Egyptians in Rural VA — Part 1

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In 2001, I was working as Office Manager for an Austrian company, Schiebel Technology, that manufactured land-mine detectors and a new remote-controlled mini-helicopter – this was back when the UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles) were really starting to come into use. It was called the Cam-Copter. The company had sold 4 systems to the Egyptian Navy and 8 Naval officers were scheduled to come to the US for training.

And then 9/11 happened…..we figured they would surely re-schedule but the owner, Hans, said no. He had to send over another trainer from Austria because the two Mikes who worked as training officers immediately re-enlisted to work with the Army UAVs. The office was located on the old Vint Hill Farms Station Army base. It was deactivated in 1997 and the land sold in 1999.

So, we had our work cut out for us – well, I did anyway. The Egyptians were due in about 10 days. We contacted the FBI, the State Patrol, and the local Sheriff’s office to notify them there were foreign nationals on their way. I printed up and laminated ID cards for them that gave a brief explanation of who they were, why they were here, and provided a contact phone number.

Every single one of them, to a man, supported the US in those horrible days. They were truly outraged that we had been attacked and were unfailingly polite and respectful. When I would ask them what they wanted to do, it was ALWAYS “go to the mall.” Sheesh! I DESPISED going to the mall! *sigh* Oh, well, duty calls. They all bought so much crap, they joked about getting their “pregnant suitcases” to the airport!!! We had to use my roommate’s trailer to get it all in!

I took them for a tour of Skyline Drive. Along the way, at one of the stops, there was a man who had stumbled and fallen on the rocks. He was bleeding pretty heavily and two of the Egyptians were medics. They immediately jumped in to care for him.

They were always looking for things to do on the week-ends and part of my responsibility was arranging for entertainment. Wajdi (who wanted to be a chef – he LOVED my big country kitchen) wanted to rent a car and go somewhere, suggesting Florida. I said, naw, way too boring, nothing but old retired people, and you already know what beaches are like. No, I said, YOU need to go to NY!

So he rented a car and off he went to NYC. As he was walking around, people kept asking him if he was from Spain. He kept explaining, no, I am from Egypt. About the sixth time someone asked him that, he decided to just say yes – it was easier. As chance would have it, there was an undercover FBI agent nearby who overheard him. He immediately approached him and gave him the 3rd degree about lying. Wajdi said at one point, he was thinking “Should I call a lawyer? No, I’ll just call Judy.” I was their American Mom!!!

One day, their minder/translator, Mr. Shehata (a guy from the Egyptian company with whom Schiebel partnered) came to me and said one of the guys had a problem and he was hoping I could help. He had been making calls to a 900 number, had spent his personal money, and was now broke.

I went over to the hotel and at first, got the brush-off. I put my foot down and insisted I wanted to talk to their Regional Manager and finally got a hard-copy printout of the calls. As I went through them, I could see that calls were made during the day, when they were at Vint Hill training. So, back to beard the Regional Manager in his den. I ended up getting ALL of his money refunded to him. After that, I was a Goddess and could do no wrong!!!!

Mr. Shehata is the only one in a suit

They were scheduled to fly out on Christmas day. Magdi and Aziz stayed at our house Christmas Eve, sharing our gift opening and celebrating with us. Truly amazing, wonderful group of guys! Except for Aymon, the one at the drums!!! His name became “Troublemaker Aymon” after he taught Gage what fun it was to throw a nerf ball into the ceiling fan!!!! We had soooo much fun!!!!

Gage jammin’ on his new guitar with Aymon

Before they left, they took all of us (me, my roommate Tom, Heather, and Gage) out to eat at the Olive Garden to show their appreciation for all we had done for them.

Stay tuned for Part 2 – that’s the spicy part!

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Published by NebraskaFilly

Army veteran (1976-1979), retired with entirely too much time on my hands

Published

96 thoughts on “Egyptians in Rural VA — Part 1”

    1. Morning, Pat! Well, I didn’t remind her but I told her when they would post. Still dark here so I can’t tell what the skies look like – 68 and Wheezer was asleep on the chair as usual. He hopped down to eat his canned food – IDK if he left or went back to sleep.

      Jam suggested soaking my hand in epsom salts/hot water and it has made a big difference. The swelling is way down and the redness is easing, as is the pain. I happened to have on-hand a 4 lb. bag of epsom salts that I bought years ago to try to make my own weed-killer – didn’t work but I still had the salts! See? Being a hoarder has it’s benefits!!!

      Liked by 2 people

      1. Morning Filly!
        Oh that’s great about the epsom salts! glad your hand is getting better!

        we made that weed killer too. it worked here but only for so long. then you have to respray and respray.

        Liked by 1 person

    2. Good Morning, Ladies! Writing from my cell phone, having just read Filly’s (Judy’s?) article about the Egyptians at Christmas, 2001. Then, I read one of two articles about Nikola Tesla and got so excited, I wanted to tell you about how I woke up thinking about the US power grid, and what we can solve the problem, maybe, with electrical/brain power.

      Locally, in Savannah, It has finally gotten light, but it’s cloudy, not raining, and high 70 degrees. Speckles is crowing. I haven’t checked for Lollipop, the stray cat I’ve been feeding over four years, but about to get up.

      What opens?

      Liked by 2 people

      1. Good morning, Katharine! Yes – Filly = Judy. I’m not too shy about putting my name out there – pretty common name. Each daily post (article) is called an “open.” It’s the opening document to that day’s thread.

        Ah, yes, Tesla! I’ve got a bunch of stuff on him and did at least one “open” about him at Marica’s. TPTB (the powers that be) stole all his stuff and then buried it!!!

        Liked by 2 people

        1. it really makes me wonder what all they have destroyed or hidden that does not favor them or their power over us. free energy for all would be a boon to mankind–but not to those who seek to get rich off it.

          Liked by 2 people

          1. Same thing with the lightbulbs that would work forever! GE couldn’t have that so they regulated them out of existence!

            Liked by 1 person

  4. sunnydaze

    August 23, 2024 12:44 am

    Read the VERY LAST LINE of this letter carefully, if you want to know why some people are in a panic in Texas right now.

    What does it say?

    Multiple ‘undercover operations’ are ‘ongoing’ throughout the large Texas urban counties into organizations that have been illegally… pic.twitter.com/SnodfIykqG

    — Brian Cates – Political Columnist & Pundit (@drawandstrike) August 21, 2024

    Liked by 1 person

  5. sunnydaze

    August 23, 2024 1:10 am

    Starting January 1, 2025 Massachusetts is banning the sale of brand new diesel trucks and only allowing the sale of electric trucks.

    This is because Massachusetts adopted the CARB Low NOx Omnibus rule to address emissions from diesel trucks.

    Truck dealerships are furious. pic.twitter.com/mAWLUvYTLX

    — Bostonians Against Mayor Wu (@AntiWuCoalition) August 22, 2024

    Liked by 2 people

  10. Just The News: “Former President Donald Trump and Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp found the perfect narrative Thursday night to upstage Vice President Kamala Harris’s nomination acceptance speech, ending their feud dating to the 2020 election with a full-throated embrace that played out on national television.

    The mutual endorsement reunited two of the GOP’s most powerful figures heading into the November election, and made the road for Democrats to score a win in Georgia more difficult.

    “We need to send Donald Trump back to the White House,” Kemp said on Fox News’ “Hannity” show.

    Trump is leading in the polls in Georgia, and Kemp owns one of the country’s most formidable state political machines, which propelled him to a landslide win in 2022 over Democrat favorite Stacey Abrams in the Georgia governor race.

    “Thank you to #BrianKempGA for all of your help and support in Georgia, where a win is so important to the success of our Party and, most importantly, our Country,” Trump said minutes later on Truth Social. “I look forward to working with you, your team, and all of my friends in Georgia to help MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”

    The embrace ended a rift that looked intractable as recently as just a few weeks ago when Trump launched a political attack on Kemp and his wife during a stop in Georgia, raising GOP fears the two would not work together to secure a win in the Peach State.

    But cooler heads prevailed as Trump signaled soon after he wanted to repair the relationship and Kemp made clear he would vote for Trump and that voters couldn’t afford a Kamala Harris presidency.

    Campaign sources said several figures played a key role in nudging the two political heavyweights toward mending fences, including Sean Hannity, South Carolina Sen. Lindsay Graham and Home Depot cofounder Bernie Marcus, the dean of conservative donors and a longtime supporter of both men.”

    Liked by 2 people

  11. EXCERPT: “As the three year anniversary of the Afghanistan withdrawal approaches, accountability for the chaotic pullout appears to be slipping away even as the Biden-Harris Administration faces scrutiny for the debacle on the campaign trail.

    Last week, the resignation letter from a key congressional investigator raised concerns about whether the Republican Congress can successfully hold administration officials or military leadership to account for the chaotic pullout that left 13 U.S. service members dead.

    President Joe Biden, who oversaw the withdrawal in the first year of his term, has yet to fire or reprimand anyone because of the botched withdrawal.

    In a resignation letter last week, former House Foreign Affairs Committee senior investigator Jerry Dunleavy laid out his concerns that Chairman Michael McCaul, R-Tx., has been “derelict in his duty” to seek answers, documents, and testimony to get to the truth of the deadly operation.

    “I did not come lightly to this decision to resign & to blow the whistle publicly, but I could not be a part of this sham any longer & my conscience simply will not allow me to be silent—after a year of pushing the Committee to do the right thing & to run a serious investigation that relentlessly searches for the truth, it has become undeniably clear to me that McCaul & his team are unwilling to take even the most basic steps necessary to ensure that President Biden, VP Harris, & all the top Biden-Harris diplomatic & national security & military leaders are made to answer for the horrors which unfolded & continue to unfold in Afghanistan & around the world,” Dunleavy wrote in his resignation letter, which he posted to X.

    “The Committee’s disappointing lack of courage & lack of moral clarity just cannot go unremarked,” he added….”

    https://justthenews.com/government/security/nearing-anniversary-final-afghanistan-withdrawal-accountability-may-be-slipping

    Liked by 1 person

    1. NF: BTW, McCaul is deep state….

      “NEW: I resigned in protest from Chairman McCaul’s House Foreign Affairs investigation into the Biden-Harris Admin’s disastrous & deadly Afghanistan withdrawal. Resignation letter below. Despite my repeated urging, McCaul failed to seek answers on & accountability for the debacle.

      While the Committee’s investigation has indeed unearthed further evidence detailing the Biden-Harris Admin’s responsibility for the horrific events of August 2021 & for the dangerous global fallout which followed, McCaul & his team have also been derelict in their duty to pursue answers for the Abbey Gate Gold Star families, to seek the proper documents, to bring in the proper witnesses, to ask the tough questions, to fully pursue the truth without fear or favor, & to do everything in the Committee’s power to ensure that a deadly humiliation like this never happens again. McCaul & the Committee made promises to the Abbey Gate Gold Star families & to the American public at large — & those promises simply have not been kept.

      I did not come lightly to this decision to resign & to blow the whistle publicly, but I could not be a part of this sham any longer & my conscience simply will not allow me to be silent — after a year of pushing the Committee to do the right thing & to run a serious investigation that relentlessly searches for the truth, it has become undeniably clear to me that McCaul & his team are unwilling to take even the most basic steps necessary to ensure that President Biden, VP Harris, & all the top Biden-Harris diplomatic & national security & military leaders are made to answer for the horrors which unfolded & continue to unfold in Afghanistan & around the world. The Committee’s disappointing lack of courage & lack of moral clarity just cannot go unremarked.

      From the troubling handling of the hearings with General Milley & General McKenzie & Zalmay Khalilzad to the refusal to drag in key witnesses at the State Department & CENTCOM & elsewhere, and from the refusal to properly investigate the ISIS-K attack at Abbey Gate to the failure to look into dozens of obvious & important leads, McCaul & his team have allowed a crucial opportunity for a real & deserved reckoning to potentially slip away.

      I feel a significant obligation to the Abbey Gate Gold Star families, to all Gold Star families from this two-decade war, to all the U.S. service members who fought & especially those who died in Afghanistan, & to the American public — they all deserve to know how this Committee has refused to fulfill its important obligation to thoroughly expose the Biden-Harris Admin’s duplicity & its atrocious decision-making during America’s retreat & defeat in Afghanistan.

      House Republicans had (and, for at least a few more months, still have) a congressional majority which empowered them to run serious & credible oversight investigations — the power to compel sworn witness testimony, the power to force the production of hidden documents, the power to issue subpoenas — but, with regard to the investigation into the Biden-Harris disaster in Afghanistan, McCaul has failed to wield this awesome power with anything resembling strength or consistency.

      As I repeatedly made clear to the Committee, I fear that those in the halls of power — the White House, State Dept, intel community, Pentagon — have failed to learn the needed lessons from America’s defeat in the war in Afghanistan. Washington has a widespread culture of unaccountability, & that has been especially true related to this war. I fear that this Committee’s investigation will embolden, rather than remedy, that perverse culture. If those responsible aren’t held accountable, and if necessary lessons aren’t learned, I fear there will be even more Gold Star families in the future as a direct result.

      As I did as a reporter, an author, and a now-former senior investigator on Capitol Hill, I will continue my fight for the truth no matter what. The stakes are simply too high to do otherwise. More to come.”

      Liked by 1 person

      1. Filly, I was just reading last night in a summer, 2020 NYT about the Taliban in Afghanistan. US military commanders were saying locals were untrainable to fight the Taliban, because they were finding support and Pakistani aid through US networks. My map shows Afghanistan sits due north of Pakistan, so they possibly identify culturally and ethnically with the Arabian brotherhood. Afghanistan wanted the US to leave, as do other Arabian sympathizers.

        Liked by 1 person

        1. Oh, they definitely identify culturally and ethnically – Pakistan has straddled that fence for decades! They hid Bin Laden, as well as other terrorists we were ostensibly hunting. But, then, Bin Laden was OUR guy initially!!!

          Liked by 1 person

          1. I agree, and I read mostly to underline and scribble in the margins and over photos to identify what they don’t say directly. They hate Trump, and that summer, they doubled down on attacks. I bought and read lots of different print media during that time, so I’m now entertaining myself by going through old files and print media to see what I missed. I called it “The New York Whines” then. Now, I no longer buy newspapers. Too busy collecting stuff to burn in my wood stove, if we have any winter at all this year.
            Lollipop showed for breakfast this morning, in the main house. When I went back to check his dish for ants, he was lounging on my bed, cleaning himself. And Speckles is now on the porch. He has finished crowing, for now.

            Liked by 1 person

            1. Ah, animals can be so comforting! And loyal until the end in most cases. The only newspaper I read is my local paper, mostly to see who’s died that I might know or town-specific stuff, like road closures. Also to see if there’s anything I need to ding Brook, the owner/editor of the paper, about something incredibly ignorant he wrote! LOL – we have a history and I’m well known in town for my Letters to the Editor; I also have a connection with him via my association with the Klown Doll Museum (they made the Guinness Book of Records for the most clown dolls) and as manager of the Legion Club for almost 2 years. Brook was also President of the COC here in town for one term.

              The guy who was running the Museum, Lee Warneke (previous editor of the local paper), heard about my experience working for 2 years at the Elkhorn Valley Museum in Norfolk and asked me to work with him at the Klown museum, which I agreed to do. He eventually wanted me to take over and run it when he departed – he was already in a wheelchair and on oxygen so it was somewhat imminent.

              I discovered early on that the locals with the most influence had their feet stuck firmly in the sand and refused to progress. Can you believe they actually kept their inventory of all of the items in the museum in an old, spiral-bound notebook, handwritten??!!?? I was quite frankly astonished and offered to take the book home and transcribe it into a data base, after first setting it up. One of the members of a “founding” family piped up, all snippy, “But that’s my job!” with the “how dare you” attitude. I was new, didn’t want to cause waves, so I said fine. It wasn’t long before I recognized I could NOT do it with that attitude.

              I went to Lee and told him that I would continue as his assistant, getting the mail, working at the museum, etc. but I would NOT be stepping in to run it. A few weeks later, Lee died suddenly and they had no-one to take it over. His wife, who was also deeply involved at the Museum, decided after he died that she wanted to go back to teaching and she didn’t want to do it any more.

              I attended the veterans’ breakfast at the local Lutheran church and she came to me and begged me to take over, literally getting down on her knees, FFS!!! SMH – what could I do but say bring it all to me and I’ll look at it, handle things for right now, then we’ll see.

              She showed up at my house in a snowstorm and dumped this stack of folders, documents, checkbooks, etc., etc. It was a fricking nightmare, especially when I discovered that the ad the museum always placed in the NE State vacation guide was due in 10 days!!!! Brook, being President at the time of the COC, provided docs I needed from them and some contact #’s and I went to town. With a little assistance from the publisher’s kind clerk, I got it done…..and promptly took all of it to Brook’s office at the newspaper and dumped it on him – it’s all yours, dude!

              So, yeah…..we have a history….sorry about my diarrhea of the mouth….I get going and don’t know when to stop!

              Liked by 1 person

              1. Filly, Thanks for the story. I understand trying to avoid stepping on tender toes. Ouch! very loudly, is always a good response, since tender toes are often connected to strong fists and mean tongues. So, when you speak of Norfolk, you are referring to Norfolk, Nebraska, then? I think you’ve told me before, but I just looked it up again on my old road atlas. It is in the northeast curve, not too far from the river that separates Nebraska from Iowa? What is that river’s name at that point? It changes names according to the states it runs through, and that’s where the centerfold of my road atlas has staples.

                Liked by 1 person

              2. It’s the Missouri River. Norfolk is located on the north fork of the Elkhorn River, which connects with the Platte down south, near Fremont. Norfolk was supposed to be named Norfork, to signify that location – it was my adopted GGF who was the first postmaster in Norfolk (both birth and adopted ancestors settled Norfolk in 1866) and submitted it as such but the bigwigs in DC decided it was a typo, hence, Norfolk. But true natives always pronounce it properly = Norfork.

                Liked by 1 person

              5. I happen to be looking also into devopments in the 1860s West, especially during Grant’s term, after the funny stuff with Andrew Johnson following Lincoln’s assassination in 1863.
                Grant was responsible for Reconstruction in the South. Regular people don’t understand why rural Southerners have not voted Republican until recent years. Johnson abolished slavery, but Grant and friends made all Southerners pay.

                Liked by 1 person

  12. NF: More planned lawfare!

    EXCERPT: “A lawsuit over robocalls containing artificial intelligence “deepfakes” sent by a political consultant before the New Hampshire primary election may result in the shutdown of communications between conservative organizations, Republican campaigns and their supporters ahead of the November election.

    A “deepfake” is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as media “that has been digitally manipulated to replace one person’s likeness convincingly with that of another, often used maliciously to show someone doing something that he or she did not do.” 

    While a political consultant’s use of AI is the focal point of a civil lawsuit over robocalls, a Republican attorney warns that the case, following the federal government’s interest in it, could affect the political speech of organizations and campaigns that Democratic and left-leaning organizations oppose.

    Steve Kramer, a get-out-the-vote political consultant who has mainly worked for Democrats, previously admitted to media outlets that he had sent robocalls to thousands of state residents with an AI deepfake of President Joe Biden’s voice ahead of the New Hampshire primary election, NBC News reported. The call, which “spoofed” the caller ID to hide its origin, told them to stay home and “save” their votes for the general election.

    Kramer had a contract with the campaign of Rep. Dean Phillips, D-Minn., at the time, who was challenging Biden. Both Kramer and Phillips’ campaign denied that the latter had any knowledge of the robocall.

    Kramer has claimed that he commissioned the robocall to lead to regulations on AI deepfakes. “This is a way for me to make a difference, and I have,” Kramer told NBC News in February. “For $500, I got about $5 million worth of action, whether that be media attention or regulatory action.”

    Kramer has been sued by the state and the League of Women Voters (LWV) over the robocall, while also facing fines from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC)….”

    https://justthenews.com/government/courts-law/lawsuit-over-ai-deepfake-robocall-may-shut-down-political-speech

    Liked by 1 person

  13. Just The News: “NASA on Thursday said that it would make a final determination this weekend on whether to use Boeing’s space capsule to bring home two astronauts stranded on the International Space Station (ISS).

    NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, who were only expected to be on the station for a week, have been stranded in space since June. If NASA decides not to use Boeing’s capsule, they would be forced to remain on the station until February.

    The space agency’s administrator Bill Nelson will meet with other high-ranking NASA officials in Houston on Saturday to make their final decision, according to the Associated Press. 

    The delay comes after Boeing’s Starliner capsule encountered thruster failures and helium leaks that required the spaceship to be docked at the ISS while engineers evaluated a new computer model for the thrusters. 

    Boeing has expressed confidence in the thrusters, claiming that recent tests on the shuttle’s thrusters in space have had favorable results. But if NASA decides the shuttle is not safe, then a SpaceX shuttle will be used instead and the Starliner will return to Earth empty in September.” 

    Liked by 1 person

  14. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13766739/donald-trump-interview-intelligence-briefings.html

    Our Take: “Trump doesn’t want our intelligence briefings.”

    Why would he? You clowns have proven to be utterly incompetent, almost beyond belief. You have been wrong about basically every public proclamation you have made over the past decade.

    I mean, you can’t even do propaganda anymore. Even when you completely fabricate news stories and deploy the digital tools to reshape our perceived reality by altering websites, censoring voices, utilizing celebrity surrogates and generating hyper-realistic AI renderings, you still can’t get it right. The fake stories and anonymous quotes you feed your mockingbirds in the corporate media now seem half-baked and kind of retarded. It’s actually pretty pathetic.

    And after years of publicly threatening President Trump, he actually gets shot in the head, and you all clam up and refuse to give the public any information or transparency on the matter? And we’re suppose to believe none of you had anything to do with it? Really? You think we are that stupid?

    And now, you are mocking Trump for not accepting your lousy insights? When you have lied to him and the American People for [at least] the past 8 years?

    This is pure, unadulterated sociopathy. There’s no other way to describe it. I’m so ashamed to share a country with these invalids. What a disgrace.

    (Trump said he knows everything. He has it all. And he’s coming back. LFG.) — GhostofBasedPatrickHenry

    Liked by 1 person

          1. This is why he’s so much more dangerous to them now – he’s learned and he remembers EVERYTHING!!! He’s not laboring under the disadvantages he had in 2015/16!

            Liked by 1 person

  16. https://www.zerohedge.com/political/must-have-been-tipped-jack-daniels-cuts-woke-training-ahead-robby-starbucks-next-expose

    Our Take: It’s been a long time since ‘The Customer is Always Right’ was an American axiom. The rise (and impending fall) of globalism resulted in destabilized markets, corporate confusion, and black pilled customers for decades.

    Now, however, ‘the right’ has figured out how to fight back with their voices and dollars, and the societal transformation that once seemed unstoppable is no longer inevitable. So what changed?

    I have ‘the right’ in scare quotes because it’s not real. Right and left are uniparty designations to keep people trapped in a false binary. More than 30% of Americans reject the two party construct, identifying as independent or with a third party. And this mindshare is growing.

    Both of the major parties are propagating globalism and demonizing nationalism. Second to climate, the weaponized empathy of DEI is one of globalism’s most powerful munitions. Yet, a March 2024 Rasmussen survey finds that ‘just 25% of American Adults think diversity, equity, and inclusion programs make companies better.’

    And the more they know about it, the more they reject it. The People want to make America great again and put American interests first, even if they don’t like the branding or the Orange Man. Trump represents American interests while Harris is openly bragging about expanding global communism.

    You gotta give the people what they want. Harley Davidson gets it. At the end of the day, despite the immense pressure and payoffs from the Davos crowd, the customer is, actually, always right.

    Reject the interests of those pushing globalism and stand up for the interests of your family, your community, and your nation. Your voice. Your vote. Your value exchange. That’s real power. America First. — Ashe in America

    Liked by 1 person

  17. EXCERPTS: “Vice President and selected Democrat nominee Kamala Harris will be accepting the nomination for president at the Democrat National Convention on Thursday. There have been rumors of surprise guests, like Beyonce, Taylor Swift, and even former President George W. Bush. 

    Truth be told, I’d be happy for an appearance by Harris’ father, Stanford Professor Emeritus and economist Donald Harris. With as little mention as he’s received in this campaign, let alone throughout her entire career in California, her 2020 run for president, and as vice president, you would think Kamala’s mother Shyamala Gopalan was the second immaculate conception. But I shouldn’t give Democrats any ideas….

    —————–

    Seven years later, one marriage, and being elected vice president hasn’t even rendered a statement from him about how proud he is of his very accomplished daughter? It’s a bit suspicious, particularly in their drive to paint her as the second coming. 

    In a 2020 article in Maclean’s, it talked about the backgrounds of both her mother, Shyamala Gopalan, and her father.

    Again: “I was born black.” Yet Sen. Harris’s mother, née Shyamala Gopalan, was a Brahmin Hindu born in Chennai (Madras), the oceanside megalolopolis of the South Indian state of Tamil Nadu; and her father, raised in Brown’s Town, educated in Port Antonio and at the University of the West Indies, is as Jamaican as the sun and the sea. (Dr. Shyamala Gopalan Harris died in 2009 at the age of 70.) Just as Barack Hussein Obama is the mixed-race descendent of tribal Kenya and sunflowery Kansas, Kamala Harris, potentially Obama’s successor’s successor, is every bit as not-really-a-real-American as her desperate opponents may choose to make her out to be. Will that matter?

    Maclean’s even documents Harris’ appearance on the Breakfast Club, where she claimed she smoked marijuana and joked, “Half my family’s from Jamaica! Are you kidding me?”

    Donald Harris was not pleased. If you read the loving and steadfast pride in his heritage from the article mentioned above, you can fully understand what an insult this type of flippant comment is. Donald Harris made his displeasure known on a Jamaica Global Online article, and Maclean’s received permission to reprint it. Although they link the publication, the actual comment has since been scrubbed. Interesting that they chose this piece of information to get rid of.

    Donald Harris, 81, professor emeritus of economics at Stanford University, divorced from Shyamala Gopalan since 1972, offered this comment to the website Jamaica Global Online, whose editor, Ian Randle, shared it exclusively with Maclean’s:

    My dear departed grandmothers, as well as my deceased parents, must be turning in their grave right now to see their family’s name, reputation and proud Jamaican identity being connected, in any way, jokingly or not with the fraudulent stereotype of a pot-smoking joy seeker and in the pursuit of identity politics. Speaking for myself and my immediate Jamaican family, we wish to categorically dissociate ourselves from this travesty.

    —————

    Here is a snippet from that article that gives insight.

    Trying completely to reconcile Mr Harris’s work with the mainstream would bowdlerise it, though, as it is more unashamedly Marxist than anything in modern American politics. He is concerned with exploitation, the value form and the diminishing rate of profit. In one paper he dismissed the idea of America’s black population as analogous to those living under colonial rule, arguing that the problem was capitalism rather than dominance by a foreign power. There is no reason why black workers would be better off under black capitalists than white ones, he wrote.

    Today few politicians are keen to cite Robinson or Sraffa as intellectual influences. Mr Harris, for his part, retired from academia in 1998 to focus on policy work, including advising the Jamaican government. For all his earlier radicalism, he has recommended fiscal discipline and crime reduction, as well as export-led growth and industrial strategy. In the end, however, perhaps his greatest economic legacy will be his daughter.

    Perhaps that is also part of Kamala Harris’ refusal to acknowledge her father’s influence. What she may despise in her father, she also despises in herself….”

    Links/video: https://redstate.com/jenniferoo/2024/08/22/after-three-nights-of-the-dnc-the-question-remains-where-is-kamalas-father-donald-harris-n2178429

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  18. Interesting that RFKJ is giving his speech tonight in AZ and DJT is in AZ at the same time…..I think we know where this is going….his campaign has requested that his name be removed from the ballot in AZ, too.

    Trump was on the phone with Fox yesterday:

    “I’ve had a great relationship with him over the years, I respect him, he respects me; I have no idea if he’s going to endorse me. I know he’s got a news conference – we happen to be in the same state – but it’s possible we will be meeting tomorrow and we’ll be discussing it. Look – he was treated very unfairly by the democrats. He would have beaten Joe Biden in a Democrat primary, I have no doubt about it and they made it absolutely impossible for him. They made it so you have to get 60-70% of the vote just to get in and you know what? In the end, the Democrats did the same….”

    Liked by 1 person

  21. Taq, Rickrolled by Jesus
    August 23, 2024 9:06 am

    https://gettr.com/post/p3aimi20ab2

    BREAKING: Just released, the official results of the Arizona Senate Audit of the 2020 election. Some (not all) of the findings: • +255,000 early votes with no record • +23,000 voted by mail after moved from the state/county. • +23,000 double votes • +9,000 more mail in ballots received and recorded than official number of mail in ballots, • +50,000 counterfeit ballots • Dominion’s best friend • Katie Hobbs belongs in prison • Adrian Fontes is a criminal • And on Jan 6, United States Congress certified the overthrow of your government.

    Liked by 1 person

    2. Hahahaha. Post lunch. Outside with Speckles on this cloudy, breezy day. Tide is coming in. I’ve let everyone in my nearby circle know about Trump’s Uncle John’s work with Nikola Tesla’s papers and the book Wizard, which you posted about.Your cooperative blog always makes me laugh, in addition to giving me The Best of The News.

      Liked by 1 person

  32. H/T Rodney

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  33. Just The News: “The presidential campaign for Independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s said in a court filing Friday in Pennsylvania, ahead of a planned speech, that Kennedy is endorsing Donald Trump for president.

    Kennedy’s campaign also requested that the candidate be removed from the Pennsylvania ballot, though it was not immediately clear that he was officially dropping out of the race.

    Kennedy is set to announce in Arizona on Friday afternoon that he’ll suspend his campaign.”

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  34. NF: I guess that’s so he can hang onto the $$$….

    “Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy announced Friday that he suspending his 2024 presidential campaign. “I want everyone to know I am not terminating my campaign,” he said during the press conference. “I am simply suspending it, but not ending it.”

    Kennedy will attempt to keep his campaign alive despite removing himself from at least one battleground state, Pennsylvania, and backing the reelection campaign of former GOP President Donald Trump.

    “Three great causes drove me to enter the race in the first place,” he said. “Primarily..these are the principal causes that persuaded me to leave the Democratic Party and run as an independent and now throw my support behind President Trump….these causes were free speech, the war in Ukraine and the war on our children.”

    Kennedy has for weeks attracted speculation that he may drop out and endorse one of the major candidates in exchange for a role in their administration. 

    Prior to his announcement, Kennedy Jr. said in a Pennsylvania court filing that he would be endorsing former President Donald Trump, according to The Associated Press. During his speech, he criticized the current Democrat Party, arguing it was the party of censorship, war and corruption. 

    Earlier this year, Kennedy Jr. secured enough signatures to get on the swing states of Georgia and Arizona. In April, members of his family endorsed President Joe Biden for 2024 over him at an event in Philadelphia.”

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    1. We’ve finally moved out of all the clouds and dripping humidity, with some sunshine and lower wind – it was in the mid-60’s until a couple of hours ago and now it’s 84. Very nice! We’ll be back in the oven over the week-end tho!

      Liked by 1 person

    1. LOL – no, not much dancing involved, altho I can’t say for their night out in DC! I know that entailed a lot of drinking! That’s in part 2.

      Liked by 1 person

  40. Definitely NOT a fan of CNN but sometimes, they write some good ones:

    EXCERPT: “Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers are cracking down on the sound of women’s voices in public, under a strict new set of vice and virtue laws under the Islamist regime. The laws were issued Wednesday after they were approved by supreme leader Hibatullah Akhundzada, a government spokesman said, and cover aspects of everyday life like public transportation, music, shaving and celebrations.

    Among the new rules, Article 13 relates to women: It says it is mandatory for a woman to veil her body at all times in public and that a face covering is essential to avoid temptation and tempting others. Clothing should not be thin, tight or short.

    Women are also obliged to cover themselves in front of non-Muslim males and females to avoid being corrupted. A woman’s voice is deemed intimate and so should not be heard singing, reciting, or reading aloud in public. It is forbidden for women to look at men they are not related to by blood or marriage and vice versa.

    “Inshallah we assure you that this Islamic law will be of great help in the promotion of virtue and the elimination of vice,” said ministry spokesman Maulvi Abdul Ghafar Farooq on Thursday, of the new laws…..”

    https://edition.cnn.com/2024/08/22/middleeast/taliban-law-women-voices-intl-latam/index.html

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