Anonymous ID: 421f90 Aug. 22, 2021, 7:31 p.m. No.14432317   🗄️.is đź”—kun   >>2359 >>2496 >>2826

Blacktown churchgoers fined $35,000 for large gathering in breach of COVID restrictions

 

The NSW Police Minister David Elliott says he is "stunned" that 60 people gathered at a Western Sydney church overnight, during the middle of a COVID-19 lockdown.

Key points:

 

Fines were given to 30 people and the church organisation for breaches of public health orders

Police say the event is a potential super spreader of COVID-19

More than 7,000 fines have been issued this year, three times as many as last year

 

NSW Police issued $35,000 in fines for COVID-19 breaches after officers were called to the illegal gathering in Fourth Avenue, Blacktown about 7:30pm, following multiple complaints to Crime Stoppers.

 

"I'm actually quite stunned," Mr Elliott told Nine Radio.

 

"When you consider churches are there to profess the message of hope and love and to have those people just endanger communities because they are actually potentially going to spread a virus is just extraordinary."

 

Sixty people were inside, including adults and children, police said.

 

Thirty attendees received $1,000 Penalty Infringement Notices (PINS) while the organisation was issued a $5,000 fine.

 

Christ Embassy Sydney sits in the Blacktown local government area (LGA) which is one of 12 hotspot LGAs under tighter restrictions.

 

Police said there was no QR code present at the entry to the building and those in attendance were from various LGAs including Canterbury-Bankstown, Fairfield and Liverpool, which are also areas of concern.

 

Mr Elliott said the vast majority of churches and church-run organisations had been well managed and were doing the right thing.

 

"If cathedrals can stream online their services I don't know why suburban churches in Blacktown can't," he said.

 

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-08-23/blacktown-churchgoers-fined-for-large-gathering-covid-breach/100398402

Anonymous ID: 421f90 Aug. 22, 2021, 8:24 p.m. No.14432871   🗄️.is đź”—kun

Deep State Failure: Russ Travers, Fired by Trump, Is in Top Afghan Evacuation Role Under Biden

 

As recriminations fly among Biden administration officials over who bungled the Afghanistan withdrawal, some are questioning the responsibility of Russell Travers, who was fired by the Trump administration as acting head of the National Counterterrorism Center and subsequently rehired by President Joe Biden to lead the interagency process on the evacuation operation.

 

In March 2020, then-Acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell fired Travers as acting head of the NCTC as part of the Trump administration’s efforts to streamline a bloated agency and remove ineffective individuals.

 

At the time, the move was decried by anonymous former officials as a “purge” of career professionals, as the Washington Post reported. “The removals have shocked Travers’s colleagues, who are upset at the treatment of someone so well-regarded, according to the two former officials,” the Post reported.

 

Travers would later in October 2020 sign a letter declaring the belief that the disclosure of emails found on Hunter Biden’s laptop “has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.”

 

In January, Biden rehired Travers as deputy homeland security adviser at the National Security Council to go after domestic extremists.

 

In June, Biden promoted Travers to senior deputy homeland security adviser at the NSC and put him in charge of evacuating Afghan special immigrant visa (SIV) applicants to the U.S., according to Politico.

 

Travers had boasted about how well the evacuation plan was going on July 29, 2021, on a conference call with reporters:

 

I am immensely proud to announce our first group of Afghan special immigrants to be relocated under Operation Allies Refuge is now on their way to America. This flight represents a fulfillment of the U.S. commitment and honors these Afghans’ brave service in helping support our mission in Afghanistan, in turn helping to keep our country safe.

 

The plan to evacuate Afghan SIV applicants is now in disarray, and there are estimates of as many as 65,000 or more Afghans scrambling to get out of Afghanistan and come to the U.S. or another yet to be determined location.

 

Thousands of Afghans had rushed to the Hamid Karzai International Airport last weekend as the Taliban closed in on the capital after the Biden administration failed to predict the speed of the collapse of the U.S.-backed Afghan government and military.

 

Hundreds were seen flooding the airport’s tarmac and disrupting evacuation operations, with some Afghans trying to cling to an Air Force C-17 in an attempt to evacuate, plunging to their deaths with others being trampled on the runway.

 

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2021/08/22/deep-state-failure-russ-travers-fired-during-trump-top-biden-afghan-evacuation-role/