[BankokPost] Thai and Chinese authorities crossed the border from Thailand’s Tak province to Myawaddy of Myanmar to view the debris of scam centres on Monday.
And quite thoroughly turned into debris it was, as seen in the photos at the link.
According to the Royal Thai Police Office, the delegations of Pol Lt Gen Jirabhop Bhuridej, assistant national police chief, and Chinese Assistant Public Security Minister Liu Zhongyi left Mae Sot district of Tak for Myawaddy on Monday morning.
The delegations saw the debris of buildings that had housed scam networks in KK Park and Shwe Kokko. Military forces in Myanmar bombed the buildings from October.
In the afternoon, the Thai and Chinese authorities met the delegation of Myanmar deputy police chief Pol Maj Gen Min Htike Myo at a meeting room on the Myanmar bank of the second Thai-Myanmar friendship bridge.
The parties agreed to maintain information exchange, restrict power supply and communication services in border areas and speed up the repatriation of suspected scammers.
The Royal Thai Police Office said that the destruction of scam buildings in Myanmar forced large numbers of Chinese scammers to flee KK Park and Shwe Kokko and they were arrested by Myanmar authorities.
During the trip, Assistant Minister Liu visited detention facilities in Myawaddy. The facilities were packed with Chinese suspects who would be repatriated to China, the Royal Thai Police said.
[IsraelTimes] An Orthodox Jewish man was attacked on the New York City subway last night, in an incident that was recorded and published on social media.
In the footage, two men approach a group of Orthodox men, reportedly members of the Chabad Lubavitch sect, and begin hurling insults at them.
One of the Jewish men then appears to step in between the two aggressors and the other Jewish men, at which point they turn on him and threaten to “teach [him] a lesson,” before grabbing him by the neck.
“The fuck you doing?” the attacker can be heard demanding of the Jewish man as he pushes him backwards. “I’ll kill you!”
“I’ll kill one of [you],” the attackers says again, before letting go of the man’s neck.
Several people can be heard shouting in the background for the men to “chill” and “calm down,” but nobody takes any other steps to stop them.
The subway train then pulls into the station and the Jewish men leave the carriage, while the two attackers continue to hurl insults at them as they go.
After the incident, the man who was physically assaulted tells the ultra-Orthodox news outlet VINNews that the attacker grabbed him by the neck after he took out his phone to record the altercation.
“The moment the younger of the two realized I was recording, he attacked me,” he said.
The incident was filmed by a different member of the Chabad community who was standing further down the train carriage and was not targeted.
In response to the footage circulating on X, US Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon says her department will investigate the “horrific” incident.
Orthodox Jews were violently assaulted in the NYC subway, as their attackers hurled antisemitic insults and threatened to kill them.
Is the world waiting for a Chanukah massacre in NYC before it understands how catastrophic the situation has become? pic.twitter.com/550N4eOx22
[FoxNews] Craig Austin Lang, 35, was extradited from Ukraine, where he volunteered against Russian separatists to face charges in the US
A former U.S. soldier who fought in Ukraine was sentenced to two life terms for killing a Florida couple during a robbery intended to fund his travel to Venezuela to fight the government of Nicolás Maduro, the Justice Department said Tuesday.
Craig Austin Lang, 35, was convicted in September on federal charges, including robbery and conspiring to kill persons in a foreign country. He was previously extradited from Ukraine, where he had volunteered to fight against Russian separatists.
"Lang’s alleged conduct is shocking in its scope and its callous disregard for human life," Nicole Argentieri, principal deputy assistant attorney general of the Department of Justice’s criminal division, previously said in a statement.
Lang and another former soldier, Alex Jared Zwiefelhofer, killed Serafin "Danny" Lorenzo Jr. and Deana Lorenzo, who traveled from Brooksville to Estero, in April 2018 during what the couple believed was a meeting to buy guns advertised on "Armslist," an online marketplace, federal prosecutors said.
The pair had brought $3,000 and were ambushed in a parking lot and shot multiple times, authorities said. The robbery was intended to fund travel plans for Lang and Zwiefelhofer to Venezuela, where they hoped to join a paramilitary group.
Lang was dishonorably discharged from the U.S. Army in 2014 before joining the far-right Ukrainian nationalist military group known as Right Sector two years later, according to The Washington Post.
Lang and Zwiefelhofer had previously fought in Ukraine and intended to travel to fight in other conflicts.
Zwiefelhofer was convicted in 2024 and sentenced to two consecutive life terms in prison.
I’m seeing claims the good professor was Jewish and a supporter of Israel. Nothing official, though, so 48 Hour Rule.
[FoxNews] Nuno Loureiro was director of MIT's Plasma Science and Fusion Center before his death in Brookline
Homicide detectives are investigating after a Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) lab director and professor was found shot to death in his Brookline home.
Nuno F.G. Loureiro, 47, was taken to a local hospital Monday night with apparent gunshot wounds after the Brookline Police Department received a report of a man shot at his home, according to a statement from the Norfolk District Attorney's Office.
Loureiro was pronounced dead Tuesday morning, the district attorney's office confirmed.
MIT's communications office said Loureiro was a MIT faculty member in the departments of Nuclear Science & Engineering and Physics and the director of MIT’s Plasma Science and Fusion Center.
Officials said the case is an "active and ongoing" homicide investigation, led by the Massachusetts State Police.
According to Loureiro’s faculty page, the professor majored in physics at the Instituto Superior Técnico in Lisbon, Portugal, in 2000 and earned a doctorate in physics at Imperial College London, UK, in 2005.
He completed postdoctoral work at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory from 2005 to 2007 and at the UKAEA Culham Centre for Fusion Energy from 2007 to 2009.
Loureiro worked as a researcher at the Institute for Plasmas and Nuclear Fusion at IST Lisbon before joining MIT in 2016.
Loureiro’s past work spanned theory and computational modeling of nonlinear plasma dynamics, where his group used analytical tools and state-of-the art simulations to study magnetic reconnection, turbulence and related instabilities.
He also pursued emerging computational methods for plasma research, including machine learning and quantum computing.
His awards included the American Physical Society Thomas H. Stix Award for Outstanding Early Career Contributions to Plasma Physics Research in 2015, the National Science Foundation Career Award in 2017, the Ruth and Joel Spira Award for Excellence in Teaching in MIT’s School of Engineering in 2022 and the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers in 2025.
[NYP] Becky Pringle, President of the National Education Association , makes remarks on day 4 of the 2024 Democratic National Convention at the United Center in Chicago, Illinois,
Do you know what a "neopronoun" or a "xeopronoun" is?
The teachers’ unions want to make sure your little kids do.
Earlier this month, the National Education Association held an "Advancing LGBTQ+ Justice" event.
Documents obtained by the education watchdog group Defending Education (full disclosure: I am on the group’s board) contained slides illustrating these neo- and xeo- pronouns.
Neopronouns are "new" "pronouns" such as "xe/xem/xyr," and other letters randomly shoved together.
Link goes to the 10 day forecast for Paradise, California which is updated every few hours
[WUNDERGROUND] The forecast at this point is for over 10" of rain in the period. That's a lot of rain but the reservoirs and larger rivers can probably handle it. There will likely be flooding issues in some of the urban areas and smaller streams however.
A lot of warm air is entrained in the storm system. So for the next five days or so none of the Sierra passes is likely to close. As time goes on, the system will gradually get colder and by Christmas or so, heavy snow may interfere with travel on the Sierra passes. Next week will be a wet one, as far south as San Diego, needed moisture for drought. Next up will be the local media crying about all the fire fuel from the new plant growth. Gavin Newsom/Karen Bass will be taking credit for the full Pacific Palisades reservoir...now
Posted by: Lord Garth ||
12/17/2025 00:00 ||
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Link ||
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#5
Well, we really do, Skid. C'mon. We don't have much else to brag about anymore so let us at least have that.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
12/17/2025 13:12 Comments ||
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#6
Wind in the Carson Valley already has 45+ mph gusts happening. Rain expected to start coming over the Sierra's at Tahoe Thursday morning, but warm storm with snow levels above 7000 for the most part. Valley floor is just at 5000 so unlikely to see snow for Christmas Day.
#7
It’s 20 degrees warmer just north of SF today with some rain. The last few weeks have been very cold with inversion type fog. Now if we could just get the rain and cold to come together we might be able to get some snow in the mountains.
#9
some back of the envelop stuff leads to the conclusion that California will be getting an extra 400-800 MW of power if current estimates of rainfall come to pass
that's nice but California typically needs 10,000 to 40,000 MW
Posted by: Lord Garth ||
12/17/2025 16:00 Comments ||
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#10
ABU.
I visited a past customer in bohemian LA.
Was picked up at the airport in a limo.
Smooth express lane ride to some coastal enclave.
Sat at a venue curbside table discussing a project timeline over a late afternoon dinner of oysters and lobster salad.
Chilled white wine then Reisling until civilian twilight, @10pm my time.
#11
^ Skid, you should have been here 50 years ago. We still have our moments, especially if we can keep the cash flowing. Just don't talk about politics.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
12/17/2025 18:06 Comments ||
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[FoxNews] Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, South Sudan and Syria among nations facing complete entry restrictions
President Donald Trump on Tuesday expanded a travel ban by adding five more countries and imposing limits on others.
The move came as the Trump administration continues to tighten U.S. entry requirements and immigration standards.
"The restrictions and limitations imposed by the Proclamation are necessary to prevent the entry of foreign nationals about whom the United States lacks sufficient information to assess the risks they pose, garner cooperation from foreign governments, enforce our immigration laws, and advance other important foreign policy, national security, and counterterrorism objectives," the proclamation states.
Another 15 countries – Angola, Antigua and Barbuda, Benin, Cote d’Ivoire, Dominica, Gabon, The Gambia, Malawi, Mauritania, Nigeria, Senegal, Tanzania, Tonga, Zambia and Zimbabwe – will face partial restrictions.
Through his actions on Tuesday, citizens from five countries – Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, South Sudan and Syria, as well as individuals holding Palestinian-Authority-issued travel documents – will face a ban on travel to the United States, the White House said. In addition, existing partial bans on Laos and Sierra Leone were expanded into full suspensions of entry.
Another 15 countries – Angola, Antigua and Barbuda, Benin, Cote d’Ivoire, Dominica, Gabon, The Gambia, Malawi, Mauritania, Nigeria, Senegal, Tanzania, Tonga, Zambia and Zimbabwe – will face partial restrictions.
The proclamation also "narrows broad family-based immigrant visa carve-outs that carry demonstrated fraud risks, while preserving case-by-case waivers," the White House said.
In its announcement, the Trump administration said many of the countries on the travel ban suffer from "widespread corruption, fraudulent or unreliable civil documents and criminal records, and nonexistent birth-registration systems," which makes it difficult to perform accurate vetting. Others refuse to share law-enforcement data, while others permit "Citizenship-by-Investment schemes that conceal identity and bypass vetting requirements and travel restrictions."
In June, Trump announced a U.S. entry ban on citizens of 12 countries – Afghanistan, Burma, Chad, the Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen – while also tightening restrictions on others: Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan and Venezuela.
Tuesday's decision follows the arrest of an Afghan national suspected of shooting two National Guard soldiers in Washington D.C. over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend. At the time of the killing, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said Rahmanullah Lakanwal was one of the many unvetted Afghans who were mass paroled into the U.S. under Operation Allies Welcome under the Biden administration. Lakanwal is accused of shooting U.S. Army Spc. Sarah Beckstrom, who later died, and U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe, who is recovering.
Regarding the ban on Paleostinians, the fact sheet cited the two years of war between Israel and Hamas ..the braying voice of Islamic Resistance®,... 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 a rusty 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... , as well as the presence of terror groups in Paleostinian population centers. PA passports are most commonly held in Gaza, while in the West Bank, where the PA is based, many have Jordanian passports.
"Several US-designated terrorist groups operate actively in the West Bank or Gaza Strip and have murdered American citizens," it says. "Also, the recent war in these areas likely resulted in compromised vetting and screening abilities."
It continues: "In light of these factors, and considering the weak or nonexistent control exercised over these areas by the PA, individuals attempting to travel on PA-issued or endorsed travel documents cannot currently be properly vetted and approved for entry into the United States."
[FoxNews] Schmitt faces retaliation lawsuit from Wuhan government over his 2020 case against China
Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Mo., said Tuesday that he "won't be apologizing" to China any time soon, as he opened up about a $50 billion lawsuit filed against him in retaliation for suing the country during his time as Missouri’s attorney general.
"It's totally ridiculous. They're just mad that we exposed their lies and their deceit," he told "The Ingraham Angle."
"Missouri got a $24 billion judgment against them, and they don't like that," Schmitt continued. "They unleashed COVID on the world. We sued them, and we won."
The People’s Government of Wuhan Municipality, the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Wuhan Institute of Virology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences are suing Schmitt for roughly $50 billion, years after he sued China during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The lawsuit, first obtained by Fox News Digital, accused Schmitt, FBI co-deputy director Andrew Bailey and the state of Missouri of damaging the reputations of China, Wuhan and the associated research facilities through "malicious vexatious litigation, fabricating enormous disinformation, and spreading stigmatizing and discriminating slanders."
Schmitt blasted the matter as "sour grapes," while explaining that his team is working on translating the legal papers served to him.
"I won't be apologizing any time soon, as you'd imagine," he said.
Schmitt sued the People's Republic of China (PRC), several Chinese government ministries, the Communist Party of China, the Wuhan Institute of Virology and the Chinese Academy of Sciences in early 2020 while serving as Missouri's attorney general.
At the time, he accused the Chinese government of withholding information on COVID-19 and failing to contain the outbreak, among other grievances.
[Federalist] The left insists that birthright citizenship is "plainly written" into the Constitution and immune from any challenge. But cases like that of Chinese billionaire Xu Bo expose just how stupid that claim is.
Xu, a reclusive tech billionaire, has reportedly fathered more than 100 children — possibly more — through surrogacy agencies in the United States, though Xu himself has never lived in the United States. But his children, through the left’s twisted interpretation of birthright citizenship that has been the prevailing interpretation of the 14th Amendment for decades, are citizens.
It’s a convoluted form of the disgusting practice known as birthright tourism (where foreigners come to the U.S. to give birth to secure their children birthright citizenship) and it’s the exact abuse of the 14th Amendment that the framers — and anyone with a brain — would have found absurd.
The citizenship clause reads: "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside."
The limiting phrase — "subject to the jurisdiction" — was added deliberately, and its purpose was clear: not everyone born in the United States should automatically become a citizen.
As Sen. Jacob Howard, who drafted that clause, explained, the clause was "simply declamatory of what I regard as the law of the land already." That law is the Civil Rights Act of 1866, which granted citizenship to persons born in the United States who were "not subject to any foreign power."
Congress understood that membership into our social compact was not automatic. It flowed from jurisdiction and consent.
But that understanding collapses in the modern birthright citizenship debate — especially in cases like Xu’s.
Xu is not subject to U.S. jurisdiction, nor is he part of our social compact at all. We have not let him into it vis a vis the channels we’ve set up to do just that (legal immigration and naturalization). Yet, under current interpretation of the 14th Amendment, Xu can ship his genetic material across the border, hire surrogates in the United States, and then manufacture dozens of "citizens." The idea that children created in a lab on U.S. soil by a foreign billionaire for the sole purpose of securing citizenship benefits would have been unimaginable to the framers of the 14th Amendment.
#4
I imagine an interesting legal argument can be made, that the situation is one of rented real estate versus ownership rights… or something along that line.
Question: Did the surrogates provide their own eggs, artificially inseminated by Mr. Xu’s sperm, or did they merely host implanted, prefertilized zygotes, both eggs and sperm from others?
Given Chinese racism, I wonder how welcoming Mr. Xu would be to mixed race offspring, even if specially created in large numbers for the purpose of useable citizenship.
#5
Xu is not subject to U.S. jurisdiction. True, but the Constitution doesn't refer to the father, but to the child born in the U.S. which is in fact subject to U.S. jurisdiction. The only (modern) exception are children of diplomats born in the U.S. "Not subject to any foreign power" is not the same thing.
One of our daughters was born in the U.S. She's a U.S. citizen, but also has a German passport. (The U.S. has no problem with this.)
Posted by: European Conservative ||
12/17/2025 12:32 Comments ||
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#6
That’s indeed how it is currently understood, European Conservative. The question is whether it should be, which is why unless your daughter’s children are born on American soil or her husband is an American citizen with at least one American citizen parent, her children will not inherit her American citizenship. That was something we were warned about for trailing daughter #2, who was born the Frankfurt a.M. Frauenklinik. I knew a number of expat wives who flew back to the States to give birth for that reason, because the local military bases did not allow unaffiliated civilians to use their medical facilities, as our bases count as American soil for legal purposes.
#7
It is difficult but not impossible to amend the Constitution. Maybe we should try for an amendment to clarify the language about birthright citizenship.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
12/17/2025 13:25 Comments ||
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#8
Let's wait to see how the SCOTUS rules (IF they rule)
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/17/2025 14:14 Comments ||
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#9
#5 so she can flee to the US when Germany collapses? Smart.
Posted by: Regular joe ||
12/17/2025 15:11 Comments ||
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#10
From a search on DDG:
The current dual citizenship bill in Congress is the Exclusive Citizenship Act of 2025, introduced by Senator Bernie Moreno. This bill aims to prohibit dual citizenship for U.S. citizens, requiring those with dual nationality to renounce one citizenship within a year or risk losing their U.S. citizenship.
So EC, your daughter will have to choose one or the other if this bill pass.
do a search for "Exclusive Citizenship Act of 2025" for more information.
I tried to find something to link to but too many click bates and ad spewing (adonatos) for me to link to, so those of you who use the reaer function of Firefox can do their own search.
(Not sure if other browsers have a 'reader' function.)
#12
Senator Bernie Moreno’s proposed Exclusive Citizenship Act of 2025 would affect U.S. citizens born abroad to U.S. parents and naturalized citizens who later acquire a foreign citizenship, while those born in the United States would be exempt.
Posted by: European Conservative ||
12/17/2025 19:08 Comments ||
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Total nonfarm payroll employment changed little in November (+64,000) and has shown little net change since April, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today.
In November, the unemployment rate, at 4.6 percent, was little changed from September. Employment rose in health care and construction in November, while federal government continued to lose jobs.
----------------------
Federal govt has lost about 350k jobs since January. Probably future job losses in this sector will be relatively minor. Transportation and warehousing has also been losing jobs. Adjustments to job numbers for July and August were also revised lower (as has been the case for many months the past few years). There was a relatively big bump up in part time workers who wanted to work full time. All in all, this report completely justified the Federal Reserve rate decrease and even points to another possible decrease coming early next year unless the CPI report coming out on 18 December or in later months shows a bump up.
Posted by: Lord Garth ||
12/17/2025 00:00 ||
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[CHD] The lawsuit accuses the U.S. military of enforcing a "two-part strategy" to deny virtually all religious accommodation requests from service members and recruits. CHD alleges the military’s policy for granting religious exemptions to recruits is "ambiguous." For acting service members, the process for obtaining a religious exemption from vaccines is a "sham" and "largely theater."...
"Our military members literally put their lives on the line to preserve our freedoms, one of the most essential of which is free exercise of religion," said CHD General Counsel Kim Mack Rosenberg. "Sadly, those military members who serve to protect those rights cannot themselves exercise the right of religious freedom when it comes to military vaccination requirements."
#1
Ahhh, big deal! 30 years ago I read an article about Russkie spy satellite photos available on the internet. There was no key or guidance, just photos. I very patiently zoomed around, identifying major features, until I found my home, and it filled the screen, clearly showing the skylights. I think the photos were from the 80's.
Well, since the commies were spying on me, I moved!
Posted by: Bobby ||
12/17/2025 8:53 Comments ||
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#2
This is a machine-learning–derived product. Errors may occur. Please refer to the publication for details.
Over the past few days, our web viewer has received nearly 280,000 access requests. Due to this unusually high traffic, some data may not load completely, which may result in a significant portion of buildings not being displayed.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
..the braying voice of Islamic Resistance®,...
