Blog Heap of Links for the day 10 September 2016

…the special operations force traveled swiftly to recover two hostages, but were ordered to stand down because Obama did not have time to approve the mission.

Obama approved the mission a day later, but when the special forces team returned, the hostages had been moved just four hours earlier…

The FBI and U.S. Department of Homeland Security have reportedly identified restaurants, theaters, churches, and sports arenas as possible targets of Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL)-inspired jihadists and homegrown violent extremists, urging law enforcement to remain vigilant for potential attacks against civilian venues.…

Italy’s highest court has ruled that public masturbation is no longer a crime in Italy, exonerating a 69-year-old man who had been convicted of “autoeroticism” performed in front of a group of female students at the University of Catania last May.…

AFTER 15 YEARS, Australian Photographer tracks down family from photo he found in the rubble of the World Trade Center 9/11……

…A veteran of an elite unit in the Israeli Defense Forces who understood Arabic, [Danny Lewin, 31,] appears to have immediately understood what was happening and challenged the terrorists, who were armed with box-cutters and knives. It was an act of extraordinary courage which was to cost him his life. As the former commando fought with Satam al-Suqami, one of the five who had taken the plane, he was fatally stabbed.…

Nick Swainston still remembers what it smelled like.

Sunday marks the 15th anniversary of the deadliest foreign attack on the United States. Swainston was the operations chief with the Tulsa Air National Guard and a Tulsa firefighter when the World Trade Center was attacked on Sept. 11, 2001.…

When he was able to make it to New York in November, he said he had never seen anything like it.

"Even working in Afghanistan and Baghdad, it was just so much of it in one area," Swainston said.…

Miracle Mattress has announced they are closing a store in San Antonio following the backlash over a 9/11 'Twin Tower sale.'

Miracle Mattress posted the video on Facebook for its "Twin Towers Sale." In the video, which has since been deleted, Miracle Mattress manager Cherise Bonanno is heard saying "What better way to remember 9/11 than with a Twin Tower sale?"…

What do I think about when I think about that day? The firemen who climbed “the stairway to Heaven” with 50, 60 pounds of gear. The people who called from Windows on the World and said: “I just want you to know I love you.” The men on the plane who tried to take the cockpit of Flight 93 before it went down in a Pennsylvania field: “Let’s roll.”

And I think about Welles Crowther, the man in the red bandanna.
…Welles Crowther had already called his mother, Alison, and left a voicemail: “I want you to know that I’m OK.” Only one stairwell was clear. He found it. Most people would have run for their lives, but he started running for everyone else’s.

…Earlier Friday, a federal judge denied a request by the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe for an injunction against the Army Corps of Engineers to stop construction on the pipeline, which will carry 400,000 barrels of oil per day from the Bakken region to an existing Illinois pipeline.

However, the Obama administration intervened, and the Army voluntarily blocked construction on land owned by the Corps or under Lake Oahe in South Dakota.…

shoo-fly pie is a baked molasses or golden syrup pudding…

Greta Friedman gained fame when a photographer captured the moment when a soldier grabbed her in Times Square and planted a kiss on her as America celebrated the end of World War II. It quickly became an iconic picture.

Her son Joshua confirmed the 92-year-old nurse passed away this morning.…

…A federal appeals court on Friday blocked Kansas, Georgia and Alabama from requiring residents to prove they are U.S. citizens when registering to vote using a national form.…

Clark University Comes Up With More Microaggressions…
Ethanol Worse for Environment Than Gasoline…
"I hate Christians and Jews. I don't know why. I don't have any apparent reason to hate them but I always hear my mom talking badly about them. She hates them too, and this is why I hate them, I guess."…

Al-Shabaab terrorists say that they killed four Kenyan police officers in an attack on the border post at Mandera, at the crossing between Kenya and Somalia. However, a local Kenyan political leader denied that any officers were killed during the attack.

In other news, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán is intensifying his publicity push in the run-up to the referendum on whether to accept EU refugee quotas. The referendum requires a 50% voter turnout in order to be binding.…

Leaked Memo: George Soros Foundation Seeking to Expand U.S. Online Voting…
Mayor Patrick Rushing: “I’m Not Racist, I Just Think That Michelle Obama Looks Like A Gorilla”…
Facebook’s Co-Founder Drops $20M To Stop Trump From Winning Election…

Twitchy: Who Gets To Tell President Obama The Bad News On North Korea?…
American Thinker: The D.C. Gaslight District…
Weasel Zippers: Bill Clinton Mocks “Coal People” Of Kentucky, West Virginia For Supporting Trump…

…On this day in 1955 the television series Gunsmoke premiered on CBS. It was one of the longest running TV shows ever; going until 1975. The original show was much more gritty that what it was when it finally ended. It had become more PC and "kinder and gentler" by the time it finally shut down.…

…“Last night I was ‘grossly generalistic,’ and that’s never a good idea. I regret saying ‘half’ — that was wrong,” Clinton said in a lengthy statement. But she added, “I won’t stop calling out bigotry and racist rhetoric in this campaign.”…

…It seems Senate Democrats, having discovered when it comes to running for President, their nominee sucks, have decided to give her a little last-minute advice to improve her electoral chances.

Relax a little Hillary. Show the voters your heart. Be a little more approachable.…

Or, maybe these disappointed Democrats are hoping Hillary will go to bed tonight and get visited by three spirits.

Hey, it worked for Scrooge!…

…[Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX)] said, “I do want to warn, since most people here are Christians—and I’m serious about this—a true believer knows what Jesus did, and still does. You don’t make fun of people who are impaired, have special needs. And whether you like her or not, Hillary Clinton has made clear she is mentally impaired. And this is not somebody you should be making fun of.…"

…“Just when Hillary Clinton said she was going to start running a positive campaign, she ripped off her mask and revealed her true contempt for everyday Americans,” Senior Communications Advisor for the Trump campaign Jason Miller said in a statement. “Tonight’s comments were more than another example of Clinton lying to the country about her emails, jeopardizing our national security, or even calling citizens ‘super-predators’ – this was Clinton, as a defender of Washington’s rigged system – telling the American public that she could care less about them…”