Thursday, January 3, 2019

The Bulge

Via Billy



New Documents Suggest The Steele Dossier Was A Deliberate Setup For Trump

 New Documents Suggest The Steele Dossier Was A Deliberate Setup For Trump

A trove of recently released documents sheds further light on the scope and logistics of the information operation designed to sabotage an American election. Players include the press, political operatives from both parties, and law enforcement and intelligence officials. Their instrument was the Steele dossier, first introduced to the American public two years ago.

A collection of reports compiled by former British spy Christopher Steele, the dossier is now engraved in contemporary U.S. history. First marketed as bedrock evidence that Donald Trump colluded with Russia to win the 2016 election, the dossier’s legitimacy took a hit after reports showed the Hillary Clinton campaign paid for the work.

Vietnam criticised for 'totalitarian' law banning online criticism of government

Via Billy

High school students play online games at a shop in Hanoi.

Law forces internet providers to censor content deemed ‘toxic’ by the ruling communist government and hand over user data


Vietnam has introduced a new cybersecurity law, which criminalises criticising the government online and forces internet providers to give authorities’ user data when requested, sparking claims of a “totalitarian” crackdown on dissent.

The law, which mirrors China’s draconian internet rules, came into effect on 1 January and forces internet providers to censor content deemed “toxic” by the ruling communist government. Vietnam’s ministry of public security said it will tackle “hostile and reactionary forces”, but human rights groups said it was authorities’ latest method of silencing free speech

Wednesday, January 2, 2019

North Carolina city orders Daughters of the Confederacy to remove monument

Via Reborn

 Image result for North Carolina city orders Daughters of the Confederacy to remove monument

A North Carolina city has told the owner of a recently vandalized Confederate monument to remove it by Jan. 31 or face a possible lawsuit.

The Winston-Salem Journal reports the city's mayor, Allen Joines, announced at Tuesday's Emancipation Proclamation ceremony that the United Daughters of the Confederacy could face legal action if the group doesn't comply.

State law makes it difficult to remove monuments on public property, but the Confederate Soldiers Monument is on private property.

More @ WLOS

UNPREPARED AND OVERWHELMED

Via David


Two decades after Columbine and five years after Sandy Hook, educators and police still weren’t ready for Parkland.


Failures by the Broward County Sheriff’s Office and school district cost children their lives at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.

A gunman with an AR-15 fired the bullets, but a series of blunders, bad policies, sketchy training and poor leadership helped him succeed. Information reported over 10 months by the South Florida Sun Sentinel reveals 58 minutes of chaos on campus marked by no one taking charge, deputies dawdling, false information spreading, communications paralyzed and children stranded with nowhere to hide.

To be sure, a number of teachers and police officers performed heroically. But an examination of the day’s events reveals that the Sheriff’s Office and school district were unprepared for the crisis.
Here’s a minute-by-minute look at those critical moments on Feb. 14, 2018.

More @ Sun Sentinel

Countries Where Abortion Is Illegal Under Most Circumstances

Via Gleason Long

 Tainara Lourenco stands in the entrance of her stilt home with her hand on her baby bump, at a slum in Recife, Brazil, on Jan. 29, 2016.

From Ireland to Indonesia, access to abortion is severely restricted.

The abortion debate has intensified in South and Central America as the Zika virus, linked to severe birth defects, spreads throughout the region.
Latin America has the most restrictive abortion laws in the world, according to Jennifer Kates, vice president and director of global health and HIV Policy at the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonprofit focusing on U.S. and global health issues.  

But it's hardly alone. Other global regions with restrictive abortion laws include the Caribbean, Africa, the Middle East and Southeast Asia.

Deputy Chief Border Patrol Agent Says ‘Fences and Walls’ Not Enough To Curb Illegal Immigration


Deputy Chief Border Patrol Agent Roy Villarea told Fox News on Monday that in his 30 years as an agent, he has never witnessed what agents are facing today at the border.

In an interview on “Fox & Friends,” he said that the border is being “overwhelmed with migrants, principally family units and children and then people that are from countries other than Mexico.”

Villarea told the news station that “for the first time in Border Patrol history,” most of the illegals authorities are capturing aren’t from the United States’ southern neighbor.

More @ WJ

Tuesday, January 1, 2019

The Long Ago

 

Oh! a wonderful stream is the river of Time,
As it runs through the realm of tears,
With a faultless rhythm, and musical rhyme,
And a broader sweep, and a surge sublime,
And blends with the ocean of years!

How the winters are drifting like flakes of snow,
And summers like buds between,
And the ears in the sheaf, — so they come and they go
On the river’s breast with its ebb and flow,
As it glides in the shadow and sheen!

A Stroll on the Quaint Streets of 1920s Chau Doc


Today, Chau Doc is a busy secondary city just a stone’s throw from the Vietnam-Cambodia border. Formed at the intersection between two major rivers, the town has always been a dynamic trading hub connecting Khmer merchants with commercial centers in Vietnam.

Chau Doc is part of An Giang Province and the city center is right where the Chau Doc River and Hau River meets. Most residents live along the National Route 91, which runs along the bank of the Hau River. The origin behind its name is unclear, but some theorize that it was named after a Khmer word, meàth chruk, meaning “pig snout” because of the shape of the islands formed by the intersecting rivers.

Most southerners know Chau Doc as home of the Ba Chua Xu Temple at the foot of the Sam Mountain, a spiritual location for followers of folk religions; and the mausoleum of Thoai Ngoc Hau, a court mandarin for the Nguyen Dynasty.

See what the border Mekong town looked like through these 1920s postcards.

More @ Saigoneer

Why Do Southerners Eat Black-Eyed Peas on New Year’s?

Via Jonathan

  

A basic part of being human is to have a culture and people, an identity. Without identity, one would just be a sad hedonistic worker unit with no past, no future and no reason to live beyond personal pleasure. White folks, particularly Southerners are forbidden an identity in the modern West. As a consequence, our societies are being taken worldwide by the forces of globalism. The basics of decency is to love who you are, love the way God created you….and to love your people!


It was the winter of 1864 when the devil went down to Georgia. William Tecumseh Sherman issued special field order no. 120 which commanded his soldiers to forage liberally. The 60,000 man army would forcefully live off the people of the South; foragers rode off in all directions looking for loot.

According to Sherman’s own estimates, his armies seized over 5,000 horses, 4,000 mules and 13,000 head of cattle, while confiscating 9.5 million pounds of corn and 10.5 million pounds of livestock fodder.