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Taliban claims another attack in Kabul - 12 killed, including two NATO troops, 100+ injured


RFE/RL
Thu, 05 Sep 2019 16:42 UTC
kabul

Security forces near the site where the bomb exploded in the center of Kabul.
At least 12 people have been killed -- including a U.S. and a Romanian soldier -- and dozens more injured when a car bomb struck a checkpoint on September 5 in a neighborhood of Kabul that houses the embassies, government buildings, and local NATO headquarters.

The fundamentalist Taliban claimed responsibility for the late-morning attack.

It is the second major Taliban attack in the Afghan capital this week as U.S. and Taliban officials are said to be in an intense final phase of efforts toward a peace deal to end their 18-year conflict.

Another Taliban car bombing later on September 5, in a neighboring province, reportedly killed at least four civilians.

The Taliban, which is pressing for the departure of U.S. and other international troops in the negotiations, claimed that foreigners were among the dead in the September 5 attack in Kabul. Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid tweeted that the suicide bomber had killed 12 "foreign invaders."

Reports said the checkpoint that was targeted was near the headquarters of NATO's Resolute Support mission.

Comment: See also:

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Pistol

San Francisco declares NRA domestic terrorist organization

Drew Costly
SF Gate
Wed, 04 Sep 2019 11:56 UTC
Hand guns
© AP/John Locher
The San Francisco Board of Supervisors passed a resolution on Tuesday declaring that the National Rifle Association is a domestic terrorist organization. The officials also urged other cities, states and the federal government to follow suit.

District 2 Supervisor Catherine Stefani wrote the resolution and shared her thoughts on the NRA with KTVU. "The NRA has it coming to them," she said. "And I will do everything I possibly can to call them out on what they are, which is a domestic terrorist organization."

After citing some statistics about gun violence in the United States - like that there's been more than one mass shooting per day in the country in 2019 - Stefani got local with how gun violence has impact the Bay Area.

She cited the shooting at the Gilroy Garlic Festival on July 28, referencing Stephen Romero, Keyla Salazar and Trevor Irby, who were killed by gunman Santino William Legan in what she called a "senseless act of gun violence that day."
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Propaganda

No, Jonathan Haidt is not similar to a slavery apologist

Adam Rowe
Quillette
Wed, 04 Sep 2019 00:00 UTC
burning newspaper
Eve Fairbanks, in an essay for the Washington Post, argues that many of the writers on the so-called "reasonable right," a group that includes such seemingly benign figures as Bari Weiss and Jonathan Haidt, are making many of the same arguments and using much the same language as proslavery advocates in the American South:
The reasonable right's rhetoric is exactly the same as the antebellum rhetoric I'd read so much of. The same exact words. The same exact arguments. Rhetoric, to be precise, in support of the slave-owning South.

Comment: Lumping Jonathan Haidt with Bari Weiss seems to show just how far off Fairbanks is in another of her assumptions. Weiss is an agitator for Israeli hegemony - where Haidt is attempting to reconcile the values of the left and the right in US politics.

See also:

Fairbanks follows this breathless announcement by acknowledging that she is not accusing anyone of defending slavery, and that includes, weirdly enough, actual antebellum proslavery writers. "Proslavery rhetoricians talked little of slavery itself," she writes. "Instead, they anointed themselves the defenders of 'reason,' free speech and 'civility.'" This is a bit like smearing someone as a Nazi, then qualifying it with the claim that overt anti-Semitism was really quite atypical of Nazism. In her characterization of proslavery thought, Fairbanks has taken a line that not even the most stalwart member of the Daughters of the Confederacy would care to defend. It is, well, an exact inversion of the truth.

Comment: See also: Jonathan Haidt interview asks what is underlying the polarization in America?

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Mr. Potato

'Will & Grace' actor says his idea of Hollywood Trump donors blacklist was 'misinterpreted'


RT
Thu, 05 Sep 2019 11:48 UTC
Eric McCormack
© Reuters / Eric Thayer
Star of American sitcom 'Will & Grace' Eric McCormack is backpedaling on his demand for news outlets to name President Donald Trump's donors, accusing critics of "misinterpreting" his words.

The actor's apparent reversal comes after he penned a tweet last week asking the Hollywood Reporter - which covers entertainment industry news - to "kindly report" the name of every person attending a Trump fundraising event in Beverly Hills, "so the rest of us can be clear about who we don't wanna work with." He was soon joined by his co-star on 'Will & Grace' Debra Messing, who seconded the request.

Facing backlash from critics online, who roasted the actor's call for what amounts to a "blacklist," McCormack attempted to clarify the comment in a lengthy Instagram post on Tuesday.

"I absolutely do not support blacklists or discrimination of any kind, as anyone who knows me would attest," McCormack wrote. "I'd simply like to understand where Trump's major donations are coming from, which is a matter of public record."

Comment: See also: Return to McCarthyism? Messing and McCormack demand 'blacklist' of Trump supporters in Hollywood

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Document

Detransitioned men and women file brief with Supreme Court detailing suffering caused by transgender treatments

Nicole Russell
The Federalist
Fri, 30 Aug 2019 23:12 UTC
Walt Heyer
The Supreme Court will hear a pivotal case in October on sex, gender identity, and discrimination: R.G. and G.R. Harris Funeral Homes Inc. v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. As both sides build their cases, numerous influential organizations and individuals have filed amicus (friend of the court) briefs to aid the members of the Supreme Court in their understanding on this topic.

One brief in particular stands out. It's so powerful, it should not only persuade the Supreme Court but influence people on both sides of the transgender debate, particularly the mainstream media.
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Bulb

We have the power to create our own (more objective) narratives using critical thinking and communicating with one another

Micheal Krieger
Liberty Blitzkrieg
Tue, 03 Sep 2019 15:37 UTC
think, its not illegal yet
Somewhere between the arrest of Jeffrey Epstein and his extremely suspicious death in a Department of Justice operated prison, the public learned that an FBI intelligence bulletin published by the bureau's Phoenix field office mentioned for the first time that conspiracy theories pose a domestic terrorism threat. This was followed up last week by a Bloomberg article discussing a new project by the U.S. military (DARPA) to identify fake news and disinformation.

We learned:
Fake news and social media posts are such a threat to U.S. security that the Defense Department is launching a project to repel "large-scale, automated disinformation attacks," as the top Republican in Congress blocks efforts to protect the integrity of elections.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency wants custom software that can unearth fakes hidden among more than 500,000 stories, photos, videos and audio clips. If successful, the system after four years of trials may expand to detect malicious intent and prevent viral fake news from polarizing society.
Recall that after the 2016 election, focus was on social media companies and we saw tremendous pressure placed on these platforms by national security state politicians and distressed Democrats to "do something" about the supposed fake news epidemic. Fast forward three years and it's now apparently the U.S. military's job to police human content on the internet. This is the sort of natural regression a society will witness so long as it puts up with incremental censorship and the demonization of any thought which goes agains the official narrative.
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Bizarro Earth

Game creator's suicide after feminist Zoe Quinn accuses him of abuse shows peril of mob rule

Igor Ogorodnev
RT
Tue, 03 Sep 2019 16:38 UTC
Zoe Quinn and Alec Holowka
© Getty Images / John Lamparski / Greg Doherty
Zoe Quinn and Alec Holowka
The unraveling of Alec Holowka's life in the days after facing unproven accusations should remind us why, at some point, civilized society turned away from mob rule and embraced due process.

Not only is your social media feed becoming a live broadcast of an execution of the lost and the vulnerable, but the people handed the axe and hood may be no saner than the ones they are beheading.

Let's leave for the moment -and we will return here- whether the claims against Holowka are likely to be true, any other circumstantial evidence, or the credibility of his accuser Zoe Quinn, one of the most high-profile activists on the internet.

Comment: Gamergate was the incubator for much of the SJW maddness we see erupting all over the US. Unethical reporting, 'woke journalism' that stigmatizes its own readers, questionable accusations that lead to social media outrage, targeted harassment by sock puppet accounts, and even the SJW name itself came out of gamergate. It's worth noting that the initial Zoe Quinn debacle started gamergate. There are many, many layers involved, but the following is just one piece of the puzzle provided by Candice Owens:



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Blackbox

'Hundreds could be implicated': Now that Epstein court docs are to be unsealed, who should start worrying?


RT
Wed, 04 Sep 2019 17:58 UTC
Jeffrey Epstein (C) and two of his accusers, Teala Davies (L) and Virginia Giuffre (R).
© Reuters / Shannon Stapleton; Reuters / New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services handout; Reuters / Shannon Stapleton
Jeffrey Epstein (C) and two of his accusers, Teala Davies (L) and Virginia Giuffre (R).
Secret court records set to be unsealed in the coming weeks could implicate "hundreds" in an alleged sex trafficking ring involving underage girls run by the late Jeffrey Epstein, a known confidant to many rich and powerful men.

At a court hearing on Wednesday pertaining to the release of the still-sealed records, a lawyer for Epstein's ex-girlfriend and alleged "madam," Ghislaine Maxwell, described the wide scope of the documents.

The records include "literally hundreds of pages of investigative reports that mention hundreds of people," the lawyer, Jeffrey Pagliuca, said.

The new cache of documents is part of a 2015 suit filed by Epstein accuser Virginia Giuffre (née Roberts), who accused Maxwell of defamation by calling her a liar in a public forum, which she says subjected her to "public ridicule, contempt and disgrace."
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NPC

Political correctness gone wild: School spirit symbols and mascots on the chopping block nationwide

Celine Ryan
Campus Reform
Wed, 04 Sep 2019 05:00 UTC
indian mascott
Colleges and universities across the country are axing "offensive" mascots.

From Washington, D.C. to Maine and from to Illinois to California, more and more mascots are falling prey to political correctness.

1. Colonials

Colonials
Despite the school being named after an actual colonial, students at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. have launched a campaign to replace the "Colonial" mascot with one without so "deep a connection to colonization."

Although the university has not officially responded to the student vote to remove the mascot that they say "glorifies the act of systemic oppression," it recently renamed a building called Colonial Center the Student Services Hub.

Comment: It's the know-nothing administrators and beuracrats who, in their "infinite wisdom", have decided to instill such hypersensitivity and politically-motivated policies onto an already dumbed down student population.



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Whistle

Stratfor leaker now in same jail as Manning, refuses to testify against Assange and Wikileaks


RT
Wed, 04 Sep 2019 02:48 UTC
Jeremy HammondTIME
© TIME
Jeremy Hammond, who helped feed millions of emails from 'private CIA' Stratfor to WikiLeaks, has reportedly been moved to Virginia to testify before a grand jury, which he refuses to do, jeopardizing his early release from prison.

Hammond has been moved to the same Eastern District where whistleblower Chelsea Manning is currently being held for refusing to testify against Julian Assange, the Jeremy Hammond Support Committee revealed on Tuesday in a statement. While neither Hammond nor his supporters are certain of the nature of the summons, he pled guilty to hacking Stratfor in 2013 in order to avoid giving up information on his fellow activists, including those at WikiLeaks, and has no intention of doing so now.

Jeremy pled guilty to put an end to the case against him. He pled guilty because he had no interest in cooperating with the government.

Comment: See also:

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