Tuesday, January 19, 2021

1ST A SYNAGOGUE THEN THE 3RD TEMPLE WITH SACRIFICES ON THE TEMPLE MOUNT.

JEWISH KING JESUS IS COMING AT THE RAPTURE FOR US IN THE CLOUDS-DON'T MISS IT FOR THE WORLD.THE BIBLE TAKEN LITERALLY- WHEN THE PLAIN SENSE MAKES GOOD SENSE-SEEK NO OTHER SENSE-LEST YOU END UP IN NONSENSE.GET SAVED NOW- CALL ON JESUS TODAY.THE ONLY SAVIOR OF THE WHOLE EARTH - NO OTHER. 1 COR 15:23-JESUS THE FIRST FRUITS-CHRISTIANS RAPTURED TO JESUS-FIRST FRUITS OF THE SPIRIT-23 But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ’s at his coming.ROMANS 8:23 And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.(THE PRE-TRIB RAPTURE)

 BUILDING A SYNOGOGUE THEN 3RD TEMPLE ON THE MOUNT WITH ANIMAL SACRIFICES
https://www.israel365news.com/164170/building-a-synagogue-on-the-temple-mount/
REV 11:1-2
11:1 And there was given me a reed like unto a rod: and the angel stood, saying, Rise, and measure the temple of God, and the altar, and them that worship therein.
2 But the court which is without the temple leave out, and measure it not; for it is given unto the Gentiles: and the holy city shall they tread under foot forty and two months.
DANIEL 9:27
27 And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week: and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate.
THE ISRAELIS WILL BUILD A SYNOGOGUE ON THE TEMPLE MOUNT. THEN THE 3RD TEMPLE YAACOV HAYMAN SAYS TO BE DONE.

Building a Synagogue on the Temple Mount-by Video Manager | Jan 18, 2021 |

On Sunday, January, 17, Israel365 News spoke to Yaacov Hayman about his efforts to build a synagogue on the Temple Mount as a precursor to the Third Temple; what has been done, what needs to be done, what it will look like, and what is standing in our way.

Building a Synagogue on the Temple Mount-An argument for peace, security, and justice-by-Matthew Ackerman-October 02, 2019

This past Tisha B’Av, nearly 1,800 Jews ascended the Temple Mount in Jerusalem in observance of the annual Jewish day of mourning for the destruction of the Temples. While it is true that the observance this year fell on the same day as a Muslim holiday, and that Israeli officials decided to close the entrance to the mount to Jews for a few hours that morning out of fears of clashes, and that even when the Jews were finally allowed to ascend they were quickly shuffled off, and that Israeli police were still forced into confrontations with the Arab Muslim crowd, this nevertheless represented an extraordinary step in Jewish engagement with the Temple Mount. It may indeed have been the largest group of Jews to collectively ascend the Temple Mount with a specifically religious purpose on a single day since the Roman destruction of the Second Temple in the year 70 CE, a span of 1,949 years, and another sign of the remarkable change in Jewish fortunes that has occurred in the past century, during which time a people once herded to death has transformed itself into a people on the verge of reclaiming full possession of its most ancient and once seemingly irretrievable patrimony.In light of this, it’s worth reconsidering Israeli policy regarding the Temple Mount. Even after gaining control of the site in 1967, Israel has maintained the preexisting “status quo” in which the area is administered by a foreign religious authority that maintains a blanket ban on all non-Muslim prayer. For peace, security, and justice, Israel should now take formal control of the Temple Mount, open the site to prayer for all, erect a large and beautiful synagogue so the point is made plainly, and do it quickly.For justice the case is simple. The Temple Mount is the site of both the First and Second Jewish Temples and, since King David’s establishment of Jerusalem as the Jewish capital and King Solomon’s spiritual consolidation of Jerusalem through his construction of the First Temple there 3,000 years ago, has been the holiest site in the world to the Jewish people. The Temple Mount is where it has been believed for probably longer than any other thing in this world, that the Holy of Holies—the divine presence of God manifested—came to rest on earth after wandering along with the Jewish people in the Tabernacle through the desert from Egypt to Israel. That spot, believed also to be the place where Abraham withdrew his knife from Isaac’s throat, has been the focal point of Jewish hope and pleading with God ever since.The special significance of the mount and the Temples to Jewish life and practice served as the justification for the massive retaining walls built around it by Herod 2,000 years ago. The Western Wall of the Temple Mount derives all of the spiritual importance it now holds for Jews to its proximity to that spot, in particular for being both symbolically and (for the past 500 years) literally the closest Jews have been officially permitted to approach the Holy of Holies to pray by rulers of Jerusalem, Jewish and non-Jewish alike.I want to underline that point, because it’s important to everything that follows. The Western Wall, which now retains its own place in popular imagination due largely to the plaza built from it that was constructed by Israel following the Six-Day War in 1967, only started to become an important place for Jewish prayer in the 16th century when the Ottoman ruler Sultan Suleiman I set the area aside for Jews as compensation for his renewal of a ban on non-Muslim access to the Temple Mount. Over the preceding 1,500 years, Jews had ascended the mount to pray as the fluctuating policies of the ruling authority allowed, several times beginning the process of constructing a Third Temple, and praying in a Temple Mount synagogue as recently as the 11th century. (A useful survey of Jewish approaches to the Temple Mount from the period of the Roman destruction through the 20th century can be found in this 2013 essay in the Middle East Quarterly.)-Only in the 19th century did a self-prohibition regarding Jewish ascent become normative in Orthodox circles, and even when that view was most widely held many individual Jews continued to ascend. And in the days following Israel’s conquest of the Temple Mount, a synagogue there was once again briefly established by Rabbi Shlomo Goren, then the chief rabbi of the Israel Defense Forces.In short, since the destruction of the Second Temple, Jews have been accustomed to praying facing and as close to the Holy of Holies as personal and legal circumstances allowed. If a Jew found himself in Berlin, that meant turning a bit to the southeast. If she found herself in Saigon, that would mean turning a bit to the northwest. And if in Jerusalem, that often meant standing on the Temple Mount itself, where a compass was not needed to direct oneself in the proper direction. Unless of course that Jew encountered a weapon wielding representative of a ruling government that had banned Jewish prayer on the Temple Mount, in which case a particularly pious Jew might find herself wandering through Jerusalem’s many alleyways before finding a few rocks of the retaining wall that surrounded the Temple Mount to hold on to while asking God to return his presence to the Holy of Holies above.There is no suitable definition of justice that can rightly claim it is just for a Jew to be denied the right to pray at the spot his or her religion has for so long deemed to be the holiest spot in the world.No doubt the objection will be raised that though it may be just for a Jew to pray at the Temple Mount, security considerations make permitting the actual act impossible—and in fact, this is the de facto legal position of the Israeli government, which continues to enforce a ban despite the Israeli Supreme Court’s decisions that such prohibition is illegal. The argument goes that Arab Muslim anger over a Jew praying on the Temple Mount would lead inevitably to violence. The target of this violence will almost certainly be Israeli Jews, most likely those who have never prayed (and never intend to pray) on the Temple Mount. And it has been said by many people in many ways for many years that exercising Jewish prayer rights on the Temple Mount would ignite a wider “holy war” in the Middle East that could have unknowable catastrophic consequences. Should some people die so that someone else can pray standing in that particular spot as opposed to another? First, it has to be said: It is sad to allow a threat of violence to deny a person’s ability to exercise a right we otherwise agree is just. Sadder still is the hard fact that the ban on Jewish prayer on the Temple Mount is not generally understood as a callow and shameful surrender to a violent “heckler’s veto” posed by Arab Muslims accustomed to imposing their unjust aims by threatening to unleash tens of thousands of violent fanatics.Otherwise, the security argument is weak even on its own terms. For it succumbs to the false appeal of appeasement, believing that by granting full religious control of the Temple Mount to Muslim authorities, Arab Muslims will understand that Israel does not threaten their own religious practice or traditions, thereby creating the conditions under which a larger peace can be negotiated.Since the dawn of modern Zionism, Arab Muslims have used the supposed threat Jews posed to the Al-Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount to foster anti-Zionism and hatred of Jews and as a pretext for violence. In one notable example of the pattern, in 1928 shortly before Yom Kippur Jews placed a screen to separate men and women on the flagstones before the Western Wall. Arabs protested and, when Jews continued to petition for their rights to worship freely, declared the need to “protect al-Aqsa from Jewish attacks.” The resulting orgy of Arab killing found its apogee in the August 1929 destruction of the ancient Jewish community of Hebron, when an Arab mob went door to door slaughtering Jewish families. More recently, Ariel Sharon’s visit to the Temple Mount in September 2000 famously served as the pretext for the unleashing of a Palestinian terror war that killed nearly as many Israelis from the year 2000 to 2010 as had been killed in the 50 previous years of modern Israel’s existence.In that context, it is perhaps easy to understand the Israeli instinct following the capture of the Temple Mount in 1967 to return full religious control to Muslim authorities, and acquiescence when those authorities promptly reaffirmed their ban on non-Muslim prayer. Could there be a better manner for Israelis to disprove the decades of claims of plots to destroy the Al-Aqsa Mosque? Can we peer into the mind of Moshe Dayan when he returned control of the Temple Mount to Jordanian religious authorities in 1967 and see there the fears of a sabra child born in a poorly defended pre-state kibbutz hearing the reports of murderous anti-Jewish riots and the Arab leaders who fostered them by claiming a Jewish plan for the destruction of al-Aqsa? Better not to. But we do have 50 years experience to show that the gesture has done nothing to assuage Arab calls to violence over this point. In 2019 as in 1929, minimal Jewish claims to justifiable rights that have long been shown to pose no threat to non-Jewish rights are seized on as a threat to al-Aqsa, and these claims lead directly to the brutal murder of Jews by Arabs.While despicable and cynical, this behavior by Arab Muslims is far from irrational. For they see what most Jews today persist in not seeing: that politics flow downstream from culture, that there are no more powerful and longstanding cultural symbols than those that are tied up with religion, and that there are therefore few (if any) better ways of cementing a long-term political claim over a space than by putting a large building associated with your religion in it. The Hagia Sophia cathedral in Constantinople was famously converted to a mosque in 1453 after the successful Ottoman conquest that changed the city’s name to Istanbul. The Kaaba in Mecca, the holiest site in Islam, was a pagan shrine before Muhammad converted it into an exclusive site for the worship of Allah in the seventh century. The Cathedral of Cordoba in Spain was before 1236 the Great Mosque of Cordoba, which itself had been built on the site of a Visigothic church. And there is also of course the example of the Dome of the Rock on the Temple Mount itself, built in 690 to cover the rock where Abraham is believed to have bound Isaac, on the spot where the Temples were believed to have been built, to, in the words of the historian Albert Hourani, “establish Islam in the Abrahamic lineage while also disassociating it from Judaism and Christianity.” The crusader kingdom later turned both it and al-Aqsa into churches, from which the Knights Templar (the knights of the Temple) ruled Jerusalem until being defeated by a new Muslim empire, which promptly converted them back to mosques.The increased secularity of Western societies in the 20th century seems to have convinced us that these symbols have lost or will soon lose their power over us and the remainder of the world. Hence we deem ourselves capable of devising and implementing “rational” political decisions like Bill Clinton and Ehud Barak’s impractical proposal in 2000 that the Palestinians take sovereignty over the surface of Temple Mount while Israel retain sovereignty over the area beneath it. (Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat’s now infamous response to this proposal was to question whether there in fact had ever been a Jewish Temple on the Temple Mount). This is the hyper rationalist perspective that the social psychologist Jonathan Haidt has termed WEIRD (Western, educated, industrialized, rich, democratic), one framed mostly by the belief that the world is “full of separate objects, rather than relationships.” He terms the irrational, immediate impulses that usually govern our moral and political views the Elephant, and calls the rationalizations we employ for those views the Rider in order to illustrate that the Rider is far less powerful than the Elephant, even if he has a role in directing the action. It’s akin to what another psychologist, the Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman, has termed System One and System Two, in this case System One being our immediate, easier and often wrong response to many questions, with System Two serving as the harder to access, more meditative and rational aspects of our thinking.To date, Zionists have largely alternated in their attempts to generate Arab acceptance of their claims by appeals to the practical benefits of Jewish development of Israel (echoed today in arguments about the earnings and freedom enjoyed by Israeli Arabs or in recent diplomatic progress Israel has made in the larger Middle East on the back of the country’s economic success), offers to rationally negotiate a division of claims (the various forms of the west of the Jordan River two-state solution that have been proposed since the Peel Commission report in 1937), or the projection of impenetrable military strength (Vladimir Jabotinsky’s “iron wall” metaphor from the 1920s living on today in the separation barrier—at times a wall—that snakes along and around the 1967 lines). All of these approaches ask Arab Muslims to think about Zionism and Israel with their Rider or System Two, and all have failed as a result. As Kahneman, Haidt, and others have shown, even members of WEIRD societies do not often form their fundamental moral and political perspectives through dispassionate, rational analysis. To finally cement Jewish claims more than 70 years after the independence of modern Israel, we must search for another way to communicate clearly to the Elephant or System One that modern Jewish independence in the Land of Israel can not be reversed.Conversely, not building a synagogue, not confirming our own rights ourselves, conveys the opposite point, fueling the long Arab Muslim dream of destroying Israel by forever putting into question the Jewish state’s legitimacy. As David Horovitz, the editor of the Times of Israel, wrotein 2017 on Muslim perceptions of the Temple Mount, “The Jews could not and would not have relinquished their authority over the site if it truly constituted the most sacred physical focal point of their faith. Israel’s restraint, its religious realpolitik, in other words, has come to be regarded as proof of our illegitimacy.”A few years of the sight of a beautiful synagogue on the Temple Mount would rewrite humanity’s mental map of Jerusalem, and the Jewish state beyond it. The synagogue would in short order become an extremely powerful version of what Pierre Nora has termed a “memory site,” or a “symbolic element of the memorial heritage of any community.” Sites like this are what frame all of our notions of what the world is, driven as we are to narratives and imagery, and away from text and abstractions. That is why al-Qaida targeted the Twin Towers in New York and not the Woodmen Tower in Omaha on 9/11, why the faces of past American presidents are carved into the side of a mountain in South Dakota, and why Hollywood makes movies showing the destruction of the White House or the Statue of Liberty. All were or are symbols of the nation and culture that produced them, and their monumental physical solidity gives us confidence in our national strength and continuation, just as their destruction diminishes that confidence, to dramatic effect.There will of course be many security issues to manage during construction, and there is little doubt that Arab Muslims would use the building of a synagogue as pretext for violence.These short-term security risks are however outweighed by the long-term security benefits of the synagogue. Murderous Arab riots over Israel’s opening of the Western Wall tunnels in 1996 came and went, and the tunnels are now in regular use with little controversy. So too might one consider the mosque dedicated that same year in Solomon’s Stables inside the Temple Mount, and how accepted its presence and transformation of the “status quo” has been. I imagine we all would be surprised by how quickly the particular violence generated by the synagogue’s construction would subside. No doubt Muslim leaders the world over would howl in protest, but such protests would also soon fade if Israeli leaders made clear that their words had no power to change anything.Sooner than we realize, the presence of a synagogue on the Temple Mount would begin to seem ordinary, forcing Arab Muslims to reconcile themselves to its existence. Once built, it would so often be in front of us: hanging in the background while a reporter for CNN or Al-Jazeera gives the news from Jerusalem, appearing in pictures at Jerusalem hotel gift shops, seen from overhead while a digital font prints out “Jerusalem” during the next Jason Bourne movie. We should recall how firmly the visual of the current Western Wall plaza now symbolizes Jewish spiritual tradition, and that the plaza did not exist before 1967.Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor of The Atlantic and a longtime writer on Israel and the Temple Mount, wrote in 2015 that the Temple Mount status quo “is prudent and must remain in place” because it saves “lives fundamentalist Jewish radicals would risk.” This assumption, and the concern behind it over the supposedly extraordinary risks of transforming the national conflict with the Palestinians into a holy war with the entire Muslim world, reveals only an odd misreading of history by those who hold it. It is of course true that the Thirty Years’ War in 17th-century Europe was devastating, as were the many wars of conquest waged across the modern Middle East, North Africa, and Europe by expanding Muslim empires a thousand years earlier, and the many wars between Christians and Muslims that followed. But the many conflicts waged and the many lives taken by oppressive regimes in the many years since that have had little if any religious basis make it hard to understand why religious war should concern us more than secular war. Given the many millions killed by the explicitly secular regimes of the Soviet Union, Communist China, and North Korea, and the many lives lost in the secular World Wars, it seems that if offered the unpalatable choice between conflict on religious or secular grounds we should welcome the conflict driven by people who share an overarching faith in a supreme power that exists beyond human affairs to conflict conducted by those confident in the human mind as the final arbiter of justice, for it is they who have proven themselves capable of building the death camp and the gulag, not the religious believer.Goldberg also wrote in that same 2015 article that Arab violence is “rooted not in Israeli settlement policy, but in a worldview that dismisses the national and religious rights of Jews.” In other words, Goldberg understands that Arab Muslim terrorism flows not as a response to any particular action of Jews or their state, but from the belief that attempts by Jews to assert any degree of autonomy are inherently illegitimate. The solution to Arab murderous attentions toward Jews therefore must aim to be one that firmly establishes their national and religious rights psychologically, something that only powerful cultural symbols have even the capacity to do. And since the Temple Mount is clearly the most powerful national and religious symbol in Israel, and the status quo arrangement has by now demonstratively failed to convince Arab Muslims that Jews have national and religious rights, it is better put that the status quo does not save lives, it takes them.So, too, are we warned to be on guard against the messianism the return of Jewish prayer to the mount would engender. Again, though, here we hear an odd superstition against religious messianism when we rarely hear such concerns raised over secular messianism. In fact, extolling the many virtues of the Israel of the 1948-1967 period, before the conquest of Jerusalem and the territories, what Bernard Avishai has called the “Labor Zionist faith in the Hebrew republic that Israel was between 1948 and 1967,” is a bit of a thing. Yet that was the period of independent Israel’s greatest collectivism, when avowedly Stalinist kibbutizm welcomed the children of Jewish immigrants to Israel from the larger Middle East by forbidding their religious practice and indoctrinating them with Marxist ideology in service to the messianic goal of creating a perfect society. We may give thanks that Israel’s secular messianists did not follow the horrors committed by their comrades from the Caribbean to the Yellow seas, and maintained a basic respect for democratic norms. It remains strange though that their type of messianism, which has led to the death and despair of so many millions of people, should be extolled today by the same kinds of voices who would worry over the passions ignited by the construction of a synagogue.It’d be better for us to caution ourselves against messianism applied to politics in all its forms, while not allowing our prejudices against or in favor of one form or the other to guide us. I am not promoting the construction of the Third Temple, the long prophesied event believed to herald the messianic age. I do promote the construction of a synagogue, which confirms the Jewish right to pray only.In short, threats to Israel’s security rest on the belief that it is possible to destroy the country. Building a synagogue on the Temple Mount is the best available way to psychologically demonstrate otherwise. Concerns over the new security risks such a synagogue would create are overstated.But we should demand not merely security. We should also demand peace.It is a sign of how dispiriting the long Arab Muslim war has been to the Israeli psyche that the great Israeli poet Yehuda Amichai came to ask not for peace, but merely the “absence of war.” But following a decade in which the Jewish state has shown inspiring resilience and an ability to effectively manage the violent threats it faces—thanks in large part to the highly effective separation barrier built in the mid-2000s in the wake of the bloody Palestinian terror war—while growing its economy from 40% of U.S. GDP in 1960 to 65% in 2016, and fostering a purposeful society whose citizens consistently achieve high ranks in surveys of “life satisfaction,” it’s past time to ask again for peace. In the Prayer for the Welfare of the State of Israel that was introduced in 1948 we ask, after all, for “peace in the land” that will be an “everlasting joy to its inhabitants.” And did not the Jews’ most admirable heretic, Baruch Spinoza, tell us that peace “is not an absence of war; it is a virtue, a state of mind, a disposition for benevolence, confidence, justice.”Asking for peace would mean imagining a world in which not only the question of Israel’s existence is not up for debate but the question of its purpose is also largely resolved. And that purpose is caught up intimately in the 2,000-year Jewish dream of spiritual return to Jerusalem.We are often blinded to this simple truth by both the increased secularity of Western societies and the ideologies that drove the Zionist movement’s founders. The early movement was dominated by people like David Ben-Gurion who had been raised in religious Jewish communities in Europe and who as young women and men became atheists and true socialist believers. We are now years past the near total collapse of the kibbutzim and other cultural drivers produced by their ideology, years after the Labor Party that for so long dominated Israeli politics has been transformed into a rump faction in national affairs. Yet it is surprising how deeply a wholly secular view of the Jewish state continues to inform Israeli thinking. No doubt this is driven in no small part by the close integration the elites of Israel’s high-tech economy and cultural and academic institutions currently enjoy with their Western counterparts, and the degree to which Israelis wish to mimic the sensibilities of the largely secular people they interact with in Western countries. This also says nothing of the sociological fact of the great number of Israelis who have now been raised generations removed from any semblance of Jewish religious education or understanding.Nevertheless, there is a reason why the long dream of Jewish political independence was realized in the Land of Israel, and not Uganda, Birobidzhan (the Yiddish homeland established in the far east of the Soviet Union in the 1920s), or Alaska. None of those places has the connection to Jewish history necessary to galvanize the masses needed to actually move to the place in pursuit of the Jewish homeland. And the place that did work, the Land of Israel, is a place whose Jewish history is intimately tied with the long Jewish struggle, from Abraham’s test to Joshua’s conquest to the Hasmonean dynasty, with God. There can simply be no Israel that does not aspire to the long Jewish dream of universal recognition of the oneness and supreme power of God, however defined and however worshiped.As the final verses of the Aleinu prayer, taken from the book of the prophet Zechariah, put it, “Then the Lord will reign over all the earth; on that day the Lord shall be One and His name One.” No wish here for all the world to become Jewish or to bow before Jewish power, but rather a dream that every human will be inspired by the Hebrew prophetic tradition to a recognition of the truth of a single and loving God, in whatever way they are best able to approach that truth. In the words of Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, “No prayer more eloquently expresses the dual nature of the Jewish people: its singular history as the nation chosen to be God’s witnesses on earth, and its universal aspiration for the time when all inhabitants of earth will recognize the God in whose image we are formed.” It is in the present power of the Jews to create this single place of prayer for all peoples on the Temple Mount today, and to do so we need only to affirm our own right to pray in that place instead of allowing one single religion to selfishly and imperially reserve the space for its own purposes.The establishment of the official rabbinate in Israel and the delegation of authority to it over the state’s functions over fields like marriage; the many Israeli official and unofficial taboos around things like work on Shabbat or leavened food during Passover; the establishment of the traditional religious Jewish holidays as official holidays of the state; the prominence of the Western Wall as a state political symbol of Israel—all of these have been the attempts made by a democratic society to give Jewish spirituality its place in a Jewish state. But in the many enduring controversies over marriage and conversion we see the utter failure of these policies. They fail because they are coercive. They fail because they view Jewish spirituality backwards in time, clinging to symbols of exile like the Western Wall and delegating the definition of religious practice to men who seem still to have yet to reconcile themselves to the reestablishment of Jewish sovereignty in the Land of Israel.The spiritual dimension of Zionism, what the great Hebrew writer, Zionist, and pacifist Ahad Ha’Am called its “real and only basis,” is castrated by this present state of affairs.A synagogue on the Temple Mount would upend this paradigm. Instead of encountering the Jewish spiritual tradition as a pile of rocks or a series of closed doors to the people they want to marry or the foods they want to eat, Israelis would instead encounter an open door to a beautiful building sitting at the very geographical spot that unites the physical and spiritual elements of our long Jewish story, the beating heart of the Jewish return to Zion itself.To confirm the justice of Jewish rights, to secure Israel forever, to build toward peace among Jews and all peoples, the Jews should build a synagogue on the Temple Mount, and do it soon.

More 'Russiagate' documents set for release to the Senate including hundreds of pages of interviews, transcripts and depositions-By Harriet Alexander For Dailymail.com- | Updated: 03:27 EST, 15 January 2021-Fox News reported Thursday night that hundreds of pages would be declassified-The documents relate to Trump's election campaign and Russian meddling-Robert Mueller was tasked with investigating whether Russia helped Trump win-Since May 2019 John Durham has also been looking at the origins of Mueller-Trump in October announce he was declassifying everything from the probe-Hundreds of pages have already been published, but are heavily redacted By Harriet Alexander For Dailymail.com,15 January 2021

A fresh tranche of documents relating to the 'Russiagate' investigation are to be declassified on Friday, a Senate source told Fox News.The source said the documents will number hundreds of pages, and will include interviews, transcripts and depositions.It was unclear who would be involved.The Senate on Friday will reportedly receive hundreds of pages of 'Russiagate' documents.The Senate on Friday will reportedly receive hundreds of pages of 'Russiagate' documents.The documents pertain to an investigation into whether Putin's Russia worked to help elect Donald Trump, and why the Trump campaign was investigated for its Russia contacts-The documents pertain to an investigation into whether Putin's Russia worked to help elect Donald Trump, and why the Trump campaign was investigated for its Russia contacts-George Papadopoulos, who pleaded guilty in 2017 to lying to FBI agents about his contacts with Russians, and was pardoned by Trump just before Christmas, tweeted: 'Breaking: the President will have all declassified Obamagate files released to the American public as early as tomorrow.' 'Russiagate', or 'Obamagate' as Papadopoulos called it, refers to the idea that Obama-era officials concocted allegations that Donald Trump was being aided by Russia in a bid to stop him being elected president. It also encompasses the Mueller inquiry into Russian interference in the 2016 election, and the actions of individuals in Donald Trump's orbit. Thirty four people were charged as a result of the inquiry, which concluded in 2019.The phrase also includes an inquiry led, at Trump's request, by John Durham, attorney general for Connecticut. Durham was tasked in May 2019 with investigating the origins of the Mueller inquiry, and looking at whether the Trump campaign was spied on. Sean Langille, a producer at Fox News, tweeted the news of the impending release.In December 2020 Bill Barr, the departing attorney general, promoted Durham to Special Counsel, meaning his investigation could continue after the Trump administration ended.John Durham has since May 2019 been investigating whether any Obama-era officials overstepped the mark in investigating individuals linked to Donald Trump's 2016 campaign-John Durham has since May 2019 been investigating whether any Obama-era officials overstepped the mark in investigating individuals linked to Donald Trump's 2016 campaign.Documents relating to the investigation are sporadically released: in September, and October, tranches were made public. Trump tweeted on October 6: 'I have fully authorized the total Declassification of any & all documents pertaining to the single greatest political CRIME in American History, the Russia Hoax. Likewise, the Hillary Clinton Email Scandal. No redactions!' His chief of staff, Mark Meadows, then argued Trump's tweet was not about allowing the nation to see the documents; rather, it was about Attorney General William Barr's being able to release them.'The president indicated to me that his statements on Twitter were not self-executing declassification orders and do not require the declassification or release of any particular documents,' Meadows said in a sworn court statement, in response to a court case brought be media organizations pushing for the total release of all documents.Much of what has been made public so far has been heavily redacted. The views expressed in the contents above are those of our users and do not necessarily reflect the views of MailOnline.

Exclusive: ‘Boogaloo Boi’ Leader Who Aligns with Black Lives Matter Boasted About Organizing Armed Insurrection On US Capitol-By Alicia Powe-Published January 17, 2021 at 1:20pm

Contrary to allegations leveled by the political left and their allies in the mainstream media, anti-Trump groups primarily perpetrated insurrection on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.The Gateway Pundit has obtained archived tweets from Mike Dunn, leader of “Boogaloo Bois,” an anti-government, anti-Trump group whose adherents call for a revolution toppling the federal government.As rioters roamed the U.S. Capitol, Dunn boasted on Twitter about Boogaloo “fireteams” being employed inside the Capitol building. to taunt “tyrants” like Trump.Boogaloo Boi “teams have been activated in VA and we currently have 4 fireteams inside capital and 7 more outside,” he tweeted.The goal of swarming the home of the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate is “to revel in the breach of security while mocking the defenses that protect tyrants…whether that be Trump or others,” Dunn added.Following the assault on the Capitol,  Dunn issued a statement on Parler claiming credit for organizing the breach.After Air Force veteran Ashli Babbitt was shot and killed in the Capitol, Dunn argued “feds drew first blood years ago” and are “fair game now.”While establishment Republicans and Democrats and the mainstream media continue to blame Trump and his supporters for violent riots at the Capitol,  they have entirely ignored a Jan. 8 Reuters interview in which Dunn admits “three or four groups of loyalists under his command helped storm the Capitol” and “embraced the moment to strike against the government.”Asked whether Boogaloos had planned to attack the Capitol on Jan. 6, he told the publication, “Just know there is more to come.”The 22-year-old Boogaloo leader and Virginia resident bragged about “infiltrating” MAGA during the riot and scoffed at Trump supporters for adhering to the 6pm citywide curfew for the District of Columbia mandated on Jan 6.“After MAGA and others stormed the capital building in a moment of anger (which was cool)…they retreated to hotels to comply with the Curfew. We obviously didn’t…stayed out in the streets until 12,” he tweeted.In response to a Twitter user who lamented the rioters in the Capitol building “were infiltrators, not real MAGA,” Dunn gloated, “Yeh, we know.”A Google search of  the Boogaloo movement would lead you to believe the group is comprised of “far right,” “white supremacist” Trump supporters. But, the Boogaloo Bois are actually a far-left group aligned with Black Lives Matter in their disdain for Trump and Republicans.Following the death of George Floyd, Boogaloo cells across the U.S. participated in and supported BLM rallies.On Saturday, Dunn was spotted in front of the VA State Capitol holding a firearm and providing security for Black Lives Matter protesters, despite newly enacted legislation that ban guns at the Capitol and legislative office building.

HERE THEY ARE: The Five Most Obvious Acts of Fraud in the 2020 Election that You Are No Longer Allowed to Discuss-By Jim Hoft-Published January 17, 2021 at 6:33pm

For months now, since Election night on November 3rd, The Gateway Pundit has been exposing the massive and unprecedented fraud in the 2020 presidential election.The days when Democrats find 500 ballots in a trunk of a car are over. Today their election fraud includes likely every segment of the election process from illegal voters to fraudulent counting.Since the US Capitol rioting on January 6th the Democrat-Media Complex, including the tech giants, will no longer allow ANY discussion on fraud in the 2020 election. Democrats and RINO Republicans like Lindsey Graham are determined to shut this discussion down.This is a lie.They are trying to control what you can say, read or see.In response to this media gaslighting today we are releasing our list of the Five Most Significant Acts of Fraud in the 2020 election.FIVE MOST SIGNIFICANT ACTS OF FRAUD IN THE 2020 ELECTION: 1.) The Georgia Late Night Hidden Suitcase Heist: in late December President Trump tweeted out an OANN report on a Gateway Pundit investigation of the Atlanta suitcase voter fraud scandal.The Gateway Pundit was first to identify Ruby Freeman, her daughter Wandrea “Shaye” Moss, and their boss Ralph Jones, Sr. in the infamous suitcase ballot hoist.We later reported on Ruby Freeman running the same batch of ballots through the counting machines at least three times after these Democrat operatives cleared the room of observers!President Trump tweeted this OANN and Gateway Pundit video.pic.twitter.com/WtIQLiq65y-— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 23, 2020-Shaye Moss is the same person who called out for observers to go home late on election night before the ballot heist.Ralph Jones, Sr. is ON AUDIO telling reporters he was going to shut down the State Farm Center early and send observers home. This was BEFORE the suitcase ballot heist! It was a carefully planned event! They had NO IDEA they would get caught! Georgia elections official Gabriel Sterling later came out and told reporters this was completely normal in his state. If counting ballots without observers after you sent them home is normal then Sterling should have been arrested by now.At this time there is no evidence that FBI or the Georgia Bureau of Investigations have interviewed or arrested Ruby Freeman, Shaye Ross, or Ralph Jones, Sr. 2.) The Drop and Roll — Shutting down five states and then dumping hundreds of thousands of late-night votes for Joe Biden-Five swing states all shut down their counting on election night at the same time. This was likely a coordinated event.Then each state saw a mysterious and impossible spike of Joe Biden ballots in the middle of the night. We first discovered this pattern in Pennsylvania. Then we saw this same pattern in at least four other states.We later put together a video with the data we had at the time to explain this “Drop and Roll” fraud in the 2020 election. 3.) Blocking GOP Poll Watchers in the counting rooms in swing states-Committed far-left Democrats blocked and harassed GOP election observers in several swing states. We have video of this. The media defended this. In Pennsylvania the Democrats blocked GOP observers from the counting room until they were able to manufacture nearly a million votes for Joe Biden.In Detroit Michigan the leftists taped cardboard over the windows so observers could not see into the room at all. 4.) Votes deleted or switched from President Trump to Joe Biden: A few days after the election we began to identify system ‘glitches’ that were reported across the country where votes were switched in all cases from President Trump to Joe Biden.  These switches were in the thousands.  We then reported on an analysis where the data from the election was reviewed and millions of votes for President Trump were eliminated or switched to Joe Biden.The President retweeted this report twice. 5.) USPS postal service drivers speak out after they were told to transfer up to 288,000 completed ballots across state lines after the election.Election fraud whistleblowers came forward in late November, including one who witnessed the shipping of an estimated 144,000-288,000 completed ballots across three state lines on October 21.The information was made public at a press conference by the Amistad Project of the Thomas More Society, a national constitutional litigation organization.Attorney Phil Kline said, “130,000 to 280,000 completed ballots for the 2020 general election were shipped from Bethpage, NY, to Lancaster, PA, where those ballots and the trailer in which they were shipped disappeared.”Truck driver Jesse Morgan was present at the press conference and spoke for 9 minutes about his unbelievable ordeal. Morgan was tasked with delivering completed ballots to Pennsylvania from New York state.This was explosive testimony.Jesse Morgan: In total I saw 24 gaylords, or large cardboard containers of ballots, loaded into my trailer. These gaylords contained plastic trays, I call them totes or trays of ballots stacked on top of each other. All the envelopes were the same size. I saw the envelopes had return addresses… They were complete ballots.”Jesse went on to say that he sat in Harrisburg for hours and when he was told to leave the supervisor at the post office would not give him a slip or an overtime slip so he could get paid. Jesse said the manager-supervisor was “kinda rude.”Jesse’s testimony today revealed that employees at the United States Post Office were in on the conspiracy to steal the votes.The video has 1 million views!     Jesse Morgan, a truck driver with USPS subcontractor says he was suspicious of his cargo load of 288,000 COMPLETED ballots: “I was driving completed ballots from New York to Pennsylvania. I didn’t know, so I decided to speak up.” pic.twitter.com/YYIiZL1V55— Team Trump (@TeamTrump) December 1, 2020-These are just five of the most blatant acts of fraud in the 2020 election.This does not include the massive mail-in absentee ballot fraud or the vote counting machines which allow for election fraud.The Democrats and tech giants insist you are no longer allowed to discuss the fraud in the 2020 election.

CAIR Welcomes Appeals Court Decision on Islamophobe Laura Loomer's Anti-CAIR Lawsuit-Jan 06, 2021 3:06 PM ET-Legal Newswire POWERED BY LAW.COM

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation's largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, today welcomed the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals affirming the dismissal of a lawsuit filed by anti-Muslim right-wing activist Laura Loomer and her company Illoominate Media against CAIR. CAIR says it will now seek its legal costs from Loomer.In a statement, CAIR National Litigation Director Lena Masri said: "Laura Loomer is an Islamophobe and the whole purpose of this lawsuit was to harass CAIR for having the audacity to protect the rights of Muslims. Her failure is a victory for Muslims, for civil rights and for the rule of law." CAIR Trial Attorney Justin Sadowsky added: "The Court confirmed what we already knew, that Loomer's lawsuit was completely meritless. The case is over. All that is left now is for CAIR to recoup its legal fees as it is entitled to do under Florida law." CAIR's mission is to enhance understanding of Islam, protect civil rights, promote justice, and empower American Muslims. La misión de CAIR es mejorar la comprensión del Islam, proteger las libertades civiles, promover la justicia, y empoderar a los musulmanes en los Estados Unidos. CONTACT: CAIR National Litigation Director Lena Masri, 202-642-4934, lmasri@cair.com; CAIR Senior Litigation Attorney Gadeir Abbas, 720-251-0425, gabbas@cair.com; CAIR Trial Attorney Justin Sadowsky, 202-752-6440, jsadowsky@cair.com URL : http://www.cair.com-Contact Information: jsadowsky@cair.com

Satanists Put Up I-95 Billboard Advertising Abortion Law Loophole-Joshua Ceballos | December 28, 2020 | 9:00am

On a billboard off of I-95, two 1950s-looking gals are depicted drinking Cokes and shooting the breeze about abortion."Susan, you're telling me I do not have to endure a waiting period when I have an abortion?" one of the women says."That's true if you're a SATANIST!" the other replies.Next to the ladies is a symbol of a goat head in a pentagram and a message about an abortion ritual.The Satanic Temple of Salem in Massachusetts bought the billboard space in North Miami Beach, visible from the northbound lane of Interstate 95, to display a quirky new ad about the temple's "religious abortion ritual," which allows members of the religious organization to circumvent state restrictions on abortions. In Florida, anyone seeking to terminate a pregnancy is required to have an ultrasound and go through pre-procedure counseling, but the Satanists believe a religious exemption can be cited to get around that.Sydney Goodwin, a spokesperson for the Satanic Temple, tells New Times the group launched the ad campaign in August. The idea of the "ritual" was crafted by a Satanist who had gone through an abortion and thought it would be a helpful device for others making the decision to terminate a pregnancy."The goal is to provide feelings of comfort in a trying time," says Goodwin.The Satanic Temple believes in seven fundamental tenets that govern how members should act and what they believe. Tenet Three says that a person's body is subject only to their own will, and Tenet Six states that a Satanist's beliefs should conform to their best scientific understanding of the world. The abortion ritual involves reciting those two tenets and a personal affirmation of one's self as a Satanist.Goodwin says that by performing the ritual, Satanists can proclaim their right to have a medically safe abortion without restriction under the federal Religious Freedoms Restoration Act, which prohibits any government agency from infringing on someone practicing their religion. That means that in states such as Florida, a Satanist can claim religious privilege and be exempt from those requirements, according to the Satanic Temple."Many abortion regulations have no scientific purpose or are unnecessary. They only instill guilt and shame in someone having an abortion," Goodwin argues.Miami is no stranger to religious exemptions for non-mainstream religions. Practitioners of Santeria were famously exempt from laws prohibiting animal sacrifice after citing religious privilege.If a Satanist performs the ritual and is denied an abortion without the regulatory steps, Goodwin says the Satanic Temple would take the state to court on behalf of that member.If someone wanted to become a Satanist and perform the ritual, Goodwin says there are no bars to entry or rites of passage. A person doesn't even need to belong to a local chapter of the Satanic Temple."As far as sincerity is concerned, asserting that you're a member of the Temple and that the seven tenets is your belief is sufficient enough, and the court should respect that," Goodwin says.Modern Satanism, popularized by the Church of Satan after its founding in 1966, is not so much a religion based on worship as it is a philosophy based on secularism and a rejection of Christianity, spiritualism, and superstition. The Satanic Temple, founded in 2013, does not actually venerate Satan as a god — its members don't even believe Satan is real. Instead, members of the temple think of Satan as a literary figure who represents rebellion and independence, and they act as social advocates for causes such as reproductive rights.

Obamagate was the worst crime ever committed and here is what it was-Opinion by-Alexandra Petri-Columnist-May 13, 2020 at 6:05 p.m. EDT

“What is the crime exactly that you’re accusing him of?”“You know what the crime is. The crime is very obvious to everybody. All you have to do is read the newspapers, except yours.”— President Trump responding to Washington Post reporter Philip Rucker-Obamagate began long ago, long before Trump even got elected, before he even knew he was running. It began before America, before time, in those early days when President Barack Obama lit the furnace of the sun, just before he fixed the paths of the planets in such a way that millennia in the future, Donald Trump would stare directly into a solar eclipse. And, of course, everyone knew about it.Obamagate was the biggest political crime in American history by far, a fact that Barack Obama did not hesitate to tell Richard M. Nixon, causing him to shed bitter tears in an as-yet-unreleased tape. It was bigger than Teapot Dome. It was bigger than anything anyone blamed Ulysses Grant for allowing the people who surrounded him to do. Nothing could be worse than Obamagate. It went all the way to the top, where Obama floated inside a sinister Masonic eye at the apex of a pyramid on the back of a dollar bill, holding all the strings.What was it? Well, I am coming to that. Obamagate, like the Myriad Crimes of Hillary Clinton (to which it was both prequel and sequel, like “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story”) was almost Escher-esque in its design. It had no beginning and no end, and, of course, everyone knew all about it. Also, it was obvious to everyone how bad it was. It was a devious, sinister plot, but also Donald Trump was able to get to the bottom of it very easily, mainly by absorbing articles from FoxNews.com or the personal websites of former Fox News personalities.This perspicacity is immediately evident when you hear Donald Trump talk about Obamagate. Only he can reveal with stunning clarity the depth and horror of this intrigue, in which “some terrible things happened” and “it’s a disgrace that it happened,” which we know from “if you look at now all of this information that’s being released.” “And from what I understand, it’s only the beginning.”Ruth Marcus: Mitch McConnell goes after the wrong president-There is more to come about Obamagate, and we will be stunned, because the horror of it all is clear. One of the many facets of Obamagate is that it prevented people from telling Michael Flynn that lying to the FBI was a crime, even if they were investigating something else; had he realized this, he would not have lied to the FBI, probably? It is a commonly known fact (just as commonly known as that Obamagate is ancient and horrible) that it is polite to lie to the FBI unless you are explicitly instructed not to.This was the genius of Obamagate! President Obama knew that Donald Trump was his greatest political rival, even though he was not running against Donald Trump (and could not) and Donald Trump was technically his successor, not his rival (Obamagate did not account for this) and so, deviously, he handed power peacefully over to Donald Trump in the routine way. We are not sure if this is part of Obamagate, but we think it must be, that Obama also prepared a pandemic exercise for the incoming Trump team, but cleverly organized it so that nobody who would remain in the Trump administration would pay attention and no one who was paying attention would remain in the Trump administration. And you see how masterfully it all worked out! David Von Drehle: Why people believe in a 'plandemic’ Obama is still president to this day, which is why everything that goes wrong is his fault. But that will change soon. Donald Trump is here and can point this out. The rule of law is suffering from the people in charge of the government right now. Their pandemic response has not been all that could be hoped. It is a total disaster and an absolute fiasco, what is going on in the White House right now, or, as I guess we must refer to it, Obamagate. And everyone knew exactly what it was.Welcome to our safe-to-go-back-to-work panel. You may notice we are not safely back to work.Now introducing personal protective equipment — For Him!

Monday, January 18, 2021

REVEALED HOW DEMOLIBNUTS TRYED TO GET RID OF TRUMP THE LAST 4 YEARS

JEWISH KING JESUS IS COMING AT THE RAPTURE FOR US IN THE CLOUDS-DON'T MISS IT FOR THE WORLD.THE BIBLE TAKEN LITERALLY- WHEN THE PLAIN SENSE MAKES GOOD SENSE-SEEK NO OTHER SENSE-LEST YOU END UP IN NONSENSE.GET SAVED NOW- CALL ON JESUS TODAY.THE ONLY SAVIOR OF THE WHOLE EARTH - NO OTHER. 1 COR 15:23-JESUS THE FIRST FRUITS-CHRISTIANS RAPTURED TO JESUS-FIRST FRUITS OF THE SPIRIT-23 But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ’s at his coming.ROMANS 8:23 And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.(THE PRE-TRIB RAPTURE)

 

 OBAMAGATE-CLINTONGATE 

OBAMAGATE-HOW THE LAST 4 YEARS THE DEMOLIBNUTS TRYED TO DESTROY TRUMP
 OBAMAGATE-HOW THE LAST 4 YEARS THE DEMOLIBNUTS TRYED TO DESTROY TRUMP

TRUMP IS GOIING TO RELEASE THE OBAMAGATE PAPERS TO GET RID OF HIM THE LAST 4 YEARS. AND BIOG TECH WERE INVOLVED ALSO. SO THANK GOD THE WORLD IS DROPPING FACEBOOK-TWITTER ETC. THE 2 LOST 50 BILLION DOLLARS IN THE LAST 2 WEEKS.

THE NEW MASS DETENTION CONCENTRATION CAMPS BILL IS READY TO GO IN THE SECOND MOST ISRAELIS ON EARTH NEW YORK

JEWISH KING JESUS IS COMING AT THE RAPTURE FOR US IN THE CLOUDS-DON'T MISS IT FOR THE WORLD.THE BIBLE TAKEN LITERALLY- WHEN THE PLAIN SENSE MAKES GOOD SENSE-SEEK NO OTHER SENSE-LEST YOU END UP IN NONSENSE.GET SAVED NOW- CALL ON JESUS TODAY.THE ONLY SAVIOR OF THE WHOLE EARTH - NO OTHER. 1 COR 15:23-JESUS THE FIRST FRUITS-CHRISTIANS RAPTURED TO JESUS-FIRST FRUITS OF THE SPIRIT-23 But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ’s at his coming.ROMANS 8:23 And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.(THE PRE-TRIB RAPTURE)

 THE NEW MASS DETENTION CONCENTRATION CAMPS BILL IS READY TO GO IN THE SECOND MOST ISRAELIS ON EARTH NEW YORK

COVID-19 CONCENTRATION CAMPS
THE NEW CONCENTRATION CAMPS-INTERVIEW

Years-old bill that would allow state to detain contagious patients extremely unlikely to gain any traction in Albany-NYS Assembly Bill A.416 draws criticism from Republicans-By: Jeff Rusack12:26 AM, Jan 05, 2021

BUFFALO, N.Y. (WKBW) — Republican lawmakers in New York are crying foul over a piece of legislation that would give state and county leaders the ability to detain contagious patients during a state of emergency.The bill is Assembly Bill 416. While it's making the rounds on social media now, it was originally proposed in 2015 during the Ebola outbreak and has never once been heard by committee. It has been introduced in the 2015-2016, 2017-2018, 2019-2020 legislative sessions, and the current session.The bill is described as:“An act to amend the public health law, in relation to the removal of cases, contacts and carriers of communicable diseases who are potentially dangerous to the public health.”The bill goes on to read:Upon determining by clear and convincing evidence that the health of others is or may be endangered by a case, contact or carrier, or suspected case, contact or carrier of a contagious disease that, in the opinion of the governor, after consultation with the commissioner, may pose an imminent and significant threat to the public health resulting in severe morbidity or high mortality, the governor or his or her delegee, including, but not limited to the commissioner or the heads of local health departments, may order the removal and/or detention of such a person or of a group of such persons by issuing a single order, identifying such persons either by name or by a reasonably specific description of the individuals or group being detained. Such person or group of persons shall be detained in a medical facility or other appropriate facility or premises designated by the governor or his or her delegee.-a416 The wording of this bill worries lawmakers like Assemblyman Steve Hawley, a Republican from Batavia.“Protecting the health of our neighbors is a noble goal to be certain, but this bill forfeits our constitutional liberty in a way we can never allow,” said Hawley in a media release.“In my opinion, just introducing these bills creates a negative impact that ultimately harms the effort to get our state past the pandemic, safely,” said Senator George Borello, a Republican who represents, Chautauqua, Cattaraugus and Allegany counties.The bill was introduced by Assemblyman Nick Perry from Brooklyn. The bill was written in 2015 after a woman refused to quarantine after working closely with patients who had Ebola.Perry wrote this on his Facebook page on Sunday regarding a416:“Somewhere in the future there may be the need for people to protect from a person or persons carrying a very deadly and transmittable virus, and this bill is designed to ensure that our government could lawfully act protect all the people.I am open to amendments that would address real concerns raised by critics and will quite happily accept suggestions that will improve the bill in regard to concerns to constitutional rights.”Assemblyman Nick Perry-The governor is specifically mentioned in the bill as having power to detain contagious patients.According to an adviser of Governor Andrew Cuomo, the governor never knew this bill existed.“It apparently is six years old, has no Senate sponsor and has never moved out of committee. We have real problems to focus on and I urge the crazy uncles who are fueling this cut rate Qanon – and the politicians pandering to them -- to knock it off, turn off Proud Boy Twitter and take a walk or something,” wrote Rich Azzopardi Senior Advisor to the Governor.To get a sense of just how many bills are proposed and never make it out of committee, in the 2019-2020 session 7,982 assembly bills didn’t make it out of committee. In the New York State Senate, 6,098 didn’t make it out of committee. In that same time period, 753 bills were signed into law by Governor Andrew Cuomo.


A00416 Text:

                STATE OF NEW YORK
        ________________________________________________________________________
 
                                           416
 
                               2021-2022 Regular Sessions
 
                   IN ASSEMBLY
 
                                       (Prefiled)
 
                                     January 6, 2021
                                       ___________
 
        Introduced  by M. of A. PERRY -- read once and referred to the Committee
          on Health
 
        AN ACT to amend the public health law, in relation  to  the  removal  of
          cases,  contacts  and carriers of communicable diseases who are poten-
          tially dangerous to the public health

          The People of the State of New York, represented in Senate and  Assem-
        bly, do enact as follows:
 
     1    Section  1.  The  public health law is amended by adding a new section
     2  2120-a to read as follows:
     3    § 2120-a. Removal and detention of cases, contacts  and  carriers  who
     4  are or may be a danger to public health; other orders. 1. The provisions
     5  of  this  section  shall  be  utilized  in  the  event that the governor
     6  declares a state of health emergency due to an epidemic of any  communi-
     7  cable disease.
     8    2.  Upon  determining by clear and convincing evidence that the health
     9  of others is or may be endangered by a  case,  contact  or  carrier,  or
    10  suspected  case, contact or carrier of a contagious disease that, in the
    11  opinion of the governor, after consultation with the  commissioner,  may
    12  pose  an  imminent and significant threat to the public health resulting
    13  in severe morbidity or high mortality, the governor or his or her  dele-
    14  gee,  including,  but  not  limited  to the commissioner or the heads of
    15  local health departments, may order the removal and/or detention of such
    16  a person or of a group of such persons by issuing a single order,  iden-
    17  tifying  such  persons  either  by  name  or  by  a  reasonably specific
    18  description of the individuals or group being detained. Such  person  or
    19  group of persons shall be detained in a medical facility or other appro-
    20  priate  facility  or  premises  designated by the governor or his or her
    21  delegee and complying with subdivision five of this section.
    22    3. A person or group removed or detained by order of the  governor  or
    23  his  or her delegee pursuant to subdivision two of this section shall be
 
         EXPLANATION--Matter in italics (underscored) is new; matter in brackets
                              [ ] is old law to be omitted.
                                                                   LBD04443-01-1

        A. 416                              2
 
     1  detained for such period and in such manner as the department may direct
     2  in accordance with this section.
     3    4. Notwithstanding any inconsistent provision of this section:
     4    (a) A confirmed case or a carrier who is detained pursuant to subdivi-
     5  sion  two  of  this  section shall not continue to be detained after the
     6  department determines that such person is no longer contagious.
     7    (b) A suspected case or suspected carrier who is detained pursuant  to
     8  subdivision  two of this section shall not continue to be detained after
     9  the department determines, with the exercise of due diligence, that such
    10  person is not infected with or has not been exposed to such  a  disease,
    11  or  if  infected with or exposed to such a disease, no longer is or will
    12  become contagious.
    13    (c) A person who is detained  pursuant  to  subdivision  two  of  this
    14  section as a contact of a confirmed case or a carrier shall not continue
    15  to  be  detained  after the department determines that the person is not
    16  infected with the disease or that such  contact  no  longer  presents  a
    17  potential danger to the health of others.
    18    (d)  A  person  who  is  detained  pursuant to subdivision two of this
    19  section as a contact of a  suspected  case  shall  not  continue  to  be
    20  detained:
    21    (i)  after  the  department determines, with the exercise of due dili-
    22  gence, that the suspected case was not infected with such a disease,  or
    23  was  not contagious at the time the contact was exposed to such individ-
    24  ual; or
    25    (ii) after the  department  determines  that  the  contact  no  longer
    26  presents a potential danger to the health of others.
    27    5.  A  person  who  is  detained  pursuant  to subdivision two of this
    28  section shall, as is appropriate to the circumstances:
    29    (a) have his or her medical condition and needs assessed and addressed
    30  on a regular basis, and
    31    (b) be detained  in  a  manner  that  is  consistent  with  recognized
    32  isolation  and  infection  control  principles  in order to minimize the
    33  likelihood of transmission of infection to such person and to others.
    34    6. When a person or group is ordered to be detained pursuant to subdi-
    35  vision two of this section for a period  not  exceeding  three  business
    36  days,  such  person  or  member  of  such  group shall, upon request, be
    37  afforded an opportunity to be heard.  If  a  person  or  group  detained
    38  pursuant  to subdivision two of this section needs to be detained beyond
    39  three business days, they shall be provided with an  additional  commis-
    40  sioner's order pursuant to subdivisions two and eight of this section.
    41    7. When a person or group is ordered to be detained pursuant to subdi-
    42  vision  two  of this section for a period exceeding three business days,
    43  and such person or member of such group requests release,  the  governor
    44  or  his  or  her  delegee  shall  make  an application for a court order
    45  authorizing such detention within three business days after such request
    46  by the end of the first business day following such Saturday, Sunday, or
    47  legal holiday, which application shall include a request  for  an  expe-
    48  dited  hearing.  After any such request for release, detention shall not
    49  continue for more than five business days in  the  absence  of  a  court
    50  order  authorizing  detention. Notwithstanding the foregoing provisions,
    51  in no event shall any person be detained for more than sixty days  with-
    52  out a court order authorizing such detention. The governor or his or her
    53  delegee  shall seek further court review of such detention within ninety
    54  days following the initial court order authorizing detention and  there-
    55  after  within  ninety days of each subsequent court review. In any court
    56  proceeding to enforce an order of the governor or his or her delegee for

        A. 416                              3
 
     1  the removal or detention of a person or group issued  pursuant  to  this
     2  subdivision  or  for  review  of  the continued detention of a person or
     3  group, the governor or his or her delegee shall prove the particularized
     4  circumstances constituting the necessity for such detention by clear and
     5  convincing evidence.
     6    8.  (a)  A  copy  of any detention order of the governor or his or her
     7  delegee issued pursuant to subdivision two  of  this  section  shall  be
     8  given  to  each  detained individual; however, if the order applies to a
     9  group of individuals and it is impractical to provide individual copies,
    10  it may be posted in a conspicuous place in the detention  premises.  Any
    11  detention  order  of the commissioner issued pursuant to subdivision two
    12  of this section shall set forth:
    13    (i) the purpose of the detention and the legal authority  under  which
    14  the  order  is issued, including the particular sections of this article
    15  or other law or regulation;
    16    (ii) a  description  of  the  circumstances  and/or  behavior  of  the
    17  detained  person or group constituting the basis for the issuance of the
    18  order;
    19    (iii) the less restrictive alternatives that were attempted  and  were
    20  unsuccessful  and/or the less restrictive alternatives that were consid-
    21  ered and rejected, and the reasons such alternatives were rejected;
    22    (iv) a notice advising the person or group being  detained  that  they
    23  have   a   right  to  request  release  from  detention,  and  including
    24  instructions on how such request shall be made;
    25    (v) a notice advising the person or group  being  detained  that  they
    26  have a right to be represented by legal counsel and that upon request of
    27  such person or group access to counsel will be facilitated to the extent
    28  feasible under the circumstances; and
    29    (vi)  a  notice  advising the person or group being detained that they
    30  may supply the addresses and/or  telephone  numbers  of  friends  and/or
    31  relatives  to  receive  notification of the person's detention, and that
    32  the department shall, at the detained person's request and to the extent
    33  feasible, provide notice to a reasonable number of such people that  the
    34  person is being detained.
    35    (b)  In  addition,  an  order  issued pursuant to subdivisions two and
    36  seven of this section, requiring the detention of a person or group  for
    37  a period exceeding three business days, shall:
    38    (i) advise the person or group being detained that the detention shall
    39  not  continue  for  more  than  five  business  days after a request for
    40  release has been made in the absence of a court order  authorizing  such
    41  detention;
    42    (ii)  advise  the  person or group being detained that, whether or not
    43  they request release from detention, the governor or his or her  delegee
    44  must  obtain  a  court  order  authorizing  detention  within sixty days
    45  following the commencement of detention and thereafter must further seek
    46  court review of the detention within ninety days of such court order and
    47  within ninety days of each subsequent court review; and
    48    (iii) advise the person or group being detained  that  they  have  the
    49  right  to request that legal counsel be provided, that upon such request
    50  counsel shall be provided if  and  to  the  extent  possible  under  the
    51  circumstances,  and  that  if  counsel is so provided, that such counsel
    52  will be notified that the person or group has requested legal  represen-
    53  tation.
    54    9.  A person who is detained in a medical facility, or other appropri-
    55  ate facility or premises, shall not conduct  himself  or  herself  in  a

        A. 416                              4
 
     1  disorderly manner, and shall not leave or attempt to leave such facility
     2  or premises until he or she is discharged pursuant to this section.
     3    10.  Where  necessary  and  feasible under the circumstances, language
     4  interpreters and persons skilled in communicating with vision and  hear-
     5  ing impaired individuals shall be provided.
     6    11.  The provisions of this section shall not apply to the issuance of
     7  orders pursuant to § 11.21 of the New York City Health Code.
     8    12. In addition to the removal or  detention  orders  referred  to  in
     9  subdivision  two  of this section, and without affecting or limiting any
    10  other authority that the commissioner may otherwise have,  the  governor
    11  or  his  or  her  delegee  may, in his or her discretion, issue and seek
    12  enforcement of any other orders that he or she determines are  necessary
    13  or  appropriate  to  prevent dissemination or transmission of contagious
    14  diseases or other illnesses that may pose a threat to the public  health
    15  including,  but  not  limited to, orders requiring any person or persons
    16  who are not in the custody of the department to be excluded;  to  remain
    17  isolated or quarantined at home or at a premises of such person's choice
    18  that  is  acceptable to the department and under such conditions and for
    19  such period as will prevent transmission of the  contagious  disease  or
    20  other  illness; to require the testing or medical examination of persons
    21  who may have been exposed to or infected by a contagious disease or  who
    22  may  have  been  exposed  to  or  contaminated with dangerous amounts of
    23  radioactive materials or toxic chemicals; to require an  individual  who
    24  has  been  exposed to or infected by a contagious disease to complete an
    25  appropriate, prescribed course of treatment,  preventive  medication  or
    26  vaccination,  including  directly  observed therapy to treat the disease
    27  and follow infection control provisions for the disease; or  to  require
    28  an individual who has been contaminated with dangerous amounts of radio-
    29  active  materials or toxic chemicals such that said individual may pres-
    30  ent a danger to others, to  undergo  decontamination  procedures  deemed
    31  necessary  by  the  department.    Such  person  or  persons shall, upon
    32  request, be afforded an opportunity to be heard, but the  provisions  of
    33  subdivisions  two  through  eleven  of  this section shall not otherwise
    34  apply.
    35    13. The provisions of this section shall not be construed to permit or
    36  require the forcible administration of any medication  without  a  prior
    37  court order.
    38    §  2.  This  act shall take effect on the thirtieth day after it shall
    39  have become a law. Effective immediately the addition, amendment  and/or
    40  repeal  of  any  rule  or regulation necessary for the implementation of
    41  this act on its effective date are authorized to be made  and  completed
    42  on or before such date.

WATCH-CATCH ON TAPE-THE ANTIFA-BLM-PAID OFF RIOTERS BY THE DNC-DEMOLIBNUTS-AND SPREAD AROUND THE NET QUICK.

JEWISH KING JESUS IS COMING AT THE RAPTURE FOR US IN THE CLOUDS-DON'T MISS IT FOR THE WORLD.THE BIBLE TAKEN LITERALLY- WHEN THE PLAIN SENSE MAKES GOOD SENSE-SEEK NO OTHER SENSE-LEST YOU END UP IN NONSENSE.GET SAVED NOW- CALL ON JESUS TODAY.THE ONLY SAVIOR OF THE WHOLE EARTH - NO OTHER. 1 COR 15:23-JESUS THE FIRST FRUITS-CHRISTIANS RAPTURED TO JESUS-FIRST FRUITS OF THE SPIRIT-23 But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ’s at his coming.ROMANS 8:23 And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.(THE PRE-TRIB RAPTURE)

 2020 AMERICAN ELECTION RESULTS BY STATE TRUMP VS LOSER LIBERAL SLEEPY (SLOPPY JOE) BIDEN.

ON D-74 OF THE TRUMP WIN OF THE PRESIDENCY. SAT JAN 16, 21.

January 20 — Inauguration Day. The new presidential term begins at noon.

UNTIL AFTER THE ELECTION I WILL DO THE COVID-19 TOTALS HERE.
WORLD OVER ALL CASES 94,433,200 DEAD 2,020,385 AS OF SAT JAN 16,2021

OK CHRISTIANS AND TRUMP SUPPORTERS. WE HAVE TO WATCH AND FILM ANYBODY LIBERALS-ANTIFA-BLACK LIVES MATTER WHOS A DEMOLIB AROUND YOU. STARTING TODAY THE HITLER CNN AND MEDIA CLAIM THE RIOTING WILL BEGIN. IN STATE CAPITALS. WE HAVE TO CATCH THESE DEMOLIBNUTS SETING UP AND PAYING OFF THE RIOTERS AROUND AMERICA. TO BLAME THE TRUMP SUPPORTERS. SO WATCH-OBSERVE AND CAPTURE THESE DEMOLIB CRIMINALS ON TAPE TO GET AROUND THE WORLD QUICK. AND STOP THESE DEMOLIB PAID OFF ANTIFA-BLACK LIVES MATTER-ANTISEMETIC TRUMP HATERS FROM SETTING UP THE FALSE FLAGE AGAINST TRUMP SUPPORTERS AND CHRISTIANS. THE HITLER PROPAGANDA MEDIA WILL TELLING THE PROTESTERS WERE TO GO AND WHAT TO DO OVER THE AIR. SO WERE EVER THE MEDIA SAYS THE PROTESTERS WILL BE. KEEP YOUR EYES OPEN AND CAMERAS RUNNING. CATCH THESE DEMOLIB NUTS PAID OFF FAKE RIOT MOB OF RIGHT WING DOMESTIC EXTREMISTS ON TAPE AND SPREAD AROUND THE NET QUICK. 

 

 MAYOR STEVE ADLER SAID THE AUSTIN TEXAS STATE CAPITAL IS CLOSED FROM TODAY TILL WED AFTER THE FAKE-ILLEGAL INAUGURATION. AND ALSO THE LAME-BRAIN-LAME-STREAM HITLER PROPAGANDA EXTREMIST RIOT PERMOTING MEDIA CNN AND LEFT-NUT CASES. ARE NOW TRYING TO DESTROY AND ARE JELOUS OF MIKE LINDELL OF MY PILLOWS.COM. BECAUSE HES TRUMPS FRIEND. AND TRUMP YESTERDAY ALLOWED MIKE TO MEET WITH HIM AT THE WHITEHOUSE AND TALK ABOUT HOW THE DNC AND DEMOLIBNUTS FIXED THE ELECTION BY VOTER FRAUD AGAINST TRUMPY. NOW PILOSI IS CALLING FOR OTHER REPUBLICAN LAWMAKERS TO BE CHARGED. THE OTHER 2 THEY CLAIM SAID RHETORIC AT THE RALLY AND PROTEST A WEEK AND A HALF AGO. THE DEMONUTS ARE GOING TO CHARGE LAWMAKERS $5,000 FOR 1ST OFFENCE OF NOT GOING THREW THE METAL DETECTERS AT THE WHITEHOUSE NOW. AND 10,000 FOR A SECOND OFFENCE. ALREADY ANY ONE WHO DOES NOT WEAR A FACE MASK GETS A 1,000 FINE. TAKIN OUT THEIR PAY.   

Norway urgently changes Covid vaccine guidance after 23 die in days following Pfizer jab-NORWAY has reported 23 elderly people have died just days after taking the COVID-19 vaccine.By Steven Brown-Sat, Jan 16, 2021 | UPDATED: 00:31, Sat, Jan 16, 2021

The European nation reported that 23 elderly people have died within days of taking the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine, with 13 of those deaths said to be related to "side effects". All those who suffered supposed side effects were nursing home patients and at least 80 years old.Despite the deaths, health officials have not expressed concern but instead plan to adjust their guidance on who should receive the vaccine.Steinar Madsen, medical director with the Norwegian Medicines Agency, said: "It is quite clear that these vaccines have very little risk, with a small exception for the frailest patients."Doctors must now carefully consider who should be vaccinated."Those who are very frail and at the very end of life can be vaccinated after an individual assessment.”Pharmaceutical firm Pfizer - whose vaccine is also being distributed in the UK - said it is “aware of the reported deaths”.A spokeswoman for the company said: "Norwegian authorities have prioritised the immunisation of residents in nursing homes, most of whom are very elderly with underlying medical conditions and some which are terminally ill."(The Norwegian Medicine Agency confirms) the number of incidents so far is not alarming, and in line with expectations."All reported deaths will be thoroughly evaluated by (the agency) to determine if these incidents are related to the vaccine. “The Norwegian government will also consider adjusting their vaccination instructions to take the patients’ health into more consideration."Besides those that died, nine had suffered serious side effects including allergic reactions, strong discomfort and severe fever.Seven had less serious ones such as pain at the injection site. Norway have reported more than 57,000 cases and 500 coronavirus-related deaths so far. Pfizer told Norway it would receive 18 percent fewer doses than expected next week, according to Geir Bukholm, director of infection control at NIPH.“This temporary reduction will affect all European countries,” he said. “It is as yet not precisely clear how long time it will take before Pfizer is up to maximum production capacity again.”In the UK, the Government has issued guidance on potential side effects of the Pfizer jab.On cdc.gov, they wrote: “These side effects usually start within a day or two of getting the vaccine. “They might feel like flu symptoms and might even affect your ability to do daily activities, but they should go away in a few days.”These symptoms include pain, swelling and redness in the arm which got the shot as well as chills, tiredness and headaches.The Pfizer/BioNtech vaccine - much like the Oxford/AstraZeneca jab - requires two doses.IT was the first vaccine to be approved in the UK. Pfizer has said it has tested the vaccine's efficacy only when the two vaccines were given up to 21 days apart.But the chief medical officers said the "great majority" of initial protection came from the first jab.They said: “The second vaccine dose is likely to be very important for duration of protection, and at an appropriate dose interval may further increase vaccine efficacy."In the short term, the additional increase of vaccine efficacy from the second dose is likely to be modest; the great majority of the initial protection from clinical disease is after the first dose of vaccine."

Trump-backing pillow salesman visits White House, suggests declaring martial law-Mike Lindell photographed with documents floating using Insurrection Act, later says he believes he has proof China helped steal the 2020 election-By TOI staff and Agencies-JAN 16,21-Today, 5:27 pm

Republican donor and pillow salesman Mike Lindell, an ally of outgoing US President Donald Trump who has pushed baseless accusations of fraud in the 2020 election, was photographed at the White House Friday with documents floating the possibility of declaring martial law in the final days of Trump’s presidency.Zoomed in photos of a document held in Lindell’s hand as he visited the West Wing showed text fragments that included the words “…BE TAKEN IMMEDIATELY TO SAVE THE…THE CONSTITUTION,” as well as “Insurrection Act now as a result of the assault on the…” and “…martial law if necessary upon the first hint of any…”Lindell later told the Daily Beast he had presented the president with documents he believed proved China and other countries had helped steal the election.He said Trump had told him to show his documents to attorneys, who rejected the claims but also said they would “look into it.”@MyPillowUSA CEO Michael Lindell shows off his notes before going into the West Wing at the White House on Friday, Jan 15, 2021 in Washington, DC. pic.twitter.com/AY6AyJNSyE— Jabin Botsford (@jabinbotsford) January 15, 2021-In the wake of the election, which he has repeatedly claimed was stolen from him despite no evidence to support this, and despite multiple courts rejecting all such claims, Trump has increasingly surrounded himself with a band of extreme loyalists, including former national security adviser Michael Flynn and attorney Sidney Powell. Flynn has also suggested the possibility of declaring martial law as the president fights to overturn the election results.Lindell has no credentials beyond being the owner of the My Pillow brand. On Friday he posted on Facebook: “Keep the faith everyone! We will have our president Donald Trump 4 more years!”President-elect Joe Biden is set to be sworn in on Wednesday, January 20. Amid fears of violence, governors across the US are calling out National Guard troops, declaring states of emergency and closing their capitols to the public.State officials hope to avoid the type of violence that occurred January 6, when a mob of Trump supporters stormed the US Capitol, leaving a Capitol Police officer and four others dead.The FBI has warned of the potential for violence at all state capitols and has said it is tracking an “extensive amount of concerning online chatter,” including calls for armed protests.Governors across the country are sending thousands of National Guard troops to Washington, DC, where the National Mall has been closed to the general public as part of an intense security effort.Meanwhile, Trump is expected to leave Washington Wednesday morning just before Biden’s inauguration to begin his post-presidential life in Florida.Refusing to abide by tradition and participate in the ceremonial transfer of power, Trump will instead hold his own departure ceremony at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland before his final flight aboard Air Force One.Officials are considering an elaborate send-off event reminiscent of the receptions he’s received during state visits abroad, complete with a red carpet, color guard, military band and even a 21-gun salute, according to a person familiar with the planning who spoke on condition of anonymity ahead of a formal announcement.Trump will become only the fourth president in history to boycott his successor’s inauguration. And while he has said he is now committed to a peaceful transition of power — after months of trying to delegitimize Biden’s victory with baseless allegations of mass voter fraud and spurring on his supporters who stormed the Capitol — he has made clear he has no interest in making a show of it.He has not invited the Bidens to the White House for the traditional bread-breaking, nor has he spoken with Biden by phone. Vice President Mike Pence has spoken with his successor, Vice President-elect Kamala Harris, calling her on Thursday to congratulate her and offer assistance, according to two people familiar with the call. Pence will be attending Biden’s inauguration, a move Biden has welcomed.While Trump spends the final days of his presidency ensconced in the White House, more isolated than ever as he confronts the fallout from the Capitol riot, staffers are already heading out the door. Many have already departed, including those who resigned after the attack, while others have been busy packing up their offices and moving out personal belongings.Trump will leave Washington with his future deeply uncertain, two weeks after his supporters sent lawmakers and congressional staffers scrambling for safety as they tried to halt the peaceful transition of power. While Trump was once expected to leave office as the most powerful voice in the Republican Party and the leading contender for its 2024 nomination, he has been shunned by much of the party over his response to the violence.His encouragement of the mob led the US House this week to impeach him for “incitement of insurrection,” and made him the first US president to be impeached twice. A Senate trial is expected after he leaves office.

Investigators probing if US Capitol attack was planned with help from insiders-Some attackers appeared organized as videos and online communications point to possible plots; Pelosi says any lawmakers who aided intruders will face consequences-By Paul Handley-JAN 16,21-Today, 5:30 am

AFP — Attackers in organized columns, a woman shouting instructions on a megaphone, and suspicious tours the day before: investigators are probing the possibility that the January 6 attack on the US Capitol was planned, with help from insiders.Disturbing videos, photos and online communications point to potential conspiracy.In one video, more than a dozen men wearing assault force-type garb push up the Capitol steps in a line, cutting through the dense crowd toward the building’s doors.In another, a woman in a pink hat gives directions via megaphone to others inside the building, telling them where to go.And several men, including two who made it inside the Senate chamber, carried zip ties that could be used to restrain hostages.Some officials said many of the pro-Trump protestors who broke into the offices of top legislators like House Speaker Nancy Pelosi appeared to know how to navigate the maze-like Capitol.“They knew where to go,” senior Democrat James Clyburn told CBS News. “Yes, somebody on the inside of those buildings were complicit in this.”‘Breadcrumbs’ of organization-Prosecutors have arrested dozens so far and say more than 200 could be charged. But they have not used the words “conspiracy” or “plot” to describe the unprecedented assault on the US legislature.Michael Sherwin, the Washington federal prosecutor overseeing the investigation, said Friday they see “breadcrumbs of organization” including communications between those inside the building and outside.He said it was a “Tier 1 top priority” for law enforcement to determine if there was an “overarching command and control” and “organized teams” in the breach of the Capitol.“This is going to take weeks if not months to find out the actual motivations of some of these groups,” he said.But, he added, “There is no direct evidence at this point of kill-capture teams and assassinations,” he said.‘Reconnaissance’ the day before-Analysts say much of the activity on January 6 was chaotic, disorganized and more typical of a spontaneous riot.But Representative Mikie Sherrill said Wednesday that groups of Trump supporters had toured the Capitol for “reconnaissance” a day before the attack, calling the visits “suspicious.”The visitors “could only have gained access to the Capitol Complex from a Member of Congress or a member of their staff,” the former Navy helicopter pilot and other lawmakers said in a letter to Capitol security.“The ties between these groups inside the Capitol Complex and the attacks on the Capitol need to be investigated.”-Taking the building-Much focus is on one video. In it, several protestors inside a Capitol room are regrouping to figure out where to go after their initial success entering the building.The woman with the bullhorn shouts from just outside through a broken window.“Hey guys, I’ve been in the other room,” she says. “In the other room on the other side of this door right here where you are standing, there is a glass that somebody, if it’s broken, you can drop down into a room underneath it.”“There’s also two doors in the other room. One in the rear, and one to the right as you go in,” she says. “So people should probably coordinate together if you’re going to take this building.”Yet, that doesn’t add up to a sweeping conspiracy or cogent plan.Matthew Feldman of the Center for Analysis of the Radical Right in Britain said that’s typical of political violence.At the moment, with limited evidence on communications and other links, he said, “It is impossible to establish causality.”Those people who made up the herd did not appear organized, but within them clearly there were people who were organized.”At the same time, he noted that the crowd included members of the violent Three Percenters, Oath Keepers and Proud Boys, some who traveled to Washington from as far as Hawaii.Their presence, the discovery of pipe bombs planted nearby, and the apparent threats to capture members of Congress or the vice president, were signs of “terror” plotting, he said.“You had a riotous mob… and within that you had domestic terrorists” who were “clearly planning something.”Pelosi on Friday added fuel to the idea that there was planning and coordination, without saying how far it could go.“Justice is called for as we address insurrection perpetrated against the Capitol last week,” Pelosi said.“If, in fact, it is found that members of Congress were accomplices to this insurrection, if they aided and abetted the crime, there may have to be actions taken beyond the Congress in terms of prosecution for that,” she said.

States declare emergencies, close capitols amid threats of inauguration violence-Governors call in National Guard troops, put up fences, issue warnings ahead of expected demonstrations-By DAVID A. LIEB-JAN 16,21-Today, 2:43 am 1

AP — Responding to warnings of potentially violent demonstrations, governors across the US are calling out National Guard troops, declaring states of emergency and closing their capitols to the public ahead of President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration next week.Though details remain murky, demonstrations are expected at state capitols beginning Sunday and leading up to Biden’s succession of US President Donald Trump on Wednesday. State officials hope to avoid the type of violence that occurred January 6, when a mob of Trump supporters stormed the US Capitol, leaving a Capitol Police officer and four others dead.The FBI has warned of the potential for violence at all state capitols and has said it is tracking an “extensive amount of concerning online chatter,” including calls for armed protests.Governors across the country are sending thousands of National Guard troops to Washington, DC, where the National Mall has been closed to the general public as part of an intense security effort. More than a dozen governors also have called out the Guard to protect their own state capitols and aid local law enforcement officers.“We are prepared for the worst, but we remain hopeful that those who choose to demonstrate at our Capitol do so peacefully, without violence or destruction of property,” Michigan State Police Col. Joe Gasper said Friday, as Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer announced the Guard’s role.Crews installed a six-foot fence around the Michigan Capitol ahead of expected protests, and ground-level windows were boarded up at a nearby building that houses the governor’s office. Gasper said an increased state police presence would remain at the statehouse at least through mid-February.Armed civilians stand on the steps of the Michigan state capitol building after a rally in support of US President Donald Trump in Lansing, Michigan, January 6, 2021. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya)-Some windows also were boarded at capitols in Wisconsin and Illinois, both of which activated the National Guard to help with security. Though the Wisconsin Capitol already was closed to the public because of the coronavirus, Democratic Governor Tony Evers’ administration told those who had been coming into the Capitol to instead work remotely for the rest of the month.Law enforcement officials were reducing parking around the capitol building in Madison this weekend and urging people to avoid the area as they braced for potential unrest. There was only one known organized event for the day, an anti-fascist demonstration where free food, drinks and clothes were to be distributed.California Governor Gavin Newsom is mobilizing up to 1,000 National Guard members over concerns of civil unrest. State officials on Thursday erected a chain link fence around the Capitol, bolstering other temporary and permanent barriers. The California Highway Patrol is refusing to issue permits for rallies at the Capitol.“We’re treating this very seriously and deploying significant resources to protect public safety, critical infrastructure and First Amendment Rights,” Newsom said in a video message. “But let me be clear: There will be no tolerance for violence.”Other governors were encouraging people to stay away from capitol buildings during the coming days. Ohio Governor Mike DeWine, a Republican, closed the Capitol until after Biden’s inauguration and activated hundreds of National Guard members. Indiana Governor Eric Holcomb, a Republican, said Friday that officials “decided to err on the side of caution” and close the Capitol from Monday through Wednesday.Citing the possibility of armed protests, Kansas Governor Laura Kelly on Friday began a one-week restriction on public access to the Capitol. Only those who have business with the Legislature or governor’s office will be allowed inside, and they will have to provide an email showing they have a meeting or are testifying to a legislative committee.Kelly and Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf closed their Capitol buildings for a couple days next week, coinciding with the presidential inauguration. The Pennsylvania Capitol complex already had been closed to the general public because of the coronavirus pandemic, but the new order advises state employees who work in person to take off Tuesday and Wednesday; Monday is the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday.“While we are not aware of any specific threats at this time, we want to act with an abundance of caution to keep employees safe,” Wolf’s administration said on its website.Uncertainty heading into the weekend was a common theme among state officials and law enforcement officers. Many were enhancing security based on past demonstrations or general warnings but without specific expectations about how many protesters, if any, would show up outside state capitol buildings in the coming days.The National Guard is supplementing security at Washington’s capitol, where people broke a gate and entered the grounds of the governor’s mansion last week. But Washington State Patrol spokesman Chris Loftis said Friday that there are “no known explicit threats” detailing the time, place and action of future demonstrations.“We cannot be dismissive of the possible dangers but we should not be alarmists either,” Loftis said in an email to media. The state patrol “has been directed to meet this discomforting uncertainty with caution, preparedness, resolve, and calm — certainly, a wise course of action for all.”Legislatures in several states, including Indiana and Michigan, also were canceling or limiting their work next week.Oregon’s Legislature will convene Tuesday. But the House and Senate have canceled floor sessions and committee hearings, and there will be no in-person meetings. Senate President Peter Courtney, a Democrat from Salem, said the decision was made after consulting with police. Last month, a violent crowd entered the Oregon Capitol, fought with police and damaged the building.The Republican-led South Carolina House and Senate won’t convene in full session next Tuesday or Wednesday, and committees will meet virtually. The Capitol building will be closed from Saturday through Wednesday “out of an abundance of caution,” state and local authorities said in a joint statement.Republican leaders of the Missouri House also canceled session for next week. Though several House members had expressed security concerns following the unrest in the nation’s capitol, a written statement from GOP leadership cited a rising number of COVID-19 cases in the Capitol building as a reason for the cancellation.Governors in Maryland, New Mexico and Utah all declared states of emergency ahead of potential demonstrations. Fencing was installed in a wide radius around the New Mexico Capitol. Utah’s order allows authorities to close the Capitol grounds through next Thursday, the day after Biden’s inauguration.“We respect the right of Utah residents to peaceably assemble as guaranteed in the US Constitution,” Utah Governor Spencer Cox, a Republican, said in a statement. “But we draw the line at threats to physical safety or to the Utah Capitol building. No violence of any kind will be tolerated.”

Explainer-What you need to know ahead of a very different presidential inauguration-Amid pandemic and threats of violence, Biden’s swearing-in on January 20 will be one of the most unusual in American history, but will still feature many of the traditional staples-By ASHRAF KHALIL-JAN 16,21-Today, 8:08 pm

WASHINGTON (AP) — Between the still-raging pandemic and suddenly very real threat of violence, the inauguration of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris next Wednesday at 12 p.m. (EST) promises to be one of the most unusual in American history.Here’s what we know:Can I attend? Probably not.DC Mayor Muriel Bowser is flat-out telling people to stay home. Airbnb says it is canceling all reservations to prevent people from coming to the capital. Local activists are calling for Bowser to close down all hotels, but she has declined to go that far. Downtown roads and metro stations will be closed and authorities are so determined to keep people away that they’ve considered closing all the bridges from Virginia.Capitol Police guard the US Capitol in Washington, January 15, 2021, ahead of the inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)-What’s going to be different? Almost everything!The outgoing president traditionally attends the inauguration to symbolize the peaceful transfer of power. But Donald Trump, who falsely claimed that the election was riddled with fraud, has refused to be there. Vice President Mike Pence plans to attend.Forget a parade with crowds of people cheering on the new president and vice president. And there will be no inaugural balls for Biden, Harris and their spouses to dance the night away.Planners had originally sought to retain some time-honored aspects of a normal inauguration, just less crowded and within the boundaries of COVID-19 protocols. But in the wake of the violent January 6 mob attack on the Capitol by Trump supporters, all semblance of normality might be gone.Downtown Washington DC has been turned into an armed camp. The National Mall is sealed to the public and the Washington Monument has shut down. 21,000 National Guard troops will be on the job on January 20, alongside DC police and multiple federal law enforcement agencies.What’s going to be the same? Like their predecessors, Biden and Harris will take their oaths of office outside the Capitol Building. Jennifer Lopez will perform and Lady Gaga will sing the national anthem. Biden, according to the inauguration website, will give a speech to the nation, “laying out his vision to defeat the pandemic, build back better, and unify and heal the nation.”Afterwards, Biden and Harris will complete the traditional “Pass in Review” inspection of troops from all service branches, a ritual that symbolizes the peaceful transfer of power to a new Commander in Chief.Biden, first lady Jill Biden, Harris and second gentlemen Douglas Emhoff will later visit Arlington National Cemetery to lay a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. They will be joined by former presidents and first ladies Barack and Michelle Obama, George W. and Laura Bush, and Bill and Hillary Clinton.Then-US Vice President Joe Biden lays a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknowns, November 11, 2014, at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Virginia. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)-So what events are there? Planners have laid out several days of shows, presentations and virtual events, including:Saturday January 16 at 7 p.m. (EST): “America United” — a welcoming event featuring musical performances and celebrity appearances.Sunday January 17 at 8 p.m. (EST): “We the People” — a virtual concert hosted by Keegan-Michael Key and Debra Messing.    Monday January 18: A national day of service and volunteerism to coincide the Martin Luther King Jr. Day. At 8 p.m. (EST), an MLK-themed special will be broadcast.Tuesday January 19 at 5:30 p.m. (EST): A memorial ceremony to pay tribute to those killed by COVID-19. The ceremony will include illuminating buildings, ringing church bells around the nation and a lighting ceremony at the Lincoln Memorial’s reflecting pool.Wednesday January 20 at 8:30 p.m. (EST): Tom Hanks will host a 90-minute prime time special with remarks from Biden and Harris and performances by Justin Timberlake, Jon Bon Jovi and Demi Lovato.Lady Gaga performs during a drive-in rally for Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden at Heinz Field, November 2, 2020, in Pittsburgh. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)-Will there be violence? The inauguration comes just two weeks after the insurrection at the Capitol by Trump supporters as Congress was confirming Biden’s victory.Law enforcement officials insist they won’t be caught flat-footed this time and the FBI has warned of armed protests and potential attacks being planned by militant Trump supporters in DC and in every state capital.Tensions will be high through January 20 and beyond. Officials warned on Friday that the increased fortification of the Capitol and White House could drive potential insurgents to seek out softer targets in DC or elsewhere around the country.

E3: Iran making uranium metal, a nuke component, has ‘grave military’ potential-Britain, France and Germany say Tehran has ‘no credible civilian use’ for the material, which it says it is now researching in breach of nuclear deal-By Agencies and TOI staff-JAN 16,21-Today, 4:16 pm

BERLIN, Germany — European powers on Saturday voiced deep concern over Iran’s plans to produce uranium metal, warning that Tehran has “no credible civilian use” for the element.“The production of uranium metal has potentially grave military implications,” said the foreign ministers of Britain, France and Germany, the so-called E3, in a joint statement.Uranium metal can be used as a component in nuclear weapons. Iran had signed up to a 15-year ban on “producing or acquiring plutonium or uranium metals or their alloys” under the so-called Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) signed in 2015 with world powers.“We strongly urge Iran to halt this activity, and return to compliance with its JCPOA commitments without further delay if it is serious about preserving the deal,” said the ministers.Their call came after Iran told the UN nuclear watchdog on Wednesday that it was advancing research on uranium metal production, saying it is aimed at providing advanced fuel for a research reactor in Tehran.File: In this photo released on Wednesday, Nov. 6, 2019, a truck containing a cylinder of uranium hexafluoride gas leaves Ahmadi Roshan uranium enrichment facility in Natanz to the Fordo nuclear facility for the purpose of injecting the gas into Fordo centrifuges (Atomic Energy Organization of Iran via AP)-The landmark 2015 deal between Iran and the United States, China, Russia, Britain, France, and Germany to curb Tehran’s nuclear ambitions has been largely in tatters since US President Donald Trump withdrew from it in 2018 and reimposed harsh sanctions.The Iranian government has signaled a readiness to engage with President-elect Joe Biden, who takes office on January 20 and who has expressed willingness to return to diplomacy with Tehran.The Iranian breaches have included exceeding the stockpile limit on enriched uranium, enriching beyond the permitted purity level, and using more advanced centrifuges than permitted under the deal.Iran recently informed the International Atomic Energy Agency of its plans to increase enrichment to 20 percent, a technical step away from weapons-grade levels of 90%.A decision to begin enriching to 20% purity a decade ago nearly triggered an Israeli strike targeting Iran’s nuclear facilities. The tensions only abated with the 2015 deal, which saw Iran limit its enrichment in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions.Tensions have increased since the assassination in late November of Iranian nuclear physicist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh.In the aftermath of the attack, which Iran blamed on Israel, hardliners in Tehran pledged a response and Iran’s parliament passed a controversial law calling for expanded nuclear activity and for an end to IAEA inspections.The law also demanded Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization “operate a facility of metal uranium production” within five months.Iran says all of its breaches of the 2015 deal’s limits are reversible, but insists that the US has to come back to the deal and lift sanctions first.European nations have warned that Iran’s moves risk “compromising the important opportunity for a return to diplomacy with the incoming US administration.”Earlier this week the head of the UN’s nuclear watchdog said that there were “weeks” left to salvage the nuclear deal.Rafael Grossi, director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said at the Reuters Next conference that Tehran was advancing “quite rapidly” toward enriching uranium to 20 percent, as it has announced it would, in breach of the accord. He said the IAEA has assessed Iran will be able to produce some 10 kilograms a month.

Air force head: 'New drone achievements' to be unveiled soon-Iran says ballistic missiles destroy target 1,800 km away in anti-warship drill-Said to have range that could hit Israeli targets, missiles fired at ‘hypothetical hostile enemy ships’ in Indian Ocean-By Agencies and TOI staff-JAN 16,21-Today, 2:13 pm

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps conducted a drill on Saturday launching anti-warship ballistic missiles at a simulated target in the Indian Ocean, state television reported, amid heightened tensions over Tehran’s nuclear program and a US pressure campaign against the Islamic Republic.Footage showed two missiles smash into a target that Iranian state television described as “hypothetical hostile enemy ships” at a distance of 1,800 kilometers (1,120 miles). The report did not specify the type of missiles used. That range could put the missiles in striking distance of Israeli targets.Iran’s armed forces chief of staff Major General Mohammad Bagheri was present on the second day of the drill, alongside Guards chief Major General Hossein Salami and aerospace commander Brigadier General Amirali Hajizadeh. The IRGC is designated as a terrorist group by the US.Using “long-range missiles for maritime targets indicates that if the enemies… show any ill will towards our national interests, maritime trade routes or territory, they will be targeted and destroyed by our missiles,” Sepahnews quoted Bagheri as saying.“We do not intend to carry out any attack,” he said, adding that the exercise showed Iran’s readiness to defend itself “with all its strength” against any aggressor.Meanwhile, the Iranian Air Force chief, Brigadier-General Aziz Nasirzadeh, said Saturday that Tehran had plans to unveil “new drone achievements in the near future,” according to the Islamic Republic News Agency.On Friday morning, the Guard’s aerospace division launched several surface-to-surface ballistic missiles against simulated enemy bases, state TV reported.It said the drill included Zolfaghar and Dezful solid-fuel ballistic missiles. Bomb-carrying drones were also deployed. The Dezful, a version of the Zolfaghar, has a 700-kilometer (430-mile) range and 450-kilogram (992-pound) warhead.In this photo released on January 15, 2021, by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, missiles are launched in a drill in Iran. Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard forces on Friday held a military exercise involving ballistic missiles and drones in the country’s central desert, state TV reported, amid heightened tensions over Tehran’s nuclear program and a US pressure campaign against the Islamic Republic. (Iranian Revolutionary Guard/Sepahnews via AP)-Iran has missile capability of up to 2,000 kilometers (1,250 miles), far enough to reach archenemy Israel and US military bases in the region. Last January, after the US killed a top Iranian general in Baghdad, Tehran retaliated by firing a barrage of ballistic missiles at two Iraqi bases housing US troops, resulting in brain concussion injuries to dozens of them.In recent weeks, Iran has increased its military drills. On Wednesday, Iran’s navy held a two-day short-range missile drill in the Gulf of Oman. Last Saturday, the Revolutionary Guard held a naval parade in the Persian Gulf. A week earlier, Iran held a massive drone maneuver across half the country.Additional footage continues to be released. pic.twitter.com/1gUjQSR1WP— Aurora Intel (@AuroraIntel) January 15, 2021-The IRGC unveiled last week one of its “strategic missile bases” located on the “shores of the Persian Gulf,” according to the corps’ Sepahnews website.Iranian state television showed underground tunnels and depots of missiles in the south of the country near the strategic Strait of Hormuz.“Our logic in defending the territorial integrity, the independence of the country, and the achievements of the Islamic Revolution is strengthening,” said the top commander of the IRGC, Gen. Hossein Salami, according to Mehr News. “What you see today is one of several IRGC Naval Strategic Missile facilities.”The IRGC is designated a terrorist organization by the US.Tensions have again been rising in the waning days of the administration of US President Donald Trump, as Iran ramps up pressure on the West over the US sanctions campaign against the Islamic Republic.Iran resumed enriching uranium to 20 percent last week, well in excess of the threshold set out in its landmark 2015 nuclear deal with world powers.In 2018, Trump withdrew from the deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, and reinstated US sanctions that had been lifted against Iran, plunging it into recession.The decision to enrich uranium to 20% — below the 90% required for an atomic bomb, but a relatively short technical step from that benchmark — was not initiated by President Hassan Rouhani’s relatively moderate government, but by parliament, which conservatives have dominated since last year.After the assassination of top scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh on November 27, which Tehran blamed on Israel, deputies approved a bill requiring Iran to resume uranium enrichment to 20% purity, as it had been doing before the JCPOA, and to stock 120 kilograms (265 pounds) of uranium each year.

US says Bahrain, UAE are ‘major security partners’ after normalizing Israel ties-White House says agreement with Jerusalem ‘reflects their extraordinary courage, determination and leadership’; notes 2 nations have long taken part in US military exercises-By Jon Gambrell-JAN 16,21-Today, 9:24 am

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — The United States called Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates “major security partners” early Saturday, a previously unheard of designation for the two countries home to major American military operations.A White House statement tied the designation to Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates normalizing ties to Israel, saying it “reflects their extraordinary courage, determination and leadership.” It also noted the two countries long have taken part in US military exercises.It’s unclear what the designation means for Bahrain, an island kingdom off Saudi Arabia in the Persian Gulf, and the UAE, a federation of seven sheikhdoms home to Abu Dhabi and Dubai.Bahrain is home to the US Navy’s 5th Fleet, while the UAE’s Jebel Ali port is the busiest port of call for American warships outside of the US. Bahrain hosts some 5,000 American troops, while the UAE hosts 3,500, many at Al-Dhafra Air Base.In this September 15, 2020 file photo, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, left, US President Donald Trump, Bahrain Foreign Minister Abdullatif al-Zayani and United Arab Emirates Foreign Minister Abdullah bin Zayed al-Nahyan pose for a photo on the Blue Room Balcony after signing the Abraham Accords during a ceremony on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)-Already, the US uses the designation of “major non-NATO ally” to describe its relationship with Kuwait, which hosts the forward command of US Army Central. That designation grants a country special financial and military considerations for nations not part of NATO.The US military’s Central Command and the Pentagon did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The 5th Fleet referred queries to the State Department, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment.The White House designation comes in the final days of US President Donald Trump’s administration. Trump forged close ties to Gulf Arab countries during his time in office in part over his hard-line stance on Iran. That’s sparked a series of escalating incidents between the countries after Trump unilaterally withdrew from Iran’s nuclear deal with world powers.It also comes after Bahrain and the UAE joined Egypt and Saudi Arabia in beginning to resolve a yearslong boycott of Qatar, another Gulf Arab nation home to Al-Udeid Air Base that hosts Central Command’s forward operating base. That boycott began in the early days of Trump’s time in office after he visited Saudi Arabia on his first foreign trip.

Trump gives top award to Morocco’s king for normalizing with Israel-US president grants rare Legion of Merit to King Mohammed VI; Moroccan ambassador accepts award in private ceremony-By AP-JAN 16,21-Today, 2:27 am

WASHINGTON — US President Donald Trump has awarded a top US honor to King Mohammed VI of Morocco, citing his decision to begin normalization of relations with Israel.The Legion of Merit is a rarely awarded decoration that can only be bestowed by the president, and typically on heads of state or government of other countries.The honor comes after the United States in December recognized Morocco’s sovereignty over the entire Western Sahara territory, including the disputed area between southern Morocco and Mauritania. Morocco, in turn, agreed to resume partial diplomatic ties with Israel in the near future, establish direct flights between the nations, and promote economic and technological cooperation.Trump has sought to make bolstering regional support for Israel as a countermeasure to Iranian aggression a signature foreign policy legacy of his administration.King Mohammed was not in Washington to accept the award. Morocco’s ambassador to the US, Princess Lalla Joumala, accepted it on his behalf in a private ceremony, according to a White House statement.Trump in his final days in office has spent time honoring friends and allies with the presidential awards.Earlier this week, Trump awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Ohio Representative Jim Jordan, one of his fiercest GOP allies, in a private ceremony at the White House.The White House also announced this week that Trump would be awarding New England coach Bill Belichick, a six-time Super Bowl winner, the Medal of Freedom, but Belichick declined to accept the award.

Associated Press-Semeru volcano on Indonesia's Java island spews hot clouds-Sat, January 16, 2021, 8:36 AM

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — Mount Semeru, the highest volcano on Indonesia’s most densely populated island of Java, spewed hot clouds as far away as 4.5 kilometers (nearly 3 miles) on Saturday.There were no immediate evacuations, but the National Disaster Mitigation Agency warned people who live in the villages on the slopes of the 3,676-meter (12,060-foot)-high mountain to be vigilant in looking for signs of danger.Agency spokesperson Raditya Jati said that people around the river basin on the slopes of the mountain should beware of high rainfall intensity that can trigger lava floods.Indonesia’s Volcanology and Geological Hazard Mitigation Center did not raise Semeru’s alert status, which already had been at the third-highest level since it began erupting in May. The volcano spewed hot ash for 3,000 meters (9,800 feet) in early December, triggering panic among villagers.Indonesia, an archipelago of more than 250 million people, sits on the Pacific “Ring of Fire” and is prone to earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. Government seismologists monitor more than 120 active volcanoes.A strong earthquake shook Indonesia’s Sulawesi island early Friday, killing at least 46 people.

Pompeo hits Iran, China, Cuba in last-minute sanctions push-Days before leaving office, US hits Chinese steel company and UAE-based building materials firm for working with Iran Shipping Lines-By Shaun Tandon-JAN 16,21-Today, 6:39 pm

WASHINGTON — US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Friday imposed sanctions on three of his primary targets — China, Iran and Cuba — in a last-minute push aimed in part at boxing in President-elect Joe Biden.Five days before he turns in his keys at the State Department, Pompeo vowed to punish China over its clampdown in Hong Kong — a stance backed by Biden — but moved further away from Biden’s goal of easing tensions with Iran and Cuba.Pompeo condemned as “appalling” the massive operation on January 6 in Hong Kong in which China rounded up 55 people including an American lawyer, John Clancey.“We condemn PRC actions that erode Hong Kong’s freedoms and democratic processes and will continue to use all tools at our disposable to hold those responsible to account,” Pompeo said, referring to the People’s Republic of China.Pro-democracy activist Lester Shum speaks to the media after leaving Western police station in Hong Kong on January 7, 2021. Shum was granted bail the day after more than 50 Hong Kong opposition figures were arrested under a new national security law (Peter PARKS / AFP)-President Donald Trump’s outgoing administration slapped sanctions on six people over the detentions, including Tam Yiu-Chung, Hong Kong’s sole delegate to China’s top lawmaking body, the National People’s Congress Standing Committee.It earlier took action against Hong Kong’s top leader, Chief Executive Carrie Lam, who acknowledged that as a result, she was no longer able to use a credit card or hold a bank account.China last year pushed through a draconian security law in Hong Kong after widespread and sometimes violent protests that sought to preserve freedoms guaranteed to the financial hub before Britain handed back the territory in 1997.Antony Blinken, who will appear for a Senate confirmation hearing Tuesday to be Pompeo’s successor, has vowed that the next administration “will stand with the people of Hong Kong and against Beijing’s crackdown on democracy.”But the Biden administration is expected to shift course on Cuba and Iran, on which hardline stances have become points of pride in Trump’s Republican Party, which saw a boost in support in the crucial state of Florida from Cuban-Americans.On Friday, the Treasury Department said it was imposing sanctions on Cuba’s interior minister, Lazaro Alberto Alvarez Casas, days after Pompeo said he was putting the island back on the US list of state sponsors of terrorism.People wearing masks as a precaution against the spread of coronavirus walk in Havana, Cuba, Monday, Jan. 11, 2021. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)-Pompeo pointed to the arrest in 2019 of Cuban dissident Jose Daniel Ferrer, who was held in a prison run by the interior ministry “where he reported being beaten, tortured and held in isolation.”“The Castro regime’s repression of fundamental freedoms requires the condemnation and action of all countries that respect human dignity,” Pompeo said, referring to former presidents Fidel and Raul Castro.Biden has promised to pay attention to human rights in Cuba but also to bring back some of former president Barack Obama’s policies to normalize ties, including by allowing Cuban-Americans to visit and send money.Biden is also eager to return to a nuclear accord negotiated by Obama with Iran, believing that Trump’s “maximum pressure” policy that included a sweeping ban on oil sales has failed to curb Tehran on any front.Pompeo announced fresh actions Friday on a Chinese steel company and a UAE-based building materials firm for working with Iran Shipping Lines, which is already under US sanctions.Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez denounced the sanctions against his colleague as the work “of a regime that leaves a legacy of isolation and defeat in foreign policy.”The US actions are sure to prompt calls of hypocrisy by China as the roundup in Hong Kong came the same day as Trump supporters violently rampaged through the US Capitol in an effort to block the ceremonial certification of Biden’s victory.Pompeo condemned the violence but has fiercely defended Trump’s record amid rising speculation that he will seek the presidency himself in 2024.The former Kansas congressman was fiercely criticized this week by the editorial page of the Kansas City Star which said his tenure had resulted in the world seeing the United States “with a mixture of sorrow, anger and pity.”“He has spent the last few months doing his best to wreck the foreign policy of the incoming Joe Biden administration,” the editorial said.“America will be better when he leaves office. Kansas will be much better if he decides to stay away from his adopted home state forever.

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