A coalition of Islamic groups in the Libyan city of Derna has declared a jihad against the Islamic State, due to ISIS’ brutality towards local residents. The Islamic State, which has ruled Derna for a number of months, has had to set up checkpoints in the city to deal with the unrest and regain control.
In other news, the Oxford Union has passed a motion declaring itself to be “institutionally racist”.
To see the headlines and the articles, click “Continue reading” below.
Thanks to Fjordman, JD, Papa Whiskey, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.
Notice to tipsters: Please don’t submit extensive excerpts from articles that have been posted behind a subscription firewall, or are otherwise under copyright protection.
Caveat: Articles in the news feed are posted “as is”. Gates of Vienna cannot vouch for the authenticity or accuracy of the contents of any individual item posted here. We check each entry to make sure it is relatively interesting, not patently offensive, and at least superficially plausible. The link to the original is included with each item’s title. Further research and verification are left to the reader.
‘It is dangerous that someone is too big to investigate — it gives a sense there is a safe haven.’
The country has imposed the tax to prevent it hemorrhaging money as it loosens bank laws imposed six years ago, when Iceland made the shocking decision to let its banks go bust.
Iceland also allowed bankers to be prosecuted as criminals — in contrast to the US and Europe, where banks were fined, but chief executives escaped punishment.
The chief executive, chairman, Luxembourg ceo and second largest shareholder of Kaupthing, an Icelandic bank that collapsed, were sentenced in February to between four and five years in prison for market manipulation.
“Why should we have a part of our society that is not being policed or without responsibility?” said special prosecutor Olafur Hauksson at the time. “It is dangerous that someone is too big to investigate — it gives a sense there is a safe haven.”
[Comment: Iceland handled their banksters properly. This is why Iceland is not in the lamestream news. Globalist propaganda ministries do not want their country’s citizens getting ideas.]
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
A couple in Florida were arrested and charged with felony neglect after their 11-year-old son was left alone in the back yard playing basketball for 90 minutes. Furthermore, the child was taken from the parents and placed into foster care.
The remarkable story was related to the website Free Range Kids, which advocates raising children to be self reliant, rather than succumbing to the nanny state.
The boy found himself locked out of the family home in April, after the parents became stuck in traffic. A busy body neighbor decided that this was far too dangerous, and called the cops. When the parents arrived home, they were put in handcuffs, strip searched, fingerprinted and subsequently held overnight in jail.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Cops Raid Little Girls’ “Illegal” Lemonade Stand, Shut it Down for Operating Without a Permit
Last week, police in Texas heroically saved the town from likes of two young girls who attempted to open a black market lemonade stand. The girls, one 7-year-old and one 8-year-old, dared to try to raise money to buy a Father’s day present for their dad by setting up a lemonade stand in their neighborhood.
Andria and Zoey Green told ABC affiliate KLTV they were trying to raise about $100 for a Father’s Day present. They wanted to take him to Splash Kingdom.
Over the weekend, the two young entrepreneurs took to the streets with their delicious batch of homemade lemonade and began to provide willing customers with their product. Only one hour into their business endeavour, these girls had raised 25% of their goal.
However, their cash cow would be shut down not long after it started. Overton police chief Clyde Carter showed up along with the city code enforcer and shutdown their criminal operation.
The girls had violated Texas House Bill 970, or the Texas Baker’s Bill, which does not allow the sale of food that needs time or temperature control to prevent it from spoiling. Since the lemonade would eventually grow mold after being left out for days, police said they needed an inspection from the health department and a permit to sell it and deemed their operation “illegal.”
The cost of the permit is $150.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Different Faces of Pluto Emerging in New Images From New Horizons
The surface of Pluto is becoming better resolved as NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft speeds closer to its July flight through the Pluto system.
A series of new images obtained by the spacecraft’s telescopic Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) during May 29-June 2 show Pluto is a complex world with very bright and very dark terrain, and areas of intermediate brightness in between. These images afford the best views ever obtained of the Pluto system.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
New Obama Policy Would Make “Merely Posting Firearm Information on the Internet” A Crime
The blogosphere is sounding off about a pending new Obama policy that would impact not only the 2nd Amendment, but the 1st Amendment as well.
As incredible as it seems, individuals would be in violation by “merely posting information on the Internet about common firearms” which “could be interpreted as illegally sharing sensitive information with foreign nationals”
Applying issues related to “exporting” and “foreign nations” under an international treaty to individual on-line speech (under the guise of improperly sharing technical data about firearms) may seem like a stretch, but it is apparently what is happening, unless public opposition is voiced before this oh-so quiet regulation sets in towards the end of summer.
While it remains to be seen if such a policy would be enforceable, the mere redefinition of Internet activities — now under FCC regulation — is startling, suggesting that the “bark” about guns may be just as threatening to this anti-gun administration as the “bite” of ‘military-style weapons’ like the AR-15 that so frequently drives media coverage. According to theWashington Times:
Gun control and control of free speech would be combined in a new Obama administration plan that could send Second Amendment advocates to prison…
The penalty? 20 years in prison plus a $1 million fine for each violation. Each time that any foreign national accesses the data is considered a separate violation.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
New WiFi Systems Will Take the Police State to a New Level Tracking Your Every Move
Many scientists have issued health warnings about the near-ubiquitous presence of WiFi in our homes and in public.
Now there might be a new concern on the horizon — public WiFi signals that can identify and track groups of individuals, even if they are not holding a personal connected device.
As we have come to learn, one of the hallmarks of technology is dual- or multi-use capability. It is for this reason that we are softened up with all of the benefits, before being introduced to the darker side.
Researchers continue to pursue invisible, pervasive ways to track human beings. Below is a chronicle of how WiFi signals are being used in creative new ways to ensure that whether or not you have opted out of the latest gadgetry, you still will be caught in an ever-widening net of the latest surveillance tech.
A little more than two years ago, the first enhancement of Wi-Fi was labeled WiTrack. It marked an improvement over a discovery by MIT researchers a few months previous that they had called Wi-Vi. At the time, researchers were able to use dual signals to detect the general location of moving objects behind walls, but not an exact image.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
New York Police Department Aims to Ramp Up Recruitment of Muslims
By Colleen Long
NEW YORK (AP) — The New York Police Department is working to recruit more Muslims, and is asking for help within the community to better refine outreach aimed at stifling the lure of overseas terror groups, officials said Monday.
Right now, there are about 800 Muslim uniformed police officers out of about 35,000, according to the NYPD Muslim Officers Society. Of those, only about 20 are higher ranked officials. Lt. Adeel Rana, commanding officer of the community affairs immigration outreach unit, said there has been a slow increase over the past decade, but it has been rapidly changing in the past year and a half.
“It’s changing every day; we are getting more and more recruits,” he said. “And as they see people of their own religion in uniform, their eyes brighten.”
There has been an effort to increase openness and communication with the community since the new administration took over, stinging from a public outcry over the contentious stop , question and frisk policy and the surveillance of Muslims. A unit that investigated Muslims under the previous police commissioner was disbanded, and Commissioner William Bratton said Monday officials had worked hard to regain trust.
“We will not do anything to jeopardize that trust,” he said.
In an effort to reach out to more recruits, the NYPD is also expanding a cadet program where college students are given stipends and fast-tracked to a job. Rana said officers also attend community meetings and fairs. A video played during the department’s annual pre-Ramadan conference showed dozens of uniformed officers who are Muslim saying: “We are your NYPD.”
Muslim leaders said they are encouraged by recruitment efforts.
[Boy, I’ll just bet they are. But how does the NYPD rank and file feel about them, in view of last year’s assassination of two of their borther officers by a professed Muslim? — PW]
| — Hat tip: Papa Whiskey | [Return to headlines] |
‘No One Helped Her’: NJ Woman Murdered by Ex While Awaiting Gun Permit
By Perry Chiaramonte
Carol Bowne knew her best shot at defending herself from a violent ex was a gun, and not a piece of paper. And it was paperwork that left her unprotected when Michael Eitel showed up at her New Jersey home last week and stabbed her to death, say Second Amendment advocates, who charge local police routinely sit on firearms applications they are supposed to rule on within 30 days.
Bowne, 39, had a restraining order against Eitel when he killed her in her driveway last Wednesday, but she was still waiting for Berlin Township Police Chief Leonard Check to approve the gun permit she had applied for on April 21. Tragically, she had gone to the township police department just two days before her death to check on the status of her languishing application. In another indication of her fear of Eitel, Bowne had recently installed surveillance cameras around her home, and the equipment recorded the 45-year-old ex-con attacking her as she arrived home and got out of her car.
“She should have been granted that permit in a timely matter, especially given her status as a domestic violence victim,” said Evan Nappen, a New Jersey-based attorney who specializes in Second Amendment cases.
“Carol would have qualified for a permit since she was attacked; only now it’s too late.”
– Evan Nappen, New Jersey-based attorney and gun rights advocate
New Jersey’s gun laws are among the nation’s strictest, but law-abiding citizens are eligible to purchase and possess handguns after filling out forms available at their local police stations, submitting to a background check on any possible criminal history or mental health issues, giving fingerprints and paying a fee. Once those steps are taken, local police conduct a 14-point investigation and the chief is supposed to approve or deny for cause within 30 days.
Check did not return requests for comment, but gun rights advocates say it is not unusual for Garden State police chiefs to take several months to approve handgun permits for qualified applicants.
“The gun law’s intention is to be as difficult and cumbersome as possible,” Alexander Roubian, president of the New Jersey Second Amendment Society, told FoxNews.com.
[I can confirm this, having lived there myself at one time. NJ officialdom wants you dependent on them for your personal safety. This is the malign result. — PW]
| — Hat tip: Papa Whiskey | [Return to headlines] |
Northern Virginia Teen Admits Guilt on Terror-Related Charge
ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP) — A 17-year-old who otherwise would have been graduating with honors from high school this week instead pleaded guilty Thursday to terrorism charges for helping another teen travel to Syria to join the Islamic State.
Ali Shukri Amin of Manassas pleaded guilty to conspiring to provide material support to terrorists in federal court in Alexandria. Before his arrest, Amin was an honor student at Osbourn Park High School. The teen, who now faces up to 15 years in prison, appeared in court Thursday in a blue jumpsuit from Northern Neck Regional Jail.
Juveniles rarely face charges in the federal system, and the case remained under seal for several months while prosecutors navigated the process to have the charges moved into adult court.
Amin admitted that he helped 18-year-old Reza Niknejad of Prince William County travel to Syria to join the group in January. FBI Assistant Director Andrew McCabe said that after taking Niknejad to the airport, Amin delivered a letter and thumb drive to Niknejad’s family informing them that they would likely never see him again.
U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia Dana Boente said Niknejad made it to Syria. Charges against Niknejad were unsealed Thursday in Alexandria, alleging he conspired to provide material support to terrorists and conspired to kill and injure people abroad.
Amin also admitted to using Twitter to provide advice and encouragement to the Islamic State and its supporters, according to a statement of facts filed with the plea agreement. Through his Twitter handle Amreekiwitness — Amreeki translates to “American” — Amin provided instruction on how to use Bitcoin, a virtual currency, to mask funds going to the group and helped supporters seeking to travel to Syria to fight with the group, court documents said.
[Seventeen, eighteen — yet another case of ISIS signing up overgrown juvenile delinquents. — PW]
| — Hat tip: Papa Whiskey | [Return to headlines] |
Obama’s Diversity Push Coming to Neighborhoods by You
By Ed Lasky
Barack Obama is out to fundamentally transform your neighborhood and schools — and the House of Representatives.
Last September, I wrote The Plot to Create a Permanent Democratic Majority outlining steps Barack Obama and his fellow Democrats were taking to, among other things, control the House of Representatives. There are geographical reasons that strengthen the chances of Republicans continuing to hold the House. Republicans, independents and conservatives are spread out around the country’s districts whereas likely Democratic voters are concentrated in urban areas. They are considered “wasted votes” since they are not needed in those districts to ensure that Democrats win there.
Of course, redrawing districts is one option — so-called gerrymandering. But this depends on Democrats holding power in states since that power is vested at the state level. The federal government has, at times, tried to control the process by filing suits claiming that gerrymandering has been done for racial purposes. In reality, the While House has been filing these suits for partisan purposes — to redraw districts more favorable for Democrats.
In the above-cited column, I speculated that the administration would take steps to move Democrats into Republican-leaning districts and change the political composition of those areas. I thought the push would accelerate in the remaining time left to Obama to “fundamentally transform America.”
The non-partisan political journal The Hill seems to agree. Tim Devaney reports in “Obama making bid to diversify wealthy neighborhoods”:
The Obama administration is moving forward with regulations designed to help diversify America’s wealthier neighborhoods, drawing fire from critics who decry the proposal as executive overreach in search of an “unrealistic utopia.” (snip)
It’s a tough sell for some conservatives. Among them is Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.), who argued that the administration “shouldn’t be holding hostage grant monies aimed at community improvement based on its unrealistic utopian ideas of what every community should resemble.”
“American citizens and communities should be free to choose where they would like to live and not be subject to federal neighborhood engineering at the behest of an overreaching federal government,” said Gosar, who is leading an effort in the House to block the regulations.
Civil rights advocates, meanwhile, are praising the plan, arguing that it is needed to break through decades-old barriers that keep poor and minority families trapped in hardscrabble neighborhoods.
“We have a history of putting affordable housing in poor communities,” said Debby Goldberg, vice president at the National Fair Housing Alliance.
The Fair Housing Act of 1968 prohibited direct and intentional housing discrimination, such as a real estate agent not showing a home in a wealthy neighborhood to a black family or a bank not providing a loan based on someone’s race.
But HUD is looking to root out more subtle forms of discrimination that take shape in local government policies that unintentionally harm minority communities, known as “disparate impact.” (snip)
Critics of the rule say it would allow HUD to assert authority over local zoning laws. The agency could dictate what types of homes are built where and who can live in those homes, said Gosar, who believes local communities should make those decisions for themselves rather than relying on the federal government.
If enacted, the rule could depress property values as cheaper homes crop up in wealthy neighborhoods and raise taxes, Gosar warned.
It could also tilt the balance of political power as more minorities are funneled into Republican-leaning neighborhoods, he suggested.
The Supreme Court is expected to weigh in on housing discrimination in a related case in the coming weeks. At issue is whether government policies that unintentionally create a disparate impact for minority communities violate federal laws against segregation. (snip)
Critics of the rule say it would allow HUD to assert authority over local zoning laws. The agency could dictate what types of homes are built where and who can live in those homes, said Gosar, who believes local communities should make those decisions for themselves rather than relying on the federal government.
If enacted, the rule could depress property values as cheaper homes crop up in wealthy neighborhoods and raise taxes, Gosar warned.
It could also tilt the balance of political power as more minorities are funneled into Republican-leaning neighborhoods, he suggested.
[Another demographic re-engineering scheme, in addition to the mass importation of Muslims. — PW]
| — Hat tip: Papa Whiskey | [Return to headlines] |
Republicans Pushing Trade Bill That Hands Power to Obama, Vote Expected Friday
Washington DC . —On May 22, the Senate reauthorized Trade Promotion Authority legislation (also called “Fast Track”), in a roll call vote of 62-37, sending the bill to the House for further action. Proponents are hoping for a vote before the weekend. The measure is supported by Obama, much of the House Republican Conference, and 19 Democrats.
With just five Republicans voting No, it was a major victory not only for the president, but for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who stated in April that passing this and a series of trade bills would be the 114th Congress’s biggest accomplishment. Although a number of Republicans were at first strongly opposed, in the final count only five voted against the bill.
Now it’s Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R-Wis.) turn to do the arm-twisting on the House side, where Democrats are generally opposed as are many Republicans. The grassroots opposition has intensified in the past few months, and includes groups ranging in political persuasion from the John Birch Society, Eagle Forum (two organizations that took a strong stand against NAFTA) and various Tea Parties, like Tea Party Nation, to the AFL-CIO, Code Pink, Public Citizen, and a host of environmental groups…
Boehner, Ryan and other GOP representatives and senators are working hand-in-hand with Obama and his administration, in a joint-effort to give the president the power to act unilaterally on trade treaties, a power that amounts to a blank check on trade treaty making. And the TPA would be in effect for six years, plenty of time for the next president — whoever he or she will be — to approve them all, with token input from the Congress.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Without a doubt, many (if not most) police officers and sheriff’s deputies are truly honest, respectable, morally decent, well intentioned people. Most of them come from good homes. As youngsters, they stayed out of trouble. Most of them didn’t join the police force to become Storm Troopers. I readily understand all of that.
However, it is an absolute FACT that local policing is NOT WHAT IT USED TO BE. In the old days, policemen were almost universally taught to respect both the Constitution and the individual citizen. Most were trained by local officers. Most of them had lived their entire lives in the communities in which they served. And very few of them were former military. That is NOT the way it is today.
And since the Department of Homeland Security was invented, many police procedures, policies, philosophies, etc., come from this federal agency (along with the Department of Defense). The net result of the influence of DHS is that local police agencies have become more and more militaristic in methodology and antagonistic in attitude. This is especially true in America’s larger cities, but it happens in rural areas, too. And, that, folks, is a fact.
Plus, more and more police officers are coming out of the ranks of the military. This is not wrong in and of itself; but citizen policing is one hundred and eighty degrees opposite from military purposes, policies, and protocols. American citizens are NOT enemy combatants. And police officers are NOT soldiers. Combine the military mindset and an increasing militarization of domestic police training and the result is an emerging Police State. And that is EXACTLY what is happening in front of our very eyes.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
TPP the European Union of North America
Overnight the long suspected nightmarish North American Union (NAU) has come true.
Even though its creators have tagged it with a much more benign-sounding, all-encompassing name, Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), it’s the equivalent of taking North America—America in decline in particular—off life support.
They’re pulling the plug on North American sovereignty and getting away with it by passing off the TPP under the sugar coating of ‘Free Trade For All’.
Santa Claus is on his way to 12 TPP nations and packing grift for many more.
The best way to recognize the TPP is masquerading as Free Trade is reminding yourself that top TPP booster President Barack Obama is not for Free Trade, Free Enterprise, or anything else that promotes business, jobs and individual independence.
Obama’s first business move after election was to nationalize America’s prime industries under the “too big to fail” mantra and has been killing off jobs ever since.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Whistleblowers Testify on Gov’t Backlash, DHS Agent Says Bosses Tried to Strip Her Gun Rights
A Department of Homeland Security whistleblower testified Thursday that the “retaliation” against her for probing a controversial visa program was so extensive she was told she couldn’t “carry or own a personal weapon” — a step she described as a constitutional rights violation, and just one of several ways she was punished for speaking out.
Taylor Johnson, a senior special agent in the Homeland Security Investigations division of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, testified at a Senate hearing alongside whistleblowers from several other agencies who claim to have faced similar harassment.
Johnson told lawmakers she ran into resistance after investigating the so-called EB-5 program, which offers visas to investors. She said she looked into the program over concerns about security risks, questioning whether visas were being approved with little scrutiny.
But Johnson said her managers began to hear complaints about her queries. Soon, she was removed from the investigation, and the case was closed.
From there, it got worse.
Johnson told the Senate Homeland Security Committee her “weapon and credentials” were taken, her government vehicle was confiscated, and her access to the building where she worked and government databases was revoked.
Further, she said, “I was told I couldn’t even carry or own a personal weapon, which is a constitutional rights violation.”
FoxNews.com has reached out to ICE for comment on the allegations.
Johnson also asserted that when a social worker tried to verify her employment, the worker was told Johnson had been terminated over a “criminal offense.”
Choking up, Johnson testified, “I almost lost my 1-year-old-child.”
[“The insolence of office,” as Shakespeare put it — bureaucratic bullying by overempowered thugs. — PW]
| — Hat tip: Papa Whiskey | [Return to headlines] |
‘You’re Fired — Now Train Your Much Cheaper Foreign Replacement’
If you were laid off from your job, would you be willing to train your replacement if your company threatened to take away your severance pay if you didn’t do it?
And how would you feel if your replacement came from India, and the only reason your company was replacing you was because the foreign worker was a lot less expensive? Sadly, this is happening all over America — especially in the information technology field. Huge corporations such as Disney and Southern California Edison are coldly firing existing tech workers and filling those jobs with much cheaper foreign replacements. They are doing this by blatantly abusing the H-1B temporary worker visa program. Workers that had been doing a solid job for decades are being replaced without any hesitation just because it will save those firms a little bit of money. There is very, very little loyalty left in corporate America today. Even if you have poured your heart and your soul into your company for years, that ultimately means very little. The moment that your usefulness is over, most firms will replace you in a heartbeat these days.
When I learned that Disney was doing this, I was absolutely outraged. Talk about a company that is going down the toilet. The following comes from the New York Times…
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Alex Jones’ Powerful Bilderberg 2013 Speech
It’s no secret Alex Jones is prominent among a host of researchers who have worked to shed light on the meeting of elites taking place behind closed doors since 1954, otherwise known as the Bilderberg Group.
In 2013, Jones flew to England where, before a huge crowd of demonstrators, he delivered an invigorating speech celebrating humanity and condemning Bilderberg’s construction of a new world order.
With Bilderberg 2015 soon underway in Telfs, Austria, it’s the best time to once again review the epic speech given before thousands of protesters at the “Bilderberg fringe festival” in Watford, England.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Austria Hosts Secretive Bilderberg Conference
Austria has sealed off its Alpine resort of Telfs-Buchen for a four-day elite gathering of 140 politicians, executives and academics, mostly from NATO nations. The Bilderberg talks began as a Dutch initiative in 1954.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Exclusive: Bilderberg Deploys Hi-Tech Jamming to Shut Down Communications
Update: InfoWars reporters have since spoken with a communications expert who revealed that this system can also be used for monitoring communications.
The secretive Bilderberg Group has deployed a hi-tech jamming system to shut down communications around the site of the elitist confab’s luxury hotel in order to strangle media coverage of the event.
After visiting one of the closest spots to the InterAlpen hotel that is still accessible, Infowars filmed a communications truck owned by the Federal Ministry for Transport and Technology. Large antennas are also visible on top of the hotel, as well as a giant newly erected mast in the forest near the hotel.
Infowars spoke to an informed local in the immediate vicinity who confirmed that cellphone coverage in the area around the hotel had died since the tower was erected. The individual had also met with police and security near the hotel.
Cellphone jammers work by preventing cellular phones from receiving signals from base stations. The jammers are technically illegal in European Union countries.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Guardian Journalist Gets Midnight Raid by Bilderberg Police
The security lock down surrounding the 2015 Bilderberg Group conference reached a new intensity last night when London Guardian journalist Charlie Skelton received a midnight visit from police who entered his hotel room, demanded to see his papers and inspected his vehicle while shining a searchlight in his face.
After traveling through two checkpoints and showing his papers, Skelton arrived at his hotel only to realize that he had left his laptop in the vehicle.
When Skelton went out to retrieve the laptop, he was confronted by three armed police who again demanded he show his ID before entering his rented lodge.
Exasperated with the presence of the officers, who remained for over 15 minutes, Skelton decided to strip down and have a shower. When he emerged, the police were still in his lodge.
“I stripped down, had a shower and came out in my towel and they said ‘sir, we need you to get dressed, we need to check your vehicle again’.” Police then used torches as they searched through Skelton’s car once again.
Skelton decided to pass the time by giving the police a lecture on who was actually meeting at Bilderberg, including convicted criminals like David Petraeus and Austrian real estate investor René Benko.
“This is silly, this is harassment, this is one in the morning,” Skelton told the police.
“There was a searchlight mounted on top of the van pointing at me, it was like a scene from Stalag 17 — it was silly,” added the Guardian writer.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Infowars Reporters Receive Police Escort to Hotel
Today is the day the Bilderberg Group arrives in Austria.
We got a police escort up to our hotel.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Revealed: The True Scale of Tony Blair’s Global Business Empire
The scale of Tony Blair’s globe-trotting is exposed for the first time in secret documents that suggest the taxpayer is paying up to £16,000 a week to help the former prime minister build his business empire.
Documents seen by The Telegraph contain details of Mr Blair’s travels around the world, accompanied by a squad of police bodyguards, flying on private jets and staying in five-star hotels.
The files suggest Mr Blair has used identical trips to carry out both private business meetings and talks in his capacity as Quartet Representative to the Middle East — leaving him open to accusations of a potential conflict of interest.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Sir Christopher Lee: Screen Legend Dies Aged 93
Sir Christopher Lee, the veteran actor and star of many of the world’s biggest film franchises, has died aged 93.
The English-born actor, who made his name playing Dracula and Frankenstein’s monster in the Hammer horror films, appeared in more than 250 movies.
He was best-known for his villainous roles — including Scaramanga in James Bond and evil wizard Saruman in The Lord of the Rings.
The actor’s other credits include The Wicker Man and Star Wars.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Spain Passes Citizenship Plan for Descendants of Jews Exiled Centuries Ago
Spain’s parliament has approved a law that will ease the path to citizenship for descendants of Jews who fled the country five centuries ago.
It will allow those who can trace their roots to the expelled Jewish community, also known as Sephardic Jews, to apply for a Spanish passport from October.
The aim is to correct what Spain’s government has called a “historic mistake”.
Tens of thousands of Jews were expelled in 1492 during the Spanish Inquisition.
Those who remained had to convert to Catholicism or risked being burnt at the stake.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Father Finds Pictures of His Autistic Daughter Taken by Staff at Cornwall School
[WARNING: Disturbing Content.]
Alan Evans removed daughter Jasmine, now 11, from Tregolls School in Truro, Cornwall two years ago after uncovering the disturbing pictures in her school file
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: London Council Buys £1.2m Mansion to Send Troubled Families on Free Holidays
Hackney Borough Council — which faces a £36m cut in Government funding — would send families to the seven-bed Oxfordshire bolthole for up to six weeks in a bid to ‘strengthen family relationships’.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Oxford Union Passes Motion Calling Itself ‘Institutionally Racist’
The Oxford Union has passed a motion stating that it is institutionally racist.
The move comes in light of a race row sparked last week involving the Oxford University debating society after it served a controversial cocktail titled ‘Colonial Comeback’. The cocktail was served as refreshment for the debate ‘This House believes Britain owes reparations to her former colonies’ and advertised on a flyer featuring a picture of black hands bound in chains.
At a meeting held in the prestigious debating chamber this afternoon with the Union’s Standing Committee, Treasurer Zuleyka Shahin proposed the motion “the Oxford Union society is institutionally racist.”
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Swindon Teenager is Beaten to the Ground by a 14-Year-Old Boy
[WARNING: Disturbing Content.]
The 14-year-old boy from Swindon asked his victim ‘do you want a broken jaw?’ before kicking and spitting on him — and was only caught after he posted the video of his vile attack on Facebook.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Egypt’s Luxor, Just Emerging From Tourism Collapse, Fears New Blow After Attack on Temple
LUXOR, Egypt — Residents are in a panic in this Egyptian city of monumental pharaonic temples and ancient tombs, fearing that a foiled terrorist attack outside the famed Karnak Temple will kill the tourist industry on which most of the population depends for their livelihoods, just as it was starting to regain some footing after years of turmoil.
A day after the attack, tour operators organized a free day-trip to Luxor for more than 1,000 foreign sightseers brought from a Red Sea resort to bolster the city’s spirit and show that it was still a safe and attractive destination. The tourism, antiquities, security ministers and the prime minister flew to the southern city to reassure locals and foreigners that the security situation is under control.
But in the city and surrounding province of nearly 1 million people, around 75 percent of whom earn their living from tourism, it was hard for many to contain their anger at the security agencies.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Egypt’s Filthy Hospitals Get a Facebook Check-Up
Doctors in Egypt are turning to Facebook to expose the horrific conditions of government-run hospitals by anonymously sharing pictures. Warning: some of the content is graphic.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Libya: ISIS Sets Up First Checkpoints in Central Derna
For the first time, the Islamic State (ISIS) has set up fortified checkpoints in the center of the eastern Libyan city of Derna, a stronghold of the group and in which clashes have broken out with local Al-Qaeda affiliates.
An Arab media outlet on Wednesday reported — citing an anonymous source — that mass civil disobedience is underway in the city, that shopkeepers have shuttered their shops and that a ‘‘precarious calm’’ reigns in the city. Derna was taken over by jihadists and declared a ‘caliphate’ in October, and has since then been considered to be under ISIS control. Following public discontent mostly over ISIS brutality and especially the killing of an entire family that opposed the group, last month a clear rift emerged with the Shura Council of Mujahideen in Derna (SCMD), a coalition of Islamist militias with ideological ties to Al-Qaeda, according to an Arab media outlet. After an ultimatum launched on May 7, the SCMD on Wednesday officially announced ‘jihad’ (‘holy war’) against ISIS, which it called ‘murtad’ (‘apostate’).
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Al Qaeda Leaders Say Group Near Collapse Amid Rise of ISIS, Report Claims
Two of Al Qaeda’s spiritual leaders have said that the terror organization is barely functioning after losing money and manpower to the rapidly rising Islamic State group, according to a published report.
According to the Guardian, Abu Qatada and Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi have described Al Qaeda as being without “organizational structure.” Maqdisi says that Al Qaeda leader Ayman Al-Zawahiri is isolated from his top lieutenants, saying “He operates solely based on the allegiance … There is only communication channels and loyalty.”
Qatada, who was deported to Jordan from Britain in 2013 to face terrorism charges, also acknowledges that ISIS has gotten the better of Al Qaeda in the propaganda wars as well as those fought on the battlefield.
The Guardian report traces the beginning of Al Qaeda’s downfall to the ascension of Zawahiri as Al Qaeda’s leader following the death of Usama bin Laden in May 2011. While bin Laden and Zawahiri had been forced to move in secret in the remote mountain regions along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, hundreds of thousands of militants had flocked to the new battlefields in Syria and Iraq.
“What is leadership,” asks Dr. Munif Samara, an Al Qaeda associate quoted in the report, “if your leader is in Afghanistan and your soldiers are in Iraq?”
[Counting AQ out may be a bit premature, as its January attack on the French magazine Charlie Hebdo indicated. — PW]
| — Hat tip: Papa Whiskey | [Return to headlines] |
Cumhuriyet,:Turkish 007 Drivers for IS in Syria
ANKARA — Turkish newspaper Cumhuriyet provided fresh revelations on the involvement of Mit secret agents alongside Isis jihadists in Syria.
The opposition paper reported today that, on January 9 2014, two buses escorted by Mit agents picked up 72 militiamen belonging to the armed jihadi group in the camp of Atme in Syria.
The title on Cumhuriyet’s front page today is ‘Kirli Operasyon’, ‘Dirty operation’. Bypassing the line of combat between Kurdish fighters and terrorist jihadists in Kobane, the Turkish 007s scorted the latter up to the border town of Tel Abad, where the men of ‘caliph’ al-Baghdadi were launching an offensive. The international press, the Turkish opposition, the Syrian government, as well as Syrian Kurds have all accused Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan of aiding armed jihadi groups Isis and Al Nusra in the hope of toppling president Bashar al Assad and replacing him with a Muslim Brotherhood-led government. Cumhuriyet recalled that, in the past few days, US president Barack Obama criticized Turkey once again for failing to halt the flow of aspiring foreign jihadists towards Syria and Iraq.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Facebook Purges Pages Offering Priceless ISIS Plunder for Sale
Facebook struck back at ISIS this week, taking down pages the terrorist army’s middlemen were using to try to sell plundered treasure and artifacts from Syria and Iraq.
The black-clad jihadist army has earned as much as $100 million selling smuggled artifacts from more than 4,500 archaeological sites throughout Syria and Iraq, many of them named UNESCO World Heritage sites, according to Iraqi intelligence sources.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Is This the End of Al-Qaeda? Bin Laden’s Network is Being Destroyed by ISIS, Loyalists Admit
Al-Qaeda has “collapsed” under the weight of Isis’ growing power sapping its fighters, money and territory, according to its own members.
Two of the most senior associates of Osama Bin Laden’s terror network claim it is being ripped apart by the continuing power struggle within global jihad.
Abu Qatada, the radical Jordanian preacher deported from the UK in 2013, and jihadi scholar Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi admitted to the Guardian that the younger group has been winning the ground and propaganda war since it split.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
US Encircling Russia With Bioweapons Labs, Covertly Spreads Them — Russian FM
The US is obstructing international efforts to eradicate biological weapons, seeking to involve other nations covertly in research on weaponized diseases, Moscow charged. America’s record of handling bioweapons is poor.
The accusations of mishandling biological weapons voiced by the Russian Foreign Ministry refer to a recent report that the US military shipped live anthrax by mistake. Last week, the Pentagon admitted sending samples of the highly dangerous disease to at least 51 labs in 17 US states and three foreign countries.
The delivery “posed a high risk of outbreak that threatened not only the US population, but also other countries, including Canada and Australia. Of great concern is the shipment of bacteria to a US military facility in a third country, the Osan Air Base in South Korea,” the Russian ministry said in a statement.
It added that an anthrax outbreak incident occurred in 2001, which also involved a US military lab.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Australia Warns Islamic State is Working to Develop Dirty Bomb
By Tamar Pileggi
The Islamic State is believed to have acquired radioactive materials and tools needed to make a variety of chemical weapons, Australia’s Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said.
In an interview with The Australian on Tuesday, Bishop said that the terror group stole the materials from hospitals and research facilities in Iraqi and Syrian cities seized by the jihadist group.
Bishop said the recent reports have raised fears that IS could build a “dirty” bomb.
The foreign minister’s remarks come several days after she warned a chemical weapons monitoring group that IS was attempting to developing poison gas weapons and was likely to have fighters in its ranks with the technical expertise to develop them.
Bishop told the paper her comments were based on intelligence uncovered by Australia’s Defense Department and Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.
“The insurgents did not just clear out the cash from local banks,” Bishop told the paper, and said the theft of materials usually held by governments underscored the urgency of stopping IS’ advance across the Iraq and Syria.
Bishop said that NATO was made aware of the Australian intelligence and were reportedly “deeply concerned” by the developments.
A number of experts have recently warned that IS is likely to carry out an attack in Iraq and Syria to mark the first anniversary of their capture of the city of Mosul, when their leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, declared an Islamic caliphate, according to the Australian report.
[Be it noted that Mosul fell on June 10, 2014, while the caliphate was declared on June 29. Whichever date they use as their anniversary, something ugly is likely to happen. — PW]
| — Hat tip: Papa Whiskey | [Return to headlines] |
By Robert Spencer
Abbott is right: the only effective defense against jihad terror will be to confront its ideology. I have no idea if Abbott himself realizes what this will entail, but it is encouraging at very least that he has enunciated this, which no other Western leader is willing to acknowledge. Obama, Cameron and the others all pretend that there is nothing wrong with the Islamic ideology at all — they won’t even admit that Allah commands death to the Infidel. Their willful ignorance and denial will only ensure more deaths of more Infidels.
“Tony Abbott opens summit on countering terrorist propaganda,” by Michael Safi, Guardian, June 10, 2015:
Tony Abbott has opened a regional summit on countering terrorist propaganda in Sydney, telling delegates Islamic State “is coming if it can for every person and every government with a simple message: submit or die”.
Representatives from governments and civil society groups from 25 countries are meeting for two days to share ideas for challenging the appeal of Isis and other jihadi groups at the countering violent extremism (CVE) summit. More than 15,000 foreign fighters are estimated to have travelled to Iraq and Syria to join the conflict, including at least 100 Australians.
The prime minister said waves of immigration had helped Australia flourish, “yet the tentacles of the death cult have extended even here as we discovered to our cost during the Martin Place siege last December”.
The prime minister also referenced claims of an Isis plot in Melbourne last year, likely to be the alleged stabbing of two police officers by 18-year-old Numan Haider in September.
He said Isis had inflicted death “mostly on Muslims in the Middle East”, but added: “This is what the death cult has in store for everyone if it has its way.”
“Daesh is coming if it can for every person and every government with a simple message: submit or die,” he said. “You can’t negotiate with an entity like this, you can only fight it.”
Abbott again paid tribute to the Egyptian president, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, for his call that “Islam needed nothing less than a religious revolution to reverse centuries of false thinking”.
“In the end though, the only really effective defence against terrorism is persuading people that it’s pointless, persuading people that God does not demand death to the infidel,” he said. “Above all we need idealistic young people to understand that joining this death cult is an ugly, misguided and wrong-headed way to express their desire to sacrifice.”
[Well … good on Mr. Abbott, but it is hard to see how ISIS recruits are to be thus persuaded when the verses of the ignoble Qur’an have already persuaded them in the opposite direction. Moreover, it is not “idealistic young people” whom ISIS is recruiting but overgrown juvenile delinquents who yearn to participate in a Saturnalia of slaughter. — PW]
| — Hat tip: Papa Whiskey | [Return to headlines] |
South Africa: First Penile Transplant Recipient ‘To Become Father’
The South African recipient of the world’s first penile transplant is to become a father, a surgeon who performed the operation has told the BBC.
His girlfriend has reported that she is about four months’ pregnant, and this showed that the “transplant worked”, said Andre van der Merwe.
The 21-year-old recipient, whose identify is being protected, lost his penis in a botched circumcision.
The operation took place in December.
Surgeons at Stellenbosch University and Tygerberg Hospital performed a nine-hour operation to attach a donated penis.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Ignoring Terrorism But Celebrating Gay Pride
President Obama and his administration apparently haven’t had enough time—though it’s been more than a year—to develop a strategy to combat the anti-American terrorist group known as the Islamic State. But the Department of Defense has certainly found enough time and money to celebrate June as “Pride Month” at the Pentagon and highlight the “husbands” of top male generals.
The celebrations include events inside the Pentagon, posters and PowerPoint presentations, and even a special video from the news agency of the Department of Defense. The Department of Defense also conveyed its approval by “rainbow-ing” its website.
DoD News quotes Defense Secretary Ash Carter as saying that diversity and inclusion are critical to recruiting and retaining the force of the future. He made the comments at Tuesday’s Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) “Pride Month” event held at the Pentagon.
Surveys show about one or two percent of the population is homosexual, and the percentage in the military is probably even lower. Yet, considerable Pentagon resources are now being devoted to highlighting their involvement in the Armed Forces and getting more of the LGBT community to join.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
The Cultural Wrecking Ball: Public Education
In 1887 A. A. Hodge, a theologian at Princeton University, had this to say about public education:
“I am as sure as I am of Christ’s reign that a comprehensive and centralized system of national education, separated from religion, as is now commonly proposed, will prove the most appalling enginery for the propagation of anti-Christian and atheistic unbelief, and of anti-social nihilistic ethics, individual, social and political, which this sin-rent world has ever seen.”
But Dr. Hodge needed no crystal ball to see where public education was headed. All he had to do was look backwards—say, to 1816. Here he would have read Robert Owen, one of the founders of British socialism, describing the role of public education in his utopian system:
“Give me a colony of infants; I will suppress all erroneous reasoning and all false conclusions… I will then so educate my children that they will grow up to despise those things which now they most value…”
Fast-forward to the here and now. Alameda, California: A teacher at Encinal High School, as an extra credit assignment, told his students to nose around their parents’ dressers and closets until they found “sex toys,” and then use their phones to take pictures of themselves displaying what they found (The story I’ve linked to includes a TV news report). Also see Oregon’s Sex Education program for 11 year olds.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Behind Bilderberg, Trilateral: The Globalists Have a Major Problem
Stay with me on this one. You’ll see what the powers-that-be are really worried about.
You can roll up Bilderberg, the Trilateral Commission, the Council on Foreign Relations, the World Trade Organization, NAFTA, and the several current trade treaties nearing completion… you can insert all these Rockefeller Globalist forces into one great corporate agenda, and…
There is a problem. A problem for Globalism. This is, behind the scenes, what the titans of control are whispering about.
It starts here: understand that mega-corporations are the instruments of world domination. They move into countries where cheap labor, land, and resources are abundant, and they take over. This is what they’re meant to do. This is the plan.
Intelligence agencies and armies may precede them, but the corporations are the most capable organizations on the planet, when it comes to exercising enduring control.
The top three or four hundred corporations are responsible for at least 25% of all world trade.
However… here is the rub. As Globalist policies allow corporations to shut down domestic factories in industrialized countries and open up those same factories in places where slave wages are the order of the day; as tariffs on imported goods are canceled, killing off businesses that try to compete with mega-corporations; as leading economies decline…
The consumer base for these mega-corporations shrinks.
To put it simply, the corporations sell products. They need buyers. All over the world.
[Comment: Globalists are idiots. Even Henry Ford knew that his workers were the buyers of his products, which is why he paid them a good wage.]
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Bilderberg Group’s Transhumanist Corporate Communism
The elusive, secretive Bilderberger Group is set to meet this week in Watford, England with plans to reportedly hand the “baton” of leadership on to Google. I recall back in 1999 first reading about the Bilderberg Group on an obscure conspiracy site now long gone. At that time, if you mentioned the Bilderberg Group or other leftist elite combines, you were considered insane. Indeed, even a few years ago, major news and so-called “conservative” news refused to mention Bilderberg, with neo-con talkmongers cowering to what they falsely consider capitalism. While it may be considered a good sign that Bilderberg is now appearing in mainstream news due to sites like Drudge and Infowars forcing the elite entity into public view, Bilderberg is still able to hide behind a mask of so-called capitalism.
When a football star goes to a strip club, it’s the top news story for a week: when the heads of international banking, government and industry meet in private with future candidates like Bill Clinton or Barack Obama, it’s a media blackout, replete with scoffs and mockery when Bilderberg is mentioned. What generally occurs when large secretive cabals are exposed to the spotlight of public scrutiny is that the entity takes on a less formative role, continuing to function as a kind of debating society, while larger power plays are made at newer, secretive meetings. As longtime Bilderberg researcher Daniel Estulin has shown in his excellent The True Story of the Bilderberg Group, and in recent interviews, Bilderberg nowadays is now more of an errand gopher meeting of the global elite, while still retaining an important function.
The reason Bilderberg matters is that it is a great example of the shadow government’s existence. While the public thinks that their presidents and senators run their government, the truth is that entities like Bilderberg propose agendas for the Anglo-American establishment. But where did Bilderberg come from? David Rockefeller himself discusses Bilderberg and its origin in his famous Memoirs, writing:…
In fact, Dorrill subtly exposes the very purpose of Bilderberg, which is to merge the continents into unions through (managed) free trade, leading to a shadow corporate socialist centralized government on each continent, which would then be linked into a world federation of governance through centralized banking in a cashless control grid. This is where Google comes in. I have written in numerous places that the Internet was not “given” to the public with the intent of stimulating western entrepreneurs. The Internet is part of a longterm plan to convert all transactions to binary digits, as well as tracking and tracing all movements and communication, while storing the data in the mass supercomputers that will run the SmartCities. When this feudalistic technocracy is in place, mass depopulation can continue on the specious basis of the enforcement of the green agenda and the climate hoax in a more overt fashion than it presently functions. Presently, Bilderberg and the Club of Rome, with their proxies like the United Nations, implement depopulation through sterilization and weaponized culture, but in a Fabian socialist model of eugenics. The Fabian socialist model of eugenics is simply not based around the racial eugenics of Hitler, but rather on bloodline.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Did You Know Bilderberg Created the 1973 Oil Crisis?
OPEC just played along with crisis orchestrated by Bilderberg!
The Bilderberg Group orchestrated the 1973 Oil Crisis and talked OPEC into playing along to ensure that Anglo-American oil companies with ties to Bilderberg would profit from oil exploration in the North Sea.
Now that’s a deep secret they won’t teach you in school because, frankly, Bilderberg doesn’t want you to know.
This is why it’s important to cover the Bilderberg Group.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
ISS Astronauts Return to Earth After Extra Month in Space
Three astronauts from the ISS have landed back on Earth. They spent an extra month in space after their return was delayed following the failure of a rocket delivering supplies.
The three were carried and seated on semi-reclined chairs for a breath of fresh air under the setting sun. Russian cosmonaut Anton Shkaplerov was followed by Italy’s Samantha Cristoforetti, of the European Space Agency, and “Expedition 43” Commander Terry Virts of NASA.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
It’d be nice to have some sane sources on Bilderberg, without the infowars froth at the mouth conspiracies rants.