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Southeast Asia
In 1968, A Secret U.S. Military Base Was Overrun By Elite North Vietnamese Commandos
2023-10-03
By Sebastien Roblin
[CherriesWriter] Decades ago on March 12, 1968, a top-secret U.S. base on a mountaintop in Laos was overrun by an elite force of North Vietnamese commandos. Only six of the eighteen CIA and Air Force personnel manning the remote outpost escaped with their lives in an incident that would remain veiled in secrecy for three decades.

This was because the U.S. military was legally prohibited from operating in Laos. The southeast Asian nation had been wracked by a civil war pitting right-wing royalists against Pathet Lao communists—the latter backed by North Vietnam, which used Laotian territory to clandestinely funnel troops into South Vietnam via the Ho Chi Minh trail. However, in 1962 Washington, Hanoi and Laotian factions all signed a peace treaty in which the foreign powers agreed to withdraw their forces from the country.

However, North Vietnam only withdrew a minority of its forces, and the United States continued transferring extensive military aid to the royalist and instead began a secret but large-scale aerial bombing campaign in the kingdom known as Operation Barrel Roll. Though warplanes based in Vietnam and Thailand flew missions into Laos, CIA-run mercenary contractors and ‘airlines’ such as Air America flew transport and observation aircraft from Laotian bases.

CIA personnel also recruited local Hmong, an ethnic minority present in several Southeast Asian states, to fight a guerilla war against the Pathet Lao. It was with this purpose in mind that CIA personnel first established a base atop the steep cliff of Phou Pha Thi mountain, a sacred place in the Hmong’s animist faith which happened to be strategically located near the border with North Vietnam.

This base was one of many ‘Lima Sites’ in Laos intended to facilitate the aerial supply of U.S.-allied forces. The main facility was at the peak of the 5,600-foot high mountain surrounded by steep cliffs; you can see the base’s layout in this photo. A path wound downslope to a short 700-meter-long airstrip at the base of the mountain was used for resupply and staff rotations, delivered in covert weekly flights by CH-3 helicopters of the 20th U.S. Air Force helicopter squadron.

Read the rest at the link
Link


-Land of the Free
Soros takeover: Outrage as Miami's anti-communism Radio Mambi could be controlled by Obama, Clinton staffers
2022-07-06
From June 14th.
[FoxNews] Miami’s iconic, Spanish-language conservative talk radio station Radio Mambi could soon be controlled by political strategists who worked for President Obama and Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. The pending sale to a George Soros-linked group has caused outrage inside the station, throughout Miami’s Cuban-American community and among conservative media watchdogs.

Radio Mambi, which is historically linked to the Cuban exile community and offers an anti-communism view, would be controlled by a group of liberals partially funded by Soros, a far-left billionaire, if the $60 million deal is approved by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

Media Research Center director of MRC Latino Jorge Bonilla blasted the move as a power grab by the left.

"This is about power, this is about control. This is not about free speech. This is not about this misinformation. This is about controlling the flow of information to a specific community for political purposes, and that is what makes this deal, I think, so controversial," Bonilla told Fox News Digital.

Bonilla believes the looming takeover has a specific, strategic purpose as influential liberals are set to control Miami's "mainstay of the right" in addition to Spanish-language stations in other major markets, including New York, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Las Vegas, Los Angeles and San Antonio.

The formation of the Latino Media Network, a new network set to be made up of 18 Hispanic radio stations including Radio Mambi, was partially financed by Lakestar Finance, an investment group affiliated with Soros Fund Management. The stations, currently owned by Univision, would be controlled by Jess Morales Rocketto, a former Hillary for America and AFL-CIO employee, and Stephanie Valencia, a former Obama White House staffer, if the venture receives FCC approval.

Bonilla believes it’s an "unprecedented" situation, and he had a hard time coming up with a comparison until conservative radio legend Rush Limbaugh came to mind.

"I guess the closest equivalent would be to imagine Rush Limbaugh's affiliate in New York City. His flagship in New York City at the height of when he first came out and made a ruckus in the '90s," Bonilla said. "Imagine a Clintonite group coming in and buying that station out and basically setting up [former left-wing radio network] Air America in its place and knocking Rush Limbaugh off the air."

Bonilla learned of an all-hands meeting last Thursday in which Valencia traveled to Miami to help ease tensions inside the station. Fox News Digital has confirmed the meeting took place, and that Valencia was accompanied by Cuban-born, anti-Trump conservative Al Cardenas in an attempt to calm panicked staffers. Cardenas is married to liberal CNN political commentator Ana Navarro, who remains a Republican but worked in Florida to elect Joe Biden in 2020 and openly supports Democrats.

During the meeting, the former Obama aide claimed "nothing will change" at Radio Mambi, but employees don’t buy it.

"Nobody believes her," a Radio Mambi insider who attended the meeting told Fox News Digital. "Honestly, they really believe we are stupid."

Bonilla feels that liberals controlling Radio Mambi would be a significant factor in the 2024 presidential election, as the Hispanic community doesn’t have many well-established conservative media options. Florida's shift to the right in the past two presidential elections has mirrored an increase in Latino support for Republicans – former President Trump comfortably carried Florida in 2020 over Biden, in part by making major gains in Miami-Dade County with increased support from Cuban-Americans.

"So Miami, because of its ecosystem, where it's a city populated on the Hispanic side, mostly by victims of communism and their descendants, that makes Miami and that Miami market very unique in the nation," Bonilla said. "I think that this is an effort to sort of consolidate control of the message Hispanics receive."

The Soros-backed group would take control of the station in 2023 if the FCC approves the deal.
Related:
Latino Media Network: 2022-06-10 Report: Talk Radio Employees Revolt over George Soros-Backed Leftists Buying Spanish Stations
Related:
Al Cardenas: 2014-03-09 CPAC Ends without Unity
Related:
Ana Navarro: 2022-02-14 U.S. Stops All Mexican Avocado Imports Over Cartel Threats
Ana Navarro: 2021-10-06 VIDEO Emerges of Fauci and HHS Officials Plotting for ‘A New Avian Flu Virus' to Enforce Universal Flu Vaccination
Ana Navarro: 2021-06-18 New Jersey lawmaker is caught wearing boxer shorts with his belly exposed during Zoom meeting with US Congress colleagues
Link


Caribbean-Latin America
Exclusive: US objections could kill $209 million Honduras deal
2016-12-15
A massive security agreement Israel recently signed with Honduras could run into major hurdles in Washington, The Jerusalem Post has learned.

...The Honduran Air Force is a key component in the government’s battle against drug traffickers in the country. Gangs, organized crime and drugs have long plagued the Central American nation, and for many years it held the dubious title of "murder capital of the world."

Hernandez has said the deal with Israel will give the Honduran government capabilities it has never had before to "protect its territory, sovereignty and people."

According to IHS Jane’s Defense Weekly, the contracts with Israel ‐ valued at $209 million ‐ include the refurbishment of the Honduran Air Force’s entire helicopter fleet, as well as many of its fixedwing aircraft. These include US-made F-5 and A-37 jets and Bell UH-1 Hughes 500 "Huey" helicopters.

And that is what may become an issue for Washington, and what ‐ according to one diplomatic source ‐ "throws a wrench into what otherwise sounds like a simple deal."

The US stopped most of its assistance to the Honduran Air Force in 2014, after one of Hernandez’s first acts as president was to get the "Law of Aerial Exclusion" passed.

This law authorizes the air force to shoot down suspected drug planes flying through Honduran airspace, something the US considers a violation of the Chicago Convention on International Civil Aviation.
Air America to the white courtesy phone?
Link


Home Front: Politix
Media Matters Founder David Brock Vows to Create a ‘Breitbart of the Left’
2016-12-08
[MEDIAITE] Clinton ally and liberal Super PAC operator David Brock told news hounds Tuesday that he plans to create a new outlet designed to serve as a counterpoint to alt-right website Breitbart.
What're Huffington Pus and Vox?
A "Breitbart of the Left" -- isn't that like Van Jones forming the "Coffee Party" back in 2009?
Air America 2.0: yet another path by which Mr. Soros donates substantial sums to the national economy without achieving his desired result, while destroying the resumes of all who participate in the endeavour. I think it's a marvelous idea.
Brock purchased liberal website BlueNationReview in 2015, rebranding it in 2016 as "ShareBlue." ShareBlue, he said Tuesday, would be the "Breitbart of the left..." so long as the financial contributions kept pouring.

Brock also confirmed earlier reports that he plan to shift the focus of Media Matters for America away from Fox News and more towards attacking the alt-right
Oooohh yes, do that!
and fake news. "A lot of garbage came spewing out of Facebook, and these companies need to adopt new standards and clean their own house," he told news hounds. "We’ll be involved in a campaign to push them to do that."
Link


-Land of the Free
North Dakota pipeline: US journalist Amy Goodman faces riot charge
2016-10-17
[BBC] US journalist Amy Goodman
...the far left Air America reporter and and a former member of the Friends of Cindy Sheehan club...
is facing charges of participating in a "riot" after filming Native American-led protests over an oil pipeline in North Dakota.

The Democracy Now! reporter said she would surrender to authorities on Monday in response to the charge.

District Judge John Grinsteiner will decide whether there is sufficient evidence to support the riot charge.

Ms Goodman filmed the crackdown on protesters by authorities last month.

"I wasn't trespassing, I wasn't engaging in a riot, I was doing my job as a journalist by covering a violent attack on Native American protesters," Ms Goodman said.
Link


Home Front: Politix
Ed Schultz's Super PAC to Shut Down After Only $25 in Donations
2016-02-19
[FREEBEACON] Former MSNBC host Ed Schultz
...currently hosting some kind of show on MSNBC that nobody watches, formerly touted as a Limbaugh killer for Air America...
's former super PAC has been forced to close after receiving a total of $25 in donations.

The Daily Caller's Evan Gahr first reported this story.

Schultz formed his super PAC, Americans for a Strong Middle Class, in October 2015. His super PAC has since taken out a $100 loan. Its FEC disclosure filing with an ending period of December 31 shows that they also have more than $15,000 in debt. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., the PAC has never made a purchase on an ad or any other political work.

The left-wing pundit released a video on YouTube earlier in February announcing his departure from the group, owing his leaving to not having enough time to devote to it. Schultz envisioned the organization as being a rival to Karl Rove and his super PAC American Crossroads.

There is only one other individual who is listed on their website as being a part of the PAC, Ron Hartenbaum, its treasurer. Hartenbaum is a founding partner of MediaAmerica and was a CEO for Jones Radio Networks.

Schultz is now the host of News with Ed Schultz on RT America, a cable news network funded by the Russian government. RT networks have been widely criticized as being a propaganda machine for the Russian government and President Vladimir Putin
...Second and fourth President and sixth of the Russian Federation and the first to remain sober. Putin is credited with bringing political stability and re-establishing something like the rule of law, which occasionally results in somebody dropping dead from polonium poisoning. Under Putin, a new group of business magnates controlling significant swathes of Russia's economy has emerged, all of whom have close personal ties to Putin. The old bunch, without close personal ties to Putin, are in jail or in exile or dead...
. In 2014, Secretary of State John F. I was in Vietnam, you know Kerry
Former Senator-for-Life from Massachussetts, self-defined war hero, speaker of French, owner of a lucky hat, conqueror of Cambodia, and current Secretary of State...
 called RT a "Propaganda Bullhorn."
Link


Home Front: Politix
Say No To Stolen Elections
2014-11-02
[JUDICIALWATCH.ORG] European leftists prefer American presidents who are critics of capitalism and fans of redistribution. The same is typically true of other foreigners, according to various surveys that show a Democrat candidate could win in presidential contests where foreigners had a voice at the ballot box. Polls like that are hypothetical, of course, because it is illegal for foreign nationals to vote in federal elections. But a new academic study shows foreign nationals have been in a position to help Democrats steal elections. In fact, the study demonstrates that is likely that President Obama won the presidency thanks to non-citizens illegally voting for him in 2008. On top of that stunning conclusion, the study also concludes that "non-citizen votes likely gave Senate Democrats the pivotal 60th vote needed to overcome filibusters in order to pass health care reform and other Obama administration priorities in the 111th Congress."
That 60th vote being Al Franken, late of Air America.
If this study's results are accurate, the implications are startling: Obama is president as the result of election fraud.
You heard it here first, two years ago. I said it several time before that about other elections.
We have Obamacare because of election fraud. We have Dodd-Frank because of election fraud. We have Solyndra because of election fraud.
Link


Home Front: Politix
Dem Rep. Keith Ellison: Samuel Alito Shouldn't Be Called 'Justice'
2014-07-01
[MEDIAITE] Appearing on MSNBC this afternoon, Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN) tore into the Supreme Court's Monday decisions, with his particularly harsh words saved for the majority opinion's author: Justice Samuel Alito.

Speaking with Ed Schultz
...currently hosting some kind of show on MSNBC that nobody watches, formerly touted as a Limbaugh killer for Air America...
 about the court's two Monday decisions — a 5-4 ruling in favor of "closely held" corporations like Hobby Lobby not being required by law to extend contraceptive coverage in its employee health care plans; and their 5-4 Harris v. Quinn ruling that Illinois-based home health care workers cannot be compelled to financially support a union — Ellison suggested that SCOTUS has been nothing but anti-worker as of late.

"Whether it's Citizens United, or Hobby Lobby, which also came down, or Harris v. Quinn, this Supreme Court is extremely busy and doesn't have much regard for precedent at all," Ellison said.

"In fact, in this case today, Harris v. Quinn, Alito — Justice Alito, I try to call him Justice Alito, but Mister Alito," he sneered, "actually took a swing at [Abood v. bankrupt, increasingly impoverished, reliably Democrat, Detroit
... ruled by Democrats since 1962. A city whose Golden Age included the Purple Gang...
 Board of Education, 1977], which is a case of many, many years of precedent, but spoke disparagingly about the case. But thank goodness it's still the law."
Link


Home Front: Culture Wars
Ed Schultz Ends Radio Show, Moves to Web-Based Broadcast
2014-05-24
[MEDIAITE] MSNBC host Ed Schultz
...currently hosting some kind of show on MSNBC that nobody watches, formerly touted as a Limbaugh killer for Air America...
 announced Wednesday that he will no longer be hosting his long-running syndicated radio show and will instead host an online-only broadcast hosted on his website, wegoted.com.

The move from radio to online means that instead of hosting a three-hour radio show each day, in addition to his daily TV show on MSNBC, Schultz will only produce one additional audio hour on a daily basis. The host said the change would go into effect next Tuesday after Memorial Day and that the new one-hour show will stream for free on his website, Monday through Friday from noon -- 1 p.m. ET.

"Really this change will give me more flexibility to be on the road to do the kind of shows I want to do here for The Ed Show on MSNBC," Schultz told his audience, putting a positive spin on the change. "This is on me, you know. I just don't want to do a three-hour talk show anymore."
Link


Home Front: Politix
Schultz says 'break' is a 'southern racist term'
2011-10-15
[Washington Exminer] Ed Schultz,
...currently hosting some kind of show on MSNBC that nobody watches, formerly touted as a Limbaugh killer for Air America...
 host of MSNBC's the Ed Show,
Seriously, that's the name? How very... clever.
believes that Republican presidential contender Herman Cain
...the personable former Godfather's Pizza CEO and quite possibly the next president of the U.S...
 is pandering to "white Republicans out there who don't like black folks"
This is where I get confused. I don't spend a lot of time thinking about it, despite my white Republicanism, but when I do think about it I discover that Herman's got an abundance of melanin. Shouldn't that make me not like him, whether he panders or not?
and accused Sen. Jim DeMint,
...junior U.S. Senator from South Carolina, distinguished by not being Lindsey Graham. He is a member of the Republican Party and a well-regarded leader in the Tea Party movement...
 R-S.C., of using racist langauge in his opposition to Obamacare.
Oh, noze! Not racist language!
On his show last night,
... the one that nobody watches. We're lucky somebody caught this...
Schultz said that Demint, whom Cain has mentioned as a potential running mate, repeated an "old southern racist term when talking about defeating President B.O. during the health care debate." Schultz's example? He quoted Demint saying that "If we are able to stop Obama on this [health care law], it will be his Waterloo. It will break him." For clarity, Schultz repeated the offending line, "It will break him."
It will leave him without any money? That's it? That's the best he can come up with?
Dr. James Peterson, director of Africana studies at Lehigh University, explained that "break" is a racist verb, "a term that was used to destroy, mentally and physically, slaves."
Suddenly I can understand why Limbaugh still lives.
Accordingly, the Demint line demonstrated "how dark some of these racial discourses can be in presidential politics."
Omigawd! He said dark! Now I gotta wash my mind out with soap!
Peterson said that Cain, by naming Demint as a possible VP pick, "gives those folks a pass" on racism.
"You may not think it's racism, since it's too fine to be discerned with the nekkid eye, but it's there, and it's obvious to us trained observers!"
Peterson's claim echoed and extended Schultz's conclusion the previous evening that Cain, a black Republican, is appealing to white racists in order to win the Republican primary. "You think about white Republicans who don't like black folks," Schultz explained. "It's almost as if this guy is trying to warm up to them and tell them what they want to hear."
As far as I can tell he hasn't mentioned anything about black or white except to point out the obvious: if you don't study and apply yourself you'll fail, regardless of what color you are.
Schultz cited Cain's belief that education gaps, rather than racism, accounts for the poverty and unemployment among black Americans.
I just said that. Wasn't that me? How come it's obvious when we say it about hillbilly Americans but it's racist when it's said about black Americans?
Then, Schultz asked his guest if Cain "is doing a disservice to his race" by denying that "racism in this country today holds anybody back in a big way."
Or is he being "a credit to his race"? No. Wait. That's racist. I can remember now. But I'm not sure why "doing a disservice to his race" isn't racist. But maybe I'm too insensitive. I get offended by the minstrel show-accented hawker for Popeye's fried chicken. Or would that make me too sensitive? I'm so confused...
Georgetown professor Michael Eric Dyson agreed with Schultz's suggestion and accused Cain of denying racism for the sake of his "great machinery of self-promotion."
But if Herman admits that racism exists and has existed, which he does, then how's he denying its existence? My forehead just popped and now I've got frontal lobe all over my computer screen.
Dyson said that Cain should especially recognize "post-intentional racism" - racism that people don't intend to have or to act upon.
"Post-intentional racism"? You mean racism that exists even after you intend to rid yourself of racism? I really miss that frontal lobe. As Curley once said, "I'm tryin' to think, but nothin's happenin'!"
Link


Home Front: Politix
Al Gore: We Need an American 'Arab Spring'
2011-08-04
Ever since CNBC's Rick Santelli inspired the Tea Party movement's creation in early 2009, the left has been looking for a similar spark on their own side. The earliest liberal alternative, the so-called Coffee Party, was a flop. But former Vice President
... and crazed sex poodle...
Al Gore insists such a movement still needs to be invented.
Heh. Remember when Ed Schultz was gonna be the Limbaugh Killer? And Air America was gonna counterweight talk radio?
On Tuesday's "Countdown with Keith Olbermann," Gore made an appearance on his own network, Current TV, for the second night in a row.
"Heeeeeere's Big Al!"
This time it was to respond to the debt ceiling legislation agreed upon by Congress and signed into law by President Barack Obama.
"Manbearpig exists! I've seen him!"
Gore said the new law demands the "reinvigoration of democracy" or an "American spring," to get the country back on what he thinks is the right course. (Al Gore: 'Our system of government, itself, is in real trouble')
The "right" course, naturally, isn't the Tea Party course...
"[I] want to focus on one particular suggestion you had about using the wonderful digital tools that are newly available for the reinvigoration of democracy," Gore said.
"I invented them, you know..."
"Now, they have been around for a while, but they are spreading far and wide and more people are getting involved. We need to have an American spring -- you know, the Arab spring.
"We could call it 'Morning in America'... No. Wait..."
"The non-violent part of it isn't finished yet, but we need to have an American spring, a kind of an American non-violent change where people on the grassroots get involved again. Not the, you know, not in the Tea Party-style."
"... because that's obviously not what the Merkin People want..."
Gore took his attack to favorite left-wing targets: the Fox News Channel, and David and Charles Koch. "There are people who are genuinely upset in the Tea Party," Gore continued. "I understand that, but that movement was funded with seed money from right-wing billionaires, the Koch Brothers, and promoted on Fox News and turned into a stalking horse for this right-wing agenda that a lot of people have been trying to push on this country for a long time."
... as opposed to the left wing agenda that some other people pushed onto the country a much longer time ago...
According to the former vice president, this movement was instituted behind the scenes to clear the government out of the way of special interests.
Most of whom seem to be Democrat contributors...
"What's sacrosanct for them is to have absolutely no tax increases on the wealthiest Americans.
I'm still trying to figure how it's "fair" to have one segment of the population paying proportionately more than everybody else...
"They are at a low level now. And to try to shrink down government so they can get it out of the way of powerful corporations and special interests so they can have free rein," Gore said. "And the Supreme Court, of course, has now declared that they are persons and to make these secret contributions"
Corporations have always been "persons" of a sort, for purposes of property ownership. At the same time they're taxed (corporate income taxes and other business taxes), so why should they also be muzzled, especially when labor unions, which aren't taxed, get to buy politicians six for a dollar?
"I want to tell you, Keith, this country is in trouble," Gore continued.
Has been, despite all the hopin' and changin'...
"Our democracy has been withering on the vine. It really has been.
Tusk tusk. All the new faces are Publicans, aren't they? And the success stories are Publican successes -- Texas, Noo Joisey, now Wisconsin...
"This has been going on for some time. But this is not event that can be taken lightly. I know it's difficult to imagine that people who care about the values that this country was based on will rise up and get much more involved in the democratic process. But that is exactly what we need and that is the only thing that can get our country back on the right track."
Link


Home Front: Politix
Senator Calls For Involuntary Training Of Military Personnel Before ETS
2011-05-12
For the first time, U.S. troops would be required to enroll in a federal job-training program before they're allowed to leave the military under a bill introduced in the Senate on Wednesday.

"We are taking a huge step forward in rethinking the way we treat men and women in uniform after they leave the military," said Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., the chief sponsor of the bill.

It would be required as part of the Transition Assistance Program, which was created by a partnership among the Departments of Defense, Veterans Affairs, Transportation and Labor.

She said that one of the first things veterans learn is employers are reluctant to hire them because they fear they may have mental health issues.
And who put that idea out in public circulation?
"We consistently hear from our members that the challenges in this job market are mounting," said Paul Rieckhoff, founder and executive director of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA)
(formerly known as www.OperationTruth.org, an anti-war, definitely anti-Bush organization, heavily funded by left wing organizations. Rieckhoff became a star on such programs as the Rachel Maddow Show on Air American Radio and MSNBC-TV, changing the name of the organization to elicit funding and support from unknowing veterans and their families, and away from legitimate veterans organizations.)
"They need jobs and skills training to transition into the civilian workforce, and we're encouraged to see that Congress is taking aggressive action on this front. There is a long road ahead."

The other co-sponsors are
all notorious leftist liberals,
Sens. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska; Barbara Boxer, D-Calif.; Robert Casey, D-Pa.; Max Baucus, D-Mont.; Patrick Leahy, D-Vt.; Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va.; Daniel Akaka, D-Hawaii; Bernie Sanders, a Vermont socialist; Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio; and Scott Brown, R-Mass, a RINO.
Link



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