The military regime is at least making noises about protecting human rights and the constitutional state, which is a good sign.
The army already controls the TV stations and bridges, shut down the airport, successfully disarmed police in Istanbul, and are doing low “fuck you, we’re in charge” plane and helicopter passes over Ankara. I’d say it’s probably all over but the shouting and moping up token resistance from Erdogan’s Islamist AKP party, despite Erdogan’s spokesmen claiming that the coup attempt has been “repelled.”
This is not the first coup in Turkey’s history; indeed, historically they’ve played the roll as a check and balance to Islamic fundamentalism and maintaining Mustafa Kemal Ataturk’s vision of a secular Turkish state. Unlike the rest of the Middle East, after a few months or years, the Turkish military relinquishes control back to a (secular) government.
Erdogan tried to prevent this through repeated purges of the military. It appears that he failed.
Meanwhile, Obama continues his amazing streak of backing losers.
The scene there seems a bit chaotic, with intermittent small arms fire:
If this video is any indication, people out on the streets seem more festive than resistant:
Video of Turkish tanks (I’m guessing Leopard 2s, the most modern tanks in Turkey’s armed forces) rolling in the streets:
Here, on the other hand, we see (I think) an M-60 Patton tank just tell protestors “Fuck you and fuck your car” while they beat at it ineffectually with (I kid you not) long sticks (and later an APC does the same thing):
This “death from above” video is getting a lot of play on YouTube. The title says this is an AH-1 Helicopter attacking a police station, which makes more sense than it being an F-16 (as labeled in other copies of the video):
Another day, another Democratic congresscritter indicted. “Corrine Brown, the House rep from the 5th District of Florida, was indicted (along with Ronnie Simmons, her chief of staff) on federal charges of mail and wire fraud.”
Mir Islam, 22, of New York, N.Y., was sentenced today to 24 months in prison on three federal charges stemming from a conspiracy to commit various crimes related to the “swatting” and “doxing” of dozens of victims, and from a false bomb threat made against a university in Arizona and a pattern of online harassment constituting cyber-stalking against a university student, all occurring between February and September 2013.
Mr. Islam and his (thus far unindicted) co-conspirators seemed to target people who wrote about convicted felon Brett Kimberlin.
Robert Stacy McCain also links to computer security expert Brian Krebs, who goes into more detail on the trial and how Islam et. al. obtained information about their victims.
This is more like “this last two months in Jihad,” it’s been so long since I did an update. But there’s a whole host of Orlando updates, and a lot of other jihad-related news, so let’s dig in.
And of course, this is after the Obama Administration’s FBI initially tried to release a censored transcript of Omar Mateen’s 911 call removing all mention of the Islamic State.
“The Obama administration and the liberal media have decided that when a radical Islamic terrorist kills Americans, the one thing the narrative cannot be about is radical Islamic terrorism….In fact, the reason that the administration and the media are so intent on downplaying the role of Islam is because they are afraid that if they told the truth, people might vote Republican in November.”
Speech by Milo Yiannopoulos at University of Central Florida in Orlando cancelled because police couldn’t guarantee his safety. One wonders if police in Orlando are capable of protecting anyone at all…
From here on down it’s mostly old news, but maybe you didn’t read it the first time around.
Two month old Mark Steyn column on Germany’s cowardice in prosecuting that comedian who made fun of Turkey’s scumbag Islamist president? Yeah, because it’s still worth reading if you haven’t already.
“Why it’s called a ‘modern sporting rifle‘ and not an ‘assault weapon.'” (Hat tip: Instapundit, who notes “Remember, none of this is about saving lives. It’s about the cultural domination of the people in flyover country, by their coastal ‘betters’ who get a near-erotic thrill out of such domination, and who are reduced to blind rage whenever their efforts at domination fail.”)
Aside: Is the Washington Examiner paying Ashe Schow enough? She’s like some indefatigable writing machine…
“Right now the debate seems choked with people who don’t know, are proud of not knowing, and think you’re a redneck gun-nut asshole if you want them to know because they feel very strongly about this.” (Hat tip: Dwight.)
No charges for officer Brad Miller. He’s the one who shot the “unarmed teen” who had driving his Jeep through a plate glass window and was in the process of vandalizing cars.
And here’s a police shooting where the use of lethal force was clearly justified.
JFK and LSD. Meh. It’s not that I think Kennedy wouldn’t have dropped acid given a chance, but Timothy Leary was basically a con man, and we already know that Nina Burleigh is irrational.
Wow, believe it or not, still another reason to never visit Oklahoma. “I’m going to need your driver’s license and all the money on your prepaid debit cards.”
Your auditor finds huge cost discrepancies in Houston ISD construction costs. Does HISD: A.) Call in an outside auditor, B.) Launch a criminal investigation or C.) Suspend the auditor who found the problems?
Looks like I’m going to have enough news to make this a regular weekly posting…
“Saudi Arabia Has Funded 20% Of Hillary’s Presidential Campaign, Saudi Crown Prince Claims.” That, of course, is an addition to the already generous funds the Saudis sent to the Clinton Foundation. And naturally the report was taken down and Hillary’s mouthpieces at the Poedesta groups were frantically trying to convince people that “there’s nothing to see here.”
“I happen to believe when it comes to American industries or foreign oligarchs sending large checks to politicians they’re not going it out of the kindness of their hearts. They want favors and in the case of the Clintons, we’re talking about massive amounts of money and we’re talking about favorable action in return.”
Democrats have “chosen the corrupt, opaque, power hungry, self-serving, aloof, greedy, politically soulless, congenital liar they so richly deserve.” (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
EmailGate: “This appears to be a clear violation of federal law and the sort of thing that is a career-ender, or worse, for normals.”
What qualifications did Rajiv K. Fernando have to sit on the International Security Advisory Board? Simple: He gave the Clinton Foundation money.
Hillary enters incubation period. “As soon as we informed Hillary that she had reached the number of delegates necessary to secure the Democratic nomination, she thanked the staff and then promptly began secreting a thick, resinous substance from her oral gland and fashioning it into a protective casing around herself.” (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
Never mind weekly. There’s probably enough dirt coming out on Hillary that I could make this a daily roundup, if I only had the time…
“Gilroy, a former Fort Pierce police officer, said Mateen frequently made homophobic and racial comments. Gilroy said he complained to his employer several times but it did nothing because he was Muslim.”
Omar Mateen – who as we reported earlier was licensed as a security guard and also holds a firearms license – was employed by the US subsidiary of G4S plc, a British multinational security services company, whose US-headquarters are located in Jupiter, Fla, and which also happens to be the world’s largest security company by revenue….
But where it gets more disturbing is that as Judicial Watch reported several days ago, in a post titled, “DHS Quietly Moving, Releasing Vanloads Of Illegal Aliens Away From Border”, border patrol sources said that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was quietly transporting illegal immigrants from the Mexican border to Phoenix and releasing them without proper processing or issuing court appearance documents. As a reminder, the government classifies them as Other Than Mexican (OTM) and this week around 35 were transferred 116 miles north from Tucson to a Phoenix bus station where they went their separate way. Judicial Watch was present when one of the white vans carrying a group of OTMs arrived at the Phoenix Greyhound station on Buckeye Road.
And this is where the Mateen-G4S link emerges: as JW reported previously, a security company contracted by the U.S. government is driving the OTMs from the Border Patrol’s Tucson Sector where they were in custody to Phoenix, sources said. The firm is the abovementioned G4S, the world’s leading security solutions group with operations in more than 100 countries and 610,000 employees. G4S has more than 50,000 employees in the U.S. and its domestic headquarters is in Jupiter, Florida.
Mateen’s father, Seddique Mateen, hosted a “shoestring” talk show in which he regularly unleashed anti-U.S. tirades and once praised the Taliban.
The timeline of the shooting shows, at the very least, massive misjudgment on the part of the police. The shooting started at 2:02 AM, but police don’t call in the SWAT team until 3 AM? And it’s another two hours before they storm the club? And all this after the shooter had called 911 to pledge allegiance to the Islamic State?
Reddit’s main news group evidently decided to censor mentions of the shooting once it became known that the shooter was a radical Muslim. They even censored posts providing information on blood donations.
For years, too many Americans – including the lion’s share of our elite media and most of our politicians — have been content to deny the obvious, namely that quite a few Muslims espouse beliefs that are deeply at odds with what the vast majority of Americans believe. Some of those Muslims openly advocate violence and, if they are otherwise maladjusted, the odds they may murder in the name of Islam increase commensurately. We need to have a robust national debate on this important issue. Donald Trump has opened the door to that discussion, in his customary brusque, ham-handed way. More tact is required, but we cannot put off talking about radical Islam and jihadism any longer.
After the Bataclan massacre last autumn, the French government in effect went to war with radical Islam, pledging a “merciless” response to terrorism. This wasn’t just talk. Mass arrests of suspected radicals followed, dealing a serious blow to ISIS networks in the country. Paris meant business, finally.
In the aftermath of our own Bataclan, President Obama has offered his usual platitudes about “hate” and “guns.” This is escapism-as-counterterrorism-policy. Americans must demand better, including a reality-based assessment of our terrorism threat, from our next commander-in-chief. If we cannot name our enemy, we are already halfway to losing the war.
Milo Yiannopoulos weighs in: “The Christian Right may not be totally down with homos, and Trump may say things that hurt our delicate feelings, but they aren’t going to kill us or put us in camps. Only Islam would do that — the same Islam that, bizarrely, now stands at the top of the left’s hierarchy of victimhood.”
The gunman who opened fire at a gay Florida nightclub early Sunday, shooting over 100 people, had called 911 moments before to pledge allegiance to the leader of ISIS, law enforcement sources told NBC News.
But as investigators try to determine if extremism motivated Omar Mateen, 29, to attack the Pulse Nightclub in Orlando, his family believes he was pushed over the edge by pure hate against the LGBT community.
Various law enforcement officials have identified the shooter as Mateen, who was born in New York and lived in Port St. Lucie on Florida’s eastern shores.
The attack, which claimed at least 50 lives, is considered the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history. While authorities are still investigating what motivated the gunman, the shooting is being considered an act of terrorism.
Well, this video from April would seem to be newly relevant in light of Omar Mateen’s mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, wouldn’t it?
Authorities in Orlando said that 50 people were killed in what authorities are calling an act of domestic terrorism, and many others were injured in the violence at Pulse, a popular gay bar and dance club. Police had initially thought about 20 people were killed in the attack, but authorities said later on Sunday morning that the toll was significantly higher.
The body count evidently includes the shooter.
The suspected gunman was identified by relatives and law enforcement officials as Omar Mateen, a 29-year-old from Fort Pierce, Fla. One relative said that Mateen’s family was in shock after being told on Sunday morning about his involvement. This relative said Mateen’s family was very sorry about what had happened.
Police have not identified a possible motive, and details about Mateen’s background were scarce on Sunday morning. His family is from Afghanistan, while Mateen is believed to have been born in the United States.
So a man named Omar with roots in Afghanistan opens fire in a gay nightclub. What could his motivations possibly be? It’s an insoluble mystery!
The CBS News article, in contrast to the Washington Post, is not nearly so reticent about the shooter’s motives:
A U.S. intelligence source told CBS news senior investigative producer Pat Milton that Islamic terrorism is being investigated as a possible motive in the shooting due to several indicators including the style of the attack, which had similarities to the attacks in Paris in November 2015 and Brussels in March. The gunman put up a protracted gun battle with police and was heavily armed, the source said.
Also this: “FBI Assistant Special Agent-in-Charge Ron Hopper said at a press conference that there are ‘some suggestions’ the gunman ‘may have leanings’ toward Jihadist ideology.”
And TMZ, who was evidently willing to spare a staff member from their dedicated Kardashian team, states bluntly “Omar Mateen Terrorist was 29-Year-Old Islamic Radical.”