- A school cop shot and killed a student gunman on the campus of a high school in Maryland. Two students were wounded, one of them critically.
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Andrew Malcolm writes that while the Trump White House may be dysfunctional, the two political parties are in worse shape:
Trump is basically leading his own Party of Trump, based on his own ego and millions of disaffected Americans sick of the ineffectiveness and unresponsiveness of both two-faced parties. The lack of substantial legislative results last year revealed both deep rifts within the me-first GOP congressional factions and Trump’s inability or unwillingness to act as a real party leader.
Hard to blame wary GOP members on the Hill given their president’s mercurial temperament, political double-crosses and Twitter attacks on his own would-be allies.
When Trump does venture out to campaign for party picks — in the Alabama Senate and Pennsylvania House races, for instance — staunchly Republican voters ignore his urgings and elect Democrats. Another ominous November sign for the GOP.
- The latest iteration of the ObamaCare bailout bill transfers more than $60 billion to insurance companies.
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Mississippi Governor Phil Bryant signed a bill banning abortions after 15 weeks; this is the earliest abortion ban in the U.S. Of course a federal district court judge blocked the law the day after it was signed, since that’s all federal district court judges seem to do these days.
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Paul Allen located the wreck of the USS Juneau off the Solomon Islands. The famous five Sullivan brothers from Waterloo, Iowa died when the Juneau sank.
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The U.S. and South Korea will launch a large-scale military exercise soon; it was delayed for the benefit of the Winter Olympics.
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A Minneapolis police officer who shot and killed a woman from Australia was charged with second degree manslaughter and third degree murder. The woman, Justine Ruszczyk Damond, called 911 to report a possible sexual assault outside her home only to be shot by the responding officer, Mohamed Noor.
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An Iranian man, Ali Sadr Hashemi Nejad, was charged with funneling $115 million to Iran in violation of sanctions:
An Iranian who chairs a Maltese bank has been arrested on U.S. charges he participated in a scheme to evade U.S. sanctions and funnel more than $115 million paid under a Venezuelan construction contract through the U.S. financial system, prosecutors said on Tuesday.
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The U.K. negotiated a draft agreement on its transition out of the E.U., but the border between Northern Ireland and Ireland wasn’t settled. The U.K. accepted limitations on immigration and control over fishing in its own waters.
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A British woman fighting for the Kurdish YPJ in Afrin, Syria died, apparently the victim of a Turkish air strike.
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Turkey released drone footage of Afrin’s main hospital to defend its claim that it didn’t attack the building. If you look closely at the footage, however, it does show that part of the hospital was hit.
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Norwegian Justice Minister Sylvi Listhaug quit to avoid a parliamentary no-confidence vote that would have brought down the country’s government.
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French police arrested former Prime Minister Nicolas Sarkozy as part of an investigation into illegal campaign contributions paid by former Libyan leader Moammar Qaddafi.
Tag: Libya
Links for 1-24-2018
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Four Americans were among those killed during the Taliban assault on the Intercontinental Hotel in Kabul. Two Americans were injured.
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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said his military offensive in northern Syria will extend to Manbij, which is one of the cities where American troops are based. Therefore Erdogan’s troops will not only be targeting American allies (the Kurdish YPG), but also American soldiers. This is the point where Donald Trump should tell Erdogan leave Syria or die. We’ll see if Trump is up to the task.
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The Treasury Department imposed new sanctions on people and companies from North Korea, China, Russia, and Georgia for helping North Korea violate U.N. sanctions.
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Michael Goodwin believes there’s evidence of a massive scandal at the FBI, and Mollie Hemingway is calling for Attorney General Jeff Sessions to appoint a special counsel to investigate the Department of Justice and the FBI. The Columbia University law professor that former FBI Director Jim Comey used to leak memos to The New York Times, Daniel Richman, now claims he’s Comey’s attorney; this probably amounts to an attempt to use attorney-client privilege to shield Comey’s communications. The five months’ worth of missing FBI text messages affected 10% of employees’ phones, and just happened to include both Peter Strzok and Lisa Page.
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A Michigan judge sentenced former USA Gymnastics team doctor Larry Nassar to up to 175 years in prison for sexually abusing young female gymnasts. Nassar was previously sentenced to 60 years in federal prison for possession of child pornography.
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The EU imposed a $1.2 billion fine on Qualcomm for paying Apple to use its cellular chips exclusively in iPhones and iPads for five years.
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A Brazilian appeals court upheld the conviction of former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, and furthermore added two and a half years to his sentence (bringing it up to 12 years). Lula was planning to run for president this year, but the appeals court ruling prevents that.
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Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi will effectively be the only candidate on the ballot after his only major challenger was arrested and another challenger dropped out, saying his supporters were being intimidated.
Links for 12-26-2017
- FBI representatives reportedly told Congress that the only part of the Christopher Steele dossier on Donald Trump that they can verify is that Carter Page visited Russia in July 2016, and that was public knowledge.
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The Trump administration imposed sanctions on two North Korean officials who work on the country’s ballistic missile program:
Kim Jong Sik, a veteran rocket scientist, and Ri Pyong Chol, a former senior air force commander, are often seen on television and in photographs with leader Kim Jong Un, walking down the red carpet or sharing a smoke with him to celebrate a successful missile launch.
The sanctions by the Treasury Department mean that any assets the two men hold in the United States can be seized and that Americans are prohibited from dealing with them. More significantly, banks are prohibited from transactions with them involving U.S. dollars, which includes a considerable number of international transactions.
- One of four North Korean soldiers who defected to South Korea this year is immune to anthrax, which suggests the North Korea army is inoculating at least some of its soldiers against a biological weapon it’s believed to possess.
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If you’re a Chinese citizen and you write a blog post critical of the government or you forget your ID card, the government can take a sample of your DNA:
Many of the ways Chinese police are collecting samples are impermissible in the U.S. In China, DNA saliva swabs or blood samples are routinely gathered from people detained for violations such as forgetting to carry identity cards or writing blogs critical of the state, according to documents from a national police DNA conference in September and official forensic journals.
Others aren’t suspected of any crime. Police target certain groups considered a higher risk to social stability. These include migrant workers and, in one city, coal miners and home renters, the documents show.
- China sentenced blogger Wu Gan to eight years in prison for subversion:
Wu Gan, a blogger better known by his online name “Super Vulgar Butcher”, regularly championed sensitive cases of government abuses of power, both online and in street protests. He was detained in May 2015 and later charged with subversion.
Later:
Wu criticized China’s political system online and used performance art to create disturbances, as well as insulting people and spreading false information, according to a statement form the court posted on its website.
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The Syrian army and their Shiite militia allies backed a Sunni rebel group into a corner where the borders of Syria, Lebanon, and Israel meet. Israeli officials are nervous about the proximity of Iranian-backed Shiite militias to the country’s border.
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The U.S. killed a Haqqani Network operative, Jamiuddin, in Pakistan via a drone strike. Jamiuddin moved fighters in and out of Afghanistan.
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Pakistan claims Indian soldiers killed three of its soldiers in Kashmir. Two days ago India claimed Pakistani forces killed four of its soldiers.
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An Argentine judge ruled that Alberto Nisman was murdered. Nisman was a prosecutor who turned up dead after accusing former President Cristina Fernandez of covering up Iran’s role in the 1994 bombing of a Jewish community center. At the time of Nisman’s death, Fernandez and others claimed it was a suicide.
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Someone blew up a pipeline that feeds Libya’s Es Sider oil terminal, cutting oil output by 100,000 barrels a day.
Links for 11-28-2017
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North Korea fired an intercontinental ballistic missile on a steep trajectory that reached an altitude of 2,800 miles and traveled 600 miles before landing in the Sea of Japan. Flown on a conventional trajectory, the missile could reach any part of the continental U.S.
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Luis Gutiérrez (D-IL) won’t run for re-election to the House of Representatives.
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The U.S. Air Force said it’s changing its process for reporting criminal records to the FBI’s gun background check system. The Air Force failed to report the disqualifying conviction of the Sutherland Springs, Texas church shooter, enabling him to buy weapons he could not legally possess.
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Libyan militant Ahmed Abu Khattala was convicted of terrorism charges for his role in the Benghazi attack. Khattala was charged with but not convicted of murdering the Americans who died in the attack.
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Former Intelligence Community Inspector General Charles McCullough says he was threatened by Congressional Democrats and the Clinton campaign as he investigated Hillary Clinton’s private email server.
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Ireland stands to lose big if Brexit goes through — taxes on trade with the U.K. will likely impair the country’s economy. To combat this, Ireland is lobbying for Northern Ireland to remain in the EU customs union, which is not a politically tenable solution. The fact that a deputy prime minister, Frances Fitzgerald, resigned today thanks to a scandal isn’t helping.
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Britain’s MI5 released records related to an infamous Russian spy ring that operated in London and before it was broken up in 1961.
Links for 11-27-2017
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The U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear Kolbe v. Hogan, a case where a federal appeals court ruled that semiautomatic rifles are not protected by the Second Amendment.
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Leandra English sued the Trump administration, claiming she’s the “rightful acting director” of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). English is the person former CFPB Director Richard Cordray appointed as his successor. The top lawyer for the CFPB is siding with Donald Trump’s assertion that Trump has the power to appoint the acting director of the CFPB; Andrew McCarthy agrees. David Harsanyi argues that it’s time for Congress to kill the CFPB.
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Turkey’s government claims Donald Trump agreed to stop weapons shipments to the YPG, Kurdish fighters who comprise the majority of the Syrian Democratic Forces. The Department of Defense says it’s reviewing “adjustments” to the weapons it provides to the YPG. The Kurds are much better allies of the U.S. than Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his government.
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There are open-air slave markets operating in Libya, and you can thank Hillary Clinton for them.
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Pakistan’s government cut a deal with the Tehreek-e-Labaik political party that should end recent violent protests. Pakistan’s law minister, Zahid Hamid, will resign as part of the deal.
Links for 10-30-2017
- PragerU published a video on Article V and the Convention of States Project, with Jim DeMint providing the narration:
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Paul Manafort and his former business associate Rick Gates pleaded not guilty to a 12 count indictment dealing with their lobbying work for Ukraine’s government. The charges include tax offenses and failure to register as a foreign lobbyist.
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Tony Podesta left his lobbying firm, Podesta Group. Podesta Group reportedly worked with Paul Manafort, was aware that he was lobbying on Ukraine’s behalf, and worked to conceal the relationship between Manafort and Ukraine.
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A foreign policy adviser to Donald Trump’s campaign, George Papadopoulos, pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his attempts to obtain dirt on Hillary Clinton from sources connected to Russia:
Papadopoulos pled guilty to lying to the FBI about efforts he made in March and April of 2016 to get “dirt” in the form of “thousands of emails” on Hillary Clinton, from a source he “understood to have substantial connections to Russian government officials” (a slippery phrase, but then informal networks of influence are a big part of how regimes like Putin’s operate). In fact, while Papadopoulos downplayed the pull with Russia of this “overseas professor” who was “based in London” to the FBI, he knew that the professor “had met with some of those officials in Moscow” in the spring, and “over a period of months, [Papadopoulos] repeatedly sought to use the professor’s Russian connections in an effort to arrange a meeting between the Campaign and Russian government officials.” The plea also references Papadopoulos meeting “a female Russian national,” and obviously it’s tempting to assume this refers to Natalia Veselnitskaya, the Russian lawyer who met in June with Donald Trump Jr. We don’t actually know that, however. In fact, at one point, the professor told Papadopoulos (incorrectly) that the woman was Putin’s niece. This may well have been a test of his gullibility.
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American special forces soldiers captured a leader of the Benghazi attack, Mustafa Al Imam, during a raid in Libya.
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The U.S. government imposed economic sanctions on a Chinese company that built the vehicles North Korea uses to transport and launch ballistic missiles.
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Israel blew up a tunnel being dug under its border with Gaza, killing six people. One of them was reported to be a high ranking Islamic Jihad official, Arafat Abu Marshould.
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Hamas security chief Tawfiq Abu Naim survived a car bombing. It’s not clear who targeted him.
Links for 9-24-2017
- Donald Trump nominated Trey Trainor to the Federal Election Commission, and Kevin Williamson suspects Democrat Senators are going to find him too Catholic to hold office, a cover for another objection:
Trainor has been described as a “principled libertarian” by retiring FEC commissioner Lee Goodman, whose term Trainor will complete if he is confirmed. He describes himself as someone who simply wants to see the law implemented. “At the end of the day, the First Amendment says what it says, and there’s a reason it’s the First Amendment: The right of political speech of citizens is of utmost importance if we want to continue to have a functioning republic.” The real debate, he says, is not so much over the content of federal election law but the question of where — and to whom — that law applies. Questions about donations to candidates, campaign committees, and political parties are largely well-settled, but there are live issues involving organizations that have broader missions and that are controlled neither by candidates or political parties.
The Democrats want to have a system under which the New York Times can engage in political advocacy without restriction but Citizens United is prohibited from showing a film critical of Hillary Rodham Clinton in the weeks leading up to an election — the heads-I-win-tails-you-lose method of regulating campaign finances.
And that is what the campaign against Trey Trainor is really about.
- At least some of the opposition to Donald Trump’s policies are funded by Department of Justice and Department of Housing and Urban Development slush funds that the Obama administration filled via legal settlements stemming from the 2008 financial crisis:
The Obama administration’s massive shakedown of Big Banks over the mortgage crisis included unprecedented back-door funding for dozens of Democratic activist groups who were not even victims of the crisis.
At least three liberal nonprofit organizations the Justice Department approved to receive funds from multibillion-dollar mortgage settlements were instrumental in killing the ObamaCare repeal bill and are now lobbying against GOP tax reform, as well as efforts to rein in illegal immigration.
Later:
The payola is potentially earmarked for third-party interest groups approved by the Justice Department and HUD without requiring any proof of how the funds will be spent. Many of the recipients so far are radical leftist organizations who solicited the settlement cash from the administration even though they were not parties to the lawsuits, records show.
- William Jacobson notes that the NFL’s protest rules are a ratchet that only turns left:
The NFL is as political an organization as there is, now. It picked sides in the culture war, and the side it picked is decidedly left. The NFL refused to allow the Dallas Cowboys to display a decal honoring the Dallas police killed by a Black Lives Matter supporter, yet it is completely supporting the “right” of players to kneel on the sideline while the National Anthem is played, as both a sign of support for the Black Lives Matter movement and an anti-Trump protest.
The entire Steelers team stayed in the locker room during the national anthem — except former U.S. Army Ranger Alejandro Villanueva, who served three tours in Afghanistan.
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A French soldier was killed fighting ISIS near the Iraq/Syria border. Around 1,200 French soldiers are serving in Iraq and Syria.
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The U.S. bombed an ISIS camp in the Libyan desert, 150 miles southeast of Sirte.
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Rudaw published an interesting interview with Iraqi Christians who were asked what they’d like to see in a new constitution for an independent Kurdistan.
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Iran imposed an air embargo on Iraqi Kurdistan ahead of the independence referendum, and staged war games along the border.
