Real Reform in Saudi Arabia?

March 26th, 2018

Displaying another tiny crack in the wall of Saudi Arabian intransigence, Riyadh has allowed overflight of its country to Israel-bound air traffic for the first time.

Saudi Arabia opened its airspace for the first time to a commercial flight to Israel with the inauguration of an Air India route between New Delhi and Tel Aviv.

Flight 139 landed at Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion Airport after a seven-and-a-half hour journey, marking a diplomatic shift for Riyadh that Israel says was fuelled by shared concern over Iranian influence in the region.

To be sure, it’s not Israeli air traffic, but baby steps. Combine this with Friday’s story about Saudi Arabia purging Muslim Brotherhood members from the country, and signs that he wishes to loosen the restrictive dress code on omen (hat tip: Instapundit), and it appears that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is ushering in real reform in the kingdom. To be sure, the results will not remotely resemble modern western liberal democracy, but they will mark a vast improvement over the status quo that prevailed before his ascension.

Speaking of Saudi Arabia, they also shot down seven ballistic missiles launched by Yemen’s Houthi rebels, the shrapnel from one killing an Egyptian citizen. Pretty much everyone believes the missiles are manufactured and supplied by Iran. Do you think Egypt is going to take that lying down? I rather doubt it. Egypt supports the Saudis in Yemen, but have avoided intervention due to their own unpleasant history there.

Reform in Saudi Arabia is potentially one of the biggest stories this year, and the mainstream media is barely covering it at all.

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Posted in Foreign Policy, Jihad, Military | 2 Comments »

Greg Gutfeld on the Trump/Biden Rumble

March 25th, 2018

It’s your lazy Sunday video, featuring Greg Gutfeld and company weigh in on Joe Biden threatening to beat up President Donald Trump

Plus Jordan Petersen on the panel afterwords.

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Posted in video | No Comments »

Travis AFB Attacker Identified

March 24th, 2018

Just in case you missed the news with all the porn star and sullen teenage instastars news, there was an attack on Travis Air Force Base in California last week, and authorities have now identified the attacker:

The man who drove into Travis Air Force Base in California on Wednesday night has been identified as Hafiz Kazi, 51, according to the FBI special agent in charge, Sean Ragan.

Kazi was from India, a legal permanent resident since 1993 with no connection to the base, Ragan said.

Ragan described him as having generally lived in the San Francisco area for much of that time.

I’m going to go out on a limb and guess Hafiz Kazi wasn’t a Baptist.

His vehicle slowly approached the checkpoint at the main gate of Travis on Wednesday evening, two U.S. officials said. At the point where a guard would have checked Kazi’s identification, the vehicle kept moving, and a flash was observed inside the vehicle.

As the vehicle moved slowly through the checkpoint, it fully ignited into flames before coming to a stop on a median, the officials said.

Ragan said five propane tanks were found inside the vehicle, along with three phones, three plastic one-gallon gas cans, several lighters, and a gym bag with personal items.

No word as to how many propane accessories were in the van.

Authorities are stumped as to motivations. “We don’t have any evidence of any religious affiliation or anything at this point.”

I guess that means there’s only a 99% chance he was an Islamic extremist, then…

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Posted in Jihad, Military | 2 Comments »

LinkSwarm for March 23, 2018

March 23rd, 2018

After making noises about vetoing the liberal-provision-packed omnibus spending bill, President Donald Trump signed the bill anyway. This is certainly a bad and base-depressing move, but shouts that this has “doomed” Republicans in this year’s midterms are premature.

Some links:

  • But the omnibus spending bill does provide $500 million to build a border wall. In Jordan.
  • “Saudi Arabia is seeking to purge its school curriculum of any influence of the Muslim Brotherhood and dismiss employees who sympathise with the banned group, the education minister said.” Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is starting to look like an actual, real-life Muslim reformer.
  • Seems like a good idea:

  • Former Senator and Governor Zell Miller has died. Miller was a conservative Democrat who insisted his party had left him and endorsed George W. Bush in 2004.
  • Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos reigns in unions at Department of Education, including making them opt-in rather than semi-automatic. As far as I’m concerned, her tenure is already a success… (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
  • Ohio high school student suspended for not walking out of school. One most never challenge the latest and most sacred dogma of the overclass… (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
  • “How Facebook Went From ‘Ideal Way’ to Reach Voters to Being ‘Weaponized’ (Hint: a Republican won).”

  • Orlando Weekly attacks woman as a “white supremacist” for posting anti-Jihad messages to Twitter. Tiny problem: she’s black.
  • Margaret Atwood, “bad feminist.” “Canadian literature (‘CanLit,’ as it’s known within the treehouse) has become ‘a raging dumpster fire” of embittered identity politics and ideological tribalism.'” (Hat tip: Gregory Benford’s Facebook feed.)
  • The enduring appeal of Casablanca.
  • EU decide to make things difficult for antiquarian booksellers:

    Starting next year they may become subject to new import regulations that will significantly complicate the process of buying old books, prints and manuscripts from sources outside the EU. The purpose of the changes is to combat the looting and smuggling of antiquities and prevent the financing of terrorism through the illicit trade in cultural goods. While the need for the new regulations is presented almost entirely in relation to the war on terror, the sweeping new rules themselves will be applied comprehensively and include no provisions for exempting goods from areas which are free from armed conflict or terrorist activities.

    The new regulations apply to a broad range of cultural goods, but none will be impacted more adversely than books. The new procedures are as follows:

    If a book, engraving, print, document or publication of “special interest” that is more than 250 years old is presented for import in any EU member state the owner or “holder of the goods” will be required to submit a signed importer statement to customs authorities in the country of entry. The statement must include a declaration that the books have been originally exported legally from their source country. However, in cases where the export country (distinct from the source country) is a “Contracting Party to the UNESCO Convention on Cultural Property” then the holder of the books must provide a declaration that they have been exported from that export country in accordance with its laws and regulations. Needless to say, while the proposal specifies books and documents of “special interest” it does not give any more explicit criteria for defining what this means and the notion of “special interest,” on its own, is sufficiently vague and subjective to include, in practice, virtually any book that someone might want to import.

  • “The Bike-Share Oversupply in China: Huge Piles of Abandoned and Broken Bicycles.” With pictures. And when they say huge, they really mean huge.

  • Since the Social Justice Warriors at Google are purging firearms instruction videos, Full30.com.
  • The Onion: “American People Admit Having Facebook Data Stolen Kind Of Worth It To Watch That Little Fucker Squirm.”

    • To end on an up note: Happy National Puppy Day!

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    Posted in Budget, Guns, Jihad, Media Watch, Social Justice Warriors | 2 Comments »

    Ted Cruz On Why He Voted Against the Omnibus Spending Bill

    March 23rd, 2018

    While your were sleeping, our gutless wonders in congress voted for a budget-busting, liberal wish list omnibus spending bill. Here’s Ted Cruz on why it sucks:

    A few tweets describing how the bill could have sucked even more if Cruz and other conservatives hadn’t successfully stripped out even worse provision (like an Internet sales tax) omitted.

    President Donald Trump should veto this monstrosity and demand Republican congressional leadership restore the priorities America voted for in 2016.

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    Posted in Border Control, Budget | No Comments »

    Congress Caves on Sanctuary Cities

    March 22nd, 2018

    This is discouraging:

    The draft 2018 omnibus bill denies President Donald Trump explicit authority to withhold federal grants from the Democratic-dominated “sanctuary cities” which are trying to secede from the nation’s immigration laws, say Hill sources.

    There is “nothing in the omnibus bill to stop funding for the sanctuary cities,” said a source. “It will just be a continuation of the status quo” because Democrats threatened to torpedo the funding bill if it included new rules allowing administration officials to block federal funding to the cities which shield illegals from deportation, the source said.

    Federal funding cuts would be “a huge financial hit for Democratic strongholds … [and] I just think that [GOP leaders] don’t want to have the fight,” said Rosemary Jenks, policy director at NumbersUSA.

    The pending rejection comes even though Trump took time on Tuesday to denounce sanctuary cities, presaging a likely midterm election theme. “We’re going to win it, it should be easy, but it’s not,” Trump said to his deputies in a media event. “It’s so basic, it’s called law and order and safety and we’re going to have it in our country.”

    More:

    House and Senate leadership has rolled over and played dead on border security. When it comes to a border wall, they say it is not our problem. When it comes to funding sanctuary cities, they say it is not our problem. What they are essentially saying is we are going to pass bills with more Democrats than Republicans,” the aide told TheDCNF. “This is a sign to administration that leadership doesn’t care what the White House wants. Even though GOP members ran on these issues. Conservatives mean it. The administration means it.”

    It’s almost as if Republican congressional leadership want to encourage illegal aliens and their Democratic Party enablers and vote-harvesters.

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    Posted in Border Control, Budget | 1 Comment »

    NEWSFLASH: Austin Bomber Dead

    March 21st, 2018

    So ends his reign of terror: The Austin bomber blew himself up real good:

    The 24-year-old suspect accused of setting off a string of violent devices in the Austin-area is dead after detonating a device and killing himself, Austin police has confirmed. Austin police are warning the public that there may be other devices out there and to remain vigilant.

    The Austin Police Chief Brian Manley said the suspect, identified as a 24-year-old white man, was identified by police in the past 24 hours as a person of interest. The man then became a suspect.

    Authorities said they used surveillance video from the FedEx store on Brodie Lane in South Austin to lead them to the suspect, according to KVUE’s Tony Plohetski. Authorities also got information from Google and from the suspect’s computer history that confirmed the suspect was looking at information on where to go to ship devices, according to Plohetski’s sources.

    WFAA’s Jason Whitely said law enforcement had identified the suspect at approximately 9 p.m. Tuesday and were closing in on him based on packages he sent from FedEx. Whitely added that police wanted to surprise the man.

    Authorities located the vehicle the suspect was known to be driving, and found it at a hotel in Round Rock, Manley said.

    Multiple officers from the Austin Police Department and federal agencies took positions around the hotel as they awaited the arrival of tactical teams, Manley said.

    The vehicle started to drive away, and authorities followed the suspect. Manley said the suspect’s vehicle stopped in a ditch on the side of the road. As a SWAT team approached the vehicle, the suspect detonated a device, Manley said. The explosion knocked an officer back, causing the officer to suffer minor injuries. Another officer who Manley said has been with the department for 11 years then fired at the vehicle. That officer has been placed on administrative duty, per standard procedure.

    The suspect was then confirmed dead. Manley said they are not naming the suspect until next of kin has been notified. KVUE’s Plohetski reports that the suspect is from Central Texas.

    Police do not have a motive yet and do not know if the suspect was planning on delivering another bomb at the time of his death.

    Manley said at a press conference shortly after the suspect’s death that “it’s been a long almost three weeks,” and this is the culmination of the hard work of multiple agencies.

    Chief Manley said they “don’t know where the suspect has been the past 24 hours,” and that there may be other devices out there. The public must remain vigilant and call 911 if they see anything suspicious.

    (Hat tip: Ted Cruz’s Facebook feed.)

    More details as they occur and when I have time, including some details from the events of yesterday.)

    Update: Police have identified the no-deceased Austin bomber as Mark Conditt, 23, of Pflugerville. Not seeing any mention of any radical political or religious affiliation.

    Developing…

    Update 2: Was he posting to Reddit?

    Sounds like an asshole who just wanted to blow things up…

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    Posted in Austin, Crime, Texas | 1 Comment »

    Sixth Bomb at Austin FedEx Facility Near Airport?

    March 20th, 2018

    Maybe. But keep in mind this is the part of the cycle where people get spooked at shadows. Could be nothing.

    Developing…

    Update: Maybe not a bomb, but authorities appear to have closed off the Sunset Valley store on the suspicion that the Schertz bomb was mailed from there.

    Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

    Schertz FedEx Bombing Linked to Austin Bombings

    March 20th, 2018

    Another bomb exploded in central Texas, this one at a FedEx facility in Schertz near San Antonio:

    At least one person has been injured when a package bomb exploded at a FedEx facility near San Antonio in Texas early Tuesday. Federal agents said the incident is likely linked to attacks by a serial bomber that have killed two people in Austin, the Associated Press reported.

    The incident happened at about 12:30 a.m. at the FedEx Ground distribution center in Schertz.

    The San Antonio Texas Fire Department said a FedEx employee apparently suffered a non-life-threatening “percussion-type” injury from the blast.

    Agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the FBI were sent to the scene as well as SWAT and bomb squads from the San Antonio Police Department.

    NPR says the package was intended for Austin.

    [T]he package was moving from an elevated conveyor belt to a lower section when it exploded,” the television station reports.

    It “contained shrapnel consisting of nails and pieces of metal, sources said,” according to the CBS affiliate, which said the Schertz facility has 75 employees.

    Developing…

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    Posted in Crime, Texas | No Comments »

    Fourth Austin Bombing

    March 19th, 2018

    I should have posted about the Austin Mad Bomber story earlier, but I have no more of a clue who’s behind it than anyone else.

    A fourth bomb has exploded, injuring two men. As opposed to previous bombings, this one was in southwest Austin, rather than east Austin, and the two victims were white and Hispanic rather than black (the profile of the previous victims).

    Wikipedia has an article and a map of the bombings:

    If you have any tips on catching the bomber, the reward is now up to $115,000:

  • Call the Austin Police Department TIPS line at 512-472-TIPS (8477)
  • Call the Texas Crime Stoppers hotline at 1-800-252-TIPS (8477)
  • Text the letters “DPS”- followed by your tip – to 274637 (CRIMES)

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    Posted in Austin, Crime | 1 Comment »

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