Month: May 2023

Nine people have been arrested in connection with the assault over Memorial Day weekend near a California beach

Police have arrested at least nine teenagers for their alleged roles in an attack by dozens of people on three US Marines over the Memorial Day weekend near a Southern California beach.

The incident occurred on Friday night at San Clemente Pier and left three unidentified Marines injured. The Orange County Sheriff’s Department announced on Tuesday that four male juveniles and one female juvenile had been arrested for their alleged involvement in the assault. San Clemente Mayor Chris Duncan told CBS News that an additional four teenagers had been charged in connection with the beating.

“They think they have the people they are looking for — not to say that there might not be a few others out there,” Duncan said. “They feel pretty confident that they have the main perpetrators.”

The incident was caught on video and reportedly involved a group of 30 or 40 teens and young adults. The three Marines were not in uniform, and the Sheriff’s Department said two of them declined to be taken to the hospital for treatment of their injuries.

Two US Marines savagely beaten by gang of 40 teens on Memorial Day in San Clemente. pic.twitter.com/1XHvgMaM25

— Lexit (@LexitMovement1) May 30, 2023

The video shows them being surrounded by a large group of people and punched and kicked repeatedly. Two of the troops are shown laying in fetal positions on the ground as they are kicked by multiple assailants.

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CBS said the assault began after the Marines asked a group of teens to stop shooting off fireworks because one of the soldiers had been hit in the face by debris. Hunter Antonino, one of the troops, told the outlet that the trio was then followed by the group and “stomped on.”

“I didn’t know what was going on,” Antonino said. “I was just trying to go back to the car, and then I had turned around . . . to help them out. And then we’re just all in this circle being stomped on, beat up.”

Duncan said it was “particularly tragic” that the incident occurred during Memorial Day weekend, when Americans honor the US troops who died while serving in the military. “The barbaric assault on off-duty Marines at the San Clemente Pier goes against everything we stand for in San Clemente, and it’s no excuse that teenagers were involved.”

San Clemente Pier is located about 20 miles from Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, where more than 42,000 active-duty Marines are stationed.

READ MORE: 11 dead in Chicago holiday weekend carnage

Premier says eastern Canadian province will ‘take all the support we can get’ as crews battle out-of-control blazes.

A Gulf Cartel member was filmed with what Milenio TV said was a Javelin anti-tank missile

A militant wearing the insignia of Mexico’s notorious Gulf Cartel (Cartel Del Golfo, CDG) was filmed in the state of Tamaulipas carrying a US-made anti-tank missile launcher. Milenio TV identified the weapon as a Javelin, thousands of which were sent to Ukraine by the Pentagon.

Footage filmed in Matamoros on Monday and aired on Tuesday evening by the news channel Milenio TV showed a man with CDG patches armed with a Kalashnikov rifle and a missile they said was the Raytheon-made FGM-148.

Over 10,000 Javelins from Pentagon stockpiles have been sent to Ukraine since last February, to the point where the US military has begun to run out of the missiles itself.

Milenio presenter Azucena Uresti noted on Twitter that the estimated value of a Javelin launcher on the black market was anywhere from $20,000 to $60,000, while the average cost of a missile was about $30,000.

#AzucenaALas10 | En #Tamaulipas, un presunto miembro del Cártel del Golfo fue grabado portando una de las armas más exclusivas y poderosas, un “javelín”, que ha sido utilizado durante la invasión a Ucrania con un valor de entre 20 mil y 60 mil dólares pic.twitter.com/2BGtJMc2Xl

— Azucena Uresti (@azucenau) May 31, 2023

Keen-eyed military experts believe the weapon in the Milenio footage may actually be the AT-4, a Swedish-made disposable anti-tank launcher, which is also in use by the US military and likewise supplied to Ukraine by the thousands. 

Russia has repeatedly warned the US and its allies not to “stuff” Ukraine with weapons and ammunition, both because this risked a direct confrontation and since nonexistent controls would result in the weapons ending up in the criminal underworld. 

A RT investigation in July 2022 found a variety of Western-supplied weapons, including anti-tank rockets, for sale on the “dark web.” Several months later, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova warned that $1 billion a month worth of Western weapons was ending up in the hands of “terrorists, extremists and criminal groups in the Middle East, Central Africa, and Southeast Asia.”

Kiev has denounced this as “propaganda” and insisted all were accounted for.

The US outlet CBS censored their documentary on weapons supplies to Ukraine after the government in Kiev objected. Last month, veteran investigative journalist Seymour Hersh said the West was aware its weapons were ending up on the black market, but that most governments did not care because arming Ukraine mattered more to them.

The Gulf Cartel is based in the Mexican state of Tamaulipas, specifically in the border city of Matamoros, just across the Rio Grande from Brownsville, Texas. It dates back to the 1930s, but gained in notoriety in the late 1990s, when it spun off a notorious militia called Los Zetas. The group has since broken off on its own. Though primarily known as a drug smuggling cartel, CDG has also been accused of racketeering, abductions, money laundering, and trafficking of people, sex slaves and weapons.

In March, the cartel apologized for one of its factions kidnapping four Americans and killing two of them, in what they said was a case of mistaken identity. Five members of that faction were handed over to the Mexican police.

Eight others were treated for injuries and a man has been arrested on suspicion of manslaughter.

The newspaper has complained that Disney’s new ‘The Little Mermaid’ remake doesn’t take enough risks

The New York Times has stirred online outrage by faulting Disney’s new live-action remake of ‘The Little Mermaid’, a children’s movie, for not including any “kink” in the storyline.

Times film critic Wesley Morris began his review by saying the movie had “noble intentions,” dutifully checking various diversity boxes to gain approval. However, he added that Disney erred by trying too hard to avoid offending audiences: “Joy, fun, mystery risk, flavor, kink – they’re missing.”

Controversy over the review bubbled up earlier this week, when the newspaper posted a Twitter message promoting the piece. It came amid a wave of conservative boycotts against major corporations over alleged sexualization of children and promotion of transgender ideology. US retailer Target, for instance, has lost more than $13 billion in market value over the past two weeks amid public pushback over a “Pride Month” campaign that featured merchandise for babies and other children.

READ MORE: US senator condemns Target over partnership with ‘satanist’

“The New York Times complaining about the lack of ‘kink’ in ‘The Little Mermaid’ pretty much sums up where we’re at,” said Darryl Cooper, host of the MartyrMade podcast. He added, “Their contempt for traditional values transformed into a seething hatred for ordinary people.”

Fox News contributor Tomi Lahren argued on Tuesday that by promoting sexualization of children, leftists had galvanized conservatives who normally lack the “intestinal fortitude” to fight for their causes. “They have found the hill that conservatives and decent folks are willing to die on, and that is protecting children. And we will do it every single time. Ask Target, ask Bud Light, ask Kohl’s.”

We will protect children. We will keep them from being exploited. We will do it every time. Do not mess with us. We are done playing with this.”

Morris, the film critic, said that although black singer Halle Bailey was cast to play the lead role of Ariel, ‘The Little Mermaid’ took few chances that might anger “the haters.” He added, “That allergy to creative risk produces hazards anyway.” 

The reviewer also critiqued the movie’s allegedly racial undertones, such as a scene in which the character Vanessa, played by a white actress, steals Ariel’s voice and woos her love interest, Eric, with a song. “There’s a whole American history of theft and music to overthink, too,” Morris said.

READ MORE: ‘Cuties’ goes to court: Netflix INDICTED by Texas grand jury for lewd depiction of children in controversial film

Morris has won two Pulitzer Prizes for his critiques, including a 2021 group of essays that explored “the intersection of race and pop culture,” according to his New York Times bio.

With US dominance broken, the BRICS nations can build a fairer world, Miguel Diaz-Canel told RT

Giving up the US dollar will free developing countries from Washington’s “sanctions, blackmail, aggression, and slander,” Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel told RT in an exclusive interview due to air on Thursday.

The dollar’s status as the world’s reserve currency enables the US to pursue an “aggressive hegemonistic policy of building walls, imposing punitive sanctions, blackmail, aggression and slander,” Diaz-Canel said. Against this policy – which has seen Cuba embargoed for six decades by the US – Diaz-Canel added that “BRICS provides a brilliant alternative for economic integration, especially for developing economies.”

Since it was first coined in 2001, BRICS has grown from an acronym for five emerging economies – Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa – into an informal alliance that has overtaken the US-led G7 bloc in its share of global GDP, has its own development bank, and counts Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Argentina among 19 prospective members.

Amid calls for a common BRICS currency to settle trade bills, members of the group have begun to conduct more bilateral trade in their own currencies, eschewing the US dollar.

“I believe that we need to recognize the leading role of Russia in shaping this multipolar world,” Diaz-Canel said, stating that continued “de-dollarization” will lead to “more inclusive and more mutually beneficial trade” for those who reject the US’ “lies and empty promises.”

Although Cuba is not a member of the BRICS group, the island nation has been a close partner of Russia since the days of the Soviet Union, and trade between Moscow and Havana tripled last year to $452 million. Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Chernyshenko visited Cuba last week, where he announced that Russian firms were planning more investment in the country’s tourism sector.

“It is at times like this that we get friends from other countries supporting us with real actions and under conditions that are not harmful to our independence,” Diaz-Canel told RT.

RT’s entire interview with the Cuban leader airs on Thursday.

Governor Glenn Youngkin has deployed 100 National Guard members as human rights advocates decry border ‘militarisation’.

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Fox News committed a Random Act of Journalism. Peter Aiken and Brooke Singman penned a report that Tara Reade, a woman who has gone public in the past accusing Joseph “the Imposter” Biden of having sexually abused her.The Fox piece goes on to talk about how and why Ms Reade fled to Russia from the United States. For the fairest view of the Fox piece, we present the whole article, editing out only the embedded photos and advertisements that appear in the original piece, which can be seen here. After this piece I add my own commentary. The reader is encouraged to read this whole piece and think about it themselves, and then try their ideas against the analysis offered here. What do you think?Without further ado:

Biden accuser Reade defects to Russia out of ‘safety,’ expert warns it’s not whole story

The White House declined to speak for ‘an aspiring Russian citizen’ or ‘the convicted spy’ sponsoring her

The former Observer columnist Nick Cohen, who attacked me numerous times during the pandemic for being a lockdown sceptic, has left the newspaper with a financial settlement following complaints of sexual harassment that spanned a period of 17 years. When he departed, he was praised by his bosses for his “incisive” and “brilliant” journalist – such as this piece entitled ‘It is only a matter of time before we turn on the unvaccinated’ – with no mention of the seven women who claimed they were harassed by him both inside and outside the workplace. Guardian News and Media (GNM), which owns the Observer and the Guardian, has now been accused of a cover-up by the New York Times. The Telegraph has more.

Some of his alleged victims have accused GNM of failing to act on complaints they made to managers over a period of years.

For his part, Mr. Cohen has claimed that his downfall was the result of a bitter internal row over transgender rights that has opened a schism at the centre of The Guardian.

The fallout from the Cohen affair has also prompted recriminations at the Financial Times (FT), where an investigation by a prominent journalist into the goings-on at the Guardian was spiked by the business newspaper’s editor.

The claim has been made by the New York Times (NYT), which reported that Madison Marriage, an FT journalist, had investigated the Cohen affair and had on the record interviews with two named women and documentary evidence on others, but Roula Khalaf, the FT’s editor, chose not to publish it.

Sources told the NYT that Ms Khalaf said Mr. Cohen did not have a high enough profile in the business world to make him a story for the publication.

Both newspapers now risk allegations of hypocrisy after holding powerful men to account in their reporting of the MeToo movement.

The Guardian exposed allegations of sexual misconduct by Tim Westwood, a former radio DJ, in a joint investigation with BBC Three last year, and Ms Marriage won an award in 2018 for exposing the behaviour of the wealthy elite at men-only charity dinners known as The Presidents Club.

According to the NYT, which has spoken to several of the women allegedly targeted by Mr Cohen, The Guardian was less proactive when it came to investigating complaints against its own employees.

Lucy Siegle, a former Guardian journalist, told the NYT that she had made a complaint about Mr Cohen in 2018 for “groping her in the newsroom” in about 2001.

The NYT said Mr Cohen had grabbed her bottom, and that five other women had described similar encounters happening in pubs between 2008 and 2015. A seventh said that Mr Cohen had repeatedly offered to send her explicit photographs in 2018.

The NYT said Mr Cohen’s reputation was “widely known in the newsroom”, to the extent that some of his female colleagues used a different entrance to a pub near the office “to avoid being groped by him”.

Read More: Guardian “Covered Up” MeToo Scandal