[IsraelTimes] Over 100 BBC employees have reportedly sent a letter to the British outlet’s director general accusing the corporation of favoring Israel in its coverage of the ongoing war in Gaza.
The letter to BBC director general Tim Davie, published in full by UK news site The Independent yesterday, charges that the broadcaster’s “journalistic tenets have been lacking when it comes to holding Israel to account for its actions.”
The BBC has also repeatedly been accused of bias against Israel since Hamas’s October 7, 2023 massacre that sparked the war in Gaza.
Some 230 media figures who signed the letter call on the BBC, along with British channels ITV and Sky News, to reiterate to their readers that Israel doesn’t give foreign media access to Gaza, to bring skepticism to Israeli claims, and to provide “proportionate representation of experts in war crimes and crimes against humanity.”
Israel blocked civilian access to Gaza on October 7 as the region was plunged into war by Hamas’s brutal attack. Since then only journalists already in the enclave, largely local Palestinian freelancers, or those escorted by the military under tightly controlled conditions have managed to report from inside the enclave.
The letter also calls on the outlets to “robustly challenge” Israeli government and military officials in interviews.
The Independent publishes a response from the BBC denying that it favors Israel in its coverage, insisting, “When we make mistakes or have made changes to the way we report, we are transparent. We are also very clear with our audiences on the limitations put on our reporting – including the lack of access into Gaza and restricted access to parts of Lebanon, and our continued efforts to get reporters into those areas.”
A British report released in September found that the BBC displayed a “deeply worrying pattern of bias” against Israel and had breached its own editorial guidelines more than 1,500 times in its reporting at the height of the Israel-Hamas war.
[IsraelTimes] Some 500 people gather on Tel Aviv’s Hostages Square for Hostage Families Forum’s weekly rally demanding a deal to release the remaining captives all at once.
On Begin Road, a block away, a similar-sized protest also calls for a hostage deal and accuses Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of thwarting negotiations.
Bolstering the Begin Road rally are organizations opposed to the government’s judicial overhaul, including Darkenu, the Movement for Quality Government, and the reservist protest group Brothers in Arms, as well as a column of left-wing activists who marched over from an earlier anti-war protest on Habima Square.
[IsraelTimes] Anti-woke politician becomes first Black woman to head a major UK political party, vows to work to bring Tories back to power in wake of July’s election defeat
Britannia’s Conservative Party on Saturday elected Kemi Badenoch as its new leader as it tries to rebound from a crushing election defeat that ended 14 years in power.
Badenoch (pronounced BADE-enock) defeated rival politicianRobert Jenrick in a vote of almost 100,000 members of the right-of-center party. She is the first Black woman to lead a major British political party.
Badenoch replaces former UK prime minister Rishi Sunak, who in July led the Conservatives to their worst election result since 1832. The Conservatives lost more than 200 seats, taking their tally down to 121.
He promised to significantly cut illegal immigration, then let it increase… and continued all the woke stuff of previous governments.
The new leader’s daunting task is to try to restore the party’s reputation after years of division, scandal and economic tumult, hammer Labour Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s policies on key issues including the economy and immigration, and return the Conservatives to power at the next election, due by 2029.
"The task that stands before us is tough but simple," Badenoch said in a victory speech to a roomful of Conservative politicians, staff and journalists in London.
"Our first responsibility as His Majesty’s loyal opposition is to hold this Labour government to account. Our second is no less important. It is to prepare over the course of the next few years for government, to ensure that by the time of the next election, we have not just a clear set of Conservative pledges that appeal to the British people, but a clear plan for how to implement them, a clear plan to change this country by changing the way that government works."
A business secretary in the previous Conservative government, Badenoch was born in London to Nigerian parents and spent much of her childhood in the West African country.
The 44-year-old former software engineer depicts herself as a disruptor, arguing for a low-tax, free-market economy and pledging to "rewire, reboot and reprogram" the British state.
ISRAEL’S ’MORAL CLARITY’
Badenoch is regarded as a firm supporter of Israel.
After Israel killed Hezbollah leader His Eminence Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah ...The late, lamented satrap of the Medes and the Persians in Leb...> in September, Badenoch told Sky News that the strike was "extraordinary."
"Israel is showing moral clarity in dealing with its enemies and the enemies of the West as well," she said.
Regarding the Hamas ..not a terrorist organization, even though it kidnaps people, holds hostages, and tries to negotiate by executing them,... massacre of October 7, 2023, that killed 1,200 people and took 251 hostages, Badenoch said that "we can see that they cannot be complacent and they have to do what they need to do to defend themselves, and quite frankly to survive."
As the UK’s International Trade Secretary in December, Badenoch resisted massive pressure to suspend or revoke arms export licenses to Israel amid its offensive against Hamas.
Ahead of the election, she wrote a letter to the Conservative Friends of Israel organization, saying: "If I am leader of the Conservative Party, we will continue to strengthen our ties with Israel and root out the tragic resurgence of antisemitism in the UK. We will be true to our values."
She added, "We stand on the edge" of Labour "reversing" the UK’s strong relationship with Israel built by the previous Conservative government, according to the UK Jewish News.
A critic of multiculturalism and self-proclaimed enemy of wokeness, Badenoch has drawn criticism for saying recently that "not all cultures are equally valid," and for suggesting that maternity pay was excessive.
In a race that has lasted more than three months, Conservative politicians reduced the field from six candidates in a series of votes before putting the final two to the wider party membership.
Jenrick, who is married to an Israeli-born lawyer and is raising his three daughters as Jewish, is considered even more vocally pro-Israel than Badenoch.
Both finalists came from the right of the party, and argued they can win voters back from Reform UK, the hard-right, anti-immigrant party led by populist politician Nigel Farage that has eaten away at Conservative support.
But the party also lost many voters to the winning party, Labour, and to the centrist Liberal Democrats ...every time you hear the phrase white people, white supremacy,white anything but paint, you're listening to a Democrat. Ask him/her/it to reimagine something for you; they do that a lot, though not well. They can hear a dog whistle a mile or two away. They invented the spoils system and Tammany Hall, and inspired the addition of the word (Thomas) Nasty to the English language. They want to stop continental drift and repeal the law of unintended side effects... , and some Conservatives worry that tacking right will lead the party away from public opinion.
[IsraelTimes] Sources say talks are focused on putting together a committee of non-aligned Palestinian figures to comply with Israel’s demand that neither group run the Strip after the war
Senior officials of the rival Palestinian groups Fatah and Hamas have been meeting in Cairo to discuss forming a committee to manage Gaza’s postwar governance, an Egyptian security source was quoted as saying by Egypt’s Al Qahera News TV on Saturday.
The talks are part of Egypt’s broader mediation efforts to broker a ceasefire between Israel and terror group Hamas and to expand humanitarian access to the enclave.
Leaders from Hamas and the Fatah faction of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas met in Cairo last month to discuss forming the committee based on a proposal put forward by Egypt, but talks were adjourned for later discussion, sources close to the talks told Reuters.
The sources said the committee would be made up of independent Palestinian figures not aligned with a particular movement, addressing the question of who would run Gaza after the ongoing war is over.
Israel rejects any role by Hamas in Gaza after the war is ended and has said it does not trust the rival Palestinian Authority of Abbas to run the enclave.
Mediators, including Egypt and Qatar with backing from the United States, have so far failed to secure a truce that would end the war and facilitate a release of Israeli and foreign hostages held by Hamas, in exchange for Palestinian security prisoners held by Israel for crimes that include terror offenses.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has stated that the war will continue until Hamas is dismantled. The terror group has demanded an end to the war and has rejected any hostage deal that doesn’t include an upfront commitment from Israel to end hostilities and withdraw its forces from the Strip, which Jerusalem says would leave Hamas free to plan a repeat of its October 7, 2023, onslaught that killed some 1,200 and resulted in the kidnapping of 251 hostages.
Hamas political official Izzat al-Risheq dismissed proposals of limited or temporary truces as “smokescreens.”
“We are positively open to any proposals or ideas that ensure the cessation of aggression and the withdrawal of occupation forces from Gaza,” al-Risheq said in a statement.
According to the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry, 43,314 Palestinians have been killed and 102,019 injured in the fighting so far, though the toll cannot be verified and does not differentiate between civilians and fighters. Israel says it has killed some 18,000 combatants in battle and another 1,000 terrorists inside Israel on October 7.
[IsraelTimes] Police arrest man in UK capital for sign they say ‘supported terror’; in Manchester, activists nab effigy of Israel’s first president on anniversary of Balfour Declaration
Tens of thousands of anti-Israel protesters marched through the streets of London towards the US embassy Saturday to call on Washington to stop arming Jerusalem amid its war on Iran-backed terror groups Hamas ..not a terrorist organization, even though it kidnaps people, holds hostages, and tries to negotiate by executing them,... and Hezbollah.
Protesters waved Paleostinian and Lebanese flags and signs reading, "Free Paleostine" and "End Israeli apartheid."
London police said a man was arrested at the protest after he was observed carrying a placard suspected of expressing support for a terror organization.
According to posts on social media, the sign read, "Resistance® is not terrorism."
Far-left politician Jeremy Corbyn addressed the protest, which was organized by the Paleostine Solidarity Campaign.
A small pro-Israel counter-protest gathered near the march, with protesters waving British and Israeli flags and holding signs calling for the release of hostages held 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... Earlier on Saturday, a British anti-Israel group claimed to have stolen a bust of Chaim Weizmann, Israel’s first president, from the University of Manchester in northern England.
The group, Paleostine Action, said their activists went to "abduct" the sculpture of the late Israeli leader because he "secured" the Balfour Declaration, "which began the ethnic cleansing of Paleostine by signing the land away."
Greater Manchester Police said the burglary was reported shortly before midnight Friday night, according to British media reports. Police said they were investigating the incident.
The group said their activists stole the bust to mark the 107th anniversary of the declaration, in which the British Government issued a commitment to "establish in Paleostine a national home for the Jewish people," which was at the time governed by the Ottoman Empire.
The declaration is considered the first of many steps that led to the creation of Israel.
Weizmann, who worked as a biochemistry professor at the University of Manchester, was a leading statesman of the Zionist movement in the early 1900s. He spearheaded the international diplomatic efforts that led to international recognition of the budding Jewish state, and is considered one of Israel’s founding fathers.
[IsraelTimes] Footage shows chopper interception of terror group’s UAV; IDF says Hezbollah left with 30% of drones it had at start of war
Over 130 rockets were fired at northern Israel from 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... throughout Saturday, the military said, with sirens repeatedly sending people rushing to shelters.
Meanwhile,
...back at the pound, the little lost dog had finished eating the rat terrier... 10 drones targeted the country — six from Lebanon, three from Iraq and one whose origin was unclear. Seven drones were intercepted by the military.
A rocket attack early in the morning in central Israel maimed 11 people after one of three rockets struck a home in Tira. The IDF said it was investigating the failure to intercept the rocket.
An Israel Air Force attack helicopter was filmed intercepting a Hezbollah drone in the Binyamina area, south of Haifa, after the drone set off sirens in area communities. Footage posted to social media showed the moment the drone was shot down.
Attack drones have emerged as one of the most potent threats to Israel’s home front since the beginning of the year. According to fresh data from the Israel Defense Forces, some 1,300 drones have been launched at Israel 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... last year, from all fronts — Lebanon, Gaza, Iraq, Syria, Yemen ...an area of the Arabian Peninsula sometimes mistaken for a country. It is populated by more antagonistic tribes and factions than you can keep track of... , and Iran.
The IDF said that 231 of the drones struck Israel, causing causalities and damage in some cases (including drones that went kaboom! in open areas). Some 80 percent of drones have been intercepted, according to the military.
Despite multiple attacks throughout the day, the IDF Homefront Command said it was easing restrictions in several areas in northern Israel, following a fresh assessment. As part of the changes, the Command adjusted the activity scale in the Lower Galilee and southern Golan Heights from "partial activity" to "full activity," meaning that gatherings of up to 2,000 people are permitted. There are no changes, however, to other areas in the country.
The IDF says it is increasing its efforts against Hezbollah’s aerial force, known as Unit 127, which is responsible for drone attacks on Israel. So far, the commander of the unit has been killed, along with other officers. In all, around 10% of the unit’s members have been killed or maimed, according to the IDF.
Hezbollah’s aerial forces are currently left with some 30% of the hundreds of drones they had before the war, according to IDF assessments.
The military says it has struck 54 sites used by the aerial forces to store drones, 24 sites used to store cruise missiles, eight sites where drones and cruise missiles were assembled, six underground sites, and seven weapon depots.
The IDF estimates that more than 2,000 Hezbollah operatives have been killed during the ongoing ground offensive in southern Lebanon.
Since the start of the conflict with Hezbollah on October 8, a day after Hamas ..a contraction of the Arabic words for "frothing at the mouth",... launched its terror onslaught, nearly 3,000 Hezbollah members have been killed, according to IDF assessments.
Around 100 members of other terror groups, along with hundreds of civilians, have also been reported killed in Lebanon.
Hezbollah has named 516 members who have been killed by Israel amid the fighting, mostly in Lebanon but some also in Syria. These numbers have not been consistently updated since Israel began a new offensive against Hezbollah in September.
[IsraelTimes] Tests of mangled remains produced inconclusive results, but after months without word from military chief, terror group now acknowledges he did not survive, Asharq al-Awsat reports
Finally acknowledging terror leader Muhammad Deif was killed in a July Arclight airstrike ...KABOOM!... 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... , Hamas ..the well-beloved offspring of the Moslem Brotherhood,... has interrogated two people on suspicion that they led Israel to him, Asharq al-Awsat reported Saturday.
Hamas sources cited by the London-based, Saudi-owned newspaper said Hamas’s leadership had taken time to confirm the matter as communication with the shadowy terror chief had been limited prior to the July 13 strike. But it concluded that Deif was dead after not hearing from him for some time.
Parts of a disfigured body found at the site days after the strike had been tested and found to likely belong to Deif, but their state had made it impossible to reach a definitive result, the report said. Due to the disfigurement, Deif’s "family and associates" had remained unconvinced that it was his body, according to Asharq al-Awsat. "I think I found an ear. Our perhaps a lip"
Israel had targeted Deif and Hamas’s Khan Younis Brigade chief Rafa’a Salameh in the airstrike on a Hamas compound that killed dozens in southern Gaza’s Khan Younis. The IDF confirmed Salameh’s death a day later, and Deif’s on August 1. Hamas has so far officially denied the killing of Deif, who led the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, the terror group’s military wing.
Asharq al-Awsat said one of the men arrested over Deif’s killing was one of Deif’s couriers, as was previously reported by Al Arabiya, which said the terror group suspected he had tipped off Israeli security forces. The paper said that the results of the investigation have not been disclosed.
Deif, who was 58, had commanded the Brigades for over two decades, and had long been one of the terror figures most wanted by Israel.
It was Israel’s eighth attempt to eliminate Deif, who was key to Hamas’s transformation from a small terror group into a paramilitary force. Deif managed to evade and survive multiple attempts on his life between 2001 and 2021, though he was maimed in two of them, and his ability to frustrate Israel’s formidable security apparatuses for so long had made him something of a mythical figure for Paleostinians as well as Israelis.
Deif, along with Hamas’s Gaza leader Yahya Sinwar, was an architect of Hamas’s October 7 massacre in southern Israel, when thousands of bully boyz broke through the border and killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians, while taking 251 people hostage to Gaza. He had topped Israel’s most-wanted list since 1995 for his involvement in the planning and execution of a large number of terror attacks, including many bus bombings in the 1990s and early 2000s.
[IsraelTimes] Army says another soldier seriously hurt in incident; troops destroy Hamas underground weapons plant in Gaza City, as IDF denies claims by WHO, Hamas that it hit vaccination center
Two Israeli soldiers were killed during fighting in the northern Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response... Strip on Saturday, the military announced. The slain troops were named as Staff Sgt. Itay Parizat, 20, from Petah Tikva, and Staff Sgt. Yair Hananya, 22, from Mitzpe Netofa. Both served in the Givati Brigade’s Shaked Battalion.
Another soldier was seriously maimed in the same incident, the Israel Defense Forces said.
The military said it was still probing the deadly incident.
Their deaths brought Israel’s toll in the ground offensive against Hamas ..always the voice of sweet reason... in Gaza and in military operations along the border with the Strip to 370.
Meanwhile,
...back at the hanging, Butch continued with his last words, trying not to repeat himself too often...... the IDF announced Saturday that, according to the latest assessments, Israeli troops have killed some 900 terror operatives during an ongoing operation in northern Gaza’s Jabalia, which began last month.
Another 700 Paleostinians have been detained, among which at least 300 have so far been confirmed to be members of terror groups, according to the IDF.
In Gaza City, the IDF located and demolished a large underground weapons manufacturing plant operated by Hamas. The IDF said that by demolishing the tunnel and seizing the equipment, it "foiled another attempt by the Hamas terror organization to rearm."
Throughout the war, Israel has said it seeks to minimize civilian fatalities and stressed that Hamas uses Gaza’s civilians as human shields, fighting from civilian areas including homes, hospitals, schools and mosques.
Also on Saturday, the IDF denied claims made by the World Health Organization and Hamas that it had carried out a strike against a vaccination center in Gaza City earlier in the day, wounding six.
"We have received an extremely concerning report that the Sheikh Radwan primary health care center in northern Gaza was struck today while parents were bringing their children to the life-saving polio ...Poliomyelitis is a disease caused by infection with the poliovirus. Between 1840 and the 1950s, polio was a worldwide epidemic. Since the development of polio vaccines the disease has been largely wiped out in the civilized world. However, since the vaccine is known to make Moslem pee-pees shrink and renders females sterile, bookish, and unsubmissive it is not widely used by the turban and automatic weapons set. Currently the disease is only found in Pakistain and Afghanistain... vaccination in an area where a humanitarian pause was agreed to allow vaccination to proceed," WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a post on X.
"Six people, including four children, were maimed," he added.
The WHO chief did not specify who carried out the strike, but a source in the Hamas-run civil defense agency tells AFP that it allegedly was "an Israeli quadcopter that fired two missiles which hit the wall of Sheikh Radwan clinic."
In response to a query on the matter, the IDF said it was aware of claims that civilians were hurt at the vaccination center, but contrary to the reports, it said that no Israeli strike had been carried out in the area at that time.
"Today, a vaccination operation began, in coordination with the IDF via COGAT, and in cooperation with the international community, within which the population is allowed to safely reach the medical centers where the vaccinations will be given to the population," the military said.
"We are aware of a claim about the harm to Paleostinian civilians at the Sheikh Radwan vaccination center in the northern Gaza Strip. Contrary to what was claimed, a preliminary investigation reveals that there was no strike by IDF forces in the area at the time in question," the IDF said.
The IDF added that it "emphasizes that the Hamas terror organization deliberately fires from civilian areas, systematically violates international law, and cynically exploits the civilian population as a shield for terror acts against the State of Israel."
According to the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry, 43,314 Paleostinians have been killed and 102,019 injured in the fighting so far, though the toll cannot be verified and does not differentiate between civilians and fighters. Israel says it has killed some 18,000 combatants in battle and another 1,000 hard boyz inside Israel on October 7.
[AnNahar] The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said three people were killed Thursday in Israeli strikes on Syria's Qusayr region near the border with 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... , where Israel said it hit Hezbollah weapons depots.
The Britannia-based war monitor said three strikes targeted the town of Qusayr, where Hezbollah holds sway, and surrounding areas.
One strike targeted "a weapons depot and a fuel storage facility for Hezbollah in the industrial city of Qusayr," killing three and wounding five others, the Observatory said.
The other strikes targeted warehouses near the Lebanese border and a bridge south of Qusayr, according to the war monitor.
Irresistible bait for Israeli missiles, for sure.
The Israeli military's Arabic-language front man Avichay Adraee said "weapons depots and headquarters used by" Hezbollah were hit in the Qusayr region.
Adraee said the strikes sought to thwart attempts to "transfer weapons from 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... via Syria to Hezbollah in Lebanon."
The official SANA news agency reported Israeli strikes on Qusayr's industrial zone and some residential neighborhoods, saying they caused material damage.
The vast land border between Israel and Syria has increasingly come under attack by Israel since its war with Hezbollah erupted last month.
The main land border, known as Masnaa on the Lebanese side, was put out of service by an Israeli strike this month.
A second crossing that connects Lebanon to Qusayr was put out of service last week by another Israeli strike.
Israel accuses Hezbollah of transferring weapons in from Syria using the land crossings which have become a key escape route for thousands of people in Lebanon fleeing the war.
There are six official crossings between Lebanon and Syria but several other illegal routes exist along the mostly non-existent border.
Endless need, finite resources — and the jihadis that own Lebanon started the war.
[AnNahar] The United Nations ...where theory meets practice and practice loses... has warned its flash appeal for humanitarian aid 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... was so far only 17 percent funded, urging donor countries to turn pledges into cash.
Goodness. They all gave generously to UNRWA — several times — and to the Palestinian Authority, but now their spirit might be willing, but their treasuries are weak.
"We are facing a rapidly deteriorating humanitarian situation," said Jens Laerke, front man for the U.N.'s humanitarian agency OCHA.
"The needs are rising by the minute, and the pledge does not buy food, medicine or shelter. So we're hoping for a rapid disbursement." "Our five-star buffets await!"
He told a presser that only 17 percent of the $426 million sought in the flash appeal had been received.
The largest contributors to the $73 million received so far are Italia with $17 million, the United States with $11.7 million, Sweden with $9.3 million, La Belle France with $7.2 million, Britannia with $6.4 million and Germany with $5.5 million.
La Belle France hosted a donor conference last month at which countries pledged $800 million for humanitarian aid in Lebanon.
Laerke reminded donors of the urgency of "turning these pledges into money that can work on the front line," because OCHA cannot deliver aid "unless the money flows fast."
After nearly a year of cross-border fire with Hezbollah, Israel ramped up strikes on the group's strongholds in September and then sent ground forces across the border.
Since fighting in Lebanon escalated on September 23, the war has killed at least 1,829 people in Lebanon, according to an AFP tally of health ministry figures.
Citing figures from the U.N. refugee agency and the Syrian Red Islamic Thingy, Laerke said that more than 460,000 people have fled Lebanon for neighboring Syria, while 25,000 have gone on to Iraq.
The U.N. migration agency warned the number of people still within Lebanon but who are displaced from their homes stood at 842,648 on Wednesday.
"In the past week, there have been 18,525 new displacements," the U.N.'s International Organization for Migration said.
"These individuals might be experiencing displacement for the first time or undergoing secondary movement," it added.
[IsraelTimes] Much of Kafr Kila, a central Hezbollah hub on the border with Israel, is now destroyed, as a monthlong Israeli ground offensive in south Lebanon uproots terrorist infrastructure.
Only an hour after a barrage of Hezbollah rockets was fired into northern Israel on Monday morning, The Times of Israel and other journalists rode in a convoy of armored personnel carriers through Metula — now a ghost town on Israel’s northern border — directly into the southern 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... war zone.
"This is not 2006," said reservist Efraim Feiglin, guarding the press corps. "This time, we will continue to victory."
Wearing helmets and flak jackets, the press corps entered Kafr Kila, a border village that until recently was a central hub for Hezbollah, one of the world’s largest and wealthiest terrorist groups, and was set to be a launchpad for an invasion of Israel.
The Hezbollah plan, "Conquest of the Galilee," envisioned that the Radwan Forces would "storm the border from here, invade and capture Metula," and set about killing and kidnapping residents as Hamas ..the braying voice of Islamic Resistance®,... did in southern Israel on October 7, 2023, according to Col. Avraham Marciano, the commander of the 769th "Hiram" Brigade, a regional unit normally responsible for the eastern portion of the border with Lebanon.
In late September, IDF troops instructed Kafr Kila’s 3,000 residents to leave the area. Then, after weeks of intense fighting, troops cleared the village of most of the Hezbollah terrorists.
Marciano, who was serving as our guide, pointed to a mound of debris 50 yards (50 meters) from where we stood. Here, he said, troops uncovered an underground shaft that ran for several hundred yards, almost reaching the border wall with Israel.
"Several battalions of Hezbollah’s elite Radwan unit were planning to go into the shaft from the village’s main street and get equipment they had stored there," Marciano said. The IDF has found thousands of weapons, launchers, and tactical equipment belonging to the fighters of Hezbollah’s elite force in the village.
The bully boyz would then emerge from the shaft opening only a few minutes’ walk from the border wall. Just on the other side is a residential neighborhood of Metula.
"They would have entered and killed and done all the unbearable things that were done on October 7 in the south," he said.
A LIMITED GROUND INCURSION
Hezbollah began striking northern Israel a day after Hamas’s October 7, 2023, invasion, when 3,000 Hamas-led bully boyz slaughtered some 1,200 people in a rampage through southern Israel and kidnapped 251 to 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... After suffering nearly a year of Hezbollah cross-border rocket and drone attacks that forced 60,000 residents of northern Israel from their homes, Israel dramatically stepped up its operations in September, with strikes against commanders in the field and big shots in Beirut, and attacks on the terror group’s weaponry that crippled much of its capabilities.
While the IDF, including the 769th Brigade, had been operating close to the northern border since last October 8, it began an overt ground incursion only at the end of September this year — a limited operation targeting Hezbollah button men and infrastructure relatively close to the border.
The battles in southern Lebanon have been fierce and deadly, especially in the past week. Israel has been reeling from the loss of 17 soldiers — all but one of them reservists. Over the year of conflict, 60 IDF soldiers have died in the cross-border skirmishes and the ground operation.
The IDF estimates that more than 2,000 Hezbollah operatives have been killed in the conflict. Around 100 members of other terror groups, along with hundreds of civilians, have also been reported killed in Lebanon.
DRIVING INTO ENEMY TERRITORY
Our convoy of journalists entered Lebanon near Fatima Gate, once known as the Good Fence Crossing, which was used from 1982 to 2000 during Israel’s occupation of southern Lebanon.
Oskar Lawther, a driver of one of the APCs in the 769th Brigade, said that when he used to drive in a patrol car on the Israeli side of the border, he always wondered what it was like on this — the other — side.
Our first stop, a strategic lookout onto Israel on the edge of Kafr Kila, could have been the perfect picturesque pause on a hike. "This is a historic vantage point... Radwan leaders used to come here and look down into Israel," Marciano said as he stood with the journalists on the hilltop. "This is where Hezbollah operatives observed Israel and aimed at citizens’ houses."
From here, bully boyz made a direct hit on a house in Kfar Yuval in January, killing Barak Ayalon, 45, a member of the community’s security team, and his mother, Miri Ayalon, 76.
"In every house in this village were weapons, Hezbollah flags, and photos of Nasrallah and other Hezbollah leaders," Marciano said, adding that everyone who lived here in Kafr Kila had ties to Hezbollah.
"We better get moving quickly," he said, glancing around cautiously. "An anti-tank missile landed where we are standing two days ago."
THE CRAZINESS OF THE MIDDLE EAST
The soldiers and press corps moved carefully up the hill, stepping around a rocket casing and other debris.
Marciano gave a short briefing with a view of the village.
"We had a checklist of what we needed to do, and we’ve accomplished about 65 percent of our goals," Marciano said.
All around the rocky hillside were evacuated houses — some completely destroyed, others still standing.
"Hezbollah was here, and now we’re here," Marciano said. "Our goal is to destroy all the Hezbollah infrastructure so they don’t return."
Although he claimed to be an optimist, he also said the army is dealing with the balagan, or craziness, of the Middle East.
"I’m not a prophet," he went on. "I can’t say that Hezbollah will never come back here. But I want to make the area free from Hezbollah so my children won’t have to fight."
He paused. "Maybe my grandchildren will have to fight," he said, "but not my kids."
THE DAY AFTER
When asked what the army’s goals are in this war, Marciano replied that in 2006, Israel signed a ceasefire with Hezbollah after 34 days of fighting without a decisive victory.
The war ended when Israel, Hezbollah, and the Lebanese government agreed to UN Resolution 1701, which required Hezbollah to disarm and withdraw north of the Litani River — terms that were never enforced.
At the time, Hezbollah leader His Eminence Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah ...The late, lamented satrap of the Medes and the Persians in Leb... , who was killed in an IDF Arclight airstrike ...KABOOM!... in Beirut on September 27, boasted that Israel was "weaker than a spider’s web."
Over the subsequent 18 years, Hezbollah established bases in villages throughout southern Lebanon, creeping closer and closer to the border. In December, the IDF said that Hezollah used "the infrastructure in the area for terror purposes, exploiting the civilian population and using it as a human shield for its operations."
"This is not 2006," said reservist Efraim Feiglin, guarding the press corps. "This time, we will continue to victory."
Good.
It isn’t clear what exactly victory means or who will return to Kafr Kila and other villages once controlled by Hezbollah after the fighting ends.
For now, however, Marciano is focused on completing one of the Israeli government’s stated war goals: "We will do everything we have to do so that people can return to their homes in the north. We’ll stay as long as it takes to do the job."
JUMP SCARES
Parts of the Lebanese side of the border wall that we passed on our trip were covered with standard graffiti — scribbles in English with hearts and people’s names — along with propaganda-style drawings of Hezbollah leaders.
Further on, the wall also bore evidence of Israeli troops’ presence, with words recently written in Hebrew that said, "You wanted it, you got it."
This meant, said driver Lawther, "that Hezbollah had wanted the war, and that is what they got."
IDF bulldozers moved slowly through the village, clearing wreckage. There were still booby-trapped buildings to be searched, terrorist cells to be dismantled, and hidden forces to contend with, Marciano said.
Soldiers from the Golani Brigade, as well as from the paratroopers, were working together to clear the village of button men, he said, highlighting the cooperation between two units known for their long-standing rivalry.
Marciano walked us past a gas station he said was once owned by Hezbollah, now destroyed, directly across from the border wall.
In the distance, on the other side of the hill, there was a sudden, loud explosion from artillery shelling, making this news hound jump.
"It’s good for your adrenaline," a soldier said lightly. "It gets your heart pumping."
[DW] Many Iranians have an eye on the upcoming US election amid a budding conflict between Iran and Israel. To them, Donald Trump and Kamala Harris represent vastly different futures for the Middle East.
In the shadow of the conflict between 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 Israel, many Iranians are anxiously awaiting the outcome of the US presidential election.
In both confidential and recorded conversations, as seen most recently in a CNN ...formerly the Cable News Network, now who know what it might stand for... report from Tehran two weeks ago, many Iranians have said they would prefer to see Republican candidate and former President Donald Trump ...The tack in the backside of the Democratic Party... return to the White House.
Those asked said they see him as a strong leader who would be able to tackle problems. A victory for Democratic candidate and current Vice President Kamala Harris once a marijuana-busting Caliphornia DA , on the other hand, would mean a continuation of the status quo in US politics, in their view.
"Under the enormous pressure of a worsening economic crisis, many Iranians want fundamental change," Iranian political journalist Fariba Pajooh told DW. "Quite a few of them see Donald Trump as someone who could end the political system of the Islamic Theocratic Republic in Iran."
"Trump's statements are perceived selectively not only in the US but also in Iran," Pajooh said. "Many Iranians believe he could topple the regime in Iran. Yet Trump repeatedly emphasizes that preventing an Iranian nuclear bomb is his top priority."
SHADOW OF WAR
One month after Iran launched missile attacks on Israel, Israel counterattacked on October 25 and destroyed military targets in Iran, particularly missile production facilities, according to the Jerusalem Post.
The attacks were aimed at damaging Iran's air defenses and impairing the long-term development of ballistic missiles.
"It's impossible to predict what will happen next," Alex Vatanka, director of the Iran program at the Middle East Institute in Washington, DC, told DW. Not impossible to predict. Just hard to accurately predict, especially about the future
Vatanka said the US government had made it clear that it would not support any attacks on Iran's nuclear facilities shortly before the election.
"However,
there's no worse danger than telling a mother her baby is ugly... Israel's counterattack was not a symbolic act," Vatanka said. "Twenty military sites in Iran were attacked. Israel has shown Iran what military capabilities it has, which is exactly what the US wanted to see. Israel clearly communicated its message and capabilities, and hopefully Iran got the message to avoid further escalation."
The fact that Iran portrayed Israel's attack as small and causing limited damage could indicate that Tehran considers this round of escalation to be over, Vatanka said.
IRAN'S NUCLEAR PROGRAM
As president in 2018, Trump withdrew the United States from the Pt5+1 nuclear agreement with Iran, which had been put in place at the end of 2015 after several years of international engagement. Trump said he would be able to negotiate a "better deal" than his predecessor, Barack Obama If you like your coverage you can keep it... His policy of "maximum pressure" on Iran was ultimately unsuccessful: One year after he pulled the United States out, Iran gradually began to withdraw from its obligations under the agreement. Now, Iran is believed to be closer than ever to building a nuclear bomb.
In September, Trump told news hounds that the United States must reach an agreement with Iran to stop its nuclear program. In the escalating conflict between Iran and Israel, however, Trump has spoken out in favor of an Israeli attack on Iranian nuclear facilities.
"Biden's answer should have been: Target the nuclear facilities first and worry about the rest later," he said at an election event in early October — directly contradicting the official line of his successor.
Israel considers Iran's nuclear program to be an existential threat. Iran has warned that an Israeli attack on its nuclear facilities would elicit a severe response.
"For a successful attack on all Iranian nuclear facilities, Israel would need the support of the US," Sina Azodi, lecturer at the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University in Washington, told DW.
Azodi said Iran's nuclear facilities were spread over several sites, some with built-in underground bunkers, making it more difficult to destroy them completely.
"Shortly before the elections, however, the US government wants to avoid getting involved in a war," Azodi said.
When asked whether he was in favor of a system change in Iran, Trump told the Iranian-American podcaster Patrick Bet David on October 17: "We can't totally interfere. Let's face it, we can't even govern ourselves."
"I would like to see Iran be very successful," Trump said. "The only problem is that they can't have nuclear weapons."
MIDDLE EAST PEACE?
What will happen after the US presidential election remains to be seen. "If Kamala Harris wins the election, her government will probably try to reach temporary agreements with Iran," Azodi said.
In the past, Harris defended the nuclear agreement with Iran and considered it a significant achievement of the Obama presidency.
In her role as vice president, she has supported efforts to revive the agreement over the past four years. However,
there's no worse danger than telling a mother her baby is ugly... these attempts have been unsuccessful.
"If Donald Trump wins the election, he can achieve fundamental changes in US-Iranian relations," Azodi said.
"He has the potential to unite all Iran critics in the Republican Party behind him to bring about a different agreement with Iran," he added.
In an interview last week with Saudi state-owned broadcaster Al Arabiya, Trump said that if elected, he would include Iran in the Abraham Accords, along with at least a dozen other countries.
"The Abraham Accords were concluded during my presidency," he said. "Nobody thought that was possible."
The agreements signed at the White House in September 2020 normalized relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain — and later, Morocco.
#2
One year after he [Trump] pulled the United States out, Iran gradually began to withdraw from its obligations under the agreement. Now, Iran is believed to be closer than ever to building a nuclear bomb.
Still two months away, CIA?
Posted by: Bobby ||
11/03/2024 6:48
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#3
...many Iranians are anxiously awaiting the outcome of the US presidential election.
So why don't they vote in the election? Half of Latin America is.
[ZeroHedge] Throughout the 2024 election, Democrats have gone into overdrive to paint Trump as a dire threat to democracy - comparing him to the likes of Hitler, Stalin, and Mussolini.
In one week, 'Trump-Hitler' stories topped 5,500 according to Bloomberg.
And people wonder why trust in the media has plummeted. But let's entertain the claim that Trump is a dictator...
X user 'Insurrection Barbie' posts the following 12-point rebuttal, where the Biden-Harris administration did exactly that:
* * *
If Trump is a dictator, name one time he usurped power from the other branches of government to enact his will in violation of the separation of powers.
Here are all the times the Harris/Biden administration did exactly that:
[Consortium News] … If this election is about anything — apart from the price of groceries, of course — it is about the national-security state’s place in American politics. In our post–2016 era, intel and the military are perfectly welcome to operate openly, unabashedly, in the American political process — this because the Democratic Party gives them a wide berth to do so.
DEEP-STATE DEMOCRACY
Now, do you think the Deep State gives a toot about democratic process? Ask the Italians and the Greeks, the Iranians and the Guatemalans, the Japanese, the South Koreans and the Indonesians, the Chileans and the Venezuelans, and… and damn, ask most of humanity at this point. As others have pointed out since the Russiagate days, what the spooks have long done abroad now visits itself upon the American polity.
The obvious follow-on: Should we be concerned as to whether the Democrats and these institutional allies would let this election go to Trump just by the vote count?
I am.
As to the third of the institutions that have corrupted themselves in the Democratic Party cause, may I let mainstream media speak for themselves? Apart from independent publications such as the one you are reading, the intent of American media is no longer to inform the public but to protect the institutions they purport to report upon from the public gaze.
Trump’s “a threat to American democracy,” Harris its savior: It’s a bust at this point. The New York Times has made itself a re-enactment of The New York Times. The Washington Post under the ownership of Jeff Bezos and this ghastly new chief executive of his, Will Lewis, cannot manage, and doesn’t seem to attempt, even a re-enactment.
I do not seem to be the only one ill-at-ease at the prospect of mayhem to come after midnight Nov. 5. The Post published a survey Wednesday, conducted in the first half of October, indicating that among voters in the states where the election could go either way, 57 percent are nervous that Trump supporters won’t accept defeat and may resort to violence, while a third of those surveyed think Harris supporters will take it to the street, as they used to say, if the candidate of joy and vibes loses.
The numbers skewed even more dramatically when The Post asked Democrats about Trump’s people and Trump’s people about Democrats. In a survey The Associated Press published Thursday, you have 70 percent of those polled saying they are “anxious and frustrated.”
Join the party. I cannot, myself, take either candidate seriously. I take seriously the thought that a lot of people will not take the result seriously and a mess will ensue.
And in this I worry more about Democrats resorting to corrupt conduct than I do the Republicans. Why this, you may ask.
To begin with, I do not at all like the smell of that Times piece quoted at the top of this column. It reeks too strongly of the scene in 2016, when, on either side of the election, the Democrats and all manner of repellent “progressives” conjured of thin air a frenzy of Russophobia from which American has yet to recover.
Steven Lee Myers, previously of the Times’s Moscow bureau, is now some kind of “disinformation” reporter and led the work on the piece in question. And all is as it was for four years after Clinton’s defeat: no shred of independent reporting or sourcing in anything under his byline. Intel people and other unnamed officials feed this guy like a foie gras farmer feeds his geese.
This is all you get from our Stevie. And I don’t see anyone trying on this disgraceful stuff in behalf of the Trump campaign. I have suggested my conclusions.
But Jan. 6, Jan. 6, Jan 6! First of all, what happened on Jan. 6 does not rise to “coup” or “insurrection.” It was a protest, with much to suggest the presence of agents provocateurs. And second, there seems to me there was plenty to protest by that point.
Straight off the top, there was the liberal authoritarians’ perfectly legible collusion to suppress the contents of Hunter Biden’s vastly incriminating laptop computer three weeks before the vote, to the point of blanket censorship of the New York Post, the oldest newspaper in America. If this was not open-and-shut election interference someone will have to tell me what constitutes it.
On less certain ground, I have read of many election officials in many states, Pennsylvania high among them, certifying the 2020 results. But a truly convincing, here-are-the-numbers case for these results in states such as Pennsylvania is hard to come by. You never read of Trump’s claims that the Pennsylvania results were rigged. You read only and always of Trump’s “false claims” or “discredited claims” or “disproven claims” to the point you start thinking of Lady Macbeth and how she doth protest too much, methinks.
[ZeroHedge] Flip The F*cking Table Over And Scream
I had an old friend who used to be a bouncer at one of the bars where I worked in Philadelphia many years ago. We got along decently outside of work because we both had the same mutual interests in our twenties: beer, sports, gambling, and women.
The big differences between us were that he had a much shorter temper than I did, a much tougher time controlling his emotions and a much larger appetite for alcohol. As would happen given those differences, as the years went by, we eventually lost touch, only to bump into each other randomly at the airport one day after we hadn’t seen each other for about ten years.
I was returning from a trip I had taken for my job, and he was on his way outbound to some tropical destination I can’t remember. After the perfunctory catch-up, I asked him why he was taking what seemed like a random vacation during the middle of the week.
He told me that days prior, he had been at the local casino in Philadelphia playing poker and had won $30,000 from the bad beat jackpot, so he was celebrating.
I asked him how it happened and what he did when he found out he’d won.
He told me: “Chris, that place has taken so much money from me that when I finally won, I flipped the f*cking poker table over in the middle of the room, while all eight people were sitting at it, and screamed at the top of my lungs.”
Then, he told me, they paid him out and asked him to leave and never come back.
Anybody else might easily write this story off as someone with a flair for the dramatic, but having seen my friend flip a table once or twice under far less exciting circumstances (or for no reason at all after multiple shots of Jameson), I knew he wasn’t making it up.
Heading into the weekend, I kept thinking about metaphors to make some type of big statement about how important I think Tuesday’s election is for our nation. No matter how many ways I tried to word it, all I could think about as an analogy to a potential Trump victory was my friend, sitting inside a casino he’s probably lost a zillion dollars in, finally scoring a big win against the house—the machine that always has the odds in its favor—flipping that table, with the chips, drinks and cards on it, and then getting kicked out carrying a massive Publisher’s Clearing House-style novelty check.
I don’t like that this is how I think of the government, the Democratic party and the media, conjoined as one unbeatable, dystopian chimera with the odds always in its favor—but I can’t help it. What else could you possibly call a ruling party of elites, using one hand to rig their primary process while using the other to write diatribes about the importance of democracy? What else could you call the party that blankets its deeply flawed policy prescriptions under the cloak of the moral high ground? What do you call the party that used to preach freedom of choice, speech and liberty that now takes its cues from giant pharmaceutical corporations and the military industrial complex? How about the party that outright lied in 2020 to the public about the president’s involvement in a Chinese influence-peddling scam days before the last election?
And then, what can be said about almost all of the major media networks that have enabled, and run cover for, these actions, all while making concerned looking faces like they actually give a shit about the truth and can’t believe how stupid we are?
Just last week, I watched the media arm of the Democratic Party, consisting of all the major news networks with the exception of Fox News, accuse Jewish people at President Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally of being Nazis. This week, I’m watching them tell the public that Trump said Liz Cheney should be executed when he said nothing of the sort.
Over the last four years, there have been countless instances like these — the “very fine people” hoax, the never-ending live coverage of the Russia collusion hoax, and CNN putting a yellow filter over Joe Rogan’s face and telling the world he was taking horse medicine when they knew he was not. I wrote it days ago: the media has sacrificed what’s left of its credibility at the altar of an un-elected woman who thinks the PCE deflator is something you sit on at a party that makes a farting noise and that “Strategic Petroleum, Reserve” is a brand of top shelf vodka.
National Review said it pretty well last month when they said...(READ THIS FULL ARTICLE, FREE, HERE).
Prosecutors argued in a court filing on Tuesday that Teixeira “perpetrated one of the most significant and consequential violations of the Espionage Act in American history,"
Federal prosecutors plan to recommend a 17-year prison sentence for a Massachusetts Air National Guard member who leaked highly classified military documents related to the War in Ukraine on a Discord server.
Jack Teixeira, who was 21 when he was arrested in April 2023, pleaded guilty to six charges of willful retention and transmission of national defense information under the Espionage Act in March.
Over the course of several months, Teixeira allegedly posted hundreds of pages of sensitive military intelligence, including an assessment of the Russian and Ukrainian militaries, to the Discord group "Thug Shaker Central." The postings went unnoticed for months, but he was eventually warned by his superiors about his handling of classified documents.
Prosecutors argued in a court filing on Tuesday that Teixeira “perpetrated one of the most significant and consequential violations of the Espionage Act in American history," according to the Associated Press. Teixeira's attorneys are expected to recommend an 11-year sentence.
“As both a member of the United States Armed Forces and a clearance holder, the defendant took an oath to defend the United States and to protect its secrets — secrets that are vital to U.S. national security and the physical safety of Americans serving overseas,” prosecutors wrote. “Teixeira violated his oath, almost every day, for over a year.”
The defense attorneys argued that 11 years is adequate to deter other potential crimes, and would be approximately half of their client's life. They also claimed that although Teixeira broke the law, he did not intend to "harm the United States."
“Instead, his intent was to educate his friends about world events to make certain they were not misled by misinformation,” the attorneys wrote. “To Jack, the Ukraine war was his generation’s World War II or Iraq, and he needed someone to share the experience with.”
Teixeira is scheduled to be formally sentenced on Tuesday, Nov. 12.
[JustTheNews] The CIA’s chief diversity officer earlier this year described his department’s efforts to ingrain DEI across the agency in hiring decisions and trainings.
newly revised Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility (DEI) strategy for the Central Intelligence Agency promises to put diversity at the center of promotion decisions and attempt to solidify programs to withstand changing administrations, according to internal documents and a public presentation by senior agency diversity official.
“We see it as the core of our mission,” CIA’s Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer, Jerry Laurienti, said of DEI in a presentation earlier this year. He delivered his remarks to the biannual business meeting of the Defense Advisory Committee on Diversity and Inclusion (DACODAI) in May.
Fred Fleitz, a former CIA agent and national security official in the Trump Administration, told Just the News that DEI initiatives are “dug in quite deep” at the agency and warns they are detrimental to the execution of the mission.
“And this DEI philosophy is dug in quite deep within our government, including at the Central Intelligence Agency. They're not promoting or hiring, giving bonuses based on merit. They're using quotas. They're using DEI to promote political outcomes,” Fleitz told the “John Solomon Reports” podcast.
Laurienti described the presentation as showing how DEI is used as a key filter for candidates for promotion to leadership positions within the intelligence agency and that DEI training is integrated at all levels of leadership, according to the recording of his presentation, meeting minutes, and a CIA slide deck reviewed by Just the News.
The recording of the live presentation was posted to video streaming site Rumble. The content matches with published CIA documents and the meeting minutes from the presentation.
“Right now we already have required training for leaders at different levels,” Laurienti said. Also, “when you go into a promotion panel for a leadership and particularly uh for the senior leadership… those panels include our head of talent and then the head of each directorate and then myself.”
PERFORMANCE, CORPORATE MINDSET, AND DEI
The promotion panel assesses each candidate under three criteria, Laurienti said: mission performance, corporate mindset, and DEI.
“And on that third one, they have to show uh, not just that they have been contributing corporately, but rather the impact of their efforts on DEIA,” he said.
According to Laurienti, this means that “they’re creating an equitable inclusive environment within their teams for mission performance all day every day.”
“I do not want to hear that it's something that they did after work or that they just do corporately that I want to hear that it's something that they're doing all day every day so that each person in their unit is able to come to work with this on the job, not focused on trying to fit in,” he added.
He also confirmed that DEI has impacted promotions at the agency. “I can tell you in the last two years of panels, we’ve lifted people up and we’ve pushed people down based on those meetings.”
The CIA workforce also has an eye towards making the DEI programs permanent regardless of which administration occupies the White House.
On one slide from Laurienti’s presentation lists conclusions his office drew from workforce feedback about the agency’s DEI programs. One conclusion is that the workforce wants to see programs that endure despite changes in leadership at the White House, even though the President directly controls all executive branch agencies under the Constitution.
“Not be easily shaken or crumbled due to executive administration changes,” the slide reads.
The agency’s workforce also wants DEI programs to “Help create a sense of psychological safety for all” and “Move past perceived ‘performative’ actions.”
The 2024-2027 CIA Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility Strategy highlights the importance of cementing DEI criteria in hiring and promotion panels, corporate communications, and training courses.
“When equity and inclusion are incorporated into processes and procedures, CIA is better enabled to create and sustain a workplace where all officers can safely contribute to mission success,” the strategy reads.
#1
"The CIA workforce also has an eye towards making the DEI programs permanent regardless of which administration occupies the White House."
Kennedy and McCone proved that the CIA could be stopped in its tracks. Then, of course, Kennedy was assassinated. The purge could have continued its course, but Lyndon Johnson was a dedicated corrupticrat.
Posted by: Albert Pelosi3459 ||
11/03/2024 14:13
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[JustTheNews]\ Mike Johnson says forcing government workers to leave the Washington "swamp" will lead to resignations and retirements that will quickly shrink costs to taxpayers.
House Speaker Mike Johnson says Republicans have an ambitious plan to reshape and shrink federal government if they win the election. That vision includes a plan to deport tens of thousands of federal bureaucrats from Washington and relocate them to middle America.
In a wide-ranging interview this week with Just the News, Johnson said he and other GOP leaders want to move federal agency offices, personnel and assets from the nation’s capital to bring them closer to the people they serve and farther from the monied special interests that often hijack policy and spending.
“There's a lot of talk about uprooting, you know, these entrenched bureaucracies and putting them out elsewhere around the country,” Johnson told the John Solomon Reports podcast.
Mike Johnson lays out top priorities for big GOP win: Border, Trump tax cuts, ‘blowtorch’ to weaponized deep stateMike Johnson lays out top priorities for big GOP win: Border, Trump tax cuts, ‘blowtorch’ to weaponized deep state
He explained such a re-invention of the monstrous federal bureaucracy with more than 2 million federal workers and contractors would integrate with former President Donald Trump’s plan to name billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk to lead a government efficiency office and also tie to fiscal conservatives' vision to eliminate federal bureaucracies and send monies to the states in the form of block grants.
Just how big has federal government become? Read this Congressional Research Service report.
The Louisiana Republican said the deportation of Washington bureaucrats would also create a natural shrinkage in the size and cost of government,
“That accomplishes a lot of important goals but the first would be that you don't have all these career civil service law protected bureaucrats,” he said. “Some of them have been camped out of these agencies for decades. They're nameless, faceless. We don't know who to hold accountable," he said.
CONGRESSIONAL VISION
Johnson continued, saying “The idea is, if you move the agency to, you know, northern Kansas or southwest New Mexico, or wherever it is around the country, then some of the swamp dwellers they will not desire to follow the job to the new, less desirable location," he added. "They love the swamp. You know they want to stay. They'll turn them into lobbyist or something to stay in D.C.” The mass transfer and departure of bureaucrats then leads to a “business reorganization proposition” for federal government, he said.
"You've got agencies that you can scale down because you have empty cubicles and ... almost all the agencies are bloated and inefficient,” he said. “So you can scale that down. And then in the cubicles that you do need to fill, we've had America First Policy Institute and some of our other think tanks that have been working to develop a notebook full of highly qualified, previously vetted, limited government conservatives who have expertise in these areas.”
Johnson’s comments were the most sweeping he’s made about a congressional vision for shrinking the budget and reshaping the budget. He said the process would take a “blowtorch” to the regulatory state and align government agencies in the aftermath of a historic Supreme Court ruling this summer that reversed a decades old “Chevron doctrine.” Under the new ruling, federal bureaucrats can’t make up or interpret their own regulations and simply must enforce those authorized by Congress.
“We have a once in a lifetime, yeah, once in a lifetime opportunity to really claw back article one authority to the legislative branch under the Constitution and have an administration that is in tune with that whole agenda. So look, I just think there's almost unlimited potential in front of us, and we've got to seize that moment,” Johnson said.
If Republicans do win a majority in the House and Senate, it is likely to be slim, meaning Johnson's government reorganization ideas would have to appeal to conservatives and moderates alike in his caucus.
One of the leading voices of the House conservative wing, Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., told the "Just the News, No Noise" television show Friday that he likes Johnson idea, but with some important caveats like first getting stay-at-home bureaucrats to come back to the office.
"Well, I would prefer an idea where we actually eliminated the bureaucracies and the agencies that need to go away. But here's the thing: until you stop the telework epidemic the federal government has, it won't work. So you're gonna have to first stop that, then you then you can send them out," Biggs said.
RIGHT-TO-WORK STATES
He also cautioned Congress not to send unionized federal workers to right-to-work states that give workers and employers more freedoms.
"They're unionized," he said of federal workers. "And that means, let's say you've stuck something in Arizona, which is a right to work state, you'd be sending in all these unionized leftist federal bureaucrats to our state, and it would make it even harder to maintain."
"So if you're going to send them out, just send them out to a state that's already deep blue. Send them to California for mercy sakes or or something like that," he added.
On other issues, Speaker Johnson made clear a GOP-led Congress would be in lockstep with Trump’s already stated agenda to close the border, deport illegal aliens, reduce inflation, renew the Trump tax cuts that expire next year and rapidly improve national security in a turbulent world.
“I think within the hour of President Trump taking this oath of office, he'll issue an executive order to secure that border," Johnson said. "We'll come behind that with legislative action to secure it, seal it up, and then we'll work on having to deal with the fallout of everybody who was allowed in, and that's a whole agenda thing.
"But immediately after the border is secured, we go to the economy, because the cost of living is unsustainable, unaffordable, and we know how to fix it ... Then we're going to do that and then somewhere you're going to have an extension of the Trump era tax cuts," he explained.
Of course, all of that must be preceded by Republicans winning the Senate, House and White House and Johnson winning another term as Speaker in a fractious GOP caucus. The answer those questions will be decided this month.
Once an agency or office gets into a Congressional District's agenda, it gets protection from that Rep and both Senators.
Recall the major fights that preceded closing military bases for example.
Posted by: Lord Garth ||
11/03/2024 21:46
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#4
Move good. Remove better.
Posted by: Rex Mundi ||
11/03/2024 23:51
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#5
Moving would probably cull30-50% from the payroll, which is an easy way to downsize thr bureaucracy while they’re still unionized. They can always be moved again later.
[JustTheNews] "Unwinding" Facebook's demotion of New York Post bombshell "now will unfortunately create more headaches than it’s worth" and problem is "we manually" demoted the story, executives told each other.
Big Tech platforms had shockingly frank internal conversations about their efforts to sway the 2020 presidential election, even stating explicitly they wanted to be on the good side of a Biden-Harris administration, according to communications released by the House Judiciary Committee days before an election in which mainstream media are promoting censorship of conservative voices.
The Republican-led Weaponization of the Federal Government Subcommittee published an 82- interim staff report Wednesday on how the FBI "prebunked" allegations about Biden family "corruption," and 641-page version with the full communications, providing the clearest evidence yet that tech platforms understood their role inevitably paved the way for the Democratic ticket.
"[W]hen we get hauled up to [Capitol] hill to testify on why we influenced the 2020 elections, we can say we have been meeting for YEARS with USG [the U.S. government] to plan for it," a member of Facebook’s Trust and Safety team messaged colleagues during a July 15, 2020, meeting among tech companies and feds including the FBI.
"Obviously, our calls on this could colour the way an incoming Biden administration views us more than almost anything else," U.K-based Nick Clegg, then-Facebook vice president of global affairs, told Vice President of Global Public Policy Joel Kaplan as the Meta-owned company debated whether to stop demoting a New York Post expose on then-Democratic nominee Joe Biden.
"From the beginning, the platforms understood what the FBI was doing" even if "Big Tech may not have known that the FBI was priming them to censor a true story," the GOP report says of the internal communications committee staff obtained. Companies knew "their meetings with the U.S. government regarding online speech could very well influence the 2020 election."
A week before this year's election, prominent conservatives blasted The Washington Post for laying the groundwork to censor them through an analysis that claims their podcasts are superspreaders of "unfounded assertions including that the election will be rigged or stolen."
Ben Shapiro and Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton posted the Post queries they received. Shapiro noted the financially hemorrhaging newspaper didn't specify what supposed misinformation he spread, and Fitton – flagged for his appearance on Charlie Kirk's show – scolded reporter Cat Zakrzewski for asking him after 5 p.m. with an 8 p.m. deadline.
Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan also accused YouTube of "censor[ing]" GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump's interview with Joe Rogan, likely the nation's most influential podcaster, and sibling company Google elevating "material critical of the interview" in search results.
Jordan cited a New York Post report that said "YouTube users reported difficulty searching for the video" three days after it quickly racked up "tens of millions of views" Oct. 25 and that the full interview was "missing" from its trending videos page the day after.
He also argued YouTube admitted censoring the video by releasing a statement Oct. 28 that said "the original 3-hour interview didn't appear prominently" in "some searches" the day before.
While Rogan said Oct. 25 there was "no issue with YouTube censoring the trump episode," blaming a Spotify "glitch" for his decision to delist the YouTube interview "until it’s fixed," the podcast celebrity switched gears Oct. 29 and posted the entire interview on X, formerly Twitter, because "there's an issue with searching for this episode on YouTube."
The House Judiciary GOP report says the FBI's Foreign Influence Task Force met more than two dozen times between Feb. 10 and Oct. 14, 2020, in one-on-one "bilateral meetings" with Big Tech companies including Google, then-Twitter, Facebook and Microsoft. The FITF's Russia unit chief told staff it resumed meetings with them this year.
The chief also said FITF's members knew the FBI had "Hunter Biden’s authenticated laptop" before the New York Post reported Oct. 14 on its "smoking-gun email" that said he introduced his father, the vice president at the time, to a top executive at Ukraine energy firm Burisma.
This is "consistent with other testimony" Judiciary and Weaponization received, the report said, citing FITF Section Chief Laura Dehmlow, who was then its China unit chief. Her predecessor, Brad Benavides, was also "certainly … aware" they had authenticated the laptop, she said.
Another set of meetings known as "USG-Industry" included FBI, Justice Department, Department of Homeland Security's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and Office of Intelligence & Analysis, Office of the Director of Intelligence, Facebook, Google, Twitter and Microsoft among others.
Clegg and Kaplan were on a Sept. 21, 2020, Facebook email that said "USG partners" believe Russian actors will conduct a "hack/leak operation" before the first debate eight days later, "likely involving real or manufactured evidence" of links between the Biden family and Burisma.
"FBI tipped us all off last week that this Burisma story was likely to emerge," according to internal Microsoft notes Oct. 14, 2020, the same day of the New York Post report.
Oct. 14, 2020, shows up repeatedly in the interim staff report, including Facebook's decision to demote the Post story, then hand-wringing over feared blowback for undoing demotion.
"Unwinding will likely leak and be a story (conversely, doing things that might be perceived as anti-conservative, like demoting the content, never seem to leak)," Kaplan, a former deputy chief of staff for President George W. Bush, told Clegg among a series of WhatsApp messages.
Clegg agreed that "unwinding it now will unfortunately create more headaches than it’s worth." Kaplan clarified the problem was "we manually" demoted the story, because "if it were automatic, it would be sort of an easy call not to intervene."
Social media companies had "significant confusion around the Post article" during one-on-one FITF meetings Oct. 14, 2020, according to a paraphrase of the Russia unit chief's testimony. Quoting the chief, the report said he "felt [it] necessary to reach out to some of the more major companies" because an FBI analyst apparently confirmed the laptop's existence to Twitter.
The chief said he had a joint "follow-up discussion" with Twitter, Facebook, Google and Microsoft reps in which he shared a statement he "cleared" with superiors while "trying to skirt multiple policies and be within bounds legally," later telling GOP staff he told them something like "The FBI has nothing in its possession to suggest that the laptop is a hack or a leak."
He refused to answer any followup questions they had, saying his hands were tied by FBI policy even while acknowledging the agency "had more information" beyond knowing the laptop was not a hack or leak, the report says.
The companies nonetheless treated the laptop as a hack-and-leak, throttling the Post story so that "millions of Americans cast their presidential vote unaware of serious, credible allegations of misconduct levied against one of the two candidates," the GOP-led committee concludes.
"Today, these companies and their executives belatedly admit that their censorship was wrong," it says. "Although the FBI conditioned Big Tech to believe any allegations about [now first son]Hunter Biden were Russian disinformation, the social media companies are far from blameless."
Odd, that many GA Counties can print, fill-out and deliver 1000's of fake ballots at 2am on demand. But the Cobb co. Board of Elections, just can't seem to MAIL absentee ballots with many weeks prior notice.
Election officials in Cobb County, Georgia — one of the top battleground counties in the 2024 presidential election, per U.S. News — are scrambling to deliver more than 3,000 absentee ballots past the state’s Oct. 25 deadline, prompting lawsuits from the Democratic National Committee, the Democratic Party of Georgia and civil rights groups.
Plaintiffs and more than 3,000 other lawfully registered Cobb County voters are on the brink of disenfranchisement in the November 5 election because the Cobb County Board of Elections and Registration was unable to issue their absentee ballots on time, a complaint reads from the American Civil Liberties Union, ACLU of Georgia and Southern Poverty Law Center, which was filed on Friday in Cobb County Superior Court.
“This occurred twice in 2022, and in both instances, this Court granted judicial relief to protect the affected voters’ fundamental right to vote,” notes the DNC and DPG in a separate complaint filed Friday, which was first posted by Democracy Docket. “In this instance, the Cobb County Board of Elections failed to timely send more than 3,000 absentee ballots in accordance with Georgia law. Cobb County has publicly admitted to missing the statutory deadline. Judicial relief is thus required to remedy this legal violation and prevent disenfranchisement.”
Both lawsuits argue that Cobb County election officials violated state law by failing to send mail-in ballots within three days to voters who made absentee ballot requests before the statewide deadline. The suits outline how Atlanta suburb’s Board of Elections publicly admitted on Oct. 31 that it had not sent the aforementioned ballots on time, nearly a week after the Oct. 25 deadline.
For both suits filed against the county, the involved parties are asking that Cobb County’s Board of Elections extend the ballot-receipt deadline for all of the affected voters — moving it from Nov. 5 to Nov. 8, which is the same deadline that overseas voters have to return their ballots. They also ask that the county be required to segregate any of the affected ballots received after 7 p.m. on Election Day to ensure that they don’t become subject to “post-election legal challenges,” according to DNC and DPG officials.
Cobb, according to U.S. News, is one of the top counties to watch in the 2024 presidential election as it continues to be a pivotal piece of political real estate in Georgia — a major battleground state.
Shifts in racial and ethnic diversity have flipped the county from red to blue in the past two elections after Mitt Romney won in 2012.
Posted by: NN2N1 ||
11/03/2024
04:57 ||
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Top|| File under: Tin Hat Dictators, Presidents for Life, & Kleptocrats
#1
Has anyone else noticed the pattern? The swamp things are proactive and the GOP re-active. That is they're always a beat behind the the tempo.
#2
...once again, its because of the judiciary playing games. 'You have to show injury' to bring the case. Problem is that when you can, its beyond addressing the problem.
[FoxNews] The terrorist-operated facility contained workshops and hundreds of supplies for producing rockets, shells and grenades, the IDF says
The IDF has released video showing Israeli troops uncovering a Hamas underground weapons-manufacturing facility in central Gaza located beneath the local civilian population.
The terrorist-operated facility contained workshops and hundreds of supplies for producing rockets, shells and grenades before it was destroyed by engineering troops, the IDF says. It was situated near the area of Zeitoun.
The IDF says the facility also had diving equipment intended for Hamas to infiltrate Israeli territory by sea.
Video released by the IDF shows troops navigating a long tunnel that leads to the facility. The IDF says the tunnel route contained several long-term living areas equipped with an oven, stove, food supplies, beds and offices used by the terrorists during the war.
The mission was carried out by the troops of the 252nd Division, soldiers from the 5th Brigade.
"Engineering troops, under the command of the Southern Command, in cooperation with the Yahalom Unit and the Ministry of Defense’s Engineering and Construction Directorate, located and dismantled the tunnel route, damaged weapons production capabilities, and thwarted another attempt by the Hamas terrorist organization to rearm," the IDF said in a statement.
The footage was released on the same day that Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei vowed a "tooth-breaking" response to the actions of both Israel and the U.S.
A top adviser to Khamenei, Kamal Kharrazi, issued the warning about Iran's nuclear capacity on Friday, saying that the country may be prepared to alter its policies on using nuclear weapons if the nation faces an existential threat.
"If an existential threat arises, Iran will modify its nuclear doctrine, we have the capability to build weapons and have no issue in this regard," Kharrazi told Lebanese media.
Israel also on Saturday claimed that its forces killed two Hezbollah commanders who were responsible for more than 400 strikes against them in October.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) says it "eliminated the terrorists Mousa Izz al-Din, the commander of Hezbollah’s forces in the coastal sector, and Hassan Majid Daib, Hezbollah’s artillery commander in the coastal sector" on Friday in the Tyre region of Lebanon.
IDF says Daib was responsible for "the projectile fire toward the Haifa Bay on Thursday."
[ShabelleMedia] The UN Security Council on Wednesday voted to begin a two-year withdrawal of its political mission in Somalia, which has been in the East African country for more than a decade.
UNSOM was established in 2013 by the UN Security Council to support Somali authorities in the transition to democracy and the rule of law after more than 20 years of conflict between militias, Islamist groups, and criminal gangs.
President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud is still seeking to extricate Somalia from chronic instability.
In May, his government asked that the world body to end the assistance mission’s mandate when it expires in October, but later amended the request to suggest a two-year transition period.
In a resolution adopted unanimously on Wednesday, the Security Council agreed to follow through with a transition and plans for UNSOM to end its mission on October 31, 2026.
UNSOM will henceforth be called the UN Transitional Assistance Mission in Somalia, or UNTMIS.
Now we know.
In the first year of the transition period, the mission will primarily focus on efforts to conduct free and fair elections and protection of human rights ...which are usually entirely different from personal liberty... . Some of its work will be handed over to Somali authorities at the end of year one.
[NYPOST] Democratic Rep. Rashida Tlaib ...the very first ever Paleostinian-American ever sworn into Congress in 2019. She is a member of The Squad and consistently votes against the U.S. national interest. She's a Dem, naturally, from a safe district you wouldn't want to live in (Michigan's 12th congressional district). She wants the country to be kinda like Gaza only without any Jews for neighbors... publicly refused to endorse Vice President Harris during a rally in bankrupt, increasingly impoverished, reliably Democrat, Detroit ... ruled by Democrats since 1962. A city whose Golden Age included the Purple Gang... — a critical decision that could tip the scales against Democrats ...every time you hear the phrase white people, white supremacy,white anything but paint, you're listening to a Democrat. Ask him/her/it to reimagine something for you; they do that a lot, though not well. They can hear a dog whistle a mile or two away. They invented the spoils system and Tammany Hall, and inspired the addition of the word (Thomas) Nasty to the English language. They want to stop continental drift and repeal the law of unintended side effects... in Michigan. The move carries significant electoral implications, with Michigan part of the Democrats "blue wall" of must-win states in the 2024 presidential election. A Trump triumph there would hamper Harris’ chances of winning the White House. Tlaib, a member of the House’s far-left "Squad," is upset with the Biden-Harris administration’s support for Israel.
I don’t know why they’re so upset. Despite the Biden-Harris administration’s occasional pretty words on the subject, they're standing firmly at Israel’s back as they choose the next place to stick in their knife.
The only Paleostinian-American in Congress, she has been openly supportive of Hamas ..always the voice of sweet reason... during her time in office and has been censured by her colleagues for defending Hamas.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[Regnum] The Kalashnikov Concern has completed testing of the promising small-sized AM-17 assault rifle, developed by order of the Russian Defense Ministry. This was reported on November 2 by the company's press service.
"AM-17 was designed at the Kalashnikov Design and Technology Center taking into account the requirements for modern automatic small arms. It was tested in the SVO zone, where it received good reviews," the concern's Telegram channel says.
The developers improved the design of the machine gun based on the soldiers' comments. Its main feature was the use of high-strength polymer materials, including for the receiver. This made it possible to make the weapon compact and in line with modern requirements.
The concern plans to begin serial production of the AM-17 in 2025. It could replace the AKS74U assault rifle in the Russian army, which was adopted into service in 1979.
The new assault rifle is equipped with a telescopic buttstock, a two-way fire mode selector, a Picatinny rail, and a cocking handle that can be installed on the right or left side. It can fire all types of 5.45 mm cartridges adopted by the Russian army.
The AM-17 magazine holds 30 rounds. The rate of fire of the machine gun is 850±50 rounds per minute. It weighs 2.5 kg, the length in the traveling position is 490 mm, in the combat position - 750.
As reported by the Regnum news agency, on November 2, the president of the Kalashnikov concern, Alan Lushnikov, announced the sending of the self-propelled artillery gun for the airborne troops, the Lotos, for state testing. The company also completed sea trials of the Husky-10 hovercraft.
In October, the manufacturer Lobaev arms presented a new sniper rifle ZOV at an exhibition in Moscow. It can be fired in semi-automatic mode. The effective firing range is up to a kilometer. It is planned to begin to be supplied to the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation soon.
"First unveiled in the Russian Army Expo 2017 alongside the suppressed AMB-17. It was developed and manufactured in the late 2010s by Kalashnikov Concern based on the Yevgeny Dragunov MA Compact Rifle."
Hot Air has all the details about the warrantless raid on the nonprofit animal rescue that was also the home of the couple that rescued Peanut the Squirrel and Fred the Raccoon, now euthanized at the hands of New York State bureaucrats determined to test a pair of house pets for rabies. Also at the link are tweeted videos of the adorable critters.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/03/2024
00:00 ||
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[11157 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
My favorite squirrel encounter of all time happening at a lakeside campground years ago. Noon one day I was sitting in a shady spot, surfing the internet on a laptop, very quiet and still except for keystrokes. Suddenly a squirrel's head appeared over the top of the laptop screen. He had simply walking up my leg and onto my lap without either of us being aware of the other's sentient existence. Hilarity ensued.
#7
She looks like a Stasi officer in that picture.
Posted by: Big Bluetooth1422 ||
11/03/2024 6:37
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#8
From the Jan 19, 2022 press release - "Throughout her 26 years at DEC, Director Przyklek demonstrated a steadfast commitment to protecting communities from polluters and safeguarding natural resources," Commissioner Seggos said. "I'm honored to promote to her new role as Director as she breaks the glass ceiling and I am confident that she will lead DEC's outstanding Law Enforcement Officers with dignity and dedication."
Posted by: Bobby ||
11/03/2024 6:58
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#20
I think the scale absolutely pushes this. Squirrel and Racoon = major priority for search (8 agents IIUC) to grab/kill these two pets?
I'd fire everyone in the decision chain. Last night.
Posted by: Frank G ||
11/03/2024 20:49
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#21
My First Lit'l Book on Government Tyranny.
For a lot of people. Even normies who scoffed at the They're Eating the Pets can get this. In that sense, they just murdered popular podcasters, nearly in real time. Then there is my generation who grew up with Bob Ross and his pet squirrels.
PETA have a statement? Animals Have Rights Too have a statement? So far I've just seen Oh, So Much for a Tree Rat, reactionaries!. Which of course is indicative of a real pig shit look.
And, of course, her name is Karen.
Alternative Title:
My First Lit'l Book on Just Followinig Orders.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[Korrespondent] ZSU conduct important battles at the rally and today of Ukraine.
Russian troops have attacked 35 times near eight settlements. 17 battles are still ongoing.
Since the beginning of the current day, 107 combat clashes have occurred on the front. The most intense fighting is taking place in the Kurakhovsky direction, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine reported in a report as of 16:00 on Saturday, November 2.
Thus, in the Kharkov direction, one attack by Russians in the Volchansk area has been repelled. Another battle continues in the same location.
In the Kupyansk direction, the enemy carried out seven assaults near Peschanoye, Zagryzovoye, Zelenoye Roshcha, Kruglyakovka, Kolesnikovka and Lozovaya. Two combat clashes have ended, five more are ongoing.
In the Liman direction, the invaders attacked 13 times near Grekovka, Terny, Yampolevka, Torsky and Serebryansky forests. Three battles are underway.
In the Seversky direction, the Ukrainian Armed Forces are repelling an enemy assault near the settlement of Ivano-Daryevka.
In the Kramatorsk direction, an attack near Predtechino was repelled.
In the Toretsk direction, the enemy attacked seven times near the settlements of Toretsk and Shcherbinovka. Two battles ended without success for the occupiers, and five more are ongoing.
In the Pokrovsky direction, the occupiers carried out eight assaults in the areas of the settlements of Nikolaevka, Luch, Krutoy Yar, Selidovo and Vishnevoye. The defense forces repelled three attacks, five clashes are still ongoing.
The hottest area today is Kurakhovskoye – the enemy attacked 35 times near the settlements of Ilyinka, Novoselidovka, Novodmitrovka, Ostroye, Maksimilyanovka, Antonovka, Konstantinovka and Yekaterinovka. 18 battles have been completed, another 17 are still ongoing.
In the Vremovsky direction, the occupiers attacked the positions of our troops near Trudovoye and Maksimovka four times without result.
In the Orekhov direction, our defenders repelled two attacks in the Nesteryanka area.
In the Dnieper direction, the Russian invaders unsuccessfully stormed twice.
Earlier it became known that the Ukrainian Armed Forces destroyed two Pion self-propelled howitzers in the Russian rear with sniper drops from a drone bomber. This happened near the temporarily occupied Gorlovka.
[THEGATEWAYPUNDIT] The StopBogusBallots.com team has begun posting videos about the wildly anomalous voter rolls in the swing states.
Voters by the thousands, tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands living in anomalous addresses like hotels, casinos and parking lots — now being made visible with Fractal quantum-speed technology.
In this video, the Fractal team performed an analysis of the current Pennsylvania voter roll — with over 8 million voters.
Those voters were then sorted real-time, at quantum speed, showing an alleged 3,000 voters under the age of 9.
A parallel analysis of the voter registration dates showed these voters registered as early as 1952.
Many of the voters were shown, in the official State of Pennsylvania voter roll to be born in the future — as far into the future as November 27, 2024 — on a voter roll dated October 24, 2024.
The StopBogusBallots.com team believes Pennsylvania may be the first state to register the unborn.
StopBogusBallots.com is publishing videos in many of the swing states of the wildly anomalous data — people registered in hotels, parking lots and abandoned buildings.
This is the first of several such videos demonstrating that Secretaries of State, in every swing state, have voter rolls so wildly anomalous they cannot claim to run a free, fair election.
[DW] Since Russia's invasion of Ukraine began in February 2022, arson attacks by juveniles on rail infrastructure and military in Russia have increased. Sometimes, youths are promised money for carrying out these attacks.
Russia has seen a growing number of acts of sabotage, mostly against the railroad and the military — with minors as the culprits.
Authorities maintain that young people are being commissioned to carry out such operations by "pro-Ukrainian handlers" on social media networks.
Now, authorities are using propaganda videos to threaten the young saboteurs. A draft law would make it possible to punish kids as young as 14 for sabotage. At the same time, human rights activists have warned that Russian security forces could be acting as provocateurs.
DW has followed several legal proceedings against young Russians, and also contacted a channel on the Telegram messaging app on which money is offered for arson attacks on military equipment.
FLYERS WITH A QR CODE ATTRACT YOUTH
A small bus stops in a residential district in the southern city of Omsk. Six armed men from a special unit jump out and run into a house, where they break open the door of an apartment and find two teenagers. They push them to the floor and interrogate them.
In this video, made by security forces and distributed on Telegram channels, the juveniles confess to having set a military helicopter on fire. They say they were offered $20,000 (€18,500) for doing so by an unknown person via Telegram, but didn't receive the money.
A criminal investigation on suspicion of terrorism was launched, and now the juveniles are facing at least two months in pre-trial detention.
According to authorities, on September 21, a Mi-8 helicopter at a military base in Omsk was set on fire by a Molotov cocktail. In the same month, a civilian helicopter of the same type was burned at the Noyabrsk Airport in Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug.
Two young people were arrested on the spot, found with burns on their faces and hands from setting the helicopter ablaze. They said they had received the commission to commit the deed via Telegram.
The youths said they had found a flyer with a QR code in the toilets at their school. Using the code, they had contacted the unknown person who promised them money for doing the sabotage. According to media reports, similar flyers have been found in several Russian regions, including in Volgograd, Voronezh and Ryazan.
'BOT FOR SCHOOLCHILDREN WHO NEED MONEY'
In the guise of a schoolboy from St. Petersburg, DW got in contact with a Telegram channel of this kind.
The chat began with the automatic greeting "Bot for schoolchildren who need money." The following sums were offered for arson attacks: $5,000 for a helicopter, $10,000 for a plane, $3,000 for a transformer and $4,000 for power lines.
The chat partner asked straightaway where the pupil came from and what "objects" were nearby. For the destruction of military equipment with a video as proof, the individual even promised $150,000 paid from a crypto wallet into any bank account desired.
In addition, the chat partner gave exact instructions on how an object can be destroyed using a gas canister. He wrote that only 10% of commissions had failed so far, adding that there would not be a "real punishment" if the young saboteurs were arrested by police.
At the end of the chat, the DW journalist introduced himself by name and asked for an explanation. The unknown man said only that he worked "for a certain organization" whose representatives were located in a number of countries. He said the aim was to try to destroy as much military equipment as possible that could be used against the civilian population of Ukraine.
"Why young people? Because they can only be held responsible to a minimal extent," the unknown person wrote.
WHO IS BEHIND THE CHATS?
Identifying the administrators of such Telegram channels is almost impossible, said Michael Klimarev, a security expert who heads the nonprofit Internet Protection Society. He said they were manipulating minors while talking about a "fight against the Russian occupiers."
"They make the kids do things that they wouldn't risk doing themselves, and ruin their lives. It isn't a sign of bravery to rope children into such a fight," said Klimarev.
A technical expert from the Russian human rights initiative NetFreedomsProject, who did not want to be named over safety concerns, said it was indeed possible to identify people and their locations with the help of Telegram's management.
"That is the only way to find out who is behind the Telegram chats — whether they are abroad or whether they are provocateurs in Russia itself," the expert said.
MORE THAN 550 PEOPLE PROSECUTED FOR SABOTAGE, ARSON
The Russian Volunteer Corps, which is made up of Russian citizens who side with Ukraine, presents several videos showing acts of sabotage against the Russian railroad system on its Telegram channel. DW interviewed someone close to the group who insisted on remaining anonymous.
He said the participation of minors and amateurs in sabotage was a controversial issue within the group.
"A professional is well-prepared and knows what he is getting into," he said. However, he said, people who recruit juveniles see it as a cheap and expedient method of using fires to reach targets fast. He suggested that Telegram channels could also be used by secret service agents to entrap young people.
According to the human rights project Avtozak LIVE, more than 550 people are being prosecuted for acts of sabotage and arson against recruitment offices of the Russian army. It does not have figures specifically on minors.
The project OVD-Info reports that at least 28 people in Russia have been given jail sentences for sabotage since the invasion began. Under Russian law, such cases can carry prison sentences of 10 to 12 years for people who are older than 16.
At the moment, young sabotage suspects are charged with "terrorist" offenses, said Alexander Verkhovsky, the head of the research center SOWA. He said two 14-year-olds in St. Petersburg were sentenced to two and four years in jail for setting a relay box on fire. Verkhovsky said there were unfortunately no statistics on such cases, as the documents were not made publicly accessible. The Russian parliament is currently considering a draft bill that would lower the age limit for prosecution on sabotage charges to 14.
Evegeny Smirnov, a lawyer for the human rights project First Department (Perviy otdel), said the accusation of participation in a terror organization or of high treason could be brought if investigators believed an act of sabotage had been carried out at the behest of the Freedom of Russia Legion or another organization that is banned in Russia. That would mean an even harsher jail sentence, he said.
Though Russian authorities are imposing heavier penalties and lowering the age limit for prosecution, Smirnov said, they are not removing the reason for the acts of sabotage: namely, the war against Ukraine. "I do not expect a reduction in prosecutions until the conflict ends," he said.
[THEHILL] Washington Gov. Jay Inslee ...Governor of Washington state, failed candidate for the 2020 Dem presidential campaign, mainly because nobody outside the state and some inside had ever heard of him. He complained, complained, complained that the Trump administration wasn't doing enough to help the state, then returned an Army field hospital and 400 ventilators that didn't get used... (D) activated the National Guard to be on stand-by in the event it is asked to support local law enforcement and the Washington State Patrol during election week, a blurb issued Friday said.
The National Guard will be activated from Nov. 4 to 7 until just after midnight, according to the release. The adjutant general will determine how many members of the Guard will be called.
"This is a purely precautionary measure taken in response to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s nationwide warnings regarding threats to election infrastructure and other recent activities that have occurred in southwestern Washington," the release read.
In a letter activating the National Guard, Inslee cited recent instances of election-related unrest leading up to election day.
Last week, two ballot boxes were burned in Oregon after an incendiary device was placed inside a ballot box. In Washington state, nearly 500 ballots were recovered after an incendiary device was placed inside a ballot box, causing them to burn, The News Agency that Dare Not be Named reported.
Still, some national security experts told The Hill last week that a repeat of election violence to the scale of the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection is unlikely.
Amy Cooter, an expert at the Center on Terrorism, Extremism, and Counterterrorism of the Middlebury Institute, said that while the threat of election violence is a concern, the conditions for it appear to be lower than in late 2020. Though, the situation could change quickly, she said.
"These landscapes are so volatile that [the assessment] today could dramatically change based on something that happens later," she had told The Hill. "But as of right now, I am most concerned with sort of small outbreaks of violence, not like we saw at January 6."
Posted by: Fred ||
11/03/2024
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I myself am most concerned with random mass shootings (increasingly in the news for the past year) breaking out at a wide variety of public assemblies. The only situations free of this have been (to date) political rallies. There will be long lines of would-be voters outside polling places on Tuesday...
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[Regnum] Former Bolivian President Evo Morales, whose supporters have been blocking roads throughout the republic for 19 days, has declared a hunger strike and called on the current authorities to engage in dialogue. He wrote about this on November 1 on social media.
The former head of state noted that the people who support him do not want bloodshed.
“Nice country ya got here. Sure would be a shame if something happened to it.”
Morales specified that the hunger strike will continue until the government orders the army and police to stop fighting the protesters, and until it creates two discussion forums to discuss economic and political issues.
He also called on international institutions and friendly countries to mediate in the dialogue between the authorities and the protesters. The former president also addressed his supporters, asking them to consider a pause in blocking the roads.
As reported by Regnum News Agency, on November 1 it became known that protesters supporting Morales seized a military unit in Villa Tunari in the Bolivian department of Cochabamba and took servicemen hostage. The current President of Bolivia, Luis Arce, specified that the supporters of the ex-president stormed three military facilities at once, and the Armed Forces stated that the participants in the seizure seized weapons. The demonstrators in Bolivia are protesting against rising food prices and fuel shortages.
On October 27, Morales posted a video on social media showing the moment when armed men opened fire on his car. The former president claims that the attempt to detain him was on orders from the Bolivian government.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[Regnum] In 2025, the volume of grain harvested in Russia could amount to about 130 million tons, said Dmitry Rylko, CEO of the Institute for Agricultural Market Studies (IKAR), on November 2.
"Everything is very preliminary and will change. This is about 85 million tons of wheat and about 130 million tons of grain in total," RIA Novosti quoted Rylko as saying.
Thus, according to the forecast, the volume of grain in 2025 will remain at the official forecast level of 2024. As for grain exports, it is too early to name the volume, Rylko noted, since the “carryover stock” of 2024 is unknown.
As reported by the Regnum news agency, in September, Russian Agriculture Minister Dmitry Patrushev said at a visiting meeting in the Saratov Region that the situation in the Russian agro-industrial complex remained normal, despite the worsening weather during spring field work. At that time, almost 64 million tons of wheat had been harvested. He noted that the grain harvest forecast remained at 132 million tons.
On the sidelines of the Golden Autumn 2024 exhibition on October 10, Patrushev said that in 2024, the grain harvest would be about 130 million tons, including 83 million tons of wheat. At that time, 122 million tons of grain had been harvested.
[KhaamaPress] The Hal-vash news agency reported that Taliban ...mindless ferocity in a turban... border guards and Iranian forces clashed at the zero border point in Hilmand district early on Wednesday.
According to the report, the clash began after Iranian border guards opened fire on Baloch fuel traders at the border, killing one person.
Simultaneously, Hal-vash, released footage where continuous gunfire can be heard during the incident.
So far, neither the Taliban nor Iranian officials have issued statements regarding this clash.
The news agency stated that the clash between the Taliban and Iranian border guards occurred after "forces from Border Post 4 of the Sasoli village garrison in Hilmand district fired at several Baloch fuel traders."
According to the report, a 26-year-old fuel trader named Naeem Rigi, a resident of Khatham Ghaljai village in Sasoli, was killed in the incident.
Since the Taliban’s return to power in Afghanistan over three years ago, their border guards have repeatedly engaged in skirmishes with Iranian forces. The ongoing tensions at the shared border highlight the fragility of the relationship between the two sides.
The recurring festivities and lack of formal communication between the two governments indicate a deeper strain in cross-border relations.
The escalating incidents are creating significant risks for civilians, such as fuel traders, and raising concerns over the stability of the border region.
[Townhall] Republican politicians demand answers from the Pentagon after military service members complained that they have not received enough absentee ballots to vote before Election Day.
GOP Reps. Brian Mast (R-FL), Bill Huizenga (R-MI), and Mike Waltz (R-FL) sent a letter to Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin citing their "grave concern over deficiencies in the Defense Department’s protocols" for the U.S. military because they said the absentee ballot stockpile has been "depleted and had not been replenished."
"Our nation’s brave men and women in uniform brought to our attention that there has been inadequate education at the administrative level on how to register to vote, request an absentee ballot, and fill in a federal write-in absentee ballot if their state-issued ballot does not arrive in time," the letter reads. "Other service members also stated that when a request for a federal write-in absentee ballot was made, they were told the base’s stockpile of such ballots was depleted and had not been replenished."
The politicians also wrote that the Pentagon offered "inadequate education" on how service members can vote while deployed.
The Republicans demanded that the Pentagon take extraordinary measures to ensure that the nation’s "elite warriors" have an opportunity to cast their vote in the upcoming election. However,
if you can't be a good example, then you'll just have to be a horrible warning... with only three days until Election Day, politicians fear the government has not yet taken action.
Mast called it unacceptable that the Biden-Harris Administration took no further steps to consider the country’s service members, and instead, it was an afterthought.
"Joe The Big Guy Biden ...46th president of the U.S. Former Senator-for-Life from Delaware, an example of the kind of top-notch Washington intellect to be found in the World's Greatest Deliberative Body.... and Kamala Harris Former Oakland mayor Willie Brown's' former mistress have mobilized federal manpower, resources, and tax dollars to block state-level election integrity measures, including in Georgia and Virginia, through lawsuits and smears," Mast said in a blurb. "They claim to care about democracy and the right to vote, yet they’ve failed to plan accordingly to facilitate the right to vote for every single one of our nation’s brave men and women in uniform. Our nation’s elite warriors deserve to have every opportunity to vote for the next commander-in-chief, especially since that person will be making life-and-death decisions for our troops."
The incident comes after President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris have refused to acknowledge that U.S. military members are serving overseas in combat. During a debate, Harris claimed that no active service members were on the battlefield.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
11/03/2024 14:26
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#3
Other service members also stated that when a request for a federal write-in absentee ballot was made, they were told the base’s stockpile of such ballots was depleted and had not been replenished.""
Bullshit.
In an internet world, there's no good reason why the unit voting officer/NCO shouldn't be able to push a button and print one out.
[BREITBART] The Starmer government has used fear to shut down public discussion and Parliamentary rules to silence politicians, Brexit leader Nigel Farage warned.
British Member of Parliament Nigel Farage said his written questions to the government to get facts about the Southport attack have gone unanswered, and attempts to ask spoken questions in the chamber have been shut down, amounting to what he calls "a near-blanket ban on discussing the case".
The Southport attack earlier this year saw young children killed at a Taylor Swift-themed dance party and was followed by days of protests and riots. Suspect Axel Rudakubana is facing trial for charges of murder, attempted murder, a terrorism offence for possession of an al-Qaeda publication, and a bio-weapons offence, but little has been revealed about the man or his motives, and this has led to accusations of a government-engineered "information vacuum".
The situation, as laid out by Mr Farage, is particularly concerning. In normal times, Parliamentarians actually have more freedom-of-speech rights than ordinary Britons, given they have the privilege to speak inside the chamber without fear of prosecution. While Parliament traditionally self-regulates to not endanger live cases by prejudicing court proceedings, the Brexit leader alleges present changes go far beyond what has been considered proper in the past.
As expressed, what now counts as contempt of court is much lower than in the past, Farage said, claiming: "The Contempt of Court Act appears to have been deployed as a tool of suppression".
Launching a major attack on the present climate of "fear" surrounding even discussing the Southport attack, what it means, and what the government knew and when engendered by the crackdown on the use of social media through custodial sentences for incautious members of the public, Mr Farage wrote in the Daily Telegraph on Friday that: "I understand the importance of not prejudicing a future trial, but in the current climate, there appears to be no room to separate the ongoing legal process from the questions I posed over the summer. This is deeply troubling."
The situation now fundamentally challenges Farage’s duty as an elected Parliamentarian representing the interests of his constituents, which he said includes "asking difficult questions in order to get to the truth about national issues".
Describing the events of the past week, when news broke of the Southport attack suspect being charged under biological weapon and terror charges while the attack itself was not said to be thought of by officials as terrorism itself, Mr Farage wrote:
This week, I asked the Home Secretary two written questions on this subject. The first asked if the suspect had ever been referred to the anti-terrorist Prevent programme; the second asked when she became aware of the discovery of ricin in the accused’s home. The questions will not be answered."
... [of Wednesday this week when his party college Richard Tice was granted a spoken question to the Prime Minister in Parliament] That morning, he received three panicked emails from the Commons authorities asking what the content of his question might be.
Then, an hour before PMQs began, he received a telephone call in which he was told not to ask anything about the man accused of the Southport attacks. This point was reinforced strenuously by the Speaker in the Commons just before PMQs began. Parliamentary Privilege was effectively withdrawn.
Mr Tice did get a question in, but evidently worded it carefully to elicit some response without breaking the orders handed down by the office of the Speaker, and open himself up to administrative action by Parliamentary authorities. The Prime Minister declined to respond meaningfully, instead issuing a veiled warning to those who he said "undermined" the police by speaking out.
[IsraelTimes] Israeli strikes against Hezbollah have killed at least 2,897 people and injured 13,150 in Lebanon, with 30 fatalities reported in the past 24 hours, Lebanon’s health ministry says, without differentiating between civilians and combatants.
[IsraelNationalNews] Founded essentially as a Christian homeland in the 1920s, intricate power-sharing arrangements among the various communities in Lebanon’s religiously pluralistic state offered a formula to forge unity from diversity. And we all know how this works.
Led and dominated by the Christian Maronite elites, Lebanon was vibrant and liberal, projecting a civic polity, a rich cultural tapestry, sophisticated banking institutions. Lebanon enjoyed a unique status among the Arab-Muslim regimes and societies in the surrounding Middle East.
Lebanon lost its way decades ago. This was not primarily due to inter-sectarian rivalries, despite the conventional opinion that the Lebanese are not a people but a composite of conflicting confessions. There was exceedingly more integration and cooperation between Christian and Muslim (Sunni and Shi’a) political classes than generally acknowledged. The so-called Civil War erupted in 1975, and pitted initially and predominantly the alien and armed Palestinian Arabs against the historic native Lebanese Christians of the land.
Over the years, external forces promoting aggressive and expansionist ideologies shook the balance among the communities and crushed Lebanon’s independence. Countries sapping and sabotaging the soul and sovereignty of Lebanon included Egypt in the ’50s, Palestinian Arabs from the ’60s, Syria from the ’70s, and Iran from the ’80s. Lebanon was overwhelmed and enfeebled, as Damascus imposed presidents and policies on Beirut and the "Switzerland of the Middle East" became a vassal of Tehran.
The war Hezbollah started against Israel on October 8, 2023, brought all the ambiguity and fragility of Lebanon to a head. After a lengthy political impasse and the extensive effects of the war on the country, Lebanon may finally turn the crisis into an opportunity.
HEZBOLLAH AND GUNS
Charismatic Shiite religious personalities subject to Iran’s ideological leadership enabled Hezbollah to grab the reins of power in Lebanon. The radicalized Shiite sect entered into a revolutionary mode, vehemently anti-American and abundantly armed, fighting jihad against Israel and challenging the Christians in Lebanon’s political hierarchy.
Hezbollah carried out assassinations of its political rivals with impunity — the murder of Sunni Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri in 2005, orchestrated by Syria, was the most notorious case. Syrian hegemony over Lebanon assured that Hezbollah would retain its weaponry according to the 1989 Ta’if Agreement. Serving as a submissive Iranian proxy, Hezbollah assumed the proportions of a ’state within a state’, with all the paraphernalia of social, financial, and health services, and grew to becoming a far more formidable military organization than the national Lebanese Armed Forces. Hezbollah proved the validity of the motto that "power grows out of the barrel of a gun."
In May 2000, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak decided to end the IDF’s military presence in south Lebanon, which began with the First Lebanese War in 1982. A foolhardy precipitate Israeli withdrawal facilitated the so-called Shiite "resistance" (al-muqawama), a senior partner with the Lebanese state, to seize total control of events in the Lebanese-Israeli military theatre and prepare for war.
UNITED NATIONS RESOLUTIONS
Hezbollah consistently refused to disarm and allow the state, in Max Weber’s definition, "to possess a monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force." Christians, Sunnis, and Druze, were helpless in the face of Hezbollah’s categorical assertion: "We will never disarm." Hezbollah was likewise adamant through its political machinations for the last two years to prevent the choosing of a president for the woeful republic.
The United Nations entered into the Lebanese quagmire at various turns to extricate the country from stagnation and paralysis. Neutralizing Hezbollah, rolling back its virtual seizure of south Lebanon, was to be the essential goal. Three examples illuminate this point:
*UNSC Res. 520 from Sept. 17, 1982, after the assassination of president-elect Bashir Gemayel, aimed to assist Lebanon to function "under the sole and exclusive authority of the Government of Lebanon through the Lebanese Army throughout Lebanon." The UNIFIL Observer Force was to play a role in this effort. Hezbollah simply defied the UN.
*UNSC Res. 1559, Sept. 2, 2004, while Syrian forces still remained on Lebanese soil, called for "the disbanding and disarmament of all Lebanese and non-Lebanese militias." The following year the Syrian army withdrew from Lebanon. Hezbollah ignored the UN with impunity.
*UNSC Res. 1701 from Aug. 11, 2006, after the Second Lebanese War, called for a cease-fire with a comprehensive solution based, besides prohibiting Hezbollah’s presence south of the Litani River, on "the disarmament of all armed groups in Lebanon." Hassan Nasrallah responded that Hezbollah will not disarm, offering the disingenuous reason that the militia was necessary and capable to defend Lebanon from Israeli threats. Iran rearmed Hezbollah in defiance of 1701, and UNIFIL stood by and did nothing. IMO: not because UN is anti-semitic, because it's anti-Civilization. TWO RESOLUTIONS: 1559 and 1701
While the mechanics of diplomacy sluggishly turned their wheels, the war between Israel and Iran’s proxies — Hamas and Hezbollah — entered its second year. From a distant political planet, Washington and Paris continued to press for a cease-fire in the Lebanese theatre. They proposed, as did Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati, the implementation of Resolution 1701, whereby Hezbollah would withdraw to north of the Litani and an invigorated UNIFIL would patrol in the south. This seemed like turning the clock back under the illusion of going forward.
Prime Minister Netanyahu reportedly rejected 1701 and advocated for 1559. The difference between the two was ostensibly the demand by 1559, not only to disarm but also to disband armed militias. Hezbollah, the sole active militia in Lebanon, would continue to function as a political party — already represented in the Lebanese legislature and government — but no longer as a bellicose belligerent in the Levant. Its dissolution as a fighting force is the sine qua non for peace to prevail between Israel and Lebanon.
WHITHER LEBANON?
We now come full circle back to the people and politics of Lebanon with which we began.
The war in the south (of Lebanon) led to the displacement of approximately one million Lebanese going northward to Beirut and beyond. An estimated one hundred thousand Lebanese crossed into Syria, while an unknown number sought refuge and perhaps a future life in Iraq and Iran. Many Syrians who had earlier come to Lebanon seeking work, or fleeing the Civil War from 2011, returned to their country.
A dynamic of population movement is under way that can enfeeble the Shiite community’s political dominance in Lebanon. Israel decapitated Hezbollah’s leadership cadre from Hassan Nasrallah down to his senior associates, and this tarnishes the image of the party and illustrates the price paid for joining its ranks.
The Shiite balance sheet records thousands dead, thousands injured, villages partly destroyed, tens of thousands impoverished, the Beirut Dahyieh headquarters in ruin. The cell phone and walkie-talkie explosions in September sowed horror in Shiite circles, and Israel bombing Hezbollah banks created havoc and financial distress in their community.
More and more Lebanese, including anti-Hezbollah Shiites, are raising their voices condemning Hezbollah for the damage and suffering that Israel has inflicted upon the common people. Hezbollah’s bravado, attacking and provoking Israel, has led to the human disaster that hit Lebanon. The wretched displaced refugees are huddling in churches and parks, sleeping in the streets. Suffering has always been a supra-existential spiritual experience for Shiites since the martyrdom of Imam ’Ali in 680. Today suffering is an existential way of life, yet with which other communities feel little solidarity.
The present infirmity and tragedy of the Shiites strengthen the other communities. Any demographic shift, even if minor, signals a realignment among the groups to the benefit of Christians and Sunnis, the traditional political aristocracy of Lebanon’s political class. It's guns, not politics, that'll solve the problem.
In the past, the demographic decline of the Christians was a talking point to alter the constitutional order and electoral system. The combined Sunni — Shiite Muslim majority population resented parity of Christians and Muslims — 64 each — in parliamentary representation. Members of different communities were also offended that the office of president was allocated as an exclusive Maronite preserve. This appeared archaic and anti-democratic, though consider what a Maronite bishop once said to me: "We carry Lebanon on our shoulders...We are the mother of the baby." This is historically true and still resonates until today.
The objective of Hezbollah, a surrogate of the Iranian axis, was to conquer and destroy the Jewish state. Islam, as a supersessionary religion, is commanded by the Koran to be triumphant over all other religions. Inasmuch as this faith continues to catalyze Hezbollah in its jihad against the Jewish state, Israel has no alternative but to fight on until victory. If not, the whole war is for naught. And that "the whole war is for naught" is what US negotiators trying to achieve.
Posted by: Grom the Reflective ||
11/03/2024
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[IsraelTimes] We've been labeled traitors and Zionist agents who deserve Assad’s sarin gas, but after Nasrallah's death, we handed out baklava
On October 7th of last year, I was casually scrolling through my Instagram account, when images of a sickening massacre started flooding my newsfeed. At first, I assumed such a degree of brutality could only have been carried out by the Assad regime and Hezbollah against yet another Syrian town. A chill ran down my spine when I realized that this had taken place in Israel and was perpetrated by Hamas ..always the voice of sweet reason... . As more videos and survivor accounts emerged, I began experiencing a mixture of disgust, helplessness, and fear. Flashbacks to Syria’s bloodiest atrocities came rushing back to me. "I hope they don’t have more massacres planned," I thought to myself, recalling how Assad, Hezbollah, and Iranian-backed militias used to conduct massacres in tandem across Syria.
I was enraged when I saw videos of baklava being distributed in celebration by supporters of Hamas, Hezbollah, and Assad. I spoke to several Syrian activists that day. In describing their disgust at the massacre, they used words carved deeply into the Syrian psyche, such as Tadamon, Madayah, Holah, and Khan Sheikhun. While these words may be meaningless sounds to many non-Syrians, to us, each of them represents a deep wound within our souls. On October 7th, the collective free Syrian consciousness experienced a horrible episode of PTSD, though few dared to express it.
"I can no longer eat baklava. There they go again, using it to celebrate another barbaric massacre." Samia whispered over the phone, her voice hoarse from crying. "For 13 years they’ve been using baklava as a weapon of war against us. The sight of it nauseates me." It was typical of Samia to switch her attention to something minor like baklava to avoid dealing with a gruesome event. As she spoke, my mind flashed back to countless baklava rituals we had endured over the years. The baklava celebrations by Hezbollah after the Qusayr massacre, the Dabke and baklava parties by Assad’s supporters after the Ghouta chemical attack, and the list goes on and on.
As Israel’s war against Hamas unfolded over the following year, many ordinary Syrians seemed notably disengaged relative to other Arab and Moslem communities. I could feel that Syrian attitudes towards Israel were shifting in an unprecedented manner, but people were still afraid to say so publicly. Perhaps it was confusion of feeling empathy towards the Jewish people despite having grown up in a strict dictatorship that pumped antisemitic myths into our minds throughout our lives. Perhaps it was the fear of angering The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the decaying remnant of the Ottoman Empire... , which controlled every grain of wheat and rice that entered northwest Syria. However,
there's no worse danger than telling a mother her baby is ugly... thirteen years of massacres proved to the Syrian people that their only true enemies were Assad, Hezbollah, and Iran.
When Israel launched its most recent offensive against Hezbollah, the transformation in Syrian sentiment was complete. Whenever Israel assassinated a senior Hezbollah leader who had overseen a massacre of our countrymen, Syrians in the northwest celebrated with fireworks, music, and sweets. In a bold display, some carried signs thanking Israel for its efforts against Hezbollah. However,
there's no worse danger than telling a mother her baby is ugly... the pro-Hamas mob quickly came for Syrians everywhere. We were labeled traitors and Zionist agents who deserved Assad’s barrel bombs and Sarin gas. Assad used this as an excuse for more killing and torture. Syrian refugees 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... were tied down and beaten while refugees in Turkey lived in fear of renewed waves of racism against them.
The watershed moment came when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered the assignation of His Eminence Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah ...The late, lamented satrap of the Medes and the Persians in Leb...> . Massive spontaneous rallies broke out in Idlib and the rest of northwest Syria. So much baklava was shared that pâtisseries in Idlib were fully sold out for several days. Shocking to many were the signs carried by many Syrians directly thanking Abu Yair, a nickname we use when referring to Netanyahu. A group of brave activists used Google Translate to write a banner thanking the prime minister in broken Hebrew. The taboo had finally been broken.
I called Samia that day. I could hear loud Arabic music blasting in the background.
"Are you happy?" I asked.
"Of course I’m happy! I can finally eat baklava!"
"It seems we’ll be eating a lot of it these coming days."
"I know! I have already bought two boxes. I opened one of them today, and I’m saving the other one for the big celebration."
"Abu Raqbe?" I asked, mocking Assad.
"Why not? With Abu Yair, nothing is impossible." She replied melodically.
[ConservativeTreehouse] Three Days Before Trump 2017 Inauguration
On January 17, 2017, just three days before President-Trump was sworn into office, outgoing President Obama had a secret conference call with progressive media allies.
A long battled FOIA request by Jason Leopold was finally able to receive documents and within the documents the transcript of the phone call is revealed.
Again, this is three days before Trump took office, when the Obama White House and Intelligence Community were intentionally pushing the Trump-Russia conspiracy story into the media in an effort to disrupt President Trump’s transition to power. President Obama is essentially asking his progressive allies to help defend his administration. Part of the 20-page transcript is below:
Barack Obama – […] “I think the Russia thing is a problem. And it’s of a piece with this broader lack of transparency. It is hard to know what conversations the President-elect may be having offline with business leaders in other countries who are also connected to leaders of other countries. And I’m not saying there’s anything I know for a fact or can prove, but it does mean that — here’s the one thing you guys have been able to know unequivocally during the last eight years, and that is that whether you disagree with me on policy or not, there was never a time in which my relationship with a foreign entity might shade how I viewed an issue. And that’s — I don’t know a precedent for that exactly.
Now, the good news there, I will say, is just that there’s a lot of career folks here who care about that stuff, and not just in the intelligence agencies. I think in our military, in our State Department. And I think that to the extent that things start getting weird, I think you will see surfacing objections, some through whistleblowers and some through others. And so I think there is some policing mechanism there, but that’s unprecedented. Read the rest at the link
John Fetterman eventually admits to Joe Rogan that Democrats' 'Border Bill' merely converted illegal immigrants into legal immigrants, rather than preventing illegal immigration: John Fetterman: "I've never witnessed those kinds of a thing." [Illegals voting] I don't think… pic.twitter.com/sEs6Xd0pEJ
… I don't think there's that level kinds of organization."
Joe Rogan: "But there is an organization that's moving these people [illegals] to swing states. There's a significant number of these people that are illegal immigrants that have made their way to swing states.
And then there's been calls for amnesty. There's been calls for allowing these people to have a pathway to citizenship and allow them to vote.
The fear that a lot of people have is that this is a coordinated effort to take these people that you're allowing to come into the country, then you're providing them with all sorts of services like food stamps and housing and setting them up and then providing a pathway to amnesty.
And then you would have voters that would be significantly voting towards the Democrats because they're the people that enabled them to come into the country in the first place, first place and provided them with those services. This is a big fear that people have and that you're rigging this system and that this will turn all these states into essentially locked blue like California is."
John Fetterman: "Well, you know, it's what immigration's always going to be a tough issue in our nation.
I voted for for the border deal and that and that went down. They had an opportunity to do a comprehensive border bipartisan and that went down because Trump he declared that that that's that's a bad deal after it was negotiated with with the other side."
Joe Rogan: "But was didn't that deal also involved amnesty and didn't that deal also involve a significant number of illegal aliens being allowed into the country every year? I think it was 2 million people. So still the same sort of situation. And their fear is exactly what I talked about, that these people will be moved to swing states and that that will be used to essentially rig those states and turn them blue forever."
John Fetterman: "Undeniably, immigration is changing our nation. And I think it's generally for a good."
Joe Rogan: 'Democrats are importing illegals into swing states to rig elections'
John Fetterman: 'Immigration is changing our nation, and I think it's generally for a good'
[Daily Mail, where America gets its news] Tucker Carlson publicly took down a New York Times
...which still proudly claims Walter Duranty's Pulitzer prize... news hound who requested comment about his 'Proud Boys tie.'
In a post on X, political commentator and media personality Tucker Carlson revealed a request he received from news hound Adam Satariano, who prefaced that he was writing a story about how groups affiliated with the Proud Boys use the chat app Telegram to communicate.
The inquiry read: 'In some Telegram posts from chapters of the Proud Boys, they discuss Mr. Carlson wearing black and gold colors at the recent MSG rally for former President Trump in New York.
'Members of Proud Boys have interpreted this as a sign of support for the Proud Boys, which use black and gold as their official colors...was Mr. Carlson's choice of wearing black and gold a sign of support for the Proud Boys?'
Looking at the photo under decent light, I note that the tie is dark blue and gold, not black. And while Proud Boys are not known to be fashionistas, one would expect a NYT journalist to know his colours — even ones like midnight blue in the 96 count box — making the entire gotcha question and resulting attack article moot.
Carlson did not hold back in his response, mocking the news hound for his conspiratorial insinuations.
He responded facetiously: 'Yes, this is an official Proud Boys necktie. I received it at my Proud Boys initiation several years ago, after swearing a blood oath to the global fascist ...anybody you disagree with, damn them... revolution and the sacred principles of Q Anon.
'As you can imagine, I wouldn't normally admit this. The rules of secret societies being what they are, anything related to dress code is supposed to be confidential. But in this case, I've been outfoxed by your relentless shoe-leather journalism.
[RacketNews] The New York Times and Media Matters, along with the Washington Post and CCDH, align in a last-minute, tag-team blitz to silence Democratic Party critics.
Nico Grant of the New York Times rode shotgun with Media Matters of America to shoot down 30 conservative broadcasters as unfit to appear on YouTube:
YouTube, which is owned by Google, has prided itself on connecting viewers with “authoritative information” about elections. But in this presidential contest, it acted as a megaphone for conspiracy theories…
Kayla Gogarty, a research director at Media Matters who led the analysis, said that “YouTube is allowing these right-wing accounts and channels to undermine the 2024 results.”
Grant’s story garnered huge pre-buzz thanks to conservative targets pre-empting his “scoop” with colorful early responses. “I do hope… you’ll note that I told you to fuck off,” was the acid reply of Tucker Carlson, accused of participating in one of “286 videos containing election misinformation” reaching “more than 47 million views.” Ben Shapiro ripped Grant’s exposé as an “October surprise,” saying the purpose was to “pressure YouTube to demonetize and penalize any and all conservatives” a week from Election Day.
As Grant’s story roared across social media, eliciting outrage from Democrats and Republicans alike, a trio of Washington Post reporters published a similar piece: “Elon Musk says X users fight falsehoods. The falsehoods are winning.” Instead of a Media Matters report, the Post worked off new “analysis” by the Center for Countering Digital Hate, the Labour-connected advocacy group featured last week in Racket and The Disinformation Chronicle.
Musk created “Community Notes” on X/Twitter as a crowdsourced alternative to censorship, but CCDH was not happy with its results:
X is poised to play a prominent role in the U.S. presidential election, a race in which Musk is a major backer of Republican nominee Donald Trump and spreading unfounded claims of voter fraud — most of which go unchallenged by his fact-checking program… The CCDH’s analysis… tracked how Community Notes responded to 283 posts that contained election claims identified as false or misleading by independent fact-checking organizations.
CCDH’s annual priority this year is “Kill Musk’s Twitter” through “Advertising focus” to drive away X’s corporate advertising revenue, the chief weapon being shrieking reports claiming “hate” proliferates on the platform. This now-exposed contempt for Musk and free speech was evident in the Post conclusions:
Table of priorities can be seen at the link.
The Times/MMA “studied” 286 videos, while the Post/CCDH analyzed 283 Notes. Yet each outlet used a format so common in the “anti-disinformation” era, it now reads more like spam or clip-art than journalism. A DNC-aligned group produces a “report” documenting a sciencey-sounding quantity of “misinformation” incidents, then passes the scary number to a politically willing mainstream news outlet, which trumpets the new “facts” while publicly and privately pressuring platforms to remove offending material. Welcome to the new “accountability journalism.”
The problem with the Times piece is it defines “false claims” and “election misinformation” so broadly that legitimate questions or analyses and even jokes get wrapped in with far-out conspiracy tales. The MMA report denounced content that could “undermine confidence in the 2024 election results even before any votes were cast,” which apparently didn’t include its own headline, “YouTube let right-wing figures undermine the 2024 election results even before any votes were cast.”
Carlson made it for a clearly sarcastic crack: “I don’t think we’re allowed to talk about voter fraud on YouTube, which tells you that it’s real.” Shapiro made it for saying opposition to a Voter ID proposal suggests Democrats were fine with not showing ID, “which suggests they are fine with the possibility of voter fraud.”
Tim Pool was approached by Grant and mentioned in the Times piece seemingly as a way to get in a line about his work for Tenet media, through which Russia Today “allegedly funneled… money.” Neither the Times report nor the MMA version cited an instance of election misinformation by Pool, however. “The New York Times piece was remarkably tame,” Pool said. “There was nothing substantive in it.”
Tom Fitton of Judicial Watch made the list of 286 bad videos by referring to criminal indictments of Trump and saying that if he loses, “people are rightly going to say, well, they had their thumb on the scale, so it’s no surprise.” Again, you can disagree, but is that an issue of fact? Asked if the purpose of the piece was to get him removed from YouTube, Fitton said “probably,” and noted the Post had already sent him queries about yet another article seemingly calling for censorship of podcasts.
Even comedian Greg Gutfeld somehow made the list for saying Democrats would win with “votes, legal or illegal,” though there’s “very little evidence on that, but that hasn’t stopped me before.” This is a self-owning joke and could be interpreted almost as the opposite of a charge of voter fraud. “It’s almost hilarious how desperate they are for content,” Gutfeld said. “They now report on jokes!”
It’s no accident Media Matters and CCDH worked this “censorship two-step” to America’s two papers of record at the same time. They have a history of tag-team action with these papers.
BREAKING: The Colorado Libertarian Party just sued to force the entire state to decommission all voting machines and move to a total hand count of the ballots after Jena Griswold LEAKED the passwords
They point out that machines were decommissioned in the past for the exact same… pic.twitter.com/A9Jt6QCGTq
… decommissioned in the past for the exact same nature of leaks, "On August 12, 2021, the Secretary issued Election Order 2021-02, which ordered the decommissioning of 41 voting system components in Mesa County affected by the exposure of the BIOS passwords, forcing the purchase of new equipment at the county’s expense."
The lawsuit is conclusive, and any judge who isn't compromised will side with them. Even if a judge doesn't, at least there's now legal scrutiny on the corrupt Secretary instead of just powerless letters.
Shoutout to the
@LPCO
for being so quick on their feet.
landed in the coastal city of Batroun in northern 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 captured a Hezbollah operative, Arab media reported, and a military official confirmed on Saturday evening.
The operative was transferred to Israeli territory and is being investigated by Unit 504, the military official noted.
All his secrets will soon be Israel’s, then.
Axios news hound Barak Ravid later reported on X/Twitter that an Israeli official confirmed the operation.
The terrorist captured, Emad Fadel Amhaz, is a senior member of Hezbollah, according to al-Hadath. Reports also stated that he is part of the Lebanese Navy. Amhaz was arrested to be questioned about Hezbollah’s naval operations, the official told Ravid.
A 25-strong Israeli naval force made a landing on Batroun's shore at dawn Friday and abducted Hezbollah official Imad Fadel Amhaz
…transliterating from another alphabet leads to endless variation…
from a chalet, media reports and security sources said on Saturday.
"Israeli Navy SEALs captured last night Imad Amhaz -- a senior member of Hezbollah's naval force -- in an operation in Northern Lebanon," an Israeli official told U.S. news portal Axios.
"Amhaz was detained in order to interrogate him and learn more about Hezbollah's naval operations," the official added.
An Israeli security source had earlier confirmed to Sky News Arabia that an abduction took place in Batroun, as Israeli newspaper Maariv quoted the Israeli army as confirming that "Israeli forces captured a Hezbollah official deep in Lebanon."
Caretaker Transportation Minister Ali Hamieh told Al-Jadeed TV that the man abducted is a civilian sea captain for civilian and commercial ships, and that he was undergoing a one-month course at a maritime institute in Batroun, where he also rented a chalet.
He graduated in 2022 and in late September joined the Batroun's Maritime Sciences and Technology Institute for additional courses, Hamieh said, adding that that the man lived roughly 300 meters from the institute.
Hamieh's remarks came shortly after two Lebanese journalists posted a video on social media showing what appeared to be about 20 soldiers taking away a man from in front a house, his face covered with his shirt.
Kandice Ardiel, a spokesperson for the U.N. peacekeeping force deployed in south Lebanon, denied allegations by some local journalists who said that the peacekeepers helped the landing force in the operation. The U.N. mission, known as UNIFIL, has a maritime force that monitors the coast.
"Disinformation and false rumors are irresponsible and put peacekeepers at risk,” Ardiel said.
Israel has carried out in the past commando operations deep inside Lebanon to kidnap or kill Hezbollah and Palestinian officials.
Contacted by AFP, the Israeli military said they were checking reports of the incident.
Lebanon's official National News agency said an "unidentified military force" carried out a "sea landing" on the shore of Batroun, south of Tripoli, at dawn on Friday.
The force "went with all its weapons and equipment to a chalet near the beach, kidnapping a Lebanese man... and sailing away into the open sea on a speedboat," the NNA said.
An acquaintance of the abductee identified him as a student at the Maritime Sciences and Technology Institute (MARSATI) in Batroun.
He was taken from student housing near the Batroun institute, but was a resident of the Shiite-majority town of Qmatiyeh further south, said the acquaintance who spoke on the condition of anonymity for security concerns.
He was completing courses to become a sea captain, the source told AFP, adding that the man was in his 30s and was well known by the teaching staff at the center.
The Christian-majority city of Batroun has been relatively sheltered from the Israel-Hezbollah war that has pummelled south Lebanon, the southern suburbs of Beirut and the eastern Bekaa Valley.
The war since September 23 has killed more than 1,900 people in Lebanon, according to an AFP tally of health ministry figures though the real number is likely higher due to data gaps.
New alleged details emerged on Sunday about an Israeli naval raid in northern Lebanon in which commandos captured a Hezbollah operative over the weekend, in a report by a publication affiliated with the Iran-backed terror group.
According to the Al-Akhbar report, operatives from the Navy’s Shayetet 13 commando unit were disguised as Lebanese security forces during the unusual raid in Batroun, south of Tripoli, some 140 kilometers (87 miles) north of Israel’s maritime border with Lebanon.
While the Israeli military has attacked northern Lebanon via airstrikes, its ground forces have been operating only in the country’s south.
The late Friday raid lasted a mere four minutes and involved some 20 operatives, along with several unidentified civilians, the report said, adding that some Israeli special forces had likely been in the area for reconnaissance and surveillance before the operation.
They see you when you’re sleeping,
They know when you’re awake,
They know if you’ve been bad or good…
"While surveillance footage from a nearby building apparently captured part of the Israeli commando raid, Al-Akhbar reported that recordings were deleted from the residential building from which the Hezbollah operative, Imad Amhaz, was captured.
The report also said that Lebanese investigators believe a young man riding a bicycle seen in the widely circulated footage of the operation was part of the Israeli commando unit.
And whatever you do, don’t forget about the spy squirrels!!
Posted by: Fred ||
11/03/2024
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[MSN-Newsweek] The Michigan Department of State is warning a programming issue with some machines made by Dominion Voting Systems will make casting a ballot "more inconvenient" for some voters.
Voters with disabilities and others in the battleground state can use Dominion Voter Assist Terminals (VATs) to help them mark their ballots.
People using the machines will have to carefully follow instructions to verify their ballot selections or they will receive an error message, the department said in a press release.
The error message comes up if a voter selects the "straight party" option at the start of the process but then casts their vote for candidates of different parties later on.
"Although the issue will not stop people from voting or making their preferred selections, and it will not change anyone's votes, it will make the process more inconvenient for some voters using the VATs," the department said.
The issue only affects voters in Michigan counties that use equipment from Dominion Voting Systems, the release said. Each early voting site and polling place in those counties has at least one VAT. A list of the voting equipment by county can be viewed on the department's website here.
Newsweek has contacted the Michigan Department of State and Dominion for further comment via email.
Voters using VAT machines "will have to select either the 'straight party' option if they wish to vote straight ticket or vote for each race on the partisan selection of the ballot if they wish to split their ticket," the department said.
"While this is the process used in some other states, it is not the standard in Michigan, where voters have the option to vote straight party but then override their party selection for individual races. If a voter using the Dominion VAT votes straight party but then splits their ticket, the voter will receive an error message," it continued.
[JPOST] The commander of the IDF's 401st "Iron Tracks" Brigade, Col. Ehsan Daxa, was killed in combat in northern 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... , the military announced on Sunday evening.
Col. Daxa was 41 years old and came from Daliyat al-Karmel, the largest Druze community in Israel. He leaves behind a wife and three children.
According to a Walla report, Col. Daxa was killed in combat after his tank hit an bomb.
He is considered to be the highest-ranking officer to die in ground combat since the start of the war, the report added.
Israel's military said that during the incident in which Col. Daxa fell, an additional officer from the 52nd Battalion of the 401st "Iron Tracks" Brigade was severely maimed.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/03/2024
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[KhaamaPress] The UK Home Office reported that 5,417 illegal migrants colonists entered Britannia through the English Channel in October, a record number over the past two years.
On Thursday, October 31, alone, 230 people entered Britannia illegally, marking a significant rise in unlawful crossings.
This brings the total number of migrants colonists crossing the Channel to the UK in 2023 to 30,661 individuals.
A UK Home Office spokesperson emphasized the goal to prevent dangerous journeys in small boats that endanger lives and compromise border security.
A recent study published on October 8 found that Britannia hosts the largest number of illegal migrants colonists among European countries.
The study, led by researchers at Oxford University, estimates that between 594,000 and 745,000 illegal migrants colonists currently reside in the UK, roughly 1% of the population.
The Home Office spokesperson accused human trafficking gangs of exploiting migrants colonists solely for profit, with no regard for their lives.
Reports indicate that traffickers charge migrants colonists thousands of euros per person for illegal passage from La Belle France to the UK in small boats.
The UK government remains determined to curb illegal migration, despite recent policy shifts.
Governments of both parties say that when in power and also when out of power seeking to depose the party in power. And yet the actions of both parties over the past generation has lead to increased illegal migration and increased mistreatment of that part of the native population that dares to object. It’s a conundrum.
The issue reflects a broader, growing global displacement crisis.
[Garowe] The Somali National Army (SNA) in the frontlines targeted a high-level al-Shabaab ... Somalia's version of the Taliban, functioning as an arm of al-Qaeda... meeting on Tuesday, officials said.
Reports from top military officials say the military targeted an al-Shabaab meeting in Caad village within Mudug, killing three bully boyz instantly while inflicting serious injuries to two others. It is not clear what the meeting was about.
The high-level meeting usually invests in discussions about the strategy and policy of the group besides analysing their gains and losses on the battlefield. The government troops have been conducting operations in Mudug, defence officials said.
Those maimed are in the custody of the military and would be interrogated to give information concerning their actions. al-Shabaab bully boyz have previously lost several areas of Mudug to government troops but a resurgence cannot be ignored.
Melancholically,
…I do love the happily unexpected words non-native speakers choose — even those with better language skills than mine…
the gains come at the time Somalia is embroiled in a diplomatic spat with Æthiopia, one of the Troops Contributing Countries (TCCs) in Somalia. Æthiopia most parts of Western Somalia under the African Union ...a union consisting of 53 African states, most run by dictators of one flavor or another. The only all-African state not in the AU is Morocco. Established in 2002, the AU is the successor to the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), which was even less successful... Transition Mission in Somalia (ATMIS).
But ahead of the transition to the African Union Support and Stabilization Mission in Somalia (AUSSOM) within the next two months, Somalia wants Æthiopia to completely withdraw, citing the controversial agreement with Somaliland ...Republic of Somaliland is an unrecognised sovereign state in the Horn of Africa, recognised internationally as a de jure part of Somalia. It is located in the southern coast of the Gulf of Aden with approximately 5.7 million residents as of 2021. The capital and largest city is Hargeisa. The government regards itself as the successor state to British Somaliland, which united from 1960 to 1991 with the Trust Territory of Somaliland (the former Italian Somaliland) to form the Somali Republic. Under the Siad Barre regime, Somaliadestroyed ninety percent of Hargeisa Per international law, once you're in, you gotta stay in, no matter how bad it smells.... as a basis for 'violation of its territorial integrity and illusory sovereignty '.
Æthiopia wants 20 kilometres of access to the Red Sea in exchange for recognition of Somaliland as a sovereign state. However,
women are made to be loved, not understood... the arrangement has provoked Somalia, which accuses Æthiopia of gross violation of international law.
With Somalia banning Æthiopian troops from participating in the new mission, observers say the move could trigger a resurgence of the al-Shabaab bully boyz in the country.
Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud has visited Burundi, Uganda, Kenya and Djibouti to push for their commitment to the new mission.
[NYPost] Members of the Moslem and Arab American community endorsed former President Donald Trump ...So far he's been unkillable, and they've tried.... during an event in The Bronx on Thursday morning.
About 20 community leaders and Imams — joined by former Long Island Congressman and 2022 Republican gubernatorial candidate Lee Zeldin, a Trump campaign surrogate — backed the GOP presidential hopeful in the "little Yemen ...an area of the Arabian Peninsula sometimes mistaken for a country. It is populated by more antagonistic tribes and factions than you can keep track of... " section of the Bronx.
"Our communities are fed up with the woke ideology. They are fed up with the indoctrination of their kids," said Massad Boulos, the father-in-law of Trump’s daughter, Tiffany, said after the campaign event for voters with Middle East ties.
"They are making this shift to the Republican Party. This is where their natural place should be and is now," he told The Post.
Boulos, a Lebanese-born businessman, said the Biden-Harris administration has failed to put an end to the wars in Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response... and Leb ...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... or help secure the return of all the hostages taken by Hamas ..the braying voice of Islamic Resistance®,... following the terror group’s Oct. 7, 2023 invasion of Israel.
"This time around this voice will be heard. They will have a major say in who is the 47th president of the United States," Boulos said following the get out the vote rally held in a Yemeni restaurant called "Alwaha" on White Plains Road.
"We are lucky to have most of them support President Trump," he added.
"The endorsements and the support we’ve seen both from the Christian communities and the Moslem communities of the Middle East is just unprecedented."
Arab and Moslem Americans are key voting blocs in the battleground state of Michigan, where Boulos has appeared with Trump.
"President Trump is honored to receive, accept the endorsement from the Arab American community here in New York City," Zeldin told the group of supporters in The Bronx.
Karim Elsammak, an airline pilot who was born in Egypt, said at the event that it was "time" to veer away from the Democratic Party.
"It is time to turn the page on the Democratic party that only shows up when they need our vote," he said.
"It is time to take our rightful place in the party that most aligns with our values and our beliefs. It is time to join the Republican Party."
[NYPost] A man berated a Jewish customer trying to enjoy breakfast with his young child inside a kosher cafe in Brooklyn — with disturbing video showing the unhinged man describing all Jewish people as "evil" and claiming Adolf 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... "was onto something."
The footage, shot inside the Almah cafe, along Utica Avenue, shows the moment a man dressed in a pink hoodie confronts a customer on Thursday morning, demanding he give his opinion on 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... .
"You guys are killing babies," the man tells the frustrated father, adding that "something bad is going to happen" to Jewish people.
"Jewish people are evil," he repeatedly yells at the people inside the restaurant. "I think Hitler was onto something."
Along with the veiled threat, the man also claimed Jewish people were behind the liquidation of John F. Kennedy and attempted liquidations of Donald Trump ...Perhaps no man has ever had as much fun being president of the US... Almah cafe owner Shira Asias, 34, said she was shocked and embarrassed to see such hateful rhetoric spewed inside her own establishment.
Asias opened the cafe in 2020 with her husband, and she said the two of them have never witnessed anything like this before in their diverse neighborhood.
"This is the first time seeing something like this inside our own place," she told The Post. "I feel so ashamed and embarrassed.
"It’s one thing to be against the war, but it’s another to just openly harass Jewish people and say such things," Asias added. "This is just antisemitism against Jewish people in New York."
Liora Rez, founder of the StopAntisemitism advocacy group, slammed the now-viral video as yet another indication of how rampant anti-Jewish hate has spread across the Big Apple and the country.
"Rising hate crime statistics are not just numbers — they reflect a terrifying reality where everyday outings are shadowed by racism and violent mostly peaceful antisemitism," Rez told The Post.
"No family should endure blood libel and genocidal threats while simply trying to enjoy their morning coffee."
In the year since Hamas ..a contraction of the Arabic words for "frothing at the mouth",... carried out the Oct. 7 massacre in Israel, more than 10,000 antisemitic incidents were recorded in the US, a 200% increase from the previous year and the most ever recorded by the Anti-Defamation League.
Dining was disrupted at the Almah Café in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, NY, on Thursday morning when a man began harassing customers.
This incident is the third recorded this week in Crown Heights, following a slashing attack on a Jewish man and another case of a Jewish individual being aggressively knocked down. All three incidents involved black male perpetrators.
Eric Dinowitz, City Council Member and Chair of the Jewish Caucus in the City Council, wrote on X about the incident: “These disgusting interactions happen every day – this one happens to be caught on camera. Antisemitism is running rampant, and people feel more and more comfortable proudly expressing their hate publicly.”
[BBC] A former police in the US state of Kentucky has been found guilty of violating the civil rights of Breonna Taylor, a black woman killed in her own home during a botched raid four years ago.
Summarizing the many articles on this cause célèbre in the Rantburg archives: the Louisville police raided her apartment back in March 2020 because she was holding the profits of her old boyfriend, a drug dealer, while living with her new boyfriend, another drug dealer. The new boyfriend shot at the police while hiding behind her, allowing her body to absorb the bullets aimed back at him. The police claim they knocked; someone in the Louisville PD leaked information that the address was raided because the old boyfriend was using her rental car, which had a bill with her address and phone number on it.
Brett Hankison, 47, could face up to life in prison after being convicted of using excessive force against the 26-year-old emergency room technician.
But the jury also found him not guilty on another charge of violating the civil rights of one of Taylor's neighbours. It was the third time Hankison had stood trial in the case.
The verdict marks the first time any officer has been convicted in the deadly raid on 13 March 2020 that made Taylor's name a rallying cry during the racial justice unrest of that year.
Prosecutors wanted Hankison to be immediately taken into custody, but their request was rejected by the judge, reports the local newspaper.
The jury of five white men, one black man and six white women began their deliberations on Wednesday.
The indictment accused Hankison of depriving Taylor of the right to be free from unreasonable seizures and depriving her neighbours of the right to be free from the deprivation of liberty without due process of law.
He fired 10 times into her apartment, in order, he said, to protect fellow officers as Taylor's boyfriend opened fire when officers broke down the door.
Hankison took the stand over two days of testimony during the retrial, telling the jurors he was "trying to stay alive, trying to keep my partners alive".
He was the first of the four officers charged in the case to face a jury. Another former officer, Kelly Goodlett, pleaded guilty to falsifying the search warrant for Taylor’s home.
The remaining two officers had their federal charges thrown out by a judge earlier this year. The US Justice Department recently indicted the two on new charges.
Taylor was killed after officers wearing plain clothes executed a "no-knock" search warrant at her home. They burst into her apartment in the early morning hours while she and her boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, were asleep. Authorities believed Taylor's former boyfriend was using her home to hide narcotics.
Mr Walker fired a single shot when they knocked the door down, hitting one officer, Sgt John Mattingly, in the leg. Mr Walker said the officers did not announce themselves as police, and he thought they were intruders. The three officers returned fire, shooting 32 bullets into the flat.
Another officer fired the shot that killed Taylor, but prosecutors said his use of deadly force was justified because Walker had opened fire first.
None of Hankison's bullets hit anyone, but they did enter a neighbouring property, where a pregnant woman, a five-year-old and a man had been sleeping.
A subsequent police report contained errors, including listing Taylor's injuries as "none" and saying no force was used to enter, when a battering ram had been used.
Hankison was fired from Louisville Metro Police Department in June 2020. His previous federal case last year ended in a mistrial when the jury told the judge it could not reach a unanimous verdict. He was previously tried by a Kentucky state jury in March 2022, and acquitted on three counts of felony wanton endangerment.
Taylor's family and Walker both received settlements from the city over the incident. A series of police reforms also were introduced in Louisville.
Hankison is due to be sentenced on 12 March next year.
Posted by: Frank G ||
11/03/2024 6:42
Comments ||
Top||
#3
#1 SCOTUS over ruled the Constitution on that one.
It's all legalese. The Founders intended for it to be about the specific offense, all inclusive. Now days, you violate 23 different laws for the same specific offense. It all started rolling with Rodney King. After the officers were acquitted in a state court, the Feds prosecuted them.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[NewsFront] 19:51 Russian Army X-ray gunners have discovered and destroyed the Ukrainian Army’s Caesar self-propelled gun with a Lancet —video. 19:28 Counterbattery fire by fighters of the 238th Artillery Brigade and M-119 howitzers of the Ukrainian Armed Forces —video.
18:53 Su-34 bomber pilots sent another batch of FAB from the UMPK to the Ukrainian Armed Forces positions in the Kherson direction —video.
18:25 We're intercepting delivery of ammunition and food
Servicemen from the reconnaissance unit of the North group of forces, using a UAV, identified a Ukrainian Armed Forces vehicle delivering ammunition and food to positions.
During unloading, the vehicle was attacked by an FPV drone. The Ukrainian Armed Forces vehicle was destroyed.
17:50 Russian Army X-wingers destroyed a Ukrainian Armed Forces Gvozdika howitzer with the help of a Lancet strike drone —video.
17:27 Russian drone operators are terrorizing Ukrainian militants with drone drops in the Kurakhovsky direction —video.
16:59 In any conditions: mobile units of the Airborne Forces provide communications to the command of the Dnepr group of forces —video.
16:21 The Ka-52M crew, as part of a mixed tactical group, destroyed manpower and armored vehicles of the Ukrainian Armed Forces units in the border area of the Kursk region —video.
15:53 Precise strike: enemy self-propelled gun "Caesar" of French manufacture destroyed by hit of loitering munition "Lancet" in Sumy region —video.
15:15 Ukrainian terrorists liquidated in Kursk region —photo.
14:18 Drone operators of the 429th regiment are working on a Ukrainian stronghold in the Zaporizhia region —video.
12:54 Attack aircraft of the Dnepr group of forces are improving skills at the training ground in the rear zone of the SVO
The assault troops practice all the elements necessary to storm enemy positions in urban areas. The servicemen hone their skills in proper movement, cover, and continuous suppressive fire.
12:29 122mm BM-21 "Grad" crew struck area of concentration of manpower and equipment of the Ukrainian Armed Forces
- Donetsk direction
Artillery crews of the separate guards motorized rifle brigade of the "Southern" group of troops continuously carry out precise strikes on military facilities, positions, fortifications, combat equipment and manpower of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
11:57 Units of the Russian Armed Forces have taken fire control of a key transport junction of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) in Chasovy Yar. This told TASS Chief of the operational headquarters of the Melodiya intelligence center of the 88th Volunteer Brigade "Espanola" with the call sign Chukcha.
11:26 Russian Armed Forces aircraft destroyed a bridge near Seversk with an X-38 missile —video.
10:53 Ministry of Defense in touch with the heads of border territories.
We work 24/7.
In total, at the moment, the operational group of the Coordinating Council of the Russian Ministry of Defense on military security issues of the border territories of the Kursk, Belgorod and Bryansk regions has received 91 questions from the operational headquarters under the governors related to key types of support for the state border cover group (including logistics, transport, military-technical, medical, engineering and construction).
Requests are accepted 24/7.
The task force processes them within 24 hours.
If a solution is not possible, an urgent report is made to the Minister of Defense.
– No new requests have been received from the operational headquarters of the Kursk region.
All 45 questions have been resolved.
– No new requests have been received from the operational headquarters of the Belgorod region.
All 27 questions have been resolved.
– No new requests have been received from the operational headquarters of the Bryansk region.
All 19 questions have been resolved.
In accordance with the schedule for the delivery of military equipment, 142 events were completed.
Deadlines are met.
10:20 Telegram channel «WarGonzo»:
Frontline report for the morning of 02.11.2024
- Zaporizhzhya Front.
Without significant changes in the LBS. Positional battles are underway using long-range weapons. (Fig. 1)
- Donetsk front.
In the Yasnaya Polyana area, Russian troops continue to build on their success, pulling up the flanks and clearing the area. Also, in this direction, Russian troops are advancing in the direction of the settlement of Maksimovka.
North of the Kurakhovskoye Reservoir, the Russian Armed Forces are advancing in the area of Stepanovka and Ilyinka; according to some reports, most of the territories of these settlements are under the control of Russian troops.
Urban fighting continues in Dzerzhinsk, the Ukrainian Armed Forces continue to transfer their reserves there, but they are unable to stop the advance of the Russian Armed Forces either in the city itself or on the flanks.
- Chasovoyarsk direction. No significant changes in LBS. Fighting continues in the city limits and on the flanks.
- Kursk region. Counter battles continue here in several areas, without significant changes. The Ukrainian Armed Forces continue to bring up reserves, Russian troops strike at the enemy's logistics and concentrations, including in the Sumy region.
09:51 "We get it and hit it"
"Thor" is the commander of a howitzer artillery battery. According to "Thor", the enemy's tactics are clear to them, the algorithm of actions is known, therefore his unit is actively striking at the Ukrainian Armed Forces units. They also easily destroy the American-made M-777 howitzers.
"The M-777 howitzer has a longer firing range than ours, but this compromises accuracy, so they have to roll closer, into our range. In turn, we reach them and hit them," told serviceman.
09:27 Attack aircraft crews on Su-25 aircraft struck armored vehicles
and personnel of the Ukrainian Armed Forces units in the border areas of the Kursk region.
08:52 Airborne Forces servicemen together with the military police of the North group of forces provide assistance to residents of Kursk region
The Airborne Forces together with the military police of the North group of troops are delivering humanitarian aid to residents of settlements in the Kursk region where it is unsafe for civilian volunteers to reach.
The fighters bring bottled drinking water, food and essential items to the local population. The humanitarian aid is given to residents who have decided to stay in their homes. If necessary, civilians are evacuated to safer areas.
08:05 Telegram channel «Fisherman»:
Chronicle of the special military operation for November 1, 2024
– Russian troops carried out several strikes on targets in the rear areas of the territory controlled by the Kyiv regime, including hitting an Interior Ministry facility in Khar'kov.– Ukrainian forces carried out another drone raid, attacking fuel and energy companies in Stavropol Krai. Another UAV crashed into a residential building in Bryansk.
– In the Kursk direction, fighting continues along the entire contact line. Russian troops are striking positions and facilities of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the Sumy region.
– In the South Donetsk direction, Russian troops liberated Novoukrainka, Yasnaya Polyana and drove Ukrainian formations from the western outskirts of Shakhtarsk.
Lockland is a small, fairly poor village within the greater Cincinnati area. It sits next to one of the suburbs where C-suite executives and such live in big, beautifully renovated old houses. The response to their new neighbours will be interesting…
[Mauritania is] in Northwest Africa. It is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the west, Western Sahara to the north and northwest, Algeria to the northeast, Mali to the east and southeast, and Senegal to the southwest. By land area Mauritania is the 11th-largest country in Africa and 28th-largest in the world; 90% of its territory is in the Sahara.
#6
Vance is from Ohio. Homeland Security needs to be shut down, it's doing the opposite of its supposed mandate.
Posted by: Regular joe ||
11/03/2024 12:11
Comments ||
Top||
#7
Mauritania is 164th in the 'Human Development Index', per Wikipedia. Fit right into NYC or San Fan.
Posted by: Bobby ||
11/03/2024 13:47
Comments ||
Top||
#8
"Mauretania, land of, um, Moors
And Korans and the, uh, great outdoors!
Craving slaves, some unmanned,
Or a hot hennaed hand?
Endless stretches of sand
Where your wardrobe is banned?"
[cue montage of Nouakchott bonjours]
#9
Interesting you should mention slaves. IIRC Mauritania was one of the last countries to abolish slavery, and word was that it was still going on just a few decades ago--maybe still is.
Posted by: James ||
11/03/2024 16:39
Comments ||
Top||
#10
Abu Hafs isn't one of them, is he?
Posted by: Herman Phomoque4272 ||
11/03/2024 20:09
Comments ||
Top||
DEVELOPING Florida Delray Beach 🚨 HUGE NEWS 🚨 TRUCK stopped in traffic after losing containers allegedly.. Containing BALLOTS 🚨 The same Thing happened in Miami a few nights ago. pic.twitter.com/LbJHsU4Gov
[NBCChicGo] Video shows a passerby who found items and turned them into Miami-Dade Police
A Miami-Dade Supervisor of Elections employee has been fired after a ballot bin and bag fell off the worker's truck and was found by a passerby in an incident that was caught on camera.
Video posted by Only in Dade showed the passerby finding the items near the Florida's Turnpike and 211th Street in Cutler Bay.
"That's sealed, look at that," a man says in the video. "That's crazy."
Later in the video, the items are seen being turned in to Miami-Dade Police.
The man who found the items, Lazaro Padron, said he was driving near South Dade Regional Library, which is an early voting site, when he noticed the bin and bag in the middle of the road.
"I was really surprised, I never thought I was gonna find that," Padron told NBC6. "I talked to the Department of Homeland Security and the boss from the elections and they talked to me and congratulated me for what I did."
Miami-Dade's deputy supervisor of elections Roberto Rodriguez called it "human error," saying the worker forgot to lock the back of the truck and as they drove off, the sealed bin and sealed bag fell out.
The bin and bag contained already voted ballots from early voting, Rodriguez said.
Rodriguez said the person who saw the items fall from the truck turned them in to police, and elections staff verified that all seals were intact and nothing was tampered with or damaged.
"We were able to verify that both the bin and the bag were both sealed, and we confirmed that nothing was tampered with," Miami-Dade Supervisor of Elections Christina White said. "I do want our voters to know that this was a very isolated incident."
Rodriguez added that while the incident was unintentional, the department has zero tolerance for error and the employee was fired.
#1
So how about hiring Armor Transports (e.g. Well Fargo, Loomis, Brink's)? Placing a poll watcher from each party and an armed security guard in each pickup up and delivery?
It would negate a lot of the "issues" we have seen in transporting ballots nationwide. Given the usual minority run, scheming political party that controls the Board of Elections, in too many large METRO's.
Article Linked Is Available Only Via VPN
[EngMilRu] The Armed Forces of the Russian Federation continue the special military operation.
In Kharkov direction, the Sever Group of Forces inflicted fire damage on formations of 42nd Mechanised Brigade, 71st Jaeger Brigade of the AFU, 107th, 116th, and 129th Territorial Defence brigades close to Glubokoye, Volchansk, Stroeyevka, and Perovskoye (Kharkov region).
One counterattack launched by assault detachments of the AFU 57th Motorised Infantry Brigade was repelled. The AFU losses amounted to more than 60 troops and two motor vehicles. One field ammunition depot was destroyed.
The Zapad Group of Forces liberated Pershotravnevoye (Kharkov region).
Russian troops hit units of the 14th, 44th, 116th Mechanised brigades, 3rd Assault Brigade of the AFU and 1st National Guard Brigade near Petropavlovka, Golubovka (Kharkov region), Stelmakhovka, Nadiya (Lugansk People's Republic), as well as Serebryansky forestry. One counterattack launched by an assault detachment of the AFU 14th Mechanised Brigade was repelled.
The AFU losses amounted to up to 470 troops, a tank, two U.S.-made M-113 armoured personnel carriers, four motor vehicles, a Polish-made 155mm Krab self-propelled artillery system, a U.S.-made 122mm M-198 howitzer, a 152mm D-20 gun, three 122mm D-30 howitzers, a UK-made 105mm L-119 gun, two Anklav-N electronic warfare stations. Two ammunition depots were wiped out.
The Yug Group of Forces improved the tactical position. Russian units hit formations of 24th, 72nd, 33rd Mechanised brigades and 79th Air Assault Brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine near Chasov Yar, Yelizavetovka, Kurakhovo, and Dalneye of the Donetsk People's Republic. One counter-attack launched by an assault detachment of the AFU 46th Airmobile Brigade was repelled.
The AFU losses amounted to up to 800 troops, ten motor vehicles, a Polish-made 155mm Krab self-propelled artillery system, a 152mm D-20 gun, and a 122mm D-30 howitzer.
The Tsentr Group of Forces liberated Kurakhovka of the Donetsk People's Republic.
Russian units engaged manpower and materiel of 23rd Mechanised Brigade, 59th Motorised Infantry Brigade, 95th Air Assault Brigade, 35th Naval Infantry Brigade, 101st and 109th Territorial Defence brigades close to Dzerzhinsk, Kalinovo, Voznesenka, Sukhaya Balka, and Druzhba (Donetsk People's Republic). Five AFU counterattacks were repelled.
The AFU losses amounted to up to 535 troops, an armoured personnel carrier, three armoured fighting vehicles, three motor vehicles, a 122mm BM-21 Grad MLRS combat vehicle, a 152mm Dana self-propelled artillery system, a 152mm Msta-B 2S19 self-propelled artillery system, a 152mm D-20 howitzer, a 122mm 2S1 Gvozdika self-propelled artillery system, and a 122mm D-30 howitzer.
The Vostok Group of Forces' units continued advancing to the depths of the enemy's defence. Russian troops hit formations of 58th Motorised Infantry Brigade, 152nd Jaeger Brigade, 48th Assault Battalion of the AFU, 37th Naval Infantry Brigade, 21st National Guard Brigade close to Razdolnoye, Velikaya Novoselka, Uspenovka, Makarovka, and Oktyabr (Donetsk People's Republic).
The AFU lost up to 115 troops, an infantry fighting vehicle, three armoured fighting vehicles, ten motor vehicles, a U.S.-made 155mm Paladin self-propelled artillery system, and a French-made 155mm Caesar howitzer. Three field ammunition depots were destroyed.
The Dnepr Group of Forces engaged manpower and hardware of 110th, 117th mechanised brigades, 141st Infantry Brigade, 128th Mountain Assault Brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, 121st, 124th, and 126th territorial defence brigades close to Novodanilovka, Stepnoye, Kamenskoye (Zaporozhye region), Veletenskoye, Sadovoye, Krupitsa, and Nikolskoye (Kherson region).
The AFU losses amounted to up to 65 troops, three motor vehicles, a 122mm BM-21 Grad MLRS combat vehicle, a 152mm 2S3 Akatsiya self-propelled artillery system, and an Anklav-N electronic warfare station. One ammunition depot was wiped out.
Operational-Tactical Aviation, attack UAVs, Missile Troops and Artillery of the Russian Groups of Forces engaged the power infrastructure facility used for the AFU, the Kraken nationalist formation command post, the infrastructure of a military airfield, a fuel base of the AFU, a workshop for the production of strike UAVs, as well as clusters of enemy manpower and military hardware in 149 areas.
Russian air defence systems shot down four U.S.-made ATACMS operational-tactical missiles, three French-made Hammer aerial guided bombs, and 50 aircraft-type unmanned aerial vehicles.
In total, since the beginning of the special military operation, 647 aircraft, 283 helicopters, 35,169 unmanned aerial vehicles, 585 anti-aircraft missile systems, 19,023 tanks and other armoured fighting vehicles, 1,484 MLRS combat vehicles, 17,176 field artillery guns and mortars, and 27,930 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.
The Sever Group of Forces continued offensive actions in which the units of 21st, 22nd, 41st, and 115th Mechanised brigades, 17th Tank Brigade, 82nd and 95th Air Assault brigades, 36th Naval Infantry Brigade, 112th, and 129th Territorial Defence brigades of the AFU suffered losses near Daryino, Leonidovo, Nikolayevo-Daryino, Novoivanovka, and Plyokhovo.
The Group's units repelled four enemy counter-attacks in the direction of Kamyshovka and Novoivanovka, and thwarted AFU attempts to attack in the direction of Daryino and Leonidovo. The AFU losses amounted to up to 30 people killed and wounded; seven AFU servicemen surrendered.
Army aviation and artillery inflicted losses on the clusters of manpower and hardware of 21st, 41st, 47th, and 61stMechanised brigades, 17th Tank Brigade, 80th, 82nd, and 95th Air Assault brigades, 36th Naval Infantry Brigade, 1st Special Operations Brigade, 112th and 129th Territorial Defence brigades of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, and 17th National Guard Brigade of Ukraine near Aleksandriya, Viktorovka, Guyevo, Daryino, Zelyony Shlyakh, Kazachaya Loknya, Kolmakov, Kruglenkoye, Lebedevka, Leonidovo, Martynovka, Makhnovka, Mirny, Nizhny Klin, Nikolayevo-Daryino, Nikolsky, Novoya Sorochina, Novoivanovka, Novy Put, Plyokhovo, and Cherkasskoye Porechnoye.
Operational-Tactical Aviation and Missile Troops hit concentration areas in the Sumy region and reserves of 21st, 41st, 61st, 115th Mechanised brigades, 17th Tank Brigade, 95th Air Assault Brigade as well as 129th Territorial Defence Brigade of the AFU close to Basovka, Belovody, Vodolagi, Zhuravka, Loknya, Miropolye, Pavlovka, and Khoten.
During the day, the AFU losses were over 250 troops, an armoured fighting vehicle as well as an artillery gun, a mortar, and three motor vehicles. Seven AFU servicemen surrendered.
Since the beginning of hostilities in Kursk region, the AFU losses were more than 29,100 troops, 180 tanks, 101 infantry fighting vehicles, 106 armoured personnel carriers, 1,063 armoured fighting vehicles, 780 motor vehicles, 255 artillery guns, 40 MLRS launchers, including 11 of HIMARS and six of MLRS made by the USA, ten anti-aircraft missile launchers, seven transport-loading vehicles, 58 EW stations, 12 counter-battery warfare radars, four AD radars, 25 units of engineering vehicles and other materiel, 13 counterobstacle vehicles, one UR-77 mine clearing vehicle, five armoured recovery vehicles, and one command post vehicle.
The operation to neutralise the AFU units is in progress.
Worth noting, korrespondent.net has compiled its Invasion of Ukraine series into separate months, beginning May 9th, 2023. Linked in the title.
[Korrespondent] 21:35 In the Dnipropetrovsk region, as a result of enemy shelling of a railway station, a railway worker was wounded, the window glazing of the station and the roof of technical premises were damaged, Ukrzaliznytsia reported.
19:54 Russian troops fired artillery at Ivanopolye, Konstantinovka community, Donetsk region, two people were killed, reported the head of the OVA Vadim Filashkin.
17:21 Russians attacked the Dniprovsky district - infrastructure was damaged, according to preliminary information, five people were injured, including two children, reported the head of the OVA, Serhiy Lysak.
17:03 In the Kiev region, as a result of today's Russian attack, one person was injured, power lines were damaged, reported the head of the OVA Ruslan Kravchenko. 1860 subscribers in one of the settlements of the region were left without electricity, power engineers have already restored the power supply. 11 private houses, an apartment and the facade of two multi-story buildings, two stores were damaged.
16:32 Defense Minister Rustem Umerov announced the opening of the first center for the reintegration of released prisoners. The center will provide medical, rehabilitation and psychological assistance, and will also help obtain certificates and restore documents. It is currently designed for 100 places with the possibility of expanding to 200 or more due to rehabilitation beds.
15:46 Ukraine will have its own cruise and ballistic missiles by mid-2025, said Alexey Petrov, director of the state enterprise Spetstekhnoexport. "Both the state and, finally, the private sector are moving in this direction. And it was a reasonable decision to lift the monopoly on the missile industry," he added.
11:28 Air defense destroyed 39 out of 71 UAVs (Shahed type and unspecified type) in Kirovograd, Kyiv, Sumy and Poltava regions, the Air Force reported. Another 21 drones were lost, five returned to Russia. About five attack UAVs remain in the air. In addition, at night the enemy struck with a guided Kh-31P air missile. According to preliminary data, as a result of falling debris, apartment buildings and private houses in Sumy, Poltava, Kyiv and Odessa regions were damaged.
10:37 The Ukrainian Armed Forces are currently holding back one of the most powerful Russian offensives since the start of the full-scale invasion, Syrsky said during a meeting with a delegation of the Czech Armed Forces.
09:55 Russia has transferred over 7,000 soldiers of the DPRK army from Primorsky Krai to areas near Ukraine, the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense reports. The North Korean troops were transported using at least 28 military transport aircraft of the Russian Aerospace Forces. The North Koreans are armed with, in particular, 60-mm mortars, AK-12 assault rifles, RPK/PKM machine guns, SVD/SVCH sniper rifles, Phoenix ATGMs, and RPG-7s.
09:41 In the morning, the Russian army attacked the Korabelnyi district of Kherson, one person was wounded, the OVA reported. Another person was injured as a result of the morning shelling of Stanislav. Over the previous day, eight people were wounded in the region.
09:29 Russia is attacking Kiev with drones, debris has been preliminarily recorded falling in six districts: Solomensky, Svyatoshinsky, Shevchenkovsky, Goloseevsky, Pechersky and Dneprovsky. One person is known to have been injured, all fires have been extinguished, said the head of the Kyiv City Defense Army, Sergei Popko.
08:53 As a result of the Russian strike on the Osnovyansky district of Kharkiv on November 1, 36 police officers, one employee of the State Emergency Service and 13 civilians were wounded. One police officer was killed, reported the head of the OVA Oleg Sinegubov. As a result of the shelling, 26 buildings were damaged. In addition, the previous evening, three people were injured as a result of the shelling of Kupyansk. Three more were injured in the village of Olkhovatka in the Kupyansky district.
08:46 Four people were killed in Donetsk Oblast as a result of Russian shelling on November 1: two in Sukhi Yal, one each in Yuryevka and Chasovy Yar. Another four people in the region were injured in the past 24 hours, said OVA head Vadim Filashkin.
07:58 The General Staff announced the estimated losses of the Russian Federation as of the morning of November 2. At the same time, the total losses of UAVs were adjusted, and the losses per day are reported as usual:
personnel - about 697,680 (+1270) people,
tanks - 9170 (+8),
combat armored vehicles - 18,487 (+17),
artillery systems - 20,076 (+37),
MLRS - 1244 (+0),
air defense systems - 994 (+0),
aircraft - 369 (+0),
helicopters - 329 (+0),
Operational-tactical level UAVs - 18,117 (+28),
cruise missiles - 2628 (+0),
ships/boats - 28 (+0),
submarines - 1 (+0),
automotive equipment and tank trucks - 28,114 (+76),
special equipment - 3583 (+4).
02:04 The UN Security Council will meet on November 18 to mark 1,000 days of war in Ukraine. The meeting will be chaired by British Foreign Secretary David Lemmy, whose country holds the presidency of the Security Council this month.
00:42 Ukrainian OSINT project DeepState reports that the Russian army has occupied the village of Yasnaya Polyana in the Volnovakha district of Donetsk Oblast. The enemy has also advanced in Novodmitrovka, Druzhba, Maksimovka, near Novoukrainka and Terny.
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.
..not a terrorist organization, even though it kidnaps people, holds hostages, and tries to negotiate by executing them,...
..not a terrorist organization, even though it kidnaps people, holds hostages, and tries to negotiate by executing them,...
..a contraction of the Arabic words for "frothing at the mouth",...
...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...
..the braying voice of Islamic Resistance®,...
..always the voice of sweet reason...
...Governor of Washington state, failed candidate for the 2020 Dem presidential campaign, mainly because nobody outside the state and some inside had ever heard of him. He complained, complained, complained that the Trump administration wasn't doing enough to help the state, then returned an Army field hospital and 400 ventilators that didn't get used...
...mindless ferocity in a turban...
...46th president of the U.S. Former Senator-for-Life from Delaware, an example of the kind of top-notch Washington intellect to be found in the World's Greatest Deliberative Body....
..always the voice of sweet reason...
...anybody you disagree with, damn them...
...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...
...Republic of Somaliland is an unrecognised sovereign state in the Horn of Africa, recognised internationally as a de jure part of Somalia. It is located in the southern coast of the Gulf of Aden with approximately 5.7 million residents as of 2021. The capital and largest city is Hargeisa. The government regards itself as the successor state to British Somaliland, which united from 1960 to 1991 with the Trust Territory of Somaliland (the former Italian Somaliland) to form the Somali Republic. Under the Siad Barre regime, Somaliadestroyed ninety percent of Hargeisa Per international law, once you're in, you gotta stay in, no matter how bad it smells....
..the braying voice of Islamic Resistance®,...
...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...
