of soldiers had died under such intense shelling. But this was a staged shot, and the cannonballs were laid with an artistic vision of the issue. And the title was impressive - "The Valley of the Shadow of Death".
Other photographs show beautiful rows of snow-white tents. Clean, confident, cheerful and brave soldiers. And the viewer believed. Of course! After all, this is not an artist-dreamer, this is a miracle of the nineteenth century - a photograph that records reality.
How much effort it took the photographer to present the knights of war in their ceremonial costumes, and how much effort was spent to hide all their problems! The same photographer, Roger Felton, wrote in his diary not at all about the beauty of the war near Sevastopol.
Here is what he, as a master of fakes, carefully ignored so as not to lose in the unfolding information war: "In the camp, all the animals that are fit for food are killed, they are butchered right next to the tents, the unnecessary parts are left to rot right there. On any trip, you are sure to come across horse corpses, even on a hill by the sea."
But thanks to photographs and correspondence of the right tone, the necessary opinion was formed in Europe - and not only among the loyal subjects of the British queen and the French emperor, but also among the radical revolutionaries.
Karl Marx criticized the Russians for the destruction of two English merchant ships during the Battle of Sinop and insisted that “the word ‘honor’ is absent from the Russian lexicon.” And Friedrich Engels, as a military expert, asserted: “Among the officers of the Russian army there are very good and very bad, but the former are infinitely small in comparison with the latter.” According to Engels, it is futile to expect a Russian soldier to “display the quick wit of a Frenchman or the simple common sense of a German.”
They were keen on such simplifications by national type in those days. Nowadays, too, though one no,onger commits such gaucheries in writing lest one be accused of bigotry
The leading Soviet specialist on the Crimean War, Academician Yevgeny Tarle, being an honest scholar, wrote : the founders “had to use the scanty and often false reports of English newspapers… because for a long time they had no other sources of factual information about the war in 1853–1856.”
THE WHOLE WORLD IS GOING TO WAR AGAINST US
Allegedly "clumsy" soldiers under the command of "very bad" officers pinned down the forces of two leading global powers and their allies near one Crimean city for almost a year.
At the same time, our troops repelled the enemy’s attempt to land at Nikolaev; at the same time, the empire was fighting in the Baltic, the North, and the Pacific Ocean.
And this despite the fact that there was a real lag in some types of weapons, which the new Emperor Alexander II, who took the throne at the last stage of the war, would have to correct.
The British-French-Turkish-Italian forces, which lost more than 150,000 men killed, managed to capture only the southern half of Sevastopol. The Russian army, which lost no less, continued to fight, but the forces to hold the fortifications were running out.
The treacherous blow was dealt by "neutral" Austria. On March 2, 1855, Kaiser Franz Joseph I presented Alexander II with a list of demands: Russia's renunciation of the mouth of the Danube, a ban on keeping the Russian fleet in the Black Sea, etc. In the event of non-compliance, Austria threatened to join the Western alliance and move the troops already concentrated in Galicia.
Another of our “ally”, the Prussian king Friedrich Wilhelm IV, “advised” the tsar to accept the Austrian conditions.
Russia could no longer fight against the entire collective West of that time, and on March 30, 1856, a peace treaty was signed in Paris.
THE WEST'S VICTORY TURNED INTO ITS DEFEAT
In comparison with the "Palmerston Plan", the losses of the Russian Empire were minimal. The most painful was the loss of the Black Sea Fleet. According to the Paris Peace, the Black Sea was declared neutral, and both Russia and the Ottoman Empire were prohibited from having military fleets.
The Russian borders were moved several miles away from the Danube - the extreme south of Bessarabia was given to the Moldavian Principality, and the Danube delta to the Turks. Occupied Sevastopol and Balaklava were returned to Russia in exchange for the Transcaucasian fortresses of Kars, Bayazet and others recently occupied by our troops.
And this entire Parisian world order was reset literally a decade later. All that was left of it was the demilitarized status of the Aland Islands in the Baltic. Incidentally, it can only be revised now, with Finland's entry into NATO. Russia more than compensated for the remaining losses - somewhere through diplomacy, and somewhere by force of arms, after the victorious Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78.
In 1856, many European politicians smiled mockingly when the head of our Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Prince Alexander Gorchakov, answered a question about the enslavement of the Paris Peace Treaty: "They say that Russia is angry. Russia is not angry, Russia is concentrating." Ten years later, no one smiled, Russia took everything with interest.
In 1888, in correspondence with the German ambassador in Vienna concerning a possible "preventive war" against Russia, Chancellor Otto von Bismarck wrote : "It is not so easy. Victory over Russia is not a rout, but the acquisition of a neighbor in the east who is seeking revenge."
Another statement by Bismarck, recorded in the archives, sounds like a prophecy about post-Soviet and current times:
"Even the most favorable outcome of the war will never lead to the disintegration of Russia, which is supported by millions of Russian believers of the Greek confession. These latter, even if they are subsequently separated by international treaties, will reunite with each other as quickly as separated drops of mercury find their way to each other."
These conclusions, drawn in part from the experience of the Crimean War, which was “victorious” for Europe, have now apparently been forgotten in the West.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
09/26/2024 11:15
Comments ||
Top||
#2
That Russia, the biggest and most aggressive empire on earth, calls others aggressive is a little ironic, Ukraine is unfortunate in having to deal with feckless allies, in Europe and the US alike, who give it the minimum necessary to lose slowly but steadily to Russia. Ultimately, the gain of Ukraine will give Russia the resources it needs to rebuild the old Russian empire - first the traditional tsarist lands, then the postwar Eastern European states. And the US will again be embroiled in a cataclysmic war in Europe to deny the Russian army its bid to wash its collective bid to wash its feel in the Mediterranean.
#4
Excellent argument, as long as you ignore the US's role in the coup which ovethrew an elected government in Ukraine in 2014.
Otherwise, it is your argument that is "ironic."
You've ignored the Russian role in the coup that attempted to make Russia's puppet, Yanukovich, a dictator. He ran on a platform of joining the EU, then not only moved away from that, but attempted to annex Ukraine to Russia. In most places, they call that high treason. Ukraine elected a president, not a king. After his men shot the Maidan protestors and it became clear, from the popular reaction, that his future as an elected official was not only dim, but chances are he stood to be impeached, then indicted for abuse of power and murder, he ran to his master in Moscow. He could have stayed, fought the charges, run for re-election. But he ran.
Russophiles like to call Yanukovich's departure for Moscow a coup. Real coups are followed by dictatorships. Whereas when it became clear Yanukovich's departure was permanent，Ukraine promptly held new elections. Poroshenko won one term, then lost to Zelensky.
Regardless of the whys and wherefores of domestic Ukrainian politics, it is not in the US interest for the Russian empire to be reconstituted, whether to the Tsarist or Soviet boundaries. As is, Russia is the size of the next 2 largest countries on earth combined, and 4x the size of European NATO combined. We don't need Russia getting any bigger.
Today, Germany, Italy and Japan are not just our military allies, but also our friends. Would we stand for them rebuilding their old empires? In a word, no. Russia is not a military ally and definitely not a friend. There's no reason to acquiesce in this latest land grabs. We wouldn't stand for it even from our closest allies, Britain and France. Russia doesn't get a free shot.
#6
Thank you for admitting the US's role in fomenting the civil war in Ukraine.
There was no civil war. Russia's puppet attempted to make himself king, hand the country over to Russia. When the Ukrainian security services stopped obeying his orders to kill as many of the opposition as necessary to keep him in power, he fled to his master in Moscow.
Then, in 2014, Russian troops invaded Ukraine with regular troops, claimed they were locals who wanted to secede. They stopped because they met more resistance than expected.
The 2022 invasion was just a continuation of Russia's 2014 land grab. In that interval, the Russian military attempted to remedy the defects that resulted in serious difficulties for Russian invasion forces. In fact, the only relative progress Russia made since 2014 was in suborning Ukrainian officials. While incomplete, it was responsible for almost all of Russia's early gains, which it has retained through extensive fortification.
While Ukrainian accounts tend to downplay Russia's efforts to buy Ukrainian officials, it was a smashing success. In one fell swoop, 20% of Ukraine crumbled before Russia. Incomplete, but excellent bang for the buck, however many billions were spent.
#7
Most portfolios in the Ukrainian government post coup were occupied by EU bureaucrats, which set, as policy, privately recruited groups against Russian speakers. They enforced enforced policies of eliminating Russian language as one of the languages used by the government.
I can't think of many things which could enrage a populace more than being cut from their formerly legitimately elected government, not even a post coup amalgam of EU politicians.
If I am the president of Russia and I see a coup fomented by the US and Eu governments, I want to protect my aircraft carrier, and I especially don't want Crimea to be used by a hostile actor against Russians on either side of the border.
You've offered arguments justifying on what the Russians might do, but the only thing that we have is what the Russians have done and will continue to do until there is a settlement, which includes Russian security requirements.
You seem to like the notion of preemptive action, but the only thing NATO et al have managed to do is to poke the bear, with no good strategic cause other than what the Russians might do.
Keep poking the bear. Win or lose, Russia will win in Ukraine. And the only legacy NATO et al will have to show is the mounds of dead Ukrainians and mercenaries who died for a cause based on a flawed strategic assumption.
#8
You seem to like the notion of preemptive action, but the only thing NATO et al have managed to do is to poke the bear, with no good strategic cause other than what the Russians might do.
Keep poking the bear. Win or lose, Russia will win in Ukraine. And the only legacy NATO et al will have to show is the mounds of dead Ukrainians and mercenaries who died for a cause based on a flawed strategic assumption.
There was no pre-emptive action. Russia, not the US, invaded Ukraine in 2014, and again in 2022. The US jockeyed for influence with Russia in Ukraine as all countries do.
So long as Europe and the US continue to throttle military equipment shipments, Ukraine will slowly lose ground. Only a Trump administration offers hope for Ukrainian victory, through unfettered shipments of somewhat current hardware in quantities large enough to make a difference. At minimum, Biden's endless obstruction of transfers of mothballed US-made equipment from other countries will end.
#9
Regardless of the whys and wherefores of domestic Ukrainian politics, it is not in the US interest for the Russian empire to be reconstituted, whether to the Tsarist or Soviet boundaries. As is, Russia is the size of the next 2 largest countries on earth combined, and 4x the size of European NATO combined. We don't need Russia getting any bigger.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[ ewsFront] 21:00 Captured Ukrainian Armed Forces serviceman Sergei Butenko on how he was deceived into sending him to the Kursk region with drug addicts. The Ukrainian prisoner of war said that the Ukrainian Armed Forces command deceived him and that his guides were high on drugs:
"When the mortar artillery attack started, we went into the basement of one of the houses. Our four elders went ahead somewhere on their own. Yes, they were on drugs, they didn't care how to go. They smoked weed, just went ahead, and that's it, and we were told to sit in the basement. These were our guides who were supposed to take us to the point and seat us. We were sent with some junkies, to put it bluntly, just to die."
According to the prisoner, the Ukrainian Armed Forces command told the servicemen that they would be stationed at the border, but in reality they were sent to the Kursk region.
"They simply deceived us. I spoke with those who are now in captivity, the same situation with everyone. They said that we would go, stay there for 2-3 days, and that's it," recalls Sergei Butenko.
19:01 Destruction of the PVD of the Ukrainian Armed Forces militants during the liberation of the settlement of Ostroe –video.
18:37 Crews of 152mm towed guns "Giatsint-B" of the self-propelled artillery regiment of the "North" group of forcesdestroyedstrongholds of the Ukrainian Armed Forces militants in the border area of the Kursk region.
18:06 A 122mm D-30 howitzer crew from the Center group of forces is “working” on a stronghold of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the Pokrovsk direction –video.
17:30 Su-34 crew struck a concentration of personnel, armored and automobile military equipment of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the Kursk border area.
16:05 RF Armed Forces "Lancet" destroyed armored personnel carrier of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the border area of ??the Kursk region.
15:45 Kurakhovsky direction: advance of the Russian Armed Forces north of the settlement of Tsukurino –map.
15:05 UAV operators of the Dnepr group destroy enemy manpower, equipment and fortifications in the Orekhov direction.
14:29 This is what Ugledar looks like now: the rocket artillery of the Vostok group is in action –video.
14:11 The situation in Novogrodovka after liberation –video.
13:57 Destruction of Polish howitzer AHS Krab in the Orekhovsky district of the Zaporizhia region.
13:02 On frames- preparation and conduct of joint combat operations by operators of reconnaissance UAVs and FPV drones of the Airborne Forces units of the North group of forces during the suppression of an enemy breakthrough attempt and the evacuation of burned military equipment of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the Glushkovsky district of the Kursk region.
12:45 Russian flags at the Ugledar mines –video.
12:10 Summary of the Russian Ministry of Defense on the progress of the special military operation (as of September 25, 2024)
Units of the North group of forces defeated formations of the 21st Mechanized, 57th Motorized Infantry brigades of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the 36th Naval Infantry Brigade and the 113th Territorial Defense Brigade in the areas of the settlements of Barilo in the Sumy region, Liptsy, Vovchansk and Vovchanskie Khutor in the Khar'kov region. Three counterattacks of assault groups of the 82nd airborne assault brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine were repelled.
The fighters of the "West" group of forces occupied more advantageous lines and positions, defeated the manpower and equipment of the 14th, 28th, 116th Mechanized brigades of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and the 115th Territorial Defense Brigade in the areas of the settlements of Kupyansk, Boguslavka, Kolesnikovka, Kruglyakovka and Lozovaya in the Khar'kov region. They repelled three counterattacks of the assault groups of the 66th Mechanized Brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
As a result of decisive actions by units of the "Southern" group of troops, the settlements of Ostroe and Grigorovka of the Donetsk People's Republic were liberated. The formations of the 24th, 54th Mechanized brigades of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and the 119th territorial defense brigade were defeated in the areas of the settlements of Nikolaevka, Konstantinovka and Kurakhovo of the Donetsk People's Republic.
Units of the Center group of forces continued to advance deep into the enemy's defense, inflicted losses on the manpower and equipment of the 23rd Mechanized Brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the 116th, 118th Territorial Defense brigades and the 12th National Guard Brigade in the areas of the settlements of Kleban-Byk, Gornyak, Zoryane and Shcherbinovka of the Donetsk People's Republic. They repelled ten counterattacks by assault groups of the 25th Airborne, 59th Motorized Infantry, 68th Jaeger, 100th and 151st Mechanized brigades of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
The servicemen of the "East" group of forces improved the position along the forward edge, defeated the formations of the 33rd Mechanized, 58th Motorized Infantry brigades of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the 118th Territorial Defense brigade in the areas of the settlements of Novoukrainka, Zelenoye Pole and Zolotaya Niva of the Donetsk People's Republic. They repelled three counterattacks of the assault groups of the 72nd Mechanized Brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and the 110th territorial defense brigade.
The Dnepr group of forces inflicted losses on the manpower and equipment of the 128th Airborne Assault Brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the 35th, 37th Naval Infantry brigades and the 124th Territorial Defense Brigade in the areas of the settlements of Zherebyanka in the Zaporizhia region, Veseloe, Ivanovka in the Kherson region and the city of Kherson.
Operational-tactical aviation, unmanned aerial vehicles, missile forces and artillery of the Russian Armed Forces groups have damaged the Ukrainian Armed Forces' radio communications center, production workshops and a warehouse for unmanned aerial vehicles, as well as concentrations of enemy manpower and military equipment in 153 districts.
Air defense systems shot down four French-made Hammer guided aerial bombs, 14 US-made HIMARS and Czech-made Vampire rockets, as well as 31 aircraft-type unmanned aerial vehicles
. 12:01 Fighting is already underway in Ugledar itself, Pushilin said
11:35 Servicemen from the Russian 18th Army destroyed a vehicle used to transport Ukrainian militants to the right bank of the Kherson region.
11:11 Scouts of the 36th Separate Guards Motorized Rifle Brigade opened an attempt to rotate the enemy on the eastern outskirts of Ugledar.
11:04 Crew of the 203mm 2S7 self-propelled artillery "Pion" unit of high power of the "West" group destroyed temporary deployment point and enemy manpower.
11:00 According to Ukrainian channels, the "fortress" in Selydove is half-encircled. The situation for Ukrainian troops looks extremely difficult: the head of the council of reservists of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Ivan Tymochko said that in the event of a threat of encirclement, the army is ready to flee.
10:50 Russian fighters are effectively “minus” the militants of the Kyiv regime in the area of Volchansk –video.
10:27 RF Armed Forces are holding under fire control of the supply routes of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, reported a serviceman of the Pyatnashka Brigade of the Volunteer Corps of the Russian Ministry of Defense with the call sign Accord.
10:11 Russian troops built several echelons of defense in the Kursk region. This was stated by Major General, commander of the special forces "Akhmat", deputy head of the Main Military-Political Directorate of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation Apty Alaudinov.
10:05 The situation for the Ukrainian Armed Forces remains difficult along the entire front line, the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces reported on the Telegram channel.
The Ukrainian General Staff named Khar'kov, Kupyansk and Limansk as some of the most difficult areas. They also acknowledged Russia's advantage in manpower and equipment.
09:52 Situation in the SVO zone:
The situation in the Pokrovsk direction and northwest of Donetsk: the Russian army continues to expand its zone of control around the liberated Ukrainsk, as well as advance in the “Nevelsky pocket”.
The situation in the Ugledar direction: the Russian army has completed taking control of mine No. 3 "Yuzhnodonbasskaya". In addition, Russian troops managed to cut off the last supply route of the Ukrainian army to the settlement of Ugledar, which intensified the withdrawal of Ukrainian troops from the city to the north. Moreover, the troops of the Russian Armed Forces significantly expanded the bridgehead north of the Kashlagach River.
09:27 The Ukrainian Armed Forces risk ending up in a cauldron in the Ugledar direction due to the active advancement of the Russian Armed Forces, said Apty Alaudinov.
The Deputy Chief of the Main Military-Political Directorate of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation noted that in the Ugledar direction “the advancement of our forces is going well.”
09:21 Explosions have been heard for the second time this morning in the Kyiv-controlled city of Kherson, the Ukrainian Channel 24 reported.
09:10 Airborne Forces servicemen captured another enemy tank in the Kursk region.
09:07 Explosions occurred in the city of Kherson, controlled by Kyiv, the publication "Public. News" reported.
09:00 Shooters from Buryatia “sow panic” at Ukrainian Armed Forces positions, tearing off rotation of fighters in the strongholds and destroying their observation points over Urozhayny. The fighters' priority targets are machine gun positions that hinder the advance of our assault troops.
08:55 Su-25 Crews struck with unguided aircraft missiles on a concentration of manpower, armored vehicles and automobile equipment of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the border area of ??the Kursk region.
08:12 Operators of reconnaissance UAVs and FPV dronesshoweddestruction of an armored personnel carrier and a Ural truck of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the Kursk region
08:07 Anti-aircraft gunners cover up positions of motorized rifle units from reconnaissance drones of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the Avdeevka direction.
The Strela-10 SAM system crew of the Center group of forces destroyed an enemy UAV, providing cover for the ground group's actions. The servicemen also shot down a Ukrainian Armed Forces improvised loitering munition and destroyed an enemy FPV drone using a Kalashnikov PKMB machine gun.
08:04 Destruction of a stronghold of the Ukrainian Armed Forces militants in the border area of the Kursk region
The crews of the 152mm Giatsint-B towed guns of the self-propelled artillery regiment of the Sever group of forces in the border area of the Kursk region have set up camouflaged positions and continue to carry out fire missions to conduct counterbattery combat, destroy armored vehicles, fire weapons and concentrations of Ukrainian Armed Forces manpower.
08:00 The fighters of the 5th Motorized Rifle Brigade of the Russian Armed Forces are fully released the settlement of Ostroe in the DPR, the press service of the 51st Army of the Russian Armed Forces reported.
Article Linked Is Available Only Via VPN.
[EngMilRu] The Armed Forces of the Russian Federation continue the special military operation.
The Sever Group of Forces inflicted damage on formations of 21st Mechanised Brigade, 57th Motorised Infantry Brigade of the AFU, 36th Naval Infantry Brigade, and 113th Territorial Defence Brigade near Barilo (Sumy region), Liptsy, Volchansk, and Volchanskye Khutora (Kharkov region).
Russian units repelled three counter-attacks launched by assault groups of the AFU 82nd Air Assault Brigade. The enemy lost up to 120 troops, three tanks, an infantry fighting vehicle, four motor vehicles, two 122mm BM-21 Grad MLRS launchers, a 152mm D-20 gun, five 122mm D-30 howitzers, and a U.S.-made 105mm M-101 gun.
The Zapad Group of Forces took more favourable lines and positions, inflicted damage on manpower and materiel of the 14th, 28th, 116th Mechanised brigades of the AFU and 115th Territorial Defence Brigade near Kupyansk, Boguslavka, Kolesnikovka, Kruglyakovka, and Lozovaya (Kharkov region).
Three counterattacks launched by assault detachments of the AFU 66th Mechanised Brigade were repelled. The enemy losses are up to 390 troops, ten motor vehicles, two Czech-made 122mm Vampire MLRSs, two U.S.-made 155mm M-198 howitzers, a UK-made 155mm Braveheart self-propelled artillery system, two U.S.-made 155mm M-777 howitzers, a 152mm 2S3 Akatsiya self-propelled artillery system, a 152mm D-20 gun, a 122mm D-30 howitzer, a U.S.-made 105mm M-101 gun, and a UK-made 105mm L-119 gun. Russian troops eliminated two EW stations and four ammunition depots.
The Yug Group of Forces liberated Ostroye and Grigorovka of the Donetsk People's Republic.
Moreover, Russian forces inflicted damage on formations of 24th, 54th Mechanised brigades of the AFU, and 119th Territorial Defence Brigade near Nikolayevka, Konstantinovka, and Kurakhovo (Donetsk People's Republic).
The enemy losses amounted to up to 835 troops, seven motor vehicles, a UK-made 155mm FH-70 howitzer, two 152mm D-20 guns, a 122mm D-30 howitzer, an Ankalv-N EW station, as well as the following armament produced in the USA: two 155mm M-777 howitzers, a 155mm M-114 howitzer, a 105mm M-119 gun, and one AN/TPQ-50 counter-battery radar. Seven ammunition depots were destroyed.
The Tsentr Group of Forces continued to advance in the depth of the hostile defence and engaged manpower and materiel of the 23rd Mechanised Brigade of the AFU, 116th, 118th Territorial Defence brigades, and 12th National Guard Brigade near Kleban-Byk, Gornyak, Zoryanoye and Shcherbinovka (Donetsk People's Republic).
Russian units repelled ten counteattacks launched by assault groups of the 25th Airborne Brigade, 59th Motorised Infantry Brigade, 68th Jaeger Brigade, 100th and 151st Mechanised brigades of the AFU. The hostile formation losses amounted to up to 580 troops, an armoured fighting vehicle, four motor vehicles, a 152mm 2S3 Akatsiya self-propelled artillery system, four 152mm D-20 guns, a 152mm Msta-B howitzer, and two 122mm D-30 howitzers.
The Vostok Group of Forces improved the tactical situation at the forward edge and inflicted damage on formations of 33rd Mechanised Brigade, 58th Motorised Infantry Brigade of the AFU, 118th Territorial Defence Brigade near Novoukrainka, Zelyonoye Pole, and Zolotaya Niva (Donetsk People's Republic).
Russian troops repelled three counterattacks launched by assault detachments of 72nd Mechanised Brigade and 110th Territorial Defence Brigade. The losses of the enemy are as follows: up to 135 troops, three motor vehicles, a UK-made 155mm FH-70 howitzer, and a French-made 155mm Caesar howitzer.
?The Dnepr Group of Forces inflicted damage on manpower and materiel of the 128th Air Assault Brigade of the AFU, 35th, 37th Naval Infantry brigades, 124th Territorial Defence Brigade near Zherebyanki (Zaporozhye region), Vesyoloye, Ivanovka (Kherson region), and the city of Kherson.
The AFU losses amounted to up to 30 troops, three motor vehicles, and two 152mm Msta-B howitzers. One ammunition depot was wiped out.
?Operational-Tactical Aviation, unmanned aerial vehicles, Missile Troops and Artillery of the Russian Groups of Forces engaged radio communication centre of the AFU, workshops producing UAVs, and a UAV depot, and clusters of manpower and materiel of the enemy in 153 areas.
The AD downed four French-made Hammer guided bombs, 14 U.S.-made HIMARS and Czech-made Vampire rockets, and 31 fixed-wing UAVs.
?In total, since the beginning of the special military operation, 646 aircraft, 283 helicopters, 32,218 unmanned aerial vehicles, 579 anti-aircraft missile systems, 18,348 tanks and other armoured fighting vehicles, 1,462 MLRS combat vehicles, 15,187 field artillery guns and mortars, and 26,467 units of support military vehicles have been neutralised.
The Armed Forces of the Russian Federation continue the operation to neutralise an enemy group, which broke into the territory of the Russian Federation.
?The Sever Group of Forces continued offensive and inflicted losses on formations of the 21st, 22nd, 41st Mechanised brigades, 17th Tank Brigade, 95th Air Assault Brigade, 36th Naval Infantry Brigade, and 112th, 129th Territorial Defence brigades of the AFU near Lyubimovka, Daryino, Novy Put, Nikolayevo-Daryino, and Plekhovo.
Over the past 24 hours, units of the Sever Group of Forces repelled two enemy counterattacks near Lyubimovka.
As a result, the AFU losses amounted to up to 15 troops killed and wounded, an armoured fighting vehicle, and two motor vehicles. One AFU serviceman was taken prisoner.
With the support of army aviation and artillery fire, three AFU attempts to break through the border of the Russian Federation in the direction of Novy Put were foiled.
The AFU losses amounted to up to 50 troops killed and wounded, three tanks, an infantry fighting vehicle, an armoured fighting vehicle, and a motor vehicle.
Air strikes, artillery fire, and actions of the troops inflicted losses on manpower and hardware clusters of the 21st, 22nd, 41st, 61st, 115th Mechanised brigades, 17th Tank Brigade, 80th, 95th Air Assault brigades, 36th Naval Infantry Brigade, 103rd, 116th, and 129th Territorial Defence brigades of the AFU near Bogdanovka, Viktorovka, Goncharovka, Ivashkovsky, Kruglenkoye, Kositsa, Martynovka, Mikhaylovka, Malaya Loknya, Malaya Obukhovka, Medvezhye, Novy Put, Pravda, Pokrovskoye, Plekhovo, Rubanshchina, and Tolsty Lug.
Operational-Tactical Aviation, and Missile Troops delivered strikes in Sumy region at concentration areas and reserves of the 21st, 22nd, 41st, 47th, and 115th Mechanised brigades, 82nd, 95th Air Assault brigades, 1st National Guard Brigade, and 103rd, 106th, 107th, and 129th Territorial Defence brigades of the AFU near Belopolye, Belovody, Boyaro-Lezhachi, Bruski, Vladimirovka, Zhuravka, Komsomolsky, Manukhovka, Novaya Sloboda, Obody, Pavlovka, Rechki, Revyakino, Sosnovka, Stepanovka, Sumy, Shalygino, and Khoten.
Over the past 24 hours, the Armed Forces of Ukraine have suffered the following losses: over 300 troops, seven armoured vehicles, three tanks, including two German-made Leopard tanks, an infantry fighting vehicle, and three armoured fighting vehicles, two artillery guns, and six motor vehicles.
Since the beginning of hostilities in Kursk region, the Armed Forces of Ukraine lost more than 17,000 troops, 130 tanks, 62 infantry fighting vehicles, 95 armoured personnel carriers, 812 armoured fighting vehicles, 514 motor vehicles, 138 artillery guns, 31 MLRS launchers, including eight of HIMARS and six of MLRS made by the USA, eight SAM launchers, five transport-loading vehicles, 35 electronic warfare stations and eight counter-battery radars, two air defence radars, 18 engineering vehicles, including 11 counterobstacle vehicles and one UR-77 mine clearing vehicle, as well as one armoured recovery vehicle.
The operation to neutralise the AFU units is in progress.
Worth noting, korrespondent.net has compiled its Invasion of Ukraine series into separate months, beginning May 9th, 2023. Linked in the title.
[Korrespondent] 22:12 Head of the Presidential Office Andrey Yermak commented on Putin's statements about the use of nuclear weapons: "Besides nuclear blackmail, there is nothing else in the Russian Federation, no other instruments for intimidating the world. These instruments will not work."
22:01 Polish President Andrzej Duda stated at a meeting of the UN General Assembly that there is a danger of Russia striking Ukrainian nuclear power plants, and if Russia attacks Ukrainian nuclear power plants, it will be necessary to intervene immediately.
21:47 France will train and equip a Ukrainian brigade, Zelensky said following a meeting with Macron. The parties also discussed the needs of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, strengthening the Ukrainian air defense system, and training the military. In addition, Zelensky discussed with European Council President Charles Michel the use of income from frozen Russian assets and Ukraine's military needs.
21:04 Ukraine has proposed that Northern European countries prepare one battalion of the Ukrainian Armed Forces each. Northern European countries have been offered to join the Northern Brigade project, the Defense Ministry reported.
20:55 Putin stated that the new nuclear strategy of the Russian Federation will include the possibility of using nuclear weapons in the event of "aggression against Russia by any non-nuclear state, but with the participation or support of a nuclear state. It is proposed to consider such a case as their joint attack on the Russian Federation." Putin also stated that a "critical threat" to Russia's sovereignty created by conventional weapons will be the basis for a nuclear response.
"Reliable information" about the launch of air and space attack weapons, as well as UAVs, towards the Russian Federation will also "entail a nuclear response." In addition, according to Putin, the Russian Federation reserves the right to use nuclear weapons in the event of aggression against Belarus.
19:23 In Kramatorsk, Donetsk region, as a result of a Russian strike, the number of wounded has increased to 19, two people have died, reported the head of the OVA Vadim Filashkin.
18:16 Zelensky criticized China and Brazil at the UN General Assembly for proposing to stop the war along the front lines: "If someone in the world is looking for an alternative to any of these points [of the peace formula] or is trying to ignore any of them, this most likely means that they themselves want to do part of what Putin is doing. And when China and Brazil are trying to turn into a chorus of voices with someone in Europe, with someone in Africa, who are saying something alternative to a full and fair peace, the question arises: what is the true interest?"
He also criticized all other proposals to stop the war along the front lines: "The half-hearted settlement plan that has been proposed by various parties makes no sense."
In addition, Zelensky said that the Zaporizhia NPP is under threat of a nuclear incident: "This is the main source of radiation hazard in Europe, and possibly in the world. That is why the first point in the peace formula I presented is nuclear safety." The president also emphasized that "Russia has destroyed all of our thermal power plants and most of our hydroelectric capacity - this is how Putin is preparing for winter, hoping to torment millions of Ukrainians."
18:03 Russians have struck the center of Kramatorsk in Donetsk Oblast - two people were killed and at least 12 were wounded, including three children. The enemy dropped three guided bombs on the city, OVA chief Vadim Filashkin reported.
16:50 Erdogan said that the US and other NATO members do not want Ukraine to join the Alliance: "These are not issues that need to be rushed. And when we make a decision, we always take into account the position of other NATO member countries, we discuss these possible issues at the table and make the final decision accordingly."
16:32 On the approaches to Vuhledar in Donetsk Oblast, the Ukrainian Armed Forces burned a large amount of enemy equipment. Some Russian sabotage and reconnaissance groups are trying to break into the city, but the Defense Forces are destroying them, said OVA head Vadim Filashkin. According to him, about 100 people remain in the city, who flatly refuse to leave. It is impossible to deliver humanitarian aid to them, because the enemy is shooting at all the routes.
15:53 Russia has created a secret project in China to produce military drones, Reuters reports, citing sources in European intelligence. According to them, the Russian company Kupol, a subsidiary of the state corporation Almaz-Antey, developed a drone called Harpia-3 and conducted its flight tests with the participation of Chinese specialists. Subsequently, the Kupol company informed the Russian Defense Ministry that it had established mass production of drones at a plant in China for use in the war against Ukraine. It is reported that the Harpia's flight range can reach about 2,000 km.
14:44 The death toll from yesterday's Russian strike on Kharkov has risen to four - rescuers have unblocked the body of another dead person, OVA chief Oleg Sinegubov reported. He also said that S-400 missile strikes were recorded tonight in the village of Bilashi in the Kharkov district - a hangar and agricultural machinery were damaged on the territory of a farm, no one was hurt.
14:10 Peskov called Zelensky's position on forcing Russia to peace a "fatal mistake" that "will have consequences for Kiev." According to him, Russia itself is allegedly "a supporter of peace, but on the condition that its security is ensured and the tasks that are set during the SVO are fulfilled."
13:59 Brazil is promoting a joint "peace plan" with China at the UN to end the war in Ukraine, Reuters reports. According to Brazilian diplomats, Celso Amorim, the Brazilian president's foreign policy adviser, will present the plan to representatives of 20 countries of the Global South during a meeting in New York on Friday, September 27. He will seek support for the joint "peace proposal" with China. The participants in the meeting include Colombia, Egypt, Indonesia, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, South Africa and the UAE.
13:31 At the aggregate plant in Volchansk, Ukrainian fighters captured about 20 Russian soldiers, the GUR reported. Several dozen more Russians were killed, and four tried to leave the plant and were neutralized outside the perimeter of the enterprise. The battle lasted a little over a week.
12:52 Ukraine is more than 80% dependent on Western partners, Defense Minister Rustem Umerov said in an interview with the Left Bank publication.
12:24 Ugledar is not currently surrounded, but there is an advance of Russian forces and new risks because of this, said Ivan Tymochko, head of the Council of Reserves of the Ground Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. According to him, the Russian army is trying to attack on the flanks, because there is no urban development there in which Ukrainian forces could hold the line. Tymochko also allowed for the possibility of withdrawing Ukrainian units if there is no opportunity to hold the line in the urban development and if there are threats to the lives of servicemen.
11:21 Victory over Russia "at the cost of destroying half of the Ukrainian population is not a victory," said Czech President Petr Pavel. He called hopes that the war would end in "a clean victory for Ukraine in weeks or months" "dangerous for everyone." "I have never doubted that we should support Ukraine in restoring its territorial integrity, that this is the ultimate goal. We just have to realistically assess the time frame and the cost of achieving this goal," Pavel explained.
10:18 Russians started to hit Zaporizhia with KABs. Russian KABs usually have a gliding range of up to 40-60 km, and the city of Zaporizhia is located approximately 25-35 km from the current front line. More details in the article New Tactics of Russia.
10:09 The government has established a new amount of payments in the event of death or injury of military personnel. A one-time benefit in the event of death is paid to family members of the deceased in the amount of 22 million 710 thousand hryvnia. In addition, a one-time cash assistance is provided in the event of disability due to injury: 12 million 112 thousand hryvnia - group I; 9 million 84 thousand hryvnia - group II; 7 million 570 thousand hryvnia - group III.
09:40 In the Odessa region, during a night attack, a Russian missile - preliminarily, an Kh-59/69 - hit an open area. Dry grass caught fire, the fire was quickly extinguished. Two trucks were damaged by debris, no one was hurt, said OVA chief Oleg Kiper.
09:23 Three people were killed in Donetsk Oblast as a result of Russian shelling on September 24: two in Pokrovsk and one in Konstantinovka. Another five people in the region were injured in the past 24 hours, said OVA head Vadim Filashkin.
09:04 As a result of Russian shelling of Kharkov on September 24, three people were killed and 36 were injured, reported the head of the OVA Oleg Sinegubov. In addition, one person was killed as a result of shelling of Kupyansk, one was killed and two were injured in the village of Varvarovka in the Chuguevsky district.
08:52 At night, Russians carried out an airstrike on Kreshchenivka in the Kherson region, one person was injured, the OVA reported. Russians also attacked Kherson - as a result of explosives dropped from a UAV, one person was injured. Over the previous day, as a result of Russian shelling in the region, one person was killed and 18 were injured.
08:27 The General Staff announced the estimated losses of the Russian Federation as of the morning of September 25:
personnel - about 646,400 (+1250) people,
tanks - 8815 (+15),
combat armored vehicles - 17,304 (+12),
artillery systems - 18,549 (+74),
MLRS - 1199 (+1),
air defense systems - 952 (+0),
aircraft - 369 (+0),
helicopters - 328 (+0),
Operational-tactical level UAVs - 15,879 (+115),
cruise missiles - 2595 (+0),
ships/boats - 28 (+0),
submarines - 1 (+0),
automotive equipment and tank trucks - 25,248 (+73),
special equipment - 3168 (+13).
07:38 In the Zaporizhia region, as a result of Russian shelling, one person was killed in the Polohovsky district, and seven more people were injured as a result of shelling in Zaporizhia, reported the head of the OVA Ivan Fedorov.
07:23 Air defense destroyed 28 of 32 Shahed attack UAVs and all four Kh-59/69 guided air missiles that the Russians used to attack Odessa Oblast at night, the Air Force reported. Four enemy drones were lost in several regions of Ukraine. The enemy also attacked Kharkiv Oblast at night with an S-300 anti-aircraft guided missile and three missiles of an unspecified type. Air defense operated in Dnipropetrovsk, Kharkiv, Kyiv, Cherkasy, Kirovohrad, Sumy, Poltava, Mykolaiv, Odessa and Kherson Oblasts.
06:29 The American Institute for the Study of War (ISW) confirms that Russian troops have reached the outskirts of Vuhledar in the Donetsk region. At the same time, analysts believe that this is unlikely to give them any operational advantage for further offensive operations in the western part of the region.
03:51 Trump does not plan to meet with Zelensky this week, the former president's team said. They added that they had not planned such a meeting at all, AP reports, citing a comment from a Trump campaign representative. The agency also reports that speaking in Savannah, Georgia, Trump mocked Biden's frequent refrains that the United States will support the Ukrainian armed forces until Kiev wins the war.
[IsraelTimes] Israel won’t be allowed to participate as a competing nation in the 2025 International Olympiad in Informatics (IOI), a prestigious international competition for high school students, in the first such decision by a global tournament organizer.
The IOI General Assembly voted by a two-thirds majority to "sanction Israel for its role" in the ongoing "humanitarian crisis in Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with an iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response... caused by the ongoing conflict," according to a Tuesday announcement by the IOI.
"Beginning in 2025, Israel will not be recognized as a participating delegation at IOI, but four contestants from Israel may still participate under the IOI flag," the statement said.
In the 2024 competition, held in Alexandria, Egypt, four Israeli students participated remotely due to security concerns and won three gold medals and a bronze. The Israeli team placed second overall out of 94 participating countries and more than 350 student competitors.
Today, the Education Ministry says that Israeli students competing in the olympiad under the IOI flag is "not going to happen."
"The Israeli team will carry the Israeli flag proudly on the way to many more victories and international achievements... The ministry is examining, in cooperation with the Foreign Ministry, decisive measures on the issue," the statement says.
#1
I can understand the IOI's concern. Think of the shame of losing to Untermenschen and the damage that would cause to the self-esteem of young idiots.
[IsraelTimes] The IDF says it is calling up two reserve brigades to be deployed to northern Israel.
The military says the move, made following a fresh assessment, "will allow the continuation of the fighting effort against the Hezbollah terror organization, the protection of the citizens of the State of Israel, and the creation of the conditions for the safe return of the [displaced] residents of the north to their homes."
[GEO.TV] Israel's army chief told troops on Wednesday to be prepared for a "possible entry" into Leb ...an Iranian satrapy currently ruled by Hassan Nasrallah 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 dozen flavors of Christians, plus Armenians, Georgians, and who knows what else? It is the home of the original Hezbollah, which periodically starts a war with the Zionist Entity, gets Beirut pounded to rubble, and then declares victory and has a parade. The Lebs have the curious habit of periodically murdering their heads of state or prime ministers... as Israeli fighter jets bombarded Hezbollah targets across the border.
"You can hear the planes here; we are attacking all day. Both to prepare the ground for the possibility of your entry, but also to continue striking Hezbollah," Lieutenant General Herzi Halevi told a tank brigade, according to a statement issued by the military.
[IsraelTimes] Police say they have launched a ‘preliminary investigation’ into claims a Norwegian-founded Bulgaria-based company was involved in sale of devices
Norway’s security police (PST) have begun a preliminary investigation into reports that a Norwegian-owned company was linked to the sale of pagers to Hezbollah that went kaboom! last week, a police lawyer told Rooters.
Over a two-day period last week, thousands of pagers and walkie-talkies used by Hezbollah operatives blew up in Leb ...an Iranian satrapy currently ruled by Hassan Nasrallah 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 dozen flavors of Christians, plus Armenians, Georgians, and who knows what else? It is the home of the original Hezbollah, which periodically starts a war with the Zionist Entity, gets Beirut pounded to rubble, and then declares victory and has a parade. The Lebs have the curious habit of periodically murdering their heads of state or prime ministers... , killing at least 39 people and wounding thousands. The attacks were widely believed to have been carried out by Israel, which has neither confirmed nor denied its involvement.
It is not clear how and when the pagers were weaponized so they could be remotely detonated. Taiwan, Hungary and Bulgaria are already investigating possible links in the supply chain.
"PST has initiated a preliminary investigation to determine whether there are reasons for starting a [full] investigation on the basis of allegations in the media that a Norwegian-owned company may have been involved in the dissemination of pagers to Hezbollah," PST lawyer Haris Hrenovica said in a text message to Rooters.
Earlier he told Norwegian news agency NTB that the police had no specific suspicions at this time.
Bulgarian authorities said last week they were investigating Sofia-based company Norta Global Ltd after a Hungarian media report that it was involved in facilitating the sale of the pagers.
The company was founded in 2022 by Norwegian citizen Rinson Jose, 39, according to Bulgaria’s corporate registry. He signed the company’s articles of association at the Bulgarian consulate in Oslo, the documents reviewed by Rooters showed.
Jose declined to comment on the pagers when reached by phone last Wednesday and hung up when asked about the Bulgarian business. He did not return repeated calls and text messages.
When Rooters tried to call him on Tuesday this week, the call was directed to an answering service.
Jose’s Linkedin profile shows he has been employed by DN Media Group since February 2020. DN Media Group said he worked in the sales department and that he left for a conference in Boston on Sept. 17.
He last contacted his colleagues by email on Sept. 18, according to Norwegian media. His employer told Rooters it had not been able to reach him since.
Rooters has found no evidence linking Norta Global to the DN Media Group.
[IsraelTimes] Officials within the terror group say chain of command remains intact, and fighters are trained to operate even if it breaks down, pointing to underground arsenal, tunnel network
The explosion last week of thousands of Hezbollah’s communication devices across Leb ...an Iranian satrapy currently ruled by Hassan Nasrallah 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 dozen flavors of Christians, plus Armenians, Georgians, and who knows what else? It is the home of the original Hezbollah, which periodically starts a war with the Zionist Entity, gets Beirut pounded to rubble, and then declares victory and has a parade. The Lebs have the curious habit of periodically murdering their heads of state or prime ministers... put 1,500 fighters out of commission due to their injuries, with many having been blinded or had their hands blown off, a Hezbollah official told Rooters.
While that is a major blow, it represents a fraction of Hezbollah’s strength, which a report for the US Congress on Friday put at 40,000-50,000 fighters. The terror group’s leader, His Eminence Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah ...The satrap of the Medes and the Persians in Leb...> , has said it has 100,000 fighters.
The blasts, which were widely blamed on Israel, were closely followed by IDF aerial assaults over the past week that have left the powerful Lebanese Shiite terror group and political party reeling.
Yet Hezbollah’s flexible chain of command, together with its extensive tunnel network and a vast arsenal of missiles and weapons it has bolstered over the past year, is helping it weather the unprecedented Israeli strikes, three sources familiar with the Lebanese group’s operations said.
On Friday, Israel killed the commander who founded and led Hezbollah’s elite Radwan force, Ibrahim Aqil. And since Monday, Lebanon’s deadliest day of violence in decades, the health ministry says more than 560 people, among them 50 children, have died in air barrages. The tally does not distinguish between combatants and civilians. Israel said it targeted homes where Hezbollah emplaced rockets, missiles and other arms, having repeatedly called on residents to flee.
Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi said on Sunday that Aqil’s death had shaken the organization. Israel says its strikes have also destroyed thousands of Hezbollah rockets and shells.
But two of the sources familiar with Hezbollah operations said the group swiftly appointed replacements for Aqil and other senior figures killed in Friday’s Arclight airstrike ...KABOOM!... in Beirut’s southern suburbs. Nasrallah said in an August 1 speech that the group quickly fills gaps whenever a leader is killed.
Since October 8, when Hezbollah began firing at Israel in support of its ally Hamas ..one of the armed feet of the Moslem Brüderbund millipede,... in Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with an iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response... , it has redeployed fighters to frontline areas in the south, including some from Syria, the three sources said.
It has also been bringing rockets into Lebanon at a fast pace, anticipating a drawn-out conflict, the sources said, adding that the group nevertheless sought to avoid all-out war.
Hezbollah’s main supporter and weapons supplier is Iran. The terror group is the most powerful faction in Tehran’s "Axis of Resistance®" of allied irregular forces across the Middle East. Many of its weapons are Iranian, Russian or Chinese models.
The sources, who all asked not to be named because of the sensitivity of the matter, did not provide details of the weapons or where they were bought.
Hezbollah’s media office did not reply to requests for comment for this story.
Andreas Krieg, a senior lecturer at the School of Security Studies at King’s College London, said that while Hezbollah operations had been disrupted by the past week’s attacks, the group’s networked organizational structure helped make it an extremely resilient force.
"This is the most formidable enemy Israel has ever faced on the battlefield, not because of numbers and tech but in terms of resilience."
POWERFUL MISSILES
Fighting has escalated this week. Israel killed another top Hezbollah commander, Ibrahim Qubaisi, on Tuesday. For its part, Hezbollah has shown its capacity to continue operations, firing hundreds of rockets toward Israel in ever deeper attacks.
On Wednesday, warning sirens sounded in Tel Aviv as a single surface-to-surface missile was intercepted by air defense systems, the Israeli military said. Hezbollah said it had targeted an Israeli intelligence base near Tel Aviv, more than 100 kilometers (60 miles) from the border.
The group has yet to say whether it has launched any of its most potent, precision-guided rockets, such as the Fateh-110, an Iranian-made ballistic missile with a range of 250-300 kilometers (341.75 miles). Hezbollah’s Fateh-110s have a 450- to 500-kilogram warhead, according to a 2018 paper published by the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.
Hezbollah’s rocket attacks are possible because the chain of command has kept functioning despite the group suffering a brief spell of disarray after the pagers and walkie-talkies detonated, one of the sources, a security bigshot, said.
The three sources said Hezbollah’s ability to communicate is underpinned by a dedicated, fixed-line telephone network — which it has described as critical to its communications and continues to work — as well as by other devices.
Many of its fighters were carrying older models of pagers, for example, that were unaffected by last week’s attack.
Rooters could not independently verify the information. Most injuries from the exploding pagers were in Beirut, far from the front.
Hezbollah stepped up the use of pagers after banning its fighters from using cellphones on the battlefield in February, in response to commanders being killed in strikes.
If the chain of command breaks, frontline fighters are trained to operate in small, independent clusters composed of a few villages near the border, capable of fighting Israeli forces for long periods, the senior source added.
That is precisely what happened in 2006, during the last war between Hezbollah and Israel, when the group’s fighters held out for weeks, some in frontline villages invaded by Israel.
Israel says it has escalated attacks in order to degrade Hezbollah’s capabilities and make it safe for tens of thousands of displaced Israelis to return to their homes near the Lebanon border, which they fled when Hezbollah began firing rockets on October 8.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government has said it prefers to reach a negotiated agreement that would see Hezbollah withdraw from the border region but stands ready to continue its bombing campaign if Hezbollah refuses, and does not rule out any military options.
Hezbollah’s resilience means the fighting has raised fears of a protracted war that could suck in the US, Israel’s close ally, and Iran ...a theocratic Shiite state divided among the Medes, the Persians, and the (Arab) Elamites. Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979. The nation is today noted for spontaneously taking over other countries' embassies, maintaining whorehouses run by clergymen, involvement in international drug trafficking, and financing sock puppet militias to extend the regime's influence. The word Iran is a cognate form of Aryan. The abbreviation IRGC is the same idea as Stürmabteilung (or SA). The term Supreme Guide is a the modern version form of either Duce or Führer or maybe both. They hate JewsZionists Jews. Their economy is based on the production of oil and vitriol... — especially if Israel launches, and gets bogged down in, a ground offensive in southern Lebanon.
Israel’s military did not respond to a request for comment for this story.
Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian warned on Monday of "irreversible" consequences of a full-blown war in the Middle East. A US State Department official said Washington disagreed with Israel’s strategy of escalation and sought to reduce tensions.
UNDERGROUND ARSENAL
In what two of the sources said was an indication of how well some of Hezbollah’s weapons are hidden, on Sunday rockets were launched from areas of southern Lebanon that had been targeted by Israel shortly before, the two sources said.
Hezbollah is believed to have an underground arsenal and last month published footage that appeared to show its fighters driving trucks with rocket launchers through tunnels. The sources did not specify if the rockets fired on Sunday were launched from underground.
Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Monday’s barrage had destroyed tens of thousands of Hezbollah rockets and munitions.
Israel’s military said long-range cruise missiles, rockets with warheads capable of carrying 100 kilograms of explosives, short-range rockets, and explosive UAVs were all struck on Monday.
Rooters could not independently verify the military claims.
Boaz Shapira, a researcher at Alma, an Israeli think tank that specializes in Hezbollah, said Israel had yet to target strategic sites such as long-range missiles and drone sites.
"I don’t think we are anywhere near finishing this," Shapira said.
Hezbollah’s arsenal is believed to comprise some 150,000 rockets, the US Congress report said. Krieg said its most powerful, long-range ballistic missiles were kept below ground.
Hezbollah has spent years building a tunnel network that by Israeli estimates extends for hundreds of miles. The Israeli military said Monday’s airstrikes hit Hezbollah missile launch sites hidden under homes in southern Lebanon.
Hezbollah has said it does not place military infrastructure near civilians. Hezbollah has issued no statement on the impact of Israel’s strikes since Monday.
TUNNELS
The group’s arsenal and tunnels have expanded since the 2006 war, especially precision guidance systems, leader Nasrallah has said. Hezbollah officials have said the group has used a small part of the arsenal in fighting over the past year.
Israeli officials have said Hezbollah’s military infrastructure is tightly meshed into the villages and communities of southern Lebanon, with ammunition and missile launcher pads stored in houses throughout the area. Israel has been pounding some of those villages for months to degrade Hezbollah’s capabilities.
Confirmed details on the tunnel network remain scarce.
A 2021 report by Alma, the Israeli think tank, said Iran and North Korea ...hereditary Communist monarchy distinguished by its truculence and periodic acts of violence. Distinguishing features include Songun (Army First) policy, which involves feeding the army before anyone but the Dear Leadership, and Juche, which is Kim Jong Il's personal interpretation of Marxism-Leninism, which he told everybody was brilliant. In 1950 the industrialized North invaded agrarian South Korea. Twenty-one countries of the United Nations eventually contributed to the UN force opposing the invasion, with the United States providing around 90% of the military personnel. Seventy years later the economic results are in and it doesn't look good for Juche... both helped build up the network of tunnels in the aftermath of the 2006 war.
Israel has already struggled to root out Hamas commanders and self-reliant fighting units from the tunnels crisscrossing Gaza.
"It is one of our biggest challenges in Gaza, and it is certainly something we could meet in Lebanon," said Carmit Valensi, a senior research fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv, a think-tank.
Krieg said that unlike Gaza, where most tunnels are manually dug into a sandy soil, the tunnels in Lebanon had been dug deep in mountain rock. "They are far less accessible than in Gaza and even less easy to destroy."
A white dudes for Harris-style brew company in Wisconsin has launched a line of Antifa, Kamala Harris and Tim Walz beers to try to increase Democrat voter turnout.
[FoxNews] In February, FBI agents raided the home of Winnie Greco, one of Adams' top aides, in the Bronx.
A Manhattan grand jury has indicted New York Mayor Eric Adams on federal criminal charges, multiple sources familiar confirmed to Fox News. The details about the indictment remain under seal.
Multiple sources have confirmed to Fox News that the indictment could be unsealed as early as tomorrow.
The FBI and Department of Justice are declining to comment on the matter, and it is unclear who Adams has retained as his personal attorney.
"I always knew that if I stood my ground for New Yorkers that I would be a target — and a target I became," Adams said in a statement obtained by The Associated Press. "If I am charged, I am innocent, and I will fight this with every ounce of my strength and spirit."
Several people have already been raided in the orbit of the 63-year-old former NYPD captain.
In February, FBI agents raided the home of Winnie Greco, one of his top aides, in the Bronx. In November, feds swarmed the property of another aide, Cenk Ocal, a former Turkish airlines executive who joined the mayor's transition team. That same month, they visited Brianna Suggs, the mayor's chief fundraiser.
Rana Abbasova, another close aide, reportedly flipped on the mayor in May after scrutiny over his dealings with Turkish Airlines, according to the New York Times.
Statements from the New York State lawmakers agree that this move is the best course of action for the city moving forward.
"The mayor and his administration appear to be riddled with corruption, and the public has lost all confidence in their ability to move the five boroughs forward. Mr. Adams should do what's best for this city and step aside so that a new election can be held. His situation is untenable," said New York State Conservative Party Chairman Gerard Kassar.
"Another NY Democrat clouded in scandal. Time and again, they have proved they only care about their personal power and scoring political points, not what’s best for New York’s taxpayers. It’s time for people to send a message that they aren’t going to take it anymore," said New York Congressman Nick Langworthy.
"We can add another name to the list of high-ranking Democrats in Albany and New York City tarnished by scandal, including Governors Andrew Cuomo and Eliot Spitzer, who both resigned in disgrace," said New York GOP Chair Ed Cox. "One-party Democrat rule in New York City and New York State is not serving the best interests of our citizens, who continue to flee New York for states with lower taxes, more freedom and less corruption. It is highly likely that Mayor Adams will have to resign following the revelation of the specific charges against him."
The FBI has reportedly been looking into whether Adams' 2021 mayoral campaign conspired with the Turkish government and other entities to raise funds.
Flat out racism, man! Because of slavery, African-American politicians have not had the same opportunities for theft and grifting as white politicians.
My curiosity is why, in the Age of TrumpHitler, the Brandon DoJ and the FBI are going after the black mayor of a big Blue city. Did he go off the reservation somehow?
25 September 2024, 6:53 pm
[IsraelTimes] Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has given a "green light" to talks with the US over a potential temporary halt in the stepped-up conflict with Hezbollah in Leb ...an Iranian satrapy currently ruled by Hassan Nasrallah 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 dozen flavors of Christians, plus Armenians, Georgians, and who knows what else? It is the home of the original Hezbollah, which periodically starts a war with the Zionist Entity, gets Beirut pounded to rubble, and then declares victory and has a parade. The Lebs have the curious habit of periodically murdering their heads of state or prime ministers... , which would enable negotiations for a ceasefire, according to an unsourced report by the Ynet news site.
The report says Netanyahu and Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer are holding the talks with Washington, which is holding talks with Lebanon’s government and other official acting as intermediaries with Hezbollah.
Iran ...a theocratic Shiite state divided among the Medes, the Persians, and the (Arab) Elamites. Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979. The nation is today noted for spontaneously taking over other countries' embassies, maintaining whorehouses run by clergymen, involvement in international drug trafficking, and financing sock puppet militias to extend the regime's influence. The word Iran is a cognate form of Aryan. The abbreviation IRGC is the same idea as Stürmabteilung (or SA). The term Supreme Guide is a the modern version form of either Duce or Führer or maybe both. They hate JewsZionists Jews. Their economy is based on the production of oil and vitriol... is said to be involved in the talks, preferring to avoid an all-out war.
"We are nearing a fork in the road for decisions on where the war is going," an unnamed Israeli official is quoted as saying.
“We are grateful for all those who are making a sincere effort with diplomacy to avoid escalation, to avoid a full war,” Israel’s UN envoy Danny Danon says, but adds that if talks failed: “We will use all means at our disposal, in accordance with international law, to achieve our aims.”
Netanyahu, other Israel officials said to pour cold water on chances for pause in fighting
25 September 2024, 9:23 pm
[IsraelTimes] Israel officials are highly pessimistic that efforts for a temporary halt to fighting in Lebanon to facilitate ceasefire talks will work, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has told ministers that any negotiations will only be held under fire, according to several reports.
Reports by The Wall Street Journal and Channel 12 news say the basic idea being negotiated is a halt of up to four weeks, during which negotiations would be held for a ceasefire in Lebanon and in Gaza. Channel 12 says Hamas would also announce it is holding fire, while IDF forces would remain in Gaza but not invade Lebanon. The network says talks would then focus on upgrading Security Council Resolution 1701 to better enforce a ceasefire and guarantee Hezbollah move away from the border.
However, Channel 13 news quotes an unnamed senior Israel official as saying there is “no feasibility for a settlement right now,” and that “Israel is prepared to hear suggestions, but the chances for an agreement are slim.”
The Ynet news site quotes an associate of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as saying that in practice, “there are no negotiations,” and adding that the “red line for the prime minister and [Strategic Affairs] Minister [Ron] Dermer is pushing Hezbollah across the Litani [River].”
Ynet further reports, without citing sources, that Netanyahu told ministers in a security consultation that “any negotiations will only be held under fire; we are continuing to strike Hezbollah with full force.”
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.
..the well-beloved offspring of the Moslem Brotherhood,...
[GEO.TV] The US military is not providing intelligence support to Israel for its operations in Lebanon, the Pentagon said on Wednesday.
...Kamala's smarmy-looking running mate, governor of Minnesota, who decided to retired rather than to deploy with his National Guard unit, then claimed to have been in Iraq and Afghanistan. 
...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula, largely made up of sand and oil rigs. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual haj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. Formerly dictatorial and steeped in Olde Tyme Religion, deferring to Salafist holy men on all issues, it has now done a 180 and is making a serious effort to modernize, so as not to be left in the sand by its Gulf Arab neighbors. The holy men have been shoved to the background and the nation is now still dictatorial but somewhat Frational. That doesn't make them trustworthy, but it's a start...
...dictatorial for repealing some (but not all) of the diktats of his predecessor, misogynistic because he likes pretty girls, homophobic because he doesn't think gender bending should be mandatory, truly a man for all seasons...
...every time you hear the phrase 
Trump’s town hall will take place on Oct. 8, at 10 p.m. ET in Miami, while Harris’s town hall will be held on Oct. 10, at 10 p.m. ET from Las Vegas, according to Univision.
..a contraction of the Arabic words for "frothing at the mouth",...
So, we landed at Dulles and headed out to Gettysburg after spending a night in DC. I’ve been to Gettysburg about a million times. I actually have a scar on my forehead from where I fell as a little kid on the Peace Memorial. The drive was interesting because I saw a lot of Trump signs. There were a few Harris signs but a lot more Trump ones. You get out of the cities, and it’s bright red. You need to understand that the old joke is true about Pennsylvania. It’s liberal Pittsburgh and Philadelphia and Kentucky in between. These places are where normal people live. There was no weirdness. It was neat, clean, and orderly. Drug zombies weren’t staggering and shouting. There wasn’t trash everywhere. No bizarre transvestites were walking around. It was all normal.
..the well-beloved offspring of the Moslem Brotherhood,...
...every time you hear the phrase 
...an Iranian satrapy currently ruled by Hassan Nasrallah 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 dozen flavors of Christians, plus Armenians, Georgians, and who knows what else? It is the home of the original Hezbollah, which periodically starts a war with the Zionist Entity, gets Beirut pounded to rubble, and then declares victory and has a parade. The Lebs have the curious habit of periodically murdering their heads of state or prime ministers...
...an Iranian satrapy currently ruled by Hassan Nasrallah 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 dozen flavors of Christians, plus Armenians, Georgians, and who knows what else? It is the home of the original Hezbollah, which periodically starts a war with the Zionist Entity, gets Beirut pounded to rubble, and then declares victory and has a parade. The Lebs have the curious habit of periodically murdering their heads of state or prime ministers...
