Recent Appearances...

Warning: Undefined array key "rbname" in /data/rantburg.com/www/pgrecentorg.php on line 14
Hello !
Recent Appearances...

Europe

France calls for criminal penalties for attacks on paintings

2024-06-03

Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[Regnum] French Culture Minister Rachida Dati has called on the Justice Ministry to introduce criminal penalties for protests in which participants “attack” paintings and other works of art, Le Figaro newspaper reported on June 2.

What a clever idea!

“This destruction of art by criminals cannot be justified in any way. This needs to end,” the head of the department told reporters.

Duthie called for legislation to be adapted to what she considers a new type of crime. The minister said that vandals who desecrate works of art are attacking the most noble component of the unity of France - culture.

As Regnum reported, on June 1, an environmental activist calling for the fight against climate change covered the painting “Poppies” by the impressionist artist Claude Monet with a red poster. She also glued her hand to the wall and shouted that the world by 2100 will look like the Sahara Desert, and not what is shown in the painting.

In February, at the Lyon Museum of Fine Arts, two environmental activists also chose a Monet painting for their vandalism action. They poured soup on the “Spring” canvas.The purpose of the action was also to declare that the world was allegedly facing an environmental disaster.

In January, environmental vandals poured soup on Leonardo da Vinci's La Gioconda (Mona Lisa) in the Louvre Museum in Paris. They explained their action as a desire to promote the right to healthy and sustainable food.

Link

-Signs, Portents, and the Weather-

Squalid wooden 'shantytown' springs up in Dem-run Oakland

2024-06-03

Lots of the usual Daily Mail photos.
[Daily Mail, where America gets its news] Shocking footage has emerged showing a gigantic 'shantytown' that has sprung up in Oakland, as the California city's slide into crime-ravaged squalor continues.

Michael Oxford, the host of CaliBased, posted a video on May 31 of massive temporary houses built along service roads that open up into main roads in Hooverville, Oakland.

The footage showed trash strewn around scores of houses that were built of wood, tarp and other discarded materials.

Particularly shocking was just how large the 'shantytown' is, with a lengthy stretch of road in the Bay Area city covered with the makeshift dwellings.

Oakland's descent into a dystopian hellhole comes despite its enviable location in the San Francisco Bay area - one of the most naturally-beautiful locales in the United States.

And while both Oakland and neighboring San Francisco are home to huge numbers of wealthy people thanks to the tech boom of nearby Silicon Valley, both cities have become associated with filth and crime increasingly blamed on progressive policy.

Earlier this month, city administrators were forced to remove traffic lights from one busy Oakland intersection and replaced them with stop signs after the electrical boxes that controlled the traffic lights were repeatedly tampered with and copper from them was stolen.

Oakland's two most visible lawmakers - progressive Mayor Sheng Thao and her DA Pamela Price - are both facing recalls over soft-on-crime policies blamed for ruining the city.

One in thirty Oakland residents had their car stolen in 2023, with violent crime also soaring.

Thao backed defunding the police earlier in her career, with Price parroting her focus on 'equity' when prosecuting crimes.

Critics say she has effectively put the needs of criminals over those of victims.

And earlier this year, there was humiliation for Oakland when In-N-Out Burger closed a store for the first time in the company's history.

They did so because the restaurant location, close to the city's airport, had become a notorious target for burglaries, leaving customers and staff under constant threat of violent crime.

Link

Fifth Column

U of Chicago students walk out of graduation after diplomas withheld for anti-Israel camp

2024-06-02

[IsraelTimes] Shouts, boos, calls to ‘Stop Genocide’ briefly disrupt rainy two-hour outdoor ceremony; dozens of students walk out between speeches; demonstration follows official ceremony

Dozens of anti-Israel student protesters walked out of the University of reliably Democrat Chicago, aka The Windy City or Mobtown
...home of Al Capone, the Chicago Black Sox, a succession of Daleys, Barak Obama, and Rahm Emmanuel...
’s commencement Saturday as the school withheld the diplomas of four seniors over their involvement with a pro-Paleostinian encampment. The disruption to the rainy two-hour outdoor ceremony was brief, with shouts, boos and calls to "Stop Genocide." A crowd of students walked out between speeches, and a demonstration followed the official ceremony. Some chanted as they held Paleostinian flags, while others donned, keffiyeh scarves, a Paleostinian symbol often used in pro-Paleostinian and anti-Israel protests, over their robes.

Four graduating seniors, including Youssef Haweh, were informed by email in recent days that their degrees would be withheld pending a disciplinary process related to complaints about the encampment, according to student group UChicago United for Paleostine.

"My diploma doesn’t matter when there are people in Paleostine and in Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with an iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response...
that will never walk a stage again, who will never receive a diploma. What about them? Who’s going to fight for them?" Haweh said in a Saturday statement.

Fair enough. You go on to your chosen profession as a paid political agitator with a side order of mostly peaceful Black Bloc/Antifa violence, for which no education is necessary, merely bloody-minded viciousness and the ability to shout slogans while beating up whichever target you’re pointed at.

University officials acknowledged the walkout, saying the school is "committed to upholding the rights of students to express a wide range of views," according to a statement.

Students have walked out of commencements at Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and others as protest camps have sprung up across the US and in Europa
Europa

...the land mass occupying the space between the English Channel and the Urals, also known as Moslem Lebensraum...
in recent weeks. Students have demanded their universities stop doing business with Israel or companies they say support its war in Gaza.

A small demonstration after the commencement, where protesters tried to access a closed street, resulted in the arrest of one person not affiliated with the school, university officials said in a statement.

The University of Chicago encampment was cleared on May 7. Administrators had initially adopted a permissive approach, but later said the protest had crossed a line and caused growing concerns about safety. One group temporarily took over a building on the school’s campus.

University officials have said the demonstrations prompted formal complaints including for "disruptive conduct," and would require further review. The students were still able to participate in graduation, and can receive their degrees if they are later cleared after the university inquiry into alleged violations of campus policy. The university didn’t have comment Saturday about the diplomas.

Thousands of students and faculty members have signed a petition calling for the university to grant the degrees, while more than a dozen Chicago City Council members have penned a letter asking for the same.

”Why are you being so mean? Students have been rioting through the streets about whatever catches their whim since universities first formed in Paris in the Middle Ages. How dare you ruin the lives of our precious darlings by punishing them!”

Link

Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia

Actor George Clooney's foundation announces a hunt for Russian journalists

2024-06-01

Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[Regnum] The foundation of American actor George Clooney will seek the issuance of sealed arrest warrants for Russian journalists in Europe. This was stated by Anna Neistat, Director of Legal Affairs of the Docket project, in an interview with Voice of America radio (a media outlet recognized as a foreign agent in the Russian Federation).

Playing at statesmanship, but really its only another cancellation game.

According to her, some countries have an article on “war propaganda” in their criminal codes. Where this provision is present, the organization will draw up a request to initiate criminal proceedings. If a warrant is issued, journalists could be detained throughout Europe at Europol level.

“That is, in any European country, journalists can be arrested and extradited to a country that is investigating a criminal case against them,” Neistat said.

She added that no appeals had yet been sent and refused to name the journalists who were planned to be persecuted. According to her, we are talking about “the most obvious Russian propagandists, the most visible of them.”

She also said that the project asks prosecutors to write closed arrest warrants so that people do not know about it and travel to other countries where they can be arrested.

As reported by IA Regnum, on May 17, the Council of the EU banned the broadcasting of three Russian media in the territory of the European Union: RIA Novosti, Izvestia and Rossiyskaya Gazeta. The sanctioned media must completely stop distributing any content through electronic media.

The Russian Foreign Ministry called the ban on broadcasting of three Russian media in the EU a purge of the information space. The department added that this decision was based solely on political motives.

The media reported on May 15 that this decision was agreed upon by the ambassadors of European countries.

The official representative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Maria Zakharova, said that Russia will respond to the West with lightning speed and pain if the work of Russian journalists is limited.

The ICJ and ICC put Israel on notice but cannot stop the war

Link

Europe

EvaVlaardingerbroek - 'The great replacement theory is no longer a theory'

2024-05-31

[YouTube] Eva Lotte Louise Joan Vlaardingerbroek (born 3 September 1996) is a Dutch far-right activist,[1] known for propagating conspiracy theories and expressing antifeminist sentiments in the past. She has studied philosophy of law, and has been particularly vocal about issues surrounding farmers in the Dutch farmers' protests. She is noted for her criticism of the Dutch government under prime minister Mark Rutte.

She has made numerous appearances with American conservative pundit Tucker Carlson on his current affairs program Tucker Carlson Tonight on Fox News and with Mark Steyn on his eponymous British talk show on the GB News. During Carlson's show, she claimed that the Dutch farming crisis is not a result of the nitrogen crisis, instead promoting the Great Replacement Theory, a recurrent theme in her speeches and discussions. WIKI of course.

Link

Government Corruption

DOJ reaches settlement with ex-FBI 'lovebirds' caught in anti-Trump text scandal

2024-05-31

[FOXNEWS] Former FBI officials Peter Strzok and Lisa Page have settled with the Justice Department over alleged privacy rights violations after the release of their disparaging text messages leveraged by former President Trump to challenge the Russia investigation during his presidency.

The settlement is still pending finalization and approval from a judge.

A tentative agreement was filed Tuesday resolving Page's 5-year-old lawsuit against the FBI for releasing text messages with Strzok — with whom she had an affair — that were critical of the former president. Strzok's lawsuit seeking back pay and reinstatement remains unsettled.

Page sought $1,000 in compensation following the leak of her text messages to the media. Additional details about the settlement were not immediately available.

In 2019, Strzok argued in a court filing in Washington, D.C., federal district court that his politically charged anti-Trump messages were protected by the First Amendment even though he sent them on bureau-issued phones while playing leading roles in the probes into both Crooked Hillary Clinton
<q>Crooked Hillary</q> Clinton

...former first lady, former secretary of state, former presidential candidate, Conqueror of Benghazi, Heroine of Tuzla, formerly described by her supporters as the smartest woman in the world, usually described by the rest of us as The Thing That Wouldn't Go Away. Politix is not one of her talents, but it's something she keeps trying to do...
and Donald Trump
...dictatorial for repealing some (but not all) of the diktats of his predecessor, misogynistic because he likes pretty girls, homophobic because he doesn't think gender bending should be mandatory, truly a man for all seasons......
Strzok, once the FBI's head of counterintelligence, said he was entitled to "develop a full factual record through discovery," and that it would be premature to dismiss the case at this early stage. He went on to argue that the DOJ's position would "leave thousands of career federal ~~babus~~ government employees without protections from discipline over the content of their political speech."

Page also filed suit against the FBI and Department of Justice, alleging the government's publication of her salacious text messages with Strzok constituted a breach of the Federal Privacy Act.

Page's complaint also sought reimbursement for "the cost of childcare during and transportation to multiple investigative reviews and appearances before Congress," the "cost of paying a data-privacy service to protect her personal information" and attorney's fees.

Link

Home Front: Politix

Massive 73% Majority of Voters Say America is ‘Out of Control' Under Biden Admin

2024-05-30

[Gateway] The Hart Research/Public Opinion Strategies/NBC News survey released on Wednesday found that the percentage of Americans calling the nation "out of control" was the highest on record under any president since the poll began.

Breitbart News reports:

Seventy-three percent of voters believe Biden’s America is "out of control, on wrong track," topping the record high that George W. Bush set in 2008 — 70 percent. Barack Obama set the third-highest rating at 65 percent.

The poll noted several additional findings. It reported that Trump leads Biden in six of the six swing states, including Wisconsin, a state where other polls showed Biden leading Trump.

The survey also reported that non-white voters are trending away from Democrats, while the Republican Party is surging among the demographic. In four years, non-white voters shifted about 40 points in favor of Republicans.

Bill McInturff, a veteran Republican pollster, also noted that the survey found more voters identifying as Republicans.

Link

Government Corruption

Remarkable and Truthful Statement About FBI Political Surveillance

2024-05-29

[ConservativeTreehouse] Governor Phil Bryant: "I’m the campaign finance director for Donald Trump in Mississippi, so we raise money. I’ve talked to a number of very wealthy individuals that God has blessed that say I can’t give money to Donald Trump because the FBI will show up at my door."

One of the more sad, albeit predictable, aspects to the politicization of American justice institutions is that there’s less and less shock associated with the dropping of pretenses. Many people on these pages and in the discussions across the internet warned several years ago that downstream from the weaponized government was going to be an end-point era where all trust was dissolved. We are essentially at that point now.

While both wings of the UniParty apparatus in DC played together in the creation of the post 9-11 surveillance state, it was the Obama administration who added the weaponization knob based on political ideology.

Weaponizing the DOJ and FBI via the Intelligence Community (2012 and beyond) was an outcropping of the previous weaponization of the IRS and regulatory system (2009 to 2012). When I discuss this issue with people, I like to draw attention to the Obama and Eric Holder continuum.

The National Security Division of the DOJ (DOJ-NSD) was created by Eric Holder specifically to function as a weaponized agency, using FARA (Foreign Agent Registration Act) as the tool for the surveillance and targeting. While the NSD system was being put into place (2009/2010), Main Justice requested the CD ROMs from the IRS containing the Schedule-Bs of every 501(c-4) political organization. The DOJ quickly settled the class action lawsuit brought by conservative groups.

With the spotlight on the Cincinnati office (Louis Lerner), Obama moved his Chief of Staff Jack Lew into position as Treasury Secretary. The DOJ under Eric Holder then moved away from using the IRS and began to using the NSA database (weaponized FISA-702 authority) in 2012.

More at the link...

Link

-Lurid Crime Tales-

Mississippi carjackers ambush Jackson family on their front lawn and open fire as they cower behind...

2024-05-29

[Daily Mail, where America gets its news] …their Mazda with children inside

Heather Allen and her family were ambushed at their home on Friday evening

Shirtless thug fired a warning shot then pulled her daughter out of the car

Allen threw her keys on the ground so they would take her car instead

The carjackers barely used the vehicle as it was found by police just 40 minutes later just two blocks from their house. It is being checked for fingerprints.

Jackson police Chief Joseph Wade said two suspects were identified, one of whose photo was released, but not yet arrested.

Link

-Lurid Crime Tales-

Massachusetts stabbing spree suspect Jared Ravizza pleads not guilty in Plymouth rest stop attack

2024-05-29

[FoxNews] Jared Ravizza, of Martha's Vineyard, charged in relation to stabbings in Braintree, Plymouth.

The suspect accused of stabbing four young women at an AMC movie theater in Braintree, Massachusetts and then two McDonald's employees at a rest stop in Plymouth over the weekend has pleaded not guilty to charges relating to the second incident, his attorney told Fox News Digital.

Jared Ravizza,

…whose long, wavy locks are bleached very blond…

26, of Chilmark – a town on the island of Martha's Vineyard – was arraigned in Plymouth District Court Tuesday on charges including assault with intent to murder and two counts of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon in connection to the alleged rest stop attack.

His attorney told Fox News Digital "no comment" when asked if he had a statement on behalf of Ravizza.

The Braintree Police Department says the movie theater stabbing happened around 6 p.m. on Saturday, leaving four young females between the ages of 9 and 17 with "non-life-threatening injuries," before Ravizza allegedly carried out a second attack targeting McDonald’s employees at a rest stop along Route 3 in Plymouth about an hour later.

That attack, the Plymouth County District Attorney’s Office says, left a 21-year-old female and 28-year-old male injured.

"Investigators reviewed surveillance video from the McDonald’s restaurant that appears to show Ravizza allegedly reach through the drive-thru window and stab the male victim with a large knife," the office said. "Video then shows Ravizza leave the drive-thru in a black Porsche, park the car, go inside the McDonald’s, and stab the second female victim."

Ravizza then allegedly fled the scene before being taken into custody around 7:15 p.m. in Sandwich, a town on Cape Cod.

Prosecutors in Braintree intend to charge Ravizza with four counts each of assault to murder and assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, according to a criminal complaint obtained by Fox News Digital.

Ravizza is also reportedly a suspect in a homicide investigation.

The Boston Globe reports that investigators are determining whether Ravizza was involved in a murder in Deep River, Connecticut.

When Fox News Digital reached out to the Connecticut State Police about Ravizza, the agency sent over information about a homicide that took place on May 25 – the same date as the Braintree and Plymouth stabbings.

"A deceased individual was found at this location," the report stated. "The identity of the decedent has not been confirmed and the investigation remains active and ongoing."

A website for Ravizza describes him as "an American serial entrepreneur and CEO of Ravizza Jones, an internationally renowned full-service digital marketing agency based between New York and Beverly Hills.

"He is also an American artist and skier," it adds. "Ravizza resides between Beverly Hills and Martha’s Vineyard."

Link

Government Corruption

Biden received sensitive data, briefings from security advisers via his private pseudonym email

2024-05-28

[JustTheNews] Under the law, such communications are supposed to occur on secure government email systems and to date Biden has not offered any explanation why his private email account was used. The Archives says it has tens of thousands of such emails from three Biden personal pseudonym accounts used during his vice presidency.

While he was vice president, Joe Biden received sensitive communications via his private email accounts created under a fictitious identity, including foreign policy discussions with his national security adviser, schedules of meetings with Cabinet secretaries and a summary of at least one intelligence briefing to President Barack Obama, according to new emails obtained by Just the News.

The new memos were released by the National Archives over the Memorial Day holiday weekend under a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit brought by the Southeastern Legal Foundation on behalf of Just the News that sought emails that Biden received or transmitted as vice president using his robinware456@gmail.com account.

While none of the newly released emails had classification markings on them, several included sensitive information transmitted over an insecure Google email account that could be of value to foreign powers and hostile spy agencies. The latest batch involved communications mostly from 2012.

For instance, Biden was forwarded an early morning briefing from then-White House counterterrorism director John Brennan to Obama on possible tsunamis hitting Hawaii in October 2012 which gave details on what the president had been told and how an emergency response would be crafted by the U.S. government.

"Call with POTUS took place at 3:10 a.m. EST," the email from Brennan stated. "He was briefed on earthquake, tsunami warnings, evacuation plans, and FEMA/federal response. He directed that all possible be done by the federal government to assist Hawaiian authorities before, during, and after tsunami hits.

"Same should be true for any potential tsunami impact on Alaska, west coast of continental United States, or U.S. territories in the Pacific. POTUS asked to be kept updated on developments, which Alyssa and I will do," the email noted.

Federal employees are allowed to use a private email account only as long as they forward government-related messages to their official work account in order to preserve the conversations so they can later be made available to the public or accessed by oversight groups. In 2017 the Trump administration was pilloried for allegedly failing to follow this rule.

To date Biden has not offered any explanation why his private email account was used and the emails were apparently not forwarded to secure government servers. The White House has yet to address why Biden chose to use fake account names. Ironically, Biden was vice-president when President Obama introduced on his first day in office, the Memorandum on Transparency and Open Government, boasting that it would usher in "a new era of open and accountable government meant to bridge the gap between the American people and their government."

The Archives says it has tens of thousands of such emails from three Biden personal pseudonym accounts used during his vice presidency.

One sensitive email hinted at frictions between Obama and Biden which emerged on television talk shows over the raid that killed reviled terrorist leader Osama bin Laden, who ordered the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on America. Biden had opposed the raid.

"Transcripts look great. I've got your back on the other thing," senior White House adviser Antony Blinken wrote Biden on Oct. 23, 2012, just a few weeks before the presidential elections. "Also I re-read that transcript and - - not that this is much better -- potus was not referring to decision to get bin laden but rather warning Pakistan. Goes back to 2008 campaign. I can explain."

Several of the more sensitive emails involved communications with Blinken, now Biden’s Secretary of State and then the vice president’s chief security adviser.

For instance, during a period of tensions between the Kurds and Iraqis in the Middle East, Blinken sent several emails to Biden with observations about the Mosul region on Aug. 22, 2012.

"Mosul -- is due west of Erbil BUT in Iraq proper, NOT in the KRG. It's just west of the green line on the Iraq side," Blinken wrote in one missive offering the vice president some geographic context.

A short while later, Blinken added some sensitive observations about possible violence,

"Further to this — there are parts of Ninewah Province that are disputed and a very small piece of Mosul itself, but the Kurds make no claim to the city as an entity. Lots of oil though, so could become a flash point," Blinken wrote.

Earlier releases by the National Archives to the Southeastern Legal Foundation and Just the News included more mundane transmissions of official government business, such as schedules and news clips. The latest batch had more foreign policy and security information in them.

One clear pattern is that Biden staffers felt comfortable sending official information to Biden’s pseudonymic accounts, including schedules of meetings, even when they involved sensitive figures.

For instance, White House official Cathy Cheung sent a tentative itinerary that revealed Biden was planning a private meeting with Defense Secretary Leon Panetta at the Naval Observatory in fall 2012.

"Sir, this is what the day would look like if you depart on Thursday for the service," Cheung wrote Biden on his private email account. "AM — 30 minute meeting with Secretary Panetta at NavObs."

Link

Government Corruption

James Biden associate Keaton Langston pleads guilty to $51M Medicare fraud

2024-05-28

[NY Post] A former business associate of James Biden has agreed to plead guilty to conspiring to defraud Medicare of $51 million through a lab-testing company linked to the first brother.

Keaton Langston, 39, admitted to using pharmacies, durable medical equipment companies and a laboratory in which he had a financial interest to bill for unnecessary tests and orders, the Justice Department disclosed last week in court filings.

James Biden, 75, has not been accused of criminal wrongdoing and has sought to distance himself from Langston, whose father Joey Langston also was associated with the first brother.

Keaton Langston founded Fountain Health, a lab company, in May 2017 and offered its services to rural hospital operator Americore Health, which later went bankrupt.

Records show James Biden was involved with Fountain Health in 2017 before connecting with Americore, which provided him in $600,000 in loans in 2018 as he allegedly vowed to use his political connections to secure foreign investors.

James passed $200,000 of the funds to Joe Biden in an alleged loan repayment.

Shortly after the lab firm launched, Joey Langston emailed James Biden and his son Keaton and three others on July 12, 2017, about an upcoming "meeting for Fountain Health partners," Politico reported in February.

"Jim will report to the group the results of his discussions earlier today with a contact at [Blue Cross Blue Shield]," the elder Langston wrote. "There will also be discussion about how to proceed with the Union contacts that have been made by Jim and Keaton, within the last two weeks."

Paul Fishman, an attorney for James Biden, did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but previously said his client "conducted himself ethically and honorably in all his business dealings."

Keaton Langston agreed in September to repay Americore $240,000 in a civil settlement. James Biden agreed in 2022 to repay Americore $350,000.

The Bidens and the Langstons have been linked financially for years.

The elder Langston hosted fundraisers for Joe Biden when he was a senator, ProPublica reported.

Joey Langston also loaned James Biden $800,000, with most of the installments coming toward the end of the Obama-Biden administration in 2016, and ended up only being repaid $400,000 of the amount, he told House impeachment investigators in February.

The wealthy Mississippi lawyer pleaded guilty in 2008 and was sentenced to three years in federal prison for being part of a plot to bribe a judge in an asbestos legal fees dispute.

He was seeking to overturn his conviction when he made loans to the then-vice president’s son.

Joey Langston’s alleged co-conspirator in the bribes case, attorney Dickie Scruggs, was involved in a second prosecution for attempting to bribe a different judge.

James Biden was wiretapped by the FBI in 2007 as part of its investigation of the second bribery case, the Washington Post reported in December.

James was in talks at the time with Scruggs and conspirator Tim Balducci about setting up a law firm that would have employed himself, his nephew Hunter Biden and James’ wife Sara.

Then-Sen. Biden went from an opponent of federal legislation to sanction tobacco companies for lying about the addictiveness of cigarettes to a supporter after Scruggs — who planned a multibillion-dollar lawsuit — paid James Biden’s lobbying firm $100,000 in 1998, the Washington Post reported.

"I probably wouldn’t have hired him if he wasn’t the senator’s brother," Scruggs told the paper.

Link

Warning: Undefined property: stdClass::$T in /data/rantburg.com/www/pgrecentorg.php on line 132
-12 More