Worth Knowing, Probably Not Quite Threadworthy 10/19

[SVPete]

If You Live in the UK, Visiting Israel Can Earn You a Visit From the Police

https://hotair.com/david-strom/2026/10/19/if-you-live-in-the-uk-visiting-israel-can-earn-you-a-visit-from-the-police-n3820070

These days, it's hard to tell which totalitarian regime had the more intrusive rules, but you do have to give it to the East Germans — the Stasi were a far more intimidating and professional secret police, while in the United Kingdom the authorities still send rather average Bobbies to try their intimidation tactics.

A mother was referred to Prevent and visited by police at home because of her visit to Israel and her interest in“Jewish issues”.

In yet another shocking case, Holly Passmore, a mother of two from County Durham, was visited at home last July by two plain-clothes police officers who wanted to know why she had recently travelled to Israel.

The officers told Ms Passmore, who cares for her severely autistic nine-year-old son, that it was a “safeguarding issue”.

A police intelligence report seen by The Telegraph reveals that the referral said she “over-identified with the conflict between Israel and Palestine” and was “supportive of Israel to the point that she has travelled to Israel”. It also described her as having “MH” — meaning mental health — issues and being “vulnerable to negative influence”.

Three days after the visit, Ms Passmore lodged a complaint. Two more officers, including a superintendent, then came to her home.

“They said that, clearly, I’m not a terrorist,” she recalled, explaining that they were keen to reassure her that police did not consider her a threat or an extremist.

How ignorant does a bureaucrat have to be to not know that many Christians travel to Israel for what should be obvious reasons?

[SVPete]

National Guardsman Shot While Intervening in D.C. Fight

https://pjmedia.com/catherinesalgado/2026/10/19/national-guardsman-shot-while-intervening-in-dc-fight-n4958458

A National Guardsman suffered a non-lethal gunshot injury while attempting to break up a fight in Washington, D.C., not long before midnight on Sunday.

About seven or eight military personnel were attempting to break up the late-night fight at Capitol Hill, but only one of them received a serious injury. A criminal shot the guardsman instead of dropping his gun as ordered.

Jeffrey Carroll, the D.C. Metropolitan Police interim police chief, confirmed the details about the non-deadly shooting for members of the press. “The National Guard members told the individual to drop the firearm. He discharged a round at the National Guard members who returned fire at that suspect,” Carroll confirmed.

Less than a year ago, an Afghan terrorist shot two National Guardsmen in our nation’s capital. Rahmanullah Lakanwal killed Sarah Beckstrom and seriously injured Andrew Wolfe just before Thanksgiving 2025. Thankfully, Carroll’s comments indicate that the Guardsman injured in this latest shooting received a wound to the leg and will recover from it, as the New York Post reported.

What National Guards people are actually doing in DC.

[SVPete]

Serial Liar And Russia Hoaxer Ken Dilanian Should Not Be Allowed Within 500 Feet Of A Newsroom

https://thefederalist.com/2026/10/16/serial-liar-and-russia-hoaxer-ken-dilanian-should-not-be-allowed-within-500-feet-of-a-newsroom/

MS NOW’s Ken Dilanian was caught spreading fake news about FBI Director Kash Patel on live television Wednesday, adding to a long history of peddling propaganda such as the debunked Trump-Russia collusion hoax.

MS Now’s Peter Alexander paused his show Wednesday, announcing FBI Director Kash Patel “landed in Russia for a meeting scheduled to take place there. That’s according to two people familiar with the matter.”


MS Now’s Ken Dilanian joined, telling Alexander, “We don’t know what Kash Patel’s doing in Russia, and that’s one of the things concerning our FBI sources.”

The only problem with this scoop is that it was entirely false. Less than three hours after providing this breaking scoop, Dilanian was back on the network apologizing for the fake news, Mediate reported.
...
Dilanian, like many others of the propaganda press, has a record of publishing dubiously sourced claims that hurt Republicans and help Democrats, with corrections coming only after the stories have shaped public debate. When the Hillary Clinton campaign commissioned the Steele dossier, a compilation of salacious rumors about then-candidate Donald Trump, during the 2016 election, the media was a key co-conspirator in what would become the Trump-Russia collusion hoax. ...

Dilanian was deeply involved in the Russia hoax. In April 2017 he and Carol Lee published a story about the June 2016 meeting between Donald Trump Jr. and Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya. Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort were also reportedly present.

“Two sources tell NBC News that Manafort’s smartphone notes from the meeting included the words ‘donations’ in close proximity to the reference to the Republican National Committee,” the report read. The report used this “evidence” to make the meeting appear more significant to investigators trying to determine if there was any collusion with Russia.

NBC News eventually issued a correction after Sen. Chuck Grassley’s team indicated the word “donation” was not present in the notes, though the outlet held that the “donor” may have been used. But as Lee Smith wrote in these pages, that “difference … nullified the thrust of the story, which was to suggest that Russia was funneling money directly to the Trump campaign.”
...
Dilanian reported in October of 2017 that Sen. Richard Burr and Sen. Mark Warner had said “they had been able to corroborate some aspects” of the Steele dossier.

But as Smith reported in these pages, “neither Burr nor Warner suggested anything of the sort.” Instead, as Smith reported, Burr said that “the committee cannot really decide the credibility of the dossier without understanding things like who paid for it, who are your sources and subsources?” Dilanian further claimed that his sources “told NBC News the committee has corroborated parts of the dossier.”
...
The day after the New York Post broke the laptop story, Dilanian swooped in with an “exclusive” spreading speculation that the laptop was “linked to a foreign intelligence operation.” ...

[SVPete]

CNN’s Christiane Amanpour to depart from network after 43 years

https://www.nbcnews.com/business/media/cnns-christiane-amanpour-depart-network-43-years-rcna604365

Christiane Amanpour, CNN’s chief international anchor and a fixture of the 24/7 news network for more than four decades, plans to leave the company next June.

“After more than 43 years at CNN, Christiane has decided that the time is right to begin a new chapter,” Mark Thompson, CNN’s chief executive, said in a letter to newsroom employees that was obtained by NBC News.

Thompson said Amanpour, 68, plans to “scale back” her eponymous CNN International show to once a week early in 2027. “The program will conclude in May,” Thompson added, “and she will leave CNN at the end of June.”

Unfortunately, decades-long antisemite Amanpour is retiring on her own terms, not as involuntarily as she deserved.

[SVPete]

US Supreme Court won’t review Trump’s firing of labor board member

https://srnnews.com/us-supreme-court-wont-review-trumps-firing-of-labor-board-member/

WASHINGTON, Oct 19 (Reuters) – The US Supreme Court declined on Monday to hear a bid by a Democratic-appointed member of the National Labor Relations Board to challenge the legality of her firing by President Donald Trump.

The justices turned away former NLRB member Gwynne Wilcox’s appeal of a lower court’s ruling that said the Republican president’s January 2025 firing of her was a valid exercise of executive authority.

The court’s action follows its June decision backing Trump’s firing of Rebecca Slaughter, a Democratic Federal Trade Commission member.

That ruling overturned the court’s 1935 precedent in a case called Humphrey’s Executor that had recognized the authority of Congress to protect leaders of certain regulatory agencies from presidential removal at will. The Slaughter decision capped a decades-long conservative push to strengthen the president’s grip on key levers of government power.

[SVPete]

War Has Many Faces

https://pjmedia.com/rabbi-michael-barclay/2026/10/19/war-has-many-faces-n4958452

Shavuah tov, may this new week bring new blessings that lead to real peace and safety for the land of Israel, the State of Israel, and the people of Israel.

For war continues to be waged on them and all of us in so many ways,

The DSA (Democratic Socialists of America), having lost their court battle to force the U.S. to withdraw support from Israel, have now created an entirely new battleground: JFK Airport. They are trying to pressure workers on the tarmac and at the airport to stop loading any goods to Israel. This would include passenger luggage, as well as any cargo such as computer or technical equipment, weapons being shipped by the U.S. government that have been bought by Israel, etc. These are the same people who put Zohran Mamdani and others in office; are seeking to make Abdul El-Sayed a senator, God forbid; and are the wing of the Democratic Party that Nithya Raman claims in her quest to become the mayor of Los Angeles, and in all cases, one of their foundation stones is antisemitism and a hatred for Israel and Jews.

I won't accuse unions of being smart, but the relevant unions would probably realize that the DSA is demanding that the unions and/or their members violate Federal laws.

[SVPete]

Dream and Valkyries leave court for national anthem, return seconds later at WNBA Finals

https://www.foxnews.com/outkick-sports/dream-valkyries-leave-court-national-anthem-return-seconds-later-wnba-finals

SAN FRANCISCO – The Atlanta Dream and Golden State Valkyries both left the court before the national anthem ahead of Game 1 of the WNBA Finals on Saturday at Chase Center.

And they were back within seconds of it ending.

Both teams were on the floor beforehand, warming up for the game, then disappeared for roughly the two minutes it took to perform the "Star-Spangled Banner." Almost immediately after the singer concluded, both teams jogged back onto the floor.

Guess that's just part of the pregame routine.

How unsurprising.

The rest of the article is, IMO, padding about past history and of marginal or less relevance. FWIW, not mentioned in the article, the game was played in SF.