UK Warns of ‘Likely’ Terror Attacks in Denmark over Qur’an Burnings as Sweden Raises Terror Threat Level
Britain’s Foreign Office has warned travellers that terror attacks are “likely” in Denmark amid the Islamic backlash to burnings of the Qur’an as Sweden has increased its terror threat level.
In updated travel advice, the UK Foreign Office said on Friday: “Terrorists are likely to try to carry out attacks in Denmark. Attacks could be indiscriminate, including in places frequented by foreigners.”
The warning comes amid increased concerns throughout the region of potential Islamist retaliation over several highly public burnings of the Qur’an. The Danish government has even considered introducing anti-blasphemy-style legislation to prevent the burning of the Muslim holy book outside embassies in the country in an attempt to quell the outrage.
It also came as Sweden raised its terror threat level to “high” from “elevated” for the first time since 2016. Announcing the decision, the head of the Swedish Security Service (Sapo) Charlotte von Essen said per Aftonbladet: “Today I have made the decision to raise the terror threat level from an elevated to a high threat, we are going from a three to a four on the five-point scale.”
She said that the decision to raise the terror threat level was not prompted by intelligence of a single imminent attack but rather by Sweden becoming a “priority” target for Islamic terrorists.
Von Essen said that while a main factor for the increased threat was anger over the Qur’an burnings, it was also impacted by outrage in the Islamic community over the government’s LVU (the Care of young persons special provisions act) campaign that takes vulnerable children into social care, which Islamic critics claim disproportionately impacts Muslim children.
The last time the terror threat level was set at “high” in Sweden was in 2016 following the ISIS attack on the Bataclan Theatre in Paris in which 130 people were killed by ISIS terrorists. During the time, ISIS called for terror attacks throughout Europe, as terrorists infiltrated EU countries amid the European Migrant Crisis.
In addition to raising the terror threat level, Swedish authorities are also considering changes to the public order act in order to prohibit the burning of the Qur’an if it is deemed a threat to national security. This would be a radical departure for the country, which has hitherto maintained that its citizens have the right to burn the Islamic holy book as a part of their freedom of expression.
Minister of Justice Gunnar Strommer said that he would be pannel a commission to consider expanding police powers to block the form of protest. However, he claimed that there would have to be a high bar for making such a determination, saying: “Of course, general international dissatisfaction or vague threat should not be enough – it must be about serious and qualified threats.”
Dutch Edwin Wagensveld, head of the Netherlands’ chapter of the anti-Islam movement Pegida (Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamisation of the West) holds up a Koran before tearing up, during a demonstration in front of the Turkish embassy in The Hague, on August 18, 2023. (Photo by Ramon van Flymen / ANP / AFP) / Netherlands OUT (Photo by RAMON VAN FLYMEN/ANP/AFP via Getty Images)
Meanwhile, in the Netherlands, the leader of the Dutch chapter of the anti-Islamist Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamisation of the Occident (PEGIDA), Edwin Wagensveld tore up a copy of the Qur’an outside the Turkish embassy in The Hague on Friday.
According to a report from the Der Telegraaf, Islamic counterprotesters hurled stones at the activist while shouting “shame on you”. Wagensveld, for his part, was reported as saying that the Turkish embassy doesn’t “belong here” and that Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is a “son of a whore”.
In the wake of the protest, Justice Minister Dilan Yeşilgöz said that she may have to raise the terror threat in The Netherlands like Sweden has already done. Yesilgöz said that she “personally finds destroying or burning a book rather primitive and sad” but “it’s allowed in our country, you have that freedom.”
Follow Kurt Zindulka on Twitter: or e-mail to: kzindulka@breitbart.com
Pakistan: Muslim Mob of 10,000 People Burns Down Hundreds of Christian Homes, Churches, over ‘Blasphemy’
A mob reportedly made of up as many as 10,000 men began burning down, looting, and otherwise violently assaulting Christian communities in Jaranwala, Pakistan, on Wednesday in response to reports that a Christian man had allegedly desecrated a Quran.
The Pakistani newspaper Dawn, citing local Christians in the northern Pakistani region of Punjab, documented the burning down or otherwise complete destruction of at least five churches. The British Asian Christian Association, an international aid group that serves persecuted Christians in Pakistan, reported that the mob destroyed over 500 homes and left “tens of thousands” of Christians homeless.
Muslim mob violence in Pakistan, an officially Islamic state, is common. Islamist mobs often riot when rumors spread of a Christian allegedly desecrating a Quran, insulting the Islamic figure Muhammad, or otherwise offending the religion. Islamists have also rioted over international news, such as riots in support of the Charlie Hebdo massacre of 2015 or riots against France following the beheading of teacher Samuel Paty, which the French government condemned.
Christians are often the targets of such violence and local police rarely intervene effectively, particularly when the mob attacks are triggered by allegations of blasphemy. “Blasphemy” is a crime in the Pakistani penal code, punishable by death when directed at Muhammad personally. Pakistan has never in its history executed a person for blasphemy, but mobs have “extra-judicially” killed or severely injured untold numbers over the alleged crime.
Many of those killed for “blasphemy” are not charged with the crime and little evidence exists that the blasphemy occurred. Christians in Pakistan are disproportionately poor and some accused of “crimes” such as writing on a Quran are illiterate, making the accusations impossible.
The incidents triggered on Wednesday reportedly began when Muslims in Jaranwala began accusing Saleem Masih, a Christian man believed to work as a cleaner, of desecrating a copy of the Quran, the Islamic holy book. According to the British Asian Christian Association, the violence began when Islamic officials used mosques to make community announcements demanding that mobs organize and begin destroying Christian communities in response.
“The affected regions, including Cinema Basti, Christian Town, and Esa Nagar, have witnessed the destruction of over 500 houses,” the organization detailed. “According to reports provided by on-ground volunteers, Pastors Muratib and Moon, a tumultuous mob of approximately 10,000 individuals has wreaked havoc within the Christian towns.”
The Pakistani newspaper Dawn reported that pastors had confirmed the burning down and looting of at least five churches in the community throughout Wednesday.
“Images on social media showed smoke rising from the church buildings and people setting fire to furniture that had been dragged from them. A Christian cemetery was also vandalised, as well as the local government office,” Dawn documented.
Videos from the greater Faisalabad area showed large crowds of men starting fires around churches, looting the homes of Christians, and chanting anti-Christian slogans. In one such video, one police officer appears in front of a crowd of what appears to be hundreds of people, calmly attempting to address the men and being ignored as they continue ransacking what appears to be a residential community.
Bishop Azad Marshall, the president bishop of the Church of Pakistan, posted a message on Twitter on Wednesday stating that churches were burning as he was writing and demanding police take action.
“Words fail me as I write this. We, Bishops, Priests and lay people are deeply pained and distressed at the Jaranwala incident in the Faisalabad District in Pakistan. A church building is being burnt as I type this message,” he wrote. “Bibles have been desecrated and Christians have been tortured and harrased [sic] having been falsely accused of violating the Holy Quran.”
“We cry out for justice and action from law enforcement and those who dispense justice and the safety of all citizens to intervene immediately and assure us that our lives are valuable in our own homeland that has just celebrated independence and freedom,” he demanded.
The mob attacks appear to be ongoing at press time, though local police claim they are organizing a response. Pakistan’s Geo TV cited the information minister for Punjab, Amir Mir, claiming “dozens” of people had been arrested for their participation in the mob attacks and that police believed the eruption of violence was not spontaneous.
“There was a plan to disturb the peace by inciting public sentiments. After the desecration of the Holy Quran, the angry protesters reacted strongly,” Mir claimed, apparently accepting the alleged blasphemy as a fact.
Geo TV added that Mir claimed police were working swiftly to investigate “the tragic incident of the desecration of the holy book” – the Quran, presumably, though Mir did not clarify if he was also investigating Bishop Marshall’s report of desecrations of Bibles.
Mir also astoundingly claimed “no one was injured nor was there any loss of life” in the riots, contradicting the on-the-ground reports from the British Asian Christian Association, which alleged thousands of injuries.
Juliet Chowdhry, Trustee for the British Asian Christian Association, issued a statement accusing the police of doing little to nothing to protect Christian lives.
“Regrettably, there appears to be a distinct absence of law enforcement or military personnel intervening to prevent and defuse this violence,” she said. “Equally concerning is the lack of emergency services or non-governmental organizations offering aid or assistance in these dire circumstances.”
Punjab police chief Usman Anwar said on Wednesday afternoon that the “situation was under control,” according to Dawn.
Follow Frances Martel on Facebook and Twitter.
Negotiations Cannot Bring Peace Between the USA and Islam
Caroline Glick, a master of Middle East cultural and political affairs, has developed a brief but forceful overview of the dynamics of the complex negotiations that are going on and have been going on for years between and among the U.S., Saudi Arabia, Iran, China, Israel, Russia, and other impacted nation-states.
In the background of these meetings that project endless scenarios for the benefit of the concerned parties stands the United Nations which was originally conceived as a world body that would bring conflicts under a united peacekeeping effort that would be respected by the member nation-states. However, the UN has been standing on the sidelines as bilateral, trilateral, and multilateral meetings and negotiations have been taking place among affected parties in the Middle East and elsewhere. So, for example, the UN condemned the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, but has stood on the sidelines helplessly huffing and puffing its displeasure while that war proceeds. This helplessness is largely because Russia is on the Security Council and is thus able to veto any actions taken against itself. Yet, at the same time, the UN keeps up its dogged connection with world government advocates and a few short years ago unanimously agreed upon Agenda 2030, which establishes the goals for a world government, although the words “world government” do not appear in the Agenda document.
It is incredible to see how many liars and phonies occupy center stage in our world. We can see this clearly as we put the microscope of analysis over the procedures and policies of the Middle Eastern power brokers. Iran and Saudi Arabia ostensibly represent two “branches” of Islam -- the former representing the Shi’ite branch and the latter the leading country of the Sunni branch. These two factions have been warring with each other for nearly 1400 years, but they both have in common contempt for the non-Islamic world. This is true even though their great oil wealth would not be possible without the input and engineering know-how of the non-Islamic world -- the oil companies -- who knew how to find and develop the great energy wealth of the Islamic world. These two competing Arab cultures lived in backwards isolation for centuries while the West grew in knowledge, wealth, health, and power. We now depend on their oil, but they depend on the cash flow and prestige that their oil brings into their societies.
Glick in a recent article has embraced the idea of negotiations as the path to resolving the issues that beset the world and the Middle East. The idea of negotiations leading to an official agreement or treaty has a long and dignified history -- it is fundamentally based on a model of rational discourse and the balancing of national interests with common interests. Willingness to compromise is an essential feature of said negotiations. The military strength of the negotiating partners is of course also weighted into the negotiation equation, and more powerful entities such as the USA, the PRC, or Russia may thrust themselves into negotiations among less militarily able countries. This intrusion of great powers into negotiations among weaker parties is of course portrayed as accelerating the peace process and assuring more successful completion of negotiations. But, at another level, it is an aspect of realpolitik where larger powers assert control and make sure that less powerful entities continue to kiss their proverbial a****.
Because of the takeover of Iran by the bloodthirsty ayatollahs in 1979, and their subsequent taking of American hostages, the USA became very much anti-Iran. Iran’s Muslim, ayatollah-governed country believed in the Shi’ite branch of Islam while the Saudis and most of the Muslim world are Sunnis. Their dispute -- from almost the founding of Islam to this day -- is about the basis for the line of succession to leadership in the Islamic world after the death of Muhammed. After 1979, we tended to support the Saudis and the Sunni faction in the Islamic world, which is much larger than the Shi’ite faction. Thus, until President Barack Obama decided to change our orientation and “make peace” with the Iranian Shi’ites, we faced some serious aggressions from Iran, and despite the Obama and Biden overtures, we still do.
In 1983, American marines were attacked by Iranian-backed terrorists in Beirut, Lebanon and 240 of our heroic armed forces were killed. Then in 1996 Americans were killed in an attack on the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia. Although Iran was officially blamed by a U.S. District Court for the Khobar attack, this writer believes there was probably some Saudi complicity. After the attack, the Saudis refused to extradite those arrested for the attack.
During the years 1980 to 1988, war was waged between Iran and Iraq, and the USA was on the side of Iraq and Saddam Hussein, Iraq’s military dictator. However, it was more of a strategic alliance to protect the West’s Iraqi oil interests and not a de facto embrace of the cruel and despotic Hussein. As the saying goes, politics makes strange bedfellows. Also, in the 1980s we saw the hijacking of ships and planes by Islamic terrorists on a regular basis until finally President Ronald Reagan bombed the terrorist training camps in Libya and brought an end to that phase of Islamic terrorism.
Then, on September 11, 2001 we experienced the worst attack on America in our history with the hijacking of three domestic jet flights with one plane crashing itself into the Pentagon, two others purposely crashed into the World Trade Center in New York City, and a fourth plane was forced to crash in Pennsylvania killing all the passengers on the plane. Of the 19 hijackers, 16 were from Saudi Arabia.
Fast forward to March of this year. The Saudis and the Iranians decided to bury the hatchet and made a deal brokered by China. This deal may reduce tensions in Yemen between Shi’ites and Sunnis. The two factions put on a good face of burying the hatchet. Yet, we see that when it comes to hating the non-Islamic world, they have both been on the same page for a long time.
Thus, we see that there is the intractable unity of the Islamic world in its hatred of the non-Islamic world. This hatred has over time superseded the longstanding and deep differences between Islamic factions. Then there are the differences within the Islamic world where the factions try to get the most money and concessions from more powerful nations in the West, and recently from China to advance their respective power mad and greedy agendas. The West seems to treat this level -- which we can call “rational self-interest” -- as though it were the only level. However, the deeper level is the level of fanaticism. Live and let live is just not part of Islam. Love thy neighbor is an essential principal of Christianity upon which the West was founded; yet dark murderous themes eventually emerged and we had two world wars. Islam was more violent than Christianity from its beginnings and remains violent in its essence. Negotiations are inherently unworkable and superficial.
E. Jeffrey Ludwig was formerly a teaching fellow in American history and literature at Harvard University, and served on the Editorial Board of the Harvard Educational Review. He has also taught at Penn State, Boston State College, and Juniata College and was listed four times in Who’s Who Among America’s High School Teachers. He has been a regular contributor to American Thinker for 13 years.
Image: Eugene Delacroix
Negotiations Cannot Bring Peace Between the USA and Islam
Caroline Glick, a master of Middle East cultural and political affairs, has developed a brief but forceful overview of the dynamics of the complex negotiations that are going on and have been going on for years between and among the U.S., Saudi Arabia, Iran, China, Israel, Russia, and other impacted nation-states.
In the background of these meetings that project endless scenarios for the benefit of the concerned parties stands the United Nations which was originally conceived as a world body that would bring conflicts under a united peacekeeping effort that would be respected by the member nation-states. However, the UN has been standing on the sidelines as bilateral, trilateral, and multilateral meetings and negotiations have been taking place among affected parties in the Middle East and elsewhere. So, for example, the UN condemned the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, but has stood on the sidelines helplessly huffing and puffing its displeasure while that war proceeds. This helplessness is largely because Russia is on the Security Council and is thus able to veto any actions taken against itself. Yet, at the same time, the UN keeps up its dogged connection with world government advocates and a few short years ago unanimously agreed upon Agenda 2030, which establishes the goals for a world government, although the words “world government” do not appear in the Agenda document.
It is incredible to see how many liars and phonies occupy center stage in our world. We can see this clearly as we put the microscope of analysis over the procedures and policies of the Middle Eastern power brokers. Iran and Saudi Arabia ostensibly represent two “branches” of Islam -- the former representing the Shi’ite branch and the latter the leading country of the Sunni branch. These two factions have been warring with each other for nearly 1400 years, but they both have in common contempt for the non-Islamic world. This is true even though their great oil wealth would not be possible without the input and engineering know-how of the non-Islamic world -- the oil companies -- who knew how to find and develop the great energy wealth of the Islamic world. These two competing Arab cultures lived in backwards isolation for centuries while the West grew in knowledge, wealth, health, and power. We now depend on their oil, but they depend on the cash flow and prestige that their oil brings into their societies.
Glick in a recent article has embraced the idea of negotiations as the path to resolving the issues that beset the world and the Middle East. The idea of negotiations leading to an official agreement or treaty has a long and dignified history -- it is fundamentally based on a model of rational discourse and the balancing of national interests with common interests. Willingness to compromise is an essential feature of said negotiations. The military strength of the negotiating partners is of course also weighted into the negotiation equation, and more powerful entities such as the USA, the PRC, or Russia may thrust themselves into negotiations among less militarily able countries. This intrusion of great powers into negotiations among weaker parties is of course portrayed as accelerating the peace process and assuring more successful completion of negotiations. But, at another level, it is an aspect of realpolitik where larger powers assert control and make sure that less powerful entities continue to kiss their proverbial a****.
Because of the takeover of Iran by the bloodthirsty ayatollahs in 1979, and their subsequent taking of American hostages, the USA became very much anti-Iran. Iran’s Muslim, ayatollah-governed country believed in the Shi’ite branch of Islam while the Saudis and most of the Muslim world are Sunnis. Their dispute -- from almost the founding of Islam to this day -- is about the basis for the line of succession to leadership in the Islamic world after the death of Muhammed. After 1979, we tended to support the Saudis and the Sunni faction in the Islamic world, which is much larger than the Shi’ite faction. Thus, until President Barack Obama decided to change our orientation and “make peace” with the Iranian Shi’ites, we faced some serious aggressions from Iran, and despite the Obama and Biden overtures, we still do.
In 1983, American marines were attacked by Iranian-backed terrorists in Beirut, Lebanon and 240 of our heroic armed forces were killed. Then in 1996 Americans were killed in an attack on the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia. Although Iran was officially blamed by a U.S. District Court for the Khobar attack, this writer believes there was probably some Saudi complicity. After the attack, the Saudis refused to extradite those arrested for the attack.
During the years 1980 to 1988, war was waged between Iran and Iraq, and the USA was on the side of Iraq and Saddam Hussein, Iraq’s military dictator. However, it was more of a strategic alliance to protect the West’s Iraqi oil interests and not a de facto embrace of the cruel and despotic Hussein. As the saying goes, politics makes strange bedfellows. Also, in the 1980s we saw the hijacking of ships and planes by Islamic terrorists on a regular basis until finally President Ronald Reagan bombed the terrorist training camps in Libya and brought an end to that phase of Islamic terrorism.
Then, on September 11, 2001 we experienced the worst attack on America in our history with the hijacking of three domestic jet flights with one plane crashing itself into the Pentagon, two others purposely crashed into the World Trade Center in New York City, and a fourth plane was forced to crash in Pennsylvania killing all the passengers on the plane. Of the 19 hijackers, 16 were from Saudi Arabia.
Fast forward to March of this year. The Saudis and the Iranians decided to bury the hatchet and made a deal brokered by China. This deal may reduce tensions in Yemen between Shi’ites and Sunnis. The two factions put on a good face of burying the hatchet. Yet, we see that when it comes to hating the non-Islamic world, they have both been on the same page for a long time.
Thus, we see that there is the intractable unity of the Islamic world in its hatred of the non-Islamic world. This hatred has over time superseded the longstanding and deep differences between Islamic factions. Then there are the differences within the Islamic world where the factions try to get the most money and concessions from more powerful nations in the West, and recently from China to advance their respective power mad and greedy agendas. The West seems to treat this level -- which we can call “rational self-interest” -- as though it were the only level. However, the deeper level is the level of fanaticism. Live and let live is just not part of Islam. Love thy neighbor is an essential principal of Christianity upon which the West was founded; yet dark murderous themes eventually emerged and we had two world wars. Islam was more violent than Christianity from its beginnings and remains violent in its essence. Negotiations are inherently unworkable and superficial.
E. Jeffrey Ludwig was formerly a teaching fellow in American history and literature at Harvard University, and served on the Editorial Board of the Harvard Educational Review. He has also taught at Penn State, Boston State College, and Juniata College and was listed four times in Who’s Who Among America’s High School Teachers. He has been a regular contributor to American Thinker for 13 years.
Image: Eugene Delacroix
Pakistan: Muslim Mob of 10,000 People Burns Down Hundreds of Christian Homes, Churches, over ‘Blasphemy’
A mob reportedly made of up as many as 10,000 men began burning down, looting, and otherwise violently assaulting Christian communities in Jaranwala, Pakistan, on Wednesday in response to reports that a Christian man had allegedly desecrated a Quran.
The Pakistani newspaper Dawn, citing local Christians in the northern Pakistani region of Punjab, documented the burning down or otherwise complete destruction of at least five churches. The British Asian Christian Association, an international aid group that serves persecuted Christians in Pakistan, reported that the mob destroyed over 500 homes and left “tens of thousands” of Christians homeless.
Muslim mob violence in Pakistan, an officially Islamic state, is common. Islamist mobs often riot when rumors spread of a Christian allegedly desecrating a Quran, insulting the Islamic figure Muhammad, or otherwise offending the religion. Islamists have also rioted over international news, such as riots in support of the Charlie Hebdo massacre of 2015 or riots against France following the beheading of teacher Samuel Paty, which the French government condemned.
Christians are often the targets of such violence and local police rarely intervene effectively, particularly when the mob attacks are triggered by allegations of blasphemy. “Blasphemy” is a crime in the Pakistani penal code, punishable by death when directed at Muhammad personally. Pakistan has never in its history executed a person for blasphemy, but mobs have “extra-judicially” killed or severely injured untold numbers over the alleged crime.
Many of those killed for “blasphemy” are not charged with the crime and little evidence exists that the blasphemy occurred. Christians in Pakistan are disproportionately poor and some accused of “crimes” such as writing on a Quran are illiterate, making the accusations impossible.
The incidents triggered on Wednesday reportedly began when Muslims in Jaranwala began accusing Saleem Masih, a Christian man believed to work as a cleaner, of desecrating a copy of the Quran, the Islamic holy book. According to the British Asian Christian Association, the violence began when Islamic officials used mosques to make community announcements demanding that mobs organize and begin destroying Christian communities in response.
“The affected regions, including Cinema Basti, Christian Town, and Esa Nagar, have witnessed the destruction of over 500 houses,” the organization detailed. “According to reports provided by on-ground volunteers, Pastors Muratib and Moon, a tumultuous mob of approximately 10,000 individuals has wreaked havoc within the Christian towns.”
The Pakistani newspaper Dawn reported that pastors had confirmed the burning down and looting of at least five churches in the community throughout Wednesday.
“Images on social media showed smoke rising from the church buildings and people setting fire to furniture that had been dragged from them. A Christian cemetery was also vandalised, as well as the local government office,” Dawn documented.
Videos from the greater Faisalabad area showed large crowds of men starting fires around churches, looting the homes of Christians, and chanting anti-Christian slogans. In one such video, one police officer appears in front of a crowd of what appears to be hundreds of people, calmly attempting to address the men and being ignored as they continue ransacking what appears to be a residential community.
Bishop Azad Marshall, the president bishop of the Church of Pakistan, posted a message on Twitter on Wednesday stating that churches were burning as he was writing and demanding police take action.
“Words fail me as I write this. We, Bishops, Priests and lay people are deeply pained and distressed at the Jaranwala incident in the Faisalabad District in Pakistan. A church building is being burnt as I type this message,” he wrote. “Bibles have been desecrated and Christians have been tortured and harrased [sic] having been falsely accused of violating the Holy Quran.”
“We cry out for justice and action from law enforcement and those who dispense justice and the safety of all citizens to intervene immediately and assure us that our lives are valuable in our own homeland that has just celebrated independence and freedom,” he demanded.
The mob attacks appear to be ongoing at press time, though local police claim they are organizing a response. Pakistan’s Geo TV cited the information minister for Punjab, Amir Mir, claiming “dozens” of people had been arrested for their participation in the mob attacks and that police believed the eruption of violence was not spontaneous.
“There was a plan to disturb the peace by inciting public sentiments. After the desecration of the Holy Quran, the angry protesters reacted strongly,” Mir claimed, apparently accepting the alleged blasphemy as a fact.
Geo TV added that Mir claimed police were working swiftly to investigate “the tragic incident of the desecration of the holy book” – the Quran, presumably, though Mir did not clarify if he was also investigating Bishop Marshall’s report of desecrations of Bibles.
Mir also astoundingly claimed “no one was injured nor was there any loss of life” in the riots, contradicting the on-the-ground reports from the British Asian Christian Association, which alleged thousands of injuries.
Juliet Chowdhry, Trustee for the British Asian Christian Association, issued a statement accusing the police of doing little to nothing to protect Christian lives.
“Regrettably, there appears to be a distinct absence of law enforcement or military personnel intervening to prevent and defuse this violence,” she said. “Equally concerning is the lack of emergency services or non-governmental organizations offering aid or assistance in these dire circumstances.”
Punjab police chief Usman Anwar said on Wednesday afternoon that the “situation was under control,” according to Dawn.
Follow Frances Martel on Facebook and Twitter.
alestinians Complain Biden Admin Has Done Nothing For Them
Another Palestinian big lie.
Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad Al-Malki has complained that the Biden administration has done little for the Palestinians. He is quite wrong; the Bidenites have done a great deal for them, even at the cost of ignoring American law. More on Al-Malki’s misperception can be found here: “PA foreign minister says Biden administration ‘weak,’ lacks courage in Middle East,” Times of Israel, August 3, 2023:
The Palestinian Authority’s foreign minister on Thursday attacked the Biden administration as weak and passive in the Middle East, as violence between Israel and the Palestinians surges to its highest levels in nearly two decades.
The comments by Riyad al-Malki reflected the Palestinian frustration with US President Joe Biden, who initially won plaudits from the Palestinians when he rejected the Trump administration’s unabashedly pro-Israel stance. But Biden so far has done little to follow through on that vision.
“I’m frustrated,” Malki told members of the Foreign Press Association, an organization representing international media outlets in Israel and the Palestinian territories. “It seemed that [Biden] wanted to change all policies Trump has taken, but not when it comes to Palestine.”
Pressured by Israel’s government, increasingly isolated in the Arab world and running out of money, the PA is confronting what analysts say could be its greatest threat to its existence.
What new “pressure” has Israel put on the PA? When Israeli civilians are murdered by terrorists, the IDF, as always, goes after the terrorists, as in its July raid on the Jenin camp to kill or capture PIJ fighters and destroy their hidden caches of weapons. The PA should be pleased that the IDF is weakening its terrorist rivals, the PIJ and Hamas. Nothing new there. Nor is there anything new in the visit by Itamar Ben Gvir to the Temple Mount, where he scrupulously observed the status quo: he did not say, openly or silently, any prayers; he did not bring with him Jewish prayerbooks, shawls, or tefillin; in his 15-minute visit, he did not come near Al-Aqsa Mosque, but followed the well-worn path taken by Jewish visitors. Nothing new, either, with Israel’s policy of withholding from the import taxes it collects for transfer to the PA, an amount equal to that spent by the PA on its “Pay-For-Slay” program. If the PA is “increasingly isolated in the Arab world,” this is not the result of a sinister Israeli plot. The other Arabs are becoming tired of the financial support the PA consistently demands of them; those Arab states that have joined the Abraham Accords did so because they stood to gain from normalizing ties with the Jewish state, in trade, tourism, and technology. No longer will they allow the PA to prevent them from furthering their national self-interest.
The PA’s claim to be running out of money is its own fault. First, the PA can cease to fund its “Pay-For-Slay” program, which would instantly lead Israel to transfer about $330 million a year that it is currently withholding. Second, the PA could revise its schoolbooks, removing all of the antisemitic passages that have caused the EU countries, tired of the PA’s constantly broken promises to “clean up” those books, to cut back — though not as first hoped, to eliminate — aid to the PA. And far from turning its back on the PA, since Biden came into office, his administration has provided more than a half-billion dollars to Ramallah — even though that has meant violating the Taylor Force Act.
Malki said the Biden administration has been mealy-mouthed about the expansion of Jewish settlements and the escalation of Israeli military raids in the West Bank that have killed a growing number of Palestinians….
The Bidenites have made clear that they are opposed to Israel building new, or expanding existing, settlements. What else are they supposed to do? They can’t cut aid to Israel; Congress would be in an uproar. The 2024 political campaign has already begun.The military raids conducted by Israel against terrorists in the West Bank are not acts of aggression but, rather, a response to aggression, as even the Bidenites recognize. Hence their refusal to condemn Israel.
Malki also lashed out at Biden’s failure to reverse several measures taken by the Trump administration that Palestinians saw as undermining their quest for statehood.
“We have a weak [US] administration when it comes to Palestine,” he said.
The US has not reopened its consulate to the Palestinians in Jerusalem, which was closed under former US president Donald Trump. The PA’s diplomatic mission in Washington, also closed under Trump, remains shuttered. The US State Department also hasn’t rescinded a Trump administration decision to grant legitimacy to Israeli settlements or reversed other policies that broke with long-standing US positions on Jerusalem….
When he campaigned for President, Joe Biden promised to reopen the “consulate to the Palestinians” in Jerusalem that Trump had closed. But once he was President, he apparently discovered that he could not reopen the consulate without obtaining Israel’s permission — something the Israeli government was not prepared to give. The Bidenites learned about the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, which requires the “receiving state” to give its permission for any consulate to be opened or, as in this case, reopened. Joe Biden he made a promise that according to international law, he could not fulfill. As for the reopening of the PLO office in Washington, which Biden had also promised, it appears that the administration is no longer prepared to expend the political capital such a move would require; it knows how deeply unpopular such a move would be in Congress, save among the dozen members of The Squad.
“If peace talks happen in the future, which I doubt, why not include China?” Malki said. “China is giving signals they want to help.”…
If the PA decides to involve China as an alternative diplomatic player to the U.S. in its possible peace negotiations with Israel, this will alienate the Americans, possibly leading to a cut in American aid. Such a move would also make Israel even more resistant to any further negotiations, for the Israelis are well aware that China is not an honest broker.
Malki expressed hope that Saudi Arabia wouldn’t follow suit in brokering a deal that would boost Israel’s standing in unprecedented ways.
“I hope that the Saudis… will not yield to any kind of pressure or intimidation coming from the Biden administration,” he said.
It is not the Bidenites who are pressuring Saudi Arabia to join the Abraham Accords. It’s the Saudis who are pressuring the administration to make enormous concessions to it in exchange for the Kingdom agreeing to normalize ties with Israel. There are three main demands: first, that the Americans offer the Kingdom an ironclad security pact; second, that the administration provide the Saudis with assistance in building a civilian nuclear program; third, that Washington allow the Saudis to buy advanced American weapons that hitherto have been denied. The Saudis also want a commitment by Israel not to build new, or expand existing, settlements, and to agree not to annex any territory in the West Bank. Al-Malki need not worry about the Saudis — they, not the Bidenites, are the ones driving a hard bargain.
Yet Joe Biden is clueless. His ham-fisted response to this disaster keeps getting worse and worse and worse.
Biden shows his true colors in his me-first Maui disaster response
In Maui, a disaster of epic proportions is unfolding, one week after wildfires razed its historic city of Lahaina. It's not just that there was little warning and a chaotic evacuation. Now it's the body count -- 99 people are confirmed dead now, and some 1,000 remain missing. If they're dead, and Lahaina has only 12,000 people, the math isn't pretty -- ten percent of the population may be dead, which has a whiff of Ukraine. The cadaver dogs, with rarified training to detect bodies incinerated to ash in flames, are far too few for a mass casualty event like this, so they still have 75% of the area to search. The lines of cars that tried to escape and got incinerated first weighs heavily, as does the question of why the island's expensive alarm system never went off.
It appears to be the worst natural disaster in a century and certainly Hawaii's biggest catastrophe.
Yet Joe Biden is clueless. His ham-fisted response to this disaster keeps getting worse and worse and worse.
First, he glibly announced that neither he, nor his vice president, Kamala Harris would visit the disaster area.
Then he went on vacation, putting in another beachside time-out, as if there wasn't an apocalypse going on the other side of the country.
After that, returning from his restful rendezvous, he was asked about the scope of the disaster by a reporter, which by then had claimed 93 dead.
His response? "No comment." And then he, kid you not, grinned.
No comment means no coverage, right? Always a bad idea from a public relations perspective to get too close to those failures and disasters, because voters might make associations, right?
Plus, what the hey, as the New York Post noted in its cover story today, Biden knows that Hawaii's residents will always vote Democrat, so why worry about their disaster?
Hain't he got the votes? Given the failures that are mounting now, the camera shots of Biden and Harris standing with them in the rubble's not good for the old poll numbers.
Best of all, he's got the old standbys, the Washington Post and the New York Times, running interference for him, coming up with some amazingly creative spin for his benefit.
The Washington Post is claiming that only Republicans are criticizing the response, those dreadful political opportunists, pretty well asking the rest of us to ignore the cries of anger and frustration coming from very blue Hawaii.
The New York Times, meanwhile, is claiming that the problems with Biden's FEMA response are due to people misunderstanding the nature of FEMA, which is not to be the first government agency on the ground there. That's not what they were saying during the debacles surrounding Hurricane Katrina, where all blame was pinned on President Bush.
Then there was his own White House's efforts at spin control following the callous response of Biden to the disaster -- these were really gross.
According to The Hill:
The White House on Monday blew off criticism over President Biden being on vacation and offering a “no comment” this weekend during the catastrophic fires in Maui, the deadliest wildfires in the U.S. in more than a century.
Press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre was questioned by CNN’s Kayla Tausche on whether the American people should see the president working the phone rather than spending time on the beach during the crisis, after Biden spent the weekend in Rehoboth, Del., and returned to the White House on Monday morning.
“You all have gotten pool reports on who the president has connected with,” Jean-Pierre said, referring to the White House press pool reports and Biden’s interactions with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).
“The [FEMA] administrator has been there for two whole days, two whole days on the ground by the president’s request to make sure that the government has what they have, the local government has what they have, the people of Maui have what they have,” she added. “When you talk about a dozen agencies on the ground, helping and assisting … hundreds of FEMA personnel. That’s what — that’s what matters.”
There also was this:
Throw a little money at them. It'll make them go away.
Responsewise, it's eerily similar to his reaction to the border disaster -- failing to go to the scene, shutting down questions about it, throwing a few money pellets, and just doing all in his power to sweep the disaster under the rug to keep the cameras away and confine it as a local story.
It's also incredibly selfish, very me-first in its politicized orientation, which doesn't put the Hawaiians first.
With stories like these coming out, it doesn't seem effective even from a cynical public relations perspective:
WITH PIG BIDEN JUST FOLLOW THE MONEY! - FROM THE TAX PAYERS TO THE UKRAINIAN OLIGARCHY TO HUNTER BIDEN!
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While families struggle to afford food, fuel, and essentials for young children, the White House continues to assure Americans that the economy has never been better. While the Department of Homeland Security insists that America's borders are secure and that illegal immigration is under control, small towns across the country struggle to deal with spiking fentanyl deaths, transnational crime networks, and forced multiculturalism that often drives a wedge within communities. International trade deals that were negotiated and signed by residents of D.C. have hollowed out once thriving industrial towns and left multiple generations of blue-collar workers poor and adrift.
The Economy's 'Red Death' Will Come for DC, Too
In Edgar Allan Poe's short story, "The Masque of the Red Death," a group of nobles wall themselves off from the surrounding country to avoid a devastating plague. Seemingly secure inside their fortified castle, the "elites" live in a state of luxurious indulgence, indifferent to the people suffering beyond their gates. While they throw lavish parties, the rest of their countrymen die miserable deaths. Eventually, however, the "Red Death" finds its way into their "safe space" and eviscerates their fantasy. And because the aloof aristocrats are trapped inside a fortress of their own making, they soon perish.
This is a story that every D.C. power player should read. The rift between Beltway conventional wisdom and the day-to-day reality of ordinary Americans is growing into an unbridgeable crevasse.
While families struggle to afford food, fuel, and essentials for young children, the White House continues to assure Americans that the economy has never been better. While the Department of Homeland Security insists that America's borders are secure and that illegal immigration is under control, small towns across the country struggle to deal with spiking fentanyl deaths, transnational crime networks, and forced multiculturalism that often drives a wedge within communities. International trade deals that were negotiated and signed by residents of D.C. have hollowed out once thriving industrial towns and left multiple generations of blue-collar workers poor and adrift.
The "Rust Belt" has never been more corroded, yet Wall Street and Washington seem to be doing better than ever. It is as if the wealthiest and most influential Americans have holed themselves up inside a luxurious castle, so that they may ignore the devastation afflicting the rest of the country.
Three decades ago, Americans built things. Little towns watched most of their working-age men head off to local manufacturing plants early in the morning and come back home covered in dirt and sweat. American industry was not just a paycheck, but also a way of life that left communities with a sense of camaraderie and pride. "American muscle" meant something to the families who survived from the efforts of hard work. For many towns, local manufacturing and industry created a shared identity. When there were workplace accidents, bad news spread to every downtown diner and high school student immediately. When seasonal festivals and parades came, the town's blue-collar workforce was always celebrated.
For some families, becoming old enough to join the town's work crews was a rite of passage connecting one generation to the next. Grandfathers, fathers, and sons remained bonded by common adversity and success. For other families, blue-collar jobs provided a steady enough salary to save for the opportunity to send a child to college and toward the promises of a different life. Intergenerational social mobility from lower economic classes to higher ones was achievable because blue-collar jobs were dependable.
BLOG EDITOR: NAFTA WAS PERPETRATED BY GLOBALIST BILL CLINTON AND THEN SEN 'CREDIT CARD' JOE BIDEN OF DELAWARE
Then came the international "free trade" deals such as NAFTA in the '90s and the granting to China of Permanent Normal Trade Relations status in 2000, and the relative prosperity and security found within America's blue-collar towns disappeared almost overnight. Jobs went straight to Mexico and China. Manufacturing plants that had provided the financial backbone for generations of families closed down and boarded up. Men stopped going to work in the morning. Families disintegrated under hardship and once unthinkable divorce. The potential for social mobility vanished because despair replaced hope. If you drive across America today, you will pass one graveyard after another — filled with abandoned factories, decaying homes, and town squares devoid of life.
D.C.'s political class does not want to acknowledge this awful truth. For three decades, Republicans and Democrats have promised that all of the lost jobs going to Asia, Mexico, and South America would be miraculously replaced with lucrative "service industry" jobs capable of satisfying American families better. Somehow, the men with dirt under their fingernails and sunburns on their necks were expected to become customer service representatives or computer programmers. Nobody asked America's labor force whether they would prefer a future wearing khakis and dress shoes to a life in traditional work overalls and boots. The Potomac nobles just pretended to know what was best.
With the off-shoring of well-paying blue-collar jobs to overseas markets using slave-like labor, America's most profitable companies have become even more profitable multinational behemoths. Stock market valuations have continued to rise. Powerful lobbying groups in D.C. have made a fortune brokering new deals between Congress and foreign interests. Meanwhile, America's forgotten workforce has seen both its savings and opportunities dry up.
BLOG EDITOR: JOE BIDEN'S BIGGEST BRIBESTER IS LARRY FINK OF BLACKROCK. DO A SEARCH FOR ALL THE WONDERFUL THINGS JOE IS DOING FOR LARRY THAT WIL COST AMERICA TENS OF BILLIONS
If America builds little today and survives mainly from the profits of an investment banking sector centered in Manhattan, then how will it support itself should that sector one day soon go belly-up? Endless congressional spending and unsustainable national debt do not provide the financial conditions for long-term stability and wealth. Inevitably, the "Red Death" of economic desolation will reach inside D.C.'s sanctuary, too.
When that day comes and the American economy crumbles, who will be around with the blue-collar grit and know-how to build this nation back up?
Image: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center via Flickr, CC BY 2.0 (cropped).
THE DEMOCRAT PARTY’S BILLIONAIRES’ GLOBALIST EMPIRE requires someone as ruthlessly dishonest as Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama to be puppet dictators.
http://hillaryclinton-whitecollarcriminal.blogspot.com/2018/09/google-rigged-it-so-illegals-would-vote.html
Globalism: Google VP Kent Walker insists that despite its repeated rejection by electorates around the world, “globalization” is an “incredible force for good.”
Hillary Clinton’s Democratic party: An executive nearly broke down crying because of the candidate’s loss. Not a single executive expressed anything but dismay at her defeat.
Immigration: Maintaining liberal immigration in the U.S is the policy that Google’s executives discussed the most.
HILLARY CLINTON’S GLOBALIST VISION:
SURRENDER OF OUR BORDERS WITH NARCOMEX AND SUCKING IN GLOBAL BRIBES FOR THE PHONY CLINTON FOUNDATION
http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2016/10/hillary-clintons-global-agenda-open.html
Even though it has gone virtually unreported by corporate media, Breitbart News has extensively documented the Clintons’ longstanding support for “open borders.” Interestingly, as the Los Angeles Times observed in 2007, the Clinton’s praise for
globalization and open borders frequently comes when they are
speaking before a wealthy foreign audiences and donors.
ROBERT F KENNEDT, JR
How I’ll End Medical Corruption with Dr Drew
ROBERT F KENNEDY, JR ON BIDENOMICS
Economic Policy: An Introduction
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXWlfiulhe4
The average income in our country is $5,000 less than the basic cost of living. I'm going to change that. Over the course of the next few weeks, I'll be releasing an economic plan that focuses on ending the corrupt merger of state and corporate power to make sure Americans can once again afford their most essential expenses: housing, food, childcare, commuting to work, and the healthcare we need to survive.
CUT AND PASTE YOUTUBE LINKS
Robert Kennedy Jr: Power, Corruption, Freedom, & The Chronic Disease Epidemic Within America
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oI9Kg2naNfs
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Addresses Border Crisis and Releases ‘Midnight at the Border'
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yXlun2EYFvk
Biden Asks Congress for Billions to Expand Illegal Migration
President Joe Biden’s deputies are asking the House GOP majority to fund new travel and housing programs for more economic migrants who are being encouraged to take opportunities needed by ordinary Americans.
The August 10 request for $3.3 billion funding “is not all designed to promote more illegal immigration, but most of it seems to be,” said Mark Krikorian, director of the Center for Immigration Studies, adding:
Which is why there’s resistance among a lot of Republicans to increased funding for [the department of] Homeland Security (DHS). If DHS was using the money to actually stop the flow of illegal aliens, Republicans will be falling all over themselves to vote for it. But that’s not what this administration wants to with the do extra money for DHS — they want to use it to speed up the arrival of people who have no right to be here.
The “border guard is turned into a Walmart greeter,” he said.
Migrants wait for a bus to take them to a processing center after turning themselves over to U.S. Border Patrol in Fronton, Texas on May 12, 2023. (ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP via Getty Images)
Just before the release of the White House’s request, Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) and 14 other Texas GOP members urged the Republican majority to block funding for Biden’s migration programs:
Simply put, no member of Congress should agree to fund a federal agency at war with his state and people. We have a moral obligation to protect our states, our nation, and, importantly, the migrant children getting abused from the disaster transpiring at our southern border.
“No border security, no funding,” the letter said, amid the growing public opposition to the Democrats who are bringing migrants into New York, Chicago, California, Maine, and other Democrat-run districts.
Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX). (Win McNamee/Getty Images, file)
Many Republicans also oppose continued funding for the war, which is apparently stuck in a no-negotiation, high-casualty stalemate. The opposition is driven, in part, by the economic cost which is pushing government spending well above recently agreed spending targets.
he funding must be approved by the GOP members of the House appropriations committee, led by Rep. Kay Granger (R-TX).
Rep. Kay Granger (R-TX). (Samuel Corum/Getty Images, file)
So White House officials and the establishment media are portraying the extra migration spending as a gain for border security. For example, the New York Times wrote on August 10:
Mr. Biden sought to sweeten the pot by adding politically popular spending to the Ukraine aid. The supplemental appropriation request includes $12 billion for disaster relief, $4 billion for border security.
But the details show that most of the border spending is intended to bring in even more economic migrants — not to keep them out.
Up to $800 million is intended to fund new migrant pathways from Colombia, Guatemala, Costa Rica, and Ecuador into U.S. communities. These “Safe Mobility Offices” are intended to offer a safer and cheaper route for African, European, and Asian economic migrants who are seeking to break into the United States.
A growing number of global migrants fly into Ecuador or Columbia before starting their trek to the Texas border. This growing flow of illegals skews the nation’s economy in favor of investors, Wall Street, and the coastal states.
The request also asks for an extra $714 million for Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, which was created to deport illegal migrants. But the request also asks for permission to move funding around in the agency — so that funding can be used for the housing program that would shelter migrants while they take the U.S. jobs they need to pay off smuggling debts. The program would also provide illegal migrants with free legal advice on how to slip through the immigration rules that were enacted to protect Americans from illegal migrants.
The request also asks for an additional $600 million for the Federal Emergency Management Agency. That agency funds many of the transport networks and shelters that migrants use as they displace locals from jobs in New York, Chicago, and other cities.
WATCH — Migrants Waiting for Entry to Roosevelt Hotel:
emorrisThe extra support money would likely help minimize and hide the local political and economic damage of Biden’s migration in Democrat-run cities.
Biden has already imported at least 6 million migrants for economic purposes in less than three years. That strategy has helped investors by inflating real estate prices and reducing Americans’ wages.
Biden’s huge inflow includes roughly 2 million legal migrants, 3.5 million illegal and quasi-legal migrants allowed through the southern border, roughly 1.6 million “gotaways” who sneaked over the border, plus hundreds of thousands of migrants who have refused to go home when their legal visas expire.
Biden’s massive inflow has enriched the smuggling cartels and encouraged them to expand their human-smuggling business to South America and overseas. For example, the cartels have expanded to control the migrant pathways in Panama and Columbia that were built up by Biden’s pro-migration border chief, Alejandro Mayorkas.
The budget request shows how the lawyers in Biden’s DHS have reversed the meaning of the nation’s immigration laws, which Congress passed to protect Americans from mass migration, said Krikorian, adding:
What they’re doing here is they’re keeping the same word “order” and “border control” and “border enforcement” and “secure border” …. they’re just inverting the meaning. For them, a “secure border” is one that actually facilitates illegal immigration.
Some GOP politicians are already pushing back against the August 10 request, which also asks for $24 billion for the war in Ukraine and $12 billion for domestic disaster recovery.
RELATED VIDEO — Exclusive Video Shows MASSIVE CAMP of Illegal Immigrants Waiting to Cross U.S. Border:
John RourkeRepublicans can reject the new spending request and trade the Ukraine spending in exchange for compliance with the nation’s border laws, a senior Republican aide told Breitbart News. “It’s a courage question — the opportunity only matters if Republicans actually fund some backbone and pick the kind of fight the American people elected them for,” the aide said.
The August 10 spending request says:
The Administration requests additional resources to continue to manage the Southwest border safely and effectively … The Administration has [reduced illegal migration] in a safe, orderly, and humane manner, in part by pairing increased access to legal pathways with new consequences for those who fail to use them.
The request asks for up to $800 million to drain even more Ukrainian migrants from the nation that is relying on more than $100 billion in U.S. aid to expel the Russian military from its eastern districts. The U.S. government has already extracted more than 250,000 Ukrainians to serve as workers, consumers, and renters in U.S. society. The funding will offer Ukrainians cash aid, healthcare, legal advice, English-language lessons, and job training so they can compete for the jobs sought by Americans.
U.S. President Joe Biden (R) welcomes President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky to the White House on December 21, 2022 in Washington, DC. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
The requests ask for permission to shift ICE deportation funds to pay progressive groups to house migrants in New York and elsewhere:
This request would authorize the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to use appropriated funding to allow for refugees, asylum seekers, or other migrants to be housed in community-based residential facilities, depart unsupervised during certain hours, and be provided medical care, legal programming, and other services through contracts, grants, or cooperative agreements with non-governmental organizations.
The funds for the new migrant pathways would be added to the Department of State’s budget:
This request would provide $26 million to the Diplomatic Programs account within the Department of State … This request would provide $532 million to the Migration and Refugee Assistance account within the Department of State. Funds would be used to address humanitarian needs in the Western Hemisphere in order to provide safe options for forcibly displaced migrants to settle and rebuild their lives in Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, and other host countries … Funds would also be used to expand protection through refugee resettlement from the region to the United States and other countries, including through the establishment of Safe Mobility Offices, which provide protection screening and increase access to lawful pathway options to migrants where they are.
This request would provide $250 million to the Department of State for economic support and assistance …. [including] $50 million would be used to support foreign government repatriation operations of individuals deemed ineligible for refugee or other protected statuses; $50 million would be used to incentivize sustained cooperation from partner countries hosting Safe Mobility Offices; and $150 million would be used to expand migrant integration support to target communities, access to labor pathway mechanisms, and engagement with the private sector and multilateral partners to spur greater investment in integration initiatives.
The request also asks for $1.5 billion to help speed up the flow of migrants through U.S. borders:
Of the amounts provided, $203 million would support border management operations by CBP, including for soft-sided facilities, migrant transportation, and medical care requirements. This request also includes $606 million for CBP to reimburse the Department of Defense for border security support along the Southwest border … This request would provide $759 million to the Operations and Support account within the U.S Immigration and Customs Enforcement bureau in the Department of Homeland Security. Of this amount, $714 million would be used to respond to migration surges along the Southwest border and related activities.
The document also asks for $800 million to counter the flow of drugs that are being delivered by the cartels.
The drug inflow is often hidden among the rush of Biden’s migrants, whose desperation to pay off smuggling debts enables employers to underpay and discard the Americans who end up as drug addicts.
Migration — and especially, labor migration — is unpopular among Republican and swing voters. A 54 percent majority of Americans say Biden is allowing a southern border invasion, according to an August 2022 poll commissioned by the left-of-center National Public Radio (NPR). The 54 percent “invasion” majority included 76 percent of Republicans, 46 percent of independents, and even 40 percent of Democrats.
Report: After Hours on Beach, Joe Biden Says ‘No Comment’ About Rising Death Toll in Hawaii
President Joe Biden reportedly said he had “no comment” when asked Sunday about the rising death toll from the devastating Hawaii fires.
Bloomberg’s White House reporter Justin Sink tweeted the president’s claimed response Sunday evening from Delaware:
“After a couple hours on the Rehoboth beach, @potus was asked about the rising death toll in Hawaii,” Sink posted on X. “‘No comment,’ he said before heading home.”
Sink also posted a photo of Biden on the beach surrounded by several people in beach chairs.
Biden arrived at his beach home on Saturday in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. He returned to the White House on Monday morning.
Joe Concha, a columnist for The Messenger noted Biden’s last 24 posts on X were “pats on the back from protecting land to Bidenomics.”
“You have to go back 25 to see anything regarding Maui. The president is at his beach house in Delaware, where he just gave a ‘no comment’ to a reporter asking about Maui. Stunning,” he posted.
The last time Biden posted about the fires in Hawaii was August 10, saying: “Jill and I send our deepest condolences to the families who lost loved ones in the wildfires in Maui. Our prayers are with those whose homes, businesses, and communities are destroyed.”
The wildfires in Maui are the deadliest in the United States’ modern history.
So far, at least 96 have been confirmed dead, with over 1,000 unaccounted for, as Breitbart News reported.
The fires began on Tuesday, amid severe winds caused by Hurricane Dora passing near Hawaii. One of the fires destroyed the historic city of Lahaina, which was the original capitol of the Hawaiian Kingdom.
Most of the city was burned to the ground, leaving destruction that some residents described as apocalyptic.
The damage is estimated to be over $5 billion.
Follow Breitbart News’s Kristina Wong on Twitter, Truth Social, or on Facebook.
JOE BIDEN'S PRIORITY WILL NEVER BE AMERICA!
Hundreds likely dead in Maui wildfire due to criminal negligence of the capitalist ruling class
The number of confirmed dead from the horrific wildfire on the Hawaiian island of Maui last Tuesday and Wednesday rose to 93 on Sunday. It is now the deadliest such fire in the US in more than 100 years.
On Saturday, authorities said that the work of searching for and identifying the dead was still in the early stages and many more victims were expected to be found, especially in the five-square-mile zone around the town of Lahaina.
Maui Police Chief John Pelletier said that cadaver dogs had covered just 3 percent of the area and the death toll would grow, adding that “none of us really know the size of it yet.” Pelletier said identifying the dead is particularly difficult because “we pick up the remains and they fall apart.”
So far, just two of those who perished in the blaze have been identified. Pelletier told family members that DNA testing would be required to identify their loved ones.
In an interview on CBS’ “Face the Nation” Sunday morning, FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell was asked by reporter Jonathan Vigliotti about the accuracy of reports he had received from “several sources close to the search” that the death toll could reach into the hundreds. Criswell replied, “If that’s what they’re telling you, I wouldn’t second-guess them. They’re the ones that know best on what they’re seeing and how many people have not—not been accounted for.”
Hawaii Governor Josh Green said on Saturday that 2,200 buildings were damaged or destroyed, 86 percent of them being residential structures. The cause of the fire is still not determined, although some reports say that winds from Hurricane Dora knocked down power lines, which then ignited dry grasses to set off the blaze.
Three other fires have been reported on the island. Two are still burning, one in south Maui’s Kihei area and the other in the mountainous and inland communities known as Upcountry, where more than 500 homes have been hit with fire. Another fire started on Friday evening in Kaanapali, a coastal community north of Lahaina, but authorities say it was extinguished.
The scenes posted on social media of structures leveled to the ground and burned out hulks of automobiles on Front Street in Lahaina recall the destructive force of war. Comparing the devastation to the Allied firebombing of German cities in February 1945, Hawaii Emergency Management Agency spokesperson Adam Weintraub told news media, “Some of the aerial footage that we’ve seen from the area reminds me of the pictures from Dresden from World War II.”
Like the Camp Fire, the next most deadly wildfire in the US, which incinerated homes and killed 85 people in Paradise, California in 2018, the Maui fire reached at least 1200˚F and melted aluminum engine blocks and car wheels, turning them into pools of liquid.
While the full scale and impact of the wildfire will not be known for days or weeks, it can be stated that the death and destruction from the disaster on Maui are an indictment of the capitalist ruling class and its government and ruling political parties.
Climate scientists and environmentalists had warned about a fire with such devastating consequences for two decades, but critical safety measures were not taken because they cut across capitalist interests.
Elizabeth Pickett, co-executive director of the nonprofit Hawaii Wildfire Management Organization and co-author of a Maui wildfire plan developed in 2014, told the Wall Street Journal that measures like “ramping up emergency-response capacity have been stymied by a lack of funding, logistical hurdles in rugged terrain and competing priorities.”
What are these other priorities? While the US government, backed by the corporate media, continuously claims there is no money to build infrastructure and take measures that will prevent such disasters from happening in the first place, there is an endless supply of funds for war and financial bailouts of the banks and corporations.
The US government, through both Democratic and Republican administrations over the past three decades, has spent trillions of dollars on imperialist wars that have killed and displaced millions of people, and, at the same time, funneled similar amounts into the financial system to ensure that money-making for billionaires on Wall Street continued without disruption.
With the wildfire in Maui, there is no longer any doubt that the refusal of the capitalist class to address climate change—the product of decades of reckless, profit-driven pumping of carbon into the atmosphere—is pushing society into an existential catastrophe.
And yet, the response of the political establishment has been an astounding degree of disinterest and the shirking of any responsibility for the disaster. Aside from a three-paragraph White House statement on Thursday, President Biden has said nothing about the staggering loss of life in Hawaii.
Speaking to Jake Tapper on CNN’s “State of the Union” program Sunday morning, US Senator from Hawaii Mazie Hirono, a Democrat, said she was not going to “make excuses for the tragedy.” But when asked by Tapper why officials were so unprepared for the fire, she made the astonishing comment, “I think that we are doing a lot in order to provide the kind of support we need to be providing, but there will always be the call for more.”
This is not the way the people of Maui see the situation. They are shocked and outraged that there were no warnings to residents as the wind-whipped flames were approaching and then engulfing Lahaina. Multiple survivors have told television reporters that there were no officials on the scene to help people escape the flames, no means of communicating with missing loved-ones or contacting hospitals or emergency agencies.
Even days after the worst of the fires had ended, thousands of people left homeless and without food were left to fend for themselves. As of Sunday there were approximately 4,500 people in need of shelter, according to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the Pacific Disaster Center.
Reports have come in to the World Socialist Web Site that the provision of urgently needed food and money for working class residents is being organized and run entirely at the community level, by volunteers. The level of dismay, anger and distrust of the government is palpable within the population.
The island of Maui is a microcosm of the social inequality that exists across America. In recent decades, income disparity in Hawaii has accelerated. According to one study in 2022, the proportion of Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed (ALICE) households in Maui County, that is, individuals with an income of just over $35,000 or a family of four with an income of $72,000, has risen to 52 percent, or more than half the population. This is the highest rate in the state of Hawaii.
Maui is also the location of properties and residences owned by some of the world’s wealthiest individuals. Former CEO and founder of Amazon Jeff Bezos owns a $78 million, 14-acre estate, surrounded by thousands of acres of dormant lava fields on La Perouse Bay on Valley Isle in Maui. Oprah Winfrey, with a personal wealth of $2.5 billion, owns 2,000 acres on the island.
Other billionaires who have property on Maui include Paypal co-founder Peter Thiel, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and software tycoon David Duffield. Facebook (Meta) CEO Mark Zuckerberg ($107 billion) and Oracle CEO Larry Ellison ($141 billion) each own thousands of acres on the Hawaiian islands Lanai and Kauai, near Maui.
These billionaires and others have been buying up land and homes in Hawaii for decades, typically as vacation spots, but also as a place to park their assets. While some of these individuals are silent about the Maui catastrophe, others have come forward with charity activities for public relations purposes.
The Maui wildfire is one of a series of worsening natural disasters—hurricanes, earthquakes, tsunamis, tornados and other ecological catastrophes—that have exposed the criminal negligence of the capitalist class and its institutions. In the case of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, for example, the city of New Orleans was devastated and 1,392 people lost their lives due to the flooding that ensued and the inability and refusal of the government to carry out any effective response measures.
The conditions that have developed in Hawaii, like everywhere else on the planet, attest to the fact that what is required to stop the devastating impact of climate change is the mobilization of the working class internationally against the entire profit system. Only by taking the resources of society out of the hands of the financial elite, which puts private wealth accumulation above human life, and reorganizing them on a planned, socialist basis can the working class prevent the catastrophes created by capitalism.
Joe Biden Slammed for ‘Disgraceful’ Response to Hawaii Disaster: ‘Katrina Moment?’
President Joe Biden is being slammed for his “disgraceful response” — being termed his “Katrina moment” — after appearing unconcerned by the rising death toll in Hawaii when he offered “no comment” when asked about the current catastrophe after reclining at a Delaware beach.
On Sunday evening, the president reportedly said he had “no comment” when asked about the rising death toll from the devastating Hawaii fires that have ravaged Maui since Tuesday.
“After a couple hours on the Rehoboth beach, @potus was asked about the rising death toll in Hawaii. ‘No comment,’ he said before heading home,” tweeted Bloomberg White House reporter Justin Sink along with a photo of Biden on the beach surrounded by several people in beach chairs.
In response, many took to social media to voice outrage over the president’s “appalling” response.
“Hawaii is part of the United States, right? How could the President of the United States not have a comment on the unfolding tragedy there?” asked Rep. Wesley Hunt (R-TX).
“We are [a] Nation in decline led by a sandcastle commander in chief who spends more time on applying sunblock than he does on the struggle facing millions of Americans,” he added.
“While Americans in Hawaii are missing loved ones and have lost their homes, Joe Biden vacations on the beach,” wrote Congressman Bob Good (R-VA). “Is this the famous ‘compassion’ the media has told us about?”
“Jill Biden in 2020: Epathy [sic] is on the ballot Joe Biden in 2023: ‘No Comment’ on Hawaii,” wrote Congresswoman Mayra Flores (R-TX).
“Joe Biden couldn’t be bothered to comment on the HORRIBLE tragedy in Hawaii. Too busy vacationing at the beach,” wrote Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-TX).
“The tragic truth is he’s not the one running the country. He has NO IDEA what’s going on,” he added. “We deserve MUCH BETTER!”
“Joe Biden: Send more billions to Ukraine! No comment for Maui. If you are in Maui and need help go to: https://disasterassistance.gov,” wrote Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA).
“Beachfront Biden doesn’t care about Real Americans,” tweeted the GOP House Judiciary account.
“Endless Billions for Ukraine, but not even a comment for Maui,” wrote Donald Trump Jr., along with an “#AmericaLast” hashtag.
“Instead of addressing the crisis in Hawaii, Joe Biden went on vacation… again,” tweeted the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) account.
“In Maui: 93 (& counting) Americans are dead. 1,000 are missing. One of the most beautiful places on earth has been reduced to cinders. In Delaware: @JoeBiden can’t be bothered to care,” wrote former Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari lake.
“Putting America First means getting this joker out of the White House,” she added.
“@JoeBiden rode his bike to the beach while the people of Lahaina, Hawaii dug through the ashes of their shattered community. And Nero fiddled while Rome burned. They treat us like serfs,” she wrote in another tweet.
“In 2024, We The People will remind them who’s REALLY in charge,” she added.
“The Heritage Foundation found that the United States’ current $113 billion in aid to Ukraine costs $900 per American household. Meanwhile, Biden has no comment for Americans in Maui,” wrote Rep. Cory Mills (R-FL).
“I bet if Hunter Biden had business in Hawaii they would have received the much needed support and funding,” he added.
“Joe Biden can’t be bothered to break his vacation and comment on the Hawaii disaster. A no comment?! So bad,” wrote radio host Clay Travis.
“Disgraceful response by President Biden. A ‘no comment’ and then a smirk when asked about the horrendous Maui disaster.. just appalling,” wrote media personality Piers Morgan.
“Biden doesn’t give AF about the suffering people of Maui. Or the suffering people of East Palestine, Ohio. Or the suffering people in border towns. Or the suffering people anywhere in America,” wrote Monica Crowley, the former Trump assistant secretary for public affairs at the US Treasury Department.
“Is this Joe Biden’s Katrina moment?” asked Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk.
“Here’s the moment where Joe Biden couldn’t be bothered to comment on the shockingly high and growing death toll from the Maui fires. Reports are mounting that residents were not alerted to the imminent danger, that there were not adequate emergency response teams in place, and that the devastation has exposed a failure of state and national leadership. The death toll is currently 96, though the lack of quality intel has led some to estimate the number could reach as high as 1,000 when all the deceased are accounted for,” he wrote, adding, “Prayerfully those estimates will be proven untrue.”
The wildfires in Maui are the deadliest in the country’s modern history.
So far, at least 96 have been confirmed dead, with over a thousand unaccounted for, as Breitbart News reported.
The fires began on Tuesday, amid severe winds caused by Hurricane Dora passing near the Aloha State.
President Biden did issue a statement via the White House last Wednesday, expressing his and First Lady Jill Biden’s “deepest condolences” before his “no comment” remark on Sunday.
One of the fires destroyed the historic city of Lahaina — the original capital of the Hawaiian Kingdom.
Most of the city was burned to the ground, leaving destruction some residents described as apocalyptic.
The damage is estimated to be over $5 billion.
Follow Joshua Klein on Twitter @JoshuaKlein.
Report: After Hours on Beach, Joe Biden Says ‘No Comment’ About Rising Death Toll in Hawaii
President Joe Biden reportedly said he had “no comment” when asked Sunday about the rising death toll from the devastating Hawaii fires.
Bloomberg’s White House reporter Justin Sink tweeted the president’s claimed response Sunday evening from Delaware:
“After a couple hours on the Rehoboth beach, @potus was asked about the rising death toll in Hawaii,” Sink posted on X. “‘No comment,’ he said before heading home.”
Sink also posted a photo of Biden on the beach surrounded by several people in beach chairs.
Biden arrived at his beach home on Saturday in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. He returned to the White House on Monday morning.
Joe Concha, a columnist for The Messenger noted Biden’s last 24 posts on X were “pats on the back from protecting land to Bidenomics.”
“You have to go back 25 to see anything regarding Maui. The president is at his beach house in Delaware, where he just gave a ‘no comment’ to a reporter asking about Maui. Stunning,” he posted.
The last time Biden posted about the fires in Hawaii was August 10, saying: “Jill and I send our deepest condolences to the families who lost loved ones in the wildfires in Maui. Our prayers are with those whose homes, businesses, and communities are destroyed.”
The wildfires in Maui are the deadliest in the United States’ modern history.
So far, at least 96 have been confirmed dead, with over 1,000 unaccounted for, as Breitbart News reported.
The fires began on Tuesday, amid severe winds caused by Hurricane Dora passing near Hawaii. One of the fires destroyed the historic city of Lahaina, which was the original capitol of the Hawaiian Kingdom.
Most of the city was burned to the ground, leaving destruction that some residents described as apocalyptic.
The damage is estimated to be over $5 billion.
Follow Breitbart News’s Kristina Wong on Twitter, Truth Social, or on Facebook.
Biden-Harris to Pass on Visiting Maui: They ‘Don’t Want to Distract’ from Relief Efforts
President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris will not visit Maui in the aftermath of the deadly wildfires because they “don’t want to distract” from the relief efforts, Harris announced on Friday.
The wildfires, which began Tuesday and continue to blaze, have destroyed acres of property and taken dozens of lives. On Friday, local officials announced the death toll increased to 67, making it the deadliest wildfire on U.S. soil since the 2018 Camp Fire in California killed at least 85 people.
The wildfires have destroyed at least 2,000 acres of land, including 80 percent of the Maui town Lahaina, a rich cultural area that was once the capital of the Hawaiian Kingdom.
Neither Biden nor Harris will visit the devastated Hawaiian island despite the destruction, according to Harris.
“We don’t want to distract from the resources that need to go in to the victims of this tragedy, and of course, the needs of the first responders have to be able to focus on that issue and not worry about focusing on us [because] we’re there,” Harris told reporters before boarding Air Force Two for Chicago.
“We are coordinating federal resources to swiftly get there to support the work in terms of recovery but to just support the folks on the ground. It is tragic,” she said, adding that she and Biden are “deeply concerned” about the wildfire.
Biden declared it a major disaster on Thursday, opening up federal aid for the impacted areas. The federal government has also released food and water to support 5,000 people for five days.
Gov. Josh Green (D) on Thursday cautioned that the death toll would rise “significantly” in the coming days.
Power, internet, and communication outages caused by the fire have significantly impacted rescue and relief efforts.
An aerial image taken on August 10, 2023, shows destroyed homes and buildings on the waterfront burned to the ground in Lahaina in the aftermath of wildfires in western Maui, Hawaii. (Photo by PATRICK T. FALLON/AFP via Getty Images)
“We as a local nonprofit are not able to even access anything west of Maalaea. West Maui is completely cut off from communication and power,” said Maui Rescue Mission communications consultant Lauren Henrie. “We are looking at years, years of recovery here.”
Jordan Dixon-Hamilton is a reporter for Breitbart News. Write to him at jdixonhamilton@breitbart.com or follow him on Twitter.
JOE BIDEN = SHITBAG!
Death toll in Maui reaches 93 lives lost and still climbing
Republicans Rip Joe Biden for Tying U.S. Disaster Relief to Ukraine Funding
Republicans are ripping President Joe Biden for attempting to tie U.S. disaster relief to Ukraine funding, asserting that the president is holding Americans “hostage.”
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) is leading the charge, urging Congress to separate disaster relief in the U.S. from billions more in aid to Ukraine.
Biden this week was originally expected to request more aid for Ukraine, with a figure “north of $10 billion.” Indeed, according to the Associated Press (AP), Biden requested over $13 billion in “emergency defense aid to Ukraine and an additional $8 billion for humanitarian support through the end of the year.”
The $40-billion aid package includes $12 billion for disaster relief in the U.S. as well, triggering concerns among Republicans and prompting Rubio, who tends to support aid to Ukraine with more oversight, to take action.
“President Biden is holding Floridians and other Americans hostage by tying critical domestic disaster relief to foreign military aid,” Rubio stated on Thursday.
“While the Biden administration works with my colleagues in the House on what can actually pass, I urge prompt consideration of legislation to replenish the Disaster Relief Fund,” the Florida senator added, prompting agreement from fellow Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH).
“Marco and I don’t always agree on Ukraine policy, but he is absolutely right about this. We have just had horrible fires in Maui. Biden still hasn’t declared a disaster in East Palestine, and hurricane season is just around the corner,” Vance said.
“Do disaster aid, then we can debate Ukraine,” Vance added.
Despite Rubio’s general support of aiding Ukraine, he is among those calling for far more oversight, halting the status of writing a “blank check.”
Biden’s desire to tie U.S. disaster relief to Ukraine aid comes as the people of East Palestine, Ohio, continue to seek assistance and beg for help months after the toxic train derailment. The Biden administration, however, has largely ignored them.
“Man, are they suffering. That’s another place in the United States that’s been forgotten about, just like the border, the people down there,” John Rourke, the head of Blue Line Moving who delivered pallets of water from former President Donald Trump to East Palestine residents, told Breitbart News during a July interview at the Turning Point Action Conference.
“We have American citizens, some of them veterans, who can’t even get a decent roof over their head until they figure out what the hell is going on in this town, alright; I was there. I could smell it in the air. I could feel it on my skin. I actually spoke with people. ‘How are you doing?’ And they’re miserable. They don’t understand why Joe Biden has not come down there and help them,” Rourke said, highlighting that it was Trump — not Biden — who showed up.
CLASS ACT: Donald Trump Visits with Americans at East Palestine McDonalds, Fact-Checkers Go BERSERK
Alana Mastrangelo / Breitbart News“But guess who had to come? President Trump, right? He’s the one that came. How bad is that?” Rourke asked, adding that he is still getting calls from residents asking him to send a message to Trump.
WATCH — Trump to East Palestine Residents: “You Are Not Forgotten”
Alana Mastrangelo / Breitbart News“These poor people just need water. I’m getting calls from people; even as last week, someone reached out to me and said, ‘We’re running out of water. Could you get a message to President Trump? He said he would come back if the government didn’t act. Could you please get a message to him and tell him we need more water? We need help,’” he said.
“They still need help. I’m telling you, they’re reaching out to us on social media, saying, ‘Is there any way you can get a message to anyone to come help us?’ It’s just a forgotten land, just like the border, just like all of these inner cities that are deteriorating and rotting from inside,” Rourke added.
WATCH — John Rourke: East Palestine Residents Still Begging for Help as Biden Ignores Them
Jack Knudsen / Breitbart NewsBiden’s attempt to tie U.S. disaster relief to Ukraine aid also comes as Hawaii experiences what Hawaii Gov. Josh Green (D) has described as “likely the largest natural disaster in Hawaii’s state history” after wildfires engulfed the islands, killing at least 53, with the death toll rising. Notably, Biden approved the state’s disaster declaration request Thursday.
VIDEO — Aerial Footage, Before & After Pictures Show Devastating Hawaii Wildfire
Maui disaster sirens never sounded as deadly fire engulfed hundreds of homes
As the official death toll from the Maui wildfires reached 67 on Friday, questions are being raised about why Hawaii’s disaster warning system was never activated when the climate change-fueled inferno was spreading rapidly across the island.
According to a PBS report on Thursday, Hawaii emergency management records “show no indication that warning sirens sounded before people ran for their lives from wildfires on Maui,” and, instead, “officials sent alerts to mobile phones, televisions and radio stations—but widespread power and cellular outages may have limited their reach.”
Hawaii has what the state says is the largest integrated outdoor all-hazard public safety warning system in the world. This includes about 400 sirens across the archipelago to alert people to various natural disasters and other threats. The system was created in the aftermath of a tsunami that struck Hawaii in 1946 and killed more than 150 people.
Along with the fact that the sirens were not activated, according to a report by BBC on Friday, Maui officials issued contradictory information about the extent and danger of the flames as they were being whipped up Wednesday. The Maui County website issued a statement on Wednesday at 9:00 a.m. that said a brush fire had been “100% contained,” although “winds in the area remain a concern.”
In addition to “a warning to avoid blocked roads,” the BBC report said, “officials gave no further warnings,” regarding the situation in Lahaina until 4:45 p.m. local time, when the county said, “an apparent flare-up” of the fire had “caused the closure of a bypass near the town, as well as some evacuations.”
Further evacuations were announced later that afternoon, followed by an emergency declaration by Mayor Richard Bissen before 11:00 p.m. local time that night. Tourists in some hotels were instructed to remain in place to avoid clogging up local roads. However, by this time, flames driven by high winds from Hurricane Dora in the Pacific Ocean to the south of the islands had already engulfed parts of Lahaina, forcing some people to flee into the sea.
Even though conditions for the eruption of wildfires were well known and warned about, local, state and federal officials were completely unprepared for the intensity and speed of the devastation.
On Wednesday, acting Governor Sylvia Luke admitted as much during a press conference when she said, “We never anticipated in this state that a hurricane which did not make impact on our islands will cause this type of wildfires, wildfires that wiped out communities, wildfires that wiped out businesses, wildfires that destroyed homes.”
Adam Weintraub of the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency told the Associated Press (AP) that the records do not show that Maui’s warning sirens were triggered when the Lahaina fire began on Tuesday. Weintraub said the county used emergency alerts sent to mobile phones, televisions and radio stations.
Brad Ventura, chief of the Maui Fire Department, said the fire moved so quickly from brush to neighborhoods that it was impossible to get messages to the emergency management agencies responsible for issuing the alerts. “What we experienced was such a fast-moving fire through the … initial neighborhood that caught fire they were basically self-evacuating with fairly little notice,” Ventura said.
Survivors told news media on Thursday that they did not hear any sirens or receive any warnings giving them enough time to prepare and only realized they were in danger when they saw the flames or heard nearby explosions.
The Maui wildfires are Hawaii’s deadliest disaster since a 1960 tsunami killed 61 people. Officials are warning that the death toll will continue to rise as search and rescue operations continue, and more victims are found.
Firefighters were still battling flames on parts of the island on Friday as rescue workers continued the work of trying to locate more than 1,000 people who are missing. Thousands of residents have been displaced by the fires that swept across the island and destroyed more than 1,700 structures and decimated the historic town of Lahaina.
With power and cellular service out in most areas, evacuation and search and rescue efforts have been made extremely difficult.
Another indication of the capitalist political establishment’s unpreparedness for the deadly wildfires is the fact that Maui’s firefighting staff is very small and ill-equipped for the events of Tuesday and Wednesday. Bobby Lee, the president of the Hawaii Firefighters Association, spoke to AP and said there are a maximum of 65 firefighters working at any given time in Maui County, and they are responsible for fighting fires on three islands: Maui, Molokai and Lanai.
The Maui crews have about 13 fire engines and two ladder trucks, all of which are designed for on-road use. The department does not have any off-road vehicles, which means fire crews are unable to attack brush fires thoroughly before they reach roads or populated areas, Lee said.
Meanwhile, more reports are emerging that government officials knew about the danger of rapidly spreading wildfires in Hawaii from the experience of Hurricane Lane in 2018. The storm, which narrowly missed making direct landfall with Hawaii, still inundated Hawaiian islands with flooding and whipped up wildfires that burned 3,000 acres across Maui and Oahu.
The fires fueled by winds from Lane were analyzed by a team of researchers from the University of Hawaii and the East-West Center. Their research was published in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society two years after that storm entitled, “Fire and Rain: The Legacy of Hurricane Lane in Hawaii.”
The researchers pointed to the confluence of conditions that would result from hurricane events in Hawaii. They said that further research was needed to determine whether hurricane-fire events were going to become more frequent. The research paper said, “A complete understating of these factors is critical to understanding the vulnerability of people and resources exposed during a severe weather event.”
Another document written in 2014 entitled the “Western Maui Community Wildfire Plan” identified West Maui as specifically susceptible to wildfires. Elizabeth Pickett, co-executive director of the nonprofit Hawaii Wildfire Management Organization and a coauthor of the plan, said that the devastating Maui fire was foreseeable.
Pickett told Honolulu Civic Beat, “We keep hearing from certain elected officials and other people being quoted in the media, ‘we had no idea, this is unprecedented.’ But actually, those of us in the wildfire community, meaning our fire agencies, our forestry natural resource management community, we have long been working to increase our risk reduction efforts.”
Of course, most of the actions recommended by the scientists were either ignored or never fully implemented. Pickett said even though the Maui fire had multiple factors that complicated fire control efforts, more could have been done to prevent it ahead of time. She added that Hawaii’s policies, codes, enforcement and resources have not kept up with the accelerated threats.
“We know there’s high risk. We know the science, we have the data, we’ve done the assessments, we have the community programs in place. It might not have been 100% preventable, but it could have been mitigated. It could have been lessened,” Pickett said.
Kennedy Says Climate Change Activists, Skeptics Can ‘Unite’ Against Hawaii Fires
Democratic presidential challenger Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said that the wildfires in Maui and elsewhere in Hawaii are a problem that can unite both activists and skeptics of climate change, because the underlying cause is poor environmental management.
In a series of tweets Friday, Kennedy cited reports that the devastating blazes were fueled by invasive grassland species that had grown on former farmland that had been abandoned.
Hawaii fires result from poor tending of the land. First, industrial ag plantations obliterated native ecosystems. When these farms were abandoned, combustible invasive grasses took over.https://t.co/WNEp5HnRIz
— Robert F. Kennedy Jr (@RobertKennedyJr) August 11, 2023
Climate change may be a factor too. But we must resist the seduction of a simplistic global explanation for every environmental problem. Top priority has to be on healing soil, forests, wetlands, rivers, and oceans, instead of treating them as resources to strip and waste dumps.
— Robert F. Kennedy Jr (@RobertKennedyJr) August 11, 2023
Stop ruining land + water. Stop poisoning the earth. Protect what remains + regenerate what was damaged. Healthy ecosystems stabilize weather and mitigate flood-drought cycle. They also draw down carbon.
— Robert F. Kennedy Jr (@RobertKennedyJr) August 11, 2023
Everyone can get behind land + water healing whatever their views on climate change.
— Robert F. Kennedy Jr (@RobertKennedyJr) August 11, 2023
As President I am going to unite climate activists and skeptics in an environmental renaissance the likes of which we have not seen since the 1960s. #Kennedy24
— Robert F. Kennedy Jr (@RobertKennedyJr) August 11, 2023
In a statement on Friday, Kennedy elaborated:
“My heart goes out to the people of Maui and the families who have lost loved ones.
“We need to stop ruining land and water and stop poisoning the earth. We need to protect what remains and regenerate what was damaged. Healthy ecosystems stabilize weather and mitigate the flood-drought cycle. They also draw down carbon.
“Environmental problems don’t always have a simplistic global cause. Earth is a complex system. Therefore, our top priority has to be on healing soil, forests, wetlands, rivers, and oceans, instead of treating them as resources to strip and waste dumps.
“I believe everyone can get behind land and water healing whatever their views on climate change.
“As President, I am going to unite climate activists and skeptics in an environmental renaissance the likes of which we have not seen since the 1960s.”
Kennedy had also published a video the day before on the theme of unity, addressing political rifts within families:
Several members of his own family have opposed his presidential run, and some have even attacked him in public.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the new biography, Rhoda: ‘Comrade Kadalie, You Are Out of Order’. He is also the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
WHAT DOES IT SAY ABOUT THE NAFTA DEMOCRAT PARTY FOR OPEN BORDERS THAT WE MUST BEG THEM TO PROTECT US FROM THE NARCOMEX CARTELS THAT NOW OPERATE ALL OVER AMERICA???
CUT AND PASTE YOUTUBE LINKS
ROBERT F KENNEDY, JR ON BIDENOMICS
Economic Policy: An Introduction
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXWlfiulhe4
The average income in our country is $5,000 less than the basic cost of living. I'm going to change that. Over the course of the next few weeks, I'll be releasing an economic plan that focuses on ending the corrupt merger of state and corporate power to make sure Americans can once again afford their most essential expenses: housing, food, childcare, commuting to work, and the healthcare we need to survive.
CUT AND PASTE YOUTUBE LINKS
Robert Kennedy Jr: Power, Corruption, Freedom, & The Chronic Disease Epidemic Within America
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oI9Kg2naNfs
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Addresses Border Crisis and Releases ‘Midnight at the Border'
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yXlun2EYFvk
Tim Scott: We Must ‘Finish’ Border Wall to Protect Americans, ‘Crush’ Cartels
The United States must “finish” the border wall and “crush” cartels to protect the American people, Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) said during an interview with Breitbart News Saturday, contrasting himself with President Joe Biden and presenting some of the actions he would take should he make it to the White House.
The presidential hopeful, who recently visited the southern border, said the first glaring thing he noticed was that the wall is “incomplete.”
“The number one thing we should do is finish the border wall. The second thing that we should do is use the available technology to stop the fentanyl from killing another 70,000 Americans per year,” Scott said, adding that it is also essential to “crush the cartels” by freezing their assets and sanctioning their accounts.
“We cut off their blood support, so to speak, by taking away their money. If we do that, we’ll save tens of thousands of American lives. I wrote the legislation to get that done. It was passed through the Senate,” Scott said, expressing hope that it becomes law this year “so that we can do what the American people deserve”:
“A safe secure border. Today? Unsafe, insecure, wide open. Why? Joe Biden,” Scott said, identifying the issue as one of many at the forefront of voters’ minds, particularly in places such as Iowa.
Immigrants walk from Mexico into the United States on their way to await processing by the U.S. Border Patrol on May 23, 2022, in Yuma, Arizona (Mario Tama/Getty Images).
Scott continued to contrast himself with Biden, telling Breitbart News Saturday that voters are “responding constructively to an optimistic, positive message anchored in conservatism.”
“What they want is someone that they can trust to stand toe to toe with President Xi, realizing that the existential threat to America is China. They want someone who sees 70,000 dead Americans because of fentanyl as a crisis to be solved. So we close the southern border. We finish the wall. We use military-grade technology to surveil the border so that we stop fentanyl from killing another 70,000 Americans in the next 12 months,” Scott said, adding that voters have been “responding very positive to the fact that [he is] the Republican who was put in charge of police reform.”
LISTEN:
“We have to back the blue. The Democrats want to defund the police. We are going to refund the police. They have demoralized the police. We’re going to restore respect for men and women in law enforcement, and it’s one of the reasons why I was the first non-Floridian to win the Florida Sheriffs Association National Legislative Champion Award,” Scott said, later adding that voters are also frustrated with the effects of Bidenomics.
Drew Angerer/Getty Images
“Biden wants us to believe what he is saying, not what we are seeing with our own eyes and what we’re feeling with our own hearts on an inability to support our families like we could before he came in office,” Scott said, explaining that despite unemployment being low, we have fewer men in the workforce — 18 to 54 — “than we ever have in the history of the country.”
A young man is lying in bed and looking unhappy at home (PeopleImages/Getty Images).
“So they’re not even being counted in unemployment. That is devastating, and that’s a distortion of the truth. Core inflation is 4.6 percent. That means that food and energy [are] still running really hot, really high, and unaffordable,” Scott said.
“As President of the United States, I would reduce our taxes so you get to keep more of your money,” he said, explaining that it is key to “get government out of the way, and you determine what you do with your life and your money.”
“[As President ] I would make sure that the average family keeps more of their money and that they decide the American Dream for themselves,” Scott added.
Breitbart News Saturday airs on SiriusXM Patriot 125 from 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. Eastern.
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