A PRO-PALESTINIAN FOREIGN POLICY TEAM

Biden's team blind spot on terror

 

By Moshe Phillips

 

Israel Hayom

December 2, 2020

 

President-elect Joe Biden's first major foreign policy appointments are being hailed as centrists and experts. None of them are known as radicals, ideologues or Israel-bashers. News outlets have made much of the fact that the stepson of a Holocaust survivor is one of the key appointments. But a closer look at their backgrounds and associations raises disturbing questions about their views on Israel and the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Secretary of State-designate Antony Blinken, National Intelligence Director-designate Avril Haines, and UN Ambassador-designate Linda Thomas-Greenfield have an interesting professional association in common: They are among the cadre of leaders of a little-known advocacy group in Washington, DC called Foreign Policy for America, which has a very disturbing perspective on Israel.

Foreign Policy for America (FPA), established in 2016, has two leadership bodies, both of which are quite small, indicating that their members are not just window dressing or names on a letterhead. The board of directors has just twelve members, one of whom is J Street president Jeremy Ben-Ami. It also has an advisory board, with just twenty members. Blinken, Haines, and Thomas-Greenfield are among them. Ben-Ami's J Street is also based in DC and is a Jewish pressure group that, judging by its actions, seems to have been created specifically, and almost exclusively, to lobby for an independent Palestinian state. The FPA's executive director, Andrew Albertson, also has a long record of supporting J Street and he can be seen on YouTube as far back as 2011 heaping praise on the group.

Blinken and Ben-Ami are both alumni of the Clinton Administration. A fact that Blinken pointed out when he addressed the J Street annual conference in March 2012. In his speech, Blinken showered compliments on J Street for having "emerged as an influential and constructive voice."

FPA says on its website that its purpose is to "oppose xenophobia and military-first foreign policy." It lists the twenty issues that are the group's top concerns. One is the "Israeli-Palestinian Conflict." That section of the website consists of a seven-paragraph summary of the causes and history of the conflict, with two large pull-out quotes from J Street publications and link to the J Street website, followed by tips on how to press Congress to be more sympathetic to the Palestinian Arabs.

This is on FPA's "Israeli-Palestinian Conflict" issue page. Besides J Street the only other organization FPA suggests its readers review material of, in order to "Learn More," is an Israeli organization called B'Tselem. In 2018, the Simon Wiesenthal Center labeled B'Tselem a "campaigner against its own country."

In the FPA's version of history, the conflict began "in 1947, in the aftermath of World War Two." No mention of the Palestinian Arab pogroms of 1920, 1921, 1929, and 1936-1939. Of course not; mentioning that there was massive Palestinian Arab terrorism before Israel even existed would remind people that the Palestinian Arabs oppose Israel's very existence.

FPA then briefly summarizes the various Arab-Israeli wars, without indicating that the Arabs were the aggressors. Wars just suddenly erupt for no apparent reason.

This "history" soon reaches the 1993 Oslo Accords. Guess why they haven't produced peace? "The peace process has become complicated by growing settlements in the West Bank, continued Israeli military presence in the West Bank, and a blockade on Gaza," according to FPA.

No suicide bombers. No machine-gunning of attendees at Passover seders. No lynchings by terrorists waving their bloody hands. No rockets fired into kindergartens. None of that affected the Oslo process. No, the word "terrorism" literally does not appear in the FPA's entire history of the Arab-Israeli conflict.

This is the distorted view of the world to which the incoming secretary of state, National Intelligence director, and UN Ambassador have contributed their names.

That's not all. Intelligence director-to-be-Haines and three other members of the FPA Advisory Board – Robert Malley, Ned Price, and Donald Steinberg – signed the public letter earlier this year urging the Democratic Party to adopt more pro-Palestinian language in its platform.

Among other things, they expressed "opposition to violence, terrorism, and incitement from all sides." Just like FPA, the signers of the letter were incapable of uttering the term "Palestinian terrorism."

Not surprisingly, that letter is featured on the J Street website.

More broadly, FPA seems to be deeply uncomfortable with the war on terror. The website's "Use of Military Force" section – another one of its twenty areas of focus – consists of a long attack on previous presidents for aggressively pursuing terrorists around the world.

FPA complains that anti-terror actions in "Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan" have been "extraordinarily costly," that is, too costly. They want to pass legislation to limit presidential authority in the war against terror, so they can reverse policies such as "detentions in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and training operations in (the) Philippines."

That's the worldview that the Biden foreign policy team is coming from: ignoring terrorism in Israel and trying to tie the hands of those who are fighting terrorism around the world.

There are, of course, additional reasons for concern about the team of the incoming administration. For example, the newly-announced Deputy Director of the Office of Legislative Affairs is Reema Dodin, a Palestinian-American activist, who has publicly justified Palestinian Arab suicide bombings as "the last resort of a desperate people."

J Street's Jeremy Ben-Ami is delighted that so many of his FPA colleagues will have major positions in the Biden administration. They are "exactly the type of leadership this country deserves," he tweeted. Many Israelis, and many friends of Israel around the world, are probably not yet convinced

THE NEW PERSONAL SCOPES FOR GROUND TROOPS ..... AND THEY USE SIMPLE BATTERIES THAT CAN BE BOUGHT IN ANY STORE

The future is now: New technology aims to turn IDF soldiers into lethal weapons

 

By  Hanan Greenwood

 

Israel Hayom

December 2, 2020

 

"Imagine an infiltration through the northern border, a possible scenario that has happened in the past and can happen again in the future," says Arie Chernobrov, CEO of Elsec, a subsidiary of Elbit Systems, as he demonstrates how technology that just three or four years ago was considered borderline Sci-Fi is now being integrated into the Israeli military.

"If up until a few years ago you would get an alert from a surveillance post about a 'Turkish Horseman' [the IDF's codename for a border infiltration attempt], and you would get there only to learn that it was just a cat that brushed against the fence, today we're in a completely different world."

He links the various systems made in the plant he heads, most of them used by the IDF, to a hypothetical demonstration of something that could definitely happen in the real world: "Let's say our automatic identification systems are mounted on the border and identify the infiltration late at night. A Golani force goes to the area and by using the HattoriX system sends precise coordinates of where the threat is and directs fire at the 'Turkish Horseman' in a surgical manner without the force getting close.

"If the soldiers need to get closer, they do so by using night vision that allows them to see things as if it was daylight. If the commander wants, he can transmit what he sees directly to the eyepiece of the sniper behind him, and the sniper can end it by taking out the threat."

Elsec's facility sits in the southern city of Sderot, just a few miles from the Gaza Strip. The facility, which specializes in military-grade electro-optic viewing systems, is reinforced against rocket fire. The company employs over 200 people, 80% of whom are residents of the area. Even during the pandemic, just like during military operations in Gaza, it continues operating as usual, with employees manually assembling thousands of advanced optical devices that give the IDF a technological edge and make Israeli soldiers on land, in the air, and at sea much more effective and lethal.

In recent years there has been dramatic progress in the field of personal scopes for ground troops. If in the past soldiers mostly used night vision equipment that intensified starlight, today uncooled thermal systems are leading the way, allowing soldiers on the ground to view their targets for up to 1.5 kilometers (a mile) as if there was daylight.

This is not theory or futuristic capabilities that are supposed to be integrated into the IDF: last August, Elbit stated that it had supplied the IDF thousands of light weapon scopes of the Maccabim and XACT th64 (Maccabit) models that allow advanced daylight vision alongside quality night vision, at the touch of a button.

"While the starlight vision technology has stayed the same for 20 or 30 years, the thermal world has made a huge leap this decade. The army couldn't believe that five years ago there was something like this, and a decade ago systems like this were a dream," says Israel Grinwald, VP of Infantry and Special forces at Elsec. "We miniaturized the detectors and improved the sensors dramatically. If in the past cooled thermal systems [which have a cooling system] in a tank weighed 25 kg, today the uncooled systems weigh half a kilo and the vision through them is better."

"The goal is to make the scopes as small as possible and the range as long as possible. Today you can kill a man from a mile away, and as opposed to other means, here you can get into a completely dark tunnel and still see what you're doing as if you're outside," says Greenwald.

In recent years Elbit has been vaunting its work in promoting the soldier of the future. Through various advanced augmented reality and connectivity systems, the soldiers become much more effective on the battlefield. Chernobrov explains that the systems today on thousands of rifles in the IDF use an Android system and include internal built-in WIFI and Bluetooth, just like your smartphone. This allows the commander in the field to put soldiers in key locations and see the whole picture, or enable senior officers and war rooms to survey the battle from afar and get a fuller picture of what's going on.

"Our scopes can transfer the picture back to the war room or the commander in the field. It's enough to deploy soldiers throughout the field and the commander can see what they see using a tablet. If he wants to, he can direct a sniper, with a scope that's good for 2,000 meters, where to shoot and take out the threat. And all of this can be broadcast to headquarters. You can relay the battlefield back in a much better way – a group of soldiers that goes to the field and transfers in real-time all the information to decision-makers."

It's interesting to note that Elbit has very advanced technologies, using standard batteries, like the ones you can buy in a supermarket or local grocery. The advantage of this is that when needed, soldiers can equip themselves while in enemy territory much more simply, without the need to parachute supplies or risking other soldiers to enter the field to deliver special batteries. "These devices use simple batteries, completely standard, that you can buy in a grocery just like the ones your kid has in his toy car."

Alongside the small devices, Elsec has much larger ones too, that give a wider picture of the battlefield or border. The SupervisIR system produced by the company offers a particularly broad observation point, day and night, of the area, and unlike in the past, it can identify targets by itself and switch directly to a probing camera which is equipped with a laser measure. "This is a different world from what we knew a few years ago. The detectors have much higher resolution, stronger processing capabilities, and the AI and automatic capabilities allow you to put much more trust in the machine, and less in the human.

In an event like the infiltration of terrorists into Kibbutz Zikim, for example, today the system would automatically identify the terrorists and focus on them, day and night. These systems, says Chernobrov, will be even more advanced in the next few years and will provide greater control that will hermetically seal the borders of the State of Israel.

Chernobrov reveals a new system called HattoriX that brings capability that once only existed in special units to any infantry unit. "This is a system whose goal is target acquisition that any soldier in any infantry brigade can operate. If in the past target acquisition only existed in special units, today the computer does the work automatically."

Ronen Shnitzer, VP of Security and Surveillance Systems, explains: "We saw in the war in Crimea that any weapon with a drop of radiation was hit by a missile, anything that fired in the arena - got hit, so we developed a concept based on image processing." Unlike more advanced technology, the HattoriX system has researched images of the fighting ground and when the soldier photographs the area he's in and submits the picture into the analyzing tool, he receives an exact coordinate. "You don't want to mistakenly bomb a house, and so must be precise, and that's what this system provides. The system gives the possibility to know 100% it's the right target, and if there's no confirmation that the landmark is correct then the air force or artillery don't attack the target."

"A few years ago there was a senior officer here who said that if it will work he'll eat his hat," Greenwald smiles and sums up the advanced capabilities that are already being used by the IDF and are expected to change how the next war will look, as well as routine activities of the present. "He came back two years later in a more senior position and asked for a hat."

ELECTION WHISTLEBLOWERS COME FORWARD

ET TU, BARR? ..... AG SAYS THERE IS NOT ENOUGH EVIDENCE TO KEEP USS TRUMP FROM SINKING

AG Bill Barr says there's 'NOT enough' evidence of voting fraud to change Biden election win - and reveals DOJ did investigate Trump's conspiracy theory about 'rigged' Dominion voting machines

 

Daily Mail

December 1, 2020

 

Attorney General William Barr said Tuesday the Justice Department has not uncovered evidence of widespread voter fraud that would change the outcome of the election. 

Barr spoke despite President Trump's claims the election was 'rigged' and says he 'won.' He spoke as Trump was retweeting clips from a Michigan Senate hearing seeking to uncover fraud. 

Barr referenced the claim saying the DHS and DOJ 'have looked into' a conspiracy theory about voting machines flipping votes from Trump to Biden. 

The comments are especially direct coming from Barr, who has been one of the president's most ardent allies. Before the election, he had repeatedly raised the notion that mail-in voter fraud could be especially vulnerable to fraud during the coronavirus pandemic as Americans feared going to polls and instead chose to vote by mail. 

__________

 

DOJ Will Continue to Probe Claims of Election Fraud 

By Jeffrey Rodack 

 

Newsmax

December 2, 2020 

 

The Justice Department is reiterating it has not concluded its investigation of possible election fraud and is vowing to pursue all specific and credible allegations of ballot fraud stemming from the presidential contest.

A statement from a DOJ spokesperson came after The Associated Press interviewed Attorney General Bill Barr about the status of the probe. CBS News correspondent Catherine Herridge posted the DOJ statement on her Twitter account.

The DOJ spokesperson did not deny the AP report but was at odds with how some media outlets represented it.

"Some media outlets have incorrectly reported that the Department has concluded its investigation of election fraud and announced an affirmative finding of no fraud in the election," the spokesperson said. "That is not what the Associated Press reported nor what the Attorney General stated. The Department will continue to receive and vigorously pursue all specific and credible allegations of fraud as expeditiously as possible."

President Donald Trump linked to the statement on Twitter and added: "The Fake News refused to report this."

I HAVE TO ADMIT THAT WAS INTERESTING

by Bob Walsh

Yesterday I went to the State Prison at Jamestown to shoot a qualification course.  Never been to their range before.  They don't believe much in signs, and you have to actually drive across the helipad to get to the right road.  It's weird.

But the interesting part was the local wildlife.  There is a small herd of black deer on the property.  I have never seen a black deer before let alone several of them.  They are quite at home there as they are not hunted and have gotten use to the sound of gunfire so it doesn't bother them.  One of the guys at the range said the coloring is due to their diet, something about a lot of acorns on the property and that if it wasn't for that their coloring would be more normal.  Still, it was kind of cool.

ARCHAEOLOGISTS PRETTY SURE THEY FOUND THE HOME OF YESHUA BEN YOSEF

by Bob Walsh

Archaeologists are "reasonably sure" they have unearthed a stone house in Nazareth that was the family home of Yeshua Ben Yosef, AKA Jesus Christ, the notorious trouble-maker who managed to piss off both the Romans and the Jews who hung out in the area now called Israel about 2,000 years ago  The dig is mostly at the site of the current Sisters of Nazareth convent.

A team of people, including Ken Dark, a well-known guy in the field who has been grave-robbing in the area for 30 years, are convinced that the stone house they found "most likely" belong to the family.  Personally I am dubious about the "Jesus + Mary" and "Judas Sucks" scratched into the stone in modern English, but the rest of it might be pretty solid.

Too bad they can't find a diary, or an old AOL bill or a family photo hidden behind a dresser drawer or something.  Even allowing for that this is a significant find.

SF PUC CHIEF CHARGED FOR CORRUPTION

by Bob Walsh

Harlan Kelly used to be the HMFIC in charge of the Public Utilities Commission in the People's Republic of San Francisco.  He is married to City Administrator Naomi Kelly, who oversees a couple of dozen S F city departments.  

Kelly has just been charged with the feds on a corruption beef.  The former public works director, Mohammed Nuru, was arrested in January by the feds in the same investigation.  A considerable number of department heads have resigned in the midst of this ongoing investigation.

If the local fish wrappers are to be believed pretty much any city project for a LOT of years that went over about $20 was riddled with corruption.  

I wonder how much of it went to the God-Emperor of San Francisco, Gavin Newsom, now our dearly beloved governor?

CA SET TO RECEIVE 327,000 DOSES OF PLAGUE VACCINE

by Bob Walsh

The formerly great state of California is likely to get about 327,000 doses of Covid-19 vaccine by mid-December.  It will take some time to get to final distribution as all the labels will have to be changed so they say BROUGHT TO YOU BY JOE BIDEN AND GAVIN NEWSOM.  Kind of like the Russkies used to marked over markings of U S Aid relief food packages.

GOD-EMPEROR NEWSOM PREPARES FOR NEW LOCKDOWN

by Bob Walsh

The talking heads in the formerly great state of California are almost all asserting that The God-Emperor, Gavin Newsom, is preparing to put the entire state on a virtually 100% lockdown for "just a little while" until things get better.  Residents would be allowed to sleep, shit and breath, if they can do it in their own home.  Critical workers and high-ranking politicians (who in CA are almost all Democrats) would be able to do whatever the fuck they want, which is pretty much what they do all the time anyway.

The Newsom recall petition is making headway and has an outside chance of actually getting somewhere.  Hopefully that somewhere will be bye-bye Gavin.

Maybe Arnold will have another go at it.

DIGENOVA JOINS LIST OF TRUMP'S CRACKPOT LAWYERS

Trump campaign lawyer says fired election security chief Chris Krebs should be 'taken out at dawn and shot' for claiming vote was the 'most secure in US history'

 

Daily Mail

December 1, 2020 

President Donald Trump's campaign lawyer Joe diGenova said Monday that fired cybersecurity chief Chris Krebs should be 'taken out at dawn and shot'. 

In an interview on the Howie Carr show, which airs on Newsmax, diGenova called Krebs a moron for saying the election was the 'most secure in United States history'. 

'Anybody who thinks that this election went well, like that idiot Krebs who used to be the head of cybersecurity,' diGenova said. 'That guy is a class A moron. He should be drawn and quartered. Taken out at dawn and shot,' diGenova added. 

Krebs, a lifelong Republican, was fired by Trump by tweet on November 17, after he declared the election to be secure despite the president's claims of election fraud. 

Before he was fired, Krebs had served as the director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency at the Department of Homeland Security since November, 2018. 

EDITOR'S NOTE: The Daily Mail reports that "ousted cybersecurity chief Christopher Krebs said Tuesday he could pursue legal action against Trump's campaign attorney who suggested he be killed for his election-related comments."

A PARDON FOR HIMSELF?

Fox News host Sean Hannity suggests Trump should pardon himself and his family

 

By Azmi Haroun

 

Business Insider 

December 1, 2020

Fox News opinion host Sean Hannity called for President Donald Trump to pardon himself on two separate occasions on Monday.

Hannity hosted former national security adviser Michael Flynn's lawyer and former Trump campaign attorney Sidney Powell on his radio show. In the segment, the two praised Trump's decision to issue a full pardon for Flynn.

Hannity brought up the possibility of Trump pardoning himself and his family, saying, "the president out the door needs to pardon his whole family and himself because they want this witch hunt to go on in perpetuity." 

"They're so full of rage and insanity against the president… I assume that the power of the pardon is absolute and that he should be able to pardon anybody that he wants to," Hannity added.

Powell replied, "It is absolute, it's in the Constitution but I don't know about the ability to pardon himself."

On his Fox News show later in the evening, Hannity harped on the same point with guest former GOP House Speaker Newt Gingrich.

Referring to former special counsel Robert Mueller's deputy Andrew Weissmann's New York Times op-ed calling for prosecuting Trump once he is out of office, Hannity told Gingrich, "if that's what they wanna do, if Biden became president, I'd tell Trump, pardon yourself and pardon your family."

As Business Insider's Sonam Sheth and Tom Porter have pointed out the president's Constitutional powers to grant pardons and clemency are broad, but they are untested in this arena. A pardon would also only impact federal cases, not those brought at the state level, of which Trump could face at least nine potential suits.

TROUBLED TONY'S FINAL MOMENTS

ECLUSIVE: Colleagues of Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh fear his addiction to nitrous oxide wXhippets, burning candles and Grey Goose vodka could be behind explosion that led to his death - as it's revealed he was 'barricaded' in a shed when blaze broke out

 

Daily Mail

December 1, 2020 

Shoe magnate Tony Hsieh's drug abuse was growing fast at the time of his death, DailyMail.com has learned exclusively. And friends fear that his use of the laughing gas nitrous oxide and his love of candles could have caused the fire that killed him. 

'In recent months the nitrous oxide had become as important to Tony as his alcohol,' one close colleague said. 'And Grey Goose vodka was his best friend.' 

Although nitrous oxide is not flammable it does accelerate the burning of combustible material that is already alight, according to PubChem. 

Hsieh, 46, was pulled unconscious from the burning shed attached to a waterfront home in New London, Connecticut, shortly after 3:30 am on November 18. He died in hospital nine days later. 

A dispatch tape obtained by DailyMail.com revealed that he was 'barricaded' inside the shed. 'The male is barricaded inside and not answering the door,' the dispatcher says. 'Everyone else is outside the house. They are trying to get him to open up.' 

Firefighters had to break down the door to drag him out, but they were too late to save his life. 

The Connecticut Office of the Chief Medical Examiner has already ruled his death accidental and that he died of complications of smoke inhalation

ANOTHER CAR JACKER NOW UNEMPLOYED

Man Killed After Attempting To Carjack Vehicle Stopped At Red Light In Compton, Authorities Say

 

LAPPL News Watch

December 1, 2020

A man was shot and killed after attempting to carjack a vehicle that was stopped at a red light in Compton, authorities said Monday. 

Deputies responded to the intersection of Compton Boulevard and Santa Fe Avenue Sunday night after receiving a report of gunshots in the area, according to the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department. They arrived shortly before 9 p.m. and found a man lying in the intersection. 

The man sustained at least one gunshot wound and "appeared to have been struck by at least one vehicle that fled the scene," the department said in a press release.

Investigators later learned that the man was reportedly armed with a handgun and was shot during the attempted carjacking, authorities added. 

It's unclear if the man died as a result of being shot or being hit by a car. 

The driver who was stopped at the red light stayed at the scene and was to be interviewed by investigators, authorities said.

FUGGING IS BETTER THAN FUCKING?

Austrian village named Fucking to change name after unwanted tourist attention

 

By Kenneth Garger

 

New York Post

November 26, 2020

 

The residents of a tiny Austrian village named Fucking have voted to change its name after enduring unwanted attention from English-speaking tourists.

Come next year, the village of 100 residents near the German border will be named Fugging.

“I can confirm that the village is being renamed,” Andrea Holzner, the mayor of Tarsdorf, the municipality where the village is located, told regional daily Oberoesterreichische Nachrichten.

“I really don’t want to say anything more — we’ve had enough media frenzy about this in the past,” she said.

English-speaking tourists have increasingly flocked to Fucking for a photo-op next to an entrance sign bearing the village’s name.

Some even capture themselves striking lewd poses in front of the marker for social media.

Signposts have also reportedly been stolen, prompting authorities to install new ones with concrete to deter thefts.

A map from 1825 bore the village name of Fuccking. But some experts believe the name dates back to the 11th century.

NAVY SCRAPS $3 BILLION RESTORATION OF FIRE DAMAGED WARSHIP

Navy to Decommission USS Bonhomme Richard 

 

America's Navy

November 30, 2020

WASHINGTON – After thorough consideration, the Navy has decided to decommission USS Bonhomme Richard (LHD 6), a Wasp-class amphibious assault ship, due to the extensive damage sustained during the July fire. 

“We did not come to this decision lightly,” said Secretary of the Navy Kenneth J. Braithwaite. “Following an extensive material assessment in which various courses of action were considered and evaluated, we came to the conclusion that it is not fiscally responsible to restore her.

"Although it saddens me that it is not cost effective to bring her back, I know this ship’s legacy will continue to live on through the brave men and women who fought so hard to save her, as well as the Sailors and Marines who served aboard her during her 22-year history," Braithwaite said.

Following the fire, the Navy conducted a comprehensive material assessment that concluded the cost to restore Bonhomme Richard could exceed $3 billion and require between five and seven years to complete.

The Navy also examined rebuilding the ship for alternate purposes and determined the cost could exceed $1 billion, which is as much or more than a new-construction hospital ship, submarine tender, or command-and-control ship. 

Although the timeline for towing and dismantlement are still being finalized, the Navy will execute an inactivation availability that will remove systems and components for use in other ships.

Since July, the Navy has taken numerous actions designed to provide immediate fire safety and prevention improvements across the Fleet and shore installations. Working collaboratively, the fleet commanders established a Fire Safety Assessment Program to conduct random assessments of ship’s compliance with Navy fire-safety regulations, with a priority on ships undergoing maintenance availabilities. 

Naval Sea Systems Command issued an advisory to all supervising authorities on directed fire prevention requirements and outlined corrective actions to improve fire protection, damage control, and firefighting doctrine, all of which will be executed in close partnerships with industry partners.

All investigations associated with the fire onboard LHD 6 remain ongoing. USS Bonhomme Richard is assigned to the Commander, U.S. Pacific Fleet.

LAW ENFORCEMENT SCANDAL IN HAWAII

Ex-Hawaii prosecutor, police chief get prison for corruption

 

By Jennifer Sinco Kelleher

 

Associated Press

December 1, 2020

 

HONOLULU — A U.S. judge sentenced a former high-ranking Honolulu prosecutor to 13 years in prison Monday and her retired police chief husband to seven years, saying she stole money from her own grandmother and then used his law enforcement power to frame her uncle for a crime he didn’t commit — all to maintain the couple’s lavish lifestyle.

Katherine and Louis Kealoha, now estranged, were once a respected power couple. Louis Kealoha agreed to retire amid a wide-ranging federal investigation. She later gave up her law license.

“This case has staggered the community in many ways,” U.S. District Judge J. Michael Seabright said.

He described how Katherine Kealoha orchestrated a reverse mortgage scheme that forced her grandmother to sell her home, framed her uncle for stealing the Kealohas’ home mailbox, stole money from children whose trusts she controlled as a lawyer, cheated her uncle out of his life savings, convinced her firefighter lover to lie about their affair and used her position as a prosecutor to turn a drug investigation away from her doctor brother.

“Truth can be stranger than fiction,” the judge said at Katherine Kealoha’s sentencing.

Later, he told Louis Kealoha that while his wife was the mastermind, “you did master the frame job that followed,” and the scheme couldn’t have succeeded without the Honolulu Police Department

A jury convicted the Kealohas last year of conspiracy, along with two former officers who are scheduled to be sentenced Tuesday.

The case is especially shocking, Seabright said, because of the role a police chief of a “major American city,” played.

“Think about that, the chief of police of one of the largest police departments in the country … swears to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth,” and lies, the judge said of Louis Kealoha’s false testimony at the trial of his wife’s uncle for stealing the couple’s mailbox. The trial ended in a mistrial that prosecutors say the then-chief caused on purpose to thwart the investigation.

The Kealohas later pleaded guilty to bank fraud, saying they provided false information to obtain loans.

They went to great lengths to maintain a lifestyle they couldn’t afford on public servant salaries, the judge said.

Katherine Kealoha, 51, also pleaded guilty to an identity theft charge, saying she got an officer to forge a police report she used to explain negative information on a credit report.

She also pleaded guilty to a charge that involved protecting her brother from the drug investigation.

In a letter to the judge, she blamed a prescription drug addiction for clouding her judgment.

“My client was on drugs, her mind was not clear and she did a lot of bad things,” her lawyer, Gary Singh, said in court.

Kealoha apologized to her family in court and asked for forgiveness. “To my uncle, especially,” she said. “I know that he has been through so much pain and so much hurt.”

Kealoha’s aunt, Charlotte Puana Malott, read a letter she said her 100-year-old mother, Florence Puana, wrote before she died in February about her granddaughter’s “ruthless scheme.”

“I was 90 years old in 2009 when I agreed to a reverse mortgage on my home, not really understanding what it meant. It seemed complicated, yet I trusted you, Katherine,” the letter said.

FAME, WEALTH AND CONNECTIONS WORKED FOR MERYL STREEP'S SORRY ASS NEPHEW

Man allegedly pummeled by Meryl Streep’s nephew in road-rage beatdown speaks out

 

By Maureen Callahan

 

New York Post

November 30, 2020

 

On a bright Monday morning in August, 18-year-old David Peralta-Mera drove his cherry red Mustang, his girlfriend in the passenger seat, into a well-trafficked parking lot off Main Street in East Hampton.

Life was looking good: Peralta-Mera had two jobs, one in food prep at Dopo La Spiaggia and the other doing maintenance at the Sportime tennis club in Amagansett. He was a rising sophomore at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. The car was a recent splurge, paid for with his summer wages.

As for what happened next, Peralta-Mera doesn’t really recall. But according to police, the Suffolk County District Attorney, witness statements and surveillance video, 31-year-old Charles Harrison Streep — nephew of Meryl — drove past Peralta-Mera in his own drop-top Audi and exchanged words.

Within seconds, Streep, much taller and broader than Peralta-Mera, was out of his car and shoved Peralta-Mera.  The two grappled, but Streep quickly got the teen in a chokehold, neck squeezed under Streep’s right armpit. Streep hoisted Peralta-Mera’s limp body twice, like a rag doll, then threw him to the pavement.

That afternoon, the 18-year-old was airlifted to a hospital with a Level 1 trauma center, where he underwent emergency surgery, needing part of his skull removed to treat a brain bleed. He was left with a crescent of thick, blood-encrusted staples arcing up from his right ear.

Peralta-Mera’s prognosis, in the short and long term, is unclear. His civil attorney, Edmond Chakmakian, told The Post that the teen has medical bills climbing well over $130,000, but is unable to work, let alone drive his new car. He can’t attend college this fall. Chakmakian says Peralta-Mera is “probably not going to have much of a career.”

Three days after the attack, Streep was arrested at his family’s $5 million dollar Pondview Lane estate, charged with two felonies — second-degree assault and second-degree strangulation — and released on $5,000 bail.

According to an affidavit filed with the New York State Supreme Court, Streep twice attempted to dodge a process server sent by Chakmakian to his Prince Street residence in early September.

“I was told by the doorman of the building [on two separate dates] that no one by the name of Charles Harrison Streep lived there,” process server Frankie Roberson stated.

Charles Harrison Streep did indeed live there. He is represented in this civil suit by Randy Mastro, onetime lawyer to Rudy Giuliani and co-chair with Alec Baldwin of the Hamptons International Film Festival. Streep is required to make his first statement in the civil case Tuesday.

This defendant, it turns out, has something of a violent past.

Chakmakian’s own investigation has dug up a prior disorderly conduct charge against Streep from 2012, his guilty plea entered in a Pennsylvania court.

Care to guess how this is playing out?

The Suffolk County DA’s office recently lowered both charges against Streep to misdemeanors, bail exonerated. Peralta-Mera and his family struggle to understand why.

“I could have died,” Peralta-Mera told me recently.

We were sitting in the living room of the small, immaculate home where he lives with his mother and older brother, situated at the end of a hidden East Hampton road. The kitchen was tiny and utilitarian. Models of classic cars sat on the living room shelves, collected by his father, who works in construction.

Peralta-Mera’s mother takes care of other people’s children. She was about to send her younger son out into the world, but now it’s unclear how long he’ll need her help.

“I was in [the hospital] for a week,” Peralta-Mera said. He’s now very sensitive to bright light and has trouble watching TV. He can’t play video games or read or work out. He struggles to concentrate and sometimes loses his train of thought 10 seconds into a conversation

Peralta-Mera is athletic, but shorter and slighter than he photographs. His affect is flat and resigned, the huge scar on his skull a daily reminder of how close he came to dying.

“My head was swollen the first month and a half,” he says. Now, “I have to stay inside. Just a lot of doctor appointments and neurologist appointments.” Last week was another CAT scan and an MRI.

This case gets at two lightning rods no one in the Hamptons ever wants to touch: class and race. But the realities of life here, the vast chasm between the haves and have-nots, became unavoidable in the early days of the pandemic, with rich Manhattanites — some knowingly infected — fleeing to their second homes out East, stripping all the grocery stores bare, buying second freezers at the P.C. Richard & Son in Southampton to hoard their food, then bragging online about their plenty.

As spring gave way to summer and the COVID curve flattened, tensions eased. More full-time residents out here means more work for local maids, landscapers and caretakers — manual laborers who, like Peralta-Mera and his family, most often belong to East Hampton’s huge Ecuadorean population. These men and women are visible in the daylight hours pruning trees, cleaning houses or fixing rooftops. At night they fall into the shadows while the 1 percent comes out to play.

“The Hispanic subpopulation out here is made up of exceedingly hard-working people with deep religious roots,” Chakmakian said. “I have another client injured on the job, a well-known general contractor, dumped out in front of Southampton hospital unconscious. These people are treated as expendable.”

Streep’s demeanor since the attack has been one of arrogance and entitlement. A few weeks after his arrest, he was photographed shirtless and carefree on the fire escape of his luxury Prince Street apartment, then later that day playing basketball with friends, telling the press to “talk to my lawyer.”

Along with three dozen protesters, Peralta-Mera attended a rally outside East Hampton Justice Court on Oct. 8 during a virtual hearing. The accused, who works for a venture-capital firm, was a no-show. He was photographed strolling casually in Manhattan, coffee cup in hand. A GoFundMe called Help David, established by Kurt Wenzel of his “Dopo family,” has so far raised $29,990 of a $100,000 goal to help pay medical bills. On Oct. 25, supporters again gathered outside the courthouse in East Hampton, chanting, “David, friend, we are with you,” and “What do we want? Justice! When do we want it? Now!”

Yet Charles Streep looks like he’s getting a wrist-slap at best.

“In our view, the recent court proceedings simply confirm what we have said all along — that Mr. Streep was innocent of both of the serious violent felony offenses with which he was charged,” Streep’s lawyer, Andrew J. Weinstein, told The Post. “We are confident that Mr. Streep will be fully vindicated.”

As to why the charges were reduced, the Suffolk County DA’s office said in a statement, “This incident was captured on video, and the charges brought against the defendant are the appropriate charges under the law.”

That video is online for anyone to see. Watch it and ask: If the attacker had been Hispanic, the victim white, and the consequences as grievous, would these charges have been reduced?

For his part, Peralta-Mera says he’d “like to think [more of] the criminal justice system” than allowing fame, wealth and connections to influence his case. In fact, he dreams of returning to John Jay and pursuing his dream of working in law enforcement as a detective.

What happened to him, he says, “encourages me more. I feel I have to be out there and be of help

THIS MONTH THE WORLD HAS BEEN WATCHING TRUMP TURN INTO A DELUSIONAL LUNATIC

The President not only lost the election, but he has also lost his mind

 

By Howie Katz

 

Big Jolly Times

November 30, 2020

It is really sad to see a President who accomplished much good turn into a delusional lunatic.  Columnist Piers Morgan says "As someone who likes him personally and sees many qualities in him that his enemies refuse to admit exist, it's increasingly sad and pathetic to watch."

Ever since November 3, Trump has let loose a barrage of tweets in which he referred to conspiracy theories that claimed the election was stolen from him.

On Sunday, during an interview with Fox News' Maria Bartiromo, the President really went off the rails.  Trump accused the FBI and the Department of Justice of "maybe" being involved in a "total" voter fraud.  Trump also claimed that "most Democrats" believe Biden won because of "election fraud"

The FBI and DOJ helped rig the election in favor of Biden?  Most Democrats believe Biden won because of voter fraud?  That's simply batshit crazy. 

Trump now claims he actually won the election by a landslide.

Was there voter fraud in the election?  Of course there was.  There is voter fraud in every election.  But was the voter fraud so massive that it stole the election from Trump?  There simply is no evidence of that.

Some 30 lawsuits have been filed in state and federal courts seeking to have the election results overturned.  Almost all of them have been dismissed for lack of evidence.  In one suit, Justice David Wechtof the Pennsylvania Supreme Court wrote, "They have failed to allege that even a single mail-in ballot was fraudulently cast or counted."  And in another suit, Federal Appeals Court Judge Stephanos Bibas wrote, "Calling an election unfair does not make it so. Charges require specific allegations and then proof. We have neither here."

Christopher Krebs was director of DHS' Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency before Trump fired him for failing to back the President's stolen election claims.  Krebs says "We can go on and on with all the farcical claims that-- alleging-- interference in the 2020 election, but the proof is in the ballots. The recounts are consistent with the initial count, and to me, that's further evidence, that's confirmation that the systems used in the 2020 election performed as expected, and the American people should have 100% confidence in their vote." 

Trump and those who believe his conspiracy theories about election fraud, badly need a dose of reality.  On December 14 the electoral college will declare Biden the winner of the presidential election.  And on January 20 their worst nightmare, including mine, will come true with the inauguration of Biden as President and as Vice President the woman who is only a heartbeat away from the presidency.

And instead of Trump being recognized as the president who made America great again, historians will describe him as a man who became a lunatic during the last weeks of his presidency.   

COP SHOT IN MINNESOTA AMBUSH

by Bob Walsh

On Sunday morning the Albera Lea P D responded to a noise complaint which may or may not have had a weapons complaint associated with it at the Shady Oaks apartment complex.

According to the local constabulary when the cops drove up Devin Matthew Weiland, 21, opened up on them when they arrived.  One of the officers took one round in the chest.  I am guessing he was wearing a vest because his partner drove him to the hospital where he was treated and released.

In the mean time the local SWAT people showed up.  They ordered apartment residents to shelter in place while they got set up with tear gas.  

They took Weiland into custody successfully.  Two other people got shot somewhere along the line.  (The journalistic quality of the Rochester Post-Bulletin leaves much to be desired.)  Nobody died, the bad guy is in custody, so I guess that is a win.

I HOPE HE REALLY DOESN'T DO THIS

by Bob Walsh

The talking heads are saying the Donald Trump plans to announce for 2024 while Joe Biden is being inaugurated.  I hope it isn't true.  For one thing it would be really tacky.  For another I think that Trump is now past his "best if sold by" date, or at least will be in four years.  He would do better for the country and for himself to get behind somebody like Nikki Haley early and strong.  He won't (probably) but he should.  

Of course there is always the chance that Trump will pull if off this time around.  There is also a chance the sun will rise in the west tomorrow morning.  I expect the two probabilities are about the same.

 

EDITOR'S NOTE: Unlike some people who are fixated on voter fraud conspiracy theories, you are dishing out a dose of reality.

 

This month the world has been watching Trump turn into a delusional lunatic.

AND THE BLM SILENCE WAS ABSOLUTELY DEAFENING

by Bob Walsh

I wrote a couple of days ago of the death of two at the Arden Fair Mall in Sacramento.  The dead were brothers, Dewayne James Jr, 19, and Sa_Quan Reed-James, 17.  There was a vigil at the mall on Saturday, the day after the shooting, for people to "pay their respects" and for the family to ask for information.

Conspicuously absent was the Black Lives Matter crowd.  Due to excellent security camera coverage they know the shooting was not White and was not a cop. so I guess nobody but the family really gives a shit.

OUR FUTURE PRESIDENT ASKED FOR DONATIONS TO BAIL OUT JAILED LOOTERS AND ARSONISTS

Kamala Harris is slammed for pleading for people to help small businesses just months after she asked for donations to bail out jailed rioters who 'burned and looted' stores

 

Daily Mail

November 30, 2020

 

Vice President-elect Kamala Harris has come under fire after she tweeted her support for small businesses that had been affected by the coronavirus pandemic - months after asking for donations to bail out jailed rioters who burned stores. 

'Small businesses, especially Black and minority-owned businesses, urgently need relief to survive the effects of coronavirus this winter,' she tweeted on Saturday. 

'@JoeBiden and I are committed to helping these businesses during this pandemic and get them the support they need to thrive in years to come.' 

But the well-meaning tweet clashed with one from earlier this year, where she openly supported protesters instead of small businesses during social unrest in the wake of George Floyd's death at the hands of a police officer in Minnesota. 

On June 1st, she actively encouraged donations for to help support protesters bail payment, despite hundreds of businesses being harmed in the rioting that followed.

'If you're able to, chip in now to the @MNFreedomFund to help post bail for those protesting on the ground in Minnesota,' Harris tweeted.

This weekend's tweet angered people who saw Harris plead for help in June to bail out protesters. Many Twitters users pointed out the apparent double standards that Harris was employing. Some urged Harris to 'pick a side' in a collection of angry tweets. 

A DOZEN COVIDIOT TURKEYS

From diwmit Cardi and brazen Kim to zombie Rudy and delusional Donald - if there's one thing dumber than turkeys this Christmas, it's my 12 shameless, hypocritical, rule-breaking and downright bonkers celebrity Covidiots

 

By Piers Morgan

 

Daily Mail

November 30, 2020

 

Who'd be a turkey at this time of year?

The holiday season is supposed to be a time for peace and goodwill to all, but that memo never seems to extend to the poor wobbling gobbling red-necked birds who must dread it like condemned criminals on Death Row.

Americans have spent the past few days munching their way through an estimated 46 million turkeys and will guzzle another 22 million over Christmas.

To make matters worse, the very word 'turkey' has come to be synonymous with bad things. Actors, in their very rare moments of genuine humility, speak scathingly of making movies or plays so bad they're 'turkeys'.

The origin for this slur can be traced back to the late 19th century when the annual period between Thanksgiving and Christmas saw the largest number of new theater shows open.

This intense over-flooding of the market inevitably meant a lot of them flopped due to lack of quality, in the same way that many of the turkeys consumed didn't live up to expectations either.

Hence a dud play became known as a 'turkey'.

There's another reason why nobody wants to be called a turkey, and it's because they're spectacularly stupid. 

So dumb in fact that they will stand with their mouths agape, staring up at the sky as it rains, even if they do so for such a long time that they actually drown.

Scientists defend this bizarre self-harming trait by explaining that turkeys have an inherited genetic condition known as 'tetanic torticollar spasms' which causes them to act unnaturally, sometimes cocking their heads and starting at the sky for 30 seconds or more.

But frankly, this sounds like a desperate attempt to defend the indefensible to me. You only have to look at a turkey to know they're not the brightest bulbs in the animal chandelier.

There is, though, a breed of creature even dimmer than turkeys: the Covidiot.

As the coronavirus pandemic has wrought its lethal havoc all over the world, it's brought out the very best in people, and sadly, also the very worst.

In recent weeks, the volume of high profile 'Covidiots' has increased almost as fast as the number of covid cases in the United States - erupting like a hypocritical, brain-dead hydra to remind us that wealth and success are no substitute for selflessness and common sense.

These are stars and leaders who either don't think the rules are for them, just the little people, or who have gone stark raving bonkers.

So, to mark the impending arrival of the 12 Days of Christmas, here are my 12 celebrity Covidiots of the holiday season:

1. Cardi B – the 28-year-old rapper threw a massive Thanksgiving party at her house in total contravention of health expert advice about mass gatherings at home. '12 kids and 25 adults over the holidays!' she inexplicably tweeted, 'it was lit!' Of course, what was really 'lit' was the furious reaction from those who have been obeying the guidance, causing the unrepentant piece of work to mock (with a laughing emoji): 'People trying tooo hard to be offended. I wonder how they survive the real world.' Of course, if everyone acted as selfishly as cocky Cardi B did, the virus would ensure a lot fewer people survive the real world.

2. In London on Saturday night, another singer Rita Ora broke the law by hosting a lavish 30th birthday party in a restaurant for 30 friends including model Cara Delevinge in breach of UK Govt lockdown rules. Earlier this year, Ms Ora – whose mother is a health worker - launched a range of coronavirus themed merchandise including a 'Stop the Spread' T-shirt designed to encourage people to do their bit to suppress the virus. If only she could read her own logo!

3. Few people in this pandemic have been more censorious of covid rule-breaking than California Governor Gavin Newsom, who's introduced some of the most draconian lockdown regulations in the whole of US. Sadly, the selfish hypocrite is not one to follow his own orders and was caught enjoying a friend's slap-up $15,000 birthday dinner for a dozen guests at the acclaimed French Laundry in Napa Valley. They were packed in like sardines, none of them wearing masks – despite Newsom telling Californians to do the complete opposite. 'I made a bad mistake,' he said. 'I need to practice and preach.' You think, Mr Newsom??

4. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has had a brilliant crisis – just ask him! The ego-crazed politician has written a book telling us how great he's been and appeared on myriad talk shows to bask in his own reflected glory - all whilst presiding over one of the worst covid catastrophes in America. Then came Thanksgiving, and after telling New Yorkers to stay home, he let slip he'd be ignoring CDC advice to have his family including his mother and daughters over for a big party. He cancelled the plan when it sparked a furore about his hypocrisy but as befits Cuomo's self-anointed saintly status, he didn't admit doing anything wrong, or apologize.

5. Actor Jon Voight has spent the crisis delivering a series of increasingly ludicrous and delusional presidential style addresses to the American people from his home in which he's declared 'evil' Joe Biden's the new Satan, and President Trump's 'the only man who can save this nation.' He's now called for an uprising against the Left, ranting: 'I ask all to fight this battle now. My friends from all colors, races and religions, this is now our greatest fight since the civil war.' Jeez. It's way past Midnight, Cowboy – go to bed.

6. The only man who sounds more batshit crazy than Voight is Rudy Giuliani, once the most admired person man in the country as 'America's Mayor' after 9/11, but now a demented train-wreck conspiracy theorist whose public appearances have become notable not for the nonsense he's spouting but for the large quantities of hair dye dripping all over his face that make him resemble a real-life zombie.

7. Acclaimed TV medic 'Dr Mike' Mikhail Varshavski, dubbed the 'sexiest doctor alive' by People magazine, told Fox Business in July that wearing a mask is of 'utmost importance' for people's health and the economy. He said: 'So please, if you're going outside in public and going to be around other people, wear a mask. By wearing a mask, you are limiting the spread to the community.' Last week, video footage obtained by DailyMail.com of the same Dr Mike partying with a dozen scantily clad woman on a boat, none of whom, including him, were wearing masks. My diagnosis? Shameless hypocrite.

8. Kim Kardashian. A trifling global pandemic was never going to stop her and her cerebrally challenged imbecile sisters going about their normal selfish, narcissistic business. So, Kim spent $2 million on flying 30 of her family and friends to a private island where they thoughtfully posted endless pictures of themselves ignoring all social distancing and mask rules just to remind us how dim-witted they are. 'I feel humbled and blessed,' she gushed. 'I'm humbly reminded of how privileged my life is.' No luv, you just arrogantly reminded us of how vacuous and self-absorbed your life is.

9. Not to be left out, and ignoring all the fall-out from her big sister's obscene trip, Kendall Jenner threw an even bigger 25th birthday party for 100 people in West Hollywood, again with zero social distancing or mask-wearing. 'No social media' read the warning notices on arrival, but of course, it all got splashed across social media because the Kardashians are the true turkeys of reality TV – too dumb to realize when they're drowning themselves.

10. Senator Dianne Feinstein tweeted in July that 'wearing masks in public should be mandatory' but has since been repeatedly caught not wearing one in public – including inside an airport, and even in the hallway of the Capitol in front of TV cameras. She was even seen hugging Lindsey Graham, as neither wore a mask. Unsurprisingly, her conduct has been so breathtakingly brazen and hypocritical that she has now been forced to 'stand down' as top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee.

11. Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot instructed the city's people 'You must cancel the normal Thanksgiving plans' after a surge in covid cases. Yet the previous week, Lightfoot was seen whooping it up in the street, maskless, and shouting through a bullhorn (great for spittle expulsion to large numbers of people) during a Biden victory party. Did she think we wouldn't remember?

12. Donald Trump. Do I even need to say why? Not content with handling the pandemic so badly that America has by far the worst death toll in the world, if the outgoing President persists in his sad, pathetic and dangerous attempt to overturn the fair election result then 'Diaper Don' will go down as the biggest presidential turkey in history.

DA'S SECURITY OFFICER WAS A PISS POOR SHOOTER

Los Angeles County DA's security officer fires at carjacking suspects near her home

 

By Brie Stimson

 

Fox News

November 29, 2020

 

A Los Angeles police probe got underway Saturday night after an investigator with the L.A. County district attorney’s office -- who was working security for DA Jackie Lacey -- fired at suspects who allegedly tried to carjack the security team.

The suspects allegedly pulled up to the security officer's car and tried to break into it after the climbed out of the vehicle near Lacey's home in L.A.'s Granada Hills neighborhood, prompting the officer to fire at them, FOX 11 in Los Angeles reported. 

Neither suspect was hit, according to Los Angeles police, KCBS-TV of Los Angeles reported.

The suspects drove away and were still at large late Saturday, the station reported.

The car was one of two security vehicles parked outside Lacey's home, according to FOX 11. 

Lacey lost her bid for reelection earlier this month to district attorney-elect George Gascon amid scrutiny for not bringing charges against some police officers involved in on-duty shootings.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Angelenos will regret they elected former San Francisco's cop-hating DA. 

TEEN SHOTS SELF AND MOTHER OF SON BEING BURIED

Mother of slain Florida teen Sincere Pierce shot at his burial

 

By Jorge Fitz-Gibbon

 

New York Post

November 29, 2020

 

The mother of a Florida teenager who was shot and killed by a sheriff’s deputy this month was wounded at his burial service Saturday.

Quasheda Pierce, 39, was hit when a shot rang out at Riverview Memorial Gardens in Cocoa, where 18-year-old Sincere Pierce was being laid to rest just over two weeks after he and another teen were shot dead by a Brevard County sheriff’s deputy.

Police said the wounded woman and a 16-year-old boy were both struck when a gun the teen was carrying at the burial “experienced an accidental discharge” and struck both of them, WOFL-TV reported Sunday.

The bullet went through the armed teen’s leg and then through Quasheda Pierce’s leg, the outlet said.

The wounds were not considered life-threatening, authorities said.

Cops said the boy, who was not identified, was not cooperating with investigators.

The shooting sent dozens of mourners scrambling for their cars just as Sincere’s casket was being lowered into his grave, Florida Today said.

His mother was placed into a minivan and taken to a local hospital before police arrived.

Sincere and 16-year-old Angelo Crooms were both killed when two Brevard County sheriff’s deputies — Jafet Santiago-Miranda and Carson Hendren — attempted to question them during a traffic stop Nov. 13.

The deputies attempted to pull over the car the two teens were in when they began to drive away despite repeated commands from Santiago-Miranda to “stop the vehicle,” bodycam footage of the incident shows.

The deputy then fired multiple shots into the car, killing the teens.

Both of the deputies have since been placed on paid administrative leave.

IT'S DUMB TO BE DRIVING DRUNK WITH A BODY IN THE TRUNK

Houston police search home of woman found dead inside trunk of vehicle in Beaumont

 

By Tierra Smith and Briana Zamora-Nipper

 

Click2Houston

November 29, 2020

 

HOUSTON – The body of a Houston woman was found in the trunk of a car involved in a high-speed chase that ended in downtown Beaumont Saturday morning, according to a release from the Texas Department of Public Safety.

DPS officials identified the driver as Victor Charles Campbell, a 35-year-old man from Fresno.

Officials said the car chase began in Chambers County. Around 8 a.m., the department received a call regarding a reckless driver, who was driving a white car on Interstate 10 in Beaumont. A DPS Trooper saw a white Honda car speeding down I-10 and attempted to pull it over near FM 365.

Campbell pulled to the right as if to stop, but immediately sped off, officials said.

As the driver approached Milam Street in Beaumont, he struck a concrete barrier and lost control of the vehicle, which came to a rest near mile marker 855, according to officials.

After the collision, Troopers secured the crash scene and removed Campbell from the vehicle. DPS investigators searched the Honda, which is standard procedure after a car crash. Troopers found the body of a woman in the trunk, according to the release.

The woman was later identified as 28-year-old Briana Teirra Johnson of Houston.

An autopsy was ordered and her death is now being investigated by the Texas Department of Public Safety and the Texas Ranger Division in cooperation with the Houston Police Department’s Homicide Division, the Beaumont Police Department, and the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office.

Sunday morning, Houston police were searching a Houston home located in the 4100 block of Maggie St. Police said evidence found inside the car in Beaumont led them to the residence.

“We found items on scene that could link the persons involved back to this address,” HPD Detective Cory Arrington said.

Campbell was transported to the Jefferson County jail following his release from the hospital, where he was initially taken for treatment after the crash. He faces charges for felony evading arrest, driving while intoxicated, tampering with evidence, and abuse of a corpse, investigators said in a release. Additional felony charges are pending as this investigation continues.

SWINGING A GOLF CLUP THE CORRECT WAY

Man who attacked ex-girlfriend fatally stabbed, beaten by her mom and sister

 

By Tamar Lapin

 

New York Post

November 29, 2020

 

A man who broke into his ex-girlfriend’s California home and attacked her was killed by the woman’s mother and sister — who used golf clubs and a kitchen knife to defend her, police said.

The man, identified as 40-year-old Justin Goss, hurled a large concrete paver through the front window of the South Pasadena home on Saturday and stepped inside, The Los Angeles Times reported.

He then began choking and punching his ex in the face, according to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.

That’s when the 37-year-old woman’s mom and adult sister jumped into action, stabbing Goss with the knife and beating him with the golf clubs.

“They tried to pull him off, and it didn’t work; he was too strong. So they had to resort to using weapons,” Lt. Barry Hall told the Times.

South Pasadena police officers found the home’s front window shattered and heard the woman’s screams coming from inside when they responded to a domestic violence call shortly before 10 a.m., authorities said.

Goss was pronounced dead at the scene.

The victim was taken to a hospital to be treated for injuries to her face and released.

Her mom and sister won’t be facing charges as “they were well within their right to act in defense of their sister and daughter,” Hall said.

OBAMA'S APPEASEMENT POLICIES EMPOWERED THOSE BENT UPON EVIL

The prospective return of global appeasement

 

By Melanie Phillips  

 

JNS

November 30, 2020

 

An all-too-familiar voice in foreign-policy circles has yet again been heard seeking to influence a potential US president.

Henry Kissinger, the former US Secretary of State whose advice has been sought by successive American presidents for more than six decades, has now recommended that if Joe Biden becomes the 46th president, he should end President Donald Trump's bullish approach to China and make nice with it instead.

Kissinger is the apostle of the strategy of realpolitik, otherwise known as "realism" or achieving a "balance of power." Its aim is not to see right triumph over wrong but, as he has put it, "to establish commodious relations where that is possible, and stalemates where that is not."

The foreign policy and national security administration that Biden is assembling around himself chimes with Kissinger's advice – and not just because of Biden's already questionably close relationship with the Chinese communist regime.

It's because Kissinger's "realpolitik" is actually a strategy of appeasement. And Biden's team amounts to a resurrection of the liberal universalist establishment, one of whose foundational beliefs is that western power is illegitimate and should not be exercised.

Starting from the premise that the Western nation-state is intrinsically bad, liberal universalists privilege trans-national institutions such as the United Nations despite its institutionalized hostility to the West.

Taking refuge in the fantasy politics of "conflict resolution" and "peace processes," they believe that all conflict can be ended by the application of reason and that war must be replaced by law. In a knockdown fight between good and evil, liberal universalists split the difference and call that justice.

This doctrine forms the unchallengeable orthodoxy of the foreign-policy establishment, which has been eclipsed over the past four years by the orthodoxy-busting deal-maker in the White House who believes in the heresy of putting his country first.

Trump believes that to avoid war, the United States needs to display maximum strength. Liberal universalists hold instead that to avoid war, you befriend those who threaten you. The outcome of that profound delusion is that tyranny is incentivized and war becomes much more likely.

Under former President Barack Obama's 2015 nuclear deal with Iran, which at best would delay its ability to build nuclear weapons by only a few years, billions of dollars poured into Tehran while the regime steadily increased its power across the region and continued to ramp up its terrorist activities.

Only when Trump took America out of the deal and reimposed sanctions did the regime start to totter and hopes began to grow that it might implode without the need for war.

Under successive American presidents, whether or not they were well-disposed towards Israel, Palestinian appeasement took the form of an endless peace process.

In order to keep the Palestinians in this process, the United States, United Kingdom and European Union refused to bring up anything that would cause them to walk out.

This meant ignoring their incitement to violence, their incendiary anti-Semitism and their declared aim of using a Palestinian state as means of destroying Israel in stages. The result of this surrender to blackmail was not peace, but endless Palestinian attacks against Israel through terrorism, murder and war.

When Trump ended this lethal appeasement strategy and instead moved the US embassy to Jerusalem as a defiant statement of the Jews' right to the land, the foreign-policy establishment confidently asserted that this would cause the region to go up in flames.

Not only did this not happen, with no one other than the Palestinians and their acolytes turning a hair, but the Gulf states started to normalize relations with Israel. This ended the Palestinian veto on peace and advanced the prospect of an end to the Arab war against Israel more than at any time since the 1920s.

But now these gains may be put into reverse. Biden's nominee for Secretary of State is Antony Blinken, the Jewish stepson of a UN lawyer and the ultimate foreign-policy establishment insider.

Blinken served as President Bill Clinton's chief foreign-policy speechwriter, a national security adviser to Biden and deputy to Secretary of State John Kerry. He is said to be a centrist who won't make aid to Israel conditional on its policy choices, will keep the US embassy in Jerusalem and will support Israel at the United Nations.

But the label "centrist" means he is a liberal universalist, and thus committed to policies that ultimately rest upon the appeasement of evil people.

He was closely involved in creating the Iran nuclear deal and has claimed that America's withdrawal from that agreement in May 2018 placed Israel in more peril from Iran rather than less. That is emphatically not the view of Israel's government, which views Trump's resumption of sanctions as key to weakening the Iranian regime and hastening its collapse.

Asked in August what Biden would do if he was elected president, Blinken said he would "seek to build on the nuclear deal and to make it longer and stronger if Iran returns to strict compliance."

That, he claimed, would put the United States in a much better position to push back against Iran's other destabilizing activities "because we would once again be united with our partners instead of isolated from them."

But that would mean being united with partners such as Britain and the European Union, who are desperate to resume lucrative deals with Iran that would fund the regime's war against Israel and America.

Once again, the West's billions would pour into Iran, boosting the regime's power grab against all pro-Western regimes and enabling it to expand its terror networks in the Middle East and around the world. It would also abandon the Iranians suffering so grievously under the regime's violations of human rights, ostensibly the liberal internationalists' signature cause.

This week, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo criticized Biden's prospective team for living in a "fantasy world." He said, "They led from behind, they appeased. I hope they will choose a different course."

Biden's choice as ambassador to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, who was an assistant Secretary of State under Obama, declared this week that multilateralism and diplomacy were back.

In response, Pompeo snapped that the Trump administration had developed "coalitions that actually deliver real results and reflect the reality on the ground," and that America's best interests were not served by "multilateralism for the sake of hanging out with your buddies at a cool cocktail party."

Opponents of appeasement are often called warmongers. Winston Churchill, who during the 1930s fruitlessly warned that Hitler's aggression needed to be curbed, was dismissed as such until his country realized almost too late that Hitler had Britain in his sights, as well as half of Europe.

The fact that Biden's team consists of so many Obama-era retreads is causing concern among those Americans who understand the harm Obama inflicted upon their nation's foundational principles.

They are alarmed about the likely internal damage to the rule of law by Biden's almost certain refusal to hold to account those who appear to have acted illegally in conspiring to lever Trump out of office through the bogus "Russia collusion" claim. And they are no less concerned that Biden would essentially continue Obama's strategy to reduce America's standing in the world and thus weaken both the United States and the West that it leads.

It was a strategy that, under Obama, empowered those bent upon evil. Rational people everywhere, in the developing world no less than the West, should shudder at its prospective return in America.

WILL IRAN GET ITS PROXIES TO TAKE REVENGE?

What’s Behind the Assassination of Iran’s Top Nuclear Scientist

 

By Yochanan Visser

 

Israel Today

November 20, 2020

 

The father of the Iranian nuclear program, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, is dead.

He was assassinated last Friday en route to his vacation home in Absard, a mountain resort city 50 miles east of Tehran.

Media described Fakhrizadeh as an Iranian ‘nuclear scientist.’ But he was much more than that.

Fakhrizadeh was a Brigadier General in the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) and Iran’s Deputy Minister of Defense, in addition to being head of the country’s illicit nuclear program.

The IRGC general lead Iran’s secret AMAD nuclear program since its inception in 1989, and according to Israeli intelligence the program continues to this very day despite the International Atomic Energy Agency’s claim that Iran halted AMAD in 2003, when the US army invaded Iraq in the wake of the 9/11 attacks.

“Remember that name,” Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu said about Fakhrizadeh in January of 2018, when he revealed that the Israeli spy agency Mossad had stolen 100,000 documents and discs documenting Iran’s secret nuclear weapon program from a warehouse in a suburb of Tehran.

The evidence procured in that raid, insisted Netanyahu, proved that Iran had secretly continued the AMAD program.

Netanyahu revealed that one of the stolen documents contained a note from Fakhrizadeh in which the Iranian acknowledged that the “general aim is to announce the closure of Project Amad,” but “special activities will be carried out under the title of scientific know-how development.”

“This is how Dr. Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, head of Project Amad, put it. Remember that name, Fakhrizadeh,” Netanyahu said, pointing to a slide showing Fakhrizadeh’s comments.

“And in fact, this is exactly what Iran proceeded to do. It continued this work in a series of organizations over the years,” Netanyahu claimed.

He then continued by saying that Iran’s ongoing nuclear research was from 2003 conducted by the Organization of Defensive Innovation and Research in the Islamic Republic, also known as SPND.

“You will not be surprised to hear that SPND is led by the same person who led Project Amad: Dr. Fakhrizadeh,” Netanyahu said, adding that “not coincidentally, many of SPND’s key personnel worked under Fakhrizadeh on Project Amad. So this atomic archive clearly shows the Iran plan at the highest levels to continue work related to nuclear weapons under different guises and using the same personnel.”

Iran’s Oppenheimer

The New York Times in 2014 compared Fakhrizadeh, a professor of physics at the IRGC’s Imam Hussein University in Tehran, to Robert Oppenheimer, who developed the first American nuclear bomb.

In 2015, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) finally admitted in a report called “final assessment” that Fakhrizadeh was overseeing Iranian activities “in support of a possible military dimension to Iran’s nuclear program.”

A brazen operation

There are conflicting reports on how exactly Fakhrizadeh was assassinated last Friday.

The English paper Daily Mail, citing Iranian journalist Mohammad Ahwaze, reported that a team consisting of 12 people had carried out the assassination of the Iranian scientist.

The team had reportedly cut off the electricity in the area of a boulevard at the entrance of Absard and had placed a booby-trapped Nissan van at the scene of the ambush, while a team of four motorcycles, two snipers, and a Hyundai van with four assassins was waiting for Fakhrizadeh’s convoy, which consisted of three bulletproof cars.

When the convoy arrived, the unknown assassins detonated the booby-trapped Nissan, Iran’s state-controlled television reported. The bomb hurled debris 300 meters, according to the report.

After that, snipers opened fire on Fakhrizadeh and his bodyguards and according to the Iranians, an intense gunfight ensued.

This makes no sense, however, since it is by now known that none of the assassins were hit and every member of the team escaped unharmed.

Another Iranian state-controlled media outlet, Fars News, reported that Fakhrizadeh and his bodyguards were gunned down by a remote-controlled machine gun.

Fars News, which is known for it’s untrustworthy reporting when it comes to events in Israel, as I learned first-hand from one of their reporters in the Druze town of Magdal Shams on the Golan Heights, furthermore claimed that the remote-controlled machine gun was placed on the Nissan van and that it was detonated remotely after the assassination.

The owner of the van had recently left Iran, according to the Iranian media outlet.

Until now, the only thing we know for sure is that the operation that killed Iran’s nuclear program head was very well planned and that it was a very sophisticated assassination.

High-value targets

After the Mossad killed four of Iran’s top nuclear scientists about 10 years ago, the IRGC started to give Iranian nuclear scientists maximal protection by posting cars full of security agents around their homes, and these security agents accompany the scientists wherever they did go.

Israel on high alert

Iran knows that Israel was behind the assassination of its nuclear program head and has vowed to take revenge.

“Once again the evil hands of global arrogance were stained with the blood of the mercenary usurper Zionist regime,” said Iran’s so-called “moderate” President Hassan Rouhani.

“Iran will surely respond to the martyrdom of our scientist at the proper time,” Rouhani added.

Iranian leaders, however, issued similar threats after the US military assassinated Qassem Soleimani, the shrewd commander of the IRGC’s Quds Force on January 3 of this year.

The promised devastating reaction remained limited to a missile attack on a US army base in Iraq. Iranian leaders have since insisted that Soleimani’s death has yet to be avenged.

The reason that this not has happened – and the same is true for Iran’s reaction to Israel’s repeated strikes on Quds Force assets in Syria – is that Iran knows it can’t afford, or survive, an all-out war with the US or Israel.

The anticipated response to the targeted killing of Fakhrizadeh could therefore be Iran activating Hezbollah or one its other proxies that are part of the so-called “resistance axis” against Israel.

For this reason, Israel has already raised security at its embassies across the globe, while it has asked Jewish communities in the Diaspora to be more vigilant.