by | May 26, 2024 | Aggregate
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Nile Taylor with flaming liquid in February
Meanwhile in the Democrat hellhole of New York CityâŠ
A New York City subway passenger was set on fire by a fellow straphanger on Saturday and ended up with burns on 30% of his body.
23-year-old Petrit Alijaj said the assailant, now identified as 49-year-old Nile Taylor, threw a cup of flaming liquid at him on Saturday as he was on his way to see the Statue of Liberty with his fiancée and cousin.
Alijaj, who is from Albania, told the New York Post that he jumped in front of his fiancée to protect her.
âI protect my fiancĂ©e with my body,â he told the New York Post.
Petrit Alijaj, photo courtesy of New York Post
It turns out Nile Taylor is a repeat offender!
NYPD identified him as the same man who threw two cans of flaming liquid at subway commuters in February.
WATCH:
NEW: SOMEONE IS THROWING CANS OF FIRE INSIDE NYC SUBWAY
A suspect on camera throwing flaming cans at subway riders in NYC
Source: Police Frequency pic.twitter.com/zkG5Cf1Nqs
â Suhr Majesty (@ULTRA_MAJESTY) March 13, 2024
Nile Taylor was arrested a few blocks away from the crime scene at Canal Street and Renwick Street, according to The Post.
The New York Post reported:
The deranged nut who tossed flaming liquid at an unsuspecting straphanger also tried to torch a group of commuters at a Manhattan subway station earlier this year, cops said Sunday.
Nile Taylor, 49 â who is in custody on an assault rap in the fiery Saturday afternoon attack on 23-year-old Petrit Alijaj at the Varick Street station in Manhattan â has now been charged over a similar Feb. 5 incident at the West 28th Street subway station, too, police said.
A man now identified as Taylor can be seen on surveillance footage in the February incident holding two cans of flammable liquid and hurling them at a group of people at the station.
No one was hurt in the incident, and the suspect fled and remained on the lam until now.
Around 2:45 p.m. Saturday, Alijaj and his fiancee were about to get off a No. 1 train at West Houston and Varick streets as they headed to the Statue of Liberty when Taylor allegedly hurled flaming liquid at him.
âI protect my fiancee with my body,â he said.
Alijaj ended up ripping off his burning shirt while his assailant fled the scene.
âI touched myself to put out the fire,â Alijaj recalled. âSo, while I was running, I was burning.
âThe doctors said 30% of my body was burnt. But I donât think it is 30%. Maybe more like 10%,â he said.
The post HORROR: Man Sets NYC Subway Passenger on Fire with Flaming Liquid â And Heâs a Repeat Offender â Second Attack with Flaming Liquid in 4 Months appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.
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by | May 26, 2024 | Aggregate
 Baltimore Inner Harbor Waterfront
Waterfront Partnership, a Baltimore, Maryland non-profit âdedicated to enhancing and promoting the waterfront district, parks, and public spacesâ is set to host an event in the Baltimore harbor promoting public swimming in the water near downtown Baltimore.
Supposedly, elected officials, including leftist Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott, plan to start the event with a ceremonial jump on June 23. âWe must start swimming,â although work to clean up the harbor is âfar from over,â said the Waterfront Partnershipâs Healthy Harbor Initiative chairman, Michael Hankin. According to the Healthy Harbor Initiativeâs annual report card, water quality in the harbor is only safe for swimming âmost of the time in dry weather.â
Per Baltimore Fishbowl,
Waterfront Partnership will host a public âHarbor Splashâ swimming event on Sunday, June 23, 2024, and registration opens on May 29 for all âHarbor Splashâ newsletter subscribers who would like to take the dive!
A group of key partners and elected officials, including Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott and Maryland Comptroller Brooke Lierman, will start the event with a ceremonial jump at 9:20 a.m. from a floating dock at Bond Street Wharf in Fells Point.
The event is made possible by over a decade of work by the Healthy Harbor Initiative championing the goal of a âswimmable, fishableâ Baltimore Harbor. Healthy Harbor has worked with numerous partners including nonprofits, educational institutions, the local government, business leaders, volunteers, and of course, the Trash Wheel Family to make the Inner Harbor clean enough to swim in.
âWe know our work is far from over, but we must start swimming. Itâs a commitment to keep working to ensure that our ecosystem thrives and that swimming in the harbor becomes a routine occurrence,â said Michael Hankin, president and CEO of Brown Advisory and chairman of Waterfront Partnershipâs Healthy Harbor Initiative. âWe had an ambitious goal and, with a lot of hard work and people believing we could do it; we are finally realizing our vision.â
This area is just miles away from where a cargo ship collided with the Francis Scott Key Bridge at the southern end of the Baltimore Harbor. As The Gateway Pundit reported, as many as 1.8 million gallons of fuel and other hazardous materials likely spilled into the water, and authorities suspended their search-and-rescue mission for the six bridge workers who fell into the water and were presumed dead. There still remain two missing bodies out of the eight who were victims of the collapse.Â
UPDATE: DHS and Coast Guard Say Cargo Ship that Struck Francis Scott Key Bridge Was Transporting 1.8M Gallons of Fuel and 56 Containers with Hazardous Materials
If you want to risk unknown diseases or exposure to hazardous materials by swimming in the dirty Baltimore Harbor water, you can register to jump in here.
In 2010, Michael Hankin, CEO of Brown Advisory Baltimore, launched a campaign to make the harbor âswimmable and fishable.â Since then, there has been an array of problems.Â
As recently as last month, the body of a missing man was found in the harbor in the neighborhood next to Bond Street Wharf in Fells Point, where people are encouraged to swim. Several other reports of bodies being fished out of the harbor in recent years can be found online.
In 2021, âmajor maintenance and operational problems at the cityâs two wastewater treatment plants were discovered, with high bacteria levels routinely detected in the discharge to the harbor from the Patapsco River facility.â
The state urges people âespecially children and women of child-bearing age â to limit consumption of locally caught crabs and some fish because they have toxic contaminants picked up from past industrial activity.â
To deal with some of the visible pollution, Mr. Trash Wheel was instituted to be the first âtrash interceptor of its kindâ and has so far removed âmillions of pounds of debris from the Inner Harbor.âÂ
Mr. Trash Wheel (Photo from https://today.umd.edu/rollin-on-the-river)
Overflowing trash in the harbor is coupled with “persistent sewer leaks throughout Baltimore City” and an “overflow-prone sewer system.” After the city reportedly dumped more than $1 billion into fixing the sewer system, “thereâs been a 75% decline in the volume of untreated sewage overflowing into the harbor since 2021.” According to Lindquist, the deadline for sewer repairs is not until 2030.
It is unclear why there would be such a heavy push to start putting people in this water or why they “must start swimming,” as Waterfront Partnership’s Michael Hankin put it.
Per Bay Journal,
âBy no means are we saying mission accomplished, we can all go home,â Lindquist said. The cityâs sewer repairs are expected to continue for several more years, with a 2030 deadline, he noted. âBy making a splash,â he added, âwe are also taking a stand, [saying] that cleaning up the harbor is important, and we need to keep working on it.â
The sampling shows that water quality in Baltimoreâs harbor is closely connected to rainfall, which washes animal waste off pavement and causes sewer overflows, Lindquist said.
Despite all the problems, the time has come for people to jump in and make a splash. Some sensible individuals have expressed their concerns on social media.
One, who says they are a former environmental scientist, said, “It’s incredibly dangerous and irresponsible” for these organizations to encourage people to swim in the water “filled with fecal bacteria, lifetime pollutants, and more.” Other commenters roasted the idea and joked that you’d need a vat of antibacterial soap or that you would come out glowing:
Another noted that the water smells like the taste of “yak piss.” They continued, “Make sure to yank out all the heroin needles you’ll get stuck with.”
Â
Others used it as an opportunity to make fun of the COVID-19 sheep, wondering how people will be safe with wet masks or whether a triple vaxxed person will be safe:
MORE:
Screenshot
The post WTH: Baltimore, Maryland Invites 125 People to Swim in The Baltimore Harbor Near Bridge Collapse Where Hazardous Materials Spilled into Water, Sewage, Trash, Drug Needles, and Dead Bodies Float appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.
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by | May 26, 2024 | Aggregate
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This story originally was published by Real Clear Wire
By Susan Crabtree
Real Clear Wire
House Republicans who have led a nearly two-year investigation into a $500,000 State Department grant to an organization that promotes humanism and secularism are pressing the agency to conduct more diligent oversight after it admitted that the organization may have misused taxpayer funds.
Rep. Mike McCaul, a Texas Republican who chairs the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and Chris Smith, a New Jersey Republican who heads the panelâs human rights subcommittee, have accused the State Department of trying to promote atheism overseas under the guise of advancing religious pluralism, a longtime U.S. foreign policy priority. Rep. Brian Mast, a Florida Republican who chairs the panelâs oversight and accountability subcommittee, has also helped spearhead inquiries into the grant.
For more than a year, the trio has been investigating the decision-making behind the State Departmentâs April 2021 solicitation bid for a $500,000 grant titled âPromoting and Defending Religious Freedom Inclusive of Atheist, Humanist, Non-Practicing and Non-Affiliated Individuals.â The agency awarded the grant to Humanists International, or HI, an organization aimed at promoting humanism, an outlook and system of thought attaching prime importance to human effort rather than divine or supernatural powers.
In a letter sent to Deputy Secretary of State Richard Verma Wednesday, McCaul, Smith, and Mast charged the State Department with engaging in a âpattern of obfuscation and denialâ throughout the investigation in order to âexpand atheism networksâ overseas. The First Amendmentâs Establishment Clause of the Constitution bars the use of tax dollars to promote theocracy, a specific religion or belief system.
It was not until Foreign Affairs Committee staff contacted the HI to schedule a transcribed interview, and the organization retained legal counsel, that the âtrue scopeâ of the grantâs programming was revealed, the GOP House members asserted. HIâs attorneys contacted the State Department and admitted it had provided the wrong slides presented during its training session in Nepal.
âLegal counsel for the grantee uncovered in a matter of weeks what the Department obfuscated, misrepresented and denied for years,â they wrote, expressing skepticism about the agencyâs stated commitment to recoup any misused funds and take action to bar HI from further State Department grants.
âWe do, however, appreciate your statements, and we expect to be informed fully and without delay of all developments in this matter,â they continued. âThe Department can reasonably expect congressional oversight of grant funding to continue since the need for it is all the more pressing in light of the recent revelations.â
According to its website, HI promotes âhuman-rights priorities based on humanist values at international organizations,â including the United Nations. It also champions the rights of individuals persecuted or discriminated against for failing to adhere to a countryâs predominant religion or those who face harsh penalties under their countryâs blasphemy and anti-conversion laws.
A statement on HIâs website praises a Nigerian court for upholding the appeal of Mubarak Bala and reducing his prison sentence from 24 years to five years for violating the countryâs blasphemy laws. In 2020, Bala was arrested in northern Nigeria, where Islam is the governmentâs dominant religion and thousands of Christians are killed each year, for a series of Facebook posts expressing his humanist beliefs.
The latest war of words comes after the State Department acknowledged in late April that the agency had provided the House Republicans with the wrong PowerPoint slides about what HI was using U.S. funds to accomplish.
Naz Durakoglu, the State Departmentâs assistant secretary for its bureau of legislative affairs, notified McCaul that HI had recently contacted the department to say it had initially provided the wrong slides about the information conveyed at training sessions the grant funded. The agency then passed the wrong slides on to the committee in response to its probe.
âThis new information directly contradicts Humanists Internationalâs previous representation to the Department that the slides it had earlier provided were the ones used at the training,â Durakoglu wrote to McCaul in an April 29 letter, noting that the âdepartment is deeply concerned about this development.â
The State Department stressed that itâs taking âimmediate actionâ to request additional information from HI to ensure its work complies with federal laws and regulations.
âShould the Department determine that any such charges were not in accordance with applicable statutes and regulations, including activities outside the grant agreement, it will take all necessary actions to recoup misused fundsâ and take steps to bar HI from being eligible to receive federal funds in the future, Durakoglu wrote. He also noted that it would refer any misrepresentations HI made to the State Department Office of Inspector General for further investigation.
But McCaul, Smith, and Mast arenât convinced the State Department is acting in good faith, considering that the agency had pushed back against their concerns for more than a year. The House Foreign Affairs Committee obtained the PowerPoint slides from the actual HI training sessions and argued they show that only humanists or atheists attended the sessions, instead of members of several faith traditions. They also complained that the slides appeared to show that HI was using the grant to advance the humanist cause and its influence on government policy and touted the benefits of setting annual numerical goals for recruiting new humanist or atheist members.
For more than a year, U.S. officials claimed that the grantâs work was not aimed at increasing the number and influence of atheists abroad but was merely a routine award aimed at promoting the larger goal of religious tolerance in South and Central Asia or the Middle East and North Africa, the grant offeringâs targeted area.
The State Departmentâs stated aim for the grant was to prevent discrimination against individuals who do not adhere to the predominant religious tradition. In several countries across those regions, blasphemy and anti-conversion laws, such as those in Nigeria, prohibit insults to the prevailing religion and are often used to enact harsh penalties against religious minorities, atheists, and other nonbelievers.
The State Department provided another grant opportunity in 2021 to help âexpandâ religious freedom and tolerance in Mozambique, where Christians face horrific levels of persecution despite making up roughly 50% of the population.
âThe genesis of these activities is how do we bring the most persecuted and the most marginalized [when it comes to religious freedom] and bring them into the conversation,â a senior department official of the State Departmentâs Office of Religious Freedom told RealClearPolitics in a lengthy interview. âIn Central Asia, thereâs significant persecution of Christians, thereâs significant persecution of religious minorities, and most of these folks just want to live their lives in accordance with their own conscience.â
The average Muslim in Saudi Arabia doesnât necessarily want to practice Islam the way the government dictates, the senior official said, so the purpose of the grant offering was to acknowledge that people who donât adhere to approved religious belief are often the victims of religious discrimination.
âThe idea behind the request for proposal was not to make a program for atheists or for members of a particular group,â he added. âIt was to make sure that when we think about promoting religious freedom for everyone, weâre doing things that are inclusive and [including] members of those communities who often get left out because they donât have an obvious spokesperson.â
The official vigorously defends that rationale for providing the grant, but says his office is deeply concerned that HI may have engaged in misconduct.
âI will stand proudly behind the [rationale], but as soon as thereâs the potential whiff of fraud or misrepresentation, thatâs a very different matter entirely,â he said. âWe take that very seriously and want to ensure that, as stewards of taxpayer dollars, that not one penny of taxpayer money is being misappropriated or misused.â
The State Departmentâs Office of International Religious Freedom, which was created in 1998 by an act of Congress, promotes universal respect for religious freedom or belief as a core objective of U.S. foreign policy. The office monitors religiously motivated abuses and discrimination worldwide and engages with faith-based actors, groups, and organizations to help promote democracy and pluralism.
In 2016, Smith, a longtime human rights champion in Congress, worked to update the religious freedom law to expressly protect the rights of people around the world who practice no religion at all.
âWe want to make clear that ⊠nobody is coerced into believing in God if they donât want to,â Smith said at the time. âIâm a Catholic, and I believe very deeply in God, but Christ said, âI stand at the door and knock. If you welcome me, I come in.â And thatâs the way religious liberty ought to be, absolutely voluntary. People have the right not to believe.â
Smith also said the language clarifying that the law is meant to protect nonbelievers was noncontroversial even among the more evangelical members of Congress.
âIt speaks well of all of, of everyone, that we really want to protect freedom of conscience for all people,â Smith said.
But Smith is now deeply concerned that the State Department is using taxpayer funds to directly benefit the atheist and humanist cause and possibly grow its numbers. In the coming weeks, the New Jersey Republican plans to introduce legislation explicitly barring grants violating the Establishment Clause. He cited language in the Notice of Funding Opportunity, the official agency notice describing the grant and requesting applicants, as potentially violating the First Amendment prohibitions. The notice states that the âexpected program outcomeâ was to â[i]ncrease capacity among members of atheist and heterodox individuals to form or join networks or organizations.â
âIt is hard to believe that Department officials refused to read the words right in front of them, but we are not sure what else may have happened,â the GOP members wrote in their Wednesday letter to Verma.
They also cite HIâs state strategic goals, which include having member organizations in âevery part of the world,â according to its website.
Gary McLelland, HIâs CEO, has been very vocal about his animus against the Roman Catholic Church, arguing in one podcast that, âItâs obviously my job in [the international HI organization] to combat the Vatican policies and to push against them.â
The timing of the grant may have helped HI recover from a tough financial period. An RCP analysis of HIâs charitable 990 tax forms shows that the organization operated at a net loss every year from 2019 until 2021, ending that year with a net loss of $322,000, although it listed $3.8 million in assets. In 2022, roughly the time of receiving the Stateâs $500,000 Department grant, the organization reported only a $3,000 loss and $3.2 million in assets.
As recently as March 21, during an appearance before the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Verma dismissed the Republicansâ concerns that the grant was promoting converts to atheism or humanism instead of tolerance for all religious minorities. At one point during his testimony, Verma deemed the grant âexactly the right kind of program.â
âI have looked at the grant. I have looked at the materials,â he said. â[Promoting atheism] is not what the grant is for, and that is not what the work would be for. We would never authorize such a grant to any organization.â I have seen no evidence of any grant to promote atheism in Nepal âŠÂ I have looked at the materials this grantee has used. It was about supporting civil society.â
In February, a State Department assistant secretary told the House Republicans that the grant-funded training in Nepal only concerned âcreating guidelines ⊠for the promotion of human rights and dignity.â
The agency continued to deny that it provided funds to any organizations with âthe aim of using the funds to promote or advance specific ideologies or beliefs,â even though the official State Department âscope of workâ for the program stated that participants would âconduct advocacy and members activities promoting humanismâ and would work to âincrease and diversify their membership network.â
This article was originally published by RealClearPolitics and made available via RealClearWire.
Susan Crabtree is RealClearPoliticsâ national political correspondent.
The post State Dept: âAtheism Grantâ May Have Been Misused appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.
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by | May 26, 2024 | Aggregate
 US Fleet Forces Commander Admiral Daryl Caudle warns of attempted penetrations at US bases by foreign nationals are taking place 2-3 times a week.
The US Fleet Forces Commander Admiral Daryl Caudle warned FOX News viewers that there have been an uptick in foreign nationals attempting to penetrate US military bases around the country. These attempted breaches are taking place two to three times a week now.
Journalist Lara Logan reported on attempted breaches at several US bases by Chechens, Jordanians and Chinese.
https://t.co/tAcg3EZruU https://t.co/6Cjh3EKqtK
â Lara Logan (@laralogan) May 25, 2024
MoreâŠ
How about now? Do you see it now? https://t.co/pIjgwTlqOV https://t.co/PBRmhQDuHL
â Lara Logan (@laralogan) May 25, 2024
Of course, the blame for this goes back to Joe Biden and the Democrat Partyâs organized plan to open the borders to millions of unknown aliens.
U.S. Fleet Forces Commander Admiral Daryl Caudle told Bill Hemmer on America Reports that attempted penetrations of U.S. military bases by foreign nationals are taking place âtwo or three times a week.â
But this appears to be a much larger problem than what is being reported.
Kennedy Space Center â flickr fair use image
Chinese nationals have breached US military sites and sensitive areas like Kennedy Space Center over 100 times in recent years.
Chinese spies breach US military bases 100 times, officials say https://t.co/fl7cFtT88G
â Lara Logan (@laralogan) May 26, 2024
The New York Post reported on this back in 2023.
Chinese nationals have snuck onto military bases and other sensitive US sites more than 100 times in recent years â sparking federal investigations into possible spying, according to a report Monday.
Alarming cases include people crossing into a United States missile range in New Mexico â and scuba divers swimming near a rocket launch site and Kennedy Space Center in Florida, officials told the Wall Street Journal.
Some have also used drones to take detailed aerial footage of sensitive military sites â while the Pentagon confirmed cases of people âspeeding through security checkpoints.â
Many would-be intruders, however, claim to be confused tourists who think they have a reservation at an on-base hotel â and they often use what appears to be scripted language when confronted by security, the report said.
The post UPDATE: Chinese Nationals Breached US Military Bases and Sensitive US Sites Over 100 Times in Recent Years appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.
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