Random Politics & Religion #09

Thats probably an overstatement. Erdogan seems to be blaming the entire planet for the coup attempt. A Turkish newspaper accused a retired Army general of being the ringleader, fairly ridiculous. They asked us to arrest and extradite a rival cleric without providing any actual evidence, and have still yet to provide any reasoning other than hurt feelings. Given how sweeping the crackdown has been, I don't see that request being fulfilled without some hard evidence.

So apparently the NY post nude photos of Melania. And that somehow makes Trump a bad person or something I don't know I don't read junk papers.

That's a commentary on the double standard in outrage daplayed by members of the right towards Michelle Obama for wearing sleeveless garments but are totally cool with Melania having posed nude.

Sometimes you have to read the tiny words to get the message being presented.

this didnt sound like an understatement - he compares the US hosting Gulen to him hosting Bin Laden.

And yet he can provide no evidence, empty comparison.

In a way he is right.

The world has a terrorism problem.

Pope is never right that is why he is the Pope.

So apparently the NY post nude photos of Melania. And that somehow makes Trump a bad person or something I don't know I don't read junk papers.

he should know. he's bank rolling them by buying their oil.

A recent poll found that five percent of Americans would vote for Harambe as president if he ran as an independent candidate in the 2016 election.

Conducted by Public Policy Polling in late July, the poll asked 1,276 likely voters about their various political stances, including their opinions on Barack Obama, Tim Kaine, and Harambe — the infamous gorilla who was shot and killed by a zooworker in May.

Question 10 asked, “If the candidates for President were Democrat Hillary Clinton, Republican Donald Trump, and independent Harambe, who would you vote for?”

Forty eight percent of respondents said they would vote for Clinton, while 43 percent said they would vote for Trump. Four percent were conflicted by the daunting choice— they answered “not sure” — and the final five percent opted for Harambe the gorilla.

The pope?

Its pretty serious. The Turkish/American relations have never been this bad since the end of the Ottoman Empire.

Hong Kong (CNN)China has sent a clear warning to foreigners who enter contested areas of the South China Sea -- stay away or you'll be prosecuted.
The warning came in a detailed explanation of last month's Hague ruling, which found that China's territorial claims in region have "no legal basis" under the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea.

China claims almost all of the South China Sea, including islands more than 800 miles (1,200 kilometers) from the Chinese mainland, despite objections from neighbors including the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei and Vietnam.
On Tuesday, the Chinese Supreme People's Court issued a regulation on judicial interpretation saying there was a "clear legal basis for China to safeguard maritime order, marine safety and interests, and to exercise integrated management over the country's jurisdictional seas."
Michael C. Davis, a law professor at Hong Kong University, told CNN the supreme court's statement was "worrisome."
"This is kind of an ominous suggestion that they will be prosecuting people who enter the waters that China claims," he said.

The Hague ruling found that China had no historic title to the waters and had breached the sovereign rights of the Philippines, which brought the case.
The court also ruled that many purported islands controlled by China are not in fact, islands, but instead reefs or rocks, which do not generate territorial rights.
China's top court did not directly reference the Hague ruling, but said that "judicial power is an important component of national sovereignty."
China fiercely guards what it regards as its territorial waters, attacking and arresting foreign fishermen who work near islands controlled by Beijing.
The supreme court said Chinese citizens or foreigners who engage in illegal hunting or fishing in the waters will be criminally prosecuted. It classified several situations as "illegally entering Chinese waters," including remaining or reentering waters "after being warned and driven away," that could result up to a year in prison.
In May, Vietnamese fishermen told CNN how Chinese-flagged vessels raided their boats and stole equipment in the waters near the Paracel Islands.

Davis warned that the direction could mean Filipino fishermen operating in waters the UN tribunal ruled belong to the Philippines could be apprehended by Chinese vessels and be "prosecuted in direct contradiction of the (Hague) ruling."
The supreme court also said that Chinese fishermen who violate environmental protection laws in the South China Sea could be prosecuted.
Davis said that this could be "a signal they will require their fishermen to adhere to environmental standards, which they haven't in the past."
The Hague tribunal found that Chinese fishermen and reclamation projects had caused "irreparable harm" to the region's marine environment.

In recent months, Beijing has reacted angrily to U.S. and Australian freedom of navigation operations in the region, scrambling fighter jets and boats and denouncing the nations' navies as "threatening Chinese sovereignty."
Last week, state-run Chinese newspaper Global Times accused Australia of making itself "a pioneer of hurting China's interest with a fiercer attitude than countries directly involved in the South China Sea dispute."
Canberra was one of the first governments to voice support for the Hague ruling and encourage others to abide by it.
However, while the ruling is considered legally binding, there is no mechanism to enforce it.

(CNN)Pope Francis has created a commission to study the historical role of female deacons in the Catholic Church, the Vatican's press office said.
The commission was initially promised by the Pope after a meeting with a group of nuns on May 12.
"In the course of a dialogue during a meeting with the participants in the Plenary Assembly of Superiors General, Pope Francis expressed his intention to establish an official commission that could study the question" of the diaconate of women, "especially with regard to the first ages of the Church."

"After intense prayer and mature reflection, Pope Francis has decided to institute the Commission for the Study of the Diaconate of Women," the statement said.
As president of the commission, Pope Francis has appointed Archbishop Luis Francisco Ladaria Ferrer, S.J. In addition to Archbishop Ladaria, the commission is composed of six women and six men from academic institutions around the world.

(CNN) A long-time FBI employee with top secret security clearance faces up to 10 years in prison after pleading guilty to being an agent of the Chinese government.
Kun Shan Chun, also known as Joey Chun, was arrested by the FBI in March after an undercover operation, and appeared in a New York court on Monday.

The 46-year old confessed to providing "sensitive" FBI information to an individual with connections to the Chinese government on a number of occasions, the Justice Department said in a statement.
Originally born in China, Chun was a naturalized U.S. citizen who had been an employee of the FBI for 19 years.
According to the complaint, Chun tried to recruit an undercover agent to provide him with confidential information, which he said could be exchanged for cash if it was sent to his associates in China.
Chun pleaded guilty to one charge of acting in the United States as an agent of China without providing notice to the Attorney General.

According to the Justice Department, in 2011 Chun met with a Chinese official during an overseas trip who asked him about his work with the FBI. Chun discussed sensitive information with the official, including telling him the identity of an FBI special agent.
After that meeting, the official repeatedly asked Chun for information about the FBI's internal workings, resulting in Chun transmitting several pieces of sensitive information.
In 2013, Chun sent the official a copy of the FBI organizational chart, with personnel names removed, and in 2015, he sent the same official in China photos of documents detailing surveillance technologies used by the FBI.
The department said Chun also repeatedly attempted to hide his contact with the Chinese government official, lying on forms saying he had no interaction with "foreign contacts."
Chun was granted top security clearance by the FBI in 1998 as part of his job in the FBI's Technical Branch, and during a routine reinvestigation in 2012 the department said Chun made a series of false statements on his declaration forms.

In a statement announcing the outcome, New York Southern District U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said, as an American who had worked as a foreign agent, Chun had "betrayed our nation."
"And when the perpetrator is an FBI employee, like Kun Shan Chun, the threat is all the more serious and the betrayal all the more duplicitous," he said.
"Kun Shan Chun violated our nation's trust by exploiting his official U.S. Government position to provide restricted and sensitive FBI information to the Chinese government," Assistant Attorney General for National Security John Carlin said.
Local media reported a statement by Chun's defense attorney Jonathan Marvinny, in which he said his client regretted his actions.
"The truth is that Mr Chun loves the United States and never intended to cause it any harm," he said.
Chun will be sentenced on December 2.

She was a model, she posed nude, BFD.

Probably what first caught his eye, can't blame him for that.

Cheating with her on his second wife I can blame him for but she knew she was marrying a cheater. Their business.

Tell me again why the evangelicals are voting for him?

Because the cute little mindless Country Trumpkins are incapable of critical thinking. Likewise, it could also be said evangelicals are historically hypocrites.

Country Trumpkins