Quote:Capitol attending physician Dr. Brian Monahan medially cleared Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) to return to work after he appeared to freeze again during a public event Wednesday.
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New: Capitol attending physician Dr. Brian Monahan says he talked with McConnell & his neurology team. He says McConnell is “medically clear” to keep his sked

“Occasional lightheadedness is not uncommon in concussion recovery and can also be expected as a result of dehydration.” pic.twitter.com/Ti35frbWXn
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In March, McConnell, 81, was rushed to the hospital upon suffering a concussion after tripping at a reception. He was cleared to return to work in April.

On Wednesday, McConnell froze during a press gaggle in Kentucky, his second scary moment in just over a month after a similar incident occurred at the U.S. Capitol.

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Illegal Alien, Wanted for Murder in Mexico
Among 1.6M Got-Aways in U.S. Since Biden Took Office

Quote:An illegal alien wanted for murder in Mexico is just one among nearly 1.6 million illegal aliens who are known to have successfully crossed the United States-Mexico border since President Joe Biden took office in January 2021.

This month, 24-year-old illegal alien Juan Pablo Ortiz-Herrera was deported to Mexico and turned over to local authorities for homicide charges. Ortiz-Herrera was only discovered living in the United States when he was arrested for misdemeanors in Nampa, Idaho, in June.

From there, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents issued a detainer for Ortiz-Herrera with Canyon County officials and he was quickly turned over to them for arrest. In July, Ortiz-Herrera was ordered deported by a federal immigration judge.

Ortiz-Herrera is known to have successfully crossed the southern border some time after April of last year, as he had been expelled from the United States four times prior thanks to Title 42 — the border control that has since been ended by the Biden administration.

The illegal alien fugitive is just one of nearly 1.6 million known got-aways who have entered the United States through the border undeterred by Border Patrol, according to the latest figures published by the Center Square.

This is a foreign population the size of Phoenix, Arizona.

Chicago’s Budget Rose $5.7 Billion in Four Years
but Mayor Brandon Johnson Wants More

Quote:Chicago’s budget skyrocketed by $5.7 billion since 2019 and now totals $16.4 billion in 2023, yet recently elected “progressive” Mayor Brandon Johnson (D) is proposing a long list of higher taxes because he wants even more money from the Windy City’s beleaguered residents.

Even as businesses and citizens alike flee Chicago, the city’s self-styled “progressive” mayor is looking to dole out another $1 billion in “investments,” according to Wirepoints.

Illinois, in general — and Chicago, in particular — have suffered some of the highest outward migration in the country, with Chicago coming in third for losing the most citizens in 2022, according to moving company Pods. Only Los Angeles and San Francisco rank higher in the number of people who have fled their city.

According to the Illinois Policy Institute, 32% of the state’s 104,437-person loss came from Chicago. The Windy City has lost population for nine years running, according to U.S. Census Bureau data.

Wirepoints also noted that Illinois suffered the nation’s third worst loss of businesses in 2021, as companies closed shop and moved out.

But according to Wirepoints, Johnson is seeking yet another hike with his $16.377 billion budget — a $5.7 billion increase over former Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s (D) 2019 budget, which came in at $10.67 billion. Lightfoot’s budget was an increase over former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s (D) $9.23 billion budget in 2015.

Proud Boys Leader Jailed for 17 years Over U.S. Capitol Attack

Quote:A leader of the Proud Boys militia who called for a “war” to keep Donald Trump as president was sentenced to 17 years in prison Thursday, one of the longest sentences yet over the 2021 attack on the US Capitol.

Prosecutors said Joe Biggs was a key figure in a “seditious conspiracy” to forcibly overturn Joe Biden’s election victory, leading Trump supporters in the January 6 military-style assault.

His sentence was one year short of the longest in the hundreds of convictions in the Capitol attack, an 18-year sentence given to Stewart Rhodes, the founder of another far-right militia central to the Capitol siege, the Oath Keepers.

But it was only half of the 33 years urged by prosecutors, as Judge Timothy Kelly said it was not a mass-casualty event and that Biggs had not intended to kill anyone in the uprising.

Nevertheless, Kelly said, “There is a need for deterrence.”

The assault “broke our tradition of the peaceful transfer of power, which is one of the most precious things that we had as Americans,” the judge said.

Before sentencing a tearful Biggs expressed regrets, saying he would have nothing more to do with the Proud Boys and would focus on his wife and daughter’s welfare.

Well, pretty much no police officer died that day, and no military force of any kind had to be deployed back then. So calling it an actual attack is a tremendous overstatement for sure. Right now I can only recall a single civilian getting killed, namely Ashley Babbitt. And her murderer isn't in jail nor has been prosecuted as expected...

Maui Resident: More Than 450 Bodies
Allegedly Recovered from Wildfire
and ‘Lot of Kids’ Still Missing

Quote:Maui search crews have allegedly found over 450 bodies, according to a local resident who is leading a grassroots relief effort to aid victims of the fire that decimated the town of Lahaina earlier this month.

“I guarantee you right now, from what has been seen, the number is over 450 and it’s gonna get — it’s gonna get closer to 1,000,” Maui resident Dale Hermo-Fernandez, who has close contacts inside local recovery efforts, said in a recent exclusive interview with Breitbart News.

“They’re not giving the number until they toe-tag them and identify them, which is understandable,” he said. “It’s guaranteed in the four hundreds. More than likely you’re going to get to 850 or 900 — with 40 percent being kids,” he said.

He said he did not want to discuss the children too much, out of respect for parents holding out hope.

“What I’m telling you right now is there’s a lot of kids. There’s a lot. There’s so much. And that’s the thing right now. The real disaster hasn’t even happened to the fullest,” Hermo-Fernandez said.

Quote:At present trends Europe is set to import more Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) from Russia than ever before this year, an NGO claims, with billions of dollars spent buying energy from Russia despite attitudes towards their Ukraine war, and the sanctions regime.

While European nations placed sanctions on the gas piped directly from Russia to Europe after its invasion of Ukraine last year, that regime did not apply to gas that comes by boat which is cooled and compressed into liquid form, known as Liquified Natural Gas (LNG). Those imports have soared despite principled talk about starving Russia of foreign trade, and so far this year Europe has bought over half of all Russian LNG exports.

While China is the largest single national customer for Russian LNG, Belgium and Spain come in second and third, and Europe is by far the largest destination for it overall. Europe’s imports from Russia are up 40 per cent this year compared to the same period in 2021 and is on track to be the biggest year for Russian LNG ever, an NGO called Global Witness claims, citing market analysis by Kpler, the Financial Times reports.

This year, Russian imports of LNG have accounted for 16 per cent of European acquisitions, second only to the United States as a source.

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Wagner Warlord Prigozhin Cited
‘Rumors About Wiping Me Out’
in Video Before Plane Crash

Quote:Social media accounts linked to Russia’s notorious Wagner Group on Thursday circulated a video clip that is reputedly the final recording of Yevgeny Prigozhin, the Wagner co-founder allegedly killed in a mysterious plane crash last week.

In the video, Priogzhin discussed “rumors” he would be eliminated for his role in leading a mutiny against the Russian military, but assured his fans that “everything is fine.”

The short video clip shows Prigozhin seated in a rapidly moving armored vehicle, which he said was speeding through Africa. He said he recorded the video for the benefit of people who are “debating if I’m dead or still alive.”

“I’m in Africa. So to those who like to spread rumors about wiping me out, my private life, my income or something like that I can say: everything is fine,” he said.

Prigozhin said he was recording this message on a “weekend” in the “second half of August 2023,” which would most likely mean before the August 23 plane crash en route to Moscow that reportedly killed him along with Wagner co-founder Dmitry Utkin, several top Wagner commanders, two pilots, and a flight attendant.

Some Wagner fans nevertheless speculated the video means Prigozhin is still alive today. A popular conspiracy theory holds that his “body double” died in the plane crash so that Prigozhin could either disappear into retirement with Russian leader Vladimir Putin’s blessing or secretly plot revenge against those who tried to liquidate him.

Yeah, what a great timing.  I guess somebody didn't want those videos to be released to the public. Even so, this would demonstrate that everything was NOT fine at all.
But there are always people claiming that Elvis is alive, that JFK never got killed, etc.

German People Would Rather The Government Fixed the Roads
Than Try to Solve Climate Change

Quote:Bad news for Germany’s left-green coalition government: research finds a clear majority of Germans would rather the state just got on with fixing potholes, and building new roads so they can drive their cars more.

Polling for one of Germany’s major newspapers has found strong feelings among German voters on government policy, showing a strong deviation from the aspirations of the influential coalition partner the Greens Party in the land of the Autobahn.

When asked which route they would prefer the government to take, 62 per cent of Germans said they wanted to see “renewal and further expansion of the motorway and road network”, an obvious rejection of the present zeitgeist for spreading limits on road access through congestion charges and road taxes. A big majority also said they preferred petrol and diesel cars to electric.

Just 33 per cent, in comparison, said repairing the roads that already exist and building new ones “should be avoided in favor of environmental and climate protection” reports Die Welt, citing research performed for them by a pollster. While approval for expanding roads rather than curbing road building for the environment varied by region and age, every demographic category still showed majority support.

EU Considers Whether Training Local Armies
to Fight al-Qaida is Linked to African Military Coups

Quote:European Union ministers expressed deep concern Thursday at the growing number of military coups across Africa as the bloc draws up sanctions targeting the junta in Niger which overthrew an elected government a month ago.

On Wednesday, the oil-rich nation of Gabon became the eighth Central or West African country to be hit by a military takeover in the last three years. The EU has not been training Gabon’s armed forces — although French troops have — but it has funded and taught troops in Mali and Niger.

The military training has focused mainly on the volatile Sahel region to combat extremism, particularly groups linked to al-Qaida. Many Europeans worry that instability in Africa will drive more people to flee, and the 27-nation bloc is already divided over how to cope with large numbers of migrant arrivals.

Some European countries have strong economic interests in Africa, notably France with its need for Niger’s uranium. The growing influence of Russia through the Wagner mercenary group, and the economic might of China are also forcing the bloc to rethink its policies.

“It´s clear that things haven´t gone well given the proliferation of military coups and the presence of Wagner gangs in the Central African Republic, Mali, Burkina Faso,” EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said,

Irish Foreign Minister Micheal Martin said that “we do need to evaluate our approach to Africa in the light of what has transpired.”

Talking to reporters in Toledo, Spain, where EU foreign ministers were meeting, Martin said training and supporting armies in Africa that might later turn on their governments “does present a very significant dilemma.”

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Jaden Smith Skips China Events
After State-Controlled Social Media Calls Him Racist

Quote:Actor and singer Jaden Smith suddenly canceled a spate of events scheduled in multiple cities in China, the state propaganda outlet Global Times confirmed on Monday, after a mysterious user of a regime-controlled social media application accused Smith of shouting racial slurs at Chinese and other Asians on a train in Japan.

It remains entirely unknown at press time who made the accusation — the Global Times claimed to be unable to find the person — and the accuser presented no proof of his or her claims. An English-language translation of the original post attacking Smith circulating on social media does not make it clear if the person was even accusing Smith, or merely someone in his entourage, of the outrageous behavior.

The saga began on Xiaohongshu, a social media application used in China often compared to Instagram. Xiaohongshu, like all Chinese social media applications in the country, employs strict censorship protocols to silence anything that could be interpreted as anti-communist sentiment or any posts that the Communist Party may disapprove of. Not only did the government not censor the post against Smith, but the Global Times amplified the controversy by reporting on it.

According to the Global Times, the original Xiaohongshu post claimed that the accuser was on a Shinkansen train from Kyoto to Tokyo on August 19 along with Smith and his entourage.

“Someone asked Jaden his opinion on different countries including China. Jaden replied with ‘F*** China.’ Smith repeatedly made derogatory remarks about China,” the post read, according to the Global Times, though these lines do not appear on other, unverified translations of the post circulating online.

 Now they accuse a black guy of being... racist? The same  CCP that discriminates anybody that does not belong to the Han majority in China!?

Now on our next topic, we first learned about Sudan's civil war, only to be followed by the crisis in Niger. But that was not enough for this region because there's just another military coup taking place over there.

Gabon Military Seizes Power, Marking Eighth African Coup in 3 Years

Quote:Top military officials in Gabon, central Africa, appeared suddenly on national television on Wednesday and announced they had ended the regime of President Ali Bongo Ondimba, whose family has ruled the country since 1967.

The soldiers, identifying themselves as “The Committee of Transition and the Restoration of Institutions,” condemned Bongo for holding what they deemed a fraudulent election on August 26 and claimed they were compelled to address Gabon’s “serious institutional, political, economic, and social crisis” by placing Bongo under house arrest and putting the nation “on the road to happiness.”

“Added to this is irresponsible and unpredictable governance, resulting in a continuing deterioration in social cohesion, with the risk of leading the country into chaos,” the soldiers said in their televised statement, according to a translation from the original French published by Nigeria’s Daily Trust. “Today, 30 August 2023, we … on behalf of the people of Gabon and as guarantors of the institutions’ protection — have decided to defend peace by putting an end to the current regime.”

“All the institutions of the Republic are dissolved: the government, the Senate, the National Assembly, the Constitutional Court, the Economic, Social and Environmental Council and the Gabonese Elections Centre,” the statement continued. “We call for calm and serenity from the public, the communities of sister countries settled in Gabon, and the Gabonese diaspora. We reaffirm our commitment to respecting Gabon’s commitments to the national and international community.”

“People of Gabon, we are finally on the road to happiness,” the soldiers promised.

Quote:President Joe Biden has spent 40 percent of his time as president on personal trips away from the White House, according to data calculated by the Republican National Committee.

The finding that Biden has spent 382 of his 957 days in the presidency away from the Oval Office was corroborated by the New York Post, using White House reports of Biden’s movements.

“We have millions of illegal immigrants pouring across our borders. Violent crime is surging. Inflation is crushing hard-working Americans. Our enemies around the world are emboldened,” Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) told the Post. “Meanwhile, Joe Biden is filmed on the beach with his handlers preventing him from speaking to the media to answer basic questions Americans deserve answers to.”

Biden was also spotted sitting underneath an umbrella reading what appeared to be court documents a day before Devon Archer testified against him, implicating that the president had been involved with son Hunter Biden’s foreign business schemes.

Currently, the president is on vacation with wife Jill Biden for Labor Day weekend at Rehoboth Beach in Delaware, the Daily Mail reported.

Biden’s days away from the White House beat out previous idler President George H.W. Bush, who spent 36 percent of his time in office away for personal time. Biden’s predecessor, former President Donald Trump, had spent 26 percent of his presidency away from the Oval Office.

Quote:During a portion of an interview with CBS News aired on Friday’s broadcast of “CBS Evening News,” Hawaii Gov. Josh Green (D) stated that the fires in Hawaii were “A tragic natural disaster,” and that “if other decisions were made, it is possible that we wouldn’t have had such loss.” But he doesn’t want to say officials were asleep at the wheel or if Maui County Mayor Richard Bissen should resign...

CBS News National Correspondent Jonathan Vigliotti asked, “Is it time for the Mayor to resign? What are your thoughts?”

Green responded, “My first thoughts are, we should really get to all of the facts, whatever they may be, good or bad. That is a deeply personal discussion for any Mayor and his or her constituents to have.”

Vigliotti then asked, “Were they asleep at the wheel?”

Green said, “I don’t know if I should use those words.”

Quote:The head of Russia’s Roscosmos space agency said Friday that the country has deployed an advanced intercontinental ballistic missile that President Vladimir Putin once said will make Russia’s enemies “think twice.”

Agency head Yuri Borisov said Sarmat missiles have been placed on combat duty, according to Russian news agencies.
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The Sarmat is one of several advanced weapons whose development Putin announced in 2018. The silo-based missile, capable of carrying multiple nuclear warheads, is intended to replace the R-36 ICBMs that are known by the NATO reporting name of Satan.

The Sarmat reportedly has a short initial launch phase, allowing little time for surveillance systems to track it.

In 2022, about two months after sending troops into Ukraine, Putin said the Sarmat would “reliably ensure the security of Russia from external threats and make those who, in the heat of aggressive rhetoric, try to threaten our country, think twice.”

Quote:German Chancellor Olaf Scholz dismissed a suggestion by a junior coalition partner that the country should keep open the option of using its closed nuclear power plants, declaring that atomic energy is a “dead horse” in Germany.

Germany switched off its last three nuclear reactors in April, completing a process that received wide political support after Japan’s Fukushima nuclear reactor disaster in 2011. But some argued for a rethink after energy prices spiked because of the war in Ukraine.

Among those who advocated a reprieve were members of the Free Democrats, a pro-business party that is part of Scholz’s governing coalition.

This week, the Free Democrats’ parliamentary group approved a policy statement saying that it wants “to stop the dismantling of the nuclear power plants that are still fit to use” as part of efforts to be prepared for worst-case scenarios. “That is the only way we will remain capable of acting in every situation,” it said.
...
Nuclear energy is over,” he said. “The issue of nuclear energy in Germany is a dead horse. Anyone who wanted to build new nuclear power plants would need 15 years and would have to spend 15-20 billion euros ($16.2-21.6 billion) each.”

The chancellor insisted that “the fact is that with the end of the use of nuclear power, dismantling has also begun,” and any talk of resuming the use of atomic energy would imply building new power stations.

Quote:The U.S. government is trying to stop a planned expedition to recover items of historical interest from the sunken Titanic, citing a federal law and an international agreement that treat the shipwreck as a hallowed gravesite.

The expedition is being organized by RMS Titanic Inc., the Georgia-based firm that owns the salvage rights to the world’s most famous shipwreck. The company exhibits artifacts that have been recovered from the wreck site at the bottom of the North Atlantic, from silverware to a piece of the Titanic's hull.

The government's challenge comes more than two months after the Titan submersible imploded near the sunken ocean liner, killing five people. But this legal fight has nothing to do with the June tragedy, which involved a different company and an unconventionally designed vessel.

The battle in the U.S. District Court in Norfolk, Virginia, which oversees Titanic salvage matters, hinges instead on federal law and a pact with Great Britain to treat the sunken Titanic as a memorial to the more than 1,500 people who died. The ship hit an iceberg and sank in 1912.

The United States argues that entering the Titanic's severed hull—or physically altering or disturbing the wreck—is regulated by federal law and its agreement with Britain. Among the government's concerns is the possible disturbance of artifacts and any human remains that may still exist.

Quote:The U.S. Defense Department said Thursday that it will extend the deployment of up to 400 active-duty American troops at the U.S. southern border with Mexico until at least the end of September.

The Pentagon had pulled 1,100 troops from the border last month but extended the deployment of the remaining 400 soldiers.

"On Aug. 24, 2023, the secretary of defense approved an extension of up to 400 personnel providing support to Customs and Border Protection on the southwest border through Sept. 30, 2023," Pentagon spokesman Lt. Col. Devin Robinson told NBC News on Sept. 1.

Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin approved in May the deployment of 1,500 active-duty troops to the southern border for 90 days to assist border officials with a possible influx of illegal immigration at the border.

The Pentagon said the troops will "fill critical capability gaps, such as ground-based detection and monitoring, data entry, and warehouse support" but will not directly participate in law enforcement activities.

Quote:Growing safety concerns over the city's bussing of illegal immigrants into the outer boroughs have intensified efforts from Staten Island to break away from the Big Apple.

“The values of New York City are not in line with those of Staten Island and they haven’t been for a long time and that divide is only growing larger,” Staten Island Borough President Vito Fossella told the Epoch Times. “There is this very real sense that the city won’t listen to our concerns and that we have reached a boiling point.”

“The people feel like we are on a tugboat attached to the Titanic,” Fossella said. “The people can see that the city is sinking, and unless we are okay with sinking too, there is a need to separate.”

Staten Island, long known as the forgotten borough, has often flirted with the idea of breaking off from the rest of the city. It has always been an outlier within the five boroughs, with a majority conservative Republican population that is often at odds with the rest of the city. Despite New York City’s status as a blue stronghold, the borough mostly voted for former President Donald Trump in 2020. However, in recent years, many residents have reached a breaking point over increases in crime and, more recently, the bussing of illegal immigrants into residential neighborhoods, according to Mr. Fossella.

“They dump these individuals into our neighborhoods and to my knowledge none of them have been vetted,” said Mr. Fossella. “One of these migrant shelters is located directly across the street from two elementary schools and they just expect the people to take it. Why would we want to take that risk?

“The concern is legitimate. We are not as safe as we should be and the people are fed up.”

Quote:Two people were charged with looting a home damaged by Hurricane Idalia in Florida's Big Bend region, as residents' concerns grew that burglars could be tempted to hit other hurricane-ravaged homes since law enforcement is stretched thin in the remote, wooded area along the Gulf Coast.

Some residents of Horseshoe Beach, Florida, one of the communities hardest hit after Idalia made landfall Wednesday as a Category 3 hurricane, urged law enforcement to set up checkpoints where people would have to show identification in order to get into the town.

Marina worker Kerry Ford had high praise for local law enforcement's response to the hurricane but wished more would be done to keep out people who don't belong in Horseshoe Beach.
...
A man and a woman from Palmetto, Florida, almost 200 miles (322 kilometers) south of where Idalia made landfall, were arrested Wednesday after an officer from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission heard noises coming from outside a home in Horseshoe Beach.

The officer found the man and woman loading up items from the waterfront home into a rented pickup truck. One of the suspects told deputies that the homeowner had given him permission to remove items from the house on stilts. But the homeowners told deputies when contacted that they had done no such thing, according to a statement from the Dixie County Sheriff's Office.

Each suspect was charged with burglary of an unoccupied dwelling during an emergency, grand theft, and trespassing, with bails set for each at $1 million.

Quote:One person died and 18 others were injured in a wrong-way crash involving a Greyhound passenger bus on a Maryland highway, police said.

The driver of an SUV died early Thursday when the vehicle, which driving on the wrong side of the highway, hit the bus, according to police. The crash injured the bus driver and 17 bus passengers.

The bus was traveling eastbound on Route 32 near Interstate 95 in the Savage area with 38 passengers aboard around 3:30 a.m. when it collided with a Buick Enclave that was traveling westbound in eastbound lanes, Howard County police said in a news release. Savage is 15 miles (24.14 kilometers) southwest of Baltimore.

The man who was driving the Buick died at the scene. The bus driver and injured passengers were taken to area hospitals with injuries that weren’t considered life-threatening, police said.

Quote:Italy's foreign minister, Antonio Tajani, ahead of his three-day trip to Beijing, said that being a part of China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) did not bring the country the expected economic benefits.

“The Italian Parliament is checking the situation. In this moment, the countries without the Belt and Road Initiative, the European countries, are working better than us. For this, Italy will decide if [to] stay or not [to] stay in the Belt and Road Initiative. In the parliament, many parties are against it,” he said on CNBC Saturday.

He said the deal had "failed to meet Italian expectations."

The BRI was meant to connect Asia, Europe, and Africa through a "new Silk Road," via large infrastructure spending. Critics have decried it as a way for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to expand its geopolitical power and economic influence.

“The Italian message is very clear: we want to work with China, we want to be present in China’s market, we are ready for Chinese investment, but as I said, it is important [to have a] level playing field,” said Mr. Tajani, who previously served as President of the European Parliament, as European Commissioner, and is also Italy's Deputy Prime Minister. "We want to continue to work closely with China, but we must also analyze exports: the BRI has not produced the results we were hoping for."

Italy is the only G7 country that is a part of China's BRI, and its withdrawal would mean a major setback for China.

Quote:Moscow will not hesitate to use nuclear weapons if Ukraine’s counteroffensive efforts are successful and recapture “Russian land”, former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev warned on Sunday.

The war of words once again escalated in the conflict between Russia and Ukraine on Sunday, with Zelensky declaring that it is “absolutely fair” for targets within Russia to be attacked and top-Putin ally Dmitry Medvedev explicitly threatening to resort to a nuclear strike to win the war.

Taking to his personal Telegram channel to mark the Russian military holiday of Navy Day, the former president said: “Our Armed Forces, repelling the counteroffensive of the collective enemy, protect the citizens of Russia and our land. This is obvious to all decent people.

“But beyond that, they prevent world conflict. After all, if we imagine that the offensive of the [Ukrainian Nazis] with the support of NATO was successful and they seized part of our land, then we would have to, by virtue of the rules of the decree of the President of Russia dated 06/02/2020, go for the use of nuclear weapons.”

“There is simply no other way out. Therefore, our enemies must pray to our warriors. They do not allow the global nuclear fire to flare up,” Medvedev concluded.

Quote:Despite claims from Prime Minister Rishi Sunak that his feckless Conservative government’s policies have been “working” to stem the tide of illegals pouring over the Channel from France, the crisis seems to be escalating rather than abating.

According to figures published by the Home Office, some 872 migrants reached the UK on Saturday in 15 small boats launched by people smugglers on the coasts of France. This represents the highest total for any single day period of 2023.

The PA news agency noted that Saturday’s crossings surpassed the previous high on August 10th when 756 illegals made the perilous journey across the world’s busiest waterway. Saturday’s record number of migrants did fall short of the all time high set last year on August 22 when 1,295 arrived.

The latest small boat crossings take the total for the year to approximately 20,973, with 1,172 reaching the country over the past week, alone.  While this is down from last year, when around 25,000 migrants had reached the UK by this point of the year, it is still significantly higher than in 2021 when around 28,000 landed on British beaches during the entire year.

Quote:They sweep the sea in 400-ship swarms, Chinese fishing boats that—based on time of year and fishery—include trawlers, purse seiners, gill-netters, pole-and-line platforms, squid jiggers, tuna longliners, wood-hulled freighters, and sail-masted junks.

The fleet is shepherded by oil tankers, supply barges, “research” vessels, and hospital ships, shadowed by Chinese navy warships and coast guard cutters, and serviced by massive motherships with 500,000 cubic feet of frozen storage holds.

Rotating motherships ferry harvests to China and return with provisions on a continuous cycle so the fleet can keep fishing until there are no more fish and it must move on to keep fishing until there are no more fish in the new areas across the globe, from Senegal to the South Pacific.

Chinese fishing armadas are becoming common and long-lingering sights in international waters just beyond 200-mile national exclusive economic zones (EEZ) off Africa’s and South America’s coasts and across the vast central and western Pacific, including off—and allegedly in—the sovereign waters of Guam, American Samoa, and the Commonwealth of Northern Marianas Islands (CNMI), which are United States territories.

Marauding Chinese fishing boats have destroyed domestic commercial industries and damaged sports-fishing businesses across the Pacific, island leaders told a Congressional panel during meetings and field hearings staged on Guam, Saipan, American Samoa, Palau, and Micronesia between Aug. 23–Aug. 28.
...
Leaders from the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI), Republic of Palau, and Federated States of Micronesia (FSM) joined territorial government officials in citing illegal fishing by swarming Chinese boats as part of a “political warfare” pattern of economic coercion, subversion, harassment, and overt threats orchestrated by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to sew discord among local governments, businesses, and civic groups across the Pacific in a persistent effort to drive a wedge between them and the United States.

Quote:The Summit at Camp David has drawn to a close, culminating in a robust show of military alignment among the United States, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan. On Aug. 21, Japan unveiled a significant hike in its defense budget for fiscal year 2024, Taiwan revealed a record-setting budget for the upcoming year, and the United States and South Korea commenced expansive joint military drills. These collective moves amplify the strategic posture along the first island chain and serve as tangible manifestations of the commitments made during the summit.

At the closing press conference of the summit on Aug. 18, the leaders of the United States, Japan, and South Korea shared a united vision for enhanced trilateral security cooperation and emphasized the role their countries will play in fostering a more secure and prosperous global order.

Japan’s daily newspaper Sankei Shimbun reported that the Japanese Ministry of Defense’s fiscal 2024 budget request amounts to an unprecedented 7.738 trillion yen (approximately $52.75 billion), marking a significant escalation from the 6.8219 trillion yen ($46.6 billion) allocated for fiscal 2023.

The proposed budget earmarks 930 billion yen (about $6.35 billion) for ammunition expenses, aimed at augmenting the nation’s sustained combat capabilities. A further 380 billion yen (about $2.6 billion) has been allocated for the initiation of construction for two naval vessels outfitted with the state-of-the-art missile defense system, Aegis Ashore, referred to as “Aegis system equipped vessels (ASEV).”
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In Taiwan, President Tsai Ing-wen has ratified an unprecedented defense budget for the upcoming fiscal year. Ms. Tsai said during a briefing on Aug. 21 that Taiwan’s overall defense budget for the coming year will soar to a record 606.8 billion Taiwan dollars (about $19 billion) from the 359.6 billion Taiwan dollars (about $11 billion) allocated in 2016, and is expected to account for 2.5 percent of its GDP.
...
Steady advancements have been observed in the country's defense capabilities, including the imminent delivery of 683 eight-wheeled armored fighting vehicles and the first tranche of M1A2T tanks. Taiwan’s Air Force is also set to complete the full upgrade of 141 F-16A/B fighter jets by year-end, along with the introduction of 91 naval vessels and a prototype submarine, expected to be launched this September.

(09-04-2023, 12:22 AM)kyonides Wrote:

Pentagon Extends Troop Deployment
at US-Mexico Border Through September

Quote:The U.S. Defense Department said Thursday that it will extend the deployment of up to 400 active-duty American troops at the U.S. southern border with Mexico until at least the end of September.
...
...
The Pentagon said the troops will "fill critical capability gaps, such as ground-based detection and monitoring, data entry, and warehouse support" but will not directly participate in law enforcement activities.

 Essentially, GOTION registered that it is indeed a Chinese company that represents CCP's interests.

Quote:Federal investigators believe spying networks are behind the 100-plus attempted entries by Chinese nationals into sensitive U.S. sites in recent years, a report Sunday set out.

The cases are reportedly many and varied, including people crossing into a U.S. missile range in New Mexico — and scuba divers swimming near a rocket launch site and Kennedy Space Center in Florida, the Wall Street Journal said quoting officials familiar with the allegations.

Drones to take detailed aerial footage of sensitive military sites have been seen— while the Pentagon confirmed cases of people “speeding through security checkpoints.”
...
For example, individuals and groups often claim to be looking for hotels or a Burger King when challenged.

The Defense Department and FBI are among multiple federal agencies which shared a review last year on how to limit the attempts, which officials told the WSJ are viewed as a form of espionage.

Congress might also consider legislation, Rep. Jason Crow (D- Colo.) told the paper, to toughen up how security is handled at the sensitive sites, with trespassing laws currently being state and local, not federal.
...
The incidents that occurred in rural areas where there is little tourism typically involved Chinese nationals who were pressed into service and required to report back to the Chinese government, the report added.

“The advantage the Chinese have is they are willing to throw people at [intelligence] collection in large numbers,” said Emily Harding, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington and a former deputy staff director at the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

In many of these cases, officials told the WSJ, those who have been found trespassing on bases have been briefly detained and then escorted out of the country.

No cases appear to have resulted in espionage charges, the paper said.

Quote:A cadet at a Texas border-area police academy received a sentence of more than four years in prison for supplying a cartel in Mexico with .50 caliber ammunition.

Pedro Cruz Almeida, age 22, appeared before U.S. District Judge Micaela Alvarez last week and received a sentence of 50 months in prison for his role in helping smuggle thousands of rounds of .50 caliber ammunition into Mexico. Almeida had been free on bond after pleading guilty to the charges in late April.

The case began in February when a Hidalgo County Deputy Constable pulled Almeida over during a traffic stop, court documents obtained by Breitbart Texas revealed. When the deputy searched Almeida’s red Hyundai Elantra, he found several boxes of ammunition in the trunk and other parts of the vehicle. In total, the man had 600 rounds of .50 caliber tracer ammunition.

During questioning by federal authorities, Almeida said he was headed to one of the local international bridges where a man was waiting for him. The other man was driving a vehicle with Mexican license plates and was going to drive the ammunition into Reynosa, he stated. During a subsequent search of his house, authorities found 300 rounds of .50 caliber ammunition that had been shipped to Almeida. He also told authorities that he had acquired ammunition for his contacts in Mexico at least 30 other times in the past in exchange for cash, court records revealed.

Quote:According to a report from the New York Post, 29-year-old Daniel Hernandez Martinez of Venezuela first arrived in New York City on June 27 from the United States-Mexico border. The very next day, he allegedly robbed a Costco in Sunset Park, Brooklyn.

Martinez was subsequently charged with petty larceny and, thanks to New York’s bail reform law, was released from police custody without having to pay bail.

The following week, Martinez allegedly robbed a Duane Reade in Columbus Circle in Manhattan and also allegedly sought to stab a security guard with a large knife while attempting to shoplift at a different Duane Reade location.

Martinez was charged with menacing and released again without bail.

On July 31, Martinez allegedly attacked independent journalist Jeffrey Bradac, 52 years old, who had just wrapped up interviewing him for his social media accounts. Bradac has been covering illegal immigration in the city and said Martinez assaulted him with a bike tire.

While Martinez initially got away before police officers could arrest him, Bradac saw him outside of the Row Hotel, where Mayor Eric Adams (D) has put thousands of migrants, and subsequently called the police who quickly arrested him.

Quote:The meeting in Sochi on Russia´s southern coast comes after weeks of speculation about when and where the two leaders might meet.

Erdogan previously said that Putin would travel to Turkey in August.

The Kremlin refused to renew the grain agreement six weeks ago. The deal – brokered by the United Nations and Turkey in July 2022 – had allowed nearly 33 million metric tons (36 million tons) of grain and other commodities to leave three Ukrainian ports safely despite Russia’s war.

However, Russia pulled out after claiming that a parallel deal promising to remove obstacles to Russian exports of food and fertilizer hadn’t been honored.

Moscow complained that restrictions on shipping and insurance hampered its agricultural trade, even though it has shipped record amounts of wheat since last year.

Since Putin withdrew from the initiative, Erdogan has repeatedly pledged to renew arrangements that helped avoid a food crisis in parts of Africa, the Middle East and Asia. Ukraine and Russia are major suppliers of wheat, barley, sunflower oil and other goods that developing nations rely on.
...
Turkey hasn’t joined Western sanctions against Russia following its invasion, emerging as a main trading partner and logistical hub for Russia´s overseas trade.

NATO member Turkey, however, has also supported Ukraine, sending arms, meeting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and backing Kyiv’s bid to join NATO.

Quote:Former Proud Boys Leader Enrique Tarrio received 22 years in federal prison on Tuesday, a record-high sentence for the January 6, 2021, defendants.

Tarrio’s 22-year sentence surpasses Oath Keepers founder Steward Rhodes and former Proud Boys leader Ethan Nordean’s previous record-high 18-year prison sentence.

The 39-year-old was not in Washington, DC, on January 6, 2021, due to his arrest in the city two days prior for allegedly defacing a Black Lives Matter banner. After his arrest, a judge ordered him to leave the nation’s capital, so Tarrio spent the majority of January 6, 2021, at a Baltimore hotel.

However, prosecutors said Tarrio’s absence from the city on that day “does nothing to detract from the severity of his conduct,” because he “was a general rather than a soldier.”

Federal prosecutors said Tarrio is a “gifted communicator who excels at attracting followers” who “used those talents to inflame and radicalize untold numbers of followers, promoting political violence in general and orchestrating the charged conspiracies in particular.”

“To Tarrio, January 6 was an act of revolution,” prosecutors added.

Tarrio was one of four Proud Boys convicted of seditious conspiracy after a trial in May. Judge Timothy Kelly applied a terrorism sentencing enhancement, as he did with some of Tarrio’s co-defendants.

Tarrio’s attorney, Sabino Jauregui, fought back against the terrorism label, arguing that Tarrio is a “misguided patriot.”

Quote:The Castro regime has forced the local community to celebrate the procession at an earlier hour instead, when the sun and heat conditions are “overwhelming,” according to the Catholic priest.

The Vatican declared Our Lady of Charity of El Cobre as Patroness of Cuba in 1916. Cuban Catholics mark September 8 as the feast day of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

The traditional procession is part of the yearly celebration of Cuba’s patron saint, which includes a solemn Mass followed by a series of processions with the image of the Virgin across several towns in the nation, which the faithful accompany with prayers.

On his Facebook account, Priest Pías said on Friday that the local parish in Esmeralda was scheduled to celebrate an evening Mass and then carry out the procession, as per tradition – but the Castro regime imposed a restriction that the procession cannot take place at night, with “no explanation, no appeal possible.”

“The [Cuban Communist] Party has spoken, the Party has decided, and its decision admits no reply, either it is accepted or there is no procession, even at an hour when the sun and the heat are oppressive,” Pías wrote.

Pías, a staunch critic of the Castro regime’s communist indoctrination of children in schools, lambasted the regime for the lack of respect for religious freedom in Cuba and its continued control of any activity deemed “suspicious.”

Content Hidden

Communist Castro Regime to “Dismantle” Human Trafficking Network
Sending Cubans to Fight for Russia in Ukraine

Quote:The communist regime’s announcement follows reports published last week indicating at least two Cuban teenagers accused Russian scammers of deceiving them with a fake construction job offer to coerce them into fighting in Ukraine.

In a statement issued by the Cuban Foreign Ministry on Monday, the Castro regime asserted that the alleged human trafficking network operates from Russia and involves “Cuban citizens living there, and even some from Cuba.”

“Attempts of this nature have been neutralized and criminal proceedings have been initiated against persons involved in these activities,” the statement reads.

The Russian government has not commented on the allegations at press time.

Cuba has been a longstanding ally of Russia. Much like the other two authoritarian regimes in the region – Venezuela and Nicaragua – it has openly expressed its support of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla claimed last year that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was “necessary” in response to the existence of NATO, despite Ukraine not being a member country of the organization.

Did you ever consider the possibility that a former dictator could become a  out of the blue?
Well, some people already did...

Chile: Actress Says Pinochet Vampire Movie ‘Necessary’ to Fight ‘Extreme Right’

Quote:The cast and crew behind the film El Conde (“The Count”), debuting at the Venice International Film Festival this week, said depicting late Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet as a vampire was “necessary” because the “extreme right” was gaining ground around the world.

Augusto Pinochet was a Chilean general who took power via a coup ousting socialist Salvador Allende on September 11, 1973. Pinochet’s dictatorship lasted until 1990 when he stepped down following a national vote to return to democracy and a subsequent presidential election. Patricio Aylwin became the first post-dictatorship elected leader of the country with no intervention on Pinochet’s part. The general died in 2006.

“Pinochet had never been portrayed in film or TV before,” Pablo Larrain, the director of El Conde, said during a press conference in Venice ahead of the film’s premiere on Thursday. “The approach we chose led us to combine elements of farce and satire.”

Pinochet appears in the movie as a 250-year-old vampire.

“It’s probably the only way [to depict Pinochet],” Larrain claimed. “If you avoid satire there is a risk of creating empathy, and that’s not acceptable.”

“This is a film that can start a national conversation,” actress Paula Luchsinger, who plays a nun in the movie, said. “There is a resurgence of the extreme right in Chile and this is a necessary film because it reminds us that Pinochet went unpunished.”

“It’s also necessary because the wind of the extreme right isn’t just blowing in Chile,” she added. “It’s blowing around the world.”

 They don't even know what they're doing by coming up with such a nonsense.

Quote:Several Russian journalists on Monday published photos of Gen. Sergei Surovikin, the commander known as “General Armageddon” for his aggressive tactics who has not been seen in public since Wagner Group founder Yevgeny Prigozhin launched his ill-fated mutiny in June.

“General Sergei Surovikin is out. Alive, healthy, at home, with his family, in Moscow. Photo taken today,” Russian media personality Ksenia Sobchak wrote Monday on the encrypted messaging platform Telegram.

Sobchak included a photo of Surovikin dressed in casual civilian clothes and walking through a garden beside a woman who appears to be his wife Anna.
...
Venediktov said Surovikin was allowed to speak with his family shortly after the mutiny but has been held incommunicado ever since, possibly while President Vladimir Putin decides his fate.

Venediktov said Surovikin has been interrogated by a commission to weed out Prigozhin sympathizers, which was established by Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, the primary target of Prigozhin’s anger.

International media outlets could not confirm the authenticity of Sobchak’s photo, or when and where it was taken. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov refused to comment on Surovikin’s status at a press conference on Tuesday.

However, unnamed U.S. officials told the New York Times (NYT) on Tuesday they believe Surovikin has been released from the secret detention in which he has been held ever since Prigozhin’s mutiny. These officials said it was unclear whether Surovikin remains under some form of house arrest, or if he is still an officer in the Russian military.

Quote:A group of Australian lawmakers said Tuesday they would travel to Washington this month to lobby the United States to abandon its efforts to extradite WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.

The delegation includes former Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce and five other lawmakers from across the political spectrum. Their trip is timed to draw attention to the issue ahead of a planned visit to the White House in late October by Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.

Independent lawmaker and delegation member Monique Ryan told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. they represented a large group of lawmakers who feel “really, really strongly about the importance of securing Mr. Assange’s freedom.”

Ryan said Assange was in poor health which made the matter more pressing.

Assange, an Australian citizen, has spent the past four years in Britain’s Belmarsh Prison fighting extradition to the U.S. He has been charged with espionage for publishing classified military and diplomatic cables through WikiLeaks. If found guilty, he could face a sentence of up to 175 years in prison.

The effort by the Australian lawmakers is the latest in a series of international moves raising questions about the extradition. Pope Francis met with Assange’s wife Stella in June, which she said was evidence of his ongoing support for the family’s plight. In May, Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva denounced the lack of concerted efforts to free Assange.

Quote:A judge sentenced “That ’70s Show” star Danny Masterson to 30 years to life in prison Thursday for the rapes of two women two decades ago.

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Charlaine F. Olmedo handed down the sentence to the 47-year-old Masterson after hearing statements from the women about the trauma they experienced and the suffering caused by the disturbing memories in the years since.

The actor, who has been in custody since May, sat in court wearing a suit. Masterson watched the women without visible reaction as they spoke.

“When you raped me, you stole from me,” said one woman who Masterson was convicted of raping in 2003. “That’s what rape is, a theft of the spirit.”

“You are pathetic, disturbed and completely violent,” she said. “The world is better off with you in prison.”

The other woman Masterson was found guilty of raping said he “has not shown an ounce of remorse for the pain he caused.” She told the judge, “I knew he belonged behind bars for the safety of all the women he came into contact with. I am so sorry, and I’m so upset. I wish I’d reported him sooner to the police.”

After an initial jury failed to reach verdicts on three counts of rape in December and a mistrial was declared, prosecutors retried Masterson on all three counts earlier this year.

Quote:Reps. Sylvia Garcia (D-TX), Lou Correa (D-CA), and Yvette Clarke (D-NY) have filed an amendment to the $91.5 billion DHS funding bill that would see the American Dream and Promise Act become law.

The DREAM Act-style amnesty, which has repeatedly failed to pass the House and Senate in prior years, would give green cards and a path to naturalized American citizenship to about 4.4 million illegal aliens in the United States.

The Heritage Foundation Director of the Border Security and Immigration Center Lora Ries told Breitbart News that the amnesty attempt should be expected from Democrats.

“The Left’s tactic: Never let a crisis go to waste, especially an intentional, Biden administration-made border crisis, to seek amnesty for illegal aliens,” Ries said. “The Left needs to stop treading on Americans with border and national insecurity. Just ask New York City Mayor Eric Adams, New Yorkers, and south-side Chicago residents.”
...
Notably, the amnesty is backed by some of the nation’s biggest multinational corporations as well as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce — all of whom regularly advocate for a constant flow of foreign workers into the labor market to help keep wages down.

In 2021, while Durbin was pushing the amnesty, the likes of Amazon, Microsoft, Google, IBM, Facebook, Verizon, Visa, Marriott International, and Apple, among others, threw their support behind the bill.

Quote:During a townhall on the Upper West Side on Wednesday, a visibly frustrated Adams said the arrival of 110,000 border crossers and illegal aliens since the spring of last year will lead to the destruction of New York City as waves of illegal immigration have continued unabated under President Joe Biden’s watch.

NYC Mayor Eric Adams Wrote:Let me tell you something New Yorkers: Never in my life have I had a problem that I did not see an ending to. I don’t see an ending to this. I don’t see an ending to this. This issue will destroy New York City, destroy New York City. We’re getting 10,000 migrants a month.

One time we were just getting Venezuela, now we’re getting Ecuador, now we’re getting Russian-speaking coming through Mexico, now we’re getting Western Africa, now we’re getting people from all over the globe have made their minds up that they’re going to come through the southern part of the border and come into New York City.

And everyone is saying, ‘It’s New York City’s problem.’ Every community in this city is going to be impacted. We have a $12 billion deficit that we’re going to have to cut every service in this city is going to be impacted. All of us.

t’s going to come to your neighborhoods. All of us are going to be impacted by this. I said it last year when we had 15,000. I’m telling you now with 110,000. The city we knew, we’re about to lose.

Quote:The first Africa Climate Summit ended Wednesday with a demand for global leaders to initiate a global carbon tax on fossil fuels, aviation and maritime transport, all while reforming financial systems that force African nations to pay more to borrow money.

AP reports the call came in a declaration backed by the leaders of the continent which looked to the world’s biggest emitters of greenhouse gases and its richest countries to fulfill a pledge of delivering $100 billion annually to developing nations in climate finance.

“No country should ever have to choose between development aspirations and climate action,” the declaration says, following other calls made in the past to impose taxes that could be redistributed to poorer nations.
...
The statement went on to call for Africa’s vast mineral wealth to be processed on the continent, noting that “decarbonizing the global economy is also an opportunity to contribute to equality and shared prosperity.”

The call for reparations comes after Kenya’s President William Ruto said a global tax on carbon emissions can help redress Africa’s chronically low Gross Domestic Product (GDP) rates, as Breitbart News reported.

He pointed to “climate change” driven by successful, dynamic economies in Europe, North America and Asia, as a drain on Africa’s economic progress and it’s time to have a global conversation about a carbon tax on the world’s richest nations.

Quote:The U.S. Treasury Department on Wednesday imposed sanctions for human rights violations against Abdelrahim Hamdan Dagalo, a senior commander in Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a brutal paramilitary force led by Dagalo’s brother Mohammed Hamdan Daglo.

The RSF was part of the junta that overthrew Sudan’s transitional government in 2021, but broke away from the Sudanese army in April 2023, launching a vicious battle for power that has killed and displaced thousands of civilians.

The Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) described the RSF as “an entity whose members have engaged in acts of violence and human rights abuses, including the massacre of civilians, ethnic killings, and use of sexual violence.”

“Since the beginning of conflict between the RSF and Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) on April 15, 2023, both sides have failed to implement a ceasefire, and the RSF and allied militias have been credibly accused of extensive human rights abuses in Darfur and elsewhere,” OFAC said.

The Treasury statement accused the RSF of deliberately targeting women, children, and other civilians for “killing, maiming, torture, or rape” as well as abduction and forced displacement from their homes. The RSF has attacked “schools, hospitals, religious sites,” and other “locations where civilians are seeking refuge.”

Quote:The socialist Maduro regime sent a delegation to China seeking investments to reactivate and boost Venezuela’s run-down oil industry, according to a report published by Bloomberg on Tuesday.

The report, which cites two sources with direct knowledge of the matter, states that the pursuit of Chinese funds is part of socialist dictator Nicolás Maduro’s efforts to revive the nation’s crumbling economy ahead of next year’s “free and fair” presidential election. Maduro will seek to be re-elected for a third six-year presidential term after clinging to power through a sham presidential election in 2018.

The Venezuelan delegation, led by Vice President Delcy Rodriguez and Oil Minister Pedro Tellechea, arrived in Shanghai on Tuesday — the first high-level Venezuelan delegation of its kind to visit China in five years.

Rodríguez and Tellechea are reportedly discussing possible joint ventures between Chinese companies and the state-owned Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) oil company:

Venezuelan Vice President's Tweet Wrote:#EnVideo || En nombre del Presidente @NicolasMaduro, la Vicepresidenta Ejecutiva de la República @delcyrodriguezv, llegó a la ciudad de Shanghái #China para una visita oficial, fortaleciendo así las relaciones entre ambos países.#5Sep pic.twitter.com/rGutJ4KYnw

— Vicepresidencia Vzla (@ViceVenezuela) September 5, 2023

Quote:A group of more than 20 Argentine Catholic priests celebrated a joint “Mass of Atonement” in Buenos Aires on Tuesday, to defend Pope Francis and respond to statements issued by libertarian economist, lawmaker, and presidential front-runner Javier Milei in 2020.

In those remarks, Milei accused the Pope of being an “imbecile who defends social justice,” a “son of a [b*] preaching communism,” and “the representative of the evil one on Earth.” Milei remains outspokenly critical of Pope Francis, although his tone has moderated since he took the lead in the October election.

The “Mass of Atonement” event was organized by the Curas Villeros (“Villager Priests”), a group of Argentine Catholic priests established in the late 1960s who live in Argentina’s slums or shantytowns.

“This Mass is to reject insults and in support of Pope Francis,” priest Jose “Pepe” Di Paola said. Di Paola worked closely with the pope when he was Archbishop of Buenos Aires Jorge Bergoglio prior to becoming Pope Francis in 2013.

Quote:When little-known politician Bernardo Arévalo was announced the winner of Guatemala's presidential run-off vote on Aug. 20, it ended more than a decade of conservative leadership. But in the wake of Mr. Arévalo's surprising win, analysts are expressing concern about the progressive president-elect's goal to strengthen ties with China.

This could be especially troublesome for the United States—Guatemala's top trade partner—and the politically embattled Taiwan. Guatemala is one of just 13 nations that diplomatically recognizes Taipei over Beijing. It's also one of Taiwan's two remaining allies in Central America.

On Aug. 21, just one day after Guatemalan officials announced the election results, a spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, Wang Wenbin, expressed the desire for Guatemala's new head of state to "make the right decision" and establish formal diplomatic ties with China.

“Lately, people from various sectors in Guatemala have expressed in interviews their hope that their country will soon establish diplomatic ties with China, which fully indicates that developing relations with China ... is what serves the fundamental interests of Guatemala,” Mr. Wang said in a statement initially reported by the Chinese state channel CCTV.

Mr. Arévalo swiftly rose to popularity on the campaign trail because of his tough stance on crime and internal corruption, which has plagued Guatemala for decades. But while his rhetoric focused on ending duplicity within the state, he also wasn't subtle in asserting that Guatemala needs to do more business with China.

Quote:The U.S. Consulate in the northern Mexican border town of Matamoros on Monday said its "employees are currently under a shelter in place order" due to gun violence in the city.

In recent years Matamoros, which borders the southern U.S. city of Brownsville in Texas, has been racked by violence linked to drug trafficking.

"We recommend you shelter in place and stay tuned to local news for updates in your area," the U.S. Consulate General said on X, the social media platform previously known as Twitter.

The U.S. Embassy in Mexico City did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

Earlier this year two Americans were killed when members of a drug cartel kidnapped four people in Matamoros in a case of apparent mistaken identity, an incident that threw a harsh spotlight on violence in Mexico and sparked angry reactions from some U.S. lawmakers critical of Mexican efforts to fight crime.

Quote:China is preparing to impose yet another in a long series of increasingly draconian “national security” laws, this time criminalizing anything that “undermines” China’s “national spirit” or “harms the feelings” of the country as a whole. Legal scholars quickly pointed out that such a vague and open-ended law would give every official in China’s vast bureaucratic army the power to punish anything that offends their personal sensibilities.

The “national spirit” amendments to security law were revealed to the public as part of what the Chinese government presents as a public commentary or “soliciting opinion” process. China is ruled by a dictatorial Communist regime, so the public’s opinion is not actually of interest to the ruling class, but sometimes there is enough controversy to draw the Politburo’s attention.

This could be one of those times, as an unusually large number of negative comments were swiftly registered with the National People’s Congress (NPC), China’s rubber-stamp legislature. Many of those criticisms came from legal scholars, as Reuters noted Thursday.
...
Other critics noted the draft law covers clothing that might “hurt the feeling of the Chinese nation,” and made some sarcastic guesses about precisely what clothing might be deemed hurtful.

“Will wearing a suit and tie count? Marxism originated in the West. Would its presence in China also count as hurting national feelings,” asked a Weibo user quoted by the BBC.

The BBC report mentioned an incident from last year in which a Chinese woman wearing a Japanese kimono was accused of “picking quarrels and provoking trouble,” China’s all-purpose excuse for arresting its citizens.

“To wear a kimono is to hurt the feelings of the Chinese nation, to eat Japanese food is to jeopardize its spirit? When did the feelings and spirit of the time-tested Chinese nation become so fragile?” one Chinese commentator observed.

Quote:President Joe Biden’s Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has launched a nationwide workforce initiative that seeks to funnel millions of border crossers and illegal aliens into United States jobs — even as the labor force participation rate for Americans continues to decline.

On Wednesday, Biden’s DHS announced “a first-of-its-kind national campaign” to make millions of border crossers and illegal aliens, who have been released into the U.S. interior, aware that they are eligible for work permits to take American jobs.
...
Hundreds of thousands of email and text notifications have been sent by the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) in English, Spanish, and Haitian Creole, with additional notifications in Ukrainian and Russian planned in the coming days.

These notifications are the start of a government-wide effort to integrate newly arrived noncitizens into the American workforce … USCIS will also begin distributing flyers to local NGOs, stakeholders, and migrants to explain the [Employment Authorization Document] process and provide them with a QR code for instant access to the application.

Specifically, DHS officials said they are mostly connecting with border crossers and illegal aliens from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, Venezuela, and Ukraine who have been released into the U.S. interior to “remind them of their eligibility to apply for a work permit.”

Regardless of obtaining work permits, Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) Director of Research Steven Camarota told the Washington Times that millions of illegal aliens are holding American jobs.

Rep. Tom McClintock (R-CA) has estimated that Biden, in his first two years in office, has welcomed nearly four million border crossers and illegal aliens into American communities.

Quote:President Joe Biden’s Interior Department said it would cancel the oil and gas leases issued in the latter days of President Donald Trump’s administration.

Biden has said he would move to protect roughly 19.6 million acres in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) for polar bears and caribou.

“As the climate crisis warms the Arctic more than twice as fast as the rest of the world, we have a responsibility to protect this treasured region for all ages,” Biden said in a written statement.

Trump issued the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority (AIDEA) seven leases right before Biden’s inauguration. The move is part of a larger strategy by which Biden has moved to cancel oil and gas exploration on public lands.

AIDEA said it would challenge the move.

“This latest action by the Department of the Interior shows arbitrary disregard for Federal law, based on campaign trail rhetoric. Campaign promises are not enough to justify this agency action,” AIDEA said in a statement.

Republicans slammed Biden’s move to develop oil and gas in Alaska.

“There is palpable anger and frustration among Alaskans about the Biden administration’s unrelenting assault on our economy and our ability to lawfully access our lands,” Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-AK) said in a statement.

Quote:A review of bureaucrats at the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties (CRCL) shows deep ties to the nation’s powerful open borders lobby and “Abolish ICE” movement, which seeks to end arrests and deportations of illegal aliens.

Most notably, CRCL Chief Shoba Sivaprasad Wadhia was engrained in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) ideology as the associate dean for DEI at Penn State Law in University Park and a director at the pro-amnesty National Immigration Forum.

Before joining CRCL, Wadhia suggested that perhaps even the most violent illegal alien felons, such as those convicted of murder, rape, and child abuse, should not be eligible for deportation solely because of their crimes.

Wadhia said in 2020:

I don’t know that any element of criminality should suffice to being a priority for enforcement, or even any felony for that matter, and I think that part of that has to do with how I view the role of prosecutorial discretion and the importance of looking at the whole person and equities.

Wadhia also previously advocated against using the term “illegal immigrant,” which is now written policy at the DHS thanks to orders from Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas that require staff to use the term “noncitizens” instead.

Quote:Scientists should openly address uncertainties and exaggerations in their predictions of global warming, while politicians should dispassionately count the real costs as well as the imagined benefits of their policy measures.

Dr. John F. Clauser Wrote:Misguided climate science has metastasized into massive shock-journalistic pseudoscience. In turn, the pseudoscience has become a scapegoat for a wide variety of other unrelated ills. It has been promoted and extended by similarly misguided business marketing agents, politicians, journalists, government agencies, and environmentalists.

• In 2009, former vice president Al Gore famously predicted that "the Arctic would be ice-free by 2013." He later backtracked, according to Reuters, who said Gore was merely quoting other scientific reports.
  
• Celebrity activist Greta Thunberg tweeted in 2018 – five years after Gore's doomsday prediction – that "climate change will wipe out all of humanity unless we stop using fossil fuels over the next five years." The Highland County Press reported that she deleted the tweet.
  

Quote:President Joe Biden held a press conference in Hanoi, Vietnam, on Sunday evening where he appeared confused and rambling, and eventually told the audience he was going to bed.

Biden, 80, made an awkward joke where he called the 1987 anti-Vietnam War movie Good Morning, Vietnam, a “song.”

“One of my staff members said, remember the famous song ‘Good Morning Vietnam’? Well, good evening, Vietnam,” he said to no laughter.

US President Joe R. Biden Wrote:Good evening, everyone. It is evening, isn't it? This around the world in five days is interesting. Well, one of my staff members said, 'Remember the famous song, Good Morning, Vietnam?' Well, good evening, Vietnam.

Biden then read remarks from a teleprompter, before saying he would take questions from reporters who were on a list that was given to him.

“They gave me five people here,” Biden said. He first called on a Reuters reporter, and corrected her pronunciation of “sincerity.”

He also used the derogatory term, “the Third World,” before correcting himself to say, “the Global South,” which refers to developing countries.

Biden also went from talking about global warming to a John Wayne movie.

“Did you ever think you’d be sitting at a G-20 conference where everyone was preoccupied with the notion of global warming? Not a joke, did you ever think that?” he said.