This morning President Donald Trump confirmed that Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi had been killed in a raid by U.S. forces in Syria:
Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi died in a U.S. raid in northwestern Syria, President Donald Trump announced Sunday, describing in detail a daring mission by Army Delta Force commandos that he said had been planned for five months.
Baghdadi, whose self-declared caliphate once covered large swaths of Syria and Iraq, detonated a suicide vest, killing himself and three children after he was cornered in a tunnel.
“The thug who tried so hard to intimidate others spent his last moments in utter fear, in total panic and dread, terrified of the American forces bearing down on him,” Trump said from the White House. “Baghdadi’s demise demonstrates America’s relentless pursuit of terrorist leaders and our commitment to the enduring and total defeat of ISIS and other terrorist organizations.”
More details of Baghdadi’s death:
“He died after running into a dead-end tunnel, whimpering and crying and screaming,” Trump said. “The compound had been cleared by this time, with people either surrendering or being shot and killed. Eleven young children were moved out of the house un-injured. The only ones remaining were Baghdadi in the tunnel, who had dragged three children with him to certain death. He reached the end of the tunnel, as our dogs chased him down. He ignited his vest, killing himself and the three children. His body was mutilated by the blast, but test results gave certain and positive identification.”
He was a sick and depraved man, and now he’s gone,” Trump said, adding at one point that he would support making public Baghdadi’s final moments.
Trump, using language also said that Baghdadi “died like a dog. He died like a coward.” The reference particular could anger Islamist extremists because they view the animals as unclean.
Well, we wouldn’t want to offend Islamic extremists, now would we?
No U.S. personnel were lost in the raid.
Here’s President Trump’s complete speech:
Some reactions from around the Twitterverse. The Washington Post took an early lead in the “worst take headline” derby:
They had it right the first time.
The Washington Post changed the headline on its Al-Baghdadi obituary from “Islamic State’s terrorist-in-Chief” to “austere religious scholar at helm of Islamic State.” pic.twitter.com/cs243EVz7W
— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) October 27, 2019
Judas Iscariot, devoted disciple of Jesus and noted silver trader… pic.twitter.com/hsfnJCOhdA
— Logan Dobson (@LoganDobson) October 27, 2019
cc: @washingtonpost https://t.co/JBnxL08AJJ
— Bruce Carroll (@BruceCarrollJr) October 27, 2019
Critical opportunity for media to show American success is more important than hating Trump. They can’t do it.
— Erielle Davidson (@politicalelle) October 27, 2019
U.S. special forces killing Baghdadi at the direction of @realDonaldTrump is a warning to all who seek to harm the United States. It may not be today or tomorrow but if you seek to spread terror like ISIS, the very best we have will find you and you will die for what you’ve done.
— Robby Starbuck (@robbystarbuck) October 27, 2019
Jake Tapper just referred to the American heroes who carried out the Baghdadi raid as “lesser matters” pic.twitter.com/C4YX5FvMBR
— Austere Scholar Poso (@JackPosobiec) October 27, 2019
The first thing I heard after the President’s announcement
“He thanked Russia first and the Kurds last…should we read into that?” -Chuck Todd
How about you take just 5 minutes of your day and stop being a petty ungrateful spiteful pos and be proud of your country.
— Heather (@hrenee80) October 27, 2019
Trump's reference to Baghdadi as a "coward" who "died like a dog" is much stronger in tone when translated into Arabic, especially due to the cultural connotations of dogs being haram in Islam.
He chose those words deliberately.
— Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) October 27, 2019
Own your essential garbage nature, mainstream media https://t.co/tGTP8rWaXE
— Kurt Schlichter (@KurtSchlichter) October 27, 2019
It’s actually quite amazing that the Media and Democrats are actually openly furious that Trump just knocked off ISIS’ leader, Baghdadi. It’s Trump Derangement Syndrome taken to a whole new level.
— Democrats for Trump (@YoungDems4Trump) October 27, 2019
Al Baghdadi dead.
Entire world: Good riddance!@AndrewFeinberg: We can’t celebrate the death of a genocidal jihadist deathcult’s leader because it might reflect well on Trump.
American liberalism circa 2019.
— BattleSwarm (@BattleSwarmBlog) October 27, 2019
Minnesota Democratic Representative Ilhan Omar evidently has yet to comment on Baghdadi’s death…
In case you missed the news earlier this week, the Mexican government fought a running gun battle against the Sinaloan drug cartel drug cartel last week and lost.
In the Sinaloan city of Culiacan, the cartel gunmen were everywhere. They openly drove in trucks with mounted machine guns, blockaded streets flashing their Kalashnikovs and burned trucks unleashing plumes of smoke like it was a scene in Syria. They took control of the strategic points in the metro area, shut down the airport, roads, and government buildings and exchanged fire with security forces for hours, leaving at least eight people dead. In contrast, everyone else had to act like ghosts, hiding behind locked doors, not daring to step outside.
And in this unusual battle, the Sinaloa Cartel won. Their uprising was in response to soldiers storming a house on Thursday and arresting Ovidio Guzman, the 28-year old son of convicted kingpin Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman. In February, the U.S. Justice Department announced it had indicted Ovidio Guzman on trafficking cocaine, marijuana and meth. But after hours of cartel chaos, Mexico’s federal government gave soldiers the go ahead to release him. It capitulated.
I’ve covered Mexico’s drug violence for 18 years, written two books about the subject, and seen many extraordinary episodes. In Sinaloa, the cradle of drug traffickers, I’ve repeatedly been on the crime beat chasing bullet-ridden corpses and into the mountains to Guzman’s opium-growing village. But Thursday was different. It wasn’t gangster action; it was a mass insurrection.
“There was panic, terror, the city was under siege,” says Vladimir Ramirez, a political scientist in Culiacan, who like many has continued curfew into Friday. “People slept wherever they were at. Businesses are closed, nobody wants to go out.”
This change has not come overnight. It is the result of a bloody trend of cartels developing insurgent tactics over many years. The use of burning vehicles to block roads was taken from militant protesters; cartels use it to stop the movement of troops and put pressure on the government. The cartels have armed up with stolen military weapons and an endless stream of rifles from the United States. Between 2007 and 2018, more than 150,000 firearms seized in Mexico were traced to U.S. gun shops and factories.And cartels from the Texas border to Guadalajara have learned to protect their leaders with rings of gunmen who can cause trouble to stop their capture.
Here are some videos of the firefight:
One of the most striking things about those videos is that it appears that there were dozens, if not hundreds, of Mexican police and troops, and it wasn’t enough.
Many believe that Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador is on the payroll of one or more of the cartels. Probably because Mexico’s previous president was, as was Edgar Veytia, attorney general in the Pacific coast state of Nayarit.
Former Mexican president Vicente Fox thinks drug legalization is the best way to fight the cartels. “Mexico’s Senate is expected to vote in favor of a bill to legalize the recreational use of marijuana in the coming days, in a bid to choke off a black market dominated by violent gangs.”
Yesterday marked the 75th Anniversary of the start of the Battle of Leyte Gulf, the last great naval battle of World War II, and arguably the largest naval battle in history. American naval forces (with help from Australia’s Task Force 74) decisively defeated the Japanese Imperial Navy, sinking four aircraft carriers, three battleships, six heavy cruisers and four light cruisers.
Leyte Gulf was a sprawling naval engagement that took place in roughly four areas around the Philippines October 23-26, 1944. The Battle of the Surigao Strait featured the last battleship-on-battleship engagement in history, where overwhelming American firepower sunk two Japanese battleships and caused the rest to turn back. One of the most decisive actions was The Battle Off Samar, in which two American ships, destroyer escort USS Samuel B. Roberts (laid down in Houston shipyards) and destroyer USS Johnston, carried out some of the greatest badassery in American naval history, attacking a much larger and heavier armed force of Japanese battleships and cruisers in order to screen the retreat of six escort carriers.
Here’s a machinima recreation of The Battle Off Samar:
They sank three Japanese cruisers, disabled another three, and caused the Japanese battleships to turn tail and run, ensuring the successful American invasion of the Philippines and destruction of Japan’s access to vitally needed war materials.
After Leyte Gulf, the remainder of the Japanese fleet would stay in port bereft of fuel. It wouldn’t engage the American fleet directly again until one last suicidal attempt during the invasion of Okinawa.
Some “Adam Schiff Does X” videos from Gutfeld showed up in my Twitter feed, and when I went looking for them, I found this rant…which also includes said Schiff videos.
Boxer Patrick Day died after slipping into a coma following a knockout by Charles Conwell. The usual sorts are calling for a ban on the sport.
Who is to blame for Day’s death? As far as I can tell, no one. Or no one other than Day deciding to become a boxer.
Video of the last bit of the fight here:
About 10 seconds in, you see Day go down thanks to a right from Conwell that slips between his gloves in the ninth. Day takes a standing eight count, but looks entirely lucid.
In the tenth, about 1:20 into the video, the two boxers are trading blows, when Conwell connects with a right roundhouse that sends Day reeling, then connects with a left uppercut to Day’s chin a couple of seconds later, sending Day to the canvas.
All his blows were legal, not vicious by the standards of boxing, and the ref stops right after the KO. Sometimes fighters are injured or killed because the ref didn’t stop the fight soon enough despite clear signs a fighter was out of it. That doesn’t appear to be the case here. Sometimes, bad things happen and no one is to blame.
Note: Dead video embed replaced.
This was a float at an Italian festival in February:
For those unfamiliar with the Warhammer 40,000 universe, here President Trump is kitted out as the immortal God-Emperor of all mankind. On the float, Trump resembles the Emperor in His fighting prime, not the deathless lich that sits at the center of His life-sustaining Golden Throne, slowly decaying as He tries to maintain order in the chaotic faster-than-light realm of the Warp.
To call the Warhammer 40,000 universe dystopian is to understate the grimness of the venue by several orders of magnitude. As Penny Arcade put it, “The good guys in Warhammer 40K are a theocratic cult that has been engaged in a millennia-long quest for galactic genocide.” And indeed, all the other factions (Chaos demons, Tyranids, Necrons, etc.) are immeasurably worse.
Oh, and Trump critics should be especially thrilled to learn that the immortal, deathless emperor has ruled over the Imperium of Man for over 10,000 years…
South Park made an episode about how American companies kowtow to China called “Band in China.”
Here’s the entire episode.
“You’ve got to lower your ideas of freedom if you want to suck on the warm teat of China.”
The result: South Park is now banned in China.
China has a message for “South Park”: You will respect their authoritah!
After Comedy Central aired an episode of the animated series that chided Hollywood for fearing Chinese censors, that country responded by stripping any mention of the show from internet providers and streaming services there.
Last week’s Season 23 episode, cheekily titled “Band in China,” depicts Randy in a Chinese work camp — alongside Winnie the Pooh, the Disney character often compared to China President Xi Jinping — for attempting to smuggle pot into the country to expand his weed-selling enterprise.
In a parallel storyline, a rock band made up of Stan, Jimmy, Kenny and Butters is on the verge of having a movie made about them, but Chinese censors keep wanting to water down the script. “Now I know how Hollywood writers feel,” Stan declares when he’s forced to endure changes. Disney is even part of the takedown, with Mickey Mouse depicted as supporting censors’ work.
Life imitating art imitating life…
Edited to add: The twitter “apology” is just the cherry on top:
Watch the full episode – https://t.co/oktKSJdI9i@THR article – https://t.co/nXrtmnwCJB pic.twitter.com/Xj5a1yE2eL
— South Park (@SouthPark) October 7, 2019
Can Democrats let President Donald Trump’s constant Twitter jabs at them lure them into throwing him into the brier patch?
On Tuesday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) admitted her plans to put a resolution on the House floor Wednesday to investigate President Donald Trump’s Ukraine scandal, a process that will likely grow into an impeachment inquiry as Democrat demands for impeachment grow ever more insistent.
“Confirmed: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi planning to put a resolution on the House floor tomorrow to address the Ukraine issue as there are increasing calls by Democrats to start the impeachment process for President Trump,” PBS White House Correspondent Yamiche Alcindor tweeted.
In an interview with CNN Monday night, Pelosi declined to say whether or not she would fully endorse an impeachment inquiry, but she suggested a move toward impeachment proceedings was certain. “We will have no choice,” she said.
The renewed push for impeachment gained steam following reports that President Trump pressured Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate Joe Biden’s son Hunter in cooperation with the president’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani. On Tuesday, Trump announced he would release the full transcript of the call, during which he reportedly pressured Zelensky to investigate Hunter Biden no fewer than eight times.
Hunter Biden was a board member of Ukrainian firm Burisma Group when Joe Biden served as secretary of State. During his tenure, Joe Biden pressured Ukraine to fire a prosecutor who was investigating Burisma.
Yes, a scandal where a sitting Democratic Vice President withheld aid from a foreign country unless they stopped investigating his crooked son’s crooked deals is somehow Trump’s fault. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
Democrat party is covering up a pattern of corruption involving high level members of the Obama cabinet. The multi-million and billion dollar pay-for-play is mind boggling. Biden Family sale of office to Ukraine was not the only one or the most egregious. Slimy Joe is not alone.
— Rudy Giuliani (@RudyGiuliani) September 25, 2019
Let this sink in , The democrats want to impeach our President for exposing the crimes that they have committed . SMH
Joe Biden needs to be impeached .#Trump2020LandslideVictory— JESSE JAMES (@1bigbeer) September 24, 2019
Democrats want to impeach a president with a 53% approval rating based on a whistleblower with ZERO firsthand knowledge of the Trump-Ukraine phone call
The hate Trump much more than they love America
— Charlie Kirk (@charliekirk11) September 24, 2019
The whole thing is transparently yet another “get Trump at any cost” ploy by Democrats.
It’s ironic that this so-called whistleblower scandal is going to be the thing that kicks off an actual impeachment inquiry, since it looks like just another nothingburger in a long line of nothingburgers:
The democrats in the House of Representatives are at it again. Is this their third or fourth call for impeachment of the president? Each week it seems media bring us a new sensational story of theft and intrigue, that then very quietly falls by the wayside once the facts emerge.
This time the controversy centers around business dealings that former Vice President Biden’s son had in the Ukraine. Allegedly, Biden’s son was on the board of a company that bribed Ukrainian officials to end a corruption investigation into it. Democrats now allege that the President threatened to withhold military aid to Ukraine should it not reopen the investigation into Biden’s son. The President denies this claim, and intends to release the transcript of the phone call in question. Currently Speaker Pelosi and her cohorts are planning impeachment, before any real evidence of misconduct has come to light.
(Hat tip: Instapundit.)
The way the House is going about sounds less like an impeachment proceeding than a clown show:
BREAKING: Speaker Pelosi was shot down by her caucus in her bid to form one impeachment committee, similar to the Hyde Committee or the Rodino Committee, and capitulated to no fewer than 6 committee chairs to jointly "lead" the investigation, including volatile Rep. Maxine Waters
— Paul Sperry (@paulsperry_) September 24, 2019
This week's version of "We've got him this time!" feels a lot like the start of every other week's. pic.twitter.com/jMTW4SZJEj
— jon gabriel (@exjon) September 24, 2019
Outside the hard left, the public is not wild about the idea, with 61% of all registered voters opposed:
Most recent Monmouth Univ. poll on impeachment –
Yes/no:
Registered voters: 35/61
Republicans: 2/94
Independents: 30/64
Democrats: 69/25
Men: 26/70
Women: 44/49
Age 18-34: 44/50
Age 35-54: 31/63
Over 55: 32/64
Whites: 27/67
Non-white: 51/44
Swing counties: 32/60— Joe Concha (@JoeConchaTV) September 24, 2019
Perhaps because it’s obvious that the entire thing is politically motivated by Democrats’ irrational hatred of President Trump:
Nancy Pelosi suggests that Democrats have to impeach Trump because they desperately want to prevent him from getting re-elected: "He can't win, that is very serious" pic.twitter.com/JTS2mYIm1u
— Ryan Saavedra (@RealSaavedra) September 24, 2019
Democrats seem not to have noticed that Trump thrives in environments of opposition and chaos. There are a lot of people (not just among Republicans) who believe that actual impeachment is several bridges too far, that Br’er Trump is going to thrive in the impeachment brier patch, and that instead of derailing President Trump’s reelection, it’s going to ensure it.
So, you guys are just going to feed another roll of quarters into the dick punching machine on this impeachment thing, eh?
Good luck.
— Ordy's Amish School of Coding (@OrdyPackard) September 24, 2019
I Just Called Nancy Pelosi Office & you can call her too! They said they care about our views so leave a message.
Speaker of the House (202) 225-4965#Trump2020LandslideVictory pic.twitter.com/0gmv58S3d7
— Terrence K. Williams (@w_terrence) September 25, 2019
Lefties are tweeting about impeachment but have no idea what impeachment means. If they think that the 2/3 of the Senate would vote out Trump, they’re crazy. & if they do sincerely believe that, I hope they’re ready for President Pence, because we all know how much they love him
— Kassy Dillon (@KassyDillon) September 24, 2019
Reminder: There are 31 Democrats in the House from districts Trump won in 2016, who now will be forced to go on the record regarding impeachment.
Thoughts and prayers to their political careers.
— Andrew Surabian (@Surabees) September 24, 2019
Kat Timpf expounds on why this is a bad idea:
Team Trump sure seems ready for it:
He set them up…
And here is the proof. He's got a campaign video ready to roll and it's been less than an hour.
😂🤣😂🤣
In before "I tried to impeach 45 and all I got was this stupid shirt." Available at the Trump store in 36 hours next to the straws.
🤣😂🤣😂👌👍🇺🇸 https://t.co/lfu3lzxSfK
— Brenden Dilley (@SirHublife) September 24, 2019
But it’s also possible that this is just a mime show for the hard left rubes, that Pelosi has no intention of allowing an actual a vote on impeachment:
Pelosi did not and has not promised a floor vote on impeachment. This is just the launch of an "inquiry." I'm told she deflected on the question of a floor vote in caucus today.
— Rick Klein (@rickklein) September 24, 2019
Remember that the House tabled an impeachment motion against Trump three months ago. 137 Democrats voted to table the motion then. Does Trump look any weaker today?
Buckle up…