Don't you see that when you make a win-lose situation, you've lost?
Come on, wave your hands.
You haven't won yet?
IP change.
So what game will you win or lose next?
The fool seems to have a recurring thought.
That retardation is contagious and will be passed on to the future.
animal
What's that picture?
You're an animal at that point.
This is no place to post your proclivities, okay?
porn-spam
Do you know what Animal is thinking?
The reason for the slow progress may have something to do with you.
Let's work hard for each other.
I don't understand.
yes resonance
Thousands protest outside Netanyahu’s home in Israel (VIDEOS)
Demonstrators have voiced outrage over the country’s hotly-debated judicial reform and a surging crime rate in the Arab community
Thousands of Israelis rallied against the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday evening as demonstrations against a controversial judicial overhaul entered their 34th week.
As in recent months, the protests swept across the entire nation, engulfing Tel Aviv, West Jerusalem, Haifa, and several other cities. The Times of Israel reported the rally in Tel Aviv alone numbered some 100,000 people.
The rallies included thousands of people demonstrating outside President Isaac Herzog's residence, while many others gathered outside the home of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Videos and photos circulating on social media show Israeli streets filled with protesters waving flags and beating drums. Some signs carried Netanyahu's picture with the words “Face of Evil”.
Israelis also took to the streets to protest soaring crime rates in the Arab community, which is the largest ethnic minority in the country. According to the Abraham Initiatives, a Jewish-Arab non-profit, since the start of 2023, 157 Arabs have been killed in Israel compared to 71 during the same period last year.
Speaking at a rally in Tel Aviv, Mamoun Abd al-Hay, mayor of the city of Tira, blasted the Israeli government for inaction. “Blood is flowing in our streets, and what do the governments of Israel do? Dismantle the police, halt budgets that are supposed to go toward education,” he said, adding that the Arab community has long suffered from discrimination.
The contentious judicial overhaul, meanwhile, was first announced in January and is aimed at limiting the power of the Supreme Court to rule against the legislative and executive branches of government, while granting the governing coalition a majority on the committee that appoints judges. The reform has triggered fierce public backlash, with its opponents arguing that it constitutes an attack on democracy.
Although the legislation has been delayed in the face of nationwide protests, last month Israel’s parliament passed the first part of Netanyahu’s reform package.
https://www.rt.com/news/581921-israel-protests-judicial-reform/
Biden impeachment a ‘natural step’ – top Republican
US House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has accused the president of creating a “culture of corruption” in Washington
US House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-California) has suggested that he’s ready to move forward with impeachment proceedings against Joe Biden as evidence of allegedly corrupt dealings by the president and his family grows more revealing each week.
“If you look at all the information we have been able to gather so far, it is a natural step forward that you would have to go to an impeachment inquiry,” McCarthy said on Sunday in a Fox News interview. “And just so your viewers understand what that means, that provides Congress the apex of legal power to get all the information they need.”
As speaker of the House of Representatives, McCarthy has the power to enable congressional Republicans to launch an impeachment case against Biden. He had been reluctant to do so until last month, when he hinted at the possibility of an impeachment inquiry. Earlier this week, he said such proceedings could begin as soon as September if the Biden administration didn’t turn over the documents that Republican lawmakers have demanded.
In Sunday’s interview with Fox host Maria Bartiromo, McCarthy cited breakthroughs in an investigation of alleged Biden family corruption by congressional Republicans. For instance, he said, bank records show that the Bidens created 20 shell companies while the patriarch was serving as vice president from 2009 to 2017, and they received 16 payments from Romania that flowed to nine members of the family. He also pointed to allegations by an FBI informant who claimed to have bribed then-Vice President Biden.
“When you look at this, it looks like a culture of corruption that’s been happening within the entire Biden family,” McCarthy said. “You’ve got to be able to answer that to the American public. The American public deserves an answer. Who’s lying? What information went on? Who paid, and what foreign governments?”
Asked whether Republicans have enough votes to trigger impeachment proceedings when Congress reconvenes next month, McCarthy said the issue will be discussed when lawmakers return to Washington. “We didn’t not know of all these times the president lied to the American public. Each step we take contradicts what the Bidens had said before. Could you imagine being a sitting vice president, and your family members set up 20 shell companies?”
McCarthy said he’s even heard from Democrats who have become increasingly concerned “because they backed Biden based upon what he told America, and with each turn, we find that is not true.” He added, “To be able to get the answers to these questions, you would need an impeachment inquiry to empower Congress – Republicans and Democrats – to be able to get the answers that the American people deserve to know.”
https://www.rt.com/news/581930-us-house-speaker-sees-biden-impeachment-as-natural-step/
US judge denies bail to black Trump supporter
The ex-leader of Black Voices for Trump was also refused a court-appointed lawyer in a case related to Georgia’s 2020 election
A Georgia judge has denied bail and refused to appoint a court-provided defense lawyer for the former director of Black Voices for Trump, meaning that at least for now, he will be detained in one of America’s most dangerous jails while awaiting trial on allegations that he allegedly tried to help overturn then-President Donald Trump’s 2020 election defeat in the state.
Fulton County Superior Court Judge Emily Richardson made the ruling on Friday, making Harrison Floyd the only defendant among the 19 people charged in the Georgia Trump case to remain jailed while the prosecutions are pending. He is one of two black defendants. Trump and 17 other defendants were released under pre-arranged bond agreements after being booked at the Fulton County jail this week.
“I do find that based on the open charge against you, there are grounds for bond to be denied at this point, so I’m going to go ahead and find that you are at risk to commit additional felonies and a potential risk to flee the jurisdiction,” Judge Emily Richardson said. The pending case that she referenced is a misdemeanor assault charge filed against Floyd over a confrontation with two FBI agents who served him a grand jury summons earlier this year in Maryland.
https://www.rt.com/news/581895-black-trump-supporter-denied-bail/
War on Cars: Sadiq Khan’s Govt Drafted Plans for Green Tax on Miles Driven
Far-left Mayor of London Sadiq Khan’s government reportedly crafted plans that could see drivers taxed per mile that they drive in the city utilising the deeply unpopular Ultra-Low Emissions Zone (Ulez) cameras to enforce the plan.
According to a report from the Mail on Sunday, it is an “open secret” that Sadiq Khan’s City Hall has been actively working on drawing up options on how to further tax the use of cars in London, including taxing every mile driven, as well as other mechanisms to impose green levies depending on congestion levels and the amount of pollution emitted per car.
While Khan and the Labour Party have denied the plans, a document allegedly produced by the Mayor’s office and Transport for London (TfL) unearthed by the paper stated: “New technology could be used to integrate existing schemes such as the Congestion Charge, Lez and Ulez into a smarter, simpler and fair scheme that would charge motorists on a per-mile basis.
The document, which was reportedly a part of the consultations surrounding the Ulez scheme continued: “Different charging rates would apply depending on variables such as how polluting a vehicle is, the level of congestion in the area and access to public transport,” adding: “We are now starting to explore the potential for future road user charging.”
Reform UK London mayoral candidate, who will challenge Khan in next year’s elections, Howard Cox said: “Ulez has always been a front for a future pay-per-mile taxation plan. This dishonest Mayor has always known this unpopular way to fleece drivers was his aim.”
Khan’s office denied the report, saying that it was “complete nonsense” and that a “pay-per-mile scheme is not on the table and not on his agenda.”
However, a report from the TfL says that by 2026, the London government will look to introduce a “new charging mechanism based on
distance (e.g. km or miles) travelled and other factors.”
https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2023/08/27/war-on-cars-sadiq-khans-govt-drafted-plans-for-green-tax-on-miles-driven/
Report: China’s TikTok Has a Plan to Avoid Being Banned from America
A draft of China-owned TikTok’s plan to avoid a ban reportedly gives the United States government oversight power over the platform.
TikTok’s Chinese parent company, ByteDance, has spent years in negotiation with the U.S. government over security concerns in order to prevent the app from being banned in the United States.
Now, a 2022 draft obtained by Forbes reveals a plan to give the U.S. government “near unfettered access to internal TikTok information and unprecedented control over essential functions that it does not have over any other major free speech platform,” the outlet reported.
The nearly 100-page document is a confidential attorneys’ draft, and contains comment exchanges between lawyers for both ByteDance and the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS). It remains unclear if the draft has been changed over the year.
Nonetheless, this draft agreement gives U.S. federal agencies like the Department of Justice (DOJ) or the Department of Defense (DOD) the authority to do the following:
Examine TikTok’s U.S. facilities, records, equipment and servers with minimal or no notice
Block changes to the app’s U.S. terms of service, moderation policies and privacy policy
Veto the hiring of any executive involved in leading TikTok’s U.S. Data Security org
Order TikTok and ByteDance to pay for and subject themselves to various audits, assessments and other reports on the security of TikTok’s U.S. functions
In some circumstances, require ByteDance to temporarily stop TikTok from functioning in the United States.
The agreement would also make TikTok’s U.S. operations subject to extensive supervision by independent investigative bodies, such as a third-party monitor, a third-party auditor, a cybersecurity auditor, and a source code inspector, Forbes reported.
It would also make it so that TikTok U.S. excludes ByteDance leaders from certain security-related decision making, and instead rely on an executive security committee operating in secrecy from ByteDance.
In one revealing exchange, ByteDance attorneys tell CFIUS that they have added language that stops the government from demanding changes to TikTok’s algorithm simply because it recommended content that the government does not like.
In 2020, then-President Donald Trump tried to outright ban new downloads of the Chinese app, but a series of court decisions blocked the rule from going into effect.
Since then, TikTok’s parent company has been caught snooping on U.S. and UK journalists in multiple instances. The Chinese app has also shown itself to be a danger to kids and teens, a national security threat, and having meddled in U.S. elections.
As Breitbart News reported last week, nearly half of American adults support a ban of TikTok.
https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2023/08/25/report-chinas-tiktok-has-a-plan-to-avoid-being-banned-from-america/
HUGE! CAUGHT ON VIDEO… Brian Kemp Tells GA Voters: “If You Give Anybody a Voting Machine They Can Hack It” (VIDEO)
Brian Kemp told Georgia voters on Saturday at a fish fry, “If you give anybody a voting machine they can hack it.”
This took place at the 8th District GOP fish fry in Perry, Georgia.
Brian Kemp: “If you give anybody a voting machine they can hack it.”
GA voter: What did you just say? If you give anybody a voting machine, they can hack it? Wow!
Brian Kemp: (nods in agreement – his wife looks nervous in the background)
Georgia Voter Brady: We need transparency in our elections.
Brian Kemp: We got transparency.
Brady: No, we don’t.
Brian Kemp’s daughter: It’s not worth it, sir.
That was a huge admission by Governor Kemp.
Earlier this month, Georgia’s dirtbag Governor Brian Kemp issued a statement in response to President Trump’s planned conference press conference to reveal election fraud in the state of Georgia.
President Donald Trump, alongside 18 others, was indicted on 41 charges on Monday night, a blatant attack on those who dared to challenge the integrity of the 2020 election. Additionally, 30 unindicted co-conspirators are being scrutinized for their role in exposing election irregularities.
President Trump, never one to shy away from confronting those who seek to undermine him, announced a press conference to reveal a comprehensive and detailed report on election fraud that took place in Georgia.
Dirtbag Governor Kemp, who has been criticized by President Trump and conservatives for his handling of the 2020 election, responded directly to Trump’s Truth Social post, and said the election was not stolen.
“The 2020 election in Georgia was not stolen. For nearly three years now, anyone with evidence of fraud has failed to come forward – under oath – and prove anything in a court of law. Our elections in Georgia are secure, accessible, and fair and will continue to be as long as I am governor. The future of our country is at stake in 2024 and that must be our focus.”
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/08/huge-caught-video-brian-kemp-tells-ga-voters/
Cartel Gunmen Hang Bodies from Border State Overpass in Mexico
Cartel gunmen hung three bodies from a highway overpass in a Mexican state that borders Texas. The gory crime comes at a time when the state of Nuevo Leon is experiencing an unending rise in cartel violence.
The gory crime scene took place on Thursday early morning in Salinas Victoria, located just north of the Monterrey metropolitan area. At the scene, authorities found the bodies of three unidentified victims who had been strung up from a highway overpass near the 21st-kilometer marker along the highway that connects Monterrey with the Colombia International Bridge.
The incident took place as the state of Nuevo Leon continues to be one of the regions with the most targeted killings in Mexico. Various cartels continue to fight for control of drug corridors into Texas.
Soon after the killing, one of Monterrey’s most outspoken politicians, Waldo Fernandez, a state legislator from the MORENA Party, took to social media to call for a unified front in dealing with cartel violence.
He said that criminal organizations are intimidating and spreading fear among innocent civilians while government officials and authorities are busy trying to score political points.
“He who does not learn from history is doomed to repeat it,” Fernandez said in a streamed video where he recalled the region’s dark history. The cartel violence of ten years ago witnessed drug cartels fighting each other in a fierce turf war that escalated to attacks on law enforcement and ultimately to attacks on innocent civilians that simply became “collateral damage.”
“Today in the state of Nuevo Leon, we are seeing the same,” Fernandez said, recalling a similar scene on the city’s south side ten years before where gunmen hung a body from an overpass and set fire to it. “These acts are acts of intimidation between one cartel and another one, it is between organized crime groups, but they are acts of intimidation for the local citizenry.”
Fernandez spoke to Breitbart Texas and stated that it was time for government officials to establish a series of security boards to coordinate law enforcement activities at the local, state, and federal levels to keep the cartel violence from spiraling out of control even more. The Mexican state legislator claimed that politicians from various parties have focused on pushing their own agendas instead of providing a unified front against organized crime.
“As long as this political conflict continues, the only thing that is going to happen is that in Nuevo Leon, criminals will continue having a party,” Fernandez concluded.
https://www.breitbart.com/border/2023/08/26/cartel-gunmen-hang-bodies-from-overpass-in-mexican-border-state/
Report: Islamist Massacres of Christians a ‘Regular Occurrence’ in Sub-Saharan Africa
The slaughter of Christians has become a regular occurrence in sub-Saharan Africa, the Barnabas Fund reports on Saturday, and the “cause is Islamism.”
Hotspots of Islamic terrorist activity include the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), northern Mozambique, and northern and Middle Belt Nigeria, the Christian aid and persecution watchdog group asserts, and the perpetrators “are not just rebels or militants, but jihadists.”
The report notes that Islamic terrorists from the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) are affiliated with the Islamic State and together with Islamic State Mozambique, they form the Islamic State Central Africa Province.
The violence in Nigeria and across West Africa “is carried out by the Islamic State West Africa Province, jihadi group Boko Haram, and other Islamist extremists,” the document states.
Terrorist groups affiliated with the Islamic State or al-Qaeda “have proliferated across sub-Saharan Africa,” the group observes, leading some observers to make “sobering predictions of an African caliphate stretching from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean.”
Many secular governments and international bodies have condemned violence such as the recent atrocious massacre of Christian schoolchildren in Uganda but downplay the vital religious element in these attacks.
Massacres like that in Uganda are often blamed on “economic downturns, marginalization and lack of opportunity, corrupt or authoritarian government, or environmental problems that reduce the supply of arable and pastoral land,” but the simple fact is: “the victims were Christians who were targeted for that very reason,” the report points out.
Commentators too often ignore “the stated aim of Islamists across Africa: to kill as many Christians as they can,” it adds.
The ADF terrorists who carried out the Uganda massacre “have been slaughtering Christians in their hundreds in north-eastern DRC,” the text states, and in northern and Middle Belt Nigeria, “more than 11,000 Christians have been murdered by Islamists since 2015.”
Islamic State Mozambique (ISM) has rejoiced on social media when Christians are killed by “the soldiers of the caliphate,” and its leaders have boasted of building their Islamic province “on heaps of Christian corpses and rivers of their blood,” the report observes.
For its part, the Islamic State has called its slaughter of Christians and the burning of church buildings across Africa a “Harvest of African Christians.”
https://www.breitbart.com/faith/2023/08/26/islamist-massacres-christians-regular-occurrence-sub-saharan-africa/
US government sought control over TikTok – report
A draft agreement would have given Washington unfettered access to the Chinese-owned platform’s servers and other property
The Biden administration sought to gain control over nearly every aspect of the inner workings of social media behemoth TikTok as part of negotiations allowing its continued operation in the US, according to a draft agreement obtained by Forbes last week.
The draft, which was seen by Forbes and dated last summer, is the product of months of exchanges between ByteDance and the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), which oversees foreign involvement in business deals that could potentially impact national security and has been investigating ByteDance for four years.
The agreement, which at the time ran to nearly 100 pages and has not reportedly been finalized, would give the White House a level of control over the Chinese-owned platform even greater than that which it was found last year to be exercising over US-based competitors like Facebook and Twitter (now X), allowing government officials to not only monitor and influence conversations on the platform, but also to interfere in the day-to-day operations of TikTok in the US.
Government agencies like the Department of Justice and Department of Defense would have full authority to examine TikTok’s servers, equipment, records, facilities, and other properties, according to the draft. They could also block changes to the app’s US terms of service, privacy policy, and moderation policies and veto the hiring of any individual involved in data security for the US.
The agreement would also force TikTok and its parent company ByteDance to submit to outside audits, assessments, code inspections, and cybersecurity checks by supposedly independent entities chosen by the US government. The company would be required to foot the bill for these intrusions.
The platform’s US staff could even have been required to exclude ByteDance’s executives from security-related decisions, instead deferring to an executive security committee whose actions would also be concealed from ByteDance. This committee’s primary responsibility would be maintaining US national security first and TikTok’s profitability second.
TikTok has been threatened repeatedly with a blanket ban or forced sale of its US assets to an American competitor as both President Joe Biden and his predecessor, Donald Trump, claimed the platform is used by Beijing for information warfare.
CFIUS renewed the call for a ban or sale in March after the DOJ launched an investigation into ByteDance employees using TikTok to spy on American journalists. A spokesperson for ByteDance confirmed the surveillance but attributed it to rogue employees who have since been fired.
TikTok has over 150 million American users spending 90 minutes or more on the platform. While the company pledged in 2021 to isolate US user data on servers owned by tech giant Oracle to assuage spying concerns, Biden prohibited its use by federal employees in December and dozens of state and city governments have followed suit.
https://www.rt.com/news/581894-biden-tiktok-control-censorship-bytedance/
Narrative Busting: Two Arrested on Arson Charges for Allegedly Starting Greek Wildfires
ATHENS, Greece (AP) – Greek fire department officials arrested two men on Saturday for allegedly deliberately starting wildfires as hundreds of firefighters battle blazes that have been blamed for 21 deaths.
One man was arrested on Evia for allegedly deliberately setting fire to dried grass in the island’s Karystos area. The fire department said the man confessed to having set four other fires in the area in July and August.
A second man was arrested in the Larissa area in central Greece, also for allegedly deliberately setting fire to dried vegetation. Judicial authorities were informed in both cases.
Officials have said arson has been to blame for several fires in Greece over the past week, although it is still unclear what sparked the country’s largest blazes, including one in the northeastern region of Evros and Alexandroupolis where nearly all the fire-attributed deaths have occurred, and another on the fringes of Athens.
“Some … arsonists are setting fires, endangering forests, property and above all human lives,” Climate Crisis and Civil Protection Minister Vassilis Kikilias said Thursday. “What is happening is not just unacceptable but despicable and criminal.”
The minister said nine fires had been set in the space of four hours Thursday morning in the Avlona area in the northern foothills of Mount Parnitha, a mountain on the northwestern fringes of Athens that is one of the capital’s last green areas. A major fire was already burning on the southern side of the mountain at the time, and continued burning Saturday.
“You are committing a crime against the country,” Kikilias said. “We will find you. You will be held accountable to justice.”
Later that day, police arrested a 45-year-old man on suspicion of arson for allegedly setting at least three fires in the Avlona area. A search of his home revealed kindling, a fire torch gun and pine needles, police said.
Greece has been plagued by the daily outbreak of dozens of fires over the past week as gale-force winds and hot, dry summer conditions combine to whip up flames and hamper firefighting efforts. On Friday, firefighters were tackling 111 blazes, including 59 that had broken out in the 24 hours between Thursday and Friday evening, the fire department said.
Most are tackled in the early stages, but some have grown to massive blazes that have consumed homes and vast tracts of forest.
Storms were forecast for some areas of Greece Saturday, and there were reports of lightning causing several fires near the Greek capital that were being tackled by firefighters.
Greece’s largest current blaze, blamed for 20 deaths, was burning for an eighth day Saturday in the country’s northeast.
Firefighters found 18 bodies in woodland on Tuesday, one on Monday and another Thursday. With nobody reported missing in the area, authorities believe they could be migrants who recently crossed the border from Turkey. Greece´s Disaster Victim Identification Team has been activated to identify the remains, and a telephone hotline set up for potential relatives of the victims to call. One more victim – a man reportedly trying to save his livestock from advancing flames in central Greece – died on Monday.
More than 290 firefighters, backed by five planes and two helicopters, were battling the Evros blaze. By Thursday, the fire had scorched more than 75,000 hectares (185,000 acres, 750 square kilometers) of land, according to the European Union´s Copernicus Emergency Management Service. Copernicus is the EU space program´s Earth observation component and uses satellite imagery to provide mapping data.
A further 260 firefighters, four planes and three helicopters were tackling another fire that has been burning for days on Mount Parnitha, on the northwestern fringes of the Greek capital.
With firefighting forces stretched to the limit, Greece called on other European countries for help. Germany, Sweden, Croatia and Cyprus sent aircraft, while dozens of Romanian, French, Czech, Bulgarian, Albanian and Slovak firefighters helped on the ground.
Greece imposes wildfire prevention regulations, typically from the start of May to the end of October, to limit activities such as the burning of dried vegetation and the use of outdoor barbecues.
Since the start of this year’s fire season, fire department officials have arrested 163 people on fire-related charges, government spokesman Pavlos Marinakis said Friday, including 118 for negligence and 24 for deliberate arson. The police made a further 18 arrests, he added.
https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2023/08/26/narrative-busting-two-arrested-on-arson-charges-for-allegedly-starting-greek-wildfires/
Nicaraguan Dictator Bans Jesuits and Seizes All Their Assets
Nicaraguan dictator Daniel Ortega has declared the Jesuit religious order illegal, mandating the confiscation of all its assets.
The Jesuit order, which supported the leftwing Sandinista guerilla group and rise to power of Daniel Ortega in the late 1970s and early 1980s, had grown more and more critical of the Ortega regime in recent years.
Jesuit Father Fernando Cardenal, a proponent of Liberation Theology and member of the Sandinistas, was Nicaragua’s minister of education from 1984 to 1990. Pope John Paul suspended Father Cardenal for his political activism in violation of Canon Law, along with a number of other priests, including his brother, Father Ernesto Cardenal.
Fernando Cardenal continued to live in a Jesuit house while he was education minister and was formally readmitted to the Jesuit order in 1997, after having renounced his membership in the Sandinistas in 1993.
As Daniel Ortega began adopting an ever-harsher stance against the Catholic Church, however, the Jesuit order became more and more critical of his policies, and the Jesuit-run Central American University (UCA) in Managua was a hub for 2018 protests against the Ortega regime.
On August 15, 2023, Ortega seized possession of the university through an order issued by Judge Gloria Saavedra, in which she alleged that the UCA had become a “center of terrorism,” “betrayed the trust of the Nicaraguan people,” and “transgressed the constitutional and legal order.”
The seizure of the university, one of 26 Nicaraguan universities closed by the Sandinista regime since 2021, was followed three days later by the eviction of the local Jesuit community from their nearby residence.
In response, the Central American province of the Jesuit order issued a formal rebuke to the government, denying the charges against the UCA as “totally false and unfounded.”
“This is a government policy that is systematically violating human rights and seems to be aimed at consolidating a totalitarian state,” they stated. “It is necessary and essential that our university be allowed to exercise its inalienable right to legitimate defense against said accusations.”
On August 23, Nicaraguan authorities moved to ban the entire Jesuit order from the country and ordered the confiscation of all its assets, alleging that the order had failed to comply with tax reporting.
The Central American Jesuit province issued another statement this week, condemning the “new aggression against the Jesuit Order in Nicaragua” and appealing for an immediate end to the regime’s “systematic repression.”
The Catholic Church in Nicaragua has been the target of many attacks and intimidations from the Ortega regime, and a number of clergy have been either expelled or arrested, such as Matagalpa Bishop Rolando Álvarez, who is serving 26 years in prison for trumped-up charges of treason, undermining national integrity, and spreading fake news.
https://www.breitbart.com/faith/2023/08/26/nicaraguan-dictator-bans-jesuits-seizes-all-their-assets/
US Navy vows to counter China’s ‘aggressive behavior’ – media
An American vice admiral has reportedly called for pushing back against Beijing in the South China Sea
The commander of the US Navy’s largest forward-deployed fleet has reportedly responded to a recent confrontation between Chinese and Philippine ships in the South China Sea by pledging to push back against the alleged aggression of Beijing’s forces in the region.
Vice Admiral Karl Thomas, commander of the US Seventh Fleet, on Sunday assured the Philippines of Washington’s backing in countering China’s “aggressive behavior,” Reuters reported. “My forces are out here for a reason,” he said, citing the “shared challenges” faced by the US and its Philippine ally.
Thomas made his comments about three weeks after an incident in which the Chinese Coast Guard deployed water cannon against Philippine vessels that were trying to resupply a warship that Manila had intentionally grounded on a contested South China Sea shoal in 1999. The resupply mission was finally completed on Tuesday, delivering food and other goods to troops stationed on the World War II-era ‘Sierra Madre’ transport ship.
You have to challenge people, I would say, operating in a grey zone,” Thomas told Reuters. “When they’re taking a little bit more and more and pushing you, you’ve got to push back. You have to sail and operate.” He added, “There’s really no better example of aggressive behavior than the activity on 5 August on the shoal.”
Thomas held talks with Vice Admiral Alberto Carlos, who heads the Philippine Western Command overseeing Manila’s South China Sea interests. “We certainly shared challenges,” the US commander said. “So, I wanted to better understand how he views the operations that he’s responsible for, and I want to make sure that he understood what I had available.”
The US Seventh Fleet, based in Japan, covers an area of operations spanning more than 124 million square kilometers in the Western Pacific, from the International Date Line to the India-Pakistan border. It boasts about 60 ships and submarines, as well as 140 aircraft and about 20,000 sailors. Its operational zone encompasses half of the world’s population and the five largest military powers outside the US, including Russia and China.
Tensions between the Philippines and China have escalated since Ferdinand Marcos Jr. took office as president in Manila last year. Marcos has forged closer defense ties with the US and asserted his country’s territorial claims in the South China Sea. For instance, the Philippines placed navigational buoys around the Spratly Islands in May, staking its claim to an area over which Beijing claims sovereignty.
Chinese officials have warned that strengthening military cooperation with the US will tie the Philippines “to the chariot of geopolitical strife,” jeopardizing the country’s security. Beijing and Washington have repeatedly accused each other of military provocations in the South China Sea.
https://www.rt.com/news/581925-us-navy-vows-to-counter-chinese-aggression/
EU state broadcaster backtracks on promise to Christian believers
Latvian Television will no longer air Orthodox services after a prayer for Moscow’s Patriarch Kirill was read out during a transmission
Latvia's national broadcaster will no longer broadcast Orthodox services after a televised prayer for Patriarch Kirill of the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) was aired earlier this month. The decision comes after the network promised not to restrict religious freedom.
While recording an Orthodox church service at the Riga Holy Trinity Sergius Women’s Monastery last Saturday, Latvian Television (LTV) producers noticed that it included a prayer for Patriarch Kirill. LTV producers axed the broadcast and announced on Thursday that no new Orthodox services would be broadcast on the network.
"Praying for Patriarch Kirill of the Russian Orthodox Church, who openly supports and even blesses Russia's bloody war in Ukraine, contradicts not only the values and beliefs represented by us, LTV, but also the editorial position,” LTV editor-in-chief Sigita Roķe said in a statement.
The Last Crusade: How the conflict between Russia and the West has fueled a major split in the Orthodox Christian Church
Read more The Last Crusade: How the conflict between Russia and the West has fueled a major split in the Orthodox Christian Church
The Latvian Orthodox Church was a self-governing part of the Moscow Patriarchate until 2022, and as such was under the jurisdiction of Patriarch Kirill. In the wake of Russia’s military operation in Ukraine, the Latvian parliament forced the church to declare autocephaly – essentially independence – from Moscow. No other Orthodox church has recognized this declaration.
There are around 370,000 Orthodox Christians in Latvia, making Orthodoxy the country’s third-largest Christian denomination behind Lutheranism and Catholicism.
In a service broadcast last August, a prayer for Kirill was also heard. However, LTV took no action at the time, with Roke saying that “we respect all religions,” and promising that the network would not “stop broadcasting ecumenical services or something like that.”
Latvia has taken a hardline anti-Russia stance since the conflict in Ukraine broke out. In addition to spending more than 1% of its entire GDP on weapons for Kiev, Latvia has announced the deportation of thousands of ethnic Russians who refuse to take or fail a mandatory language test, destroyed Soviet-era World War II monuments, and arrested dozens of people for celebrating the Soviet Union’s victory over Nazi Germany.
https://www.rt.com/news/581893-latvia-tv-orthodox-ban/
Pakistan reacts to EU state’s planned ‘Quran’ bill
Islamabad has praised the Danish government's decision to criminalize the public desecration of the Muslim holy book
Pakistan has welcomed the Danish government’s decision to propose a bill that would make it illegal to burn the Quran in public. Acts of public desecration of the Muslim holy book have led to protests and diplomatic tensions between the Nordic countries and Muslim-majority nations.
“This, we believe, is a step in the right direction,” Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement on its website on Saturday. “Pakistan has always maintained that desecration and burning of holy scriptures constitute a serious act of religious hatred, which must not be permitted under the guise of freedom of expression, opinion and protest.”
“We hope the step taken by Denmark today would culminate in effective legislation to curb the desecration of the Holy Quran and other divine books,” the statement read, calling on other countries to follow Denmark’s path.
Earlier this week, Danish Justice Minister Peter Hummelgaard unveiled a plan to crack down on the desecration of religious texts by expanding the existing ban on the burning of foreign flags. “The bill will make it punishable, for example, to burn the Quran or the Bible in public,” Hummelgaard said.
If enacted, the measure would be a departure from the government’s previous stance that the burning of the Quran is protected as freedom of expression.
According to Hummelgaard, the offense would be punishable by fines and up to two years in prison. The bill will be formally introduced on September 1.
Acts of Quran burning by activists in Denmark and neighboring Sweden have sparked outrage across the Muslim world and have led to intense protests in several countries. In July, the Swedish Embassy building in Baghdad was stormed after a Quran was set on fire outside a mosque in Stockholm.
https://www.rt.com/news/581901-pakistan-reacts-denmark-quran/
Human Smuggler Fires on Border Patrol Agents in California
San Diego Sector Border Patrol agents came under fire on August 18 as they attempted to arrest a group of migrants who crossed the border from Mexico. No one was injured in the incident.
As Border Patrol agents attempted to arrest a group of migrants in the Otay Mountain Wilderness Area on August 18, shots rang out from a gunman firing in their direction. Responding agents heard multiple shots and observed muzzle flashes from a second volley of gunfire.
“Smuggling organizations are becoming desperate and escalating their level of violence because of the work being performed by U.S. Border Patrol agents,” said San Diego Sector Chief Patrol Agent Patricia McGurk-Daniel. “Our agents are preventing smugglers from conducting their illicit business and this is their very dangerous response. This callous display clearly shows that smugglers do not care about the safety of migrants or law enforcement.”
The agents took cover and were not injured as the gunman fled back to Mexico, officials reported. BORTAC agents responded to secure the area and search for any suspects or weapons. None were found, the statement reveals.
Four days later, U.S. Army National Guard soldiers operating a mobile scope observed an armed individual climb the border fence in the Otay Mountain Wilderness Area, officials continued. Two more armed men were seen operating in the same area the following day. BORTAC agents responded to both incidents but failed to find the gunmen or abandoned weapons.
“These incidents and individuals pose a significant danger to agents patrolling the area as well as migrants attempting to illegally enter,” McGurk-Daniel emphasized. “The safety of our agents and the safety of migrants remains paramount. We remain vigilant in the face of escalating threats and danger, and we will work to identify and prosecute the responsible parties.”
https://www.breitbart.com/border/2023/08/26/human-smuggler-fires-on-border-patrol-agents-in-california/
‘Rich Men North of Richmond’ Singer Addresses Rumor He’s a Biden Supporter
A SF Anonymous Insider planned a ‘doom loop’ tour of drug-infested San Francisco touting an up-close-and-personal experience of a Blue city that is a “model of urban decay,”
Locals and tourists paid $30 a ticket, but controversy around the event forced the anonymous tour guide to cancel the walk.
The New York Post reports, “Community activist Del Seymour and others with the nonprofit Code Tenderloin — who had gathered at the tour’s designated starting point to protest the event — “then led about 70 people on an nearly 2-mile “anti-doom loop tour” through areas such as City Hall, Union Square, Mid-Market and the Tenderloin District.”
As it turns out, the ‘Positive Walk’ provided the exact same snapshot of the decaying city.
The streets of San Francisco have turned into a third world jungle under progressive Democratic Party rule. Video taken last week shows smash and grab car burglars cruising the city in a white Lexus, letting a burglar out of the passenger side to peek in windows of parked cars and smash the windows of those that have stuff to steal.
Conditions in the city have deteriorated to the point where government employees who normally report to work at a downtown federal building have been told to work from home.
One of their stops, the Civic Center district, was eerily empty except for half-baked drug addicts bent over after taking a hit on fentanyl and other drugs.
As the tour group walked past shuttered stores such as the Whole Foods grocery store on Market Street, drug deals were happening in broad daylight.
A homeless man yelled at some in the group as they passed by the encampments.
As Seymour took the group to the Glide Memorial Church and a nightclub called the Power Exchange in the Tenderloin neighborhood, participants passed by rows of tents, many with homeless addicts passed out inside.
In the corners, men exchanged crumpled up money for balls of foil.
Some openly smoked fentanyl and other drugs as the tour group walked past them.
Sounds like the ‘Positive Walk’ delivered what the ‘doom loop’ tour promised.
Happening Now: The Doom Loop walk in San Francisco, which was a tour that promised tourist the opportunity to visit the city and witness how bad the urban decay is, has been cancelled. Protesters showed up and decided to host an anti-doom gloom walk showing how beautiful the… pic.twitter.com/efELDsv8kS
— 🇺🇸Travis🇺🇸 (@Travis_in_Flint) August 27, 2023
San Francisco ‘doom loop’ canned, but even opposition group’s ‘positive walk’ can’t dodge open drug use, homeless https://t.co/fc4aNDFUVa via @nypost
— Bo Snerdley (@BoSnerdley) August 27, 2023
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/08/san-franciscos-sold-doom-loop-tour-drug-infested/
Google hiding websites of Trump and other Biden challengers – report
Searching ‘presidential campaign websites’ returned incumbent Joe Biden’s webpage and several inactive Democrats
Google is suppressing the 2024 campaign websites of all serious challengers to Democratic incumbent President Joe Biden, a report from the Media Research Center claimed on Thursday.
Searching the web for ‘presidential campaign websites’ using Google returned results that did not include a single Republican candidate on the first page the day before the first Republican primary debate of the 2024 season, according to the MRC.
Not even former US President Donald Trump, who is polling neck-and-neck with Biden, appeared in the first few pages of results, the media watchdog observed.
Nor did Democratic challenger Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the chief threat to Biden’s candidacy from within his own party, appear in the results at all, even though a recent poll had him at nearly 20% in a matchup against Biden.
Indeed, the only non-Biden Democrat to feature on the first page was lifestyle guru Marianne Williamson, who has never polled above the low single digits.
However, the websites of prominent Democrats who are not running for president in 2024, including former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, were more prominently featured at 29th, 12th, and 9th place in the results, respectively.
“Google has erased every threat to Joe Biden,” MRC Free Speech America VP Dan Schneider said on Thursday, recalling how Google had “pulled out all the stops to put Hillary Clinton in the White House” and “has continued to interfere in our elections ever since.”
As of Saturday, the phenomenon appeared to have actually worsened. While Biden’s site was the fourth listed on the search engine and Williamson’s the fifth, Sanders remained at 12th, while Clinton had actually moved up to 13th.
Former Vice President Mike Pence’s site was the highest-ranked Republican in a search run on Saturday morning – though even his page was listed several places behind an Atlantic article informing the casual browser that 1996 Republican candidate and now-deceased former Senator Bob Dole’s campaign website “is still online.”
Kennedy has been widely disparaged by the media establishment and online factcheckers for his work on vaccine safety. He sued Google earlier this month for violating his First Amendment rights, arguing its subsidiary YouTube had blocked his content on orders from the Biden administration.
Trump also sued Google in 2021 for infringing on his free speech after he was deplatformed from YouTube along with most other mainstream social media platforms following the January 6 Capitol riot.
Over a dozen government agencies were found to be issuing content-based censorship orders to social media platforms last year in Missouri v. Biden, leading a judge to issue a restraining order forbidding the administration from contacting the platforms.
https://www.rt.com/news/581881-google-censors-republicans-rfk-websites/
>>19443840 edit
San Francisco’s Sold-Out ‘Doom Loop’ Tour of Drug-Infested City Cancelled, Counter ‘Positive Walk’ Ends Up with Same Tour of Addicts and Homeless Camps
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/08/san-franciscos-sold-doom-loop-tour-drug-infested/
That’s Bidenomics: American Auto-Giant Blindsides Over 900 Workers with Sudden Layoffs
General Motors is closing its IT Innovation Center in Chandler, Arizona, cutting 940 jobs.
The closing came as a major shock, ChandlerNews.com reported.
This location will close on Oct. 31, according to KTVK-TV.
“Today’s announcement that GM plans to close its Arizona IT Innovation Center came as a complete surprise,” economic development director Micah Miranda said.
“We’ve recently been working with their local team about higher education partnerships, mentoring, and a promotional video highlighting Chandler’s Price Corridor. With this unfortunate news, we plan to work closely with our workforce development partners to assist with employment opportunities for those impacted,” Miranda said.
Erik Gronseth said workers were told Tuesday night there would be a 9 a.m. staff meeting the next day.
“There wasn’t too much of any forewarning of what to expect. Some of us jokingly thought maybe this was going to be along the lines of ‘meet some new coworkers,’ but it’s unfortunate that it turned out the way it did,” said Gronseth.
Gronseth is among a small number of employees not getting the ax.
“That was a bit of relief, bittersweet relief, as we knew a lot of people,” said Gronseth.
That “bittersweet relief” for these workers comes amid a generally tumultuous time, economically speaking. Many of President Joe Biden’s most ardent critics have been quick to blame his administration for many of these economic hardships.
Speaking of hardships, the layoffs in Arizona come after GM already cut about 200 engineers elsewhere, according to the Detroit Free Press.
GM announced the closing in a company-wide email.
“Today we announced the difficult decision to cease IDT (information and digital technology) operations at the Arizona IT Innovation Center at the end of October. This decision was not an easy one, but it will help to optimize our innovation center footprint and gain the efficiencies and effectiveness we need to have to continue to support the company,” Stacy Lynett, GM’s vice president of Information and Digital Technology, wrote.
GM representative Kevin Kelly framed the cut as not to reduce costs, but increase efficiency.
“We’re rationalizing the number of IT innovation centers we have in the country,” Kelly said.
“We’re keeping the other three. But as we look at efficiencies there were some redundancies and that’s why we decided to remove one of the centers,” he said.
The Chandler facility opened in 2014.
GM has three other IT centers — Warren, Michigan; Austin, Texas, and suburban Atlanta.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/08/bidenomics-american-auto-giant-blindsides-900-workers-sudden/
NFL Player Tommy Sweeney Collapses on Field During New York Giants Practice
The New York Giants experienced a terrifying incident during a practice session when their tight end, Tommy Sweeney, suddenly collapsed on the field.
“Scary scene as TE Tommy Sweeney received significant medical attention while working on a side field for rehabbing players,” New York Giants beat reporter for The Athletic, Dan Duggan, wrote on Wednesday.
“Unclear what happened, but [Head Coach Brian Daboll and General Manager Joe Schoen] came over and stayed there until Sweeney was put on a cart. He was shirtless, sitting up on the cart,” Duggan added.
Scary scene as TE Tommy Sweeney received significant medical attention while working on a side field for rehabbing players. Unclear what happened, but Daboll and Schoen came over and stayed there until Sweeney was put on a cart. He was shirtless, sitting up on the cart.
— Dan Duggan (@DDuggan21) August 23, 2023
The 28-year-old player was eventually carted off the practice field, and the Giants later announced that he was in “stable” condition. The team characterized the incident as a “medical event” and assured everyone that Sweeney was under the care of medical professionals in the Giants athletic training room.
“TE Tommy Sweeney had a medical event and is under the care of medical professionals in the Giants athletic training room. He is stable, alert and conversant,” said Duggan.
“Daboll said Sweeney is still being evaluated and declined to divulge specifics about what happened, but said he was in the facility this morning and is in “good spirits,” he concluded.
Daboll said Sweeney is still being evaluated and declined to divulge specifics about what happened, but said he was in the facility this morning and is in “good spirits.”
— Dan Duggan (@DDuggan21) August 24, 2023
“I just wanted everyone to know he was fine,” Daboll said. “He was in the training room. His dad was actually in the crowd. … He was doing OK. I don’t want to say he [is] OK, because I’m not a physician but I saw him this morning.”
“He was walking around, he was doing fine. I just want to let everyone know he’s in good spirits and he’s doing OK.”
More from the New York Post:
One day after tight end Tommy Sweeney was carted off after experiencing a “medical event” during practice, the prognosis from Giants coach Brian Daboll sounded cautiously optimistic.
“He’s good,” Daboll said ahead of the last practice of training camp on Thursday. “He’s still going through some evaluations. Not going to get into anything specific. … He’s still going through some stuff.”
Sweeney was in the building Thursday morning, though Daboll declined to say whether he was hospitalized after leaving practice Wednesday.
He also did not say whether the event had anything to do with an undisclosed injury Sweeney was dealing with prior to Wednesday.
Giants quarterback Daniel Jones expressed his concern and described the incident as “extremely scary” to witness. Seeing a fellow player go down and require immediate medical attention is a distressing experience for any athlete. Jones emphasized that such occurrences are never desired or expected during a practice session.
Tommy Sweeney, originally drafted by the Buffalo Bills in the seventh round of the 2019 NFL Draft, has had his fair share of challenges throughout his career. In July 2020, he suffered a foot injury that led to his placement on the physically unable to perform (PUP) list. However, his journey took an unexpected turn when he was subsequently moved to the reserve/COVID-19 list in October 2020 due to a myocarditis diagnosis.
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/08/nfl-player-tommy-sweeney-collapses-field-during-new/
Caribbean nation to legalize religious marijuana
The Bahamas also aims to decriminalize cannabis possession and allow its medicinal use
The government of the Bahamas has introduced several bills aimed at legalizing marijuana for religious and medicinal purposes, and decriminalizing the possession of small amounts of the drug. Lawmakers hope that the measures will boost the islands’ tax revenues.
If the bills are approved, the government will issue licenses for the cultivation, transport, and sale of marijuana for religious or medical use to Bahamian-owned companies, while license for cannabis research, testing, and manufacturing would be issued to companies that are at least 30% Bahamian-owned, the Associated Press reported on Friday.
The sale of marijuana for recreational purposes would still be illegal, but those caught with less than 30 grams would pay a $250 fine and not receive a criminal record. At present, possession can be punished with a fine of up to $500,000 or a 30 year prison term.
Those using pot for spiritual purposes will only be allowed to do so on the premises of a licensed religious organization, Attorney General Ryan Pinder told reporters at a press conference on Thursday.
While more than 90% of Bahamanians are Christians, the islands are home to small communities of Rastafarians, whose principal religious sacrament is the smoking of cannabis.
In 2018, the heads of 19 Caribbean nations, including the Bahamas, Barbados, Haiti, Jamaica and others, agreed to “review marijuana’s current status with a view to reclassification.” Antigua and Jamaica have since decriminalized the personal use of the drug, while the US Virgin Islands authorized recreational and religious use earlier this year.
Pinder told reporters that public hearings on the bills will be held in September, and that legislation could be approved before next year.
https://www.rt.com/news/581874-bahamas-legalize-religious-cannabis/