#Raymond McCord

[2ndaryprotocol]

The slapstick spectacular ‘Airplane II: The Sequel’ soared into theaters this day 40 years ago. 🌘👨‍🚀💣

“𝚆𝚑𝚎𝚛𝚎 𝚊𝚖 𝙸 𝚐𝚘𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚝𝚘 𝚐𝚎𝚝 𝚊 𝚙𝚒𝚎𝚌𝚎 𝚘𝚏 𝚖𝚎𝚝𝚊𝚕? 𝙾𝚞𝚝 𝚑𝚎𝚛𝚎 𝚒𝚗 𝚜𝚙𝚊𝚌𝚎? 𝙰𝚝 𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚜 𝚑𝚘𝚞𝚛?”

[vintagetvstars]

CLOSED! Preliminary Hot Vintage TV Men List

Alright folks! We have one week left on submissions for the Hot Vintage TV Men's Bracket! As promised here is a list of all the Hot Vintage TV Men who have been submitted and passed our preliminary eligibility checks. There are a handful of guys on this list and one or two not on it that we are currently still debating on so reminder that this list is not final and subject to change.

Currently we have 231 Hot Vintage TV Men!

Also in advance of the competition I'd like to remind anyone submitting propaganda for someone that starred in a show that aired only partially during our timeframe or was under 18 for a part of a shows filming, to please make sure you are only submitting propaganda that is from within our timeframe and when the actor was 18 years or older. This is also just good to keep in mind in general as several people submitted actors for shows that aren't eligible for our tournament either because it was outside our time period or in one case the actor was underaged for the entirety of the show (though many were eligible for other shows they were submitted for). We do our best to screen for these things but sometimes it's hard to tell or it’s a show we don't personally know well enough so we appreciate help from y'all letting us know if you do catch anything.

List below the cut

Preliminary Hot Vintage TV Men List

Dick Van Dyke

Alan Alda

Hugh Laurie

Peter Falk

Adam West

Donnie Wahlberg

Kevin McDonald

Scott Thompson

David Duchovny

Henry Winkler

Leonard Nimoy

Scott Bakula

James Garner

Tom Selleck

Dave Foley

John Astin

Joe Lando

Patrick Troughton

William Shatner

DeForest Kelley

Michael Ontkean

Russell Johnson

Kyle MacLachlan

Bruce McCulloch

William Hopper

George Clooney

Jeffrey Combs

Michael Horse

Mark McKinney

Jensen Ackles

Alejandro Rey

Mitch Pileggi

David Cassidy

Jeremy Brett

Anthony Head

George Takei

David Selby

Rod Serling

Paul Gross

Desi Arnaz

Tom Baker

Richard Dean Anderson

David Keith McCallum

Richard Chamberlain

Charles Shaughnessy

David James Elliot

Vincent Van Patten

Darren E. Burrows

David Hyde Pierce

Randolph Mantooth

Ricardo Montalban

Gene Anthony Ray

William Hartnell

Patrick McGoohan

René Auberjonois

Alexander Siddig

Reece Shearsmith

Michael T. Weiss

William Shockley

Spencer Rochfort

Danny John-Jules

David Hasselhoff

Conner Trinneer

Patrick Stewart

Jonathan Frakes

Paolo Montalban

Scott Patterson

Armin Shimerman

Anthony Andrews

David Schwimmer

Blair Underwood

Sylvester McCoy

Andrew Robinson

Pierce Brosnan

Thorsten Kaye

Anthony Starke

Darren McGavin

Clint Eastwood

Joseph Marcell

Michael Vartan

Richard Ayoade

George Maharis

Michael J. Fox

Dwayne Hickman

John de Lancie

Andre Braugher

Robert Carlyle

Dean Stockwell

Matthew Perry

Robert Fuller

Michael Hurst

Dana Ashbrook

Jonathan Frid

Dirk Benedict

Martin Milner

Demond Wilson

Robert Conrad

Telly Savalas

Peter Davison

Michael Praed

Jason Bateman

David Tennant

Brian Blessed

Miguel Ferrer

Micky Dolenz

Wayne Rogers

Mike Farrell

Michael Dorn

Cesar Romero

Eddie Albert

Nate Richert

Nicholas Lea

Brent Spiner

Dick Gautier

John Corbett

Jeremy Irons

David Suchet

Raymond Burr

LeVar Burton

David Wenham

Clint Walker

Larry Hagman

John Goodman

Matt LeBlanc

Tom Smothers

Erik Estrada

Jeremy Sisto

Colm Meaney

Stephen Fry

Ted Bessell

Ron Perlman

Luke Halpin

Ted Cassidy

Kevin Sorbo

John Cleese

Colin Firth

Colin Baker

Fred Rogers

Ben Browder

Keir Dullea

Randy Boone

Kent McCord

Jimmy Smits

Mark Lenard

Jon Pertwee

Fred Grandy

Mark Hamill

Ted Danson

Adam Brody

Noah Wiley

Eric Close

Lee Majors

Jamie Farr

Tony Danza

Kabir Bedi

Seth Green

Rik Mayall

Hal Linden

Diego Luna

Peter Tork

Sean Bean

Sam Neill

Eric Idle

Ted Lange

John Shea

Ron Glass

Tony Dow

Mr. T

John Hurt

Avery Brooks 

Billy Dee Williams 

James Marsters 

Robert Vaughn 

Kevin Smith 

Davy Jones 

Luke Perry 

Robert Duncan McNeill 

Simon MacCorkindale 

Keith Hamilton Cobb 

Chad Michael Murray 

James Earl Jones 

Bruce Boxleitner 

Timothy Olyphant 

Andreas Katsulas 

Valentine Pelka 

Peter Wingfield 

Sebastian Cabot 

Michael Nesmith 

Timothy Dalton 

Michael Shanks 

Joshua Jackson 

Michael O’Hare 

Robert Beltran 

Simon Williams 

Paul Johannson 

Daniel Dae Kim 

David Boreanaz 

Boris Karloff 

Robert Wagner 

Brandon Quinn  

Walter Koenig 

Richard Hatch 

Christian Kane  

Francis Capra  

Nathan Fillion 

John Forsythe 

Patrick Duffy 

Tony Shalhoub 

Ioan Gruffudd 

Garrett Wang  

Joe Flanigan  

Rider Strong  

Michael Tylo 

Bruce Willis 

Skeet Ulrich  

Jeff Conaway 

Paul McGann 

Scott Cohen 

Mario Lopez  

Martin Kove 

John Stamos 

Judd Hirsch 

Johnny Depp 

Tom Welling 

Matt Bomer 

Grant show 

David Soul  

Bob Crane  

Tim Russ 

Rob Lowe 

Neil Patrick Harris 

[brokehorrorfan]

Sudden Death will be released on 4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray on August 27 via Kino Lorber. Jean-Claude Van Damme, stars in the 1995 action thriller.

Peter Hyams (End of Days, Timecop) directs from a script by Gene Quintano (Police Academy 3-4). Powers Boothe, Raymond J. Barry, and Dorian Harewood round out the cast.

Sudden Death has been newly restored in 4K 16-bit restoration from the original camera negative with Dolby Vision/HDR. Special features are listed below.

Disc 1 - 4K UHD:

Audio commentary by action film historians Mike Leeder and Ross Boyask (new)

Disc 2 - Blu-ray:

Audio commentary by action film historians Mike Leeder and Ross Boyask (new)

Interview clips with director Peter Hyams and actors Jean-Claude Van Damme, Powers Boothe, and Ross Malinger

Behind-the-scenes footage

Theatrical trailer

TV spot

Ex-fireman Darren McCord (Jean-Claude Van Damme) has a new job working security at the Pittsburgh Civic Arena. Hoping to impress his kids, he's scored tickets to the Stanley Cup Finals, unaware that the place has been taken over by a group of terrorists. Ex-CIA agent Joshua Foss (Powers Boothe) is holding the vice president hostage in a press box and plans to blow up the building if he doesn't pay the ransom. But, when Darren learns of his scheme, he jumps into action to save the day.

Pre-order Sudden Death.

[filmnoirfoundation]

Next up for for FNF prez Eddie Muller at the Turner Classic Movies Film Festival today. He'll introduce Elia Kazan's EAST OF EDEN (1955), 11:45 am, TCL Chinese Theatres, House 1.

#TCMFF film notes:

When director Elia Kazan realized Marlon Brando and Montgomery Clift were too old to play the brothers in his adaptation of John Steinbeck’s East of Eden, he went looking for new talent. Boy, did he find it! In his first starring role (and the only one of his major films released during his lifetime), James Dean burns up the screen with inner turmoil. He’s cast as Cal, the tortured Cain to Richard Davalos’s Abel and Raymond Massey’s Adam in coastal California on the eve of World War I. Rejection dominates Dean’s performance as he strives to win his father’s love, finds himself drawn to his brother’s girlfriend (Julie Harris), and discovers his mother (Jo Van Fleet) is running a brothel in a nearby town.

Working with cinematographer Ted McCord, Kazan reflected Cal’s emotional turmoil in his creative use of the widescreen image. This was Kazan’s first film shot in color and CinemaScope, and he frequently tilts the camera to intensify a scene’s emotional impact. He also worked with composer Leonard Rosenman to make the score mirror Cal’s inner life. At the time, many reviewers lauded Kazan’s move into widescreen while complaining that Dean’s performance was just an imitation of early Brando. More recent critics have hailed the film as Kazan’s and Dean’s best. Van Fleet won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress with her film debut, with additional nominations going to Kazan, Dean, and Paul Osborn’s adapted screenplay.

d. Elia Kazan, 118 minutes, DCP

World premiere restoration courtesy of Warner Bros. Classics

Restored by Warner Bros. in collaboration with the Film Foundation

[ulkaralakbarova]

Sudden Death

When a man’s daughter is suddenly taken during a championship hockey game – with the captors demanding a billion dollars by game’s end – he frantically sets a plan in motion to rescue her and abort an impending explosion before the final buzzer. Credits: TheMovieDb. Film Cast: Darren Francis Thomas McCord: Jean-Claude Van Damme Joshua Foss: Powers Boothe Vice President Daniel Bender: Raymond J.…

[qudachuk]

Belfast Coroner’s Court heard it is unlikely the inquest will be able to finish by the May 2024 deadline imposed by the Legacy Act.

[filmy420]

[thefivedemands]

RAYMOND McCORD: “I PARAMILITARI LEALISTI STANNO COMPLOTTANDO PER UCCIDERMI” L'attivista, padre di un ragazzo ucciso dall'UVF più di 21 anni fa, è stato avvertito dalla PSNI di una minaccia contro la sua vita…

[genevieveetguy]

I've been jealous all my life. Jealous, I couldn't even stand it. Tonight, I even tried to buy your love, but now I don't want it anymore... I can't use it anymore. I don't want any kind of love anymore. It doesn't pay off.

East of Eden, Elia Kazan (1955)

[seachranaidhe]

Raymond McCord defies UVF death threats to continue court action against Mount Vernon UVF murder squad

Raymond McCord at a previous court hearing

High-profile victims’ campaigner Raymond McCord has been warned loyalist paramilitaries are plotting to kill him, he has revealed.

The Belfast man said police alerted him to the new threat against his life and advised him to review personal security arrangements.

But Mr McCord has vowed to press on with a planned High Court action against seven men in…

[vintagetvstars]

Hot Vintage TV Men's Bracket - Full List

Sorry for the delay, it took us longer than expected to finalize the list. We are currently working on finishing and finalizing the bracket for round 1. For now enjoy the list of everyone in the tournament and we'll be back on Thursday evening to kick off round 1!

Boris Karloff

Clint Walker

Desi Arnaz

Claude Rains

James Arness 

James Garner 

William Hopper 

Adam West

Alejandro Rey

Bob Crane

Cesar Romero 

David McCallum

David Selby 

Davy Jones

DeForest Kelley

Dick Gautier 

Dick Van Dyke 

Dwayne Hickman 

Eddie Albert 

George Maharis

George Takei 

John Astin 

Jonathan Frid 

Larry Hagman 

Leonard Nimoy 

Mark Lenard 

Martin Milner 

Michael Nesmith

Micky Dolenz 

Patrick McGoohan

Patrick Troughton 

Peter Tork 

Randy Boone 

Raymond Burr 

Richard Chamberlain 

Robert Conrad

Robert Fuller 

Robert Vaughn 

Rod Serling 

Russell Johnson 

Ted Bessell 

Ted Cassidy

Tom Smothers

Walter Koenig 

William Hartnell 

William Shatner 

Alan Alda 

Brian Blessed

Darren McGavin

David Cassidy

David Soul

Dean Butler

Demond Wilson 

Derek Jacobi 

Eric Idle

Erik Estrada 

Fred Grandy 

Fred Rogers 

Hal Linden

Henry Winkler

Jamie Farr 

John Cleese

John Hurt

Jon Pertwee 

Judd Hirsch 

Kabir Bedi

Kent McCord 

Lee Majors 

Michael Landon 

Michael Palin

Mike Farrell 

Peter Falk

Randolph Mantooth

Richard Hatch

Ricardo Montalban 

Robert Wagner 

Rock Hudson

Simon Williams

Telly Savalas

Terry Jones 

Tom Baker 

Wayne Rogers 

Anthony Andrews

Bruce Boxleitner

Bruce McCulloch 

Colin Baker 

Dave Foley 

David Hasselhoff

Dirk Benedict

Gene Anthony Ray

Gerald McRaney 

Hugh Laurie 

Jameson Parker

Jeremy Brett

Jimmy Smits 

John Forsythe 

John Stamos 

Johnny Depp 

Kevin McDonald 

Mark McKinney 

Martin Kove

Michael J. Fox

Michael Praed

Mr. T

Patrick Duffy 

Peter Davison 

Richard Dean Anderson

Rik Mayall 

Rowan Atkinson 

Sam Neill

Scott Thompson 

Simon MacCorkindale 

Stephen Fry 

Sylvester McCoy 

Ted Lange 

Tom Selleck 

Tony Danza 

Alexander Siddig 

Andre Braugher

Andreas Katsulas 

Andrew Robinson 

Anthony Head 

Anthony Starke

Armin Shimerman 

Avery Brooks 

Brad Dourif 

Brent Spiner 

Bruce Campbell 

Charles Shaughnessy 

Colm Meaney 

Craig Charles 

Dana Ashbrook 

Danny John-Jules 

Darren E. Burrows

David Duchovny

David Hyde Pierce

David Schwimmer 

David Suchet 

David Wenham 

Dean Stockwell 

Garrett Wang 

Gary Cole 

Grant Show

James Earl Jones

James Marsters 

Jeff Conaway 

Jeffrey Combs 

John Corbett 

John de Lancie 

John Goodman

John Shea 

Jonathan Frakes

Joseph Marcell 

Kevin Smith 

Kevin Sorbo 

Kyle MacLachlan 

LeVar Burton 

Luke Perry

Marc Alaimo 

Mark-Paul Gosselaar 

Matt LeBlanc

Matthew Perry

Michael Dorn 

Michael Horse 

Michael Hurst

Michael O’Hare 

Michael Ontkean 

Michael Tylo

Miguel Ferrer 

Mitch Pileggi 

Nate Richert 

Nicholas Lea 

Noah Wyle

Paolo Montalban

Patrick Stewart 

Paul Gross

Paul Johansson 

Paul McGann 

Peter Wingfield 

René Auberjonois 

Robert Beltran

Robert Carlyle

Robert Duncan McNeill

Ron Perlman

Scott Bakula 

Seth Green 

Spencer Rochfort

Stephen Nichols 

Ted Danson 

Ted Raimi

Thorsten Kaye 

Tim Daly

Timothy Dalton

Tim Russ 

Valentine Pelka

William Shockley

Ben Browder 

Brandon Quinn

Brian Krause

Chad Michael Murray 

Christian Kane 

Conner Trinneer 

Daniel Dae Kim 

David Boreanaz

David Tennant 

Donnie Wahlberg

Eric Close

Ioan Gruffudd

Jensen Ackles 

Jeremy Sisto 

Joe Lando

Joshua Jackson

Keith Hamilton Cobb

Michael Shanks 

Nathan Fillion 

Neil Patrick Harris

Reece Shearsmith 

Richard Ayoade

Rob Lowe

Ron Glass

Scott Cohen

Skeet Ulrich

Tom Welling

Tony Shalhoub 

Billy Dee Williams 

Bruce Willis 

Clint Eastwood 

Colin Firth 

George Clooney 

Jeremy Irons 

Paul Michael Glaser

Pierce Brosnan

Sean Bean

Blair Underwood

David James Elliot 

Michael Vartan 

Michael T. Weiss 

Scott Patterson 

Sebastian Cabot

Luke Halpin

Adam Brody

Jason Bateman 

Matt Bomer 

Timothy Olyphant 

Woody Harrelson

Richard Biggs

Robin Williams

Will Smith

John Schneider

Milo Ventimiglia

Bobby Troup

Bobby Sherman

Chad Everett

Casey Biggs

Jason Priestley

Don Adams

[songsofprotestpeacerevolution]

President Trump continues to use inflammatory language as many Americans protest the unlawful death of George Floyd and the unjust treatment of black Americans by our justice system. As the protests have grown, so has the intensity of the president’s rhetoric. He has gone so far as to make a shocking promise: to send active-duty members of the U.S. military to “dominate” protesters in cities throughout the country — with or without the consent of local mayors or state governors. On Monday, the president previewed his approach on the streets of Washington. He had 1,600 troops from around the country transported to the D.C. area, and placed them on alert, as an unnamed Pentagon official put it, “to ensure faster employment if necessary.” As part of the show of force that Trump demanded, military helicopters made low-level passes over peaceful protesters — a military tactic sometimes used to disperse enemy combatants — scattering debris and broken glass among the crowd. He also had a force, including members of the National Guard and federal officers, that used flash-bang grenades, pepper spray and, according to eyewitness accounts, rubber bullets to drive lawful protesters, as well as members of the media and clergy, away from the historic St. John’s Episcopal Church. All so he could hold a politically motivated photo op there with members of his team, including, inappropriately, Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper and Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Looting and violence are unacceptable acts, and perpetrators should be arrested and duly tried under the law. But as Monday’s actions near the White House demonstrated, those committing such acts are largely on the margins of the vast majority of predominantly peaceful protests. While several past presidents have called on our armed services to provide additional aid to law enforcement in times of national crisis — among them Ulysses S. Grant, Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson — these presidents used the military to protect the rights of Americans, not to violate them. As former leaders in the Defense Department — civilian and military, Republican, Democrat and independent — we all took an oath upon assuming office “to support and defend the Constitution of the United States,” as did the president and all members of the military, a fact that Gen. Milley pointed out in a recent memorandum to members of the armed forces. We are alarmed at how the president is betraying this oath by threatening to order members of the U.S. military to violate the rights of their fellow Americans. President Trump has given governors a stark choice: either end the protests that continue to demand equal justice under our laws, or expect that he will send active-duty military units into their states. While the Insurrection Act gives the president the legal authority to do so, this authority has been invoked only in the most extreme conditions when state or local authorities were overwhelmed and were unable to safeguard the rule of law. Historically, as Secretary Esper has pointed out, it has rightly been seen as a tool of last resort. Beyond being unnecessary, using our military to quell protests across the country would also be unwise. This is not the mission our armed forces signed up for: They signed up to fight our nation’s enemies and to secure — not infringe upon — the rights and freedoms of their fellow Americans. In addition, putting our servicemen and women in the middle of politically charged domestic unrest risks undermining the apolitical nature of the military that is so essential to our democracy. It also risks diminishing Americans’ trust in our military — and thus America’s security — for years to come. As defense leaders who share a deep commitment to the Constitution, to freedom and justice for all Americans, and to the extraordinary men and women who volunteer to serve and protect our nation, we call on the president to immediately end his plans to send active-duty military personnel into cities as agents of law enforcement, or to employ them or any another military or police forces in ways that undermine the constitutional rights of Americans. The members of our military are always ready to serve in our nation’s defense. But they must never be used to violate the rights of those they are sworn to protect.

89 former Defense officials: The military must never be used to violate constitutional rights

Leon E. Panetta, former defense secretary

Chuck Hagel, former defense secretary

Ashton B. Carter, former defense secretary

William S. Cohen, former defense secretary

Sasha Baker, former deputy chief of staff to the defense secretary

Donna Barbisch, retired major general in the U.S. Army

Jeremy Bash, chief of staff to the defense secretary

Jeffrey P. Bialos, former deputy under secretary of defense for industrial affairs

Susanna V. Blume, former deputy chief of staff to the deputy defense secretary

Ian Brzezinski, former deputy assistant defense secretary for Europe and NATO

Gabe Camarillo, former assistant secretary of the Air Force

Kurt M. Campbell, former deputy assistant defense secretary for Asia and the Pacific

Michael Carpenter, former deputy assistant defense secretary for Russia, Ukraine and Eurasia

Rebecca Bill Chavez, former deputy assistant defense secretary for Western hemisphere affairs

Derek Chollet, former assistant defense secretary for international security affairs

Dan Christman, retired lieutenant general in the U.S. Army and former assistant to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

James Clapper, former under secretary of defense for intelligence and director of national intelligence

Eliot A. Cohen, former member of planning staff for the defense department and former member of the Defense Policy Board

Erin Conaton, former under secretary of defense for personnel and readiness

John Conger, former principal deputy under secretary of defense

Peter S. Cooke, retired major general of the U.S. Army Reserve

Richard Danzig, former secretary of the U.S. Navy

Janine Davidson, former under secretary of the U.S. Navy

Robert L. Deitz, former general counsel at the National Security Agency

Abraham M. Denmark, former deputy assistant defense secretary for East Asia

Michael B. Donley, former secretary of the U.S. Air Force

John W. Douglass, retired brigadier general in the U.S. Air Force and former assistant secretary of the U.S. Navy

Raymond F. DuBois, former acting under secretary of the U.S. Army

Eric Edelman, former under secretary of defense for policy

Eric Fanning, former secretary of the U.S. Army

Evelyn N. Farkas, former deputy assistant defense secretary for Russia, Ukraine and Eurasia

Michèle A. Flournoy, former under secretary of defense for policy

Nelson M. Ford, former under secretary of the U.S. Army

Alice Friend, former principal director for African affairs in the office of the under defense secretary for policy

John A. Gans Jr., former speechwriter for the defense secretary

Sherri Goodman, former deputy under secretary of defense for environmental security

André Gudger, former deputy assistant defense secretary for manufacturing and industrial base policy

Robert Hale, former under secretary of defense and Defense Department comptroller

Michael V. Hayden, retired general in the U.S. Air Force and former director of the National Security Agency and CIA

Mark Hertling, retired lieutenant general in the U.S. Army and former commanding general of U.S. Army Europe

Kathleen H. Hicks, former principal deputy under secretary of defense for policy

Deborah Lee James, former secretary of the U.S. Air Force

John P. Jumper, retired general of the U.S. Air Force and former chief of staff of the Air Force

Colin H. Kahl, former deputy assistant defense secretary for Middle East policy

Mara E. Karlin, former deputy assistant defense secretary for strategy and force development

Frank Kendall, former under secretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics

Susan Koch, former deputy assistant defense secretary for threat-reduction policy

Ken Krieg, former under secretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics

J. William Leonard, former deputy assistant defense secretary for security and information operations

Steven J. Lepper, retired major general of the U.S. Air Force

George Little, former Pentagon press secretary

William J. Lynn III, former deputy defense secretary

Ray Mabus, former secretary of the U.S. Navy and former governor of Mississippi

Kelly Magsamen, former principal deputy assistant defense secretary for Asian and Pacific security affairs

Carlos E. Martinez, retired brigadier general of the U.S. Air Force Reserve

Michael McCord, former under secretary of defense and Defense Department comptroller

Chris Mellon, former deputy assistant defense secretary for intelligence

James N. Miller, former under secretary of defense for policy

Edward T. Morehouse Jr., former principal deputy assistant defense secretary and former acting assistant defense secretary for operational energy plans and programs

Jamie Morin, former director of cost assessment and program evaluation at the Defense Department and former acting under secretary of the U.S. Air Force

Jennifer M. O’Connor, former general counsel of the Defense Department

Sean O’Keefe, former secretary of the U.S. Navy

Dave Oliver, former principal deputy under secretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics

Robert B. Pirie, former under secretary of the U.S. Navy

John Plumb, former acting deputy assistant defense secretary for space policy

Eric Rosenbach, former assistant defense secretary for homeland defense and global security

Deborah Rosenblum, former acting deputy assistant defense secretary for counternarcotics

Todd Rosenblum, acting assistant defense secretary for homeland defense and Americas’ security affairs

Tommy Ross, former deputy assistant defense secretary for security cooperation

Henry J. Schweiter, former deputy assistant defense secretary

David B. Shear, former assistant defense secretary for Asian and Pacific security affairs

Amy E. Searight, former deputy assistant defense secretary for South and Southeast Asia

Vikram J. Singh, former deputy assistant defense secretary for South and Southeast Asia

Julianne Smith, former deputy national security adviser to the vice president and former principal director for Europe and NATO policy

Paula Thornhill, retired brigadier general of the Air Force and former principal director for Near Eastern and South Asian affairs

Jim Townsend, former deputy assistant defense secretary for Europe and NATO policy

Sandy Vershbow, former assistant defense secretary for international security affairs

Michael Vickers, former under secretary of defense for intelligence

Celeste Wallander, former deputy assistant defense secretary for Russia, Ukraine and Eurasia

Andrew Weber, former assistant defense secretary for nuclear, chemical and biological defense programs

William F. Wechsler, former deputy assistant defense secretary for special operations and combating terrorism

Doug Wilson, former assistant defense secretary for public affairs

Anne A. Witkowsky, former deputy assistant defense secretary for stability and humanitarian affairs

Douglas Wise, former deputy director of the Defense Intelligence Agency

Daniel P. Woodward, retired brigadier general of the U.S. Air Force

Margaret H. Woodward, retired major general of the U.S. Air Force

Carl Woog, former deputy assistant to the defense secretary for communications

Robert O. Work, former deputy defense secretary

Dov S. Zakheim, former under secretary of defense and Defense Department comptroller

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/06/05/89-former-defense-officials-military-must-never-be-used-violate-constitutional-rights/

[silver-lily-louise]

Top Ten Characters

I was tagged by @symphonic--chaos–chaos and @thelightofthebane - thanks you two! ^^

In no particular order, here are my ten favourite characters atm:

Vax'ildan - Critical Role Pike Trickfoot - Critical Role Professor Kukui - Pokémon Sun & Moon Joan Watson - Elementary Elizabeth McCord - Madam Secretary Elizabeth Swann - Pirates of the Caribbean CJ Cregg - The West Wing Captain Raymond Holt - Brooklyn Nine Nine Bill Potts - Doctor Who Sam Wilson - Marvel Cinematic Universe

Now, to tag ten others: @ralfstrashcan @sastiei @hockles @random-fireworks @sugarcookiedean @moonscastiel @chasingparallax @heartofaquamarine @hells-finest-gentleman @eternaletain (Apologies if any of y'all have already done this 😅)

[phroyd]

LENDON SCOTT CRAWFORD was a mechanic at General Electric in Schenectady, New York. A tall, slender, middle-aged man with rectangular eyeglasses, he was married with three children. By appearances, he was an unremarkable middle-class American.

But beneath Crawford’s vanilla exterior lurked a white supremacist angry about President Barack Obama’s election and contemptuous of upstate New York’s sizable Muslim community. And he had ambitious plans to transform his hatred into violence.

He wanted to build a “death ray,” a portable, remote-controlled radiological weapon made from medical equipment and off-the-shelf electronics. He’d load the weapon into a van with tinted windows, drive it to a nearby mosque, scurry away to a safe distance, and switch it on remotely using a smartphone. Anyone in its path would be radiated and left to die a slow, mysterious death. He even had a pithy nickname for his weapon: “Hiroshima on a light switch.”

Crawford’s killing machine was never built. He was convicted at trial in August 2015 of attempting to use a radiological dispersal device and a weapon of mass destruction. He is serving 30 years in prison.

His case is remarkable not so much for its absurdity — federal agents admitted that his imagined weapon was likely impossible to make — but for how prosecutors handled it. Crawford’s co-defendant, an engineer named Eric J. Feight who had agreed to build the weapon’s remote control, pleaded guilty to providing material support to terrorism — the first and only time federal prosecutors have used the material support law against a domestic extremist since 9/11, according to a review of federal prosecutions by The Intercept.

The material support law is prosecutors’ tool of choice for hauling international terrorists into federal court — more than 400 international terrorism defendants have faced material support charges since 9/11. But the Justice Department has been reluctant to use this expansive and powerful law, which allows defendants to be prosecuted for providing minimal, and at times, inconsequential, support to a violent plot, against domestic terrorists.

The rarity of such charges has helped drive a false narrative that domestic terrorism is not punishable under existing anti-terrorism laws. “Why is there no criminal statute for domestic terrorism?” CBS News asked in October 2017. “Americans Are Surprised Domestic Terrorism Isn’t A Federal Crime,” HuffPost declared last April.

In fact, the government has ample room to go after domestic terrorism under existing laws. The material support law has two parts. The first can be applied to anyone who commits or assists with a terrorist attack, including one rooted in a domestic ideology, so long as the crime involves one of about 50 proscribed offenses, including bombing government buildings, murdering government employees, using weapons of mass destruction, and hostage taking. The second and more controversial allows the Justice Department to prosecute anyone supporting or working with a State Department-designated foreign terrorist organization, however minor their role in an attack or plot, including even unwitting targetsof FBI undercover stings who never were in contact with actual terrorists. Civil libertarians have for two decades criticized the material support law, but primarily for the abuses possible in the more expansive provision for international terrorists. The more limited provision for domestic terrorism is harder for prosecutors to abuse.

Although the part of the material support law that can be used against domestic extremists is limited in some important ways — mass shootings not involving the death of government employees are notably absent from the list of offenses eligible for material support charges — Feight’s conviction in the “death ray” plot shows that domestic extremists can in many cases be prosecuted using the same aggressive laws that federal prosecutors wield against international terrorists. But the Justice Department has been reluctant to use that authority against white supremacists and followers of other domestic ideologies.

This double standard has little to do with existing laws. Instead, it is a result of decisions within the Justice Department, which since 9/11 has prioritized international terrorism prosecutions at the expense of domestic ones.

“After 9/11, the FBI’s and the Justice Department’s resources were directed to international terrorism. The prosecutions against domestic terrorists suffered,” said Henry E. Hockeimer Jr., a former federal prosecutor who served on the FBI’s Domestic Terrorism Task Force in the 1990s. “I follow the domestic terrorism cases, and I sometimes wonder why prosecutors aren’t going after more significant statutes with these guys, using the anti-terrorism laws. On one hand, I suspect the average person thinks of terrorism in the international sense, and to some degree, the Justice Department has come to think of terrorism in that way as well.”

A Domestic Anti-Terrorism Law

Among the first known instances of the material support law being used against domestic extremists came in 1996, when federal prosecutors charged seven men with assembling explosives and plotting to blow up an FBI building. Prosecutors filed material support charges against two of the seven men, Floyd Raymond Looker and James R. Rogers. Looker, the leader of a group known as the West Virginia Mountaineer Militia, and Rogers, a lieutenant in a local fire department who provided blueprints of the FBI building, pleaded guilty.

Five years later, in February 2001, federal prosecutors brought material support charges against Connor Cash, an environmental activist accused of being a leader of the Earth Liberation Front, a radical environmental group that had claimed responsibility for arsons and vandalism throughout the United States. The Justice Department alleged that Cash had assisted in the arson of five homes under construction on Long Island, as well as an unsuccessful plot to burn down a duck farm and release the animals. A jury acquitted Cash of all counts in May 2004.

After the 9/11 attacks, when federal prosecutors began to turn to the material support law as the statute of choice in prosecuting international terrorists, the Justice Department created the National Security Division, which absorbed the counterterrorism and counterespionage sections and created a powerful bureaucratic node responsible for national security prosecutions. Under a policy created at the time, and still in effect today, all terrorism-related charges — including material support and the use of weapons of mass destruction — must be approved by the National Security Division. After the policy took effect, the Justice Department’s tentative experiments with using the material support law against domestic terrorists hit a wall.

In the years immediately following the 9/11 attacks, the Justice Department and the FBI reoriented to focus significant resources on international terrorism threats, with the prevention of another terrorist attack from Al Qaeda or other groups as the top priority for both agencies. White supremacists, right-wing extremists, and other domestic terrorists were not a pressing concern. “If you took yourself back to 2006, when the National Security Division was first started, the country was still in the throes of responses to 9/11,” said Mary B. McCord, the Justice Department’s acting assistant attorney general for national security from 2016 to 2017 and a principal deputy assistant attorney general for its National Security Division from 2014 to 2016.

McCord and other former federal prosecutors maintain that the Justice Department has always taken domestic terrorism seriously. But in the years since 9/11, the difference between how domestic and international terrorists are prosecuted and punished has been striking.

The case of William “Bill” Keebler is an example. He came to the FBI’s attention after spending two weeks in Nevada during the 2014 armed standoff between the Bureau of Land Management and rancher Cliven Bundy and his supporters. Keebler helped organize Bundy’s supporters by posting on social media and YouTube under the handle “Th3Hunt3r.” After returning home to Utah, Keebler started organizing a militia of his own, recruiting like-minded people on Facebook and at local gun shows. “We are now being taken by a rogue government,” he wrote in a May 2014 Facebook post.

Keebler called his militia the Patriots Defense Force. FBI informants who joined the group told federal agents that members were preparing for future standoffs with the government, operations to rob drug dealers at the U.S.-Mexico border, and violent attacks targeting Muslims. The FBI then inserted two undercover agents into Keebler’s militia. One agent told Keebler that he had experience with explosives.

By June 2016, the Patriots Defense Force had eight members, including two FBI undercover agents and a government informant. Members of the militia had talked about killing Muslims, and Keebler and the undercover agents drove to a mosque to consider it as a target. But Keebler was most interested in an attack on the Bureau of Land Management. He and one of the FBI agents concocted a plot to bomb a cabin in Utah used by the bureau. The FBI built the bomb, which was fake, and Keebler planted it in the cabin. The bomb simply fizzled, as designed, and in July 2016, Keebler was charged with attempting to damage federal property with an explosive device. Despite a federal prosecutor describing Keebler as a “would-be terrorist,” the militia leader did not face terrorism-related charges.

Because Keebler had tried to bomb a government building, the material support law could have applied and with it, a possible 15-year prison sentence. Instead, Keebler spent two years in prison while his case was pending, and after pleading guilty to the lesser charge federal prosecutors had chosen, he was sentenced to time served and three years of probation. Prosecutors did not ask for a “terrorism enhancement” at sentencing — a request that, if approved by the judge, could have resulted in a more significant sentence. Keebler, now on probation in Utah, declined to comment for this article.

By contrast, federal prosecutors charged Nicholas Young, a 36-year-old Muslim police officer in Washington, D.C., with material support when he sent a $245 gift card to a man he believed was with the Islamic State. The gift card recipient was in fact an FBI informant. Young was found guilty at trial and sentenced to 15 years in prison. Last month, an appeals court vacated his convictions on two charges of attempting to obstruct justice, but upheld his conviction for material support. Young will be re-sentenced soon, but his original 15-year term was in line with those of the more than 400 other Muslim terrorism defendants convicted of material support.

Current federal prosecutors, including Thomas E. Brzozowski, the Justice Department’s counsel for domestic terrorism, declined to comment for this article. In an interview with The Intercept, McCord said that in retrospect, she and other prosecutors had underutilized the material support law for prosecuting and punishing domestic terrorists.

“I’ve been a cheerleader for the fact that, hey, this is the same stuff — extremism is extremism,” McCord said. “The white supremacist extremism we’re seeing right now, they’ve taken the playbook from the foreign terrorist organizations in terms of who they’re trying to recruit and who can be easily drawn to feel like they’re working for something bigger than themselves. To me, the parallels are very close.”

Despite the material support law being used predominantly against Muslim extremists during her tenure at the Justice Department, McCord said religion was never a factor in charging decisions. “I think, frankly, because of 9/11 and Al Qaeda and ISIS and Islamic extremism, we have been overly focused on those threats,” McCord said. “But I would be a happy to call a domestic terrorist a domestic terrorist. I will shout it from the rooftops.”

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Phroyd

[reptilemanaustralia]

ICZN Squashes alleged sex offender Wolfgang Wuster!

Case with global ramifications is hailed as a major victory in favour of wildlife conservation and in the battle against scientific fraud and taxonomic vandalism. Learn more at: http://www.smuggled.com/Snake-man-wins-ICZN-Case-3601.htm In a ruling dated 30 April 2021, the International Commission of Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN) issued a long-awaited judgement and ruling in favour of leading scientist, Raymond Hoser. Better known as The Snakeman, Raymond Hoser has blue ribbon scientific credentials, having been at the forefront of wildlife research and discovery for more than 50 years. The case arose when a renagade university lecturer in Wales, Wolfgang Wuster hatched a plot to override the 200 year set of rules governing scientific research, discovery and naming organisms, in favour of his own doctrine, later labelled "The Kaiser veto", in honour of his criminal co-conspirator Hinrich Kaiser. The plan, first hatched in 2009 was to simply steal works from other scientists, rename species and then to claim discovery of those species. It was simply an act of personal self-gratification on a grand scale. To that end, Wuster and his gang of thieves commenced naming species previously named by other scientists. To further cement their names in history, Wolfgang Wuster shopped his idea to other gullable scientists with the promise that if they stole "name authority" from a list of targetted authors, Wuster's group would ensure that their names would be used instead of the legitimate ICZN names. To that extent, they engaged in high level SEO (known better as search engine optimisation) to ensure that the Wuster names appeared in Google searches for correct names and that the correct names did not. The gang hijacked Wikipedia and other reference sites online and posted their rubbish there and blocking corrections. They also targetted vulnerable journals such as the PRINO (peer reviewed in name only) online journal Zootaxa by getting members of their group into editorial positions to allow their non-science papers stealing works from others (without citing them) to be published. Wuster et al. also engaged in so-called "Negative SEO" to attack and tarnish the reputations of the scientists they had targetted to steal work from and whom they intended "taking the glory" for their earlier discoveries. While Snakeman Raymond Hoser was clearly the main target, due in part to his repuation as powerhouse when it came to the rapid discovery and naming of new species, making him the most prolific discoverer of new species in the last 100 years, there were other targets, including Richard Wells and Ross Wellington, two eminent Australians who have discovered more species and genera in Australia that anyone else in history, Bill McCord, a turtle expert from the USA, and a few of the great scientists from the 1800's such as Wilhelm Karl Hartwich Peters and John Edward Gray, with the list of targetted authors increasing as the years went by. The flow of so-called scientific papers stealing works from earlier authors and illegal renaming species grew steadily over the following years so that by 2021, there had been nearly 100 species and genera of reptiles renamed illegally as seen in the list here. Snakeman Raymond Hoser, the first and main target of the Wuster gang's act of "name authority" theft took the matter to the ICZN in 2012, after Wuster illegally renamed the genus Spracklandus Hoser, 2009 as Afronaja. The 2012 date is significant as Hoser pointed out to the ICZN that if they did not act against the Wolfgang Wuster problem then, that it would get worse. Also in 2012, Wuster's first draft of a document, later rebranded as "Kaiser et al. 2013", was shopped to thousands of other reptile experts (herpetologists) seeking they sign on as "coauthors" in order to give the publication "more weight". Shopping for coauthors has become a signature tactic by Wuster and the cohort. In spite of thousands of people being inbited to sign on as coauthors, Wuster eventually only managed to get six close friends to join his call to arms to attack and destroy the ICZN. The ICZN refused to act in 2012, citing the fact that at that stage the Wuster war cry document, later rebranded as Kaiser et al. 2014, had only been circulated by email and not actually published. However this changed in 2013, when the rambling diatribe was published in hard copy. The ICZN decided to allow Raymond Hoser to submit a case for consideration in terms of the actions by Wuster. In the first instance, Wuster falsely alleged that the journal Hoser had been publishing his recent papers in, namely the Australasian Journal of Herpetology (AJH), was not published in hard copies and was therefore not legal in terms of the rules of the ICZN. Independent inquiries by the ICZN secretariat scuttled Wuster's lies and at that point their claims became ever more outlandish. Early claims that Hoser's works were unscientific evaporated after a group of molecular biologists confirmed that all of Hoser's discoveries were in fact legitimate. Kaiser et al. 2013 formalised the Wuster position as one of usurping the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature in favour of Wuster's gang dictating whose names should be used for what species. Wuster and the gang did with some success even indueced people outside of herpetology to similarly engage in taxonomic vandalism! Taxonomic vandalism is the renaming of species already named and then dishonestly promoting the new and illegal name as the correct one. It is the lowest form of activity for a scientist or wannabe scientist who deals with the naming of species. Wuster and the cohort changed their position more often than a criminal lawyer trying to get a guilty man off a murder charge, but in the end nothing could hide what they really stood for. They simply wanted to steal "name authority" from others and falsely claim discoveries for things they had not discovered. This became very self-evident in private facebook posts by Wuster and criminal co-conspirators like Mark O'Shea, a small, irrational and erratic, rodent-like man from the Midlands in the UK. In the end the ICZN decided that Hoser was right in all ways and that his journal and papers had been published in the normal way and were wholly compliant with the rules of the ICZN. The ICZN confirmed that the Hoser names have priority over the nearly 100 names coined by the Wuster gang. In line with Hoser's original case submission, the ICZN agreed that it was unusual for them to have to deliberate on a publication that was clearly valid in all ways and to that extent they did not have to invoke their so-called plenary power to rule on anything, as the staus quo was self evident. The status quo of course was that the Hoser names were valid under the rules of the Code and assuming they identified valid species (which was not in contention) they sould be used in preference to those of the Wuster gang. The Wuster gang's multiple applications to have the ICZN use their plenary powers to formally suppress and effectively ban Hoser's publications, was almost unanimously rejected by the commission, who also made scathing comments about Wuster's ridulous ambit claims. Significantly, and over many years, Wuster, O'Shea and others in the cohort, including Scott Thomson and Wulf Schleip, admitted that their attempt to break up the ICZN, destroy the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature, or to get the ICZN to vote for their own self-destruction was a long shot. Taxonomic vandalism, including theft of "name authority' as practiced by the Wuster cohort has already caused species extinction and has enormously negative wildlife conservation consequences as detailed in a series of peer reviewed papers in 2019. Because Wuster and his cohort have attacked musem databases worldwide with their taxonomic vandalism the ICZN ruling in Case 3601 will have global ramifications in that Museums and others will have to correct their species lists to be in line with the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature. Numerous scientists have already hailed the ICZN determination as the only logical and sensible ruling available to the ICZN and a great day for wildlife conservation globally. Raymond Hoser said "Lets hope that Wuster does not make good his repeatedly published threats to seek to destroy the ICZN and the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature, if they ruled against him, which is exactly what they did." Meanwhile the Queensland Museum in Australia has been one of the first to formally commence erazing the illegal Wuster gang names from their records, including making sure that their Reticulated Pythons are properly labelled Broghammerus Hoser, 2004, intead of the later illegally coined Wuster gang name "Malayopython". Next on the Queensland Museum chopping block is Indotyphlops, which is a coined junior synonym of Maxhoserus Hoser, 2012, that happens to be the world's smallest species of snake. It is worth noting that Wuster's cohort have put blocks on dozens of Wikipedia hate pages and vandalized other pages to prevent them being corrected in a last ditch attempt to subvert the ruling against them by the ICZN and to try to fool others that their illegally coined names are in fact the correct ones. The Wolfgang Wuster gang also includes misfits such as a two convicted child sex offenders, a man convicted of stealing a snake from a wildlife display, a wildlife displayer convicted of shooting a potential client, a convicted drug user and trafficker, Jamie Benbow and of course the notorious con man, David John Williams, convicted of wildlife and animal cruelty offences.

[filmy420]