The red lanterns bobbed and banners proclaimed “Happy Year of the Rabbit” but Monterey Park’s famous Lunar New Year festivities were brought to an abrupt end by a shooting that left 10 people dead and another 10 wounded.

Vendors dismantled stalls and workers took apart a fairground on Sunday in the normally placid community of 60,000, where thousands from across Southern California gathered on Saturday.

The city on the eastern edge of Los Angeles was holding its first in-person celebration of the Lunar New Year since the COVID-19 pandemic began.

But the festivities turned into bloody mayhem as a man was accused of fatally shooting 10 people at a ballroom dance venue late on Saturday. Officials said at least another 10 people were taken to local hospitals to be treated for wounds.

Video taken by local news media after the shooting showed injured people, many of them appearing to be middle aged, being loaded into ambulances on stretchers.

“Monterey Park should have had a night of joyful celebration of the Lunar New Year. Instead, they were the victims of a horrific and heartless act of gun violence,” California Governor Gavin Newsom said.

Monterey Park is around 7 miles (11 km) from downtown Los Angeles. About two-thirds of its residents are Asian, according to U.S. Census data, and the city is known for its many Chinese restaurants and groceries.

Heading into the planned weekend celebrations, the city said on its official Twitter page that a two-day open street event was going to be held in the downtown area.

“It has always been an exciting and memorable event with thousands of guests and hundreds of vendors joining us for fun activities, shopping and entertainment, and delicious food,” the city said in its Thursday announcement.

The festivities scheduled for Sunday were canceled after the mass shooting.

When police arrived at the shooting scene, people were “pouring out of the location screaming,” said Andrew Meyer, captain of Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.

The suspect entered the ballroom dance venue and opened fire. The shooting site was near the Lunar New Year festival.

Police have not named the dance club but were seen going in and out of the Star Ballroom Dance Studio, access to which was blocked off by police tape. The club opened in 1990, and its website features many photographs of past Lunar New Year celebrations showing patrons smiling and dancing in party clothes in its large, brightly lit ballroom.

A flyer posted on the website advertised Saturday night’s new year party, running from 7:30 p.m. to 12:30 a.m. Sunday.

“I was just in this area with my parents and I was celebrating Lunar New Year last night,” said Cindy Phung, who attended the festival celebrations.

Her family left the area before the shooting happened, she said.

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It’s happening, folks. The political infighting has begun, and if these first skirmishes are signs of things to come, it’s looking like a nasty, all-out free for all on the part of the Republican party.

I’m speaking about the battle royale for the prize of being the Republican nominee for president. Oh dear, this battle is certainly bringing out the crazy. It’s barely begun. And yet, we’re already seeing the sharp stings of the republican jellyfish, stingrays, and sharks as they show increasing signs of lunacy in their quest to be the anointed one.

Let’s start with Nikki Haley. Will Nikki run? I say — It’s not a question of IF. It’s a question of when. She covets the office of president. Can you see the wheels in her brain working, trying to figure out who to go after first?

The lucky recipient of Haley’s decision is Mike Pompeo. The perpetual smirker is promoting his new book, which nobody with an ounce of sanity will ever read. And Haley has hit out at Pompeo, saying he is using “lies and gossip” to sell it. Speaking to Brett Baier, Haley said Pompeo is just trying to create drama. In the book, Pompeo claims Haley was secretly plotting to steal the VP position from Mike Pence.

Haley didn’t like that either because she was innocent or because she did just that and did not want anybody to know. But there is more. And this other skirmish promises to be quite entertaining.

This is the Florida battle between the two most feckless, cowardly residents of the sunshine state — Rick Scott and Ron DeSantis. According to reports, Scott is secretly plotting how to take down the possible campaign of Desantis. Why?

Because HE wants to be president and sees DeSantis as a threat. So in the spirit of betrayal, Scott is busily examining plans to make sure the campaign craters. This fight promises to be an interesting one, but there’s a problem. The problem is both men are so obnoxious there’s nobody to root for.

There isn’t one here. I expect both these sacks of sh## to lose and lose badly. And let us not forget John Bolton waiting ever so quietly in the wings, ready to take down Donald Trump, who is at war with everybody, including himself, on a daily basis. So yes, this is a race to the bottom, a battle royale of epic proportions as the Republican slime crawls out of the woodwork set on destroying each other.

The post The Republican infighting has begun appeared first on Palmer Report.

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• In January 1968, North Korean commandos slipped across the border into South Korea.
• They were headed to Seoul on a secret and daring mission to kill South Korea’s president.
• A half-century later, Pyongyang is finding new ways to threaten South Korea’s leaders.

Just before midnight on January 17, 1968, 31 North Korean special forces soldiers cut through a wire fence along the demilitarized zone and infiltrated South Korea without detection.

The commandos, part of a specially trained force called Unit 124, had one objective: kill South Korean President Park Chung-hee.

Their plan was to covertly make their way to the presidential residence, a 62-acre compound known as the Blue House in Seoul’s Jongno district.

Once there, they would bypass the outer checkpoints and then conduct an all-out assault on the main building. A little more than 300 yards from their target, however, everything fell apart.

At a boiling point

US troops patrol along a 15-mile fence, built to prevent North Korean infiltrations, at the DMZ in January 1968.

Bettmann/Getty Images

Tensions on the Korean Peninsula were approaching a boiling point by January 1968. While the US and South Korean militaries were increasingly focused on the Vietnam War, North Korean dictator Kim Il Sung seemed dead-set on reminding the world that the Korean War had not officially ended.

Violent incidents along the DMZ increased from 42 in 1966 to 360 in 1967 — including at least 100 firefights that killed 63 US and South Korean servicemen and wounded 190 more. (That year, the US military classified Korea as a hostile fire zone, making US troops there eligible for combat medals.)

Infiltrations into South Korea, both across the DMZ and by sea, by North Korean agents and commandos were also increasing. Their primary objective seemed to be setting up guerrilla camps in South Korea’s remote highlands.

The infiltrations were largely unsuccessful. Up to 15,000 South Korean police and military personnel were involved in detecting and hunting down the infiltration teams.

Members of a South Korean Army anti-infiltration force train near the border in March 1968.

Bettmann/Getty Images

By fall 1967, South Korean security forces reported killing 130 infiltrators and capturing 43 more, taking more than 130 casualties of their own in the process.

Around that time, the commandos of Unit 124 — elite troops who had been handpicked by the North Korean military’s top brass — were finishing their training in North Korea.

They were trained in infiltration, navigation, hand-to-hand combat, and guerrilla warfare. Their preparations were grueling and dangerous.

They were sent on runs for dozens of miles while carrying as much as 60 pounds of gear in freezing temperatures at high altitudes. Some candidates lost toes or whole feet to frostbite. One member of the unit has said they were trained to dig into graves and hide among the bodies for concealment and that their training was so intense they sometimes shot and stabbed each other.

In the lead-up to the mission, members of Unit 124 practiced assaulting a full-size mock-up of the Blue Palace.

The raid

South Korea’s Blue House in March 2017.

Chung Sung-Jun/Getty Images

Each of the 31 commandos carried a submachine gun, a pistol, 320 rounds of ammunition, 14 grenades, and a knife. They wore South Korean military uniforms and carried civilian clothes to blend in if they couldn’t avoid crowds.

They traveled at night and slept during the day, covering as much as 7 miles every hour when on the move. Two days into their trek through the mountains, they were discovered by four brothers who were out cutting wood.

Unable to deceive the brothers, the commandos took them captive. They had orders to kill any witnesses, but digging graves in the frozen ground would have been almost impossible. Ultimately, the majority of the unit voted to let them go.

The brothers were given a lecture on the benefits of Communism, promised that their liberation was at hand, and forced to pledge not to inform the authorities.

A market in Seoul on January 29, 1968.

AP Photo/Kim Chon-Kil

Unfortunately for the commandos, the brothers immediately told the authorities and the entire country was put on alert. Thousands of South Korean soldiers and police mobilized to locate the infiltrators.

Despite the alarm and several more close calls, the commandos remained undetected and reached the Segeomjeong–Jahamun checkpoint, just over 300 yards from the Blue House, shortly before 10:00 p.m. on January 21.

Wearing their South Korean uniforms, they approached the checkpoint in a double-file line. They were stopped by three policemen who, aware that there were infiltrators in the area, were suspicious.

The police demanded to know what the men had under their coats, which would have revealed that they were carrying Soviet-made weapons unlike those used by the South Koreans or Americans. The commandos instead opened fire, starting a massive shootout.

South Korean police question a captured North Korean army officer in Seoul on January 22, 1968.

AP Photo

South Korean soldiers soon arrived in huge numbers along with a tank that the commandos had no weapons to take out. In the chaos, the commandos attacked a passing bus carrying civilians, believing they were arriving soldiers, killing multiple passengers.

Having taken casualties of their own and realizing that their mission was hopeless, the commanding officer ordered the commandos to disengage, scatter, and make for North Korea.

Seoul launched an all-out manhunt. By January 29, all but two of the commandos had been killed or had committed suicide. The South Koreans managed to capture one commando, Kim Shin-jo, while the other, Pak Jae Gyong, escaped to North Korea.

Legacy

The casket of US Army Sgt. Paul Martin, killed while trying to stop North Korean commandos attempting to recross the border, in Seoul on January 29, 1968.

AP Photo

During the raid and ensuing manhunt, 68 South Koreans and three American soldiers were killed.

After cooperating with South Korean authorities, Kim Shin-jo was released in 1970 and received South Korean citizenship, which led North Korean officials to execute his parents and siblings. He is still alive today. Pak Jae Gyong, meanwhile, became a four-star general in the North Korean military.

North Korea never acknowledged its involvement in the raid, insisting it was organized by South Koreans, but even North Korea’s communist allies had no illusions about Pyongyang’s role.

South Korea attempted to organize its own commando squad to kill Kim Il Sung, but the effort backfired and the commandos rose up against their handlers.

North Korean Army special operators train at a replica of the Blue House in December 2016.

KCNA via REUTERS

The raid was quickly overshadowed by North Korea’s seizure of the US spy ship USS Pueblo on January 23, 1968. The ship is still on display in Pyongyang. At the end of January, American attention shifted to Vietnam, where North Vietnamese forces had launched the massive Tet Offensive, which would change American views of the war.

North Korea no longer sends death squads across the DMZ — though it has practiced raids on a replica of the Blue House — but it continues to menace South Korea’s leaders.

In 2015, Pyongyang warned that it could turn South Korea into “a sea of fire” if Seoul did not stop activists from sending balloons carrying leaflets into the North.

In December, a North Korean drone flew into a no-fly zone around South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol’s office in Seoul. It was one of five North Korean drones that flew into South Korea, the first to do so in five years.

The drones spent five hours over the South before returning home — an incursion that comes amid a record number of North Korean missile tests meant to show off the growing reach of its expanding arsenal.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on Sunday said rebuilding the Internal Revenue Service would be one of her top priorities in coming years, putting her squarely at odds with Republicans who have taken control of the House of Representatives.

Yellen told Reuters in an interview on her way to Zambia that she was thrilled that Congress had approved $80 billion in new funding to help the agency reduce a huge backlog of tax returns and better hunt down $600 billion in unpaid tax bills.

She said she decided to stay on as Treasury secretary in large part to oversee implementation of legislation like the Inflation Reduction Act, which included the IRS funding and passed on party lines last year.

Yellen lobbied hard for the extra funding to help the IRS deal with what she called massive problems, including a “huge backlog” in working through tax returns, and lack of personnel to carry out complicated audits of higher-earning taxpayers.

“I’m excited about legislation that’s passed and I want to make sure that it makes the difference it should make, and that includes the IRS,” she said. “That agency needs to be completely redone, and it’s a big task.”

Republicans sought unsuccessfully to slash tens of billions in IRS funding from the law.

The law also includes about $270 billion in tax credits for electric vehicles, home solar panels and other climate purchases that will be overseen by Treasury, which has made Yellen a pivotal climate figure in President Joe Biden’s administration.

“I want to see that work progress. Maybe it’s not the sexiest kind of stuff in the world, but I think if you want to make a difference in the world, you have to have the follow-through,” she said.

Yellen, 76, conceded that the split Congress reduced the chances of passing legislation to advance Biden’s agenda, but said she still enjoyed the job.

Her decision to stay ended months of speculation that she would step aside mid-way through Biden’s four-year term.

“This is probably the last job I’ll have,” Yellen said. I’d much rather be doing this than sitting at home knitting sweaters, or whatever it is one does when one’s retired.”

And yes, she learned to knit in college, and even knit a “lovely tennis sweater” for her husband, Nobel Prize-winning economist George Akerlof.

One thing she is not looking forward to? Asked about the debate with Congress over raising the debt ceiling, Yellen simply puts her hand to her forehead and sighs.

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AS WE NEAR the one-year anniversary of Russia’s all-out assault on Ukraine, the political fractures inside Russia are on public display—among the Moscow elite, the Wagner mercenary group, the intelligence services, the official propagandists and the Russian Defense Ministry. The “special operation” that Vladimir Putin expected to take three days is now bleeding into an eleventh month of setbacks and atrocities, exposing the Kremlin’s vaunted military might as both ineffective and cruel, with its strategy of targeting civilians with artillery and executions to break Ukrainians’ will and force Kyiv into surrendering. The strategy is failing, however, as millions of its citizens remain defiant and resilient despite the ongoing onslaught of terrorist attacks.

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Germany’s foreign minister said on Sunday her government would not stand in the way if Poland wants to send its Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine, in a possible breakthrough for Kyiv which wants the tanks for its fight against Russia’s invasion.

Ukrainian officials have been calling on Western allies to supply them with the modern German-made tanks for months – but Berlin has so far held back from sending them, or allowing other NATO countries to do so.

Asked what would happen if Poland went ahead and sent its Leopard 2 tanks without German approval, Annalena Baerbock said on France’s LCI TV: “For the moment the question has not been asked, but if we were asked we would not stand in the way.”

Her remarks appeared to go further than German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s comments at a summit in Paris earlier on Sunday that all decisions on weapons deliveries would be made in coordination with allies including the United States.

Germany has been under heavy pressure to let Leopards go to Ukraine. But Scholz’s Social Democrat party is traditionally sceptical of military involvements and wary of sudden moves that could cause Moscow to further escalate.

German defense minister Boris Pistorius said on Sunday that he expected a decision soon on the tanks, though he kept up a note of caution.

Pistorius told ARD TV that Germany would not make a hasty decision because the government had many factors to consider, including consequences at home for the security of the German population.

After the Paris summit, Scholz told a news conference that all weapons deliveries to Ukraine so far had taken place in close coordination with Western partners. “We will do that in the future,” he said.

Speaking at the same news conference, French President Emmanuel Macron said he did not rule out the possibility of sending Leclerc tanks to Ukraine.

Macron said that sending tanks must not escalate the situation, must take into account the time to train Ukrainians to be effective, and must not endanger France’s own security.

“Regarding the Leclercs, I asked the Army minister to work on it, but nothing has been ruled out,” Macron said, adding that the move would have to be coordinated with allies such as Germany in the coming days and weeks.

German sources have told Reuters they would allow German-made tanks to be sent to Ukraine to help its defence against Russia if the United States agrees to send its own tanks. But U.S. officials have said President Joe Biden’s administration is not poised to send its own tanks, including the M1 Abrams.

The Kremlin’s spokesman said on Friday that Western countries supplying additional tanks to Ukraine would not change the course of the conflict and that they would add to the problems of the Ukrainian people.

(NewsNation) — The White House responded Sunday, a day after the discovery of yet another batch of classified documents was found at President Joei Bden’s Wilmington, Delaware, home.

The Justice Department found the documents on Friday, including six items containing classified markings.

What exactly was seized and the level of classification wasn’t revealed.

The White House says the president offered for the Justice Department to come to his home, saying the search was consensual.

“Stuff going back decades. His notes. His files. His memorabilia. His to-do lists,” said Ian Sams, special assistant to the president. “Just to make sure they had everything and this is all part of the president’s commitment to total cooperation.”

This comes after documents were found at Biden’s private Washington D.C. office and in other parts of his Wilmington home including in a storage space in his garage.

On Sunday, some Democrats on Capitol Hill came to the president’s defense.

“He had no idea,” said Sen. Chris Coons (D-De.).

Coons, Biden’s close confidant, made the contrast between Biden’s handling of the investigation compared to former President Donald Trump’s document dilemma.

“If you’re serving in the Senate or as vice president or president you literally get millions of documents coming through your office week in and week out. I do think this was inadvertent,” Coons said. “The whole point of having a special counsel is to ensure that.”

Coons stressed the current president is fully cooperating with the DOJ.

While noting the difference, other democrats acknowledge the seriousness of the matter.

“When that information is found it diminishes the stature of any person who is in possession of it because it’s not supposed to happen,” said Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Il.).

Some republicans see Biden’s situation as worse than trumps’

“These documents were hidden for five years,” said Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.)

Some say this could leave a lasting mark on Biden’s presidency.

“Watergate started as a very small burglary and it led to the president of the united states resigning,” said Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Tx.)

In a new poll, 64% of those surveyed believe Biden acted inappropriately in his handling of the classified documents and 77% believe the same of Trump.

In California this week the president told reporters he had no regrets about the handling of documents.

“There’s no there there,” Biden said.

Biden has been mulling over the idea of another run for president, gearing up for a 2024 bid as this all unfolded. Now he’s putting that announcement off until likely after the state of the union next month.

not.cristinayang/TikTok

• A TikToker’s story about an airplane seat conflict went viral as commenters praised her handling of the situation. 
• In the video, the creator says she stepped in to save a stranger from giving up her seat to another passenger.
• The story prompted commenters to discuss their opinions on airplane etiquette.

Seattle-based TikToker @not.cristinayang is receiving praise from thousands for interrupting an awkward encounter between two passengers on a flight home.

Earlier this month, the creator posted a video to TikTok explaining a time she once helped a woman sitting next to her in premium economy class to keep her seat when another passenger asked to swap.

In the clip, she explained that a “soft-spoken” Asian woman — whom she later referred to as “Connie” — was sitting in the middle between herself and another passenger, when a fourth passenger approached with a question. 

The unnamed fourth passenger asked Connie to switch seats, from row eight to a seat in row 26, so they could sit with their friend, according to the video. The TikToker pointed out that sitting in row 26 would remove the woman from premium economy, where she said they received unlimited snacks and drinks.

“So the lady is like ‘Um OK,” and she starts getting up,” the user explains, referring to Connie. “And I’m like, ‘No!'”

In response to her protest, the unnamed woman who wanted to switch seats explained that it would be a window seat with more room than Connie’s middle seat. But, the TikToker said she didn’t stop defending the older woman. 

When the other passenger continued to insist, she resorted to pretending they were traveling together.

“We’re both Asian. Of course we know each other, ” she said. “The little Asian lady was looking at me, and I go ‘Sit down Connie!'”

Her conviction saved the woman her seat, and the other passenger was forced to go back to her spot in row 26 for the rest of the four- to five-hour flight, according to the video.

“I guess I was meaner than the other lady,” the TikToker said.

The video has since garnered over three million views and more than 11,000 comments — mostly praising the creator for stepping in to stand up for the woman.

“May your coffee always be hot, green lights on your drives, and close parking spots in the parking lot,” one user commented.

Other commenters gave their thoughts on unspoken airplane etiquette rules that travelers should follow.

“You don’t ask someone to downgrade for your convenience,” one comment read.