Society's ChildS


Star of David

Wife of Colorado congressman encourages messianic Jews to simply take back Muslim holy site in Jerusalem and say 'It's ours!'

Philip Weiss
Mondoweiss
Fri, 23 Feb 2018 00:00 UTC
Jean Tipton, wife of Colorado Congressman Scott Tipton
Jean Tipton, wife of Colorado Congressman Scott Tipton, with Temple Mount activist Avi Abelow, Feb. 22, 2018
On a tour of the Muslim holy site, the Haram-al-Sharif, in the Old City of Jerusalem yesterday, a Colorado congressman's wife advised messianic Jews that "seizure" of the site might be the best option. "Why not tomorrow - say it's ours!" she said to zealots on the site.

Jean Tipton was touring the site along with her husband Scott Tipton, a Republican representing western Colorado, and Rep. David McKinley of West Virginia and his wife Mary.

The Haram-al-Sharif or Noble Sanctuary is the third holiest site in Islam. It is governed by a Muslim waqf, backed by Jordan. The site in the occupied Old City of Jerusalem is also revered by Jews because it is the site of the first and second Jewish temples. Its western wall is the famous scene of Jewish prayer.

Jewish Temple Mount activists dream of asserting Israeli sovereignty over the mount, removing the Muslim structures, and replacing them with a Jewish temple, with millions of Jews attending sacrifices there.
Read More...
Windsock

Stinging defeat for Viktor Orban's Fidesz party in local Hungary vote


Yahoo News
Mon, 26 Feb 2018 22:39 UTC
Viktor Orban
© Agence France-Press/Attila KisbenedekPrime Minister Viktor Orban has previously branded the opposition as "hopeless"
Hungary's ruling party suffered a shock defeat in a local by-election on Sunday, spelling potential challenges ahead for Prime Minister Viktor Orban with only weeks to go before a general election.

Orban, known for his fierce anti-migrant, populist rhetoric, will seek a third consecutive term in an election on April 8.

Earlier this month, he branded the opposition as out of touch and "hopeless", but Sunday's triumph for Peter Marki-Zay in key constituency Hodmezovasarhely may yet prove him wrong.

Marki-Zay, who ran as an independent but enjoyed the backing of the full spectrum of the opposition, won 57.5 percent of the votes, against 41.5 percent for ruling party Fidesz candidate Zoltan Hegedus, with 92 percent of the votes counted.

Comment: One might wonder what part Soros-funded groups may have played in swaying that bellweather race. Orban has been blunt in his opposition to enforced immigration quotas imposed by Brussels, and to Soros in particular, whom he sees as the villain behind the migrant troubles in Europe.

Read More...
Russian Flag

Russian hockey team breaks ridiculous rule and sings anthem after beating Germany in final

Dan Burns and Steve Keating
Yahoo News
Sun, 25 Feb 2018 00:00 UTC
Russian Olympic hockey team jubilant
© REUTERS/Grigory DukorRussian team jubilant with their gold medals.
Kirill Kaprizov scored in overtime to lead the Olympic Athletes from Russia (OAR) past a feisty Germany 4-3 on Sunday to win the men's ice hockey gold before joining his team mates to defy a ban by singing the Russian national anthem during the medal ceremony.

The Russians, competing as neutral athletes at Pyeongchang as punishment for a years-long Russian doping scandal, came back from one-goal down on a goal by Nikita Gusev with less than a minute left in regulation time to force overtime in one of the most pulsating finals in the history of Olympic hockey.

At their medal ceremony, the players team sang the Russian anthem over the sound of the Olympic anthem at the Gangneung Hockey Centre despite being barred from having their flag raised or anthem played.

The game was played hours after the International Olympic Committee (IOC) decided not to restore their delegation's Olympic status, which would have enabled them to march under their flag at the closing ceremony later on Sunday.
Read More...
Bad Guys

Will Assad's retaking of East Ghouta be the last great battle of the Syrian war?

Alexander Mercouris
The Duran
Mon, 26 Feb 2018 22:07 UTC
Eastern Ghouta battle syria
Reading media reports of the fighting in east Ghouta over the last few days has triggered an eery sense of déjà vu.

It is like taking a time machine back to the autumn of 2016 and listening to all the arguments over the fighting in Aleppo all over again.

Just as in 2016 the reports concern fighting between the Syrian military and a large force of Jihadis - in both cases around 10-15,000 men - trapped in a district of one of Syria's two main cities.

In 2016 it was eastern Aleppo; this time it is east Ghouta, which is a suburb of Syria's capital Damascus.

Just as in 2016 the presence of these violent Jihadi terrorists is being ignored, with the fighters 'defending' east Ghouta more often referred to in the Western media as 'moderate rebels' rather than the Al-Qaeda and ISIS affiliated Jihadi militants that they actually are.

Just as in 2016 the air waves and the presses are full of furious denunciations of Syrian and Russian bombing.
Read More...
House

California: Judge approves shutdown of large homeless camp, wants to put residents in motels


NewsMax
Tue, 20 Feb 2018 14:21 UTC
homeless encampment
© Getty ImagesA homeless encampment made of tents and tarps lines the Santa Ana riverbed near Angel Stadium in Anaheim.
Authorities are being allowed to shut down a large homeless encampment in Southern California and move hundreds of tent-dwellers into motel rooms under an agreement Tuesday between county officials and lawyers who sued to protect tent-dwellers' rights.

U.S. District Court Judge David O. Carter lifted a stay Tuesday morning that had blocked the county from making arrests in the riverbed, setting up an impromptu "courtroom" with a table and chairs in the parking lot of the Honda Center arena, home of the Anaheim Ducks hockey team.

People will be moved off a two-mile stretch of a riverbed trail in Orange County to motels and other shelter as part of the deal, which is being watched by advocates elsewhere who are seeking solutions for homelessness.

Comment: While it's a nice gesture to be putting homeless people up in hotel rooms, it hardly seems like a tenable, long-term solution. And given things are going to get a lot worse, with homelessness only increasing as the world burns, it's unlikely this could only be a one-off, band-aid solution.

See also:

Read More...
Pistol

Governor of Florida announces raising the age of eligibility for purchasing a rifle

Micah Rate
Bearing Arms
Fri, 23 Feb 2018 15:50 UTC
Florida Gov. Rick Scott
Florida Gov. Rick Scott
Over the course of the last week, the gun control debate has touched on a number of different proposals, from banning AR-15s, bump stocks and high capacity magazines, to changing the way we approach mental health and even raising the age of eligibility for purchasing a rifle. Friday morning, Florida Gov. Rick Scott decided to support the latter.

In a press conference, Gov. Scott issued a statement saying he would support requiring residents of the state of Florida to be 21 years or older to purchase any firearm. However, he says there would be exceptions. The governor explained, "There will be exceptions for active duty, and reserved military and spouses, national guard members, and law enforcement."

Comment: See also:

Read More...
TV

Florida shooting survivor's father says CNN insinuated that they wanted to "espouse a certain narrative"

Matt Vespa
Townhall
Sat, 24 Feb 2018 20:48 UTC
CNN blue bg
CNN is not out of the woods with the allegations that it scripted questions for their town hall event, which quickly went off the rails, devolving into a two-hour bashing of law-abiding gun owners and the National Rifle Association. Colton Haab, a survivor of the February 14 Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting, alleged that CNN re-wrote his question, and that they told him to "stick to the script." Well, it seems that wasn't the case; a doctored email allegedly from CNN was circulated to Fox News and the Huffington Post, which prompted the network to release the email exchange (via Business Insider):
On Friday afternoon, Fox News and the HuffPost reached out to CNN to verify emails between the Haabs and Stevenson that they received from Colton.

A CNN source provided Colton's version of the emails, as well as their versions of all of the communications between the Haabs and CNN, to Business Insider.

In CNN's version of one email, Stevenson told Glenn that Colton needed to stick to a question that he and Stevenson "discussed on the phone that he submitted." But in the version of the email provided by Colton to Fox and HuffPost, the phrase, "that he submitted" is deleted.

According to the metadata of the Word document containing the email that was provided to Fox, it appears that Glenn last edited it.

"It is unfortunate that an effort to discredit CNN and the town hall with doctored emails has taken any attention away from the purpose of the event," a CNN spokesman told Business Insider. "However, when presented with doctored email exchanges, we felt the need to set the record straight."

Glenn did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Comment: See also: Florida shooting survivor Colton Haab doubles down on claim that CNN's entire town hall was scripted. Haab insists it was scripted, but in this case it looks like the truth probably lies in the middle. Haab had provided a question CNN deemed acceptable. Once they saw what other questions he wanted to ask, they told him to stick to the script, i.e., the original question. While not quite as sensational as Haab makes it seem, it does show that CNN only wants to present a certain narrative, as Mr. Klein confirms above.

Read More...
Jet3

Israel now blames 'pilot error' for F-16 crash in Syria operation


RT
Mon, 26 Feb 2018 02:36 UTC
2 jets
© Israeli Air Force/FacebookIsraeli Air Force
An Israeli F-16 fighter jet, shot down by Syrian air defenses during Israeli raids on Iranian targets earlier this month, apparently crashed only because its pilot made a mistake, an Israeli Air Force investigation has claimed.

On February 10, the Israeli Air Force lost one of its supersonic fighters while striking Iranian targets on Syrian territory. Tel Aviv had launched the biggest air raid operation in over three decades after intercepting an Iranian drone in Israeli airspace. Swiftly reacting to the ongoing "retaliatory attack," the Syrian government activated its air defenses in order to try and intercept incoming missiles - and eventually hit one of the Israeli F-16 fighter jets which had breached Syrian airspace.

On Sunday, the Israelis confirmed that the F-16 was taken down by the Soviet-built S-200 surface-to-air (SAM) missile system, known to NATO as the SA-5.

Following the incident, in which both pilots of the Israeli aircraft survived, the Israeli Air Force (IAF) launched its own investigation into the causes of the crash. After analyzing the chronological order of events during the Israeli strikes and the Syrian response to it, the internal review of the Israeli experts determined that a pilot mistake was responsible for the F-16 takedown.


Comment: No pressure there. The next pilot error over Syrian air space may very well trigger Israel into its long sought war with Iran and friends.

Read More...
Star of David

Suspicious incident: Palestinian fisherman killed off Gaza coast by Israeli forces


RT
Sun, 25 Feb 2018 22:28 UTC
Palestinian fishermen
© Ashraf Amra/Global Look PressPalestinian fishermen in Gaza sea port
A Palestinian man has been shot dead by the Israeli Defense Forces after his boat breached the boundaries of a designated fishing zone. The IDF described the vessel as "suspicious" in their comments on the incident.

As a boat carrying three Palestinians strayed from the fishing zone off the coast of the northern Gaza Strip, the IDF immediately "conducted an arrest protocol," the Israeli military said in a statement, cited by the local media.

The soldiers allegedly called on the vessel to stop and fired warning shots before targeting the boat directly, the statement notes. "As a result of the gunfire, one of the suspects was seriously injured and later died of his wounds," the Israeli military said. The other two people in the boat were detained for questioning.

The IDF did not mention any particular provocative actions on the part of the Palestinians, except for them leaving the designated fishing zone, yet still referred to the vessel as "suspicious." No Israeli soldiers were injured in the incident.

The Gaza Fisherman's Union identified the three men as Mahmoud Adel Abu Riala, 18, Ismail Salah Abu Riala, 18, and Ahed Hassan Abu Ali, 26. "We are sure that the wounded are fishermen who went out to sea to make a living - and nothing else," the head of the union told Haaretz daily.

Comment: The IDF will use any excuse, or none at all, in its perpetual 'open season' on Palestinians.

Read More...
Pistol

100% legal: Cops confiscate firearms, sell them to make a profit

Rachel Blevins
The Free Thought Project
Mon, 26 Feb 2018 00:00 UTC
GunsMoney
© THEFREETHOUGHTPROJECT.com
As calls for gun control increase among the parties that claim it would put an end to mass shootings, an investigation is revealing that state sheriff's deputies are taking the firearms they have seized from individuals and re-selling them to generate revenue - only to find that some of the guns go on to be used in other crimes.

According to the results of an investigation reported by the Associated Press, in the state of Washington alone, "more than a dozen of the guns sold by law enforcement since 2010 ended up in new crimes."

The firearms are also typically sold to arms dealers in large batches, with a recent lot of 331 guns being transferred from the Washington State Patrol to a gun dealer in Knoxville, Tennessee. Included in that batch were at least five assault rifles.

Not only are state police re-selling firearms, they are selling them at cheap prices, ensuring that they will continue to receive revenue in return for the items they obtained for free. As the investigation noted, while a new AR-15 costs between $650 and $950 online, the Thurston County Narcotics Task Force auctioned two of the firearms for $250 and $370 each.

Comment: Is there some reason not to install a 'middle man' retail gun sales mechanism to separate police from public buyers?

Read More...