Border Patrol union officials say multiple Laredo Sector agents were injured after being assaulted by a group of eight suspects who had just crossed the border from Mexico on New Year’s Day.
“Early this morning, Laredo Sector Border Patrol agents were assaulted by numerous subjects who entered the country illegally near the Outlet Shoppes in Laredo, Texas,” National Border Patrol Council officials wrote in a statement Wednesday.
U.S. Border Patrol Agent Hector Garza, in his capacity as vice president of the National Border Patrol Council, told Breitbart Texas the agents were attacked by a group of eight potentially illegal aliens.
Union officials report that the agents suffered multiple injuries. Those injuries include broken bones and lacerations. Doctors admitted the agents to a Laredo-area hospital for treatment. The agents were later released and are home with their families, Garza said.
Union officials said the area of the alleged assault is identified as a priority location for border wall construction in 2020. The Laredo Sector currently has zero miles of physical border wall infrastructure. This area is well known as a human and drug smuggling corridor.
The suspects were taken into custody by other Border Patrol agents, Garza explained. Laredo Sector agents are frequently assaulted by illegal alien smugglers due to increasing pressure to move illicit cargo.
Union officials say they look forward to the alleged attackers being prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Texas.
U.S. Border Patrol officials have not released any formal information about the reported incident.
Breitbart Texas reached out to U.S. Customs and Border Protection and Laredo Sector Border Patrol officials for additional information about the reported incident. A response was not immediately available.
Disclosure: Breitbart Texas sponsored the Green Line podcast for the NBPC in an effort to provide a platform for agents to inform the public about the realities on the border and what Border Patrol agents face. Director Brandon Darby received an award from the Laredo chapter of the NBPC for his work in helping to defend and bring a voice to Border Patrol agents. Breitbart News assisted in covering funeral costs for a slain Border Patrol agent previously. Darby and Breitbart senior management have directly stated and shown that helping to bring a voice to the expressed needs and interests of Border Patrol agents is a top priority–personally, individually and together through Breitbart News.
Another year, another list of Christian hip-hop I’ve enjoyed.
A major caveat: I’m certain I’ve missed some great music, as I found out just hours after publishing my 2018 thoughts. Any omissions are likely from lack of exposure and should not be seen as a slight.
Ask me how I feel, it ain’t all good / But ask me how I AM and it’s all good
Can anything good come from Canada? Well, you have your answer in Toronto’s Die-Rek, an inventive producer who brings some no-frills lyrics with his deep, gravelly voice. The Dying Ones is his first real solo album after at least a decade of mixtapes, EPs, and features, and the Canuck makes his mark with some of the most unique arrangements I’ve heard this year. Take, for example, the single released this January, “I’m So Potential.” The polyrhythms in the bass and the high hat form a groove that’s burrowed into my brain since the very first listen. It’s IDM for hip-hop heads! The theme of the record is rather explicit: encouragement for the weary. As such, the soundscapes are grimy, cold, and ethereal — the irregular beats an invitation press onward to our future glory, even if all we can manage is a limp.
You know why it’s hard for a rich man to go to Heaven? Because in his mind he’s already there, that’s the deception
These tracks don’t have any obvious samples, sounding instead like original jazz and R&B compositions. There’s more social commentary here than on his past releases, and it’s all compelling, original thought rather than regurgitation of some influencer’s talking points. “Cotton,” the single that accompanied the album’s release, is an exposé of U.S. monetary policy that the Mises Institute would license if it cared about breaking out of the libertarian bubble. “Barry” is a memorial for an uncle who was fatally tased by police, “For.Wmn” a putdown of “conscious” men who bring violence into their homes. All through these topics, Eshon delivers brilliant lyricism hyper-focused on identifying and defeating ungodly beliefs.
Fresh bread, but these guys settle for cold chicken / Attention is a drug, I noticed your nose dripping
Philadelphia’s Tone Spain really wants you to live a holy life since you’re a servant of a holy God. I mean, really, really wants you to live a holy life! In his songs, Spain has railed against “hyper-grace” and men who use Jesus as a means to their own little fiefdoms, urging his listeners instead to obey God’s Word zealously. He gets on that soapbox a few times during Loose Gems, with beats that are often somber and urgent, but we also learn about his life story and see his lighter side — particularly on the single above, “Bar Mitzvah: Shnayim.” It’s puzzling that “Unclean,” a powerful track from March, didn’t make the cut, as it’s a perfect fit sonically and thematically and would only bump the runtime above 30 minutes.
In Christ is the best I’ll ever be / Your Kingdom’s the best I’ve ever seen
This record from pastor and producer Chrys Jones doesn’t sound very flashy at first glance, but it’s slowly and continually hooked me as a daily listen. At once dingy and shimmering, Trinity is full of heady theology over delightfully imperfect samples — from the days when music wasn’t all digitally tuned and quantized. Jones’ previous work, Meno, made it clear he’s a fan of Puritan meditation practices; these concise nine songs sound like he created a soundtrack for that discipline, with scripture-soaked reflections on God’s attributes and His work through history.
We the change that we want to see / Believe you me, victors not victims / Let’s take time, get together and listen / Help these kids stay out of the system
This prolific Michigander has put out his third consecutive annual release, a declaration of positivity that’s not afraid to tug at the heartstrings. Like A Pond Apart and Mind Over Matter,88 to Now enlists a single producer for all tracks, and Newselph — Sareem’s partner this time around — alternates between party-bumping funk (“Kick’n It,” “The Feels”) and somber reflection (“No Fly Zone,” “Piece of Peace”). Among many standouts, the bittersweet “I’m Right Here” is its most personal, with Sareem counseling his own children about how they can weather racism and other tough issues waiting to destroy them as they grow, broken up by little vignettes of dialogue featuring the little ones discussing their likes and lessons.
I give a whole lot of thanks for what I so-called own / Loaned to me for the moment ’til my soul’s called home
Another Canadian? I’m about to get uninvited to the July 4th cookout, but it’s worth it for this album from Ontario’s Rel McCoy. He’s been around for a while, and he’s always had a vein of Christian thought running through his music, but on A Different Crown, he’s much more explicit on almost every song. It’s not “lyrical theology” per se; it’s more just approaching daily life through the lens of Scripture. Topics like dating, money, and family dysfunction all get satisfying treatments. One of my favorites here is “Hallelujah,” where the aforementioned Die-Rek appears as a guest — a kind of coming-out song, where he can no longer help but center his identity on Christ. It’s sentimental but not kitschy — a perfect illustration of letting go of burdens through worship.
You won’t ever be the same when you call on Jesus’ name / Listen to the words I’m sayin’, Jesus saved me, now I’m sane
Jesus Is King — ah, what a title! — is one of the year’s most-dissected and debated works, with Kanye West’s impassioned conversion fueling his first true CHH work following a few lip-service songs about God over the years. It’s not terrible, it’s not exceptional, but JIK is undeniably moving and leaves us wanting more. Ever since The Life of Pablo, I’ve found much of Kanye’s work half-baked and unmemorable, and even though JIK is clearly pretty rushed, the final product is engaging and endearing. The beating heart of this album is “God Is,” a gospel ballad that will make you tear up just reading the lyrics: “I can’t keep it to myself, I can’t sit here and be still / Everybody, I will tell ’til the whole world is healed.” To hear this from a man who was lending his creativity to PornHub at the start of the year… yeah, God is great.
For a record without much rapping, the single “Follow God” is a great convergence point between the old and new Kanye — staccato delivery, references to Proverbs, and the decade’s pithiest putdown of social media. Note the parallels to his 2011 music video “Otis,” where Kanye and Jay Z did donuts with a stunt car on a closed track, models in the back seat. On that song, West was at his commercial peak, romping around with a father figure — who has since become estranged — but surrounded by pretty-looking rentals. Now, he transfers that same imagery into a setting not made by human hands, property that he owns, and he’s doing those donuts with his real-life father, no longer estranged. His thrice-repeated anecdote about arguing with his dad, an admission that he is still early in his journey toward Christlike character, isn’t delivered in shame but in hope.
I put my gun down and pick up the canon / 66 shots in the clip, let’s get it cracking
There’s Christian rap, and then there’s gangster Christianrap. SoCal’s H.U.R.T. lays down the gospel over slick, aggressive trap beats you’d get from the likes of a DJ Mustard, part of his ministry to the streets of Riverside. This isn’t music about a sweet, cuddly Jesus who’s begging you to accept him into your life; this is about the Kingdom coming in power, with a huge emphasis on spiritual warfare; you think you’re running with a strong outfit, but God’s is stronger, so repent or be destroyed! H.U.R.T. does show a softer side — for instance, a song about struggling with infertility — but if you know anyone who find Christian music irrelevant and feminine, this is definitely an album for them to hear.
Simplistic, we eat brisket and speak with it / But can’t control the tongue, like the bridle on Seabiscuit
This isn’t the first project where the Christcentric label has put together a song-by-song adaptation of a book from the New Testament, but it is definitely their best. The production is shockingly good compared to previous releases, with the aforementioned Chrys Jones behind quite a few tracks. And the lyrics, spread out across quite a few emcees, are rather consistent and illuminating takes on the text. You’d never have guessed that “Faith without works is dead” could be an earworm hook until now.
Said you’re searching for divine proof / Just take a look at creation, you know it’s fine-tuned / Life is a miracle / If you’re existing, the evidence is empirical
As I wrote a few months ago, what’s great about Hazakim’s Origins is that it’s more worship than pedantry. Music-wise, it’s a gem. There comes a point in every artist’s career when their production value really syncs up with their ambitions; as great as 2009’s Theophanies and 2014’s Son of Man are, there are moments here and there where the mix is off — or just not up to that “pro” level. After several years as a producer for other artists, beatmaker Tony is now solidly and confidently operating at that level, digging up obscure Israeli pop samples and punctuating them with shofar blasts. I can’t stress it enough; this album is something very special: an uncommon topic in music (creationism) approached by two artists of an uncommon theological background (Messianic Judaism — uncommon in hip-hop, that is) with an exceedingly rare ability to translate scientific facts into entertaining and inspiring lyrics.
On Wednesday morning, after President Trump’s strong actions regarding the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, the Iraqi military reportedly announced that all paramilitary groups and their supporters who had been protesting against U.S. air strikes in Iraq had withdrawn from the perimeter of the embassy.
All members of paramilitary groups and their supporters who have been protesting against U.S. air strikes in #Iraq have withdrawn from the perimeter of the #USEmbassy in #Baghdad on Wednesday, the Iraqi military said.https://t.co/2KKMRErDni
President Trump’s response to a threat against the U.S. embassy stand in stark contrast to the Obama administration’s response to the Benghazi massacre in September 2012, when four Americans, including U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens, were murdered by terrorists storming the Benghazi, Libya compound.
Peter Ferrara wrote in Forbes in October 2012 that the Obama Administration had received requests for additional security from the Embassy and Stevens as early as February, and in August 2012, Stevens sent a cable requesting 11 additional body guards. He pointed out, “The Wall StreetJournalreported on October 10 that the Administration removed a well-armed, 16 member, security detail from Libya in August, to be replaced by the Libyan security personnel that Ambassador Stevens had just told them could not be relied upon.”
Ferrara stated, “ … documents released by the House Oversight Committee, the day of the attack on the American consulate in Benghazi, September 11, the White House situation room starts receiving emails at about 1 p.m. that the mission is under hostile surveillance … at 4 p.m. Washington receives an email from the Benghazi mission that it is under military style attack … Just one hour flight time away were U.S. Air Force bases that could have been rousted in minutes to send fighter planes and attack helicopters that could have routed the attackers in minutes of fighting.”
The Obama Administration later claimed the attack by terrorists at Benghazi was triggered by a video.
The Trump Administration, on the other hand, responded to a threat at the U.S. Embassy by sending in military forces. OIR spokesman Col. Myles B. Caggins III tweeted a video of AH-64 Apaches heading for Iraq, quoting Department of Defense secretary Mark Esper asserting, ““We have taken appropriate force protection actions to ensure the safety of American citizens…and to ensure our right of self-defense. We are sending additional forces to support our personnel at the Embassy.”
VIDEO: AH-64 Apaches protect @USEmbBaghdad. ?“We have taken appropriate force protection actions to ensure the safety of American citizens…and to ensure our right of self-defense. We are sending additional forces to support our personnel at the Embassy.”~@EsperDoD ???? pic.twitter.com/amABHBAOcL
— OIR Spokesman Col. Myles B. Caggins III (@OIRSpox) December 31, 2019
As The Daily Wire reported on Wednesday, “President Trump has deployed 750 U.S. soldiers to the Middle East, with some 3,000 additional troops preparing to deploy soon if necessary.”
Esper announced that he had authorized “the immediate deployment of the infantry battalion from the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, North Carolina,” according to The Associated Press, which added, “Additional soldiers from the 82nd Airborne’s quick-deployment brigade, known officially as its Immediate Response Force, were prepared to deploy,” and that the full brigade consisted of around 4,000 soldiers.
On Tuesday, President Trump tweeted, “Iran killed an American contractor, wounding many. We strongly responded, and always will. Now Iran is orchestrating an attack on the U.S. Embassy in Iraq. They will be held fully responsible. In addition, we expect Iraq to use its forces to protect the Embassy, and so notified!”
The Daily Wire noted, “The terrorist attack on the U.S. Embassy started early on Tuesday morning when thousands of supporters of the Kataeb Hezbollah terrorist organization attacked the facility in response to U.S. forces killing dozens of terrorists from the organization just a few days ago.”
Trump Sanctions Have Cost Iran Billions More than Obama Gave Them for the Nuclear Deal
Scott Peterson / Getty ImagesIran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei is pictured in a file photo from February 2016. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on Tuesday estimated sanctions against Iran implemented by President Donald Trump have cost the Islamic Republic $100 billion in oil sales and an equal amount in foreign investment credit. (Scott Peterson / Getty Images)
Donald Trump is hitting Iran where it hurts.
For 40 years, the murderous mullahs who lead the Islamic Republic have never needed much of a reason to hate an American president.
Even milk toast Jimmy Carter – a man whose presidency is a byword for American weakness – was hated by the ayatollahs who took over the country after the revolution of 1979.
But as a Bloomberg story reported Tuesday, the tyrants of Tehran have some especially good reasons to detest the current president:
About $50 billion worth, and that’s likely to keep rising.
According to Bloomberg, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani gave a speech Tuesday declaring that the sanctions Trump renewed on Iran after pulling out of the nuclear deal negotiated by President Barack Obama had cost the country $100 billion in oil revenue and the same amount in foreign investment credit.
That adds up to about $200 billion the hard men of Iran didn’t have on hand to fund terrorism against Americans, Israelis or any other group of people that stand in the way of their twisted views of religious order.
And as Breitbart News pointed out on on Wednesday, that amount dwarfs the $150 billion in Iranian assets Obama released as part of the deal. (Not to mention the planeloads of cash Obama flew the mullahs, as reported by The Wall Street Journal.)
In other words, tangling with Trump has already cost Iran at least $50 billion in net loss from their salad days with Obama. And unless the regime is willing to come to the table for a new nuclear deal that actually has teeth, that net cost is going to keep going up as Trump tightens sanctions even further.
Do you think there will be an actual war between the United States and Iran?
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The American relationship with the Shiite theocracy of Iran has been hostile for four decades – even including the craven outreach of the Obama years. (Remember the 10 American sailors who were detained and humiliated by Iranian naval forces in January of 2016?)
But Trump’s decision to impose staggering sanctions on the country – the policy of “maximum pressure” — is hitting the Iranian leadership in ways that hurt.
In April, Reuters reported that the Iranian economy was expected to shrink by 6 percent in 2019 after shrinking 4 percent in 2018. Inflation was expected to reach 40 percent.
And this is a country that thinks it’s in a position to take on the “Great Satan” of the United States – the world’s largest economy that has exploded with jobs and wealth creation since Trump took office?
Thank you President TRUMP Sanctions definitely save lives. The EVIL Empire. #Mullahs TERROR Regime would have used that money on TERROR WORLD OVER. pic.twitter.com/uyKwE8JBL2
Shredding the Iran deal deprived the Iranian regime of $200 billion they’d right now be using for terrorism, military expansionism, domestic oppression, ethnic cleansing of Sunnis, efforts to destroy Israel, rocketing American troops, etc. https://t.co/itHd507RL1
The rapid end of the crisis surrounding the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad could well be a signal that Iranians are starting to understand that Trump is not an American president who could be rolled.
On Tuesday, the sprawling grounds were surrounded by militants with Iranian backing. On Wednesday, the militias withdrew after Trump took several steps to show how seriously the U.S. was taking the situation. The relatively peaceful ending isn’t going to be repeated in every confrontation between the two countries, but there were definitely lessons to be learned from it.
Unlike his predecessor Obama, Trump appears to understand just how big of a threat the terrorist regime of Tehran poses to the country – and he’s not willing to meekly submit to it, as Obama was.
Instead, he’s hitting back where it hurts – and even the Iranian president is admitting it.
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On New Year’s Day in 1863, the Republican Party’s Emancipation Proclamation came into effect. While Republicans rejoiced, Democrat politicians and newspapers denounced President Abraham Lincoln (R-IL) for freeing slaves.
Demonstrating their depravity, New York’s Gov. Horatio Seymour, who would be the 1868 Democrat presidential nominee, denounced the Emancipation Proclamation as “a proposal for the butchery of women and children.”
The Louisville Daily Democrat called it “an outrage of all constitutional law, all human justice, all Christian feeling.”
Although this is often ignored by the revisionists in academia Republicans led the charge on civil rights and women’s rights.
A REPUBLICAN President signed the Emancipation Proclamation
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez could soon be out of her government job. Due to the high number of non-citizens in her district, it might be eliminated after the census.
Wouldn’t that be ironic?
Via Frank Luntz:
New York is expected to lose a House seat after the 2020 Census, and state Democrats are looking to draw out @AOC’s district.https://t.co/DYXvzqvWXm
AOC MAKES A BRONX CENSUS PUSH AMID FEARS OF LOST HOUSE SEATS
For Ocasio-Cortez, a full Census count is more than a matter of making sure her district gets all the funds and services it’s due. In a sense, her own political fortunes could hang in the balance.
A review by THE CITY, building on data and analysis by The Texas Tribune, suggests Ocasio-Cortez’ district could be particularly vulnerable to undercount because a little over a quarter of those living there are non-citizens.
That’s a higher percentage than any other congressional district in the state.
A Census undercount in Ocasio-Cortez’ district and elsewhere in the state could lead to the elimination of congressional districts — potentially setting off politically charged redistricting battles.
New York already is on track to lose up to two congressional seats during reapportionment due to population decline and slower rate of growth, according to a December report by Election Data Services.
First Lady Melania Trump brought the fireworks as she entered the annual New Year’s Eve celebration at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, on Tuesday evening.
Melania Trump strutted into the New Year, alongside President Trump, in a sequins embroidered evening gown by Givenchy that resembled the sparks of fireworks in the sky. The gown is cut from black silk georgette, features a round neckline, and gradient-like gold sequin embroidery that trickles down from top to bottom.
Currently, the Givenchy frock retails for about $4,740.
Mrs. Trump chose a pair of black satin pointed stilettos by Manolo Blahnik and her signature smoldering smokey eye makeup for the night of celebration.
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John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder.
Only lowly Ben Rhodes, the creative-writing major promoted to Deputy National Security Advisor for “communications” and his sidekick Colin Kahl, Joe Biden’s NSC man, have been Twitter-talkative.
The Obama bigfoots have good reason to lay low. The U.S. embassy in Iraq was attacked by one of the people they’d tried to coddle earlier, back in 2011, Hadi Farhan al-Amiri, a guy so bad even a former FBI director, Louis Freeh, spoke out against letting the guy in at the time. It’s not like this guy pretended to be a friend and then went bad on them. They knew. And they let him in, giving him lots of clout back home from which he was able to draw new terrorist resources, since terrorism was what he did.
Louis J. Freeh, who served as FBI director in the Clinton administration and the early months of the George W. Bush administration, said it was shocking that Mr. al-Maliki would include Mr. al-Amiri in his visit to Washington.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guard has been involved in “countless acts of terrorism, which are acts of war against the United States,” Mr. Freeh said in an interview.
Mr. al-Amiri served as a commander of the Revolutionary Guard’s Badr Corps, a battalion that was tasked with operations in Iraq. He remained active in the Badr Corps during the late 1980s and 1990s, when he was working on resistance efforts against Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq.
The FBI linked the Revolutionary Guard to the attack on the Khobar Towers in Khobar, Saudi Arabia, on June 25, 1996. Nineteen U.S. servicemen were killed by a bomb blast at the towers, which were housing American military personnel.
“As a senior leader, [Mr. al-Amiri] would have to have known about Khobar, and he would know Gen. [Ahmad] Sherifi, who was the IRGC general that conducted the operation,” Mr. Freeh said.
He added that the “FBI would love to sit down and talk to him, show him photographs and ask him questions” about the fugitives named in the Khobar Towers indictment.
The Obamatons ignored him.
Al-Amiri got invited the White House as the Iraqi government’s “transport minister” after he fought on the side of Iran in the horrendous Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s, continued work with the Iran Revolutionary Guards, got more practice with terrorism in Kuwait in 2008, according to this credible-looking Middle Eastern source on Twitter:
Not only this, al-Amiri executed terrorist attacks in #Kuwait in the eighties on behalf of #Iran.@brett_mcgurk reportedly met him. Even if this info was not accurate, #Obama & his team made the #US -practically- the air force of the pro-Iran #shiite militia in #Iraq 4 a while! https://t.co/mXeAcFu5Y1
…and still managed to cadge a White House invitation, undoubtedly to browbeat the White House into caving in on some factor, or else to convince them that there was no winning the Iraq war, the Iranians there were too powerful. Whatever the purpose of this visit, it sure as heck didn’t deserve the White House treatment, it’s something world leaders normally have to earn to get. That this terrorist got an invitation so cheaply could only have sent the message to his ilk that the U.S. was weak. And now we have the embassy attack.
So now we have Rhodes desperately trying to spin the matter, studiously avoiding the topic of that al-Amiri invitation, something Rhodes himself probably extended to the terrorist with full knowledge of the kind of things al-Amiri had made a career of. Rhodes, if you read his memoirs, and I did, had a taste for making personal contact with the world’s gamiest players, blissfully unaware of how naive and arrogant he came off in his written account. I’d bet money Rhodes was the one who invited al-Amiri in to take a look around the Oval office and have a seat on the Blue Room furniture.
He’s since responded with a violent terror attack against the U.S. coordinated with full blessing of Iran’s mullahs. Proud of yourselves, Obamatons? Someone on the nets ought to be asking them about it.
Only lowly Ben Rhodes, the creative-writing major promoted to Deputy National Security Advisor for “communications” and his sidekick Colin Kahl, Joe Biden’s NSC man, have been Twitter-talkative.
The Obama bigfoots have good reason to lay low. The U.S. embassy in Iraq was attacked by one of the people they’d tried to coddle earlier, back in 2011, Hadi Farhan al-Amiri, a guy so bad even a former FBI director, Louis Freeh, spoke out against letting the guy in at the time. It’s not like this guy pretended to be a friend and then went bad on them. They knew. And they let him in, giving him lots of clout back home from which he was able to draw new terrorist resources, since terrorism was what he did.
Louis J. Freeh, who served as FBI director in the Clinton administration and the early months of the George W. Bush administration, said it was shocking that Mr. al-Maliki would include Mr. al-Amiri in his visit to Washington.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guard has been involved in “countless acts of terrorism, which are acts of war against the United States,” Mr. Freeh said in an interview.
Mr. al-Amiri served as a commander of the Revolutionary Guard’s Badr Corps, a battalion that was tasked with operations in Iraq. He remained active in the Badr Corps during the late 1980s and 1990s, when he was working on resistance efforts against Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq.
The FBI linked the Revolutionary Guard to the attack on the Khobar Towers in Khobar, Saudi Arabia, on June 25, 1996. Nineteen U.S. servicemen were killed by a bomb blast at the towers, which were housing American military personnel.
“As a senior leader, [Mr. al-Amiri] would have to have known about Khobar, and he would know Gen. [Ahmad] Sherifi, who was the IRGC general that conducted the operation,” Mr. Freeh said.
He added that the “FBI would love to sit down and talk to him, show him photographs and ask him questions” about the fugitives named in the Khobar Towers indictment.
The Obamatons ignored him.
Al-Amiri got invited the White House as the Iraqi government’s “transport minister” after he fought on the side of Iran in the horrendous Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s, continued work with the Iran Revolutionary Guards, got more practice with terrorism in Kuwait in 2008, according to this credible-looking Middle Eastern source on Twitter:
Not only this, al-Amiri executed terrorist attacks in #Kuwait in the eighties on behalf of #Iran.@brett_mcgurk reportedly met him. Even if this info was not accurate, #Obama & his team made the #US -practically- the air force of the pro-Iran #shiite militia in #Iraq 4 a while! https://t.co/mXeAcFu5Y1
…and still managed to cadge a White House invitation, undoubtedly to browbeat the White House into caving in on some factor, or else to convince them that there was no winning the Iraq war, the Iranians there were too powerful. Whatever the purpose of this visit, it sure as heck didn’t deserve the White House treatment, it’s something world leaders normally have to earn to get. That this terrorist got an invitation so cheaply could only have sent the message to his ilk that the U.S. was weak. And now we have the embassy attack.
So now we have Rhodes desperately trying to spin the matter, studiously avoiding the topic of that al-Amiri invitation, something Rhodes himself probably extended to the terrorist with full knowledge of the kind of things al-Amiri had made a career of. Rhodes, if you read his memoirs, and I did, had a taste for making personal contact with the world’s gamiest players, blissfully unaware of how naive and arrogant he came off in his written account. I’d bet money Rhodes was the one who invited al-Amiri in to take a look around the Oval office and have a seat on the Blue Room furniture.
He’s since responded with a violent terror attack against the U.S. coordinated with full blessing of Iran’s mullahs. Proud of yourselves, Obamatons? Someone on the nets ought to be asking them about it.
Happy New Year! Here’s a few things the public sphere could probably survive without by this time in 2020…
Greta Thunberg
Every time you thought that the cult of St Greta could not get any more insane, reality said: “Hold my beer.” After being feted across the world by everyone from Arnold Schwarzenegger to the Pope, hailed by Canadian novelist Margaret Atwood as the new Joan of Arc, St Greta achieved full apotheosis at year-end when a Swedish pastor described her as the successor of ‘Jesus of Nazareth’.
How sad it will be in 2020 when the world wakes up to the fact that this teenage school drop out is nothing but a puppet for green crony capitalists in her native Sweden, who have choreographed every stage of her progression from ‘lonely schoolgirl protesting against climate inaction’ to Nobel-Prize-nominated superstar. No one likes being taken for a fool – and Greta the Puppet has fooled almost everyone. Princess Meghan
I’m sorry America, but you’re going to have to take Meghan Markle back. It’s bad enough that she turned our favourite bad boy prince — Afghanistan veteran, chopper pilot and all-round cheeky chappie Harry — into a joke-averse, henpecked appendage, but what’s worse is that she has infected the whole Royal Family with Hollywood woke values.
The younger ones have all convinced themselves they’re mentally ill victims (maybe they are too – but tradition has it that you don’t boast or whine about it), while even the Queen herself was heard on her annual Christmas broadcast mentioning the word ‘climate’ like it was any kind of problem. Don’t worry, America we’ll give you a fair prisoner swap. In return for your third-rate actress from a fading TV drama, we’ll take back Henry Cavill or Robbie Williams or, if you really want to play hardball, James Corden.
Remember this next time Princess Meghan tells you how bad she has it. https://t.co/BGD3TaMkEA
For four long, miserable, embarrassing years they’ve been testing their fancy writing skills, their imaginative powers, and our credulity to the very limits with erudite commentary abundant with gossamer theories ‘demonstrating’ how the Trump presidency has been – and will be – a disaster for the U.S. and the world beyond. Meanwhile, on everything from the economy to black employment to the Dow Jones to the killing of Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi to the great escape from the Paris Climate Accord, President Trump has just gone on #winning. Imagine the Never Trump butthurt when the Never Guy comes back even bigger in 2020.
Taxes
Almost every bad thing that has ever happened in the world — from the U.S. Civil War to the rise of Hitler, from the French Revolutionary terror to the absurdity whereby for well over a century English houses bricked up their windows and suffered gloom and dark in preference to having to give their government more money — is the result of excessive or ill-conceived taxes.
Lowering taxes – see Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan and the economic miracles of Hong Kong and Singapore – almost invariably makes things better for everyone apart, maybe, from the grasping authoritarian busybodies that all normal decent people hate. For further details, watch my fascinating discussion with comic and tax historian Dominic Frisby. I do hope Boris Johnson is paying attention in 2020 and beyond. Trump too, for that matter.
Bat-chomping, bird-slicing eco-crucifixes
They kill birds and bats; ruin views; disturb sleep and injure health with their low frequency noise and shadow flicker; the energy they produce is intermittent, unreliable and expensive; they are a subsidy engine for crony capitalists, taking money from the pockets of the poor and funnelling it into the wallets of the rich.
But now, in the U.S. at least, these monstrosities will have to fend for themselves.
Congress has voted to abolish subsidies for wind – and its ugly little sister, solar – with tax credits dropping to zero by 2025. Since most renewables can only survive with subsidy, it means they’ve reached the end of the line in the U.S. In Europe and Australia, unfortunately, the scam looks likely to continue for some time yet. Until, maybe, some bright spark notices how much better the U.S. economy is doing now that is no longer shackled to the corpse of ‘clean’ energy…
John Bercow
Scene: INT; AN ENGLISH PUB, Christmas 2020. A haggard, silver-haired man of dwarfish stature and cuckoldish disposition walks to the bar and taps a punter on the shoulder.
DWARF: Shall I do it for you, mate? Go on, mate, please let me do it. I’ll do it for the price of a pint.
PUNTER (faintly disgusted): Do what?
DWARF: My thing. You know… (winks meaningfully)
PUNTER: I really don’t…
DWARF: OOORRRRRRDER! Go on, mate, I’ve done it now. If you can’t buy me a pint, I’ll settle for a half.
PUNTER: I’m sorry, I’ve really no idea who you are or why you are saying ‘Order’ in that silly voice.
NARRATOR [V.O.] Denied a place in the House of Lords, considered too toxic for even the most desperate Christmas panto, the former Speaker of the House of Commons — who only a year before had seemed to hold the fate of Britain in his chubby fingers — had fallen on desperate times….
Excuses for Muslim terrorism
‘Mental illness’ used to be the favourite excuse — tirelessly trotted out by the failing MSM after each new terrorist incident — but in 2019, a French judge took disingenuousness to new extremes in the case of African immigrant Kobili Traoré who murdered his Jewish neighbour.
Though Traoré recited verses from the Koran and yelled Allahu Akbar as he stabbed elderly Jewish woman Sarah Halimi, before throwing her three floors to her death, the judge ruled that he had no criminal case to answer because he had smoked marijuana beforehand. The weed – yeah, that’ll be it. Funny, though, isn’t it how it only makes you a psychopathic killer if you belong to one particular religion?
Sir Elton John
Sir Elton John recently announced during a show in Verona, Italy that he is ‘sick to death of Brexit’ and ‘ashamed’ of Britain. He added that he is a ‘European’ and not a ‘stupid colonial imperialist English idiot.’ It’s quite possible that not even the lyrical genius of Bernie Taupin could describe what a sad, so sad, sad sad situation this is. Nor how unhappy we British will be if Sir Elton takes the cruel decision to leave our bigoted island forever and never grace us with his regal presence again. But I guess we’ll manage, somehow.
George Soros
Do I really need to explain why?
Care Bear Commies
Expensively educated kids from the most prosperous generation in history confidently assuring us that ‘the only problem with communism is that it has never been tried properly yet.’ In 2019 part of me hoped that Jeremy Corbyn’s neo-Marxist Labour party would win the general election so that these university-brainwashed idiots could learn an important life lesson.
But it’s OK: as a loving conservative parent, you can still steer your Commie Kids gently towards the path of righteousness with a few gentle hints.
1. Cancel their allowance. 2. Confiscate their iPhones, their computer and their television. 3. Torch their car. 4. Barbecue their pet. 5. In extremis, but only in extremis because this is actually banned under international law along with biological and chemical weapons and extreme forms of torture, make them spend a year following the Twitter feed of left-wing activist Owen Jones until the Chinese-water-torture drip drip drip of the same old words and phrases – alt-right, Trump, racism, homophobia, demonising Muslims, gammons, etc – drives them to the point of insanity.
What’s even worse is when newspaper racism and other bigotry is challenged, it’s portrayed as a Trumpian attack on the media. No, Trumpian is demonising Muslims, refugees, migrants and trans people. Like much of the British press do.
I love that someone from @iealondon feels like they can call me bizarre. The bizarre thing is thinking capitalism can succeed when history has shown it leads to misery for the people of the world. https://t.co/PiWmTkWR9L
Between 2016 and 2019, historians will recall, British democracy was held hostage by a minority of bitter, spoilt Remainers who couldn’t accept that they lost the Referendum and so did everything in their power to sabotage it. Unfortunately, because many of them were leading members of the Establishment they very nearly succeeded.
Fortunately, by the grace of God, they still lost in the end. But some of them — like Japanese soldiers on remote Pacific Islands still unaware that the Emperor has surrendered — are not ready to give up just yet.
So sorry that the powerful, corrupt rich elite have cheated and lied to persuade our electorate to vote for such harm to our country and great friends like you that have made the UK part of your lives. Rest assured that there are still MILLIONS of us that love the EU and you. ❤️
— Neville #FBPE #rEUnion #RevokeArticle50 🕷 (@NevAntiBrexit) December 29, 2019
I too am angry and annoyed at losing my EU citizenship, something I have enjoyed for forty plus years.
There will be no forgiveness from me for the people who have done this, and absolutely no reconciliation.
— Blue Letter Boxes please post Independence. (@Cat5weaver) December 28, 2019
The BBC
The relentlessly left-liberal-biased — anti-Trump, anti-Israel, anti-Brexit, anti-free-markets — news coverage are the least of its problems.
Worst, still, is the propaganda disguised as entertainment: Sir David Attenborough’s climate tragedy porn documentaries; the detective dramas where the baddie is always the white middle-class professional; the United Colours of Benetton tick-box diversity casting. For a while, the Beeb got away with it because old viewing habits die hard. But now everyone who isn’t irredeemably PC has woken up to the fact that the BBC despises them and that both Amazon Prime and Netflix offer cheaper services.
This cannot end well for the BBC, not least because — just like its political wing, the Labour party — it refuses point-blank to concede that it is doing anything wrong.
The scourge of sexual exploitation of children has reached “epidemic” levels in the United Kingdom, as nearly 19,000 children were sexually groomed over the past year.
Local authorities have reported over 18,700 suspected victims of child sexual exploitation at the hands of grooming gangs between 2018-19, more than five times higher than the 3,300 reported cases just five years ago.
Sammy Woodhouse, a victim of the Rotherham rapist Arshid Hussain, said that the authorities have not implemented meaningful changes in combatting the crisis.
“You hear this bullshit line, ‘lessons have been learned’, but they haven’t learned anything”, she toldThe Independent.
“I still hear a lot about the authorities aren’t doing things as they should. It’s not very often I hear something good and for all different reasons – if the police won’t act on reports, people feel they’re not being listened to or supported properly, or information not being shared”, she added.
“I’ve said for years that this country’s in epidemic when it comes to abuse and exploitation. Authorities claim it’s under control but it’s not”, Woodhouse concluded.
Grooming Gang: ‘White Women Are Good for Only One Thing – for People Like Me to F*** and Use as Trash’https://t.co/5UyZNCelhR
Lancashire was the locality hit the hardest last year, with a total of 624 suspected victims, followed by Birmingham with 490, 447 in Surrey, 414 in Bradford and 409 in Gloucestershire. Thousands of more cases of abuse have been discovered across the country over the past decade, especially as the scandals of predominantly Pakistani male child rape gangs have been exposed.
The Labour MP for Rotherham, Sarah Champion, said that the figures demonstrate that grooming “remains one of the largest forms of child abuse in the country”.
“The government has singularly failed to tackle this issue head-on. Its approach has been piecemeal and underfunded”, she said.
The Home Office has allocated 7 million pounds to support survivors of child sex abuse for 2019-20 and has set up investigations into the institutional responses to the scandals in Rotherham and Norfolk, with a series of public hearings expected in the spring of 2020.
“The Home Office is committed to tackling child sexual abuse and will leave no stone unturned in tackling this abhorrent behaviour”, a spokesperson said.
“This is why we launched the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse to get to the truth, expose what has gone wrong and learn lessons for the future. The inquiry operates independently of government and, within its terms of reference, decides for itself what it investigates”, the spokesperson added.
‘Conspiracy of Silence’: The British towns where underage girls were raped by Muslim grooming gangs for decades https://t.co/uHVBTdmhPT
Earlier this month Breitbart London reported that 16 men of South Asian descent, including a police officer, were charged in connection to grooming crimes allegedly committed against three teenage girls in Halifax, England.
The following day an additional four men of South Asian-origin were convicted of sexually exploiting children during the early 2000s in Telford, England.
In 2018, then Home Secretary, Sajid Javid launched an inquiry into the ethnic origins of members of grooming gangs in the UK. Speaking to the BBC in December, Javid determined that the majority of perpetrators were of Pakistani origin.
“When it comes to gang-based child exploitation it is self-evident to anyone who cares to look that if you look at all the recent high-profile cases there is a high proportion of men that have Pakistani heritage”, Javid said.
“There could be – I’m not saying that there are – there could be some cultural reasons from the communities that these men came from that could lead to this kind of behaviour”, he added.
Eighteen Convicted in Mostly Muslim Rape Gang, Police Paid Child Rapist Informant £10k https://t.co/SqGxIkXIbs
