Senior al-Qaeda leader Abu Muhsin al-Masri killed in Afghanistan
Abu Muhsin al-Masri, believed to be al-Qaeda’s second-in-command, was on FBI’s Most Wanted Terrorists List.

Afghan security forces have killed Abu Muhsin al-Masri, a senior al-Qaeda leader who was on the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) Most Wanted Terrorists list, according to Afghanistan’s intelligence service.

Al-Masri, an Egyptian national believed to be al-Qaeda’s second-in-command, was killed during a special operation in the central Ghazni province, Afghanistan’s National Directorate of Security (NDS) said in a tweet late on Saturday.

Al-Masri, who also goes by the name Husam Abd-al-Ra’uf, has been charged in the United States with having provided material support and resources to a foreign terrorist organisation, and conspiracy to kill US nationals. The US issued a warrant for his arrest in December 2018.

BLUF:
Clearly, Democrats are desperate to kick this scandal down the road until after Biden is elected. One could imagine a scenario where, if Biden were elected president, he steps down prior to his inauguration and Kamala Harris, the real presidential candidate steps up as the president…….

Given Biden’s cognitive decline, he could easily claim he’s resigning for medical reasons. That would save Democrats the embarrassment of an impeachment attempt less than one-year after they pulled the same stunt on President Trump.

More so, what Schumer and Wyden’s letter shows is an utter contempt for the American people. …..

The FBI as an organization, not the overwhelming number of superb agents who work for the agency, has had its reputation tarnished by people such as James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Peter Strzok and Lisa Page for their complicity in trying to take out President Trump.

If the FBI kicks this investigation down the road under Christopher Wray, confidence in that organization may never return.

To the demoncraps, “rule of law,” like “democracy” means “our power.”
What they think will be undermined is their seat on the .gov gravy train.

Schumer sends letter to FBI director to ignore Biden scandal, says investigation could ‘undermine the rule of law.’

WASHINGTON, DC- “Lyin’ Chuck” as President Trump calls him must be getting a little bit nervous.

With all the information coming out about Hunter Biden and his father who is apparently running for an office of some importance, despite the fact the scandal is getting throttled by most of the media, it has gotten some unwanted attention. And Democrats are starting to panic.

Chuck Schumer took it upon himself to write the FBI Director to put the brakes on.

The laptop that was turned in by a Delaware computer repair shop has spawned a lot of information, and none of it is good for the Biden campaign.

Information contained on the computer seems to show that Hunter and his daddy Joe were possibly involved in some international hijinks with countries such as Ukraine and China, mostly as a result of Joe Biden’s position as vice president.

It is unusual for a president to have an impeachment hanging over their head before they are even elected or inaugurated (although truth be told that was the case for President Trump, although with zero credible evidence). With all the information coming about fast and furious, Republicans are working overtime to try to confirm the information. Continue reading “”

BLUF:
One of the great legacies of the Trump Administration is the extent to which it has revealed that huge swathes of our national establishment, in government, the media, and elsewhere, are both hopelessly partisan and frighteningly incompetent. Buckle up, because all the evidence is that the establishment hasn’t learned its lesson yet.

Mueller report: Donald Trump collusion conspiracy theories are now exposed. Will they end?
After two years of mass hysteria afflicting a huge portion of our political class, the cognitive dissonance after the Mueller report is painful.

“Donald Trump broke the brains of a lot of people.” That’s leftist journalist Glenn Greenwald, talking about the way conspiracy theories have occupied the media despite the absence of any actual evidence.

For over two years, the line among mainstream media, from The New York Times to Rachel Maddow, has been that President Donald Trump is Vladimir Putin’s stooge. It was suggested that the Russians “hacked” the election by penetrating voting machines. When that was exploded, we were told that they “hacked” the election by arranging for Wikileaks to release (truthful) emails about how the Democratic Party rigged its primaries in favor of Hillary Clinton to ensure that Bernie Sanders wouldn’t get the nomination. At some point, the narrative shifted to vaguer references to “collusion.”

It was all bogus. As Greenwald notes, Mueller’s report didn’t just reject the Trump-Russia conspiracy theories, it obliterated them. Not only was no one in Trump’s campaign charged with conspiring with the Russians, no American anywhere was so charged, nor did Mueller find evidence along those lines to support criminal charges.

That should put the whole collusion narrative to bed, but of course it hasn’t. After two years of what can fairly be described as mass hysteria afflicting a huge portion of our political class, the cognitive dissonance is painful. It would be amusing to watch, if the “broken brains” weren’t so widespread among the people who are supposed to be the sober managers and reporters of our society. It’s like a doomsday cult whose predicted apocalypse fails to appear on schedule: They just announce that they made a mathematical mistake, and doomsday will actually come next year. Then they ask for more donations. The trouble is, this time it’s a cult that’s running a significant part of our nation.

Continue reading “”

The owner is Nancy Wyden, wife of Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon (how’s that work?). I’d say it never dawned on them that even though they’re good little lib/proggies, they’d still get slammed by their own brand of politics.

Strand Book Store says it ‘cannot survive’ without more business

One of New York City’s legendary booksellers is on the cusp of closure as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.

Manhattan’s beloved Strand Book Store published a call for help this week, admitting that the business has seen a massive financial decline as a result of COVID-19 and is on the brink of shuttering.

“The Strand’s revenue has dropped nearly 70% compared to last year,” Strand owner Nancy Bass Wyden admitted in a letter posted to Twitter on Friday afternoon. “Because of the impact of COVID-19, we cannot survive the huge decline in foot-traffic, a near-complete loss of tourism, and zero in-store events (compared to 400 events pre-pandemic).”

The store was able to secure a loan that buoyed it through the past eight months, Wyden wrote, but “we are now at a turning point where our business is unsustainable.”

To help, Wyden hasn’t launched a fundraiser but is simply encouraging people to buy the Strand’s wares from its three brick-and-mortar locations and website and to encourage friends to do the same. She also asks that people use the hashtag #SaveTheStrand to help spread the word.

“We’ve survived just about everything for 93 years — the Great Depression, two World Wars, big ox bookstores, e-books and online behemoths. We are the last of the original 48 bookstores still standing from 4th Avenue’s famous Book Row,” wrote Wyden, who is the Strand’s third-generation owner and grew up among its iconic “18 Miles of Books.”

The famed bookstore, founded in 1927 by Wyden’s grandfather, temporarily laid off the majority of its staff shortly after the onset of the coronavirus in March.

“In order to preserve The Strand as a business, with no revenue coming in and no clear idea as to when we can reopen our doors, we have had to temporarily lay off the majority of our staff,” Wyden said on Twitter at the time.

Coyotes Comment Confuses Trump Haters

During Thursday night’s Presidential debate, President Trump claimed — correctly — that coyotes have taken unaccompanied children across the border. “Coyotes,” of course, is a common term for people who illegally smuggle humans into the U.S. Everyone knows that, right? Apparently not. In fact, progressive social media blew up after he made that comment, because everything Trump says is stupid or something.

Moderator Kristen Welker had asked him about 545 illegal children whose parents can’t be found. Here is Trump’s full response:

“These children are brought here by coyotes and lots of bad people, cartels, and they used to use them to get into our country.” 

Granted, Trump isn’t the most fluent of speakers, so Joe Biden took it as his cue to show Trump’s supposed ignorance:

“Coyotes didn’t bring them over, their parents were with them. They got separated from their parents, and it makes us a laughingstock, and violates every notion of who we are as a nation.”

It’s true that the vast majority of illegal children come with family members. However, some smugglers, aka “coyotes,” do smuggle children, often with heartbreaking results.

Like the three-year-old boy whom Border Patrol agents found alone and crying in a cornfield near the border. Or the two-year-old girl — two years old! — whom smugglers left at the riverbank with just her name and a phone number on her T-shirt.

But some liberal Twitter users thought that the President was being racist or just ignorant, since Trump Derangement Syndrome controls their every thought.

Like David Hogg, the cream of Hah-vahd, who accused Trump of “xenophobia.” Why? Because “immigrant parents” are the “coyotes.”

He has no clue, does he?

 

So the “level of xenophobia is sickening?” The level of Hogg’s ignorance is staggering.

One Twitter user attempted to educate him. I’m not sure it would’ve made a difference with Hogg, however. The Trump Derangement is strong with that one.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about. “Coyotes” are human smugglers; in Central America they call them “Polleros.” Human trafficking is controlled by violent cartels; many immigrants are raped, beaten, or even left behind to die.”

But Hogg the Irrelevant at least correctly identified these smugglers as human. However, lots of Trump haters across the Twitterverse thought that the President referred to the animal. Or maybe they thought Trump was talking about this guy? Who knows what goes on in their fevered brains?

coyotes Continue reading “”

Media’s double standard on the Second Amendment

The Colorado Springs Gazette covered the tragic killing of a Patriot Muster supporter by smearing the protest’s organizer, John Tiegen.

(You know Tiegen from “13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi,” the movie based on the 2012 attack on the U.S. diplomatic outpost in Benghazi that killed U.S. Ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens. Tiegen and others guarding the compound fought off Ansar al-Sharia terrorists while pleading for help that never came.)

Though BLM/Antifa counter-protesters broke down a barrier and launched cans at the Patriots, they remained peaceful. However, as they were leaving, they were accosted in an ugly confrontation that culminated in the shooting death of one of their own. The shooter was immediately arrested and later charged with second-degree murder.

On the following Monday, Oct. 12, in a front-page feature entitled “Protest leader known in Springs,” the Gazette appeared to blame Tiegen for his death.

The article reprimanded Tiegen for being on a rooftop at an earlier BLM protest in Colorado Springs. It ominously described a rifle held by another man as “military-style” and noted a “sighting scope, like those used by military snipers.”

These are misleading terms used to scare us about guns. Some 16 million AR-15s are legally owned by Americans for self-defense and sport. While it has military roots, it is clearly a civilian firearm and not a machine gun. I wonder if the reporter would describe the Jeep Wrangler as a “military-style” vehicle?

Note that no shots were fired from that rooftop, no laws were broken and no arrests were made. Their choice of the roof guaranteed no confrontations ensued. Tiegen himself was holding a dog, not a gun.

Though the Gazette portrayed Tiegen’s presence as threatening behavior, isn’t it just as plausible to reason that Tiegen was there to keep someone from doing something stupid?

In fact, law enforcement counts on Tiegen’s power to persuade to keep the peace. For example, the reporter found this “coded” warning posted by Tiegen before the protest: “P.S. For Mechanical pencil that offers a concealed eraser, top lead advance and removable Clip no more than .15 mm lead allowed in each. City of Denver ordnance (sic).” Continue reading “”

“I once had a friend who grew up in China ask me why so many Americans watch the news. Confused, I asked, “What do you mean?”
She responded, “Well, in China no one watches the news because we all know it’s propaganda. I guess Americans haven’t figured that out yet.”
Among the moments that changed my paradigm on life – this was one of them.” -Jamie McIntyre, senior defense and national security correspondent for the Washington Examiner.

Florida mom defends family in gunfight with home intruders

An Instagram model may have saved her family when she grabbed a firearm and engaged in a gunfight with masked intruders who stormed into her Florida home, reports said.

Ansley Pacheco, 26, was at home in Miami-Dade County earlier this month when armed intruders ambushed her husband, 7-year-old son and their friends while they were watching the Miami Heat in the NBA Finals, according to Local 10 News.

“While I was in the bathroom, I started to hear the commotion, I started hearing, ‘Get down, get down, give me everything you got,’” she recalled.

“I went to the nightstand; I grabbed the gun and I opened the door. I saw one of the guys face to face with me. He told me to put my gun down. I just shook my head no, and then I said, ‘Don’t shoot me, my son is in here.’”

After a tussle and gunshots, which were caught on surveillance video, the intruders took off with some watches and jewelry.

“They finally just ran out,” Pacheco said. “My husband ran and got the gun and shot back at the vehicle that was leaving.”

Luckily, Pacheco and her family were not injured in the melee. The woman, who streams videos on the website OnlyFans, remained defiant.

“I just knew that I had to do something, and my first instinct was to grab the gun and defend my husband and my son,” she said.

Woman shoots, kills suspected carjacker in St. Louis

ST. LOUIS — A 29-year-old woman who told police she was robbed and carjacked in St. Louis Monday shot and killed her attacker, 5 On Your Side has learned.

The victim told police she was going into a business at about 3:30 p.m. in the 1000 block of North Vandeventer to get her paycheck and was robbed as she was returning to her car, according to a source familiar with the investigation.

She jumped into her car, got her own gun and shot the suspect once in the stomach before he fled in her car, according to the source.

At about the same time she called police, a neighboring police district got a call for an accident with injuries in the 3700 block of Finney Avenue, about half a mile away. Officers found the victim’s stolen car along with a man inside who had been shot in the stomach. He was taken to a hospital where he was pronounced dead shortly before 4 p.m.

The man was identified Wednesday as 25-year-old Tyrell Williams.

Meanwhile, paramedics treated the carjacking victim at the scene. She had an injury to her leg, which she told police she got when she fell from her car during the robbery.

Homicide detectives interviewed the victim and released her.

The Double Standard About Gun Ownership

While looking at gun-related stories earlier, I came across one that asked people of different faiths if the American interest in firearms was idolatry. Now, as a Christian myself, I was curious to find what people thought.

I had my ideas of what I’d find, of course, but one of the responses just outright infuriated me.

See, while most of those they talked to about it recognized that there’s no actual worship of firearms, one person both failed to answer the actual question and managed to show just how idiotic they were on the topic itself. It was kind of impressive, really.

David Gardiner – Buddhist

David Gardiner is an associate professor in the Colorado College Religion Department, specializing in Buddhism and religions of China and Japan, and is co-founder and director of BodhiMind Center.

I believe the relationship many Americans have with guns is pathological. Not all gun owners idolize their possession, but those who do suffer from insecurity, paranoia, susceptibility to conspiracy theories, likely racism and other disorders. Similarly, some idolize the power of the military and police to keep our world and communities safe. Missing is a consensus to care for one another just as we care for ourselves. We have a violence fetish in America that profoundly damages our individual and collective well-being. As some bible scholars say, perhaps one source is the image of the angry, retributive God of the Hebrew bible that remains strong in our Christianity, despite Jesus’ teaching to turn the other cheek, to practice forgiveness. Regardless, we need to grow.

Now, first, I’m always amused when a non-Christian seems to try to lecture Christians in how to Christian correctly. Usually it’s atheists that try to do it, at least in my experience, but a Buddhist doing it doesn’t surprise me.

However, what really pisses me off is the first sentence in his response. “I believe the relationship many Americans have with guns is pathological,” Gardiner said.

Just how is it pathological? Our relationship with firearms, even if you’re susceptible to conspiracy theories or what have you, is not a pathology. Maybe the susceptibility is, but the relationship with guns? Hardly. Continue reading “”

Study Reports Record Number of Carry Permits in U.S.

A study issued by Crime Prevention Research Center on Sept. 21 reported that the number of concealed carry permits nationwide is now up to 19.48 million, a 34-percent increase compared to 2016’s figure. The continued upswing is particularly noteworthy when the number of states that no longer require law-abiding citizens to secure the license is now up to 17.

Roughly 7.6 percent of Americans have a carry permit, according to its findings. Slightly more than 26 percent of them are female and the number of new women outpaced men by 101.2 percent. There are now five states with more than 1 million people with carry permits. They are Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Pennsylvania and Texas. Per capita, by qualified adult resident, 28.5 percent of the Alabamans have a license—the top figure in the nation. Indiana claims second-place honors with 18.7 percent and Iowa trails in third.

The cost is even going down. John R Lott and Rujun Wang, the report’s authors wrote, “A lot of changes in fees are occurring this year. Arkansas just reduced its fee from $142.11 to $91.9 and Washington from $48 to $36. Indiana’s 5-year license to carry has become fee exempt since July 1, 2020, while Tennessee’s 8-year license fee has dropped from $100 to $65, effective from January 1, 2020. West Virginia also reduced $75 fee for a LCDW to $25, starting on June 1, 2020.”

The number of people with carry permits in 1999 totaled 2.7 million. The figure rose to 11.1 million by 2014, but pales by comparison to this year’s record-setting 19.48 million.

“At the same time that there has been an exponential growth in permits, there has been a general linear decline in murder and violent crime rates,” the co-authors wrote. “Murder rates fell from 5.7 to 5.0 per 100,000, a 12-percent drop. Overall violent crime fell by 29 percent. Meanwhile, the percentage of adults with permits soared by five-fold.”

Israel and Sudan begin normalization process after call with Trump.

Sudan and Israel announced today that they will “end the state of belligerence” between them and start the process of normalizing ties.

Driving the news: The announcement came after a phone call hosted by President Trump with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Sudanese Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok, and the head of Sudan’s governing council, Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan.

Why it matters: Unlike with Israel’s recent deals with the UAE and Bahrain, there was a state of belligerency between Israel and Sudan for years.

  • Sudan is not designated in Israeli law as an enemy state, but for decades there has been deep animosity and a history of military incidents between the countries, which don’t have diplomatic relations.
  • Under Sudanese law, Sudanese nationals are not allowed to travel to Israel and could face heavy penalties for doing so.

The backdrop: Sudan hosted a Hamas headquarters in Khartoum for years and maintained a military and political alliance with Israel’s enemies Iran and Hezbollah. The Iranians used Sudan as a base for arms smuggling to the Gaza Strip, and established a massive factory for long-range rockets there. Continue reading “”

Never bring a gun to an SUV fight.

This was when a bureaucrap could decide on their own, without adjudication that a person could be deprived of the exercise of a right.

Joe Biden Proposes Reviving Obama Social Security Gun Ban

Democrat presidential hopeful Joe Biden’s gun control proposals could mean reviving the Obama gun ban that barred certain Social Security recipients from buying firearms.

The Social Security gun ban was an Obama-era policy which targeted benefit recipients who needed help managing their finances. On July 18, 2015, the Los Angeles Times reported that the ban would be sweeping; that it would cover those who are unable to manage their own affairs for a multitude of reasons–from “subnormal intelligence or mental illness” to “incompetency,” an unspecified “condition,” or “disease.”

Breitbart News reported that the policy was finalized by the Obama Social Security Administration on December 19, 2016, weeks after Donald Trump won the presidential election, and just over a month before he was to be sworn into office.

Republicans focused on repealing the ban early in the Trump presidency. On February 12, 2017, Breitbart News reported that Duke University psychiatry and behavioral science professor Jeffrey Swanson believed Congress was right to repeal Barack Obama’s Social Security gun ban. Swanson suggested the ban targeted the “vulnerable” rather than the dangerous.

Swanson used a Washington Post column to explain the ban, saying, “Social Security beneficiaries with psychiatric disabilities who are assigned a money manager for their disability benefits would be reported to the FBI’s background check database as people ineligible to purchase firearms.” He noted that “the mental health conditions in question might range from moderate intellectual disabilities to depression, bipolar disorder or schizophrenia,” and then pointed to academic work showing that “the vast majority of mentally ill individuals” are not violent or suicidal.

On February 28, 2017, Trump signed legislation to do away with the ban.

Biden’s campaign website indicates that, if elected, he will revive the ban that targeted certain Social Security recipients.

The website says:

Reinstate the Obama-Biden policy to keep guns out of the hands of certain people unable to manage their affairs for mental reasons, which President Trump reversed. In 2016, the Obama-Biden Administration finalized a rule to make sure the Social Security Administration (SSA) sends to the background check system records that it holds of individuals who are prohibited from purchasing or possessing firearms because they have been adjudicated by the SSA as unable to manage their affairs for mental reasons. But one of the first actions Donald Trump took as president was to reverse this rule. President Biden will enact legislation to codify this policy.