So do these stories

Johnson and May ignored claims Russia had ‘likely hold’ over Trump, ex-spy alleges

https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/22/boris-johnson-theres-may-ignored-claims-russia-had-likely-hold-over-donald-trump-ex-spy-christopher-steele-claims?__twitter_impression=true

PM accused of cover-up over report on Russian meddling in UK politics

Fresh evidence has also emerged of attempts by the Kremlin to infiltrate the Conservatives by a senior Russian diplomat suspected of espionage, who spent five years in London cultivating leading Tories including Johnson himself.

It can now be revealed that Sergey Nalobin – who once described the future prime minister as “our good friend” – lives in a Moscow apartment block known as the “FSB house” because it houses so many employees from the Kremlin’s main spy agency.

(snip)

In 2014, Lubov Chernukhin – the wife of the former Russian deputy finance minister – paid £160,000 to play tennis with Johnson and David Cameron. The match was the star lot at a Conservative summer party auction. Another guest at the 2013 fundraiser was Vasily Shestakov, Vladimir Putin’s judo partner.

(snip)

Conservative Friends of Russia held its 2012 launch party in the Russian ambassador’s Kensington garden, with about 250 Russian and British guests present, including Tories who went on to play a prominent role in the referendum campaign. One was Matthew Elliott, now chief executive of pro-Brexit group Vote Leave, alongside Dominic Cummings, now the prime minister’s chief strategist.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/nov/04/no-10-blocks-russia-eu-referendum-report-until-after-election

Why won't Johnson release the Russia report?

Mel Gibson's New Pro-Police Brutality Movie Is Crazy Racist

There’s arguably nothing the world needs less right now than Force of Nature, a movie starring Mel Gibson and Emile Hirsch as trigger-happy cops with violent pasts and take-no-prisoners attitudes who are tasked with rescuing a Black man, a rookie Latina officer, and a Nazi descendant (and his stolen artwork) from evil Puerto Rican villains during a Category 5 hurricane in San Juan. What would be tasteless retrograde nonsense at any other time resounds during this particular moment in U.S. history as almost cataclysmically tone-deaf and insulting, turning director Michael Polish’s thriller (on VOD June 30) into the year’s most misbegotten venture.

Written by Cory Miller with all the originality and grace of a fortune-cookie prophesy, Force of Nature stars Hirsch as Officer Corrigan, who’s ordered by his superiors to leave his security check-in post to scour San Juan for remaining residents, and—along with the aid of newbie Officer Pena (Stephanie Cayo)—to transport them to a safety shelter. Corrigan has no real desire to evacuate anyone, since as he tells Pena, trying to do the right thing invariably leads to formal complaints from ungrateful citizens that thwart one’s sought-after professional promotions. He’s a jaded white American cop who refuses to learn Spanish and distrusts the locals. If that doesn’t make him an immediate embodiment of law-enforcement intolerance, the fact that he’s landed in this outpost thanks to a scandalous prior incident—involving recklessly firing his weapon and getting an innocent woman killed, which cost him his NYPD detective job—certainly does, solidifying his standing as a Blue Lives Matter creep interested only in himself and those who look, sound and think like him.

That Corrigan, a protagonist who’s previously committed brutality against women, is played by Hirsch, notorious for strangling a Paramount studio executive until she lost consciousness at 2015’s Sundance Film Festival, adds an extra layer of grime to Force of Nature. And that’s before the sexist, racist, anti-Semitic Gibson appears! The disgraced actor co-stars as Ray, a former cop who, alongside his doctor daughter Troy (Kate Bosworth), lives in the apartment building that Corrigan and Pena wind up at after agreeing to take Griffin (William Catlett)—a Black guy involved in a grocery store altercation—back to his home to feed his mysteriously ravenous pet. No sooner has he made his on-screen entrance than Gibson’s perpetually coughing Ray proclaims, “The current PD’s full of pussies that care more about liabilities and politics.” Minutes later, he’s bragging about how, when some individual once called in a fake crime report, only to then snipe responding officers with a BB gun, he took care of the jerk—another ungrateful citizen, amirite?—by breaking his fingers.

Force of Nature is a fantasy about misogynistic Caucasian cops (Ray “doesn’t exactly respond to female authority,” Pena quickly learns) with a predilection for using supposedly justifiable extreme force. That alone makes it an objectionable genre exercise. Yet on the heels of 2017’s Hurricane Maria tragedy, the material’s exploitation of a fictional Puerto Rican hurricane for cheap and contrived white-savior thrills pushes it into the realm of ugliness. Considering that state of affairs, the narrative’s subsequent rancid turns aren’t surprising. For example, Griffin confesses that he moved to Puerto Rico after winning a financial settlement against the NYPD for unjust harassment, bought a voracious pet (kept behind locked doors) that he’s trained to attack cops, and now feels guilty for taking that “blood money” in the first place. The suggestion, it’s clear, is that Black Americans know that police brutality is fake, and that any compensation for it is thus unearned.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/mel-gibsons-new-pro-police-brutality-movie-force-of-nature-is-crazy-racist

Young Kentucky Voters Have Doubts About McConnell's Top Democratic Challenger, Amy McGrath

(Snip)

“She regularly has been tentative to express any explicit policy or stance, going for an anti-McConnell campaign rather than a pro-McGrath,” Byerman said.

Will Powers, 19, agreed that he had no idea what McGrath stood for, but rattled off some of the things she opposes, including Medicare for All and tuition-free college. “It’s hard to understand McGrath as a candidate beyond what she isn’t in favor of,” he said.

(Snip)

“I don’t feel the campaign has done a good job reaching out to young voters,” said Johnson. “I don’t think there’s anything wrong with reaching out to older, more moderate voters. I just don’t think that should be the only demographic you talk to.” Johnson observed that the McGrath campaign events she’s seen publicized are often in the middle of the day, rendering them inaccessible for working people or student voters.

“For many people outside of Kentucky, they only know her name. They don’t even know there is a primary,” one Kentucky Democratic strategist, who spoke on background to maintain anonymity because of their position, told Teen Vogue. “I think in general at the state and federal level, the Democratic Party needs to do much more investing in the people that already agree with them. Democrats who don’t vote or people that are not registered but agree with Democratic values.”

(Snip)

Meanwhile, Powers, who moved to California for college, recalled introducing himself in class and a professor retorting, “You need to get that Mitch thing figured out in Kentucky.” “There’s this perception we all enabled Mitch, we all are complicit in his wrongdoings, but what’s truly enabled Mitch is the Democratic Party and the coastal elites ignoring our struggles in Kentucky until it’s an election year,” Powers told Teen Vogue. “Even more so now that the DSCC is endorsing her, it feels like ‘these rednecks in Kentucky can’t be trusted to make their own choices, so we will make it for them.’” People outside the state, Powers claimed, view McGrath as a savior, and while Powers said he’ll vote for her in the general if she’s the nominee, he doesn’t think she’ll win.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.teenvogue.com/story/mcgrath-mcconnell-kentucky-young-voters/amp

Bowman victory speech

Taliban is different than overall Islam

Saudi Arabia officially supported the Taliban in the 90s until 9/11. The Saudi government is a wahabbi government. Wahabbism is an ultraconservative orthodox sect and it was created in the 1700s and they fought several wars with the Ottoman Empire. They were backed by the British maybe at the very beginning if this book is accurate. Originally published in the same time period.

Mr. Hempher
Confessions of a British Spy

Description
Hempher, only one of the thousands of male and female agents employed and sent forth to all countries by this ministry, entrapped a person named Muhammad of Najd in Basra, misled him for several years, and caused him to establish the sect called Wahhâbî in 1125 [1713 A.D.]. They announced this sect in 1150. Hempher is a British missioner who was assigned the task of carrying on espionage activities in Egypt, Iraq, Iran, Hidjaz and in Istanbul, the center of the (Islamic) caliphate, misleading Muslims and serving Christianity, by means of the Ministry of British Commonwealth of Nations.

https://www.amazon.com/Confessions-British-Spy-Mr-Hempher/dp/1910220159

Wahabbi War

The Wahhabi War or Ottoman-Saudi War (Turkish: Osmanlı-Suudi Savaşları, Arabic: الحرب العثمانية السعودية‎ was fought from early 1811 to 1818, between Egypt Eyalet under the reign of Muhammad Ali Pasha (nominally under Ottoman rule) and the army of the Emirate of Diriyah, the First Saudi State, resulting in the destruction of the latter.

The Wahhabi movement is a reformist revivalist movement within Islam founded by Muhammad ibn Abd-al-Wahhab that would lead to creation of the Emirate of Diriyah as he and Muhammad bin Saud launched their campaign to reform Islam and consolidate power in Arabia from their power-base, and its eventual crushing by the Ottoman Empire's Egyptian khedive Muhammad Ali of Egypt.

In 1802 12,000 Wahhabis sacked Karbala in Iraq killing up to 5,000 people and plundering the Imam Husayn Shrine.[2] By 1805, the Wahhabis controlled Mecca and Medina.[2] The Wahhabis also attacked Ottoman trade caravans which interrupted the Ottoman finances.[3] The Saudi amir denounced the Ottoman sultan and called into question the validity of his claim to be caliph and guardian of the sanctuaries of the Hejaz[4] and the Ottoman Empire, suspicious of the ambitious Muhammad Ali, instructed him to fight the Wahhabis, as the defeat of either would be beneficial to them.[3] Tensions between Muhammad Ali and his Albanian troops also prompted him to send them to Arabia and fight against the Wahhabi movement where many died.[5]

(Snip)

Aftermath Edit
Most of the political leaders were treated well but the Ottomans were far harsher with the religious leaders that inspired the Wahhabi movement, executing Sulayman ibn Abd Allah and other religious notables, as they were thought to be uncompromising in their beliefs and therefore a much bigger threat than political leaders. The execution also reflects the Ottoman resentment of the Wahhabist views.[4]

This war had formed the basic hatred against the Wahhabi ideology among the Ottomans, and it continued to influence even modern Turkey when Turkish Islamic preachers consider Wahhabism to be non-Islam; virtually Turkish population is anti-Wahhabism. For the Saudis, who would form the nation a century later, the Saudis considered it as the first struggle for independence from the oppressive Ottoman Empire, and the current state of relationship between Saudi Arabia and Turkey is still influenced by this hostile past, whereas systematic campaign by the Saudis to rewrite the Ottoman past was denounced in Turkey.[6][7]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wahhabi_War

The Ottoman Empire fought "terrorists" long before the US did.

When Saudi Arabia was first starting out they opposed the Hajj even though it was one of 5 pillars of Islam but they knew they couldn't remain credible in the region if they banned it so they regulate it.

I decided to check out some of the links because of Martin's post

This one is very interesting.

PM accused of cover-up over report on Russian meddling in UK politics

(snip)

Fresh evidence has also emerged of attempts by the Kremlin to infiltrate the Conservatives by a senior Russian diplomat suspected of espionage, who spent five years in London cultivating leading Tories including Johnson himself.

It can now be revealed that Sergey Nalobin – who once described the future prime minister as “our good friend” – lives in a Moscow apartment block known as the “FSB house” because it houses so many employees from the Kremlin’s main spy agency.

(snip)

In 2014, Lubov Chernukhin – the wife of the former Russian deputy finance minister – paid £160,000 to play tennis with Johnson and David Cameron. The match was the star lot at a Conservative summer party auction. Another guest at the 2013 fundraiser was Vasily Shestakov, Vladimir Putin’s judo partner.

(snip)

Conservative Friends of Russia held its 2012 launch party in the Russian ambassador’s Kensington garden, with about 250 Russian and British guests present, including Tories who went on to play a prominent role in the referendum campaign. One was Matthew Elliott, now chief executive of pro-Brexit group Vote Leave, alongside Dominic Cummings, now the prime minister’s chief strategist.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/nov/04/no-10-blocks-russia-eu-referendum-report-until-after-election

Johnson and May ignored claims Russia had 'likely hold' over Trump, ex-spy alleges

Boris Johnson and Theresa May ignored claims the Kremlin had a “likely hold” over Donald Trump and may have covertly funded Brexit, the former spy Christopher Steele alleges in secret evidence given to MPs who drew up the Russia report.

In testimony to MPs, the MI6 veteran accused the government led by May and in which Johnson was foreign secretary for two years of turning a blind eye to allegations about Trump because they were afraid of offending the US president.

Steele first presented a dossier about Trump to senior UK intelligence figures in late 2016, who he says took it seriously at first. But, he writes, “on reaching top political decision-makers, a blanket appeared to be thrown over it”.

“No inquiries were made or actions taken thereafter on the substance of the intelligence in the dossier by HMG [Her Majesty’s government],” Steele says in the critical document.

https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/22/boris-johnson-theres-may-ignored-claims-russia-had-likely-hold-over-donald-trump-ex-spy-christopher-steele-claims?__twitter_impression=true

I don't know what people here think of Christopher Steele. They seemed to try to discredit him here in the US though he is one person I would like to hear from. If you look up his career he has relevant experience. Anyways, I think the info in the article is worth reading.

We're Doing Elections Wrong Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj Netflix

Crack babies are a myth

This is the kind of talk that lead to harsh crack cocaine laws even though it is chemically similar to powder cocaine which was used by the upper class in night clubs in the 70s.

----

No. The myth of the “crack baby” has persisted for decades, but studies have consistently concluded that pre-natal exposure to crack cocaine, which happens when a woman smokes crack cocaine while pregnant, has little or no effect on the long-term development of a child.

Exposure to cocaine (powder or crack) can slow fetal growth but the development of the brain and body catches up as these children grow up. It has not, as widely thought in the 80s and 90s, produced “joyless” or “unmanageable” children.

Poverty and the harms and stresses associated with it have a more significant impact on the physical and emotional development of a child than pre-natal exposure to cocaine. Children from nurturing and cognitively stimulating environments perform better, regardless of cocaine exposure.

https://www.drugpolicy.org/drug-facts/cocaine/pregnancy-crack-babies

I'm surprised teachers wouldn't be better informed on this. You never heard of "coke babies".

Family business: Trump fears latest damning memoir - this time by his liberal niece

(Snip)

“This is one of the worst nights of my life,” the president-elect’s niece, Mary Lea Trump, wrote on Twitter. “What is wrong with this country? I fear the American experiment has failed.”

She has presumably had many more bad nights since. It emerged this week that Mary, a clinical psychologist from Long Island, is to publish an unflattering memoir about her uncle entitled Too Much And Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man.

(Snip)

D’Antonio commented: “It makes her someone that Donald would fear on a very elemental level. She thinks for herself, she’s analytical when it comes to humans and she can express herself, so this is a nightmare for him.”

I think he’s freaking out. He will treat her savagely
Mary, also a certified professional life coach, joined Twitter in December 2012 – her bio currently states, “#blacklivesmatter, 🏳️‍🌈,she/her/hers” – and is following accounts that would do any New York liberal proud: Planned Parenthood, Greenpeace USA, the National Center for Transgender Equality. She also follows Democratic politicians such as congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and liberal actors including Stephen Fry, Mark Ruffalo and Kerry Washington.

The Guardian
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jun/21/donald-trump-mary-lea-trump-book-memoir