Month: April 2021

Authored by Majid Rafizadeh via The Gatestone Institute,

The Biden administration is ratcheting up its appeasement policies towards the Iranian regime in an apparent effort to revive the 2015 nuclear deal — which by the way, Iran never signed.

US President Joe Biden made his intention to return to the nuclear deal public before he took office; after, he appointed as Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman — a key negotiator in the talks which led to the nuclear deal in 2015 during the Obama administration. Biden actually publicized Sherman’s professed accomplishment:

“She has successfully rallied the world to strengthen democracy and confront some of the biggest national security challenges of our time, including leading the U.S. negotiating team for the Iran Deal”.

The administration proceeded to revoke the designation of the Houthis, an Iran-backed terror group, as an officially-designated terrorist organization.

Republican foreign policy leaders in Congress are now requesting from the Secretary of State Antony Blinken answers to questions about the secret talks held with South Korea that resulted in South Korea giving the Iranian regime $1 billion in ransom money. The letter was “led” by Congressman Bryan Steil (WI), Congressman Greg Steube (FL) and Republican Study Committee (RSC) Chairman Jim Banks (IN). Steil pointed out:

“The Biden administration appears to be using loopholes when dealing with the Iranian regime. I am again asking direct, yes or no questions on the United States’ involvement in facilitating a South Korean ransom payment to Iran. If the Biden administration is involved in transferring funds to Iran, Congress and the American people must be informed. Biden administration officials continue to deflect and refuse to answer questions from members of Congress regarding this issue. I want answers. Congress must be informed of the administration’s actions”.

In January, the Iranian regime, apparently as part of an extortion maneuver, had seized a South Korean ship in the Gulf and demanded ransom for its release. Congressman Banks stated:

“The Biden administration has to stop stonewalling and must come clean regarding whether they facilitated sanctions relief for the thugs in Tehran. I’m glad to co-lead this letter with my colleagues Rep. Bryan Steil and Rep. Greg Steube. The RSC will continue to investigate until we get to the bottom of what is going on”.

Secret talks to appease the Iranian regime should not come as surprise. When President Biden was vice president during the Obama administration, the administration was all too eager to grant concessions to the Iranian regime and, it turns out, made multiple secret deals with the mullahs. One of the secret deals consisted of allowing the Iranian regime to have access to US dollars by sidestepping sanctions. “The Obama administration misled the American people and Congress because they were desperate to get a deal with Iran”, said Senator Rob Portman (R-OH), who chaired the Senate panel conducting the investigation at the time.

The Obama administration also secretly agreed to remove sanctions on several Iranian banks, including Bank Sepah and Sepah International. These banks had long been sanctioned by the United Nations due to their illegal activities in financing missile development and skirting UN Security Council resolutions regarding the arms embargo. These secret deals meant that when sanctions against Iranian banks were lifted and permission given to the leaders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) to resume conducting business, there was no longer any mechanism to check or stop Iran’s illegal activities such as advancing its ballistic missile program.

When, in return for Iran releasing hostages, the Obama administration released Iranian-born prisoners, some of whom were threats to the US national security, it shocked many and infuriated some of the officials at the Justice Department — as did shipping $400 million in cash to Tehran as ostensibly a “not quid-pro-quo” ransom for the hostages. In addition, according to a report by the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security, the Obama administration agreed “‘in secret’ to allow Iran to evade some restrictions” in the last year of the nuclear agreement. David Albright, a former U.N. weapons inspector, stated that “The exemptions or loopholes are happening in secret, and it appears that they favor Iran.” These are only few examples of the secret deals conducted with the Iranian regime to appease it.

In addition to the secret deals, Iran also received dangerous and unprecedented concessions from the Obama administration for the Islamic Republic’s 2015 “nuclear deal,” the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). The major concession was that the deal paved the way for Iran legally to become a full-blown nuclear state. The sunset clauses, which enshrined that commitment, had set a firm expiration date for restricting Iran’s nuclear program, after which the country’s leaders would be free to have, legitimately, as many nuclear weapons as they like. The Obama administration also helped swiftly to lift all four rounds of UN sanctions against Iran — sanctions it had taken decades to put in place. Iran’s military sites also were exempted from inspection by the International Atomic Energy Agency; other inspections were only to be at the times and places of Iran’s choosing — if ever. Iran then rejoined the global financial system with full legitimacy — plus billions of dollars flowing into the treasury of the IRGC and its expanding militias across the Middle East.

Another concession, usually overlooked, is that Iran never even signed the JCPOA deal — what sort of deal, then, is that?

Appeasement policies, secret deals and generous concessions to predatory regimes do not work, as history has repeatedly shown. They only empower and embolden leaders whose record reveals that they have no intention of honoring whatever they agreed to in the first place, and for whom commitments have been mainly a means of buying time to accomplish the goals they really want.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) issued a Notice to Airmen (NOTAM) regarding airspace restrictions in the Pacific Ocean near the Point Mugu Sea Test Range, which will be closed through April 1. 

“The block of restricted airspace described in the NOTAMs is what one would expect to see during a missile test,” said The Drive. 

The NOTAM comes as the first flight of the U.S. Air Force’s AGM-183A Air-launched Rapid Response Weapon, or ARRW, could be imminent. 

On March 5, the service announced the first ARRW test would take place “in the next 30 days” over the Point Mugu range.

The hypersonic test missile was delivered to Edwards Air Force Base in California on March 1. The ARRW will be air-launched from the wing of a Boeing B-52 Stratofortress. 

The U.S. military frequently tests weapons off the coast of southern California. But to issue a NOTAM suggests a more extended range test, covering multiple areas where other stages of the missiles, or other debris, could plunge back to Earth. Once the rocket is air-launched from the bomber, the ARRW glider will fly at hypersonic speed, above Mach 5, or about 6,174 mph. 

The Air Force provided a complete description of ARRW’s planned test earlier this month:

The ARRW BTF-1 will demonstrate the booster’s ability to reach operational speeds and collect other important data. In addition to booster performance, the test vehicle will also validate safe separation and controllability of the missile away from the carrier B-52H, through ignition and boost phase, all the way up to separation of a simulated glide vehicle. The simulated glider will not sustain flight, and will safely disintegrate soon after separation. The 412th Test Wing will conduct the ARRW BTF series over the Point Mugu Sea Range in California.

The service provided no information if the unpowered hypersonic boost-glide warhead will strike a mock target. 

As it now stands, the first ARRW flight test may have already taken place or will take place by Thursday. More information about the test is likely to come in the near-term. 

Our recent coverage on ARRW’s progression from development to testing suggests it could soon become the US’ first operational hypersonic weapon:  

• National (In)Security: The Hypersonic Road To Hell
• Lockheed Martin Awarded Second Contract Worth $480mn For Hypersonic Missile Weapons
• Watch: Lockheed Martin Successfully Flies Its Newest Hypersonic Missile On B-52 Bomber
• Air Force Eyes Hypersonic Weapons For B1 Bomber

Authored by Monica Showalter via AmericanThinker.com,

You could tell that the Major League Baseball (MLB) decision to pull its All-Star game out of Atlanta was a deeply unpopular one, based on the ambivalent reaction of far-left failed gubernatorial candidate, Stacey Abrams. Here’s the money quote from her Twitter statement:

After all, isn’t she the one who pushed through most of the fraud-enabling laws on the books in Georgia which triggered the recent legislative action? The blacks-are-too-dumb-to-have-voter-ID idiotic notion, so by extension, nobody should have to show voter ID to vote, even though everyone needs to show ID to buy a beer at a MLB ball game, or buy a ticket to one? She needs to make up her mind.

So which is it? Not wanting to see families hurt, or being all-in for the boycott of Atlanta, which certainly should affect the city tax base? She wants to have it both ways, boycott but nobody hurt. That’s because unlike MLB, she wants to win public office, and knows that screwing over black businesses, which will get it in the teeth with this MLB maneuver, is going to make her unpopular.

Here’s the MLB statement:

JUST IN: @MLB announces it’ll move the All-Star Game and Draft out of Atlanta due to the state passing a new elections law last week. pic.twitter.com/rBVUQ6FMJG

— Ed O’Keefe (@edokeefe) April 2, 2021

Abrams’ response is just the tip of the iceberg of the hypocrisy and contradictions seen from this MLB maneuver — stiffing black-owned American small businesses just emerging from a pandemic to protest a U.S. law they are perfectly free to campaign for to change otherwise through elections, or else playing the ball game without politics and drawing a big audience. Which is it for them? And by the way, how many of their baseball players are American citizens?

Unlike Abrams, they chose, and chose poorly, because what they chose will probably have some consequences for the MLB organization, given its nuclear level of hypocrisy.

Here’s another hypocrisy: Will MLB now move its All-Star game to Delaware, Joe Biden’s home state, where, unlike Georgia now, there is no early voting at all? Will they stop advertising and selling merchandise in that state? Or New York, or New Jersey, which also don’t have early voting as they now do in Georgia? These MLB virtue-signallers would be hypocrites if they didn’t.

Here’s the big one: MLB made a big deal about its move out of Georgia being a human rights issue, and them being all concerned about human rights, you see.

Can they explain for us why they recently held a ball game in brutal totalitarian military dictatorship of Cuba? A place Cuban ball players flee from to freedom, which in come cases includes MLB salaries made possible only by living in a free, democratic society that exists already? They aren’t fleeing to a hellhole, which is what MLB is now claiming about Georgia.

Hey @MLB, how many dropboxes does Cuba use for early voting? pic.twitter.com/6IYISsVKAE

— Tom Cotton (@TomCottonAR) April 2, 2021

Can they explain to us why they hold a training camp in China, home of the Uighur slave-labor laogai and the broken-treaty de-democratization of Hong Kong? You’d think an organization that concerned about voting rights that willing to disrupt its own business and make itself politically unpopular in Georgia in the interest of virtue-signalling on voting might just take an interest in voting and transparency practices over in communist China.

“Hey @MLB, how many days of early voting are allowed in China?”@SenTomCotton calls out MLB for punishing Georgia over voting law while partnering with communist China. https://t.co/s2dota7ZE1

— Washington Examiner (@dcexaminer) April 2, 2021

These things to them are fine, but Georgia is an affront to their delicate democratic sensibilities.

The hypocrisies pile up on top of the hypocrisies and the only people who suffer here are the little black-owned Atlanta businesses who otherwise would get an increased payday from all the knock-on traffic from the All-Star game. Big businesses, such as MLB, have always been happy to crush the little-guy upstart businesses, some of whom might grow into competitors. That, and the press releases with fawning media coverage, is all they end up doing as a means of feathering their nests. Leftists have always yelled about calling corporations persons, and in this case, they are right, corporations are not persons making personal decisions, they are a big ‘it’ whose decisions are always in the end about profits.

Their hypocrisy surrounding this maneuver to appease senile Joe Biden and all his leftist flying monkeys circling his his sorry corpus is an outrage. Maybe a full boycott from viewers, as President Trump, who always has his finger on the pulse of the people, is what it will take to get that message to this big ‘it’ which wants to have things all ways.

Personal information of over 533 million Facebook users was leaked on a low-level hacking forum, according to Business Insider. Facebook users from 106 countries, including more than 32 million users in the US, 11 million in the UK, and 6 million in India, had their Facebook IDs, full names, phone numbers, locations, birthdates, bios, and in some cases, email addresses, leaked online. 

Insider journalists examined the leaked data and confirmed several Facebook users’ data matched up with the leaked data on the list. 

Insider reviewed a sample of the leaked data and verified several records by matching known Facebook users’ phone numbers with the IDs listed in the data set. We also verified records by testing email addresses from the data set in Facebook’s password reset feature, which can be used to partially reveal a user’s phone number. -Insider 

 Alon Gal, CTO of cybercrime intelligence firm Hudson Rock, has been one of the first to post about the leak. He tweeted Saturday morning: 

 All 533,000,000 Facebook records were just leaked for free. This means that if you have a Facebook account, it is extremely likely the phone number used for the account was leaked. I have yet to see Facebook acknowledging this absolute negligence of your data.

All 533,000,000 Facebook records were just leaked for free.

This means that if you have a Facebook account, it is extremely likely the phone number used for the account was leaked.

I have yet to see Facebook acknowledging this absolute negligence of your data. https://t.co/ysGCPZm5U3 pic.twitter.com/nM0Fu4GDY8

— Alon Gal (Under the Breach) (@UnderTheBreach) April 3, 2021

He said the hack included: 

Phone number, Facebook ID, Full name, Location, Past Location, Birthdate, (Sometimes) Email Address, Account Creation Date, Relationship Status, Bio. Bad actors will certainly use the information for social engineering, scamming, hacking and marketing.

Gal posted a partial list of the number of users affected by the hack by country:

“A database of that size containing the private information such as phone numbers of a lot of Facebook’s users would certainly lead to bad actors taking advantage of the data to perform social engineering attacks [or] hacking attempts,” Gal told Insider, adding that he first discovered the leak in January on a low-level hacking forum. 

This isn’t the first time Facebook has dealt with hackers exposing the personal information of users. Over the years millions of people’s personal information have been scrapped from Facebook’s servers. 

Gal warned that there’s not much Facebook can do at this point because their credentials are already online. 

“Individuals signing up to a reputable company like Facebook are trusting them with their data and Facebook [is] supposed to treat the data with utmost respect,” Gal said. “Users having their personal information leaked is a huge breach of trust and should be handled accordingly.”

Another monumental failure by Facebook would suggest a future congressional hearing would be held. 

Florida residents located within a one of a phosphate processing plant in Manatee County were evacuated this weekend as officials warned that a pond containing radioactive wastewater could collapse “at any time,” according to CBS News.

“A portion of the containment wall at the leak site shifted laterally,” said Manatee Director of Public Safety Jake Saur, after the Piney Point processing plant developed a “significant leak” according to county officials cited by WTSP-TV. Saur said that a “structural collapse could occur at any time.” Governor Ron DeSantis declared a state of emergency for the area on Saturday.

On Friday, the Manatee County Public Safety Department sent out emergency evacuation notices to those living within a half-mile of the facility, only to expand the orders to those within one mile north, and half-mile south of the reservoir’s stacks of phosphogypsum – a radioactive fertilizer waste product left over when phosphate ore is processed into a fertilizer component.

Nearby stretches of highway were also closed to traffic according to the report.

Mandatory evacuations were extended an additional half mile west and one mile southwest of the site on Saturday evening. Manatee County Public Safety Department said that 316 households are within the full evacuation area. –CBS News

The closure of U.S. 41 will be expanded south from Buckeye Road to Moccasin Wallow Road. Moccasin Wallow Road will be closed west of 38th Avenue East. There are an estimated 316 households in the evacuation area. Those households will all receive an emergency alert to evacuate https://t.co/6roRskVV0d

— MCG Public Works (@PW_ManateeGov) April 3, 2021

“In addition to high concentrations of radioactive materials, phosphogypsum and processed wastewater can also contain carcinogens and heavy toxic metals,” said the Center for Biological Diversity in a Saturday statement. “For every ton of phosphoric acid produced, the fertilizer industry creates 5 tons of radioactive phosphogypsum waste, which is stored in mountainous stacks hundreds of acres wide and hundreds of feet tall.”

According to Manatee County Commissioner Vanessa Baugh, the “public must heed that notice to avoid harm.”

Officials are on site conducting a controlled release of water, roughly 22,000 gallons a minute. 

The water that is currently being pumped out by officials in order to avoid a full collapse is a mix of sea water from a local dredge project, storm water and rain runoff. The water has not been treated. 

“The water meets water quality standards for marine waters with the exception of pH, total phosphorus, total nitrogen and total ammonia nitrogen,” said officials in a statement. “It is slightly acidic, but not at a level that is expected to be a concern, nor is it expected to be toxic.”

State Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried said in a Saturday letter to DeSantis that an emergency session of Florida’s cabinet is in order to discuss the situation, adding that the leaking water is “contaminated, radioactive wastewater,” and not the plant’s first.

“For more than fifty years, this Central Florida mining operation has caused numerous human health and environmental disasters and incidents,” she wrote. “There have been numerous, well-documented failures — which continue today — of the property’s reservoir liner, including leaks, poor welds, holes, cracks and weaknesses that existed prior to purchase by the current owner, HRK Holdings, and exacerbated since.”

I have requested that @GovRonDeSantis convene an emergency meeting of the Florida Cabinet for a briefing by @FLDEPNews Secretary @NoahValenstein on the imminent #PineyPoint disaster.

🚨 If you are in the area, follow directions from local officials and evacuate NOW if ordered. pic.twitter.com/3UUz4VikO5

— Commissioner Nikki Fried (@NikkiFriedFL) April 3, 2021

Read the rest of the report here.

Authored by Lorenz Duchamps via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds signed legislation into law on Friday lifting some restrictions to buy or carry a handgun in the state for law-abiding citizens.

The NRA-backed legislation named “House File 756” will take effect on July 1 and eliminates the requirement for law-abiding Iowans to obtain a permit to purchase a handgun from private non-licensed sources. Additionally, to carry a weapon, people will no longer need to have a permit as well.

Individuals will still have to follow federal law and go through an instant background check to buy from licensed sellers each time they purchase a gun.

People who fail to commit to the new law will be charged with a Class D felony, which is punishable by up to five years in prison. It will become a felony if a person sells, rents, or loans a firearm to someone the seller “knows or reasonably should know” isn’t legally allowed to get a gun or is intoxicated.

“Today I signed legislation that protects the 2nd Amendment rights of Iowa’s law-abiding citizens while still preventing the sale of firearms to criminals and other dangerous individuals,” Reynolds said in a statement after signing the bill.

“This law also takes greater steps to inform law enforcement about an individual’s mental illness helping ensure firearms don’t end up in the wrong hands,” she added. “We will never be able to outlaw or prevent every single bad actor from getting a gun, but what we can do is ensure law-abiding citizens have full access to their constitutional rights while keeping Iowans safe.”

The new law has been supported by the National Rifle Association (NRA), which applauded the governor for signing the bill allowing law-abiding adults to carry a concealed firearm without first asking the government’s permission for a permit.

On March 22, House File 756 passed 60–37, with all Republicans voting for it, along with Democrat state Rep. Wes Breckenridge. Republicans have a majority in the Senate and previously passed a similar piece of legislation through a committee.

Iowa now becomes one of 19 states in the U.S. that no longer requires law-abiding citizens to get a permit before carrying a gun for self-defense.

The 18 other states that eliminated this requirement are: Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Idaho, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Utah, Vermont, West Virginia, and Wyoming.

Democrats have opposed the bill, saying the reversal is dangerous and a “reckless disregard for the safety and well-being of Iowans.”

“Our communities aren’t safer when criminals can legally purchase a handgun without a background check,” Iowa Democratic Party Chair Representative Ross Wilburn said in a statement in reaction to Reynolds signing the bill.

“Background checks are wildly popular, even among gun owners, as a common-sense way to keep people safe,” he said. “Legislation like this serves no purpose other than appeasing the gun industry and its powerful lobbyists.”

Mark Olivia, director of public affairs at the National Shooting Sports Foundation, told The Epoch Times that laws restricting gun ownership have dubious origins.

“The history of gun control laws really has its roots in Jim Crow-era racist laws that are designed to deny people their rights,” he said. “Your permit is your Second Amendment right. The idea of having to get a permit to be able to exercise your Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms is antithetical to what your rights are as an American at birth.”

Zachary Stieber contributed to this report.

When Apple launched a new butterfly keyboard with the MacBook Pro some years ago, it was slapped with a class-action lawsuit for its defective keyboards. Now a second class-action lawsuit could be in the making called “flexgate.”

According to The Verge, Apple opted for fragile flex cables instead of beefier wires for its screens on MacBook Pro models in 2016. The new lawsuit, filed in the US District Court for the Northern District of California, is over the MacBook Pro developing “stage light” issues at the bottom of the screen, eventually leading to a complete failure. 

Law360 reports that US District Judge Edward Davila decided this week to allow the “flexgate” lawsuit to move forward, ruling that Apple knew it was selling defective MacBook Pros. 

A California federal judge has trimmed a proposed class action against Apple claiming it hid display defects on 15-inch MacBook Pro laptops but left intact fraudulent omission claims after determining the proposed class adequately alleged Apple failed to disclose information concerning the alleged defect.

US District Judge Edward Davila determined that the consumers’ allegations of Apple conducting intensive pre-release testing, which the consumers say was conducted by a team of “reliability engineers” who carried out stress tests and other procedures that would have alerted Apple to defects behind the display failures, sufficiently demonstrate that Apple was aware of the alleged defect.

The judge added that consumer complaints concerning the alleged display defect also would have put Apple on alert.

“The court finds that the allegations of pre-release testing in combination with the allegations of substantial customer complaints are sufficient to show that Apple had exclusive knowledge of the alleged defect,” the judge wrote in his opinion.

The problem that Apple incurred was that it switched to a thinner ribbon cable in the affected models that would result in a tear and eventual failure of the screen. The problem was so widespread, consistent, and infuriating to tens of thousands of Apple users that it was mindboggling Apple CEO Tim Cook would even allow the defective models even to be sold. 

But while Cook had to please shareholders at the expense of selling defective MacBook Pros, the company ran across a significant issue to swap out the $6 cord. Apple’s design made it nearly impossible to replace. The $6 problem was transformed into a $600 disaster as Apple eventually had to replace the already sold MacBook Pro cables. 

The lawsuit also accuses Apple of deleting Official Apple Support Community posts complaining about the issue.

At the moment, there are nine different plaintiffs lined up for the case against Apple knowingly selling defective Macbook. 

Straight news Or Satire? You decide…

Democrats are condemning the racist racism of Georgia’s racist election law.

To show how very angry and opposed to the law they are, Democrats are refusing to read the law to find out what it actually says. 

“Listen– this law was passed by Republicans,” said one Democrat leader.

“That’s all you need to know to understand this bill is pure racism and a billion-trillion times worse than Jim Crow. We will not legitimize this racist Jim Crow KKK White Supremacist voter-suppression hate-law by reading it to find out what’s actually in it.”

“I haven’t read the law either, but the news told me it was racist, so that’s all I need to hear,” said local voter Caddy Shamberton, who is not a racist.

“Whenever the news tells me something is racist, I will automatically hate that thing without taking any time to look at the facts myself. That’s just common sense.”

According to sources, several media figures attempted to read the bill in its entirety but collapsed on the ground in horrible agony from all the racism in it.

“Just trust us, it’s racist,” they all said. 

*  *  *

Source: The Babylon Bee