ATHENS — Greek counterterrorism officers have uncovered eight parcel bombs resembling those sent last week to the German finance minister in Berlin and to the Paris offices of the International Monetary Fund, a police official said on Tuesday.
The devices were discovered on Monday during a search of the Hellenic Post’s main sorting office, north of Athens, according to a police spokesman, Theodoros Chronopoulos. “The packages were destined for European countries,” he said, calling them “similar” to the ones sent to the German finance minister, Wolfgang Schäuble, and to the I.M.F.’s offices.
According to reports in the Greek news media, which Mr. Chronopoulos did not confirm, the packages intercepted at the Athens sorting office were addressed to European Union officials and to multinational companies. The targets reportedly included the leader of the eurozone group of finance ministers, Jeroen Dijsselbloem, who coordinates meetings on Greek bailout talks, and an unidentified official of the European Central Bank, one of Greece’s three main international creditors.
The Paris bomb injured a worker, but none of the bombs have caused fatalities.
As tempting as it is to pin any bombing jihadists, the targets suggest this was a bombing campaign carried out by the radical Greek left in advance of the Greek debt farce playing out again this summer. “A fresh crisis over Greek debt could be triggered as soon as in July when Greece is due to repay some 7bn euros to its creditors – money the country cannot pay without a fresh injection of bailout cash.”
I would say “stay tuned,” but I think we all know exactly how the current round of the farce will play out this summer…
The list of local municipalities defying federal immigration law is out.
One of President Trump’s first executive orders promised a weekly recounting of the crimes committed by undocumented immigrants and a list of the recalcitrant local law enforcement departments that failed to turn those people over to federal officials.
The Department of Homeland Security on Monday delivered the first report. But rather than provide a complete tally, it contained misleading information that only prompted confusion and defiance from law enforcement officials from the jurisdictions in question.
The report, which covers Jan. 28 to Feb. 3, shows that Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the agency charged with deportations, issued 3,083 detainers, which are requests to local police departments to hold undocumented immigrants and legal permanent residents who could be deported.
The report showed, however, that only 206 of those detainers were declined by local law enforcement agencies. Nevertheless, ICE officials say the lack of cooperation endangers Americans.
Guess which political locale has defied federal law the most?
Travis County, Tex., which includes the city of Austin, declined the most detainers, 142, out of the 206 rejections nationwide listed in the ICE report.
Officials in Travis County said the high number of declined requests was the result of a change in policy by Sally Hernandez, a Democrat who became sheriff in January. She announced that unless individuals in the Travis County jail had been charged with murder, aggravated sexual assault or human smuggling, they would be allowed to post bond and released despite requests from ICE.
So thanks to a Democratic Party functionary, Travis County has almost 75% of the entire nation’s non-compliance with federal immigration law. Digging into the actual report, many of the illegal alien felons Travis County refused to hold for deporation have committed sexual assault, aggravated assault with a weapon, burglary and DUI.
And these are the people Sally Hernandez prefers to see set free back into the community rather than lawfully deported to their home countries.
The Travis County policy has been criticized by Gov. Greg Abbott, who has threatened to cut off Texas’ criminal justice grant funding for the county.
After the release of Monday’s report, Mr. Abbott said the findings highlighted the need to get rid of sanctuary cities in the state.
“The Travis County Sheriff’s decision to deny ICE detainer requests and release back into our communities criminals charged with heinous crimes – including sexual offenses against children, domestic violence and kidnapping – is dangerous and should be criminal in itself,” Mr. Abbott said in a statement.
SB 5, the bill to abolish sanctuary cities in Texas, has passed the Texas senate and is currently pending in committee in the house.
It’s time for Travis County to prioritize the safety of American citizens over that of illegal alien felons.
Last week the Texas Senate approved SB-6, the bill that rolled back the Obama Administration’s illegal imposition of tranny bathrooms on the nation.
Remember when Obama campaigned on letting middle-aged men in dresses use the girl’s bathroom?
Me neither.
Out beyond a small but very vocal minority of Social Justice Warriors, no one was asking for tranny bathrooms, and outside of locales like San Francisco, I doubt even Democratic politicians are willing to campaign for them. That is why they had to be introduced by stealth and fiat.
Tranny bathrooms represent the high-water mark of the hard left’s attempts to impose the idea of “gender as social construct” (as opposed to the obvious scientific truth of two biological sexes) on a resisting nation. That is why the cultural elites have been so desperate to defend the idea despite its widespread unpopularity. If you can get people to pretend a man wearing a dress has been magically transformed into a woman, despite the XY chromosomes in his body, you can get them to pretend to believe in just about anything.
That’s why the left has fought the rollback so hard, why North Carolina had to be “punished” for daring to respect obvious scientific and time-honored truths rather than “gender fluid” fad popular among liberal elites.
It remains to be seen whether Texas House speaker Joe Straus will bow to the will of the people, or to the cowardly business interests desperate to avoid elite wrath. Since Straus has never met a Democratic interest he wasn’t willing to cave to, it may require a concerted effort (perhaps by way of a discharge petition) to get HB 1362 voted on.
Finally: “A House panel held a hearing on possibly splitting the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Thursday morning.” (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
In talking about the House GOP’s pathetic ObamaCare replacement, Stephen Green hits the nail on the head: “Congress is warped because the American electorate has yet to accept that other people’s money does eventually run out — and that we are all the other people.” That’s why we need someone committed to reform in the White House, and Greece and Venezuela’s examples fresh in the public’s eye…
ICE arrests 248 illegal aliens, most in the sanctuary city of Philadelphia. “20 had a conviction and/or pending charges or 48 percent (88 of those arrested had criminal convictions and 32 of those arrested have pending criminal charges). In addition, 50 had been previously removed from the United States and subsequently illegally re-entered.” (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
“Iraqi government forces besieged Islamic State militants around Mosul’s Old City on Thursday, edging closer to the historic mosque from where the group’s leader declared a caliphate nearly three years ago.”
Former Democratic Representative Dennis Kucinich says that one of his phonecalls was wiretapped. “If a member of Congress can have his phone tapped, this can happen to anybody.”
“Ten Senate Democrats are vulnerable in 2018. They’re prime targets for takedowns in the midterm elections. But the process starts now, not then…In order of vulnerability (most to least), the target list features: 1) Joe Donnelly-IN; 2) Bill Nelson-FL; 3) Sherrod Brown-OH; 4) Claire McCaskill-MO; 5) Heidi Heitkamp-ND; 6) Tammy Baldwin-WI; 7) Jon Tester-MN; 8) Joe Manchin-WV; 9) Debbie Stabenow-MI; 10) Bob Casey, Jr.-PA.” Agree with the list, but not the order, since Heitkamp hails from a state Trump won by 36 points. But seeing Stupak bloc flip-flopper Donnelly go down at last would be extremely satisfying…
Remember convicted felon Brett Kimberlin? There’s always some Kimberlin news floating around the blogsphere, usually in relation to his latest ludicrous lawsuit getting laughed out of court. But this week he made the news for being involved in selling hoax documents designed to bring down Donald Trump. “The entire set of documents appear to have been forged as part of an elaborate scam.” So, like most Kimberlin escapades, the story ends in embarrassing failure. (Hat tip: The Other McCain.)
Cenk Uygur: Why the Democratic Party is useless. 1. As with all these critiques of the Democratic Party from the left, it’s right about the party being a corrupt institution for entrenched interests and wrong about America being gung ho for socialism. 2. Boy, that “not being polite” stuff sure helped Democrats recall Scott Walker! 3. “Cenk Uygur” sounds like a dark, forbidding fortress at the edge of Mordor.
Rand Paul fires back: “He makes a really, really strong case for term limits. I think maybe he’s past his prime. I think maybe he’s gotten a little bit unhinged.”
Germany wants to fine companies for not censoring fast enough. What do you want to bet that objections to the rousing success of their Muslim immigration policy are first on the list of things to be censored?
Camille Paglia has a new book out, and offers up an interview where she talks about modern feminism (against), southern women (for), working class men (for), Michel Foucault (against), and pornography (for).
“Soros Fellow Flees Country While Wife Arrested For Welfare Scam.” It seems that earning $1.5 million a year at the Washington, D.C., offices of Mayer Brown LLP just wasn’t enough for Fidelis Agbapuruonwu… (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
This is more extensive footage of the same robbery from different angles:
And Hsoi’s comment on the previous video appears to be correct: Security guard Brian Harrison does appear to have to re-cock the slide during the fight, indicating some sort of misfire.
The entire gun battle, with several shots fired from both robber and guard, is less than 10 seconds and ends with the robber dead from multiple hits.
Some might quibble about Harrison’s stance and grip (as the link does), but the video makes it obvious that going for quick reaction time over form was the right decision in this case…
Beware the Ides of March! Also beware the Clinton Family (and their fixer functionaries John and Tony Podesta), who keep refusing to fade from public sight:
So what do you do when you have a potentially useful and informative piece, but don’t trust the source? Report it with a caveat, namely that this comes from Infowars: “Russian Bank Docs Show How Putin Laundered Money to Hillary & Podesta“:
Congress may want to examine concrete evidence showing Russian President Vladimir Putin paying Hillary Clinton and John Podesta for a long time before the mainstream media goes even more overboard trying to fabricate a tie between Putin and President Donald Trump.
The money trail hunt begins with a document Infowars has obtained from the Russian Central Bank “Registry of Significant Control,” known generally as the “RSC Registry.”
This document traces the ownership of Metcombank, a relatively small Russian-domiciled bank located in the Russian Ural Mountains, to ownership by Viktor Vekselberg, a Russian billionaire with close ties to Putin.
As we shall see this document provides evidence of the circuitous path the Russian government has been using since Hillary Clinton was secretary of state to make large financial payments to John Podesta and to the Clinton Foundation.
As the RSC Registry makes clear, Vekselberg has been paying Clinton and Podesta through a complicated money laundering scheme involving Metcombank in Russia, with payments tracing back to the Renova Group, a Russian-based energy and investment international conglomerate also owned by Vekselberg.
Evidently some of the money flowing to Podesta is coming via the previously mentioned Joule Unlimited:
In the summer of 2011, while he was advising then-Secretary Clinton on State Department policy, John Podesta joined the board of three Joule entities: Joule Unlimited, a small Massachusetts-based energy company; its holding company, Joule Global Holdings, N.V., which was based in the Netherlands; and Joule Global Stichting, which appears to be the ultimate controlling entity.
Podesta, it turns out, has been paid an undisclosed amount, starting in 2011, for serving on the executive board of Joule Unlimited that he neglected to report to regulatory authorities in the U.S., as well consulting fees from the Wyss Foundation, a group controlled by Swiss billionaire Hansjörg Wyss, an investor in Joule Energy.
In an Aug. 2016 report entitled “From Russia with Money,” the Government Accountability Institute noted that Podesta consulted for a foundation run by one of the investors in Joule Energy, Hansjörg Wyss, who in turn was a major Clinton Foundation donor.
Podesta was evidently paid $87,000 by the Wyss Foundation in 2013, according to federal tax records.
The GAI report also documented the Wyss Charitable Foundation has given between $1 million to $5 million to the Clinton Foundation.
Some of the information here is new (or at least new to me), while other bits accord with what we already know about Podesta ties to Putin. I would still like to see external verification from a more reliable source for the new information.
“In pushing its Manchurian-candidate-Trump narrative, the media fail to mention the much deeper ties of Democratic lobbyists to Russia. Don’t worry, the media seems to say: Even though they are representing Russia, the lobbyists are good upstanding citizens, not like the Trump people. They can be trusted with such delicate matters.”
The media’s focus on Trump’s Russian connections ignores the much more extensive and lucrative business relationships of top Democrats with Kremlin-associated oligarchs and companies. Thanks to the Panama Papers, we know that the Podesta Group (founded by John Podesta’s brother, Tony) lobbied for Russia’s largest bank, Sberbank. “Sberbank is the Kremlin, they don’t do anything major without Putin’s go-ahead, and they don’t tell him ‘no’ either,” explained a retired senior U.S. intelligence official. According to a Reuters report, Tony Podesta was “among the high-profile lobbyists registered to represent organizations backing Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich.” Among these was the European Center, which paid Podesta $900,000 for his lobbying.
That’s not all: The busy Podesta Group also represented Uranium One, a uranium company acquired by the Russian government which received approval from Hillary Clinton’s State Department to mine for uranium in the U.S. and gave Russia twenty percent control of US uranium. The New York Times reported Uranium One’s chairman, Frank Guistra, made significant donations to the Clinton Foundation, and Bill Clinton was paid $500,000 for one speech from a Russian investment bank that has “links to the Kremlin that was promoting Uranium One stock.” Notably, Frank Giustra, the Clinton Foundation’s largest and most controversial donor, does not appear anywhere in Clinton’s “non-private” emails. It is possible that the emails of such key donors were automatically scrubbed to protect the Clinton Foundation.
Let’s not leave out fugitive Ukrainian oligarch, Dymtro Firtash. He is represented by Democratic heavyweight lawyer, Lanny Davis, who accused Trump of “inviting Putin to commit espionage” (Trump’s quip: If Putin has Hillary’s emails, release them) but denies all wrongdoing by Hillary.
There’s just one tiny little problem: “Democratic super lobbyist Tony Podesta failed to register under the Foreign Agent Registration Act (FARA) when he agreed to represent Sberbank, Russia’s largest bank.”
“Five Clinton-Russia Bombshells Progressives Yawned Over.” Including much already covered here, although I might have missed this one: “Ian Telfer, the head of the Russian government’s uranium company, Uranium One, made four foreign donations totaling $2.35 million to the Clinton Foundation, as the New York Times reported.”
“State Department Inspector General officials edited out passages of a high-profile report in 2013 that could have embarrassed Hillary Clinton just days before she quit President Obama’s Cabinet.” (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
Three of the five top strategists behind the March are key Clinton staffers: De’Ara Balenger, Meredith Shepard and Sarah Sophia Flicker. And three lower-level Women’s March staffers (Mariam Ehrari, Hannah Rosenzweig and Caitlyn Ryan) were essential members of Clinton’s extended campaign staff.
Balenger was Huma Abedin’s right-hand woman, reporting directly to Clinton’s top deputy and closest friend. Before joining Clinton’s campaign, she worked directly with disgraced State Department aide Cheryl Mills, who was at the center of Clinton’s private email server controversy, and was accused of wielding the power of the State Department to benefit the Clinton Foundation’s top donors.
She is not a thing. Stop trying to make her a thing. She is not going to be the Savior of the Democratic Party, because no one wants to vote for a Clinton anymore. Everyone is tired of the Clintons. You can’t find any buzz about any of them outside of Peter Daou’s timeline, and that has devolved into pretty much just openly weeping at this point.
It’s incredibly difficult to take a news site that constantly posts Chelsea Clinton’s every thought as news serious. The Hill is little more than a joke right now pushing a punchline no one finds funny.
The actual statistics are considerably less dramatic: “The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives said that since 2013, more than 150 firearms have been reported stolen from freight trains.” That’s not freight cars filled with guns, that’s a little over one gun stole from trains every ten days nationwide.
Read deeper and it turns out that Chicago gangs hit one big score of 100 Rugers in 2015. Which means that discounting that, just over one gun a month is being stolen from trains.
The entire article looks like the writer tried to tart up a very prosaic story with a sensationalist slant and a bucket of pulp fiction adjectives: “brazen,” “shiny, new guns” (so they were nickle plated?), “ransacking,” “blood-soaked streets” (“Honey, better get out the squeegee! The streets are blood-soaked again today!”), etc.
And then there’s this sentence describing the Ruger score: “In one instance, thieves stole more than 100 new Ruger handguns described as ‘pretty’ in comparison to the shoddy, makeshift guns criminals in Chicago’s rough streets often use.”
Shoddy? Fine. There are plenty of pot metal guns the firearms community regards as shoddy (Lorcin comes to mind). But “makeshift?” Does the author think significant numbers of Chicago gangbangers are using zip guns? Or 3D printed guns?
Chicago has very real crime problems it’s antiquated gun control laws are doing nothing to address. Outside the 2015 Ruger theft, there’s nothing in the piece to suggest that guns stolen from freight trains are a significant part of it.