Blame for Beirut Explosion Begins
With a Leaky, Troubled Ship
Posted By: Pluperfect, 8/6/2020 5:04:31 AM
CAIRO — The countdown to catastrophe in Beirut started more than six years ago when a troubled, Russian-leased cargo ship made an unscheduled stop at the city’s port. The ship was trailed by debts, crewed by disgruntled sailors and dogged by a small hole in its hull that meant water had to be constantly pumped out. And it carried a volatile cargo, more than 2,000 tons of ammonium nitrate, a combustible material used to make fertilizers — and bombs — that was destined for Mozambique. The ship, the Rhosus, never made it.
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The thing to keep in mind during the legal war launched today between New York State and the National Rifle Association is that the Second Amendment does not exist in New York City and state. It has been blocked at every level by state and local authorities. In New York, there is no right to — in the plain language of the Constitution — keep and bear arms. The right has been denied as a matter of policy for decades.
That will be, we predict, the elephant in the courtrooms that hear the dueling lawsuits that New York’s attorney general, Letitia James, and the NRA itself filed today.
Pelosi claims PBS' Woodruff acting
like GOP 'advocate' when
pushed on unspent pandemic relief 10 replies
like GOP 'advocate' when
pushed on unspent pandemic relief 10 replies
Speaker Nancy Pelosi was so displeased this week with PBS’ Judy Woodruff that she accused the journalist of serving as an “advocate” for the Republican Party.
The California Democrat became visibly frustrated during a “One on One” interview Tuesday in which Ms. Woodruff asked why Democrats couldn’t seem to find a principled compromise with Republicans on another round of coronavirus relief.
“Democrats want more money, Republicans want a lot less,” Ms. Woodruff said. “They are saying they’re willing to show flexibility, and they’re also saying a lot of the money that was passed in the Spring, Madam Speaker, has not even been spent yet.”
The Shadow of Dukakis Looms Over Biden
12 replies
At this point in the 1988 presidential cycle, it was taken for granted among pundits and professional prognosticators that Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis would defeat Vice President George H. W. Bush by a comfortable margin. Moreover, public opinion seemed to confirm the conventional wisdom. At the end of July, two major polls, Gallup and Harris, had published voter surveys showing Dukakis ahead of Bush by 17 and 18 points, respectively. Meanwhile, the media consistently portrayed the vice president as a dull-witted wimp and represented the Massachusetts governor as a hyper-competent technocrat. Just over 90 days later Bush won the popular vote by seven points and the Electoral College 426-111.
We have watched our society slide into a disturbing trend of permissiveness when it comes to assaulting and removing aspects of our culture. Between evictions of historical monuments, the eradicating of entertainment properties and the condemning of commonplace practices, we have almost become conditioned to accepting these efforts. Now we may be seeing the effects of this movement metastasizing.
The Wall Street Journal delivered a lengthy treatise that looks at a normal aspect of American life, one that almost nobody looks at as being a nefarious component in our existence, with contempt: driving pickup trucks.
New York’s Lawless NRA Lawsuit
2 replies
The latest bananas news from the banana republic that is the State of New York: The attorney general, a political enemy of the National Rifle Association, is seeking to have the advocacy organization legally dissolved. The pretext is financial corruption and self-dealing on the part of the NRA’s leadership.
To say that the corruption case is pretextual is not to say that it is made up out of whole cloth. The NRA, once the most effective organization of its kind, has indeed been mired in incompetent leadership and financial mismanagement for years. Its evolution from sporting club and canny Second Amendment advocate to full-service culture-war outfit has done no favors
The wholesale intellectual fraud that is “white fragility” has so infested our culture that Oprah Winfrey, the world’s first female black billionaire, is criticizing America as hopelessly and intractably racist.
For this we can thank the white liberal academic Robin DiAngelo, whose book “White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism” — first published in 2018 by a small press — has become a textbook of liberal orthodoxy and a totem of radical chic.
This Is My Letter to America
10 replies
We are witnessing a vicious assault by enemies of all that is good, and our president is having to act in ways unprecedented in decades, maybe centuries.
The biblical nature of good versus evil cannot be discounted as we examine what is happening on the streets of America.
It’s Marxism in the form of antifa and the Black Lives Matter movement versus our very capable and very underappreciated law enforcement professionals, the vast majority of whom are fighting to provide us safe and secure homes, streets and communities.
CAIRO — The countdown to catastrophe in Beirut started more than six years ago when a troubled, Russian-leased cargo ship made an unscheduled stop at the city’s port.
The ship was trailed by debts, crewed by disgruntled sailors and dogged by a small hole in its hull that meant water had to be constantly pumped out. And it carried a volatile cargo, more than 2,000 tons of ammonium nitrate, a combustible material used to make fertilizers — and bombs — that was destined for Mozambique.
The ship, the Rhosus, never made it.
The mail-in ballots of more than 84,000 New York City Democrats who sought to vote in the presidential primary were disqualified, according to new figures released by the Board of Elections.
The city BOE received 403,103 mail-in ballots for the June 23 Democratic presidential primary.
But the certified results released Wednesday revealed that only 318,995 mail-in ballots were counted.
That means 84,108 ballots were not counted or invalidated — 21 percent of the total.
Joe Biden and the Democratic Party may have seriously hobbled their election prospects in November by refusing to send out staff and volunteers to campaign door-to-door, building the essential “ground game” that helps win elections. Meanwhile, President Donald Trump’s campaign and the Republican National Committee (RNC) claim to have volunteers and staff knocking on 1 million doors a week across America.
The Biden campaign and the Democratic National Committee (DNC) claim that they are not committing political suicide but merely adapting to the coronavirus pandemic. They told Politico that they can compensate for the lack of in-person canvassing with phone calls, texts, digital organizing, and virtual meet-ups with voters.
Why “Green” Energy Is Impossible
7 replies
High on the Left’s agenda is mandating 100% “green” generation of electricity–if not 100% of energy, period. I believe Joe Biden, among others, has now come out for 100% “green” energy, meaning wind and solar. But for now, let’s stick with energy generation. Would it be feasible to get 100% of our electricity from wind and solar?
Basic problems with these energy sources include inefficiency and intermittency. Wind turbines produce energy around 40% of the time, and solar panels do much worse than that in many parts of the country. So how does a utility ensure that the lights will go on, even at night when the wind isn’t blowing?
He might be riding high in the polls, but Joe Biden’s mental acuity increasingly is an issue in the election campaign, and growling at reporters who ask about it is no way to alleviate voter concerns.
Asked during an event with the National Associations of Black and Hispanic Journalists if he had “taken a cognitive test,” Biden snapped.
“No, I haven’t taken a test! Why the hell would I take a test? C’mon, man!” Frowning and irritated, he paused before ripping into the reporter, Errol Barnett of CBS News.
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Travelers coming into New York City from 35 COVID-19 hotspot states were met at road entry points Wednesday under a program announced earlier in the day by Mayor Bill de Blasio.At a press conference on Wednesday morning, de Blasio said those who do not self-isolate for 14 days once they arrive in the city from those locations could face a $10,000 fine. He failed to explain how he would enforce the order.Pictures taken by DailyMail.com show police officers stationed at the Goethals Bridge toll plaza Wednesday evening. The sheriff's department scanned plates and pulled people over, onlookers say. New York City Sheriff Joseph Fucito,
U.S. Attorney John Durham will soon interview former CIA Director John Brennan, another sign that the investigation of the Trump-Russia investigators is ready to wrap up by the end of the summer.
Durham, the federal prosecutor from Connecticut appointed by Attorney General William Barr to investigate the origins of the Crossfire Hurricane inquiry and to scrutinize the conduct of the law enforcement leaders and intelligence officials involved in it, has asked to interview Brennan, according to “people familiar with the request” cited by NBC News, and the former top spy and vociferous Trump critic has reportedly agreed to the sit-down.
Former Vice President Joe Biden remarked in an interview released Thursday that “unlike the African American community, with notable exceptions, the Latino community is an incredibly diverse community.” Biden was addressing the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) and National Association of Hispanic Journalists (NAHJ) Joint Virtual Convention. Portions of the interview were aired Wednesday, and the full video was streamed Thursday.
NY Attorney General Seeks to Dissolve NRA
33 replies
New York’s attorney general sued the National Rifle Association on Thursday, seeking to put the powerful gun advocacy organization out of business over allegations that high-ranking executives diverted millions of dollars for lavish personal trips, no-show contracts for associates and other questionable expenditures.Attorney General Letitia James’ lawsuit, filed in state court in Manhattan after an 18-month investigation, highlighted misspending and self-dealing allegations that have roiled the NRA and its longtime leader, Wayne LaPierre, in recent years — from hair and makeup for his wife to a $17 million post-employment contract for himself. Simultaneously, the Washington, D.C., attorney general sued the NRA Foundation,
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) on Thursday sent an urgent letter to Postmaster General Louis DeJoy demanding he reverse the recent operational changes to the USPS that “threaten the timely delivery of mail” ahead of the 2020 election.The Democrat-media complex exploded last week and accused President Trump of “destroying” the US Postal Service after the President’s newly appointed postmaster general made structural changes.New changes made by Louis DeJoy have reportedly ‘slowed down’ the mail deliveries,
A Florida activist wearing a face mask with a vulgar anti-cop slogan on it claims she was kicked off an American Airlines flight because of her race.
“I think I got taken off the plane because I’m black,” Arlinda Johns told Local10.com. “My mask said ‘F–k 12’ and my shirt said, ‘Black Lives Matter.’”
Johns had just boarded the flight in Miami last week when a crew member asked her to cover up the slogan, which is slang for “F–k the police,” the outlet reported.
Johns said she replaced it with a different mask — but then had another tense conversation with the flight attendant.
Former National Security Adviser Susan Rice praised noted deserter Bowe Bergdahl in 2014, saying that Bergdahl “served the United States with honor and distinction.”
Bergdahl infamously walked off his Army post in Afghanistan in June 2009 and was then captured and held hostage by a Taliban-aligned group for nearly five years. Former President Barack Obama’s administration secured Bergdahl’s release on May 31, 2014 as part of a prisoner swap for five members of the Taliban.Rice defended Bergdahl’s record in a June 1, 2014 ABC News interview, after she was asked if Bergdahl should be punished for deserting. “He is going to be safely reunited with his family. He served the
On Tuesday night, President Trump announced that U.S. Attorney John Durham had uncovered “breathtaking” evidence about the “corrupt” Russia hoax. That might just have been Trump puffing, except for the fact that the Trump campaign also released a new video hinting that the Democrats, from Obama on down, are going to be in trouble. (snip) Keep in mind that Donald Trump ran a hugely successful reality show. He understands the importance of a narrative arc for any successful broadcast.
If Durham’s report had broken six months ago, it would have been old news by the summer. Worse, the media would have explained away almost everything and deep-sixed what it couldn’t explain.
Three teenagers are in the custody of Florida police after they were caught with an AK-47 in the wrong place at the wrong time. The 15-year-olds were reportedly sitting in a car less than two miles from President Trump's palatial club on Friday when Palm Beach Police noticed the parked Hyundai and approached the vehicle. The boys led officers on a short chase before exiting the vehicle and inadvertently fleeing through Mar-a-Lago, where they were apprehended with an AK-47 inside a backpack.
The subscriptions and revenues for ESPN are plummeting at an increasingly fast rate, as the network has replaced its sports coverage with leftist propaganda.
Analyst Rich Greenfield recently looked at Disney and ESPN’s reports and found very troubling numbers for the sport network and its parent company.
ESPN’s loss in subscribers is also shocking for its size. The loss of subscribers continues and is down another six percent year-over-year.
So far, this year’s subscriber loss has accelerated over past years. The sports network was down 4.5 percent in the first quarter, off 5.5 percent in the second quarter, and down a whopping 6 percent in the third quarter.
Fox News co-host Juan Williams got fact-checked by his “The Five” co-hosts after claiming that protest violence footage “keeps being repeated from the first night way back.”The Thursday evening segment began with footage of Portland Police Chief Chuck Lovell calling for an end to ongoing violence in his city. After citing a Gallup poll showing that “81% of black Americans want police to maintain or increase a presence in their communities,” co-host Pete Hegseth asked Williams whether he agreed with Lovell that the moment has been “hijacked” by violence.“No, gosh, I think it’s still like 60% plus of Americans support the Black Lives Matter movement,” Williams responded.“The violence?” Hegseth asked
Friday is the official start of the 80th annual Sturgis Motorcycle Rally, where 250,000 people are expected to gather in the South Dakota town of that name for nine days of defying proven precautions against the spread of COVID-19.
“Nobody is social distancing and none of them are wearing masks,” local psychologist Michael Fellner told The Daily Beast. “None.”
Fellner is originally from Brooklyn in New York City, which was once the nation’s COVID-19 epicenter but has just reported three straight days without a single death from the virus. The transformation is almost certainly the result of the same precautions the bikers in Sturgis are ignoring.