Category Archives: terrorism

Israel destroys drinking water pipeline in Jordan Valley – PNN

Israeli military bulldozers destroyed, Monday, a drinking water pipeline that was funded by The United Nations International Children’s Fund (UNICEF) in the Central Plains of the occupied West Bank.Mo’taz Bisharat, a Palestinian official in charge of Israeli colonies’ file at the Palestinian Authority in central West Bank, said many Israeli army jeeps and bulldozers invaded the area, during early morning hours, and destroyed a drinking water pipeline, providing water to Palestinian communities along the al-Hadeediyya and ar-Ras al-Ahmar areas.Bisharat added that the pipeline provided clean drinking water to 47 families, and extended on 8.5 kilometers.He also stated that the pipeline’s installation and equipment costs were 12500 euros, provided by the UNICEF to enable access to clean drinking water, and added that the soldiers confiscated large sections of the pipeline.

Source: Israel destroys drinking water pipeline in Jordan Valley – PNN

Why Is the GOP Still Supporting Trump? | Dame Magazine

Since Obama took office in 2008, this unholy trinity has worked overtime to undermine liberal democracy and shift the Republican Party further rightward. Wealthy oligarchs such as the Kochs and Mercers funded training and campaigns for hand-selected far right candidates, and utilized fake grassroots movements to unseat less extreme GOP candidates. They orchestrated the Citizens United case to eliminate soft money restrictions so they could further expand their influence. Far right GOP operatives undertook a coordinated effort to suppress Democratic votes through gerrymandering and aggressive voter ID laws, and gutted the Voting Rights Act by bringing carefully planned challenges to a sympathetic Supreme Court. At the same time, corporate and religious right wing media stoked a non-stop propaganda machine to gain support of the white working and middle class by appealing to racism and economic insecurity.Which brings us back to 2016. Putin saw in Trump’s candidacy a perfect opportunity to sow discord and doubt in America’s electorate and weaken the U.S. whether or not he won the election. When he defied expectations and started winning primaries, some on the far right realized that he had enough charisma and name recognition to carry the GOP nomination, and that with no clear ideology of his own (other than “what’s in it for me”) he could serve as an ideal Trojan Horse for their extremist agenda. The fact that many on the right already had a strange admiration for Putin, and that both white supremacist and fundamentalist Christian supporters had close ties to Russia probably served to lessen concern among GOP electeds that their candidate might be compromised by a foreign nation.So the next time Congress declines to investigate Russian influence or ethics breaches by the Trump administration, just remember: they’re getting exactly what they want out of this arrangement, and will continue to enact their far-right agenda as long as they have the votes. Congress, Trump, and Putin all back the same vision of a Christian, white nationalist, authoritarian world order that will protect the wealth of oligarchs while suppressing women, people of color, LGBTQ people, and anyone else they perceive as a threat to their control.

Source: Why Is the GOP Still Supporting Trump? | Dame Magazine

‘Least racist person’ Trump asks black reporter if black caucus are ‘friends of yours’ | US news | The Guardian

Minutes after Donald Trump insisted he was “the least racist person” at a press conference on Thursday, the president asked a black reporter to arrange a meeting for him with the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC).The American Urban Radio Networks reporter April Ryan asked the president if he was going to include the CBC in conversations he will have about his “inner city” policies.Trump responded by repeatedly asking Ryan if she could set up a meeting with the caucus, members of which the president suggested could be “friends” of hers.Trump uses press conference to declare administration ‘fine-tuned machine’ Read more“Are they friends of yours? No, go ahead,” Trump said. “Set up the meeting.”

Source: ‘Least racist person’ Trump asks black reporter if black caucus are ‘friends of yours’ | US news | The Guardian

What Happened to Elizabeth Warren Has Roots in Racism – The New York Times

 

In a historical coincidence, like Adams, Ms. Warren represents the state of Massachusetts. She occupies the same seat as Charles Sumner, who was nearly clubbed to death on the Senate floor in 1856 by Representative Preston Brooks of South Carolina, who was offended to the point of murderous violence by one of Sumner’s antislavery speeches. And Rule XIX itself was created in its current form in 1902 after the virulently racist Senator Benjamin Tillman assaulted his fellow South Carolinian Senator John McLaurin for saying that Tillman had uttered “a willful, malicious and deliberate lie.”This is the legacy that the 49 Republicans who voted to silence Senator Warren embraced. It is a legacy that regarded the sensitive feelings of thin-skinned congressmen as more important than good government or the voices of the people — especially the voices of women and minorities. Adams was gagged for presenting antislavery petitions from women and blacks, Senator Warren for reading the words of a female civil rights icon. This is a legacy no one should want to preserve.

Trump and Netanyahu are allies in a losing battle | +972 Magazine

The most important clue to solve this puzzle is Trump and Netanyahu’s obsession with attacking, controlling and manipulating the news media (indeed, this is one of the major sources of Netanyahu’s recent legal troubles). Admittedly, even within their own camps, they are extreme outliers in terms of crudity and relentlessness on this issue — something that surely has to do with their individual psychological makeup. But they are also emblematic of a broader approach on the right, which has fueled the rise of rigorously partisan and uncurious media organs such as Israel Hayom in Israel and Fox News in the U.S.Journalists are a major problem for the Israeli and American extreme right because, despite all their flaws, they occasionally do provide information and cover actual events. In other words, they reflect reality — however partially and inadequately.Reality is the greatest foe of the extreme right wingers currently in power. In the real world, Palestinians, Mexicans, Muslims, and many other groups that they do not like continue to exist, despite travel bans and land grabs. In the real world, international relations are crucial for the prosperity of both countries and cannot be flippantly dismissed. “Alternative facts” are easily malleable. Actual facts cannot be so flexibly managed. The extreme right is not creating “facts on the ground,” it is being undone by them, bit by bit.Netanyahu, Trump, and their allies are fighting a losing battle. Deep inside, they know this. If they truly believed otherwise, their disposition would be sunny and confident, not dark and fretful.This is not cause for complacency. Part of the reason these agendas will be defeated is precisely because people are not complacent — they are mobilized and agitated (at least in the U.S.; this kind of mass opposition seems to be further down the road in Israel and Palestine). Until they are stopped, Trump and Netanyahu can do great harm, some of which will be irreparable. Nonetheless, the struggle against them must begin with the insight that we are not fighting an ascendant and secure power, we are opposing a desperate and fearful faction.

Source: Trump and Netanyahu are allies in a losing battle | +972 Magazine

Lying US defence chief brands Iran ‘biggest sponsor of terrorism’ as tensions flare – France 24

Iran is to deploy missiles for a Revolutionary Guards exercise Saturday in a show of defiance, while the US defense secretary on the same day called Iran the world’s “single biggest state sponsor of terrorism.

Source: US defence chief brands Iran ‘biggest sponsor of terrorism’ as tensions flare – France 24

A.T.F. Plans to Send More Agents to Chicago to Curb Violence – The New York Times Times misses point of Trump’s plan to normalize stepped up war on Black-American men and cities with Democratic Mayors!

Adam Collins, a spokesman for Mayor Rahm Emanuel, said on Friday night that city officials had not been told about the plans for additional federal agents but that the mayor would be glad for their help.“We have received no word from the federal government to confirm these reports, but it would be welcome news if the administration has indeed agreed to one of Mayor Emanuel’s requests for federal resources,” Mr. Collins said. “We remain hopeful that they will also provide added D.E.A. and F.B.I. agents, that they will boost the prosecution rate for federal gun crimes in Chicago, and that they will provide funding for successful violence prevention efforts.”

Not ‘Lone Wolves’ After All: How ISIS Guides World’s Terror Plots From Afar – The New York Times – how true? don’t know but some rings true…

While a reliance on local amateurs has allowed the Islamic State to announce that it can stage terrorism around the world, it has also led to many failed attacks.Instead of opening fire on a church, Mr. Ghlam shot himself in the leg. Instead of laying waste to a music festival this past summer, the Islamic State recruit in Germany detonated his bomb prematurely, killing only himself.The same thing happened the day before the end of Ramadan on July 2 inside a police compound in Indonesia, where another remotely guided attacker hit the switch on his crudely assembled suicide vest.“He didn’t even knock over the flowerpot on the ledge next to where he blew himself up,” said Sidney Jones, director of the Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict.Indonesian officials say that the suicide bomber had been incited to attack by Bahrun Naim, a 33-year-old Indonesian man who is now one of the Islamic State’s most prolific cyberplanners, operating from the group’s capital in Raqqa, Syria.Initially, Mr. Naim wired money to families in Indonesia to pay for travel to Syria, officials said. Later, the bank transfers he sent were to be used to buy the chemicals needed to build explosives, according to the interrogation records of his recruits.In just over a year, the young men he was in contact with attempted at least six attacks, targeting a police post, a Buddhist temple and a church, as well as foreigners visiting the country. In November, a college dropout who the police said had at least been initially in contact with Mr. Naim was arrested as he prepared to attack the embassy of Myanmar. In his home, the police recovered a quantity of explosives that could have resulted in a blast twice as powerful as the 2002 Bali bombing, which killed 202 people, the police spokesman told local news media.Yet nearly all of the plots attributed to Mr. Naim have failed. And it was human error that finally led to the arrest of Amriki’s followers in Hyderabad.The plot began to unravel in June after the men were instructed to collect a 10-kilogram bag of ammonium nitrate left beside a canal next to mile marker No. 9 on the Vijayawada Highway.They returned to Mr. Mohammed’s home to begin preparing a bomb, but could not figure out how to replicate the steps in the instructional YouTube video sent to them by the handler. “We could not succeed in making powder, as it became jellylike paste,” Mr. Yazdani lamented, according to the transcript of his interrogation.They tried using a tea strainer. They tried heating it longer. They began talking on their cellphones about their efforts to “cook the rice.”By then, the police were wiretapping their calls and suspected that all the food talk was a crude attempt at misdirection. Early on June 29, the police banged on the door of Mr. Mohammed’s home.In his bedroom, they found the half-cooked explosive in his refrigerator.

Border agents defy courts on Trump travel ban, congressmen and lawyers say | US news | The Guardian

On Sunday afternoon, four Democratic members of the House of Representatives arrived at Dulles airport in Virginia on word that people had been detained and denied access to lawyers.“We have a constitutional crisis today,” representative Don Beyer wrote on Twitter. “Four members of Congress asked CBP officials to enforce a federal court order and were turned away.”Representative Jamie Raskin, also at the airport, tweeted that the federal agency had given “no answers yet” about whether agents were ignoring the courts. Raskin joined several other attorneys there, including Damon Silvers, special counsel at AFL-CIO, one of the groups trying to help visa holders.“As far as I know no attorney has been allowed to see any arriving passenger subject to Trumps exec order at Dulles today,” Silvers tweeted on Sunday evening. “CBP appears to be saying people in their custody not ‘detained’ technically & Dulles international arrivals areas not in the United States.”

Source: Border agents defy courts on Trump travel ban, congressmen and lawyers say | US news | The Guardian