[Rudaw] The United States Department of Justice on Thursday said the former director of a central Damascus prison has been charged with torture by a federal grand jury in Los Angeles.
"Samir Alsheikh is charged with torturing political dissidents and other prisoners to deter opposition to the regime of then-Syrian President Bashir al-Assad," said Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Nicole Argentieri, head of the justice department’s Criminal Division.
Samir Ousman al-Sheikh, 72, was chief of Adra prison 2005 until 2008. The justice department said that he "allegedly ordered subordinates to inflict and was sometimes personally involved in inflicting severe physical and mental pain and suffering on political and other prisoners."
In addition to running the prison, Sheikh has held many roles within the then-ruling Baathist party and was appointed governor of Deir ez-Zor by Assad in 2011.
The indictment said that he immigrated to the US in 2020 and applied for citizenship in 2023.
"Alsheikh later allegedly lied about his crimes to obtain a U.S. green card," according to Argentieri.
If convicted, Sheikh could face decades in prison.
"The allegations in this superseding indictment reveal unconscionable crimes and a clear violation of human rights When they're defined by the state or an NGO they don't mean much... ," said Assistant Director Chad Yarbrough of the FBI Criminal Investigative Division.
Celebrations this week across Syria, sparked by the fall of the regime, were overshadowed by chilling stories that began to emerge from the country’s prisons, especially Sednaya in Damascus. Inmates released from decades of detention and torture told stories that provided a disturbing look into how the Assad family brutally treated dissidents during their long rule.
[IsraelTimes] Iran has agreed to additional monitoring measures by the UN nuclear watchdog at its Fordo enrichment plant after it voiced plans to significantly increase its production of highly enriched uranium at the site, the agency says in a report seen by AFP.
The International Atomic Energy Agency said last week that Iran had revamped its Fordo enrichment plant, south of Tehran.
The changes would “significantly increase the rate of production of uranium enriched up to 60 percent”, the agency said — close to the 90 percent needed to make a nuclear weapon.
The rate of production will jump to more than 34 kilograms of highly enriched uranium per month, compared to 4.7 kilograms previously, it added.
The IAEA called on Iran to implement inspections urgently, while European powers pressed Tehran to “immediately halt its nuclear escalation.”
“Iran agreed to the Agency’s request to increase the frequency and intensity of the implementation of safeguard measures at FFEP,” the IAEA says in a confidential report seen by AFP.
Iran insists on its right to nuclear energy for peaceful purposes and has denied any ambition of developing weapons capability.
However, US intelligence agencies and the IAEA say Iran had an organized military nuclear program up until 2003, and continued to develop its nuclear program beyond civilian necessity.
Israel contends that the Islamic Republic never truly abandoned its nuclear weapons program and many of its nuclear sites are buried under heavily fortified mountains.
[IsraelTimes] IDF troops operating in southern Lebanon amid the ceasefire continue to find Hezbollah weaponry, the military says.
The IDF says soldiers of the 769th “Hiram” Regional Brigade captured anti-tank missiles, assault rifles, RPGs, mortars, and other weapons and equipment during scans of southern Lebanon.
The soldiers also located an anti-tank missile launch site previously used by Hezbollah to attack Israeli border towns, the military adds.
[IsraelTimes] Israel reportedly carried out more strikes on missile warehouses and airports in Syria near the capital Damascus overnight, according to Arab media reports.
Earlier this week, military sources said the Israeli Air Force had carried out over 300 airstrikes on Syrian military targets since the collapse of the Assad regime, amid a wave of operations to take out advanced weapons and other capabilities lest they fall into hostile hands.
The latest series of 17 strikes targeted Iranian-made strategic tunnel complexes believed to be designed for storing and launching ballistic missiles, according to Jordan-based al-Ghad TV.
🔴 Israeli Air-Force carried out 17 airstrikes in the Qalamoun region near Damascus, targeting missile warehouses and Nasiriyah Airport. Several strikes aimed to destroy Iranian-built strategic tunnel complexes, intended for storing and launching ballistic missiles in the future. pic.twitter.com/AUYWwJK2kV
#2
However, al-Julani added, the new regime will not hesitate to use force against those who attempt to prevent it from implementing Sharia Law. "The jihad is obligatory for this reason," he stressed.
So it'll continue to be just another Arab country deserving of shelling.
[IsraelTimes] US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan says that "for many months, Hamas ..a contraction of the Arabic words for "frothing at the mouth",... has not been prepared to even do the basic things of coming to the table with the names of hostages."
The comments in an interview with Channel 13 come amid reports earlier in the week that the terror group has passed along a list of hostages it is prepared to release in the first stage to the mediators.
An Arab diplomat denied a Wall Street Journal report claiming as much.
Sullivan spoke in the present tense, saying "has" and not "had," but it wasn’t entirely clear whether he was revealing that Hamas has still yet to provide names of the hostages to date or whether he was referring to previous months before talks were jumpstarted last week.
Pressed on whether Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been an obstacle in the talks, as Arab mediators have told The Times of Israel, Sullivan gives a diplomatic answer.
"Israel negotiated hard to defend and justify its position in this negotiation," he says.
He is less generous regarding Hamas, asserting that the terror group "has been deeply intransigent,"
"We have seen Hamas repeatedly, time and again, when the opportunity was there to do something, not be prepared to step up and do it," Sullivan says.
"But we have also seen Israel and the Israeli government choose to drive a negotiation where it had its perspective on what was required in order to get the hostages home and ensure Israel’s security," he adds, without elaborating what he means by that.
Asked whether Donald Trump ...So far he's been unkillable, and they've tried.... ’s election and the threat that the president-elect issued to those holding hostages in the Middle East are the reasons why there has been renewed optimism regarding the chances for a deal, Sullivan disagrees.
The top Biden aide points to the fall of the Assad regime, the ceasefire in Leb ...an Iranian satrapy until recently 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... and Israel’s killing of Hamas leaders. "My view on why we are in [this] position... is not about American politics or the outcome of the election... It’s about the regional situation here."
"My conviction is that because of developments in the region, the moment is ripe; and it is my job to seize that moment to bring these people home, including American citizens, who have been away from their families for too long."
As for the call from some hostage families to have a one-phase deal that sees all 100 captives released at once, Sullivan says the US still believes that the three-phase framework that it has been pushing since Israel proposed it in May will be the most effective.
"Our judgment is that trying to proceed in phases and getting this thing started so people start coming out — that is the best way to get to the end of the process," he says.
"We will obviously test that... and we will see what happens. But it’s the judgment of the US and of the mediators that operating in this way is the most likely method of getting everyone home safely to their loved ones in the shortest possible time."
[IsraelTimes] Paleostinian media reports that PA security forces killed a commander of the Islamic Jihad ...created after many members of the Egyptian Moslem Brotherhood decided the organization was becoming too moderate. Operations were conducted out of Egypt until 1981 when the group was exiled after the assassination of President Anwar Sadat. They worked out of Gaza until they were exiled to Lebanon in 1987, where they clove tightly to Hezbollah. In 1989 they moved to Damascus, where they remain a subsidiary of Hezbollah... terror group’s Jenin Brigade early this morning, sparking festivities in the West Bank city.
The Paleostinian Islamic Jihad commander is named in the reports as Yazid Jaysa, who is said to have been wanted by both the PA and Israel.
The PA says it has been operating against terror groups in Jenin for the past week to restore security and stability to the area.
The raids come amid high tensions in the West Bank after the PA arrested several terror operatives earlier this month, adding to already soaring violence in the area since Hamas ..a regional Iranian catspaw,... ’s October 7, 2023, massacre triggered the ongoing war.
🚨BREAKING: The Palestinian security forces have initiated a large-scale operation in the Jenin refugee camp, north of the West Bank, aiming to eliminate Hamas and Islamic Jihad armed militias.
Last week, these militias set fire to the Jenin Governmental Hospital and detonated a… pic.twitter.com/qG7f2yqzKR
[IsraelTimes] The military releases an overnight statement saying an Israeli aircraft struck a cell of operatives in Gaza while “on their way to carry out terror [attack] plans against our forces in the Strip and toward Israeli territory in the immediate future.”
An IDF statement says the targeted operatives were at a school in Gaza City when struck, adding that “many measures were taken to reduce the chance of harm” to non-combatants.
The statement also accuses Palestinian terror groups of violating international law by operating in civilian facilities and using civilian shields, without specifying which factions the targeted operatives belonged to.
[IsraelTimes] Fighting between Israel and terror operatives continued Friday in Gaza, where two rockets were launched in the evening at southern Israel.
The military said air defenses intercepted the two projectiles, which triggered sirens in Ashkelon and surrounding towns near the Gaza border.
There were no reports of injuries or damage.
Palestinian Islamic Jihad took responsibility for the rocket fire, which has become a relative rarity after the 14 months of war that were sparked by the devastating Hamas-led invasion of southern Israel on October 7, 2023, with IDF aerial and ground operations having greatly depleted the arsenals of Hamas and other Gaza-based terror factions.
Late Friday, the Israel Defense Forces issued an evacuation warning for Palestinians in the area of the launch site, south of Jabalia in northern Gaza.
“Terror organizations are once again firing rockets from this area, which has been warned several times in the past,” Col. Avichay Adraee, the IDF’s Arabic-language spokesman said, publishing a map of the zones that are to be evacuated.
Civilians in the area were called on to move to shelters in central Gaza City.
[IsraelTimes] In the early days of 2013, an American man, dressed in ragged clothing, dodged between houses in the streets of Damascus’ upscale Mazzeh neighborhood looking for a civilian to take him to safety after more than five months of captivity in the concrete cells of a local prison.
The man, journalist Austin Tice, was taken captive during a reporting trip to Syria in August 2012. A former Marine, he had managed to slip out of his cell, one current and three former US officials and a person with knowledge of the event told Reuters. All were granted anonymity to speak freely about sensitive US intelligence.
Tice is now the focus of a massive manhunt following the ouster of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad this week after 13 years of civil war. Rebels, led by the militant group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, have since released thousands of people from prisons in Damascus where Assad held political opponents, ordinary civilians and foreigners.
The American has not yet been found. There are no credible hints of his whereabouts but also no clear evidence that he is dead, a US official said.
US officials say that Tice’s 2013 escape from prison, where he was believed to have been held by a pro-government militia, is the strongest evidence the US government has to suggest that forces loyal to Assad held Tice. This has over the years allowed American officials to pressure the Assad government directly about the matter.
[IsraelTimes] US President-elect Donald Trump ...His ancestors didn't own any slaves... ’s pick for Middle East adviser Massad Boulos is not the billionaire business mogul that many believed him to be, and is in fact the CEO of a small company that sells trucks and heavy machinery in Nigeria, the New York Times
...which still proudly claims Walter Duranty's Pulitzer prize... reports.
Boulos, whose son is married to Trump’s daughter Tiffany, campaigned on behalf of Trump in the run-up to the elections, helping him drum up Arab American support amid the war in Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response... and Israel’s campaign against Hezbollah in Leb ...an Iranian satrapy until recently 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... He has powerful roots in Lebanese politics, and his father-in-law was a key funder of the Free Patriotic Movement Despite its name a Christian party allied with Hizbullah, neither free nor particularly patriotic... , a Christian party aligned with Hezbollah.
He has also previously been described as a billionaire with extensive business ties in Nigeria, and was praised by Trump for being "an accomplished lawyer and highly respected leader in the business world."
However,
death is not the end. There remains the litigation over the estate... the Times reported, his Nigerian truck business is valued at just $865,000 at its current share price, and Boulos’s stake is worth less than $2.
The report suggests that the confusion surrounding Boulos’s business ventures stems from his failure to clarify that he has no connection to Boulos Enterprises, which the Financial Times previously said was his "namesake company."
Asked by the Times why he never corrected the record when his company was described as "multibillion-dollar," Boulos says that he was referring to his father-in-law’s companies as a whole, and Scoa Motors Nigeria — which he runs — is a subsidiary.
"I’ve never really gone into any details like that about the value," he says of the heavy machinery company. As to why he never clarified that he has no connection to Boulos Enterprises, he tells the Times that he doesn’t like to comment on his business.
[IsraelTimes] German Chancellor Olaf Scholz says that well-integrated Syrian refugees are welcome to stay, as far-right and conservative politicians called for them to return to their home country after the overthrow of Bashir al-Assad.
"Those who work here, who are well integrated, remain welcome in Germany. That’s obvious," the social-democrat leader says in a post on X, noting that "some declarations these past days have deeply destabilized our fellow citizens of Syrian origin."
[IsraelTimes] Attack on Al Khiam also injured one, says Lebanese health ministry; troops find Hezbollah arms in scan of south Lebanon; Amnesty: 4 Israeli strikes in Lebanon could be war crimes
Lebanon accused Israel on Thursday of killing one person in an airstrike on the border village of Al Khiam, from which the Israel Defense Forces recently withdrew as part of the ceasefire agreement with Hezbollah.
The accusation came as the Israeli military said troops had located Hezbollah arms in southern Lebanon.
In a statement, Lebanon’s health ministry said that “the Israeli enemy strike on the town of Al Khiam killed one person and injured another.”
Israel had said earlier that it was targeting Hezbollah operatives violating the late November ceasefire agreement, which gives the IDF 60 days to withdraw from Lebanon.
On Wednesday, the IDF confirmed it had withdrawn from Al Khaim — the first border town Israel ceded since the ceasefire — and the Lebanese army said it had deployed there in coordination with the international peacekeeping force UNIFIL.
Meanwhile, the IDF said Friday that troops operating in southern Lebanon amid the ceasefire were still finding Hezbollah weaponry, with soldiers of the 769th “Hiram” Regional Brigade capturing anti-tank missiles, assault rifles, RPGs, mortars, and other weapons and equipment during a scan of the area.
The soldiers also located an anti-tank missile launch site previously used by Hezbollah to attack Israeli border towns, the military added.
AMNESTY ACCUSES IDF OF VIOLATING LAWS OF WAR IN LEBANON
If Israel does it, to a certain kind of mind it must be a prosecutable war crime.
Amnesty International, which has accused Israel of committing genocide in Gaza, said Thursday that four Israeli airstrikes in Lebanon “must be investigated as war crimes.”
The strikes, carried out between September and October, were said to have killed at least 49 civilians. Amnesty said its report on the strikes was part of an ongoing investigation into violations of the laws of war in Lebanon.
[IsraelTimes] Ousted Syrian president kept officials and relatives, including his own brother, in dark about his exit plan; hunted for outside help to maintain his rule before eventually fleeing
Bashir al-Assad confided in almost no one about his plans to flee Syria as his reign collapsed. Instead, aides, officials and even relatives were deceived or kept in the dark, more than a dozen people with knowledge of the events told Rooters.
Hours before he escaped for Moscow, Assad assured a meeting of about 30 army and security chiefs at the defense ministry on Saturday that Russian military support was on its way and urged ground forces to hold out, according to a commander who was present and requested anonymity to speak about the briefing.
Civilian staff were none the wiser, too.
Assad told his presidential office manager on Saturday when he finished work he was going home but instead headed to the airport, according to an aide in his inner circle.
He also called his media adviser, Buthaina Shaaban, and asked her to come to his home to write him a speech, the aide said. She arrived to find no one was there.
"Assad didn’t even make a last stand. He didn’t even rally his own troops," said Nadim Houri, executive director of the Arab Reform Initiative regional think tank. "He let his supporters face their own fate."
Rooters was unable to contact Assad in Moscow, where he has been granted political asylum. Interviews with 14 people familiar with his final days and hours in power paint a picture of a leader casting around for outside help to extend his 24-year rule before leaning on deception and stealth to plot his exit from Syria in the early hours of Sunday.
Most of the sources, who include aides in the former president’s inner circle, regional diplomats and security sources and senior Iranian officials, asked for their names to be withheld to freely discuss sensitive matters.
Assad didn’t even inform his younger brother, Maher, commander of the Army’s elite 4th Armored Division, about his exit plan, according to three aides. Maher flew a helicopter to Iraq and then to Russia, one of the people said.
Assad’s maternal cousins, Ehab and Eyad Makhlouf, were similarly left behind as Damascus fell to the rebels, according to a Syrian aide and Lebanese security official. The pair tried to flee by car to Leb ...an Iranian satrapy until recently 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... but were ambushed on the way by rebels who shot Ehab dead and maimed Eyad, they said. There was no official confirmation of the death and Rooters was unable to independently verify the incident.
Assad himself fled Damascus by plane on Sunday, Dec. 8, flying under the radar with the aircraft’s transponder switched off, two regional diplomats said, escaping the clutches of rebels storming the capital. The dramatic exit ended his 24 years of rule and his family’s half a century of unbroken power, and brought the 13-year civil war to an abrupt halt.
He flew to Russia’s Hmeimim airbase in the Syrian coastal city of Latakia, and from there on to Moscow.
Assad’s immediate family, wife Asma and their three children, were already waiting for him in the Russian capital, according to three former close aides and a senior regional official.
Videos of Assad’s home, taken by rebels and citizens who thronged the presidential complex following his flight and posted on social media, suggest he made a hasty exit, showing cooked food left on the stove and several personal belongings left behind, such as family photo albums.
RUSSIA AND IRAN: NO MILITARY RESCUE
There would be no military rescue from Russia, whose intervention in 2015 had helped turn the tide of the civil war in favor of Assad, or from his other staunch ally Iran.
This had been made clear to the Syrian leader in the days leading up to his exit, when he sought aid from various quarters in a desperate race to cling to power and secure his safety, according to the people interviewed by Rooters.
Assad visited Moscow on Nov. 28, a day after Syrian rebel forces attacked the northern province of Aleppo and in a lightning drive across the country, but his pleas for military intervention fell on deaf ears in the Kremlin which was unwilling to intervene, three regional diplomats said.
Hadi al-Bahra, the head of Syria’s main opposition abroad, said that Assad didn’t convey the reality of the situation to aides back home, citing a source within Assad’s close circle and a regional official.
"He told his commanders and associates after his Moscow trip that military support was coming," Bahra added. "He was lying to them. The message he received from Moscow was negative."
Kremlin front man Dmitry Peskov told news hounds on Wednesday that Russia had spent a lot of effort in helping stabilize Syria in the past but its priority now was the conflict in Ukraine.
Four days after that trip, on Dec. 2, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi met with Assad in Damascus. By that time, the rebels from the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, formerly al-Nusra, before that it was called something else ...al-Qaeda's Syrian affiliate, from which sprang the Islamic State... (HTS) Islamist group had taken control of Syria’s second-largest city Aleppo and were sweeping southwards as government forces crumbled.
Assad was visibly distressed during the meeting, and conceded that his army was too weakened to mount an effective resistance, a senior Iranian diplomat told Rooters.
Assad never requested that Tehran deploy forces in Syria though, according to two senior Iranian officials who said he understood that Israel could use any such intervention as a reason to target Iranian forces in Syria or even 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... itself.
The Kremlin and Russian foreign ministry declined to comment for this article, while the Iranian foreign ministry was not immediately available to comment.
ASSAD CONFRONTS OWN DOWNFALL
After exhausting his options, Assad finally accepted the inevitability of his downfall and resolved to leave the country, ending his family’s dynastic rule which dates back to 1971.
Three members of Assad’s inner circle said he initially wanted to seek refuge in the United Arab Emirates, as rebels seized Aleppo and Homs and were advancing towards Damascus.
They said he was rebuffed by the Emiratis who feared an international backlash for harboring a figure subject to US and European sanctions for allegedly using chemical weapons
...have not been used since WWI except for in Iraq, by the late, unlamented Saddam Hussein and in Syria, but really, honest, not by the Syrian government. And in Germany in WWII, but that was against civilians. Lots of them, just one of many reasons Hitler's also late and unlamented... in a crackdown on Death Eaters, accusations that Assad has rejected as a fabrication.
The UAE government didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Yet Moscow, while unwilling to intervene militarily, was not prepared to abandon Assad, according to a Russian diplomatic source who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, attending the Doha forum in Qatar ...an emirate on the east coast of the Arabian Peninsula. It sits on some really productive gas and oil deposits, which produces the highest per capita income in the world. They piss it all away on religion, financing the Moslem Brotherhood and several al-Qaeda affiliates. Home of nutbag holy manYusuf al-Qaradawi... on Saturday and Sunday, spearheaded the diplomatic effort to secure the safety of Assad, engaging The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire... and Qatar to leverage their connections to HTS to secure Assad’s safe exit to Russia, two regional officials said.
One Western security source said that Lavrov did "whatever he could" to secure Assad’s safe departure.
Qatar and Turkey made arrangements with HTS to facilitate Assad’s exit, three of the sources said, despite official claim by both countries that they had no contacts with HTS, which is designated by the US and the UN as a terrorist organization.
Moscow also coordinated with neighboring states to ensure that a Russian plane leaving Syrian airspace with Assad on board would not be intercepted or targeted, three of the sources said.
Qatar’s foreign ministry didn’t immediately respond to queries about Assad’s exit, while Rooters was unable to reach HTS for comment. A Ottoman Turkish government official said there was no Russian request to use Ottoman Turkish airspace for Assad’s flight, though didn’t address whether Ankara worked with HTS to facilitate the escape.
Assad’s last prime minister, Mohammed Jalali, said he spoke to his then-president on the phone on Saturday at 10:30 p.m.
"In our last call, I told him how difficult the situation was and that there was huge displacement (of people) from Homs toward Latakia ... that there was panic and horror in the streets," he told Saudi-owned Al Arabiya TV this week.
"He replied: ’Tomorrow, we will see’," Jalali added. "’Tomorrow, tomorrow’, was the last thing he told me."
Jalali said he tried to call Assad again as dawn broke on Sunday, but there was no response.
[IsraelTimes] Some Syrian regime officials believed to have entered Lebanon with fake identification; ousted president and brother most likely in Russia
After bully boyz toppled Syrian President Bashir al-Assad this month, many bigwigs and members of his dreaded intelligence and security services appear to have melted away. Activists say some of them have managed to flee the country while others went to hide in their hometowns.
For more than five decades, the Assad family has ruled Syria with an iron grip, locking up those who dared question their power in the country’s notorious prisons, where rights groups say inmates were regularly tortured or killed.
The leader of the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, formerly al-Nusra, before that it was called something else ...al-Qaeda's Syrian affiliate, from which sprang the Islamic State... murderous Moslem group — which led anti-government fighters who forced Assad from power — has vowed to bring those who carried out such abuses to justice.
"We will go after them in our country," said HTS leader Ahmad al-Sharaa, who was previously known as Abu Mohammed al-Golani. He added that the group will also ask foreign countries to hand over any suspects.
But finding those responsible for abuses could prove difficult.
Some 8,000 Syrian citizens have entered Leb ...an Iranian satrapy until recently 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... through the Masnaa border crossing in recent days, according to two Lebanese security officials and a judicial official, and about 5,000 have left the neighboring country through Beirut’s international airport. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release the information.
Most of those are presumed to be regular people, and Lebanon’s Interior Minister Bassam Mawlawi said earlier this week that no Syrian official entered Lebanon through a legal border crossing.
In an apparent effort to prevent members of Assad’s government from escaping, the security officials said a Lebanese officer who was in charge of Masnaa was ordered to go on vacation because of his links to Assad’s brother.
But Rami Abdurrhaman, who heads the Britannia-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, says several senior officers have nonetheless made it to neighboring Lebanon using travel documents with fake names.
Here’s a look at al-Assad and some of the officials in his inner circle.
Bashir al-Assad
The Western-educated ophthalmologist initially raised hopes that he would be unlike his strongman father, Hafez, when he took power in 2000, including freeing political prisoners and allowing for a more open discourse.
But when protests of his rule erupted in March 2011, Assad turned to brutal tactics to crush dissent. As the uprising became an outright civil war, he unleashed his military to blast opposition-held cities, with support from allies 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... and Russia.
He has fled to Moscow, according to Russian state media.
Maher al-Assad
The younger brother of the ousted president was the commander of the 4th Armored Division, which Syrian opposition activists have accused of killings, torture, extortion and drug trafficking, in addition to running its own detention centers. He is under US and European sanctions. He disappeared over the weekend, and Abdurrhaman said he made it to Russia.
Last year, French authorities issued an international arrest warrant for Maher Assad, along with his brother and two army generals, for alleged complicity in war crimes and crimes against humanity, including in a 2013 chemical attack on rebel-held Damascus suburbs.
Maj. Gen. Ali Mamlouk
Mamlouk was a security adviser to Assad and former head of the intelligence services. He is wanted in Lebanon for two explosions in the northern city of Tripoli ...a confusing city, one end of which is located in Lebanon and the other end of which is the capital of Libya. Its chief distinction is being mentioned in the Marine Hymn... in 2012 that killed and maimed dozens.
Mamlouk is also wanted in La Belle France after a court convicted him and others in absentia of complicity in war crimes and sentenced them to life in prison. The trial focused on the officials’ role in the 2013 arrest in Damascus of a Franco-Syrian man and his son and their subsequent torture and killing.
Abdurrahman said Mamlouk fled to Lebanon, and it is not clear if he is still in the country under the protection of Hezbollah.
Brig. Gen. Suheil al-Hassan
Al-Hassan was the commander of the 25th Special Missions Forces Division and later became the head of the Syrian Special Forces, which were key to many of the government’s battlefield victories in the long-running civil war, including in Aleppo and the eastern suburbs of Damascus that long-held off Assad’s troops.
Al-Hassan is known to have close ties to Russia and was praised by 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... during one of his visits to Syria. al-Hassan’s whereabouts are not known.
Maj. Gen. Hussam Luka
Luka, head of the General Security Directorate intelligence service, is not well known among the wider public but has played a major role in the crackdown against the opposition, mainly in the central city of Homs which was dubbed the "capital of the Syrian revolt."
Luka has been sanctioned by the US and Britannia for his role in the crackdown. It is not clear where he is.
Maj. Gen. Qahtan Khalil
Khalil, whose whereabouts are also unknown, was head of the Air Force intelligence service and is widely known as the "Butcher of Daraya" for allegedly leading a 2012 attack on a Damascus suburb of the same name that killed hundreds of people.
Other Officials
Retired Maj. Gen. Jamil Hassan, former head of the Air Force Intelligence Service, is also suspected of bearing responsibility for the attack in Daraya. Hassan was among those convicted in La Belle France this year along with Mamlouk.
Defense Minister Lt. Gen. Ali Abbas and Maj. Gen. Bassam Merhej al-Hassan, head of Bashir al-Assad’s office and the man in charge of his security, are accused of human rights When they're defined by the state or an NGO they don't mean much... violations.
#Austria’s conservative-led government says it is offering Syrian refugees a “return bonus” of 1,000 euros ($1,050) to move back to their home country after the fall of Bashar al-Assad.#Syriahttps://t.co/jtPSWjQZML
The paramilitary Rapid Support Forces have attacked the main still-functioning hospital in al-Fashir, in #Sudan’s North Darfur state, killing nine people and injuring 20, according to a local health official and activists.https://t.co/X4Sur5bmZf
A defiant #SouthKorean President Yoon Suk Yeol faces a second #impeachment vote over his short-lived attempt to impose martial law, a move that has shocked the country, split his party and imperiled his presidency halfway through his term.https://t.co/WsTYnZtqBa
Karine Jean-Pierre refuses to deny that Biden is preparing pardons for Liz Cheney and Anthony Fauci. Extraordinary. If he does pardon them, this will forever mark Fauci as the chief criminal of COVID and Liz Cheney as the architect of the J6 coverup. pic.twitter.com/hDLEmE1CSH
#2
There will be pardons. We need to understand the scope of each pardon. Will Hillary’s clear her of involvement in murder, for instance, or child trafficking? Some of the pardons will make it possible to compel testimony.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
12/14/2024 11:00
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#3
What KJP says doesn't usually correspond to reality, so it's unimportant noise.
Posted by: ed in texas ||
12/14/2024 16:06
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Russia is preparing to evacuate its military bases in Syria.
Aircraft has been seen loading equipment at Khmeimim Air Base and according to the German Defense Ministry a Russian Mediterranean convoy has left the port of Tartus. pic.twitter.com/N9T6pH7UsY
The mystique is most assuredly fading if he can say this for publication, and not even a little anonymously.
[CampusReform] In a recent interview, a well-known professor who taught at Columbia University for 46 years questioned whether or not President Obama actually attended the Ivy League school.
Prominent Columbia professor Henry Graff says he isn’t sure President Barack Obama I inhaled. That was the point... ever attended the Ivy League school.
*Snip* Article from 2013, as pointed out in comments. Mea maxima culpa.
#2
Professor Henry Graff and I have much in common. He has never heard of Barry Soetoro at Columbia. I simply never wish to hear of Barry Soetoro again.
Recruited asset? Yes, not unlike the FBI J6 recruited assets we learned about earlier in the week.
[FreePress] For Sarah Rugheimer, a professor of astronomy at York University in Toronto, the first sign of the virulent strain of antisemitism now embedded in Justin Trudeau ...hereditary prime minister of the Great White North... ’s Canada appeared on a lamppost.
It was a few weeks after the Hamas ..not a terrorist organization, even though it kidnaps people, holds hostages, and tries to negotiate by executing them,... massacre of last October 7. Rugheimer, 41, was walking in a park near her home in the city’s quiet Cedarvale neighborhood when she saw a poster of the Israeli hostage Elad Katzir, a 47-year-old farmer from Kibbutz Nir Oz, covered with swastikas.
In the days that followed, as the war raged in Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response... , swastikas turned up all over Cedarvale. They also started appearing on the York campus, where Rugheimer serves as the Allan I. Carswell Chair for the Public Understanding of Astronomy. As fall turned to winter, a swastika showed up in the snow outside the campus building where she works.
An astrophysicist with a particular interest in the origins of life on Earth and the possibility of life on other planets, Rugheimer tended to confine her worldly concerns to scientific matters. So the swastikas came as a shock. But worse was to come.
She grew up in Montana, and her academic career took her around the world—from a PhD in astronomy and astrophysics at Harvard University to Scotland, England, and now Canada. But until taking up her post at York University two years ago, Rugheimer said she’d never encountered any overt antisemitism. Nor had she given much thought to her identity as a Zionist: Like the vast majority of Jews around the world, Rugheimer believes in Israel’s right to exist.
Jew-hatred was a phenomenon of the fringes, she reckoned. "It wasn’t on my radar," she told me. Now, it’s everywhere. "Every week there is a major incident in Canada, and multiple minor ones every day in my neighborhood."
It was what was happening inside her university that disturbed her the most.
York’s student unions issued a declaration just after the attack calling the barbarism of October 7 a "justified and necessary" act of resistance against settler colonialism, genocide, and apartheid. The student groups found widespread support among York’s professors—some of whom Rugheimer considered friends.
A politics department faculty committee demanded the university enforce a definition of "anti-Paleostinian racism" that encompassed any expression of sympathy for the right of Israelis to exist within their own state: "Zionism is a settler colonial project and ethno-religious ideology in service of a system of Western imperialism that upholds global white supremacy
...the pernicious doctrine that laws were intended to be obeyed, that society works better when people don't pour shreiking from their places of worship every Friday for a weekend of rioting over insults real or imagined; and that cannibalism, beastiality, incest, murder, theft, rape, and similar activities are bad. A Dead White European (which invalidates his opinion) philosopher once opined that societies thrive when a person's word can be relied upon, and that a society which puts individual happiness first will invariably fail. Strangely enough, other successful societies, such as China, Japan, Korea, and those kinds of places could also be lumped with white supremacist societies, since they push the same values... She was shocked by the declarations, and the defaced posters, and the swastikas. But for Rugheimer there was something worse. "The denial is what’s painful," Rugheimer said. The denial of the rapes and savagery of October 7, 2023. The denial of the pervasive antisemitism in "anti-Zionist" polemics. The denial of Jewish history itself. "Reasonable people can disagree about what to do in an intractable conflict, but the denying of what should be uncontroversial facts makes it impossible to have hope."
This sort of despair has become a feature of everyday life for Jews across Canada who are experiencing open hatred—and yet are living under a government that appears either blind to it, paralyzed by it, or indifferent to it. Law enforcement in Canada is not blind. Quite the opposite. Officers want to do their jobs. What they say is that they lack the moral support from the political class to enforce the law. And that they cannot keep up with the volume of hate crimes—crimes that arise from a widespread ideology that has normalized the idea that "Zionists" anywhere are a fair target for attack.
Perhaps nothing captured Canada’s dark new reality better than a split-screen story from late last month.
On November 22 in Montreal, at the 70th annual session of the NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Originally it was a mutual defense pact directed against an expansionist Soviet Union. In later years it evolved into a mechanism for picking the American pocket while criticizing the cut of the American pants... parliamentary assembly, rioters organized by the organizations Divest for Paleostine and the Convergence of Anti-Capitalist Struggles wreaked havoc on the city. They ignited smoke bombs, threw metal barriers into the street, and smashed windows of businesses and the convention center where the NATO delegates were meeting. The rioters torched cars. They also burned an effigy of Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
While Montreal burned, Trudeau was dancing and handing out friendship bracelets at a Taylor Swift concert in Toronto. It took 24 hours for him to weigh in with a single tweet.
’IT WAS LIKE A DAM BURST’
The impression that the violence unfolding around them is somehow invisible to the state responsible for their protection has overwhelmed not only relative newcomers to Canada like Rugheimer, but also Jews who have lived in Canada for decades. People like Robert Krell, 84, the former director of postgraduate education in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of British Columbia.
A pioneer of Holocaust education in Canada and a specialist in survivor trauma, Krell immigrated to Canada at the age of 11, after having been hidden by a Catholic family during the Nazi occupation of Holland. Krell was not as shocked by the unspeakable barbarism of the Hamas massacre of October 7 last year as by the jubilation the atrocities elicited from within the "progressive" milieu across Canada—and by the total silence from the "social justice" scene.
THE EXPLOSION OF JEW-HATE IN CANADA
On Sunday, October 8, activists affiliated with the terrorist-designated Popular Front for the Liberation of Paleostine were already shouting their happiness into megaphones to a crowd at the steps of the Vancouver Art Gallery, only a few minutes’ drive from Krell’s home. "We are calling on those in so-called Vancouver to uplift and honor the resistance," they said. "Show solidarity and celebrate the steps towards liberation!"
Scenes like these repeated themselves in cities across Canada—all the way to St. John’s, Newfoundland.
"On October 7 I was horrified," Krell told me. "I was shocked to the core by the cruelty, the rapes, the mutilations, the killing of children, the gouging of eyes . . . but I could believe it."
What he found impossible to fathom was what he saw on October 8, and in all the days that followed.
"It was like a dam burst. I can’t describe the emotional blow. I guess I thought there would be a cry of outrage about what happened, you know, from the human rights One man's rights are another man's existential threat. people, Black Lives Matter people, the MeToo people. I shouldn’t have been surprised, but I just couldn’t grasp the concept, that when people heard and saw what had been done to those Jews, there was nothing except celebrations of Hamas as liberators."
Americans are familiar with the pattern that has been repeated at dozens of Canadian university and college campuses—the "pro-Paleostinian" occupations, encampments, manifestos, disturbances, and explicit celebrations of the October 7 "resistance." In Canada, however, the sociopathology that shocked Rugheimer and Krell is by no means confined to the extremes of campus politics or the rantings of far-left activist groups.
Rather than discovering how torn the fabric of their society has become, Canadian Jews are being forced to come to terms with just how deeply antisemitism has been woven into it.
This is not a matter of anecdote or impression.
Stories about the usual Jew hatred we’ve seen reports of at home and abroad, but then this paragraph, followed by statistics and the determination of dear, dear Justin Trudeau to remake Canada in his own image:
Almost none of these verbal or physical assaults are coming from white supremacists or antisemites of the right-wing variety. They are being carried out by self-described progressives, Arabs, and, often, recent immigrants who are operating inside an ideological framework of “settler colonialism,” which casts Canada, the United States, Australia, and, most of all, Israel, as irredeemably illegitimate constructs of imperialism, capitalism, genocide, and racism. It’s an ideology that has found a comfortable home in Trudeau’s Canada.
While the militants who have seized power make promises that delight Western journalists, the country is drowning in blood
Since the start of the large-scale offensive by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and allied opposition groups, the HTS-led Syrian Salvation Government has issued a series of loud statements.
The first concerned Russia and its support of the Syrian authorities. Russian troops were the only ones to oppose the advancing opposition forces, and the rebels urged them to end the strikes on terrorist positions, claiming that such actions would only result in civilian casualties. The Syrian Salvation Government said that its actions were aimed against the Syrian authorities, not Moscow, with which the militants intend to establish mutually beneficial cooperation.
Next, the Salvation Government released statements concerning neighboring countries. It called on Iraq to close its borders and prevent pro-Iranian groups from entering Syria to help exiled President Bashar Assad. Additionally, the rebels proclaimed that they would protect all foreign embassies, humanitarian organizations, and journalists.
A separate statement was issued regarding chemical weapons, their production facilities and storage sites. The Salvation Government assured media that these weapons would never be used and would not fall into irresponsible hands, and invited relevant international organizations to monitor them.
Some of the rebels’ most notable promises were made to ethnic and religious minorities in Syria, including Kurds, Alawites, Christians, and Shiites. The Salvation Government declared that no minority would face genocide or persecution for their views and beliefs, since they are an integral part of the Syrian nation. It also said that inclusivity is the strength, not the weakness, of the future Syria.
In addressing the Kurds, the rebels condemned the barbaric practices of ISIS, such as murder, slavery, and other brutal actions committed against the Kurdish population by jihadists. They also guaranteed the safety of Syrian soldiers who laid down their arms and surrendered.
These statements by the Salvation Government and the HTS leader, Abu Mohammad al-Julani, were met with enthusiasm by prominent experts of Islamic radicalism and fundamentalism. They praised al-Julani’s professionalism, transparency, and moderate views, and the fact that he distanced himself from his jihadist roots.
Western media picked up this narrative and, in an attempt to whitewash the rebel leader, CNN released an exclusive interview with him. In this interview, al-Julani repeated the above-mentioned statements made by the Syrian Salvation Government and noted that the ambitions of HTS and its allies are confined to Syria, which should reassure potential adversaries and key regional players. The goals of HTS, he claimed, were to overthrow Bashar Assad and then to start “building Syria” – and the rebels had already achieved the first goal.
However, as often happens, the statements issued by the rebels were far from the truth. HTS terrorists and allied opposition groups have already released dozens of videos demonstrating executions of members of Arab-Kurdish forces, Syrian soldiers (even those who surrendered voluntarily), Alawites, and Shiites. In several video clips, militants are seen slitting the throats of their captives.
Additionally, there are videos of the rebels hunting down former soldiers, which they refer to as “patrolling” or “clearing” an area. Mostly, their targets are shot on the spot. In addition, the rebels have published dozens of video messages threatening various minorities and neighboring countries. Some of them claim that the coup in Syria gives them the freedom to destroy Israel and liberate Palestinian territories.
Russian-speaking terrorists from the Jaish al-Muhajireen wal-Ansar and Ajnad al-Kavkaz jihadist militant groups, whose former leader and certain members are currently fighting in the Russia-Ukraine conflict on the side of Ukraine, have threatened that their next target will be Russia.
The actions of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham and affiliated opposition groups have nothing in common with the rebels’ public statements. They stand in stark contrast to the promises of a measured and moderate stance when it comes to the future of Syria and the status of its minorities.
Since the Syrian Salvation Government was established in 2017, we have closely monitored the rebels’ statements and propaganda. The militants claim that peace and stability reign in the areas under their control in Syria’s Idlib governorate, where all problems are resolved effortlessly; and al-Julani, they say, would have no trouble applying his “invaluable experience” of governing Idlib to the rest of Syria.
In reality, the population was facing immense economic and social hardships. Even significant financial support from Türkiye failed to make a difference. The funds were simply embezzled by the leadership of Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham. Abu Mohammad al-Julani established an absolute totalitarian regime where torture, abduction of dissenters, and extrajudicial killings thrived. In Idlib province, weekly protests against HTS and its leadership took place. Al-Julani even resorted to orchestrating terrorist attacks, human trafficking, and a drugs trade. This was confirmed by Abu Ahmed Zakura, the former chief financier and head of security for the group, who fled Idlib in December 2023.
By the Directorate 4 team, an analytical and monitoring center researching Islamic radicalism and fundamentalism
[X] New HTS Justice Minister: Sharia Law yes, women judges no
Female judges now excluded from courts in Syria.
The first step taken by Syria's new justice minister, Shadi Alwaisi, is to decree that female judges will be banned from courts that are now reserved exclusively for men. All pending cases handled by women will have to be… pic.twitter.com/D0VAZxmcGn
[FoxNews] A former OpenAI employee and whistleblower, Suchir Balaji, was recently found dead in his apartment in San Francisco, California.
The San Francisco Office of the Chief Medical Examiner has identified Balaji, 26, as the deceased person, according to the San Jose Mercury News. The manner of death has been ruled suicide.
The medical examiner said it had notified Balaji's family.
Balaji was found dead in his Buchanan Street apartment on November 26, a spokesperson for the San Francisco Police Department told the outlet. First responders were called to his home to perform a wellness check, and no evidence of foul play was found during the initial probe.
"We are devastated to learn of this incredibly sad news today and our hearts go out to Suchir’s loved ones during this difficult time," a spokesperson for OpenAI told Fox News Digital.
This comes after Balaji, an AI researcher, raised concerns about OpenAI breaking copyright law in an interview with The New York Times in October.
[ZeroHedge] President-elect Donald Trump has said that he "vehemently" disagrees with the US supporting long-range missile strikes inside Russian territory, which President Biden authorized last month.
"I disagree very vehemently with sending missiles hundreds of miles into Russia. Why are we doing that?" Trump said in an interview with Time Magazine for an issue that named him Person of the Year.
"We’re just escalating this war and making it worse. That should not have been allowed to be done," Trump added.
Biden took the step to support Ukrainian strikes on Russia using US ATACMS and British Storm Shadow missiles even after Moscow made clear it would risk a nuclear escalation.
Russia responded to Ukraine’s initial ATACMS and Storm Shadow strikes by firing a new hypersonic intermediate-range missile known as the Oreshnik.
Ukrainian forces fired more ATACMS into Russia this week, and the Russian Defense Ministry has vowed there will be another response:
"This attack by Western long-range weapons won’t be left unanswered, and corresponding measures will be taken," the ministry said.
Trump campaigned on ending the proxy war in Ukraine but has not articulated how exactly he plans to do that. He was asked in the Time interview if he would “abandon” Ukraine and responded:
"I want to reach an agreement, and the only way you’re going to reach an agreement is not to abandon. You understand what that means, right?"
The president-elect stressed in the interview that he was concerned with the death toll in the conflict, saying it was much higher than what’s been reported. He said the "numbers of dead young soldiers lying on fields all over the place are staggering. It’s crazy what’s taking place."
[Breitbart] President of PanamaJosé Raúl Mulino on Thursday urged President-elect Donald Trump to maintain an U.S.-funded deportation flight agreement that his administration signed this year with the outgoing administration of U.S. President Joe Biden.
Mulino issued his request to President-elect Trump in remarks given as part of his weekly press conference. The Panamanian president stated that, while he has yet to engage in formal conversations with the incoming U.S. administration, he believes, based on his “political intuition,” that immigration is a subject on which he and Trump could engage in fruitful conversations.
“We are still implementing the repatriations program based on the memorandum of understanding that we signed on July 1 with President Biden’s administration and that, unless there is a better detail, I believe should be maintained with the Trump administration,” Mulino told reporters.
The Panamanian president reminded reporters that he has previously stated that the “new U.S. border” is located at the Darién Gap, a dangerous jungle trail that Panama shares with Colombia and that has been used by hundreds of thousands of migrants from South America and other regions to reach the U.S. southern border in recent years. Mulino asserted that immigration is an issue that Trump and his new administration “cannot avoid, as President Biden’s administration did not.”
Mulino, who took office on July 1, signed an active agreement with the United States on his first day in office in which the U.S. Department of State provide $6 million in financial aid to Panama for the funding of deportation flights of U.S.-bound illegal migrants caught passing through the Darién Gap.
Panama reportedly conducted its first U.S.-funded deportation flights in late August and, according to statements Mulino gave to local media on Thursday morning, 36 such deportation flights have taken place as of this week.
While Venezuelan nationals represent the overwhelming majority of migrants passing through the Darién Gap, Mulino pointed out to local media that no Venezuelans have been deported on U.S.-funded flights, as Panama does not have a flight connection with Venezuela after socialist dictator Nicolás Maduro abruptly cut ties with Panama and other countries that questioned the dictator’s fraudulent July 28 presidential election, which Maduro claims he “won.”
Mulino repeatedly vowed that his government would curb illegal migration passing through the Darién Gap, which experienced record-high numbers prior to the start of his administration in July. Since then, the Panamanian government has implemented several measures to crack down on illegal migration such as imposing steep fines on migrants, the installation of barbed wire fences on some of the Darién’s commonly used routes, and the dismantling of “VIP” route services used by U.S.-bound Chinese migrants, among others.
Mulino’s policies preceded a noticeable reduction in the number of migrants passing through the Darién Gap jungle trail. According to statistical information from Panama’s Migrant Authority released this week, 11,144 migrants were recorded passing through the Darién jungle trail in November, 51.37 percent down from the 22,914 registered during October.
Panamanian authorities further stated this week that, in total, 206,368 migrants crossed through the country by the start of December, down from the 505,809 migrants registered at the start of December 2023.
Panama’s Migrant Authority recorded a record-breaking number of 520,085 migrants passing through the Darién Gap during 2023, 248,284 in 2022, 133,726 in 2021, and 6,465 in 2020. Between 2010 and 2019, Panamanian authorities registered a combined total of 109,293 migrants that passed through the Darién gap jungle trail.
[Breitbart] U.S. Special Envoy for Yemen Tim Lenderking said on Thursday that leaders of the Iran-backed Houthi terrorists in Yemen have decided to keep lower profiles following the devastation of Iran’s other regional proxies, Hezbollah and Hamas, at the hands of Israel, followed by the overthrow of Iran’s client Bashar Assad in Syria by a Sunni Islamist insurgency.
“Houthi leaders have lowered their profiles, at least physically. There’s a fear of being targeted like other leaders in the region,” Lenderking told the Doha Forum, an annual diplomatic conference in Qatar.
“I think that that’s a reflection of the reality that’s going on in the region, but it hasn’t tempered their ability and their willingness and their determination to fire at ships,” he said.
“Since Hezbollah’s decline and Hamas’ decline, the Houthis have kept right up, kept a steady drumbeat of reckless, indiscriminate attacks. But they would do well to pay heed to what’s happening in the region when it comes to their own security and position,” he advised.
“Look what’s happening to their comrades in Hezbollah, Hamas, Syria. Most Yemenis don’t really like the Houthis. Pressure is building on the Houthis to change course,” he said.
The Houthis look like the most secure of Iran’s regional proxies at the moment, which is not really saying much. The savages of Hamas started a war that brought them to the brink of collapse by attacking Israel on October 7. Hezbollah in Lebanon jumped in to assist Hamas with rocket attacks but was decimated by Israel in return, with much of its leadership eliminated.
Iran’s bought-and-paid-for foot soldiers in the Shiite militia gangs of Iraq decided not to get involve in the Syrian insurgency after sending a few hundred fighters across the border. Assad was toppled after less than two weeks of fighting, his army collapsing into dust without heavy backing from Russia and Iran, neither of which could afford to provide any more support.
That leaves the Houthis, who have been attacking global shipping through the Red Sea for the past year, ostensibly to punish Israel for its war effort in Gaza. The Houthis have also launched a few missiles and drones at Israel.
As Lenderking noted, the Houthis continued to attack civilian ships despite punitive airstrikes from the U.S. and its allies. The Israelis have also bombed Houthi targets in Yemen.
U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) said on Tuesday that the Houthis launched another swarm of missiles and drones at merchant vessels, but the attack was repelled by U.S. Navy destroyers escorting the civilian ships.
CENTCOM said it was the second Houthi attack this month to be intercepted by the Navy. The first took place on the evening of November 30. No injuries or damage were reported from either attack.
Lenderking said he hoped the fall of Assad could bring change to Yemen, implicitly because many civilians in Houthi-controlled areas are tired of being ruled by the Shiite Islamist extremists. He said his latest visit to the region “reflects growing frustration with the strong refusal of the Houthis to really put out any sort of signals that they’re interested in de-escalation.”
Lenderking said the U.S. is working with its allies to block weapons smuggling to the Houthis, but he also acknowledged the Yemeni extremists have become more self-sufficient than Iran’s other proxies, able to manufacture a fair amount of their own weapons.
The U.S. envoy said the Houthis have a list of “very specific things they want from us” before they ease off attacking ships in the Red Sea, including the U.S. withdrawing ships from the area, increased foreign aid to Yemen, and lifting the Houthis’ designation as a terrorist organization.
“Even if we get to a pause in the Red Sea attacks, however it’s achieved, we still have a long-term Houthi-Red Sea problem,” he said.
The New York Times (NYT) reported on Wednesday that massive disruptions to the shipping industry from the Houthi attacks are still costing the world billions of dollars.
Houthi harassment has forced most international shipping to sail around Africa, effectively erasing the Suez Canal. This has increased shipping costs by more than 200 percent over the past year, increased the strain on crews, and forced ships to burn much more fuel. Meanwhile, receipts for the Suez Canal are down 60 percent, a massive financial blow to the Egyptian government.
Israel Hayom on Thursday quoted Israel Defense Forces (IDF) analysts who warned the fall of Assad could inspire the Houthis to increase their attacks, because they see an opportunity to seize “a leading role in attacks against Israel.”
One of the major downstream effects is the ability of the Russian defense sector to build new warehouse space to support increased defense production was just shot in the head.
#1
But since Russians don't believe in economics - they just keep building staff. Mind you, a few people in banking & construction industry might have lethal accidents.
#4
But since Russians don't believe in economics - they just keep building staff.
The left here pretends not to believe in economics. Once or twice a year they tap the stategic oil reserve because they suddenly remember supply/demand curves, and then immediately afterwards go back to pretending there's no such thing.
NEW: Meet the Judge Who Ordered the Release of a Chinese National Arrested for Taking Drone Shots of a Military Base -- Sallie Kim once held Betsy DeVos in contempt of court and threatened jail https://t.co/CroP5xi93n
A total of 10 employees of the St. Helens School District have now been placed on paid administrative leave stemming from a teacher sex abuse scandal that began with the arrest of two teachers a month ago. More cases have come to light since then, but it appears that at least four of the 10 cases were not previously known.
Each case is either "in connection with ongoing investigations related to allegations of sexual misconduct or for failing to report sexual misconduct," according to a Friday news release from the district. The news release did not identify any of the 10 staff on leave, and the district declined to name any of them when asked.
"We're going to need to affirm what information is legally releasable and we will do that and get back to you with that information," said J. Marie, a newly hired crisis communications expert.
During a Friday media briefing, the district introduced Marie, with J. Marie and Associates, and said she will help guide the district's public response following the sex abuse scandal that has rocked the small Oregon town. Marie said her contract is open-ended with a rate of $180 an hour and said, "I work as efficiently as I possibly can."
"For the last 20 or so years, I have had a small business supporting school districts in crisis communications and have worked closely with the Washington Association of School Administrators to support districts in a variety of critical issues," Marie said.
Current St. Helens High School teacher Eric Stearns and retired teacher Mark Collins were both arrested on Nov. 12 after a two-month investigation into what police described as allegations of "historic sexual abuse" at the school. The arrests triggered a wave of outrage from students and parents, many of whom accused district officials of covering up the allegations.
St. Helens High School Principal Katy Wagner and district Superintendent Scot Stockwell were both placed on leave a few days after the arrests, and Wagner was indicted on Nov. 26 on criminal charges of mistreatment and official misconduct for allegedly withholding care from students and failing to comply with mandatory child abuse reporting requirements.
Days before Wagner's indictment, the Oregon Department of Human Services confirmed that it had opened investigations into six staff members at St. Helens High School: Stearns, Collins, Stockwell, Wagner and two others whom KGW has not named because to date they have not been charged with crimes (Stockwell has not been charged either, but was publicly identified by the district when he was placed on leave).
Around the same time, St. Helens police announced an investigation into a St. Helens Middle School teacher for alleged criminal conduct "involving a student," and that unnamed teacher was also placed on leave.
"It's critical, ultimately, for the community to have confidence in what is learned. the investigations need to be impartial. they need to be thorough, and they need to be allowed to run their course without interference or undue speculation." Marie said.
At least some of those seven previously reported cases appear to be among the 10 paid leave cases confirmed by the district Friday, although it's unclear if they all are, especially since Collins is retired.
The district news release states that two of the staff members were placed on leave at some point before Nov. 13, three were placed on leave on Nov. 13 due to arrests, two were placed on leave at some point after Nov. 13 due to DHS reports or tip line reports, and three were placed on leave at some point after Nov. 13 due to an internal report.
The district announced last week that it was launching an internal investigation into the sex abuse scandal, but it's unclear if the "internal report" referenced in Friday's news release is connected to that investigation, which was expected to take 45 to 60 days to produce a final report.
In the past few weeks, the district has appointed an interim principal to step in for Wagner and an interim superintendent to step in for Stockwell. The district school board director also resigned after the scandal broke, and the district said Friday that has posted an application for the position, with an appointee to be named Jan. 8.
The St. Helens School District and Northwest Regional Education Service District have also engaged multiple crisis communications consultants — although one of them, Tom DeLapp, stepped down earlier this week after it came to light that he had recently been convicted of embezzlement in California.
[TELEGRAFI] On Friday morning, Boko Haram ... not to be confused with Procol Harum, Harum Scarum, possibly to be confused with Helter Skelter. The Nigerian version of al-Qaeda and the Taliban rolled together and flavored with a smigeon of distinctly Subsaharan ignorance and brutality... fighters entered the village of Pambula in Kwamdi, Nigeria, and machetes killed dozens of people.
Members of Boko Haram on Friday morning entered the village of Pambula Kwamdi in northeastern Nigeria and killed dozens of people with machetes.
The Adamawa County Chairman on Monday in a statement to AFP informed the public about this crime.
"The attackers entered the village without warning while the inhabitants were sleeping and killed them with a machete", Ularamu said.
The details of this crime managed to become public only a few days later because the jihadists destroyed all mobile phone operators.
The Boko Haram attack took place in the Nigerian state for which the government earlier announced that it had been freed from members of this terrorist organization.
It is suspected that the jihadists have taken advantage of the fact that the Nigerian army is concentrated in Borno State, where Boko Haram is based.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/14/2024
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[FoxNews] The former officer says the Venezuelan government has used TdA to inflict crippling crime waves in surrounding countries, thus helping usher in a slate of socialist-friendly governments.
A former high-ranking Venezuelan military officer is sounding the alarm about the migrant gang Tren de Aragua (TdA) being used as a tool of the Venezuelan government to sow violence and discord throughout the United States.
Tren de Aragua, which means "Train from Aragua," is a massive criminal and terrorist organization that originated a decade ago in a Venezuelan prison and is already present in more than 30 major U.S. cities.
José Gustavo Arocha, a former lieutenant colonel in the Venezuelan army, told Fox News Digital that socialist Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro is behind much of TdA’s growth and rapid expansion, first in Latin America and now in the U.S.
Arocha fled Venezuela to the United States in 2015 after being imprisoned by the Maduro regime for eight months. Since then, he said the situation has only worsened with Maduro asserting ever more control over the region. This year, Maduro retained control of the country by prevailing in a hotly contested election that was widely believed to be fraudulent.
"We have to understand also something of the Tren de Aragua, the TdA. It's a state-sponsored Maduro regime organization," he said. "The real boss of the Tren de Aragua is in Caracas, Venezuela. It is the Maduro regime, because they created TdA, and they use the TdA as a blackmail [tool] for any situation."
Arocha said the Maduro dictatorship’s counterintelligence agency – the Directorate of Military Counterintelligence, also known as "DGCIM" – has been using TdA as an asymmetrical warfare tool, giving itself "plausible deniability."
Tren de Aragua first burst onto the scene in the U.S. when several members of the gang violently took control of an apartment building in the Denver suburb of Aurora, Colorado. Since then, the gang has been responsible for a steady stream of violent attacks and gang-related crimes, including the high-profile murder of nursing student Laken Riley in Georgia.
While some media reports have portrayed TdA as a simple gang, Arocha said the group has been trained and enabled by the Venezuelan government and DGCIM to advance a specific agenda and criminal ideology. Even the name "train from Aragua," he said, evidences the group’s intent to transport its ideology throughout the Western Hemisphere.
Arocha said the Venezuelan government has already used TdA to inflict crippling crime waves in surrounding countries, helping to usher in a slate of socialist-friendly governments in Colombia, Peru and Chile.
"They want to create all sorts of chaos in countries in order to shape the contours of the borders and also to create a sensation of instability [and] criminality," he said. "This kind of culture they are exporting outside from Venezuela, first of all [to] Latin America, and right now the U.S."
According to Arocha, the Venezuelan government has seized on the historic migrant crisis under the Biden administration as a "big opportunity" to "create roots" in the U.S. The administration further worsened the situation by temporarily lifting key oil sanctions previously in place against Maduro.
"Just imagine, there are more or less 8 million Venezuelan migrants. It’s a huge number," he said. "If you look at that, it's like a wall where it's spreading all over the states. And when you take into consideration the bussing of the migrants from Texas to other states, they are spreading like a disease, like a virus, all over the country."
With President-elect Donald Trump soon to replace Biden, Arocha said Trump must put the destruction of Tren de Aragua at the "top" of the list of day-one priorities. While acknowledging that it's crucial to close the southern border, Arocha said Tren de Aragua will simply return if the U.S. does not "contain" Maduro.
"Just imagine that, OK, you take all of Tren de Aragua and send [them] to Venezuela or whatever country. It's going to come back. That’s not going to finish the disease," he said. "You have to combat the cause of TdA. The cause of the TdA is the behavior of the Maduro regime that is trying to hurt the American people by using this asymmetrical tool."
"The rule is to not give Maduro the ability to continue in Venezuela," Arocha said. "What I mean is that if you let Maduro to have oil revenues, have the access to resources, you have to have TdA here in the United States."
[NYPOST] Former CNN ...formerly the Cable News Network, now who know what it might stand for... host Don Lemon blasted Time magazine as a "joke" after it revealed President-elect Donald Trump ...His ancestors didn't own any slaves... as its Person of the Year.
Lemon hosted a TikTok Live in which he referenced the long-running publication for honoring Trump after winning the 2024 presidential election and overcoming both felony convictions and liquidation attempts.
"For marshaling a comeback of historic proportions, for driving a once-in-a-generation political realignment, for reshaping the American presidency and altering America’s role in the world, Donald Trump is Time’s 2024 Person of the Year," the magazine wrote.
Lemon was furious at the decision, attacking the magazine for picking someone who he said doesn’t stand for democracy.
"If they wanted to make someone Person of the Year, I don’t know, they could’ve done it with any person. They could have done it to someone who actually stood for democracy, who stands for democracy in the country," Lemon said.
[IsraelTimes] As Syrians celebrate first Friday since Assad’s downfall, US and Turkey agree to keep ensuring Islamic State won’t ‘rear its head again,’ amid international gestures to rebel leader
Defense Minister Israel Katz said Friday that he had ordered the military to prepare to stay atop the Syrian side of Mount Hermon during the coming winter months as Israel aims to prevent the border region from falling into the wrong hands following the ouster of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad on Sunday.
Katz’s announcement came as top diplomats of Turkey and the United States, which back warring rebel factions in Syria, met to discuss their joint effort to prevent Islamic State from resurging after Assad’s downfall, amid international efforts to gauge Syria’s new leadership.
Meanwhile, Damascus celebrated its first Friday prayers since Assad’s ouster, with rebel leader Abu Mohammed al-Golani calling on Syrians “to go to the streets to express their joy” at the “victory of the blessed revolution.” Thousands attended prayers at Damascus’s landmark Umayyad mosque.
Al-Golani, whose Islamist Hayat Tahrir a-Sham originated in Al-Qaeda and has since broken with it, has remained largely mum as Israel struck what remained of Assad’s military equipment and entered the Syrian buffer zone delineated in a 1974 agreement.
The area includes Syrian-controlled sections of the Golan Heights and Mount Hermon — Syria’s highest peak, which has long boasted a UN observation post at the summit.
The Foreign Ministry on Thursday pushed back on international criticism of the takeover, saying the move was a temporary measure to prevent the border region from falling into extremists’ hands.
In a statement Friday, Katz said that “due to what is happening in Syria, there is a huge security importance to our holding of the Hermon peak and everything must be done to ensure the IDF’s preparations in the area, to allow the troops to stay there in the difficult weather conditions.”
Katz ordered the move during an assessment he held on Thursday with IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi and other top officers.
Israel captured most of the Golan Heights from Syria during the Six Day War in 1967. It held onto the territory during the 1973 Yom Kippur War and in 1981 annexed the area in a move since recognized by the United States.
An unverified video circulating on social media purported to show a man from the Druze village of Hader — in the Syrian buffer zone — asking to be annexed to the Israeli side of the Golan Heights.
In front of a large crowd, the man said Israel was the “lesser evil” facing the community — with the greater evil apparently being the Islamist rebels led by al-Golani.
BLINKEN AND FIDAN DISCUSS ISLAMIC STATE, RIVAL ALLIES IN SYRIA
At a meeting in Ankara Friday, meanwhile, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken discussed with his Turkish counterpart Hakan Fidan the two countries’ “imperative” to continue yearslong work “to ensure the elimination of the territorial caliphate of ISIS [and] to ensure that threat doesn’t rear its head again,” according to a statement from Washington.
ISIS, or Islamic State, controlled up to a third of Syria, mainly in the northeast, in a reign of terror that was defeated in 2019 by a coalition including the US and Turkey.
Fidan said he discussed with Blinken Turkey’s aim “to prevent terrorism from gaining ground [in Syria] and to prevent Islamic State and the PKK from dominating there,” referring to the Kurdistan Workers Party, which is considered a terror group by both Ankara and Washington.
NATO allies Washington and Ankara supported Syrian rebels during the 13-year civil war, but their interests clashed when it came to one of the rebel factions — the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces.
The SDF is the main ally in the international coalition against the Islamic State. It is spearheaded by the People’s Protection Units (YPG), which Ankara sees as an extension of PKK, whose activists have fought for independence against Turkey for the past 40 years.
Earlier this week, Turkish-backed forces seized the northern city of Manbij from the SDF, which then headed east of the Euphrates River.
A Syrian opposition source told Reuters that the US and Turkey had reached an agreement on the withdrawal. Neither Blinken nor Fidan made any reference to any agreement between Turkey-backed Syrian forces and the SDF.
Blinken, whose term will end in January, is in Turkey on his 12th trip to the Middle East since Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages, sparking the war in Gaza. As part of his meeting with Fidan on Friday, Blinken also discussed efforts to bring home the remaining 100 hostages.
On Thursday, Blinken also met with Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan and said that there was broad agreement on what Turkey and the US would like to see in Syria after Assad’s fall.
The meeting with Erdogan came amid news that Ankara would reopen its embassy in Damascus, as regional powers began to adapt to the new reality there.
According to Turkey’s state-run Anadolu news agency, Burhan Koroglu, the Turkish ambassador in Mauritania, was named as temporary charge d’affaires to lead the reopening.
The embassy in Damascus had suspended operations in 2012 due to the escalating security problems during the Syrian civil war and embassy staff and their families were recalled to Turkey.
On Thursday, Jordan’s foreign ministry said it would host a summit “to discuss developments in Syria,” with the foreign ministers of Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Lebanon, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Qatar and Turkey, as well as their US and EU counterparts and the UN envoy for Syria.
Bahrain’s King Hamad said in a letter to the rebel leader al-Golani — whom he addressed by his real name, Ahmed al-Sharaa — that Bahrain was ready to “continue consultations and coordination with Syria,” Bahrain’s official BNA news agency reported Friday.
Note that anon1 (hi, anon1!) helpfully snipped all the extraneous bits from this article, leaving us the streamlined, essential facts.
[LettersFromAustralia] Friday marked the biggest victory yet for Australian doctors against political persecution after the Queensland Supreme Court issued a scorching judgement against Australia's medical regulators on Friday. YES - Australian doctors were NOT ALLOWED to criticise the covid gene-vaccines or face regulatory action. And the Medical Board stripped this good doctor's license so he had to drive Uber Eats deliveries.
Queensland GP William Anicha Bay celebrated outside court after successfully overturning a politically motivated medical ban put on him for protesting against the covid gene-vaccines on safety grounds.
The Medical Board of Australia suspended Dr Bay’s registration on August 17, 2022, less than three weeks after he accosted the Australian Medical Association (AMA) National Conference and asked the delegates to stop forcing the jabs on people in response to an infection where "there is only a 0.27 percent fatality rate".
Dr Bay apologised for interrupting proceedings before saying the covid "vaccines" were killing people.
There have been 1000 reports of death to the Database of Adverse Event Notifications along with more than 100,000 reports of injuries from the products to Australia’s Database of Adverse Events Notifications, more than all ordinary vaccines in history combined.
The median infection fatality rate of covid was only 0.07 percent for under-70s, unvaccinated.
Despite being correct, Dr Bay was kicked out of the AMA conference by security - but not before he got his message across to everyone in the room, which he livestreamed.
In the Supreme Court judgement handed down on Friday, Justice Thomas Bradley said the extraordinary measures implemented by the parliaments and executive government during the covid panic had not given the regulators the right to deny Dr Bay procedural fairness, a hearing before an unbiased tribunal or to protect government and regulatory agencies from political criticism.
This decision is momentous because it was the Medical Boards and AHPRA's censoring of doctors that did the most damage to Australia's health system.
In March 2021, AHPRA and the Medical Boards threatened the licenses of any health practitioner if they criticised the covid products on social media.
This censorship made doctors reluctant to recognise even the possibility of vaccine injuries, as Dr Kerryn Phelps has said.
Despite years of medical training, Dr Bay was forced to deliver Uber Eats after he was suspended due to political persecution.
In his victory speech outside court, posted to X, he thanked God he was no longer suspended.
"I have my registration back again. I can prescribe Ivermectin, and most importantly - and this is what AHPRA is most afraid of - I can criticise the vaccines freely and as a registered medical practitioner of this country."
"Let me be very clear now, the vaccines are bad. The vaccines are no good and people should be afforded the right to informed consent, to choose these so-called vaccines — and if you don’t like it, too bad. Because doctors like me are going to be speaking out from now on because we have nothing to fear."
This case sets a precedent to allow doctors the freedom to speak their mind free from political persecution by regulatory agencies.
[IsraelTimes] Newspaper opposed to terror group bemoans cost to Lebanon, risk of Israeli strikes; analyst says Israel apparently refrained from shooting down 4,000 evacuating Iranian troops
An anti-Hezbollah Lebanese newspaper reported that the terror group helped hundreds of Syrian intelligence officers flee to Leb ...an Iranian satrapy until recently 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... in the days before forces opposed to Syria’s strongman Bashir al-Assad captured Damascus on Sunday.
The Nidaa al-Watan newspaper this week seethed at the price Lebanon was paying to keep some of the brass hats safe, and expressed fears that the presence of Assad’s allies in Lebanon could draw Israeli strikes.
Some Lebanese leaders also expressed concern over the report, which followed the discovery of a large secret tunnel in Syria’s Qalamoun Mountains, a Hezbollah stronghold near Damascus and the border with Lebanon, apparently used to store and transfer arms. However,
some people cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go... the officers who escaped to Lebanon were said to travel via overland border crossings.
Citing two security officials — whose nationality was unclear — Nidaa al-Watan on Monday reported that Hezbollah had given Lebanese license plates to Assad officials who entered Lebanon via the Masnaa border crossing. The newspaper also said that thousands of Syrian security officials were estimated to have crossed into Lebanon illegally via the Hermel crossing, farther north.
ِAccording to the officials cited in the report, the smuggling of Syrian officers was facilitated by bribes to members of Lebanon’s General Security Directorate. Among the latter, the newspaper singled out Hezbollah ally Ahmed Nakad, a senior Directorate border patrol officer said to have close ties with Ali Mamlouk, head of the National Security Bureau of Assad’s Ba’ath party.
Nidaa al-Watan said Mamlouk, whom Lebanon has accused of carrying out "terrorist acts" against two mosques in the country, was in hiding in Hezbollah’s stronghold in Beirut’s southern Dahiyeh suburb. Video circulating on social media, which could not be independently verified, purported to show Mamlouk fleeing Syria on a rubber boat.
WATCH⚡️
The dramatic escape of Ali Mamlouk, head of Syria’s secret service and security advisor to President Assad. Just a rubber boat, a suitcase, and a getaway…
Also said to be in Beirut — reportedly at the five-star Phonecia Hotel — was Ghada Adib Mhanna, Assad’s aunt by marriage and mother of his close ally, telecom magnate Rami Makhlouf; and — in the Movenpick, another luxury hotel — Firas Issa Shaleesh, nephew of Dhu al-Himma Shalish, Assad’s late cousin and presidential security chief who had been implicated in massacres carried out under Assad’s father and predecessor, Hafez.
Khaled Qaddour, a Syrian businessman under US sanctions for his ties to Maher al-Assad, the dictator’s brother, was also reportedly staying at the Movenpick Hotel.
According to Nidaa al-Watan, both luxury hotels were being patrolled by Lebanese state security.
The newspaper editorialized that Lebanon, which Hafez and Basher al-Assad’s forces occupied for some three decades until 2005, would end up "bearing the cost of facilitating the hiding of those wanted by the Lebanese state."
They could all join dear Bashar al Assad and the fam in Moscow. He reportedly made off with a good chunk of the treasury…
"Also, the presence of Assad’s lackeys in the suburbs and Beirut exposes the capital to the risk of Israeli strikes," the newspaper said.
A similar warning was voiced by Lebanon’s Progressive Socialist Party, which is led by the Jumblat family, a prominent Druze clan that is generally aligned with Hezbollah. Lebanese caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati said Tuesday that he was working with the judiciary and the General Security Directorate to address the issue in a manner that would "serve Lebanon’s interests and maintain relations with the Syrian people."
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... said this week that it had evacuated some 4,000 of its own troops from Syria following Assad’s ouster.
Channel 12 Arab affairs analyst Ehud Yaari, who on Thursday cited the Assad officials’ reported escape to Lebanon, noted that Israel had apparently refrained from shooting down the Iranian air convoy.
As long as they’re off the playing board, who cares what they do?
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[Regnum] Lieutenant General Andrei Ivanayev has been appointed commander of the Russian group of forces "East". This was reported on December 13 by the Russian Defense Ministry. 52-year-old Ivanayev previously held the post of commander of the 20th combined arms army.
The military man was born in 1972 in Uralsk, Kazakhstan ASSR. He studied at the Chelyabinsk Higher Tank Command School, graduated from the Combined Arms Academy of the Russian Armed Forces and the Military Academy of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces.
Since 2013, he held the position of head of the district training center in the Eastern Military District, and since 2017, he was chief of staff - deputy commander of the combined arms army of the Eastern Military District. His awards include the Order of Military Merit, the Order of Merit for the Fatherland, 3rd degree with the image of swords.
As reported by the Regnum news agency, on December 13, Russian Defense Minister Andrei Belousov inspected the Russian troop grouping "Vostok" in the special operation zone. The head of the Defense Ministry heard reports from the command on the fulfillment of tasks by the Russian army at a working meeting at the grouping command post.
The Russian Armed Forces' "East" group of troops has liberated seven settlements and a territory of 300 square kilometers this month. As a result of the effective use of high-precision weapons and attack drones, the Ukrainian army is suffering significant losses in both equipment and manpower, Ivanayev noted.
[THEGATEWAYPUNDIT] Former Speaker of the House 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... has suffered a significant injury that could have detrimental consequences after her nasty fall from the stairs earlier today.
As The Gateway Pundit reported earlier, Pelosi is in the hospital after falling downstairs while traveling in Luxembourg as a part of a bipartisan Congressional delegation to mark the 80th anniversary of the Battle of the Bulge.
According to her spokesperson, Ian Krager, Pelosi is receiving treatment from medical professionals in the tiny European country. He claims she can still work but will be unable to attend the remaining engagements.
Here is his full statement:
''While traveling with a bipartisan Congressional delegation in Luxembourg to mark the 80th anniversary of the Battle of the Bulge, Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi sustained an injury during an official engagement and was admitted to the hospital for evaluation.
''Speaker Emerita Pelosi is currently receiving excellent treatment from doctors and medical professionals. She continues to work and regrets that she is unable to attend the remainder of the CODEL engagements to honor the courage of our servicemembers during one of the greatest acts of American heroism in our nation's history. Speaker Emerita Pelosi conveys her thanks and praise to our veterans and gratitude to people of Luxembourg and Bastogne for their service in World War Il and their role in bringing peace to Europe.
''Speaker Emerita Pelosi was personally and officially honored to travel with the distinguished delegation, many of whom had family members who fought in World War II — including her uncle, Johnny. She looks forward to returning home to the U.S. soon.''
The Daily Mail.com reported she fell down some stairs during the visit but that her injuries were not serious.
Unfortunately, we now know this report is false.
The New York Times
...which still proudly claims Walter Duranty's Pulitzer prize... revealed this afternoon that the 84-year-old Pelosi suffered a fractured hip during her fall, which was the reason for her hospitalization. It does not take a genius to figure how potentially dire such an injury could prove to an elderly person like Pelosi.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/14/2024
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She continues to work? Her and McConnell too. She won't take a hint from an injury this severe and retire? Won't the pain meds fog her brain? Or is she just taking Advil? Exactly who is she serving by continuing to limp along? Does she plan to keep working out of spite until she dies like Ginsberg?
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
12/14/2024 13:36
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#8
She continues to 'serve' because while she's in congress, she can make sure nobody investigates her. Let the money laundering continue!
Posted by: ed in texas ||
12/14/2024 14:00
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#9
Tripped over her sagging tiddies?
Posted by: Regular joe ||
12/14/2024 14:10
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#10
Speaker Emerita??? Seriously? Yes, she’s the former Speaker, but she lost that job a couple years ago, then she turned over the job of House Whip to Hakeem Jeffries. So she’s Congresswoman Pelosi. These are not royal titles.
#16
Please Deutscheland: Do hook her up to a wine box on adequate drip rate as should 1st World Medical Level of Care? And of course chart it for the record? Thanks.
[THEGATEWAYPUNDIT] Several DC food workers wallowing in Kamala Harris Former Oakland mayor Willie Brown's' former mistress 's landslide defeat promise to make Trump administration officials pay should they decide to visit their establishments, even at the cost of their livelihoods.
The Washingtonian on Thursday spoke to industry veterans, bartenders, and servers in our nation's capital who have made crystal clear that they are willing to sacrifice dollars in an attempt to 'own' those trying to make America great again.
Nancy, a bartender for a fine dining establishment, said she would not only refuse to welcome certain Trump officials but also make those she decides to serve miserable.
''There is power in making it known that you're not comfortable with a situation, and it doesn't necessarily have to be this big dramatic show,'' she stated. ''It's just little bits of resistance that add up, and little bits of resistance that other people will see and hopefully feel empowered to stand on those convictions as well.''
''This person theoretically has the power to take away your rights, but I have the power to make you wait 20 minutes to get your entree,'' she added. ''There's a lot of opportunities for us as workers to feel like we're taking our power back, while not necessarily ruining someone's life. Giving them a subtle inconvenience feels like a little bit of a win for us.''
Suzannah Van Rooy, a server and manager at Beuchert's Saloon on Capitol Hill, also said she would refuse service to Trump officials whom she viewed as 'amoral.'
''I personally would refuse to serve any person in office who I know of as being a sex trafficker or trying to deport millions of people,'' she said.
''It's not, 'Oh, we hate Republicans.' It's that this person has moral convictions that are strongly opposed to mine, and I don't feel comfortable serving them,'' Van Rooy continued.
One other restaurant worker who asked to remain anonymous stated she would not refuse service but do other things to make her Republican patrons feel unwelcome, such as an unfavorable seating arrangement.
''I'll only give them a bad table but will otherwise guarantee decent and polite service,'' she told the Washingtonian. ''I feel like them getting a bad table is nothing compared to the harm they'll be inflicting.''
Posted by: Fred ||
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Any halfway intelligent owner/employer would get their names and fire them in advance. Better yet, send in shills wearing MAGA hats to test the servers.
#2
Bold talk. But we've just spent a month watching the wealthy and powerful fold up like well-bleached hotel towels. Now, maybe some waiters and waitresses in North America's most corrupt city are "tough guys." But they sound like the opposite in this article.
Worth noting, korrespondent.net has compiled its Invasion of Ukraine series into separate months, beginning May 9th, 2023. Linked in the title.
[Korrespondent] 17.59 Three Ukrainian servicemen have died as a result of poisoning by chemicals used by the Russians during the war. This was stated by the head of the Department of Environmental Safety and Civil Defense of the Radiation, Chemical, Biological Defense Department of the Command of the Support Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Artem Vlasyuk.
17.02 Since the beginning of the current day, Russian aggressors have carried out 131 attacks. The enemy is most active in the Pokrovsky and Vremivsky directions, where it carried out almost half of all assaults. This was reported by the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in a report as of 16.00.
17.01 Video of the moment a Russian ballistic missile "landed" on a clinic in Zaporozhye on Tuesday, December 10, has appeared online.
16:01 Russia does not need a truce with Ukraine, but peace, which will come after all of Moscow's conditions are met. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov made this cynical statement at a briefing on Friday.
15.55 The Ukrainian Air Force Command demonstrated the combat work of air defense units during Russia's massive missile and drone attack on Ukraine. In the west, one of the cruise missiles was destroyed by an Igla MANPADS.
"The downed missile did not cause damage to critical infrastructure facilities. The crash site and the remains of the missile were found by a search group," the military noted.
15.22 Ukrainian military personnel in the area of the village of Uspenovka in Donetsk Oblast are taking the necessary measures to prevent the encirclement and capture of populated areas by the enemy. This was reported by the press service of the operational-strategic group (OSUV) Khortitsa.
At the same time, the Deep State monitoring project reports that the situation in the Uspenovka area is worsening.
15:05 During the morning attack, the Russian army attacked six critical energy infrastructure facilities in the Lviv region. Rescuers have already extinguished the fires that broke out as a result of the missile strike. There were no casualties.
14.35 Russia is "impressed" by the statements of the elected US President Donald Trump regarding Ukraine's use of long-range American missiles to strike Russian territory, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said at a briefing on Friday.
13.40 In Burshtyn, the village of Demyanov and a number of settlements in the Ivano-Frankivsk region, heat and hot water supplies have been temporarily suspended following the Russian attack. This was reported by the Burshtyn Thermal Power Plant.
13.31 The government has allocated an additional UAH 1.1 billion for the purchase of drones. The money will go directly to the Ukrainian Armed Forces brigades, Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said at a government meeting. :10 Most of the units of Ukrainian nuclear power plants reduced their capacity during the Russian missile attack on Friday. This was reported by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
12:40 Another large-scale shelling by Russia was allegedly a response to the use of ATACMS missiles against a military airfield in the city of Taganrog. This was reported by the Russian Ministry of Defense.
12:14 On Friday night and in the morning, Russian aggressors launched 94 missiles and a record number of attack drones - 193 - at Ukraine. Air defense units destroyed most of the enemy targets, the Ukrainian Air Force reported .
12:12 Russians attacked populated areas in three districts of Chernihiv region with drones. A farm in Nizhyn district was damaged by a UAV attack - 11 cows died.
11:27 A large-scale fire broke out in Novosibirsk (Russia) on the night of December 13. One of the important strategic facilities of the Russian Federation burned down. This was reported by the head of the Center for Countering Disinformation (CCD) Andrey Kovalenko. According to him, this warehouse was a military facility. Kovalenko noted that the warehouse belonged to a Russian company that provided services to a number of key industries, including energy infrastructure and the production of explosion-proof equipment.
11:16 On Friday morning, Prykarpattia was subjected to the most massive attack since the beginning of the full-scale Russian invasion. This was reported by the head of the Ivano-Frankivsk OVA Svitlana Onyshchuk.
11:12 Russian troops shelled the village of Myrne in the Berestinsky district of the Kharkiv region. This was reported by the head of the Kharkiv OVA Oleg Sinegubov. As a result of the shelling, civilian infrastructure was damaged. At first, the head of the OVA noted that two workers of the enterprise were injured. Later he added that the number of victims had grown to four.
10:55 Ukrainian marines shoot down Russian "shaheeds" from American Island boats, which Ukraine received before the large-scale Russian invasion. The video was published by the Ukrainian Navy. "The boats are armed with a 25 mm Bushmaster automatic artillery mount and two 12.7 mm machine guns. The boat's crew consists of nine fighters."
10:50 Russian aggressors have dealt one of the largest blows to Ukraine's energy sector This is what the "peace" plan of Russian dictator Vladimir Putin looks like. This was stated by President Volodymyr Zelensky.
10:26 Commander of the Ground Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Major General Mykhailo Drapatiy, announced a large-scale transformation of the Ground Forces at the headquarters of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief . According to him, the changes concern recruiting and military training. The issue also concerns the latest technologies and combat management, digitalization of processes in the army, transformation of management, logistics and social support for the military,
10:23 In the Ternopil region, the number of queues for power supply restrictions has increased due to the Russian attack. Now half of the region's residents are without power, the Ternopil OVA reported.
9:38 Over the past 24 hours, 210 combat clashes have been recorded at the front . This was reported by the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. The defense forces have struck seven areas of concentration of personnel, weapons and military equipment of the Russian invaders.
8:57 Energy Minister German Galushchenko said that the purpose of the massive missile strike of the Russian army on December 13 on Ukraine is energy. According to him, energy workers are taking all necessary measures to minimize the negative consequences for the energy system.
8:45 The US State Department has revealed the content of new $500 million in aid to Ukraine . The new aid package includes:
counter-unmanned aircraft systems (c-UAS) munitions;
ammunition for the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS);
155mm and 105mm artillery ammunition;
High-speed anti-radar missiles (HARM);
unmanned aerial vehicles (UAS);
mine-resistant ambush protected vehicles (MRAP);
High Mobility Multi-Purpose Wheeled Vehicles (HMMWV);
light tactical vehicles;
means of protection against chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear weapons,
Javelin and AT-4 anti-tank systems;
heavy anti-tank missiles (TOW);
small arms ammunition;
grenades and training equipment;
equipment and ammunition for blasting operations;
spare parts, accessories, services, training and vehicles.
7:46 The Ukrainian Armed Forces destroyed 1,390 Russian occupiers in one day. The total combat losses of the Russian Federation from 24.02.22 to 13.12.24 were approximately 760,120 people. This was reported by the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. 7:24 On the morning of December 13, explosions were heard in Kharkov and its environs . The Ukrainian Air Force reported the use of ballistic weapons. Kharkiv Mayor Igor Terekhov noted that the strikes hit the suburbs. Later it became known that explosions were also recorded in the area of the city of Chuguev.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[Korrespondent] Porkovsk is the last major operating coal and steel centre in Ukraine.
The Russians have come very close to Pokrovsk, the last major industrial center of the Donetsk region under Ukrainian control.
The occupiers are preparing to cut off Pokrovsk's supply chains and begin an operation to seize the city. The capture of Pokrovsk by the Russian army, analysts warn, could deal a heavy blow to Ukraine's economy. It is the last functioning major coal and steel center in the country.
DEFENSE ISSUES
Selidovo was captured at the end of October. Ukrainian units left the city to avoid encirclement. However, the Ukrainian Armed Forces failed to build a reliable defense in the city's outskirts, and the Russian army continued to advance further west, seeking to bypass Pokrovsk from the south and cut off the city from all logistical routes.
The Russian army moved mainly along the Solona River and the railway line. In a month and a half, the Russians managed to overcome about 11 km and take control of the villages of Vishnevoye, Grigoryevka, Petrovka, Zheltoye, and Novopustinka.
The enemy's further advance to the west was to be stopped by a powerful fortified area of the Ukrainian Armed Forces on a wooded hill between the villages of Novotroitskoye and Shevchenko.
Military observer Yuri Butusov says that the fortifications in this area were built very competently: the position was chosen correctly, the defense zone was prepared, the fortifications themselves were branched out and reliably protected from drones and artillery.
However, according to him, due to problems with the combat capability of the troops in this section of the front, the Russian army was able to seize these Ukrainian positions quickly and practically without resistance. Butusov believes that the command's miscalculations are to blame for this.
Nazar Voloshin, a spokesman for the Khortitsa operational-strategic group of troops, which is responsible for the area, says the Ukrainian army is trying to restore lost positions near Pokrovsk, in particular near the village of Vozrozhdenie (formerly Novy Trud), which is adjacent to the village of Shevchenko.
“The enemy attacked our fortifications in the Pokrovsk direction, west of Vozrozhdenie and south of Novotroitskoye, and as a result of prolonged clashes, two of our positions were destroyed and one was lost,” Voloshin said on the telethon.
If this fortified area is captured, Russian troops will be able to break through to the neighboring village of Peschanoye and seize the waste heap of the Taras Shevchenko mine. This commanding height will allow them to establish control over Pokrovsk's key logistical artery - the highway to Pavlograd and the Dnieper, which is seven kilometers to the north.
THEY ARE CUTTING OFF LOGISTICS
Russian sabotage and reconnaissance groups are already trying to infiltrate Pokrovsk, DeepState reports.
Ukrainian historian and military analyst Mikhail Zhirokhov, citing his sources, says that the Pokrovsk-Pavlograd-Dnepr highway can no longer be used for military supply purposes. Ukrainian Armed Forces soldiers have been advised to look for other roads.
In addition, according to his data, a partial withdrawal of Ukrainian units, primarily artillery, outside the city has begun.
According to the analyst, if the logistics situation deteriorates significantly, the Ukrainian Armed Forces will completely leave the city. A repeat of the Bakhmut meat grinder, that is, heavy fighting for every street in the town, is unlikely to be expected, he is convinced.
Sergei Filimonov, commander of the Volki da Vinci battalion, which is part of the 59th motorized infantry brigade and is fighting in the Pokrovsk direction, also speaks about the intention of the Russian military to cut off the logistics of the Ukrainian army.
"Right now I don't see any need for the enemy to attack Pokrovsk head-on. I think that he will try to reach the highway between Pokrovsk and Pavlograd and can do this through the territory of both Donetsk and Dnipropetrovsk regions," he said in an interview with the 1+1 TV channel in early December.
CNN just lost in the ratings to…Food Network!! The news outlet finished in 17th place among all cable stations last week in primetime.
It wasn’t like it was a slow news cycle either. There was the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, the manhunt for the killer, the… pic.twitter.com/pPXiU2Xi7I
#4
It would be a federal crime if some of the funds stolen were provided by the federal government.
Posted by: Ed ||
12/14/2024 10:28
Comments ||
Top||
#5
This is all a smoke screen for the truly outrageous pardons to come. This is why you don’t elect a senile guy who is being controlled by political actors who can use his signature for their own purposes with no accountability.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
12/14/2024 11:07
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redstar.ru is available only via a VPN by Aleksandr Tikhonov
Units of the regiment, and then the special forces division "Brandenburg", were guilty of the extermination of many civilians in Belarus and Russia.
Report from the Chief of the SMERSH R&D Department of the 61st Army, Colonel V.I. Budarev, to the Chief of the SMERSH R&D Department of the 1st Belorussian Front, Lieutenant General A.A. Vadis, “On units of the German Brandenburg-800 Regiment operating in front of the 61st Army.” June 14, 1944.
Report from the Chief of the SMERSH R&D Department of the 61st Army, Colonel V.I. Budarev, to the Chief of the SMERSH R&D Department of the 1st Belorussian Front, Lieutenant General A.A. Vadis, “On units of the German Brandenburg-800 Regiment operating in front of the 61st Army.” June 14, 1944.
The Public Relations Center of the FSB of Russia has posted digital copies of previously unpublished declassified archival documents on the criminal activities of a special purpose unit of German military intelligence in the territory of the Byelorussian SSR on the official website of the agency in the "History" section. In punitive operations to combat Soviet partisans, units of the regiment, and from April 1943, the "Brandenburg-800" division, cruelly dealt with civilians - they shot women, old people and children, carried out "scorched earth" tactics in various areas of Belarus and Bryansk.
"By order of Sergeant Major Leimpfuhl, the entire civilian population was collected and placed in two houses. In one of the houses there were approximately 50 civilians, in the other about 25. I personally received an unpleasant order - to shoot 50 civilians. One of the soldiers helped me with this. Corporal Dusche was brought in to shoot the civilians placed in the other house. The shooting was carried out with machine guns. At the same time, others shot the cattle. After this, by order of the platoon commander, all the houses were set on fire. I myself set fire to the house in which I shot the villagers after I was sure that they were all dead."
This testimony was given by Sergeant Major Hubert Kerstges, a former assistant commander of the 1st Platoon of the 9th Company of the 3rd Battalion of the Brandenburg Division, who was captured and dressed as a Red Army soldier. He was the former assistant commander of the 1st Platoon of the 9th Company of the 3rd Battalion of the Brandenburg Division, about the execution of an order received on April 29–30, 1944, from the battalion command to “wipe off the field map,” that is, to completely destroy the village of Povchen, northwest of the city of Turov in occupied Belarus.
The 1st Platoon of the “Brandenburgers” carried out the barbaric order: all the inhabitants were shot, the village was burned, and the property was plundered.
Here is another fragment from the testimony of the same Sergeant Major, about how he, as part of his unit, participated in the destruction of the village of Maloye Kovalyovo, located near the city of Surazh, in August 1942.
“The 2nd Platoon received an order from Oberleutnant Boettcher to gather the entire population together and shoot those who refused to leave their homes. In addition, the 2nd platoon received an order to gather all the cattle. About 8-10 women, 10-12 children, 4-5 old people were shot. The population was evacuated and handed over to the local commandant's office of the city of Surazh. My group and I set fire to about 15 houses, and in one of the houses there was a shot woman with three children. The collected cattle was handed over to Surazh."
Another episode from Kerstges's testimony is about the atrocities in the village of Novaya Bolocha (a district of Babruisk, Byelorussian SSR), committed by punitive forces in early December 1943. After the Germans were fired upon by partisans on their approach to the village, they lay down and did not stick their noses out until reinforcements arrived and an anti-aircraft gun was brought up. Only after several shots from the gun were fired at the village did the "Brandenburgers" company go on the attack. No one was shooting at them anymore - "... the partisans apparently fled into the forest and the village was almost empty, if you don't count a few civilians.
By order of the company commander, all civilians, as well as livestock, were gathered together and the houses were set on fire. While carrying out this order, I was forced to shoot one man, aged 50-55, because he refused to leave his house. In addition to this man, an old woman was shot there, because due to her old age she could not march."
This is how this degenerate explained the reason for shooting the old woman: "she could not march."
In the documents declassified and published today on the website of the Russian FSB, there are more than enough examples of such bloody atrocities committed by the Brandenburg soldiers. So this formation, which for most of the Great Patriotic War was directly subordinate to the Abwehr II department (sabotage and subversion), proved itself not only in carrying out special-purpose tasks, for which it was originally created.
Those readers who are interested in the history of special forces in different countries probably know that Brandenburg of German military intelligence is one of the most famous special forces formations of the Second World War. Formed in 1939 as a special purpose construction and training company, by the summer of 1940 it had been expanded into the 800th Special Purpose Training Regiment Brandenburg (German: Lehr-Regiment Brandenburg zb V. 800), which was directly subordinate to the Abwehr II Directorate (sabotage and diversion) (German: Amt Ausland/Abwehr II).
In early April 1943, the Brandenburg Division was formed, which was then removed from Abwehr control and transferred to the Supreme Command of the Ground Forces (OKH). In September 1944, the division was reformed into a motorized division (German: Panzer-Grenadier-Division Brandenburg).
Initially, Brandenburg was staffed by ethnic Germans who knew foreign languages and had good physical fitness.
They participated in the Polish, Belgian, French campaigns and others, as well as in the attack on the Soviet Union. The list of tasks of the "Brandenburgers" included the capture of important strategic objects behind enemy lines, conducting other sabotage operations, conducting reconnaissance, capturing languages, and the like.
On the Soviet-German front, to carry out tasks, the "Brandenburgers" often dressed up as Soviet military personnel, armed themselves with Soviet weapons, supplied themselves with fictitious documents and acted under the guise of Red Army units.
From the beginning of 1943, the "Brandenburg" units began to be increasingly used, along with counterintelligence formations of the German military intelligence, in punitive operations to combat partisans and carry out "scorched earth" tactics, brutally killing civilians.
The Soviet special services meticulously collected information about the enemy's sabotage and reconnaissance units, their structure, tactics, command staff, etc.
On June 14, 1944, the head of the counterintelligence department (OKR) "Smersh" of the 61st Army, Colonel V.I. Budarev, sent a report to the head of the counterintelligence department (UKR) "Smersh" of the 1st Belorussian Front, Lieutenant General A.A. Vadis "On units of the German regiment "Brandenburg-800" operating in front of the 61st Army."
The document, in particular, reported:
"In the period from October 18 to November 29, 1943, in the Bobruisk-Bykhov-Rogachev area, by order of the 9th Army's rear department, a large punitive expedition was carried out against the partisans by security units, in which the 3rd battalion of the Brandenburg division took part.
Each soldier was informed of the battalion commander's order to burn down all populated areas in the area, and to shoot on the spot any civilians encountered in the forests, regardless of age...
According to incomplete data, the 3rd battalion of the Brandenburg division burned down about eight villages and shot over 200 Soviet citizens in the Chechevichi village area alone."
The 3rd regiment of the Brandenburg division, which took part in punitive operations against civilians and partisans, was commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Franz Jacobi during the period specified in the document.
...The author of these lines, while serving in Georgia in the early 2000s, knew one of the bearers of this surname - then a youngish German employee of the OSCE mission in Georgia. He was very proud of his origin, emphasizing that this surname belongs to an old German family. I wonder if he knew what his namesake did on the territory of our country during the war? Unlikely.
Maybe he will find out after this publication. Although it is not a fact - in the "free" countries of the European Union, the site of "Red Star" is currently blocked. However, let us return to the topic to complete it.
Based on the received reports of the OKR "SMERSH" of the armies, in early July 1944, the head of the UKR "SMERSH" of the 1st Belorussian Front sent a detailed report to the Military Council of the Front "On the actions of a unit of the Brandenburg-800 division in the sector of the 1st Belorussian Front." The document emphasized that the captured punitive forces of the 3rd Brandenburg Regiment would be court-martialed. So Kerstges and his accomplices have paid in full for what they did.
We must remember their crimes. And do everything in our power to ensure that such things do not happen again.
The spelling and punctuation of the document have been preserved.
It should be noted that the Russian Ministry of Defense in the last few weeks or so has stopped identifying Ukrainian units by number and type in its operational reports, instead using just the type of unit.
[EngMilRu] From 7 to 13 December 2024, the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation delivered 15 group strikes by precision weaponry and attack unmanned aerial vehicles at power objects ensuring operation of Ukrainian defence industry enterprises, infrastructure of military objects, UAV workshops and depots, ammunition depots, deployment sites of AFU formations and foreign mercenaries. The goal of strikes has been achieved.
Over the past week, units of the Sever Group of Forces continued to eliminate AFU formations on the territory of Kursk region.
As a result of active offensive operations, Plyokhovo, Daryino, and Novoivanovka in Kursk region were liberated.
Aviation, unmanned aerial vehicles, and artillery inflicted losses on manpower and hardware of two tank brigades, six mechanised brigades, two air assault brigades of the AFU, one naval infantry brigade, and four territorial defence brigades.
In Kharkov direction, losses were inflicted on units of one motorised infantry brigade, two air assault brigades of the AFU, one territorial defence brigade, and one border detachment of the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine.
Over the week in the area of responsibility of the Sever Group of Forces, the AFU losses amounted to up to 2,230 troops, seven tanks, 33 armoured fighting vehicles, including four U.S.-made Bradley infantry fighting vehicles, 34 motor vehicles, and 22 field artillery guns.
Units of the Zapad Group of Forces improved the tactical situation along the front line and inflicted losses on manpower and hardware of six mechanised brigades, one airborne brigade of the AFU, one naval infantry brigade, two territorial defence brigades, and one national guard brigade. Seventy-one counter-attacks launched by AFU assault detachments were repelled.
The AFU losses amounted to more than 3,350 troops, five tanks, six armoured fighting vehicles, 23 motor vehicles, and 48 field artillery guns, including eight NATO-made 155mm howitzers.
Units of the Yug Group of Forces achieved more advantageous tactical situation and inflicted losses on formations of five mechanised brigades, one motorised infantry brigade, one mountain assault brigade, two airmobile brigades, one air assault brigade of the AFU, one naval infantry brigade, and one territorial defence brigade. Nine counter-attacks launched by AFU units were repelled.
The AFU losses amounted to more than 1,830 troops, ten armoured fighting vehicles, 11 motor vehicles, 10 field artillery guns, including three Western-made ones.
As a result of decisive actions, units of the Tsentr Group of Forces continued advancing to the depth of the enemy defences and liberated Zhyoltoye, Berestki, and Zarya (Donetsk People's Republic).
Losses were inflicted on units of five mechanised brigades, one motorised infantry brigade, two infantry brigades, one naval infantry brigade, one special operations brigade, three territorial defence brigades, and one national guard brigade.
Russian servicemen repelled 64 counterattacks launched by the enemy.
During the week in this direction, the AFU losses amounted to more than 3,340 troops, two tanks, 15 armoured fighting vehicles, including one U.S.-made Bradley infantry fighting vehicle and five U.S.-made M113 armoured personnel carriers, 20 motor vehicles, and 38 field artillery guns.
As a result of active actions, units of the Vostok Group of Forces liberated Blagodatnoye (Donetsk People's Republic).
Losses were inflicted on units of two mechanised brigades, one mountain assault brigade of the AFU, and six territorial defence brigades.
Twenty counterattacks launched by AFU assault detachments were repelled.
The AFU losses amounted up to 1,050 troops, nine armoured fighting vehicles, including three U.S.-made MaxxPro and two U.S.-made HMMWV armoured fighting vehicles, 12 motor vehicles, and 22 field artillery guns, including three 155mm self-propelled artillery systems.
Units of the Dnepr Group of Forces inflicted losses on manpower and hardware of two mechanised brigades, one infantry brigade, four territorial defence brigades, and one national guard brigade.
The AFU losses amounted up to 290 troops, three armoured fighting vehicles, 32 motor vehicles, and eight field artillery guns.
Three Olkha MLRS launchers were eliminated.
Air defence units shot down 21 U.S.-made HIMARS MLRS and 12 Czech-made Vampire projectiles as well as 279 fixed-wing unmanned aerial vehicles.
The Black Sea Fleet's Naval Aviation and water patrol boats destroyed eight uncrewed surface vehicles.
Over the past week, 87 Ukrainian servicemen surrendered on the line of contact.
In total, since the beginning of the special military operation, 649 aircraft, 283 helicopters, 37,633 unmanned aerial vehicles, 586 anti-aircraft missile systems, 19,775 tanks and other armoured fighting vehicles, 1,500 MLRS combat vehicles, 19,549 field artillery guns and mortars, and 29,190 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 Kursk region.
In the course of offensive actions, units of the Sever Group of Forces inflicted losses on formations of three mechanised brigades, one heavy mechanised brigade, two tank brigades, two air assault brigades, one naval infantry brigade, and two territorial defence brigades of the AFU near Viktorovka, Guyevo, Kruglenkoye, Lebedevka, Leonidovo, Martynovka, Nikolayevo-Daryino, Nikolsky, Sverdlikovo, and Staraya Sorochina.
Operational-Tactical and Army aviation and artillery inflicted losses on AFU manpower and hardware close to Aleksandriya, Bondarevka, Malaya Loknya, Nikolayevo-Daryino, Novaya Sorochina, Cherkasskoye Porechnoye as well as Basovka, Belovody, Veselovka, Zhuravka, Loknya, Miropolye, and Pavlovka in Sumy region.
Over the past 24 hours, the AFU losses amounted to more than 200 troops, three tanks, including two UK-made Challenger tanks, two infantry fighting vehicles, including one German-made Marder infantry fighting vehicle, two armoured personnel carriers, one armoured fighting vehicle, nine motor vehicles, one artillery gun, six mortars, and one electronic warfare station.
Since the beginning of hostilities in Kursk region, the AFU losses amounted to more than 40,260 troops, 239 tanks, 177 infantry fighting vehicles, 125 armoured personnel carriers, 1,252 armoured fighting vehicles, 1,124 motor vehicles, 309 artillery guns, 40 MLRS launchers, including 11 of HIMARS and six of MLRS made by the USA, 13 anti-aircraft missile launchers, seven transport-loading vehicles, 73 EW stations, 13 counter-battery warfare radars, four air defence radars, 27 units of engineering and other materiel, including 13 counterobstacle vehicles, one UR-77 mine clearing vehicle, six armoured recovery vehicles, and one command post vehicle.
The operation to neutralise the AFU units is in progress.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[Regnum] 81 years after the death of Senior Lieutenant Dmitry Donskoy, his award — the Order of the Red Star — was solemnly presented to his grandson Alexander Merkelov in Moscow, in the Pantheon of Defenders of the Fatherland.
As the official representative of the "Search Movement of Russia" in the DPR Alexander Maltsev, who took direct part in returning the award to the family of the Soviet soldier, told the Regnum news agency, the path of this order is very long and not easy. Thus, several awards were taken from an old marauder, who in his declining years began to be tormented by his conscience: the man himself came to the head of the Gorlovka administration with a proposal to bury the remains of soldiers.
"It turned out that in the 90s he actively "bombed" the battle sites in the Slavyansk region, on the Mius Front, they had a group of five people, they took only what could be sold - awards, ammunition, personal belongings. They threw the bones back, looted both ours and the Germans. I took everything from him, and since 2016 we have been looking for relatives, handing them awards, and there was one insert of a death medallion. And the search for Donskoy reached a dead end," Alexander said.
His descendants were searched for in vain first in the Voronezh region, where the officer was from, then in Rostov, where another branch of the family was located. In the end, Donskoy's grandson called himself: on the eve of May 9, his son suggested looking for his grandfather, they typed the name into an Internet search - and immediately found an article about awards and the search.
For another two years, the meeting was postponed for various reasons, and on December 13, as part of the opening of the international conference “The Fate of a Soldier,” the hero’s star finally returned to his family.
“When I shook his hand, he was almost thrown up, the guy was really touched,” Maltsev shared his emotions and lamented that the officer’s remains would never be identified.
It is quite possible that they were found in subsequent years and buried with honors - like a nameless warrior.
Dmitry Zakharovich served in the Red Army from June 24, 1941 and during this time he did not receive any wounds or concussions. He fought as a deputy company commander of the 68th separate engineer battalion of the 50th rifle division, and showed himself to be excellent. In April of 1943, Donskoy was responsible for establishing crossings across the flooded Seversky Donets in the area of the village of Yarovaya, then Stalin's region.
For skillful actions "under constant artillery, mortar fire, and enemy air strikes" during three days of work on the crossing, the 50th Rifle Division units were awarded the Medal "For Courage". And he received the "Red Star" for the battles on the bridgehead west of the river.
The young commander died in a fierce battle on August 4, 1943, near the village of Golaya Dolina, during a powerful German counterattack. In many areas, the fighters resorted to hand-to-hand combat, even fighting with entrenching tools and helmets. Donskoy's body remained in an aerial bomb crater in an unnamed grove. According to the looter's stories, it was approximately localized, but over the years, many search parties have worked in these areas.
The loss documents will still contain the vague statement “Killed in action.”
[FoxNews] 'Outnumbered' panelists react to the back and forth between the two world leaders as President-elect Trump makes his historic return to the White House
Video. The man really does have more hair than sense.
#2
Well his mother's open c..t photos at Plato's Retreat in NY City and open sex are still floating about. I assume his whore mom taught him that's what Feminism is?
#5
We decided not to follow up a senile guy with a moron who marinates her Fruit Loops in chardonnay. Justin can call us silly names, then climb back into his couch pillow fort, snivel along to some Swifty ballad, and return to suppressing Canucks who don’t like his leadership.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
12/14/2024 10:33
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#6
We saw what happened in Canada when they elected a bitch, so we declined.
Posted by: ed in texas ||
12/14/2024 16:09
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Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[NewsFront] 21:16 Drone operators of the "North" groupdestroyeda camouflaged position of the crew of the Ukrainian Armed Forces' 122mm D-30 howitzer in the Khar'kov region. 20:47 A Ukrainian Armed Forces missile was shot down over the center of Donetsk, operational services reported.
19:11 Assault troops of the Russian Armed Forces entered the village of Shevchenko in the Kurakhovo region.
18:54 Calculation of the FPV drone of the "North" military group in the Khar'kov regiondestroyedcamouflaged position of the 122mm D-30 howitzer of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
18:42 Two Ukrainian drones hit on a minibus carrying people in the Golaya Prystan area of the Kherson region. One passenger was killed and two others, including a high school teacher, were injured, Governor Volodymyr Saldo said.
18:22 The Uspenovsky cauldron has been completely liquidated. The settlements of Trudovoe, Annovka and Uspenovka have been completelycrossed overunder the control of the Russian Armed Forces.
18:15 The Ukrainian Armed Forces fired at a bus in the Kherson region, one person was killed and two were wounded, the governor’s press secretary Volodymyr Vasylenko reported.
18:05 The Russian Armed Forces advanced on a broad front in the Borovsk direction in the Khar'kov region –map.
17:55 Russian military using FPV drone destroyed in the border area of the Kursk region, an underground shelter with Ukrainian Armed Forces personnel.
17:44 Enemy reports: "on the Vrem'evsky direction, southeast of Velikaya Novosyolka, the Russian Armed Forces have taken control of a 4 by 1.6 km area. West of Velikaya Novosyolka, the advance of Russian troops is being recorded in the direction of the settlements of Storozhyevoye and Neskuchny."
17:17 Russian Armed Forces kamikaze drone operators shot down two British Challenger tanks in the Kursk region.
16:54 Footage of the entry of assault groups of the Russian Armed Forces into the settlement of Annovka and the beginning of the clearing of the village.
16:35 Russian Armed Forces entered Annovka –map.
16:14 UAV crews are constantly attacking Ukrainian positions in the Orekhov direction, said a reconnaissance officer of the Dnepr group with the call sign "White" -video.
15:55 Russian military carried out 15 group strikes on Ukrainian targets over the past week, the Russian Defense Ministry reported.
The targets were energy facilities that supported the operation of the Ukrainian military-industrial complex, the infrastructure of military airfields, UAV assembly and storage sites, as well as arsenals, ammunition depots, and deployment sites of Ukrainian Armed Forces units and foreign mercenaries.
Russian fighters also liberated seven settlements in a week: three in the Kursk region and four in the DPR.
15:34 Video the local Telegram channels published information about the “paired” force mobilization in Krivoy Rog.
15:40 The Russian Ministry of Defense reported the shooting down of a Ukrainian drone over Crimea.
15:17 The village of Vesely Gai was fully released by fighters of the 39th Motorized Rifle Brigade of the Russian Armed Forces
There were 11 civilians left in the village, mostly pensioners, who were used as “human shields” by Ukrainian militants.
14:55 The Russian Armed Forces have advanced in the Kursk region towards the settlement of Kurilovka. The liberation of most of the village of Cherkasskaya Konopelka has also been confirmed.
14:07 Crews of the 122mm BM-21 Grad MLRS of the Tula paratroopers destroyed accumulation of Ukrainian Armed Forces infantry in the border area of Kursk Oblast.
14:00 UAV calculations of the "West" are destroying military equipment and manpower of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the Khar'kov region.
13:45 The settlement of Pushkino west of Selidovo came under the control of the Russian Armed Forces.
13:34 Russian units have made significant progress in the urban development of Volchansk –map.
13:11 Map with the flight trajectories of Russian missiles and Geraniums at targets in Ukraine.
12:45 In response to the Ukrainian Armed Forces' attack with American ATACMS missiles on Taganrog, the Russian military launched a massive strike with high-precision weapons and attack drones on critically important fuel and energy infrastructure facilities in Ukraine that ensure the operation of the Ukrainian military-industrial complex, the Defense Ministry reported.
12:22 Calculations of the ATGM "Metis" of the Dnepr group of troops destroyed personnel of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the Orekhov direction in the Zaporizhia region.
12:21 Russian forces launched a missile strike on airport facilities in Kyiv where F-16 pilots were training. This was reported by Vladimir Rogov on air at the Komsomolskaya Pravda radio station.
12:16 A fire broke out in the Drohobych district of the Lviv region after an “arrival”.
12:05 Destruction of Ukrainian Armed Forces manpower and equipment by VT-40 FPV drones in the Kherson direction –video.
12:00 Enemy reports: “In the Kurakhovsky direction, the situation for the Ukrainian army is close to critical.
The situation in the "Kurakhovo pocket" (a salient south of Kurakhovo, where the Ukrainian Armed Forces have been operationally encircled) is close to critical. The Russian Armed Forces have consolidated their positions in Uspenovka, and the communication routes with the villages to the southeast are limited by drone fire control and artillery from Russian troops."
11:54 Head of the Ivano-Frankivsk Regional Military Administration Svitlana Onyshchuk stated that a number of critical infrastructure facilities were damaged during the most massive attack in the region during the entire conflict.
"This morning, Prykarpattia was subjected to the most massive attack during the full-scale war. Critical infrastructure facilities are in the crosshairs. There are hits," Onyshchuk wrote on her Telegram channel.
11:42 In the Boguslavsky direction of the Russian Armed Forces launched a counterattack and took more advantageous positions east of Lozovaya. A mortar crew and an assault group of nine Ukrainian Armed Forces militants were destroyed.
Significant losses have been noted in the 77th Separate Airborne Brigade, where three battalions of the brigade have lost their combat capability in a month of active combat operations, two of which have already been withdrawn for restoration.
11:06 TCC employees tried to mobilize a Kiev resident during an air raid. An air raid alarm was declared in Kyiv today, and the city residents went into shelters. It was dangerous to be outside, but that didn't stop the TCC: they detained a man and tried to mobilize him.
11:14 UAV operators of the 64th Guards Motorized Rifle Brigade of the 35th Army in the Pologsk direction are destroying enemy manpower –video.
11:08 The Ukrainian Armed Forces attacked eight districts of the Belgorod Region with 52 munitions and 41 drones over the past 24 hours. One person was killed and one was seriously injured, Gladkov said.
11:02 Airborne artillerymen of the Dnepr group destroyed observation post of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the Kakhovka direction.
During aerial reconnaissance over the right bank of the Dnieper, the UAV operator identified an observation post of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. After additional reconnaissance and confirmation of the target, the coordinates were immediately transmitted to the crew. The 122mm D-30 artillery crew deployed the gun in a matter of minutes and inflicted fire damage on the enemy.
10:55 Russian fighters told details of the liberation of the village of Zheltoe in the DPR –video.
10:36 Explosions in Vinnytsia region.
10:30 Massive missile strikes are being carried out on energy facilities in Ukraine, the country's authorities have stated.
10:28 The Gauleiter of Khar'kov reported that the Russian Armed Forces attacked an enterprise in the village of Mirnoye.
10:25 “Arrivals” in the area of Bila Tserkva (Kyiv region).
10:23 According to preliminary information from monitoring services, missile strikes were carried out on a military unit of the Ukrainian Armed Forces and an airfield in Voznesensk, Nikolaev region.
10:22 Explosions in the Kyiv region.
10:17 “Arrivals” in Voznesensk (Nikolaev region).
10:11 More than 10 explosions were heard in the area of the city of Burshtyn in the Ivano-Frankivsk region in western Ukraine, the publication Strana reported.
10:09 The Russian army liberated Vesyoliy Gai in the DPR.
09:47 In Odessa, electricity and water were partially lost.
09:46 Enemy resources reported the launch of Kinzhal missiles in the area of Poltava and Dnepropetrovsk.
09:44 The Ukrainian group was blocked in the area of the village of Uspenovka to the south of Kurakhovo in the DPR, reportedin Russian security forces.
"At the line from the villages of Vesely Gai to Uspenovka south of Kurakhovo, our forces have blocked the enemy. The group will obviously not be able to escape the fire pocket unharmed," the security forces noted.
They specified that they were talking about a “fire pocket” more than 4 km long.
09:40 Destruction of the Bogdan self-propelled howitzer of the Ukrainian Armed Forces by the Lancet in the Sumy region –video.
09:37 The criminal Kiev regime continues to shell the civilian infrastructure of the settlements of the left bank of the Kherson region, yesterday during the day the Ukrainian Armed Forces fired from barrel artillery:
– Five rounds to the settlement of Dnepryany;
- according to n.p. Novaya Kakhovka for rounds;
– Five rounds to the village of Aleshki;
– Four rounds in Solontsy settlement;
– Three rounds to the settlement of Tavriysk;
– Three rounds to the village of Lyubimovka.
As a result of artillery attack by the Ukrainian Armed Forces, civilian infrastructure was damaged in the village of Novaya Kakhovka.
During the night, the Kiev regime continued to shell civilian infrastructure in the settlements of Novaya Kakhovka, Knyaze-Grigorovka, Babine, and Golaya Prystan, firing a total of 18 rounds from barrel artillery. Civilian casualties and infrastructure destruction are being clarified.
09:34 Explosions in Ivano-Frankivsk, Odessa, and in the Khar'kov region.
09:32 “Arrivals” in the city of Burshtyn (Ivano-Frankivsk region).
09:31 Explosions in the city of Stryi (Lviv region).
09:26 Missiles are entering Lviv airspace, Ukrainian monitoring channels reported.
09:21 Explosions in Vinnytsia region.
09:17 “Arrival” at the military airfield in Starokostiantyniv (Khmelnytsky region).
08:59 Investigators of the Russian Investigative Committee recorded another round of artillery attack of the territory of the DPR, carried out by armed formations of Ukraine.
Residential areas of the Nikitovsky and Central-City districts of Gorlovka were subjected to artillery shelling, at which the enemy used 155mm caliber barrel artillery, including those with cluster warheads.
In total, two civilian infrastructure facilities were damaged by artillery attack on the territory of the DPR.
08:51 A series of powerful explosions thundered in Odessa, local monitoring services reported.
08:44 The Russian Armed Forces are repelling counterattacks by the Ukrainian Armed Forces. Over the course of several days, the enemy has attempted to counterattack almost 20 times in the Svatovsko-Kremnya direction and has suffered significant losses due to poor preparation, military expert Andrey Marochko reported.
08:28 Between 5:05 and 5:40 Moscow time, an attempt by the Kyiv regime to commit a terrorist attack using an aircraft-type UAV against targets on the territory of the Russian Federation was thwarted. Four Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles were destroyed over the territory of the Vladimir region by air defense systems on duty.
08:11 Ukrainian monitoring channels reported the launch of Kalibr cruise missiles at targets on Ukrainian territory.
08:10 Objects in different parts of Ukraine were attacked on the night of December 13 by Russian UAVs. Explosions were heard in Kyiv, Khar'kov, Sumy, Poltava, Cherkasy, Khmelnytsky, Kyiv and Sumy regions.
08:08 Over the night, 13 Ukrainian drones were destroyed: five over the Kursk region, four over the Belgorod region, three over the Rostov region, and one over the Lipetsk region, the Russian Defense Ministry reported.
08:07 Ukrainian militants abandoned bodies of fallen comrades-in-arms at positions in the Rabotino area of the Zaporizhia region. This was reported by a scout of the Dnepr group of troops with the call sign "White".
08:05 The Russian Armed Forces "knocked out" the enemy from the village of Cherkasskaya Konopelka in the Kursk region, a cleanup operation is currently underway there, the Novosti SVO i Mira channel reported.
08:04 A self-defense fighter was killed in a nighttime drone attack on the Terebrenskoye rural settlement in the Belgorod Region. This was reported by the region's governor Vyacheslav Gladkov.
08:02 In the Kurakhovsky direction, the Ukrainian Armed Forces found themselves in operational encirclement, reported the Ukrainian resource Deep State.
08:00 A civilian resident of the Belgorod district was wounded as a result of an attack by a Ukrainian UAV, Governor Gladkov said. According to him, the man was taken to hospital in serious condition with multiple shrapnel wounds to the head and arms.
[Federalist] President Joe Biden announced on Thursday that he was granting 39 pardons and 1,499 commutations in what his administation called the "largest single-day grant of clemency in modern history." But it’s not Thursday’s set of commutations that have caught the attention of concerned Americans — it’s those that were quietly given weeks ago to Chinese spies.
X user Nick Sortor posted that "Joe Biden just pardoned multiple Chinese spies and an individual convicted of possessing child p*rnography. WHY?"
But the thing is, Biden didn’t "just" commute the sentences for these criminals — he did it quietly only days before Thanksgiving.
While most Americans were finalizing their menus and getting into the holiday spirit, Biden commuted the sentence of Yanjun Xu on November 22. Xu was convicted in 2022 for "conspiracy to commit economic espionage; conspiracy to commit trade secret theft; attempted economic espionage by theft or fraud; attempted theft of trade secrets by taking or deception."
But according to Biden’s pardon, "it is in the national interest that the term of imprisonment related to the aforesaid conviction not be served in its entirety."
Xu was ordered to leave the United States and never return or commit any other crimes against the United States, according to the pardon.
Similarly, spy Ji Chaoqun was convicted of "conspiracy to defraud the United States; impersonating agents of foreign governments; statements or entries generally." Ji arrived in the United States in 2013 on an F1 Visa before later enlisting in the U.S. Army Reserves "under a program allowing legal immigrants with special skills to serve," according to the Chicago Sun-Times.According to the U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, "Ji worked at the direction of high-level intelligence officers in the Jiangsu Province Ministry of State Security, a provincial department of the Ministry of State Security for the People’s Republic of China."
But Biden commuted his sentence. "On Nov. 22, Biden, with no fanfare or public announcement, granted clemency to Ji and Xu," the Chicago Sun-Times reported, noting that the move may have been part of a prisoner swap. Notably, Biden doesn’t indicate in either document granting clemency why he chose to do so.
Damon Cheronis, the attorney who represented Ji, told the Chicago Sun-Times he was not notified about the clemency beforehand.
"I learned about it [Wednesday] morning, when he was released," Cheronis told the Chicago Sun-Times. "It was not something that anyone was made aware of, including my client."
Even more disturbing, Biden also granted clemency to Shanlin Jin, who was convicted after "police found more than 47,000 images and videos of child pornography in his computer." One such video allegedly showed "an adult male sexually assaulting a female infant," according to The Dallas Morning News.
The three commutations were reportedly part of a prisoner swap in exchange for Mark Sweden, Kai Li, and John Leung, according to Financial Times.But prisoner swaps are typically hailed by the president and the media. When basketball player Brittney Griner was released from Russia (in exchange for the man known as "Merchant of Death"), Biden held a press conference at the White House celebrating Griner’s return.
Biden similarly held another event when Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan were released.
So why was Biden and his administration so quiet about this Chinese swap?
Not just Chinese spies:
Yep the brother of the founder of Hamas, a hardened terrorist and one of the "Holy Land Foundation Five," was just released from a U.S. prison in a gift to Hamas from its friends and admirers in the Biden Administration. Here's his Wikipedia puff piece https://t.co/UGvS25wSO6https://t.co/36jhEN66ajpic.twitter.com/GERHvqPbG0
[DAILYCALLER] A diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) administrator was reportedly fired from the University of Michigan (UM) after making antisemitic statements, The New York Times
...which still proudly claims Walter Duranty's Pulitzer prize... reported Thursday.
The administrator, Rachel Dawson, said that the university was ''controlled by wealthy Jews,'' and that Jewish students were ''wealthy and privileged'' and not in need of the university's diversity services, according to The New York Times. The university has experienced countless antisemitic incidents since the start of the war in Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response... on Oct.7, 2023.
The employee was also accused of saying ''Jewish people have no genetic DNA that would connect them to the land of Israel,'' according to a complaint from the Anti-Defamation League of Michigan obtained by the NYT. Dawson's lawyer told the NYT she plans on suing the university.
Several students were charged for incidents relating to anti-Israel protests at UM in April after setting up an illegal encampment on campus and clashing with police, according to the Michigan attorney general's office. On Monday, a Jewish regent's home was vandalized, with pro-Paleostinian messages spray painted on the regent's cars and a mason jar filled with a ''foul-smelling liquid'' thrown through a window of the house, according to the bankrupt, increasingly impoverished, reliably Democrat, Detroit ... ruled by Democrats since 1962. A city whose Golden Age included the Purple Gang... News.
The University of Michigan hosts the largest and most expensive DEI program in the nation, but the efforts may soon be coming to an end after reports circulated showing the program's failures, such as intensifying racial relations on campus and failing to increase campus diversity.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/14/2024
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#7
Looks like the (shocked, shocked?) colleague who called that creature out has been contentedly running with the Social Justice (nice one, Loyola!) behemot for years. Married a guy who ran Trunk against the Exalted Donklops, though, so who knows?
"So great... wait... so hateful! So crass!"
Professor, what brought this to pass?
"Well, I never met woke
I disliked till the poke
That red heifer just gave my red ass!"
#10
Married a guy who ran Trunk against the Exalted Donklops,
Looked him up — he sounds fascinating. A man who turned childhood hobbies into profitable ventures that have benefitted society. The Republican run was in 1994, the heyday of Mitt Romney and George HW/George W. Bush country club Republicans. The good professoress sounds like a limousine liberal who is finally being clubbed over the head in a way she can’t ignore about what those “caring” stock phrases really mean. Hopefully she will take the right lessons from it.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited. by Kirill Semenov
[REGNUM] At a meeting on Tuesday, December 10, the State Duma adopted in the first reading a bill that provides for the possibility of excluding the Taliban movement (an organization under UN sanctions for terrorist activity) from the list of organizations banned in Russia.
The authors of the draft law (No. 778 284-8) were a group of parliamentarians, including senators Andrei Klishas, Andrei Yatskin and Yuri Fedorov, as well as deputies Vasily Piskarev, Andrei Lugovoy and Dmitry Vyalkin.
According to the draft law, “the ban on the activities of an organization included in the single federal list of organizations, including foreign and international organizations recognized as terrorist in accordance with Russian legislation, may be temporarily suspended by a decision of a Russian court based on an application by the Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation or his deputy, if there is factual information that such an organization, after being included in the said list, has ceased carrying out activities aimed at promoting, justifying and supporting terrorism.”
Earlier, on November 25, the Afghan portal "Alemara" reported on the negotiations between the Secretary of the Russian Security Council Sergei Shoigu in Afghanistan with the Afghan Deputy Prime Minister Abdul Ghani Baradar Akhund. Shoigu emphasized Russia's readiness to develop bilateral cooperation with Afghanistan, pointing to plans to exclude the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) from Russia's blacklist in order to strengthen political and economic ties.
Akhund, who oversees economic issues in the Taliban-formed government, noted that Afghanistan intends to “play a key role in strengthening the North-South Economic Corridor, as well as economic ties in the region.”
At the moment, it has become obvious that all concerns about the hypothetical expansion of the Taliban into neighboring countries have remained at the level of conjecture and speculation. The Taliban movement has demonstrated in practice that it intends to build good-neighborly relations with all its neighbors.
In addition, the Taliban have demonstrated that they are willing to take into account the interests of the minorities living in the country. This is especially noticeable with regard to the local Shia Hazaras, who have been given the opportunity to openly practice their version of Islam, build mosques and hold holidays, including in Kabul, while representatives of the Hazaras have received various positions in the IEA administration.
For Moscow, the positive attitude of the Afghan government towards Russia itself and its approaches to international affairs, including its approach to the CIS, certainly plays a role.
Afghans look with hope at the confrontation between Russia and the collective West, with the hope that Russia “ will be able to withstand this onslaught, this pressure, and will be able to achieve a revision of this unipolar world order.”
Therefore, it can be said that the Taliban have passed the probationary period that Moscow set for them regarding their exclusion from the terrorist lists.
The Taliban's continued "terrorist" status has slowed down the development of bilateral contacts between Moscow and Kabul. This has an impact on trade relations and makes it difficult for entrepreneurs who want to do business with Afghanistan to do so, due to concerns, even if hypothetical, of being prosecuted for justifying or financing terrorism.
ATTACK ON HAQQANI AMID RUSSIAN INITIATIVES
However, it is obvious that the prospect of removing the Taliban from the terrorist list and their rapprochement with Russia does not suit everyone.
This also applies to external forces hostile to Afghanistan and Russia, which have tried to show that the IAE's merits in the fight against terrorism are exaggerated, and that the Taliban are not fulfilling their obligations to suppress the activities of the ISIS (an organization whose activities are prohibited in the Russian Federation) Khorasan Velayat (ISIS-Kh) (an organization whose activities are prohibited in the Russian Federation).
It was precisely the achievements in the fight against this cell that were noted as an important indicator that the Taliban itself is not a terrorist force, but rather a counter-terrorist force.
But on Wednesday, the day after the Duma vote, a suicide bombing in Kabul killed Khalil Haqqani, the Taliban's acting minister for refugees and repatriation. He was a high-ranking member of the influential Haqqani family.
The incident marked the first killing of a serving minister since the Taliban returned to power in Kabul in August 2021. Experts say the attack is a "declaration of war" by ISIS-K against the Haqqani family, but both external and internal opponents may be behind it.
This attack on the Haqqani family, against the backdrop of Russian initiatives, can also be seen as a challenge to the reformist wing of the Taliban led by this clan, which is behind many of the initiatives to get closer to Moscow.
The family's most influential representative, Interior Minister Sirajuddin Haqqani, also held talks with Sergei Shoigu at the end of November.
Initially the most radical in the Taliban movement in matters of war and resorting to prohibited methods of waging it, Haqqani after its end turned out to be the most moderate in terms of state-building. It is with him that hopes are associated for a change in the internal policy of the Taliban.
It was Haqqani who was behind the amnesty of many members of the previous administration and tried to prevent reprisals.
His supporters also opposed the ban on female education.
In fact, because of Haqqani's position, a compromise system has essentially emerged in the country, where the so-called "Kandahar clique" from Emir Akhunzada's entourage is pushing forward more and more restrictive laws, but which, due to Haqqani's opposition to them, end up not being laws, but rather some kind of non-binding recommendations. Or loopholes appear in each of them, as in the issues of female education and employment, when in fact women can study in private schools for a fee or in religious schools for free, but the latter also provide for secular education.
Finally, the Haqqanists, unlike the Kandaharis, adhere to a more global agenda and, as noted by Russian observers who have been in contact with them, “like to talk” about multipolarity, which is why they more openly express their hopes for Russia’s success in the SVO.
SUCCESSES IN THE FIGHT AGAINST TERRORISM
However, despite the ongoing terrorist attacks, the Taliban's success in the fight against terrorism is hard to doubt. In fact, this became an important factor in the recognition of the Taliban and the removal of terrorist labels from the movement.
It is significant that the Americans, who spent 20 years trying to eradicate Osama bin Laden's brainchild in Afghanistan, were forced to acknowledge this success. But as soon as they left, the Taliban themselves solved this problem.
In particular, as Christie Abizaid, director of the US National Counterterrorism Center, stated on September 11, 2023, is in its historical decline in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and its revival is unlikely.”
The Taliban, despite the ongoing terrorist threat and isolated attacks, have been able to suppress ISIS-K activity in Afghanistan. After a significant increase in its activity due to the security vacuum created in parts of the country by the US withdrawal, the Taliban have changed this dynamic by denying the terrorists control over certain territories they were able to acquire by following the Americans fleeing the country.
Their activities were hit and their activity significantly reduced, which was noted in the relevant reports of international structures.
It is emphasized that the Taliban were able to conduct a successful campaign against ISIS-K and eliminated most of the sleeper cells that were ready to continue terrorist attacks in Afghan cities. After a surge in terrorist attacks in the first months after the Taliban came to power, their number is beginning to decline as a result of counter-terrorism measures by the IEA security structures.
In particular, in 2022–2023, the number of terrorist attacks and other attacks by ISIS-K has significantly decreased. If in the first year of the Taliban rule (2021–2022) there were 314 attacks and assaults, then in 2022–2023 there were only 69, that is, fewer than during any period of the group’s activity in Afghanistan since its emergence.
The Taliban's fight against ISIS is systemic and consistent, Khorasan itself is turning into a virtual province, and its connection with Afghanistan and the territory of Greater Khorasan is becoming more conditional, as stated in the UN report of January 2024.
As ISIS* researcher Aaron Zelin notes : “ Unlike most past cases of jihadist external operations, where basing was critical, a paradox occurred in which the Taliban’s Islamic Emirate effectively undermined much of the local capacity of the Khorasan Province in Afghanistan.”
At the same time, the main threat of ISIS-K now comes not from Afghans, but from citizens of Tajikistan. Rather, the reverse process of Tajiks moving to Afghanistan to participate in terrorist activities there is observed. Other citizens of the republic are drawn into ISIS-K activities through its cells in Iran and Turkey.
FIGHT AGAINST DRUG TRAFFICKING
Countering drug trafficking is another area where the Taliban have demonstrated success in their activities, which has also become an argument for removing the terrorist label from the movement.
The Taliban have already imposed a total ban on drug production and use in Afghanistan. They continue their campaign against the illegal drug industry, arresting drug addicts and drug dealers, and destroying opium poppy and cannabis fields. This has already led to a significant drop in production, but it also has a downside, hitting poor rural residents particularly hard.
In particular, the UN estimates that the cessation of opium poppy cultivation has affected the lives of almost seven million people.
According to a 2023 UN report, poppy cultivation in southern Afghanistan has declined by more than 80% as a result of Taliban campaigns to stop its use in opium production. For example, poppy cultivation in Helmand province has declined by 99%.
In November 2023, a UN report showed that poppy cultivation had declined by more than 95% across Afghanistan, stripping the country of its status as the world's largest opium producer.
Many farmers have switched to growing wheat or cotton, but they struggle to make ends meet. Developing agriculture will require more irrigation systems, cold storage facilities, and better roads. The Taliban does not have the budget to develop such infrastructure. Perhaps establishing economic ties with neighbors after sanctions are lifted will help to partially solve this problem.
Overall, the Taliban have managed to stabilize the economy somewhat. Afghanistan's foreign trade has fallen since they seized power. However, despite the decline in imports, most of the country's income now comes from taxes.
As experts note, the Afghan economy is no longer in a state of free fall and appears to be frozen in a precarious equilibrium, albeit at its lowest level.
Modest positive trends include lower inflation, exchange rate stability, some recovery in imports, more than a doubling of exports, stability or a slight increase in labor demand, and stable wages.
[IsraelTimes] Military says strikes intended to allow aid convoy to reach civilians; IDF also orders evacuation of Gaza City neighborhood after Hamas launched rockets from there on Wednesday
The Israel Defense Forces said it carried out strikes on two groups of turbans trying to loot humanitarian aid in Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response... on Thursday morning. Hamas ..not a terrorist organization, even though it kidnaps people, holds hostages, and tries to negotiate by executing them,... officials said 13 people were killed in the strikes.
"All of the turbans who were eliminated were Hamas turbans who planned to violent mostly peacefully take control of humanitarian aid trucks and transfer them to the Hamas terrorist organization," the IDF said in a statement. "The strike was intended to allow the humanitarian aid to reach the residents of the Gaza Strip safely."
"We emphasize that the IDF did not attack humanitarian aid trucks and that the aid truck transit route remained open and active," the military said.
The statement said the Hamas members aimed to hijack the aid "in support of continuing terrorist activity."
The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza said that 13 Paleostinians were killed in the pair of Arclight airstrike ...KABOOM!... s. The 13 were among the 58 Paleostinians that the ministry reported were killed in Israeli strikes across the Strip on Thursday, a dozen of whom it described as guards securing aid trucks from reaching civilians. The Hamas figures cannot be verified and do not differentiate between terror operatives and civilians.
According to a report in Rooters, citing sources close to Hamas, "many of those killed" in the strikes had links to the terror group.
Also on Thursday, the IDF and Shin Bet announced that, earlier this week, an airstrike in Gaza eliminated a top commander in Hamas’s weapons manufacturing division. According to the military, the strike against a Hamas commander center embedded within the al-Hurriya school in Gaza City, killed the commander, Ammar Daloul, and several other operatives including one who participated in the October 7 onslaught.
Daloul served as a department head in Hamas’s manufacturing division and a company commander in the terror group’s Zeitoun Battalion, according to the IDF.
The military said the strike also killed Hamas turbans Jihad Yassin, a company commander in the Zeitoun Battalion; Yahya Masoud Muhammad Ashqar, who infiltrated Israeli territory and participated in the October 7 massacre; Kamal Saber Salim Arafat; Muhammad Akram Aaraj; Loay Farid Faiz Hussein Ali, a platoon commander; Imad Aouni Ibrahim Rayan; and Raed Samir Masoud Harazayn, a member of Hamas’s internal security forces.
Later on Thursday, the IDF issued an evacuation warning to several neighborhoods in Gaza City, following rocket fire from the area at Israeli troops operating in the Strip.
"Terror organizations are once again firing rockets from this area. The specified area has been warned several times in the past," Col. Avichay Adraee, the IDF’s Arabic-language front man said, publishing a map of the zones that are to be evacuated. Civilians in the area were called to move to shelters in the center of Gaza City.
Some 1.9 million Paleostinians of the 2.3 million Gazook population are residing in the Israeli-designated "humanitarian zone," according to IDF assessments. The zone is located in the al-Mawasi area on the southern Strip’s coast, western neighborhoods of Khan Younis, and central Gaza’s Deir al-Balah. The size of the zone has changed multiple times, amid evolving IDF operations against the Hamas terror group. As of late August, the zone is just over 46 square kilometers (17.7 square miles), or nearly 13 percent of the total size of the Gaza Strip.
[FoxNews] A series of drone sightings over New Jersey and near U.S. military installations that began in mid-November has residents concerned and lawmakers demanding answers as their origins and purpose remain unknown.
FAST FACTS
A series of unidentified drone sightings near U.S. military installations and over residences in New Jersey since mid-November has caused alarm.
White House national security communications adviser John Kirby has said many of the purported drone sightings are actually lawfully operated manned aircraft and that there is no evidence of a national security or public safety threat.
Frustrated residents who believe the government's answers are insufficient have threatened to take matters into their own hands and shoot them down.
MAYORKAS SAYS GOVERNMENT DOESN'T HAVE AUTHORITY TO SHOOT DOWN DRONES
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on Friday said the government doesn't have the authority to shoot down drones and believes reports of some sightings are cases of mistaken identity.
Mayorkas appeared on CNN when he was asked about why the federal government doesn't take down one of the many drones that have been spotted across multiple states in recent weeks.
“Our authorities are very limited,” Mayorkas told CNN host Wolf Blitzer, citing missions involving unmanned aircraft conducted by various federal agencies. "We have various authorities that are discreet to their particular missions. We can't just shoot a drone out of the sky."
Mayorkas said officials believe reported drone sightings are “cases of mistaken identity” where drones are actually small aircraft “where people are misidentifying them," noting that some can be purchased at "convenience stores."
“We know of no threat or nefarious activity,” he said.
Mayorkas noted that officials have asked Congress to expand the scope of authority to empower local and state officials to counter drone activity.
“Those authorities need to be expanded,” he said.
Earlier in the evening, President-elect Trump called for the Biden administration to start providing answers about the drones or shoot them down.
#3
The Feds are exercising "Maximum Plausible Deniability" so that the boys at Area 51 can field their range toys! Not aliens people...not Iran or China (they're not hooping and hollering like they did over a single balloon)...flying only at night (that smacks of NORAD turning their cheeks)!
#6
Somebody local will take action and the Feds will come down on them like a ton of bricks. It will be like the FEMA non-response in NC.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
12/14/2024 10:55
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#7
Somebody's Mama stirred their alphabet soup too much.
Oh yeah? Then why do the letters keep sticking together in clumps of three?
Mayorkas is correct in that shooting down drones is not one of the Enumerated Powers, but one might hope that as Homeland Security Guy, he would be able to improvise, adapt and overcome.
I suspect the real problem and the reason for inaction is that we simply do not have a reliable means to accomplish the task. We are quite good at shooting things on the ground and we have air defenses against planes and missiles, both cruise and ballistic. But flying low and slow and being highly maneuverable, drones are none of these things. Based on watching the Ukr v Rus games, we might want to start planning for this. It is only going to get worse.
#8
Do we not have helicopters that could follow these drones back to wherever they are launched? I mean, sooner or later they will run out of fuel or their batteries will need to be recharged. Find out where they are launched, find the perpetrators and then deal with them accordingly. If it's a mother ship out in the ocean, sink it.
If Mayorkas and DHS can't or won't do it then use the military. What is even the purpose of a Department of Homeland Security if they can't provide us with security?
If we didn't have such a feeble excuse for a president our adversaries would not dare pull a stunt like this and, if they did, they would suffer the consequences.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
12/14/2024 12:53
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#10
No authority? Laughable. Biden has no authority to zero out student loan debt but that hasn't slowed him at all. It's curious those few portions of the Constitution that Dems are willing to go to the mats to defend while torching the rest.
Posted by: Rex Mundi ||
12/14/2024 13:19
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#11
But flying low and slow and being highly maneuverable, drones are none of these things.
[CNN ...formerly the Cable News Network, now who know what it might stand for... ] Amazon is planning to donate $1 million to President-elect Donald Trump ...Oh, noze! Not him!... ’s inauguration, a person familiar with the matter told CNN. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is expected to visit with Trump in person in the coming days, as he and other tech founders seek closer relationships with the incoming president.
Amazon will donate $1 million in cash to the inauguration and it will make a $1 million in-kind donation by streaming the event on Amazon Video, the company confirmed to CNN Thursday evening.
Bezos and Trump spoke over the summer after the first liquidation attempt. Bezos publicly praised Trump at the time.
"Our former President showed tremendous grace and courage under literal fire tonight," Bezos wrote on X at the time.
Trump has been warming up to tech giants. He has flaunted his private conversations with them in interviews and appearances and now heaps praise on companies he once blamed in part for his 2020 electoral defeat.
The Wall Street Journal first reported the planned donation.
Bezos joins other tech leaders in looking to foster a closer relationship with the president-elect.
Posted by: Fred ||
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Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[Korrespondent] The situation in the Pokrovsk area is very difficult.
The hottest situation is now in the Pokrovsky direction. Russians have organized 32 attacks in the areas of nine populated areas.
Since the beginning of the current day, Russian aggressors have carried out 131 attacks. The enemy is most active in the Pokrovsky and Vremevsky directions, where it carried out almost half of all attacks. This was reported by the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in a report as of 16:00 on Friday, December 13.
Thus, in the Khar'kov direction, the Russians tried to advance near Vovchansk. One combat clash continues.
In the Kupyansk direction, the enemy attacked six times near Kolesnikovka, Boguslavka and Lozovaya. All assaults were repelled.
In the Liman direction, enemy units continue to attack in the areas of the settlements of Grekovka, Nadezhda, Zeleny Gai, Shiykovka, Makeyevka, Terny, Zarechnoye, Torskoye, Dibrova and Grigoryevka. Ten attacks have already been repelled. Nine battles are still ongoing.
In the Seversky direction, the Ukrainian Armed Forces repelled one assault in the Belogorovka area.
In the Kramatorsk direction, the occupiers attacked five times in the area of Chasovy Yar.
Seven attacks have occurred in the Toretsk direction . The enemy is active in the areas of Toretsk and Dilievka. Our defenders are giving a worthy rebuff - two attacks have been stopped, five clashes are ongoing.
The hottest today is in the Pokrovsky direction - 32 enemy assaults in the areas of the settlements of Mirolyubovka, Lisovka, Promin, Dachenskoye, Shevchenko, Novy Trud, Zelenoe, Peschanoye and Pushkino. The defense forces repelled 23 attacks. Nine combat clashes continue.
There are 18 combat clashes in the Kurakhovsky direction . The invaders are trying to advance in the areas of Starye Terny, Solntsevka, Zarya, Kurakhovo, Dalny, Dachny, Annovka and Uspenovka. Seven combat clashes are ongoing.
In the Vremevsky direction, the Russians launched an offensive 29 times near the settlements of Trudovoye, Vesely Gai, Konstantinopolskoye, Sukhie Yaly, Blagovatnoye, Storozhevoe, Neskuchnoye, Makarovka and Novodarovka. 10 clashes are ongoing.
In the Dnieper direction the enemy launched one unsuccessful attack.
In the Kursk region of the Russian Federation, Ukrainian troops have repelled nine Russian attacks. Five more clashes are ongoing
[BBC] A federal court in St Louis has indicted 14 North Koreans for allegedly being part of a long-running conspiracy aimed at extorting funds from US companies and funneling money to Pyongyang's weapons programmes.
The wider scheme allegedly involves thousands of North Korean IT workers who use false, stolen, and borrowed identities from people in the US and other countries to get hired and work remotely for US firms.
The indictement says the defendants and others working with them generated at least $88m (£51.5m) for the North Korean regime over a six-year period.
North Korea's mission to the UN did not immediately reply to a request for comment from BBC News.
The prosecutors say the suspects worked for two North Korean-controlled companies - China-based Yanbian Silverstar and Russia-based Volasys Silverstar.
They were among a group of 130 North Korean IT workers employed by the two firms where they were internally referred to as "IT Warriors", according to the US Department of Justice.
The suspects were allegedly ordered to seek salaries of $10,000 a month from their US employers.
On top of the monthly wage, they would also raise funds for the North Korean regime by stealing valuable company information and threatening to leak it unless the employer made an extortion payment.
The group is now facing wire fraud, money laundering, identity theft and other charges.
Aside from using stolen identities to avoid detection, prosecutors said they paid people residing in the US to receive, set up, and host laptops provided by the US employers.
They would then instruct those US residents to install remote access software allowing them to appear to be working from the US when they were actually overseas.
Investigators believe the suspects are in North Korea making it unlikely that they will ever face justice.
Still, the US State Department has announced that it will offer a reward of up to $5m for anyone who can provide more information on the suspects as well as Yanbian and Volasys.
US officials have not named the American companies targeted in the scheme.
"While we have disrupted this group and identified its leadership, this is just the tip of the iceberg," said Ashley T. Johnson, special agent in charge of the FBI's field office in St Louis.
"The government of North Korea has trained and deployed thousands of IT workers to perpetrate this same scheme against US companies every day."
Do you detect the conspicuous lack of conviction in DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s report on the Jan 6, 2021, riot at the US Capitol building, which has been the central device for defeating the populist revolt against the treasonous DC blob? And did you notice that it took him four years to report on the event? Weird, a little bit, ya think?
I’ll tell you why: because when investigators genuinely interested in the truth come on the scene, soon to happen, a very different story will be revealed. The Horowitz report is a last ditch attempt, at the very last moment, to get ahead of that true story — which is that the FBI and its parent, the DOJ, have been lawlessly and in bad faith acting against their oaths to defend constitutional government.
For eight years — including the four when Mr. Trump was president — the FBI and DOJ worked tirelessly to run him out of office and make sure he could never return. The effort was prodigious and, astoundingly, it failed. It was launched initially to conceal the crimes of Bill and Hillary Clinton, especially their moneygrubbing in Russia around the Skolkovo project — Russia’s Silicon Valley — and the Uranium One scandal — which involved the sale of US nuclear assets to Russia’s state-owned Rosatom company. The Clintons’ problems became especially acute in the summer of 2016 when Hillary’s private (outside government) email server came to light with its thousands of potentially incriminating memos. Looked like trouble.
Posted by: NoMoreBS ||
12/14/2024
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[IsraelTimes] Islamist-led fighters vow to destroy the vast quantities of captagon, the lucrative trade in which helped keep the now-deposed strongman in power amid Syria’s civil war
The dramatic collapse of Bashir al-Assad’s Syrian regime has thrown light into the dark corners of his rule, including the industrial-scale export of the banned drug captagon.
Victorious Islamist-led fighters have seized military bases and distribution hubs for the amphetamine-type stimulant, which has flooded the black market across the Middle East.
Led by the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, formerly al-Nusra, before that it was called something else ...al-Qaeda's Syrian affiliate, from which sprang the Islamic State... (HTS) group, the rebels say they found a vast haul of drugs and vowed to destroy them.
On Wednesday, HTS fighters allowed AFP journalists into a warehouse at a quarry on the outskirts of Damascus, where captagon pills were concealed inside electrical components for export.
"After we entered and did a sweep, and we found that this is a factory for Maher al-Assad and his partner Amer Khiti," said black-masked fighter Abu Malek al-Shami.
HOUSEHOLD APPLIANCES
Maher al-Assad was a military commander and the deposed strongman’s brother, now presumed on the run. He is widely accused of being the power behind the lucrative captagon trade.
Syrian politician Khiti was placed under sanction in 2023 by the British government, which said he "controls multiple businesses in Syria which facilitate the production and smuggling of drugs."
In a cavernous garage beneath the warehouse and loading bays, thousands of dusty beige captagon pills were packed into the copper coils of brand new household voltage stabilizers.
"We found a large number of devices that were stuffed with packages of captagon pills meant to be smuggled out of the country. It’s a huge quantity. It’s impossible to tell," Shami said.
Above, in the warehouse, crates of cardboard boxes stood ready to allow the traffickers to disguise their cargo as pallet-loads of standard goods, alongside sacks and sacks of caustic soda.
Caustic soda, or sodium hydroxide, is a key ingredient in the production of methamphetamine, another stimulant.
Assad fell at the weekend to a lightning HTS offensive, but the revenue from selling captagon propped up Assad’s government throughout Syria’s 13 years of civil war.
Captagon turned Syria into the world’s largest narco state. It became by far Syria’s biggest export, dwarfing all its legal exports put together, according to estimates drawn from official data by AFP during a 2022 investigation.
Experts — like the author of a July report from the Carnegie Middle East Center — also believe that Assad used the threat of drug-fueled unrest to put pressure on Arab governments.
Captagon fuelled an epidemic of drug abuse in wealthy Gulf states, even as Assad sought ways to end his diplomatic isolation among his peers, wrote Carnegie scholar Hesham Alghannam.
’HUGE AMOUNT, BROTHER’
Assad, he wrote, "leveraged captagon trafficking as a means of exerting pressure on the Gulf states, notably 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... , to reintegrate Syria into the Arab world," which it did in 2023 when it rejoined the Arab League ...an organization of Arabic-speaking states with 22 member countries and four observers. The League tries to achieve Arab consensus on issues, which usually leaves them doing nothing but a bit of grimacing and mustache cursing... bloc.
The caustic soda at the warehouse, in the Damascus suburbs, was supplied from Saudi Arabia, according to labelling on the sacks.
The warehouse haul was massive, but smaller and still impressive stashes of captagon have also turned up in military facilities associated with units under Maher Assad’s command.
Journalists from AFP this week found a bonfire of captagon pills on the grounds of the Mazzeh air base, now in the hands of HTS fighters who descended on the capital Damascus from the north.
Behind the smoldering heap, in a ransacked air force building, more captagon lay alongside other illicit exports, including off-brand Viagra impotence remedies and poorly-forged $100 bills.
"As we entered the area we found a huge quantity of captagon. So we destroyed it and burned it. It’s a huge amount, brother," said an HTS fighter using the nom de guerre "Khattab."
"We destroyed and burned it because it’s harmful to people. It harms nature and people and humans."
Khattab also stressed that HTS, which has formed a transitional government to replace the collapsed administration, does not want to harm its neighbors by exporting the drug — a trade worth billions of dollars.
[PJMedia] One thing you can say about Jack Molloy: he loves his mom. Molloy, a Pittsburgh resident who is now facing up to eight years in prison on terror-related charges, told his mother about his "master plan," and now that plan is part of the reason why he has come to the attention of the feds. Mama Molloy wrote to her boy: "Your master plan was to join Hezbollah and kill Jews?" The earnest young man answered: "Yes." It is not an extraneous detail that Jack Danaher Molloy converted to Islam in Feb. 2024.
It's easy to see what attracted Molloy to The Religion of Peace. JNS reported Tuesday that the mama’s boy, "who is a former active duty member of the U.S. military and who converted to Islam in or around February 2024, used an email address on his PayPal that included the phrase ’glassofjuice88.’" The Justice Department explained that "’glassofjuice’ is a homophone for ’gas the Jews,’ and the number ’88’ is a reference to a white supremacist numerical code for ’Heil Hitler ...late Fuehrer of Germany, founder of the Third Reich, currently communing with his pals Himmler and Heydrich. He is reincarnated every few days, sometimes every few hour if it's an election year, as a politician somebody doesn't like... .’ ’H’ is the eighth letter of the alphabet, so 88 = ’HH’ = ’Heil Hitler.’"
Hating Jews and killing them seemed to be central to Molloy’s worldview. "I have a very fierce hatred of these Zionists," he said, "and I need to fight." Killing Jews was a longstanding obsession of his: "I have thought about this every moment of every day since I was 18, for 7 years now."
Molloy also "supported and idolized violence and wanted to kill Jews, as evidenced by multiple images and videos on his electronic devices and the names he chose as his monikers for his social media and email accounts." Those accounts "included variations of the phrase ’k*ke killer’ and ’gas the Jews.’"
After he converted to Islam, Molloy gave the impression that his Jew hatred was all in the family. "I grew up in a military family, so my mind is always obsessed with military," he explained, adding that "to me, I am continuing the fight my great grandmother fought against the Zionists, but now Islamically."
His great-grandmother fought against the Zionists? Molloy, a dual citizen of Ireland and the United States, is 24 years old. Was his great-grandmother among the small number of Irish citizens who fought alongside the National Socialist Germans during World War II?
In any case, in his attempt to follow in her footsteps "Islamically," Molloy made his way to Leb ...an Iranian satrapy until recently 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... and August and then to Syria in October. On both occasions, he was trying to join Hezbollah, but the trips didn’t work out as he had hoped. The DoJ’s complaint says that the earnest new convert "was told by multiple individuals that the time was not right and that he needed to take other steps before he could join the foreign terrorist organization."
Molloy himself explained on Snapchat that he had attended a Hezbollah funeral in Lebanon in September and said that "the gate guards even though they were different ones from last week, knew of me, they knew that I’m Irish, that I’m Shia, and somehow they knew that I want in with Hezbollah. They were entertaining the idea of me being Hezb. I fully expect to be taken off the streets at any moment for questioning and vetting.’"
Yet "an unnamed person" responded to Molloy: "You’re going to have to wait, because I think it’s going to take more than a couple of months, and things are not very safe. There are a lot of divisions you can apply for, but right now they are not recruiting, they’re not accepting anyone and due to the high number of Mossad agents, and moles, appearing inside sadly, so it’s gonna take a while. For sure, you can, but it’s gonna take a while especially after the circumstances are over."
Molloy also told his mom about what he planned to do, and she doesn’t seem to have offered any objection to his desire to kill Jews. She did take issue with a new plan he hatched to go to Russia and fight against Ukraine, saying it would simply be "a one-year job." This idea, his doting mother said, demonstrated "unstable thinking." The young man told her, however, that the die was cast: "I’ve already spoken to recruitment."
Molloy didn’t make it to Russia. Nor did he join Hezbollah. In late October, according to the complaint, Molloy told feds at Pittsburgh International Airport that "he had no current or future plans to become involved with Hezbollah" and wasn’t planning to meet anyone in Syria. The DoJ explained: "These statements and representations were false because Molloy knew at that time that he did have current and future plans to become involved with Hezbollah." He had "traveled to Syria in furtherance of his attempts to join Hezbollah, and while in Syria, set up a meeting with an individual there." And so now he is looking at eight years of hard time.
[SAGO Global] "You first have to evaluate the situation, then make a plan, apply some resources to that plan and then you need to stay flexible enough to execute the plan if the situation changes.", Will says, and adds that this mindset and confidence is something he is keen on passing on to his own children:
"It would be a success story if I could teach them that they can do anything that they put their mind to."
Will served in the military for 21 years, of which three years in the Irish Special Operations, the Army Ranger Wings, where he was a sniper. Will sees that his experiences in the military gave him lots of skills that translate to hunting:
"It gave me confidence in the mountains with navigation, how to sustain yourself over long periods of time, how to plan and prepare for a mission and understanding what are low and high probability situations.", Will tells and continues:
"I’ve learnt that even though things go wrong you just need to apply yourself and keep going. It’ll all work out in the end. And if it doesn’t, it's not the end. Just keep going, keep trying, stay flexible, don't be afraid to ask for help and don’t be shy of giving help to others."
Democrats taking a issue that’s already been resolved and suing about it anyway to damage the target.
[Breitbart] Attorneys General Matt Platkin (D-NJ) and Keith Ellison (D-MN) are joined by 12 other state attorneys general in suing Glock, one of the most popular handgun makers in the world.
The 14 state attorneys general are also joined by the District of Columbia, according to WNYT.
The suit is over the criminal use of switches that convert semiautomatic Glock handguns into fully automatic firearms. Glock does not make the switches, and their use in the U.S. is already illegal, but the attorneys general claim Glock needs to change the way their guns are made so that the switches will not work.
Platkin commented, “For decades, Glock has knowingly sold weapons that anyone with a screwdriver and a YouTube video can convert into a military-grade machine gun in a matter of minutes.”
On March 19, 2024, Breitbart News reported that the city of Chicago was suing Glock, claiming the gunmaker was liable for the ease with which a “Glock switch” can be used to convert the semiautomatic handguns into full-auto.
Ironically, Chicago partnered with Mike Bloomberg-affiliated Everytown for Gun Safety in filing its suit. The 14 state attorneys general are working with Everytown as well.
In our March report, Breitbart News noted that while Chicago and Everytown pointed to China as one of the sources for “auto sears” uses in the switches, they do not explain the degree to which China is allegedly committed to saturating the United States with such switches.
The National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) suggests the 14 state attorneys general have banded together in hopes of circumventing the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA).
NSSF senior vice president and general counsel Larry Keane said, “Attorneys General Platkin and Ellison, along with the other colluding states, are attempting to extend the frivolous claims that have no foundation in law and abuse taxpayer dollars to advance an unconstitutional gun control agenda.
He added, “These claims are a devious manipulation of the courts by attempting to force a gun control agenda through judicial fiat and are contrary to the will of lawmakers and are expressly prohibited by federal law. This is the very definition of ‘lawfare’ and should be rejected by the courts.”
[Breitbart] A high school dean in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, is accused of running a drug trafficking organization, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) announced.
Lavante Wiggins, 30, who is the dean of students at Pittsfield High School, was arrested on Wednesday along with 42-year-old Theodore Warren. The pair are accused of allegedly “conspiring to traffic large quantities of cocaine in Western Massachusetts,” according to the FBI.
Wiggins is accused of operating a drug trafficking organization that distributed large amounts of cocaine in and around the Pittsfield area, charging documents allege. Officials said Warren is allegedly a “trusted member” of that organization and serves as a runner for Wiggins.
In August 2024, Wiggins allegedly sensed he was under investigation and sent Warren to complete drug sales and deliver cocaine, the charging documents state.
During the investigation, it was found that one of Wiggins’ customers amassed more than $34,000 in debt for cocaine that Wiggins had allegedly provided on credit.
“It is further alleged that Wiggins and Warren then went about collecting on that debt while continuing to supply large amounts of cocaine to that customer,” according to the FBI.
Specifically, Wigging allegedly told Warren to give cocaine to that specific customer on four separate occasions between September and December of this year:
91 grams of cocaine on Sept. 10, 2024
approximately 100 grams of cocaine on Oct. 14, 2024
25 grams of cocaine on Oct. 31, 2024
150 grams of cocaine on Dec. 10, 2024
The men are facing charges for conspiracy to distribute and possession with intent to distribute cocaine. They were released soon after their arrest on conditions following an initial appearance in federal court Wednesday afternoon, according to the agency.
The charges carry a sentence of up to 20 years in prison and up to a lifetime of supervised release, as well as a fine of up to $1 million.
Superintendent Joseph Curtis released a statement on Wednesday afternoon saying Wiggins was “immediately” placed on administrative leave” after the district found out about his arrest, The Berkshire Eagle reported.
“Please know that we remain committed to maintaining a safe and supportive environment for our students and staff,” he said.
Wiggins had reportedly served as the dean of students at Pittsfield high school since 2021, according to the report.
If convicted, Wiggins and Warren face up to 20 years in prison, up to a lifetime of supervised release, and a fine of up to $1 million.
Wiggins, 30, is a graduate of Pittsfield’s now defunct private catholic school St. Joseph Central High School. While at the school, he was a captain of the Crusaders football team. In a student profile published by iBerkshires.com, Wiggins said his favorite movie was “Friday Night Lights,” his favorite NFL player Peyton Manning, and that his dream job was to be a model. After studying Sport Science at Endicott College in Beverly, Massachusetts, Wiggins was hired as Dean of Students at Pittsfield High in 2021.
According to state data, PHS has a student enrollment of 724. Over 65% of the student body is designated as high need, and almost 59% as low-income. According to 2024 Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System test results, the school lags behind state averages for mathematics and science.
Mr. Wiggins & Friend could have been engaged in an unusual fundraiser for a school where the need was so great…
#2
I would think that their plan would have had to be to ship it into Boston. Pittsfield is a small town. The Rangers used to have a single A baseball team there.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
12/14/2024 11:15
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[SteynOnline] ~Almost every story in the news boils down to the same story: Man is on the endangered species list.
A week ago, I wrote about the so-called "Montreal Massacre" - which happened on the scale it did because the "men" walked away and abandoned their female classmates to their fate. You can't discuss that - not honestly - in the Canadian press, but, over at American Thinker, Eric Utter commented:
Real men, marinating in their 'toxic masculinity,' will stand up for women and say "enough!" as regards 'trans women' in women's bathrooms and locker rooms. And real men, of the toxically masculine variety, would not ignore the gang rapes of innocent young girls that are being committed by 'immigrants.'
No sooner had he written it than a New York jury acquitted of murder 26-year-old Daniel Penny - referred to by the prosecutor throughout the trial as "the white guy". The non-white guy - one Jordan Neely - had entered the subway car and announced to its passengers that "I'm gonna kill everybody".
So Mr Penny acted, and prevented that. It is not for the distant authorities to second-guess his actions. The writ of the state does not run on New York public transit. Just this weekend some guy was shoved onto the southbound tracks at Atlantic Avenue-Barclays Center Station in Brooklyn. The same day a 74-year-old man was shoved onto the tracks at the 149th Street-Grand Concourse station in the Bronx. The perp yelled "I didn't do it!" immediately after doing it. In Queens an 82-year-old woman was shoved onto the tracks...
It is pathetic that in a supposed First World city octogenarian ladies cannot ride public transit without wondering if they're going to wind up under the train, and that "Subway Shoves" is now a news category at The New York Post. But the reality is that you're on your own down there, and you shouldn't have to calculate whether the guy who announces that he's gonna kill everybody is just mouthing off or whether he means it. And, if you're an 82-year-old who was "assigned female at birth", it helps to have a Daniel Penny in the vicinity when what passes for civilisation in the contemporary west suddenly dissolves to nothing.
Mr Penny's acquittal is being hailed as some sort of great victory. But, as someone who's been through the New York courts, I wonder. Yes, he's survived and he may even have grounds for "malicious prosecution" - although, like finding any real justice, that's a toughie in New York. But it may well be that the net effect of what happened to the accused is that next time the situation arises there will be those who figure discretion is the better part of valour and maybe they'll sit this one out.
I note also that it is Daniel Penny's fellow 26-year-old who is a hero all over the Internet for assassinating a health-insurance CEO on the Sixth Avenue sidewalk. We are approaching the condition of those excitable Mohammedans: as we used to joke in the early years of the (lost) "war on terror" (and probably can't reprise in today's media), a "moderate Muslim" doesn't want to chop your head off, he just wants to watch and cheer the guy who does. In a society that has de-humanised half the population and incentivised violence against them, you're expected to act as that prosecutor asserted Mr Penny should have done: these guys are just blowing off steam.
For the most part. The CEO slayer is some valedictorian trustiefundie from a prominent family; c'mon, he's not gonna act upon his rhetoric, is he? Brian Thompson, whose impeccably progressive United Health Care covers both penectomies and phalloplasties (which may be why they've no money left for your cancer), will not be the last to discover too late that it's harder than you think to insulate yourself from the pathologies of the age.
To take the two examples of "toxic masculinity" Eric Utter cites above:
It is the official policy of almost all the key institutions throughout the United States and His Majesty's dominions that so pathetically mimic it that, as a practical and increasingly legal matter, there is no such thing as biological sex - that a "man" and "woman" are mere social constructs, and "gender" is just something that is "assigned at birth", and can be just as randomly un-assigned. This will not end well.
Indeed - unlike disputing, say, the divinity of Jesus - it is increasingly difficult to voice any dissent from this official narrative. In May this year, my old friends at The Spectator published a piece by Gareth Roberts on an appearance by Nicola Sturgeon at some literary festival. The former First Minister of Scotland was, in Mr Roberts' words, "interviewed by writer Juno Dawson, a man who claims to be a woman, and so the conversation naturally turned to gender". IPSO, the UK press regulator, ruled that the words were not "inaccurate" but that nevertheless they should not have been published, and required The Spectator to print their decision. You can't say Juno Dawson "claims to be a woman"; she is a woman - as much a woman, as 100 per cent all-woman as, oh, Jane Russell or Gina Lollobrigida.
[NavalNews] Press Release by Israel’s Ministry of Defense
After more than 20 years, the Israeli Ministry of Defense and the IDF are resuming the production of combat ships in Israel.
The Ministry of Defense will purchase five advanced Sa’ar ships of the “Reshef” model from Israel Shipyards at a cost of 2.8 billion NIS (about $780 million). This is one of the largest “Blue and White” procurement deals signed in recent years, as part of the Ministry of Defense’s policy to enhance production independence. The deal was approved by the Ministerial Procurement Committee and the Joint Committee of Defense Budget in the Knesset.
The Reshef will be the Navy’s newest and most advanced Sa’ar vessel. It is a multi-mission ship developed in collaboration with the Navy, incorporating the finest advanced weapons systems of the Israeli defense industry. These ships feature cutting-edge technologies that will provide exceptional capabilities and naval superiority for the IDF. The Reshef vessels will replace the aging “Nirit” (Sa’ar 4.5) ships, which have been in service for four decades.
Under the agreement with the Ministry of Defense, Israel Shipyards will manufacture and deliver five Reshef ships to the Navy over approximately six years, with an option to produce additional ships in the future. The local production of these ships will bolster national security and ensure consistent support for the IDF amid evolving challenges.
Somebody over there doesn’t trust their suppliers continue being a trustworthy source of supply.
Lee Stranahan, from X post today:
I Take This Personally
In a democracy, the press should never have to fear becoming the target of government overreach. Yet, I've found myself at the center of one of the most unsettling revelations about how the federal government operates (SNIP)
At the end of 2018, as Democrats prepared to take control of the House, the Intelligence Committee released a report critiquing how Republicans handled the Russia investigation. When someone pointed out that my name appeared in the report, I was blindsided. It alleged I had ignored a request from the committee in May 2017 and suggested issuing a subpoena against me. The problem? I never saw the request.
What I initially dismissed as an administrative hiccup became a sobering reality. After digging through my spam folder, I discovered the email from Congress buried there. This was not a story of missed communication but a small glimpse into a much larger problem: the ease with which even reporter - those tasked with holding the government accountable - can become ensnared in bureaucratic strong-arming.
When I reached out to the committee to clear things up, I was lucky. Kash Patel, a senior staffer at the time, approached the situation with professionalism. Once I explained the misunderstanding, he assured me there was no need for a subpoena. But this was a brush with the kind of overreach that can destroy reputations and careers. And as the New York Post recently revealed, Kash Patel himself was a target of far worse. Let's hope he gets in where Trump has nominated -- DON'T LOOK AT fake UFOs. DEFEND AND PUSH IN TRUMP's TEAM
For five years, the FBI spied on Patel. A lawyer for the House Intelligence Committee, Patel had been leading an investigation into abuses of power within the FBI's Trump-Russia probe. But instead of respecting the boundaries of his role, the FBI went after him with secret subpoenas, even misleading judges about his actions. His communications with whistleblowers and witnesses were monitored - an unprecedented intrusion into the work of a congressional investigator.
Patel's ordeal is horrifying. It should send chills down the spine of anyone who believes in checks and balances, and for me, it resonates on a personal level. If a congressional lawyer tasked with investigating FBI misconduct can be targeted, what chance does an independent reporter like me have?
The Inspector General's report reveals just how broken the system is, exposing a pattern of deception and abuse that extends far beyond Patel's case. As I argue in my book, these tactics are not new. The FBI's domestic overreach today mirrors the kind of morally dubious strategies the CIA once employed during the Cold War - short-term gains at the expense of long-term trust.
So yes, I take this personally. Being called before Congress to reveal my documents was a wake-up call. It was a stark reminder that the work I do - asking questions, uncovering truths, holding power to account - makes me vulnerable. And the fact that people like Kash Patel, who fight from within the system, are being targeted with such ferocity should alarm us all.
Patel vows to reform the FBI, to root out the systemic abuses that corrode public trust. His resolve gives me hope, but it also underscores the stakes. This is a fight for accountability and transparency, for the survival of our democracy. And it's a fight I take very, very personally.
#1
The FBI's domestic overreach today mirrors the kind of morally dubious strategies the CIA once employed during the Cold War - short-term gains at the expense of long-term trust.
That is because it is foking identical.
Exective Order (EO) 12333 prohibits the Agency from collecting on US Persons (other than incidental collection). The FBI operates under no such prohibition and of course they share. 'Five Eyes' sharing is yet another example.
The terms "sharing" and "tasking" can sometimes be difficult to sort out.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
12/14/2024 10:39
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#4
Of course the FBI spyed on the likely incoming FBI chief. They spy on all of them.
If you don't think they spy on each other, you don't know how the secret police operates.
Posted by: ed in texas ||
12/14/2024 14:03
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[LegalInsurrection] Video: Druze Demand to be Annexed by Israel as Jihadi Groups Consolidate Power in Syria. Druze leader: We want “to live with freedom and dignity like our people are living” in Israel.
As the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) moves to secure a buffer zone on the Syrian border, the local Druze community in the area is demanding to be annexed by Israel.
In a video posted on X, a Druze leader is seen addressing a community gathering, urging Israel to exert its sovereignty over the territory.
“We asked to be annexed to the Golan to preserve our dignity,” the Druze speaker said. He feared that resurgent Islamist fighters “might take our women, might take our daughters, they might take our houses.”
Residents of the Druze village of Hatcher in Syria demand annexation to Israel
The Druze residents declared during the well-attended gathering that they prefer to be part of the State of Israel out of fear of what could happen to the village following the rise of Sunni rebels to… pic.twitter.com/lQIJhemHRt
“We ask in the name of all the surrounding area to join our people in the Golan, and to live with freedom and dignity like our people are living (in Israel),” he urged.
The video highlights that the Druze, who follow an Abrahamic religion separate from Islam, would prefer to live under Israeli law instead of under the rule of jihadi groups vying for power in Syria after the collapse of Bashar al-Assad’s regime.
The Times of Israel reported Friday:
An unverified video circulating on social media purports to show a member of the Druze community in the southern Syrian village of Hader calling for the community to be annexed to the Israeli side of the Golan Heights.
Although the speech is in Arabic, a version of the video was posted on X with English captions.
Speaking to a large crowd, the man tells them to consider what they want their future to look like following the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime earlier this week.
“If we have to choose, we will choose the lesser evil,” he says. “And even if it’s considered evil to ask to be annexed to the [Israeli] Golan, it’s a much lesser evil than the evil coming our way.”
He appears to be referring to Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, the largest of Syria’s rebel groups, which has its roots in al-Qaeda (…).
“That evil might take our women, might take our daughters, they might take our houses,” he says, according to the captions.
“Bashar al-Assad left,” he continues. “What do we have left? Nothing.”
“We asked to be annexed to the Golan to preserve our dignity,” he says, adding that he speaks for the Druze community across the surrounding area of the Quneitra Governorate.
“We ask in the name of all the surrounding area to join our people in the Golan, and to live with freedom and dignity like our people are living [in Israel].
He calls for the Syrian Druze to be freed from the “injustice and oppression” that was first imposed on them by the Assad regime, and which they fear will soon be imposed on them again by the Islamist rebel groups.
The Druze population, largely Arabic-speaking, is concentrated around the Golan Heights region — divided between Syria and Israel. Israel is home to around 140,000 Druze, many of them living in the Golan region.
Members of this small minority, which make up less than two percent of the Israeli population, have distinguished themselves in the Jewish State’s military, social, and cultural life.
🚨🛑**A leader of a Druze town called Sweda in southern Syria states that "the rebels" and their leader are the same as Osma Bin Laden and are ISIS. 👉His town refuses to accept their rule and requests of Benyamin Netanyahu that his town and his people become a part of Israel.… pic.twitter.com/uuXjXdblIX
Nine months after an Army four-star general was reported to have repeatedly interfered with a command selection board to favor his apparent mistress, Army Secretary Christine Wormuth has forced General Charles Hamilton into retirement.
Army Secretary Christine Wormuth -- in a dramatic and rare move -- on Tuesday fired one of the service's top generals following an Army inspector general investigation that concluded he improperly intervened in the process for selecting senior commanders.
Gen. Charles Hamilton, who had been the head of Army Materiel Command, was removed after what officials described as a flagrant abuse of authority aimed at securing a leadership role for a subordinate officer who was found unfit for command and had an inappropriate relationship with the general, according to the IG report.
The move marks the first time in nearly 20 years an Army four-star general has been outright fired and comes after a Military.com investigation in March detailed how he attempted to intervene on behalf of the subordinate officer. The publication's report earlier this year immediately triggered both his suspension from the command leadership position and the inspector general probe.
They call it "dramatic," I call it pathetically inadequate and long overdue.
I've covered this story previously; see Four-Star General Suspended and Under IG Investigation for Tampering With Command Selection Board and Go Big or Go Home: Army General Blasts 'Racist' Promotion System as Reason He Meddled to Help a Favorite.
All the details at the link
But now we have more information.
General Randy George, the Army Chief of Staff, knew what Hamilton was doing and abetted it. George was Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin's senior military assistant before his meteoric rise to the Army's chief of staff.
The officer Hamilton pushed onto the command list was in the bottom 1% of the 811 officers considered for battalion command.
This officer's second shot at command selection was the first time anyone had been given a second shot.
General George inserted this officer on the command list despite her having been twice declared unqualified.
Hamilton was banging the officer he was trying to get promoted.
WHY IS GENERAL GEORGE STILL EMPLOYED?
While I find Hamilton's actions reprehensible and profoundly stupid, I understand them. Burning down a career and trashing a marriage wouldn't even make it into the top tier of stupid stuff men have done in pursuit of sex. He was blatant, he got caught, and he paid a yet undetermined price.
On the other hand, General George sacrificed his integrity; he forced weaker men to sacrifice theirs, and he damaged the entire Army by meddling in the command selection process and calling into question the fairness of future selection boards. And to what end? Did he owe Hamilton a favor? I think that unlikely with two men of such disparate careers. Did he really think the selection process was racist? If so, why intervene on behalf of a single woman officer when there were undoubtedly other black women not selected? Why not order the system changed rather than convening a clean-team to tidy up her sudden insertion on the command list? Or did he simply obey the Army's DEI regime in the best tradition of Mark "White Rage" Milley and strike a blow against racism and the patriarchy?
It doesn't really matter. When the man at the top of the Army is so utterly corrupt, the system has to act. It can either toss him out in a very public way, “pour encourager les autres," as Voltaire would have said, or it can embrace the corruption. Right now, it looks like corruption is winning.
Posted by: NoMoreBS ||
12/14/2024
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#2
...I'm wondering if this would have happened had the election turned out differently. Too many people involved in this would have still been there on January 20th, and I think this is them saying, "Seem we threw the guy out the window - we cool?"
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.
..a contraction of the Arabic words for "frothing at the mouth",...
..a regional Iranian catspaw,...
...an Iranian satrapy until recently 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 until recently 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 until recently 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...
... not to be confused with Procol Harum, Harum Scarum, possibly to be confused with Helter Skelter. The Nigerian version of al-Qaeda and the Taliban rolled together and flavored with a smigeon of distinctly Subsaharan ignorance and brutality...
[LettersFromAustralia] Friday marked the biggest victory yet for
This case sets a precedent to allow doctors the freedom to speak their mind free from political persecution by regulatory agencies.
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...
Former Oakland mayor Willie Brown's' former mistress
...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...
...late Fuehrer of Germany, founder of the Third Reich, currently communing with his pals Himmler and Heydrich. He is reincarnated every few days, sometimes every few hour if it's an election year, as a politician somebody doesn't like...
