Saturday, October 31, 2020
SEAL Team 6 Rescues American Hostage In ‘Daring’ West Africa Raid
SEAL Team 6 rescued an American citizen taken hostage in northern Nigeria, killing several of his captors, Pentagon officials announced Saturday morning.
Philip Walton, 27, was kidnapped from his home in Southern Niger on Tuesday, according to two unnamed sources in a report from The Guardian.
Six men armed with assault rifles arrived at Walton’s home on Tuesday via motorcycles, kidnapping him while leaving his family behind. The assailants then demanded money for his return.
No U.S. military personnel were reportedly hurt during the “daring” rescue operation that reportedly took place early Saturday.
Walton is being held at the U.S. ambassador’s residence in Niamey, according to The Guardian.
“The United States is committed to the safe return of all US citizens taken captive,” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a statement. “We delivered on that commitment late last night in Nigeria, where some of our bravest and most skilled warriors rescued a U.S. citizen after a group of armed men took him hostage across the border in Niger.”
“Thanks to the extraordinary courage and capabilities of our military, the support of our intelligence professionals, and our diplomatic efforts, the hostage will be reunited with his family,” he added. “We will never abandon any...
Why Victor Davis Hanson thinks Trump will win...
The classicist and military historian makes the case for the president – and a second upset
To those who see an intellectual case for Donald Trump as a contradiction in terms, Victor Davis Hanson is an unlikely figure.
A senior fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution, Dr Hanson was awarded the National Humanities Medal by George W Bush in 2007. He is the author of more than 20 books on classics, military history and more. When he isn’t writing or teaching, he’s managing his family’s farm. Dr Hanson is also a full-throated and unapologetic supporter of the president. Last year, Dr Hanson published The Case for Trump, a coherent and thoughtful argument for an often incoherent and thoughtless president.
With under a week left in the presidential election, Dr Hanson spoke to me over the telephone from his farm in California’s San Joaquin Valley about whether Trump will win, why he supports the president and how the coronavirus has sharpened America’s political and class divides. Below is a lightly edited transcript of our conversation.
How do you see the race right now? Who will win next week?
I think Trump will win the Electoral College. I’m not sure about the popular vote, but the more our experts and pundits reassert that 2016 cannot happen again, the more it seems like it is happening again. And by that I mean, more specifically, all the polls that were discredited in 2016 — the Politico poll and the Reuters poll, Fox or the Wall Street Journal/NBC poll, the mainstream polls in other words — they have Trump losing in the key states just about at the rate that Trump was losing last time. And from what I can tell, they haven’t really altered their methodology. The other polls, the Democracy Institute, the Trafalgar poll, the Zogby poll, the Rasmussen poll, have him very close, if not deadlocked at the national level. And then, in these key swing states, deadlocked or slightly ahead.
And yet, we were told in 2016, that these were not credible polls. They turned out to be almost prescient in their accuracy. So there you have it.
And then what we’re not supposed to do is rely on anecdotal evidence. But when you drive around communities in America — and I’ve been out a lot despite the quarantine — the enthusiasm is all on one side. It’s all Trump. There’s Trump signs, Trump motorcades, huge Trump rallies.
Because the data doesn’t seem logical, people don’t believe it. By that, I mean that African Americans might not vote just 8 per cent, but maybe 12 or 13 per cent for Trump, or Hispanics may not vote 31, but 35 or 36 per cent. Or college students, maybe a million and a half of them in swing states at these huge public universities, the biggest in the world — Ohio State, Michigan, Michigan State, University of Wisconsin, University of Miami, all of them — they’re not in session because of a lockdown. And students are not going to walk to the polls after being registered on campus, with the herd mentality and rah-rah exhortation that is normal. They are home in their basement or with their parents scattered all over. And I just don’t think they’re going to vote in the same numbers or with the...
Philadelphia firefighters union upholds Trump endorsement after overwhelming internal vote
The Philadelphia firefighters union voted by a near 2-1 margin to uphold its endorsement of President Donald Trump after it faced backlash over the decision.
The International Association of Fire Fighters (IAFF) Local 22, which represents firefighters and paramedics in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, declined to rescind the endorsement of President Donald Trump in a 1,444 to 782 vote, the union announced Wednesday. Local 22 members protested and national IAFF leadership spoke out against the union’s September endorsement of Trump.
“There is tremendous support for President Trump among first responders and we encourage other IAFF locals to confer with their members,” Michael Bresnan, president of Local 22, wrote in the union’s endorsement letter.
Local 22 tweeted its endorsement letter on Sept. 29. In response, Trump called the endorsement a “great honor,”...
Democrat Fraudster attempts to register dead Democrats in Broward County Florida...
The registered Republican quickly learned that at least two of the people — including a 104-year-old — were dead. Even worse, he said the two were registered Republicans, but the cards listed the party affiliation as Democrat.
“It looked like fraud to me,” he told the Miami Herald Friday. “This is a serious problem.”
Turns out, the fraudulent registrations are likely part of a bigger scheme in which a person in Columbia, South Carolina, sent in dozens of registration applications, according to the Broward Supervisor of Elections Office. Many of the people listed on the forms had already died, according to emails between Supervisor of Elections Pete Antonacci and the Broward State Attorney’s Office.
The more than 50 applications, which came in 19 separate envelopes, were flagged by the Broward Supervisor of Elections Office and handed over to the State Attorney’s Office for an investigation in August. Even though the registrations were submitted, no one tried to vote or request a ballot with those names, said Steve Vancore, a spokesman for the elections office.
Vancore added that because the forms were filled out by mail and there was no Social Security number or driver’s license number, a person would have to show a photo id with a signature to vote.
The scheme was first reported by the Sun Sentinel, who was flagged by Richard DeNapoli, a Republican state committeeman from Broward.
DeNapoli said Friday that Fisher contacted him and sent him photos of the registration cards. DeNapoli then contacted reporters at the Sentinel.
“It looked credible,” said DeNapoli. “Who knows what the intent was here.”
Of the 50 or so applications received in those 19 envelopes, about 30 of them were for people who had died, according to an email sent to Antonacci from...
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