Society's Child

Longest US gov shutdown in history: 800,000 federal workers to miss second paycheck, some IRS employees stay home

Tyler Durden
Zerohedge
Wed, 23 Jan 2019 10:51 UTC

With negotiations behind the partial government shutdown showing no signs of a breakthrough, an estimated 800,000 government employees are set to miss a second paycheck on Friday.

Roughly 420,000 federal employees are working without pay, while around 380,000 have been furloughed amid the longest shutdown in US history, according to CNBC.

While the actual economic impacts are thus far thought to be limited, specific companies and industries are feeling the effects.

Commercial airlines, for example, are facing slower demand as airports struggle with understaffed security checkpoints, are losing revenue. Last week, Delta said it had lost $25 million in revenue on account of the shutdown.

The hit to the overall gross domestic product in the first quarter is also difficult to quantify. Economists have come up with a range of numbers, but they agree that the longer the shutdown goes on, the wider the damage to economic growth. -CNBC

Spanish tennis star Rafael Nadal defies injury and age to win record 11th French Open title

Sott.net
Tue, 12 Jun 2018 10:31 UTC

More dodgy Western sporting results

The Guardian on yesterday's 'historic' French Open victory for Rafael Nadal:

Rafael Nadal pushed his 32-year-old body to the edge and the rules to breaking point, albeit unwittingly, to win his 11th French Open title on a warm, humid Sunday afternoon, an achievement that reduced him to tears of joy.

His lower left arm cramped on him about half an hour from the end at just the moment his opponent, Dominic Thiem, surrendered to the lassitude that paralysed his otherwise stout resistance and, in the still sunny autumn of his days, the Spaniard cruised further away from all his rivals on his favourite surface with a 6-4, 6-3, 6-2 win that took him two hours and 42 minutes on his beloved Court Philippe-Chatrier.

Whether he is now fit and willing to play Queen's Club before Wimbledon remains doubtful. He has cancelled the warm-up twice now, after the rigours of the clay season. He sounded non-commital.

Al Nusra terrorists suffer 'heavy losses' after attacking Syrian army in Idlib

Sputnik
Wed, 23 Jan 2019 12:03 UTC

Militants from the Al-Nusra Front terror organization have attacked Syrian army positions in Idlib de-escalation zone near Abu-Duhur and Abu-Sharjah settlements.

The terrorists' offensive near Abu-Sharjah settlement was thwarted by Syrian Army's fire and the terrorists withdrew to their original positions, the Russian Defence Ministry's Reconciliation Centre for Syria reported.

"Jabhat al-Nusra gangs have simultaneously attacked positions of government troops near Abu-Duhur and Abu-Sharjah settlements," the Reconciliation Center's head Lt. Gen. Sergei Solomatin said.

Comment: RT has published more details of the attack:

Hundreds of Jabhat al-Nusra terrorists on board dozens of armored trucks with mounted machine guns have tried to breach Syrian army positions in a mass coordinated attack in the Idlib de-escalation zone, the Russian military said.

Two groups of al-Nusra militants numbering up to 200 fighters each attacked Syrian Arab Army (SAA) positions in the Abu al-Duhur and Abu Sharja communities in Idlib, the Russian Reconciliation Center for Syria said.

Jihadists sent a suicide bomber squad to breach SAA defenses in the Abu al-Duhur area, but an anti-tank missile eliminated the explosive-laden car just before the death-mobile could strike the front line of the government forces. Government forces scrambled to repel the charge, but despite their resistance, the terrorists briefly managed to penetrate 1.5 kilometers past the army's defense line before being pushed back by the reinforcements that arrived to counter their intrusion.

The Russian Defence Ministry has since responded, stating that these provocations threaten the Russian air base:

"The current situation around Idlib is of serious concern. The situation in this de-escalation zone is rapidly deteriorating. The territory has actually been taken under the full control of militants from the al-Nusra alliance Hayat Tahrir al-Sham", Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said on Wednesday, adding that the provocations posed serious danger to civilians and Syrian troops in the area, as well as to the Russian Hmeymim air base.

Earlier in the day, Moscow addressed Ankara, informing the Turkish side about the situation in Idlib, where settlements and Syrian troops are being attacked by militants.

Lawyer for Covington Catholic families gives media 48 hours to 'retract and correct' smears

Debra Heine
PJ Media
Wed, 23 Jan 2019 00:01 UTC

Robert Barnes, the lawyer representing the Covington Catholic High School kids who were smeared by the media, is warning reporters, celebrities, and others with large media platforms that they have until Friday to correct the record, or they will be sued.

Because of their sloppy reporting of what transpired in Washington, D.C., when two groups of protesters confronted a group of Catholic high school students who were waiting to catch a bus last Friday, the teens and their families have become the subjects of ongoing threats and harassment from a hateful online outrage mob.

On Fox and Friends Wednesday morning, Barnes, who is representing the families at no cost, explained that because the kids are private citizens and minors, anything someone says about them that is false can be libel, according to the law. Rather than proving malice, "all you have to prove is negligence," he said.

Comment: This is getting serious. Considering the number of "journalists" and media personalities are doubling down and continuing to libel the Covington kids, there could be a whole lot of lawsuits coming down. It remains to be seen if anything comes of this, but it would be nice to see the outrage mob experience some actual consequences for their egregious behavior.

See also:

Thank you, APA, for showing me my toxic masculinity

Clay Routledge
Quillette
Wed, 23 Jan 2019 00:01 UTC

People who don't live in northern climates may not realize that construction doesn't stop even in the coldest months. I live in North Dakota and was driving by a building site just the other day and saw a bunch of men stoically working in subzero temperatures and generally miserable weather conditions. I then started thinking about the other difficult and dangerous jobs that are dominated by males such as logging workers, fishing workers, roofers, and iron and steel workers.

For some strange reason, men seem to be uniquely willing to do dangerous jobs. In fact, economist and American Enterprise Institute scholar Mark J. Perry has documented a gender occupational fatality gap. Turns out that even though men make around 53 percent of all workers in the United States, they account for about 93 percent of workplace fatalities.

Thanks to the new guidelines from the American Psychological Association (APA) for practice with men and boys, male psychology is no longer a mystery and mental health professionals are now equipped with the tools they need to combat the worst forms of it. According to the APA, boys and men are at risk of suffering from traditional masculinity which is on the whole unhealthy. Turns out, the traditional masculinity that drives many of us men to be confident, assertive, adventurous, stoic, and willing to take risks for our goals, the people we love, and sometimes even complete strangers are bad for us and society.

Comment: This is probably one of the funnier, and more poignant, responses to the APA guidelines we've seen, pointing out the hypocrisy of the guidelines as well as elucidating the inevitable ends of this ideological implementation. Masculinity isn't toxic unless it's taken to extremes - but the same could be said about any behavioral trait. The APA would do wise to stop listening to ideologues and drop the activist narratives and get back to what one assumes was the original intent of the institution - actually helping people.

See also:

New York legislature votes to legalize abortion up to birth, let non-doctors commit abortions

Calvin Freiburger
Life Site
Tue, 22 Jan 2019 18:20 UTC

Both chambers of the New York state legislature voted Tuesday on legislation to enshrine a "fundamental right" to abortion in state law and eliminate protections for preborn babies until birth, in votes set to mark the anniversary of Roe v. Wade.

The state Senate voted 38-24 in favor of the so-called "Reproductive Health Act" Tuesday evening, the Albany Times-Union reports, a bill that has repeatedly cleared the state Assembly in years past but been blocked by the formerly-Republican Senate. Following the Senate vote, the Assembly passed it 92-47.

The bill declares that "Every individual who becomes pregnant has the fundamental right to choose to carry the pregnancy to term, to give birth to a child, or to have an abortion," erases the state's recognition of preborn babies older than 24 weeks as potential homicide victims, removes abortion from the penal code entirely, and allows licensed health practitioners other than full doctors to commit abortions.

Comment: See also:

The Left owns the bigotry at the heart of the Covington affair

John Daniel Davidson
The Federalist
Wed, 23 Jan 2019 09:54 UTC

After days of outrage and condemnations, the Covington affair has revealed a disturbing bigotry among far too many media figures and outlets on the left.

At a few days' remove from the Covington Catholic High School incident at the Lincoln Memorial, we can be reasonably sure there will be no apologies or corrections forthcoming from the major media outlets that rushed to vilify the students involved. The New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, and dozens of lesser news organizations that condemned the high schoolers from Kentucky have not retracted or walked back their initial, warped narrative: that racist white teens harassed an elderly Native American man.

Nor will there be any public contrition from many individual members of the media who were in the vanguard of the online mob. CNN's Reza Aslan tweeted an image of one of the boys and asked, "Have you ever seen a more punchable face than this kid's?" Filmmaker Michael Green tweeted the same image with the comment, "A face like that never changes. This image will define his life. No one need ever forgive him."

Comment: It's a mark of the ideological possession of the Left, that even when confronted with visual evidences of the Covington incident, they still cling to their outrage. Even the outing of faux 'elder' Nathan Phillips fraudulent background, and history of provoking confrontations doesn't faze them. Feelings over facts.

Hostage taking during bank robbery ends with five senseless deaths in Sebring, Florida

Doug Stanglin
USA Today
Wed, 23 Jan 2019 19:02 UTC

Five people were "senselessly murdered" Wednesday after a gunman took hostages in a Florida bank, forced them to the floor and began shooting, authorities said.

Sebring Police Chief Karl Hoglund and Highlands County Sheriff Paul Blackman briefed reporters but declined to elaborate on the motive for the shooting, which took place around noon at the SunTrust bank in Sebring, about 94 miles southeast of Tampa.

The suspect was identified by Hoglund as Zephen Xaver, 21, a Sebring resident. A photo published by the Highlands News-Sun shows police taking a handcuffed white male, wearing a T-shirt and khaki shorts, from the scene.

"It's been a tragic day in our community," Hoglund said. "We have suffered a significant loss at the hands of a senseless criminal doing a senseless crime."

Software magnate John McAfee will run for president 'in exile' using thousands of masked doppelgangers

Claire Reilly
CNET
Tue, 22 Jan 2019 21:13 UTC

The crypto-enthusiast has donned a wig, jumped on a boat and is now on the run from the IRS. But that won't stop his 2020 presidential campaign.

John McAfee's presidential bid has just taken a turn.

Last year, the former antivirus software magnate announced his intention to run as a candidate in the 2020 US presidential election. But in a series of videos posted to Twitter on Tuesday, McAfee claimed he will now have to run his campaign "in exile" because he's fleeing felony charges brought by the IRS.

How do you run for president when you're on the run? Using thousands of surrogate "road warriors" dressed up in John McAfee masks.

Comment: Though McAfee's intentions appear to be good, we'd do well to remember that there is sometimes a fine line between genius and insanity. See also:

Teen girl seriously injured in Germany after drunk Afghan refugee drags her off bus by her hair

RT
Wed, 23 Jan 2019 20:01 UTC

A 17-year-old girl was seriously injured in Minden, Germany after a drunk Afghan refugee dragged her off a bus by her hair, causing her to be run over by the bus while trying to escape the man.

According to a police statement, the girl was repeatedly harassed by the 22-year-old man while she waited at a bus terminal in Minden, near Hanover, with her 14-year-old friend just before 9pm local time on Saturday.

The girl and her friend sought safety from the man, and his 21-year-old friend, by running to a nearby bus, where the bus driver, 41, let them on. However, the persistent pair also got onboard and the 22-year-old dragged the girl from the bus by her hair - after it had started to move.

Great interview with Professor Petrovsky, a very brave soul ! He is clear and concise from a Vaccine researcher /producer point of view and calls...

Gator

There's no mileage in anything the Smith's have to say, their well versed in interfering with things. So we can all sleep safely in our bed...

Winternights3

Seriously, lets break down these words, and I am fully equipped for this task that I give to myself NOW. gives OSHA the authority to act quickly...

Buffalo_Ken

Forensic pathologists performed a postmortem and concluded that the man had probably died mid-flight Let me see ... he walked onto the plane,...

HashAttack2

This ain't no fucking real emergency. It is an effing emergency in the mind of a few....who thought they were gonna put the rest of us into...

Buffalo_Ken

Society's Child

Longest US gov shutdown in history: 800,000 federal workers to miss second paycheck, some IRS employees stay home

Spanish tennis star Rafael Nadal defies injury and age to win record 11th French Open title

Al Nusra terrorists suffer 'heavy losses' after attacking Syrian army in Idlib

Lawyer for Covington Catholic families gives media 48 hours to 'retract and correct' smears

Thank you, APA, for showing me my toxic masculinity

New York legislature votes to legalize abortion up to birth, let non-doctors commit abortions

The Left owns the bigotry at the heart of the Covington affair

Hostage taking during bank robbery ends with five senseless deaths in Sebring, Florida

Software magnate John McAfee will run for president 'in exile' using thousands of masked doppelgangers

Teen girl seriously injured in Germany after drunk Afghan refugee drags her off bus by her hair

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