USA

Vietnam still haunts America

People and politics have been distorted by 50 years of trauma

In the course of his troubled presidency, Richard Nixon spoke 14 times to the American people about the war in Vietnam. It was in one of those speeches that he coined the phrase “the silent majority”, while others provoked horror and outrage from those opposed to America’s longest war. But of all these televised addresses, none enjoyed a warmer reaction that the speech Nixon delivered on 23 January 1973, announcing that his Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger, had achieved a breakthrough in the Paris peace talks with the North Vietnamese.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inUSA

US to designate Wagner as transnational criminal group

The US on Friday said that it will, in the coming week, be imposing additional sanctions on the Russian private military company, Wagner Group.

“Wagner is a criminal organization that is committing widespread atrocities and human rights abuses, and we will work relentlessly to identify, disrupt, expose, and target those assisting Wagner,” White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said in a briefing.

Kirby said the designation will pave the way for tougher sanctions, and throttle its ability to do business globally.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"Ukraine - Russia", USA

US planes grounded because worker ‘accidentally deleted computer files’

Human error behind glitch that caused 11,000 flights to be delayed across the country’s airports, say investigators

US planes were grounded nationwide last week because a contractor “unintentionally deleted files” on a crucial computer server used by pilots, investigators found.

The glitch led to travel chaos with more than 11,000 flights delayed and at least 1,300 cancelled on Jan 11.

The blunder marked the first time since the 9/11 attacks that flights across the US were grounded.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inUSA, WTF?

One Year After Death of Indian Migrants at Border, US Still Sees Illegal Crossings

A year after a family of four from India froze to death while trying to walk to the United States from Manitoba, the agency tasked with patrolling the border says others have not been deterred from attempting the same treacherous journey.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection has seen a drastic uptick in recent months of people trying to enter North Dakota, Minnesota and Wisconsin illegally from Canada.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inCanada, USA

As egg prices rise, so do seizures at US border

How do you like your eggs? Whatever your preference, avoid the ones smuggled across the border.

Attempts to smuggle eggs from Mexico or Canada can result in fines of up to $10,000 (£8,140), officials warn.

And yet, soaring egg prices in the US have tempted many to cross the border, where it can be bought for half the price, to bring back the delicate cargo,

Seizures at border posts have spiked by more than 100%.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inCanada, USA, WTF?

Free goodies are migrant magnets exacerbating the border crisis

My sister-in-law, a nurse on Cape Cod, wants to visit New York City and is struggling to find an affordable hotel.

If she were a Venezuelan migrant who’d just arrived in the Big Apple on a bus from the southern border, she’d have a shot at a room at the four-star Row, steps from Times Square. Or a room at a SpringHill Suites by Marriott, a Holiday Express or a Comfort Inn. Free of charge.

Welcome to Hotel America! Newly arriving migrants are also getting three meals a day courtesy of room service, snacks at any time — and, at some hotels, computer facilities and playrooms for the kids. All paid for by local taxpayers.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"Mass Immigration - Follow the money", USA

Art professor sues after firing over Prophet Muhammad images

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — Attorneys for an adjunct art professor said Tuesday she is suing the Minnesota university that dismissed her after a Muslim student objected to depictions of the Prophet Muhammad in a global art course, while the university admitted to a “misstep” and plans to hold public conversations about academic freedom.

In her lawsuit, Erika López Prater alleges that Hamline University — a small, private school in St. Paul — subjected her to religious discrimination and defamation, and damaged her professional and personal reputation.

“Among other things, Hamline, through its administration, has referred to Dr. López Prater’s actions as ‘undeniably Islamophobic,’″ her attorneys said in a statement. “Comments like these, which have now been published in news stories around the globe, will follow Dr. López Prater throughout her career, potentially resulting in her inability to obtain a tenure track position at any institution of higher education.”

What a travesty.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"Islamophobia", Islam, Islam and violence, Islamization of the West, USA

You must send tanks to Ukraine first, Germany tells the US

The United States must send battle tanks to Ukraine first before Germany could approve donations of Leopard 2 tanks, Berlin’s economy minister said on Tuesday.

Robert Habeck blamed Germany’s history for a reluctance to sign off on its allies delivering the domestic-made tanks to Kyiv.

“I would argue that we will do that,” he told Bloomberg at the World Economic Forum in Davos.

“If America will decide that they will bring battle tanks to Ukraine, that will make it easier for Germany.

Solidarity!

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"Ukraine - Russia", Germany, USA

Industrial espionage: How Communist China sneaks out America’s technology secrets

It was an innocuous-looking photograph that turned out to be the downfall of Zheng Xiaoqing, a former employee with energy conglomerate General Electric Power.

According to a Department of Justice (DOJ) indictment, the US citizen hid confidential files stolen from his employers in the binary code of a digital photograph of a sunset, which Mr Zheng then mailed to himself.

It was a technique called steganography, a means of hiding a data file within the code of another data file. Mr Zheng utilised it on multiple occasions to take sensitive files from GE.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"China - Communist Slave State", Espionage, USA

Why Michigan is trying to shut down Canada’s Enbridge Line 5 pipeline

An ageing pipeline crossing part of the Great Lakes has led to a standoff between the US state of Michigan and Canada. The outcome of the battle over Line 5, which delivers energy to the US Midwest and central Canada, will be viewed by many as a bellwether of how North America will balance its energy future with its environmental commitments.

The most contentious part of the Line 5 pipeline – which runs from Superior, Wisconsin, by way of Michigan to Sarnia, Canada – sits on the bed of the Straits of Mackinac. The narrow waterway connects Lake Michigan and Lake Huron – two of the world’s largest lakes.

In 2018, an anchor from a shipping freighter passing through the Straits struck and damaged the pipe, bringing to the fore longstanding concerns from environmental campaigners and others over possible spills.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"Energy Matters", Canada, USA

Did Gavin Newsom Kill His Own Mother?

Giving her lethal drugs would be murder.

During his first gubernatorial campaign, now-Gov. Gavin Newsom made a truly shocking — and horrifying — admission.

Newsom told a reporter from the New Yorker that in 2002, when he was on San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors, his 55-year-old mother, who had breast cancer, called to tell him that she had chosen to die by assisted suicide. (“In May, 2002, his mother decided to end her life through assisted suicide,” the New Yorker reports.)

Newsom wasn’t there to pick up the phone, though, because of his political duties.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inUSA, WTF?

Ex-Mexico security chief’s trial poised to lift lid on US and Mexico’s ‘war on drugs’

One of Mexico’s most powerful former officials will stand trial in the US this week, charged with accepting million-dollar bribes from a violent cartel in a case with profound political implications that could expose the inner workings of the “war on drugs” on both sides of the border.

Genaro García Luna, a former head of Mexico’s equivalent of the FBI who went on to lead the country’s security ministry, was arrested in Texas in 2019, charged with conspiring to traffic cocaine and lying to the US government.

He was subsequently charged with taking multimillion-dollar bribes from the powerful Sinaloa cartel, once run by the drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, in exchange for allowing it to operate with impunity, all while he was supposedly spearheading Mexico’s anti-drug efforts.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inMexican drug cartels, Mexico, Mexico - Failed State, USA

Destroying American Democracy – An Inside Job

Over the last few years, there has been much written about the destruction of American democracy. Frequently the threat has been of alleged interference in U.S. elections by Russia, China or other state actors. Government agencies, the name of election integrity, were assigned to identify and disrupt these foreign intrusions. As more and more information is revealed about these agencies, it seems that America’s Intelligence Community participated in these activities domestically, and in a way that poses a grave threat to both election integrity and American democracy.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"Peak F*cked Up", "Surveillance Society", USA

When Woke Sensitivity on ‘Islamophobia’ Surpasses That of Muslims

Mohammed Nagged by Transvestite Boyfriend

At one Minnesota university, administrators fired a professor for showing a painting of Mohammed that many Muslims are fine with.

In the past two decades, the world has seen various controversies over visual depictions of the prophet of Islam. They include the 2005 “cartoon crisis” in Denmark, where caricatures of Mohammad led to death threats and widespread violent protests, or the Charlie Hebdo affair in France, where similar cartoons published by the magazine in 2012 were followed by terrorist attacks that left twelve dead.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"Islamophobia", Islam, Islam and violence, Islamization of the West, USA

With F.B.I. Search, U.S. Escalates Global Fight Over Chinese Police Outposts

Beijing says the outposts aren’t doing police work, but Chinese state media reports say they “collect intelligence” and solve crimes far outside their jurisdiction.

The nondescript, six-story office building on a busy street in New York’s Chinatown lists several mundane businesses on its lobby directory, including an engineering company, an acupuncturist and an accounting firm.

A more remarkable enterprise, on the third floor, is unlisted: a Chinese outpost suspected of conducting police operations without jurisdiction or diplomatic approval — one of more than 100 such outfits around the world that are unnerving diplomats and intelligence agents.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"China - Communist Slave State", USA