According to a recent poll commissioned by the French newspaper Le Figaro, an overwhelming majority of French citizens believe that Islam does not belong in France. The result holds across the entire political spectrum; even among the socialists, a majority share the same negative opinion.
In other news, a huge fire broke out in a Serbian Orthodox church in New York City not long after the Orthodox Easter service. By late in the day, the fire department had contained the blaze.
To see the headlines and the articles, click “Continue reading” below.
Thanks to AF, C. Cantoni, Dean, Fausta, Insubria, JD, Jerry Gordon, KS, Seneca III, 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.
‘Audit the Fed’ Bill Failure Exposes List of Senators in Bed With the Federal Reserve
Washington, D.C. — On Tuesday, Senate Democrats were able to block a vote on Sen. Rand Paul’s ‘Audit the Fed’ bill, that would have forced the Federal Reserve into greater transparency and required an audit of the secretive central bank.
The bill received almost unanimous support among Republicans, with votes from Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., and Vermont independent Sen. Bernie Sanders also voting for the measure. Conspicuously absent from the vote was presidential candidate Ted Cruz, who had previously proclaimed his support for the bill — but was too busy campaigning in New Hampshire to make it back to D.C. to actually vote.
The powerful private banking cartel currently controls the monetary policy of the United States, setting interest rates and managing the nation’s money supply with virtually no outside oversight.
The Federal Reserve Bank is made up of 12 different Federal Reserve Banks around the country that are owned by big private banks, with a Board of Governors whose seven members are appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate.
The bill would have authorized the General Accounting Office (GAO) to have access to more information as part of an audit and required greater transparency from Federal Reserve monetary policy makers, but fell short of the needed 60 votes for consideration.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Daft Draft Anti-Car-Hack Law Could Put Innocent Drivers Away for Life
Rules proposed in Michigan perfect example of tech-illiterate politicians writing tech rules
Two state senators in Michigan, US, have proposed a set of laws that promise life imprisonment for anyone fiddling with a car’s software.
Security researchers are crying foul because the rules as they stand effectively outlaw not just hacker hijackers but also legitimate tinkering with engine and dashboard electronics.
The two bills were proposed by Mike Kowall (R-White Lake) and Ken Horn (R-Frankenmuth). The draft rules state that anyone who repeatedly attempts to “intentionally access or cause access to be made to an electronic system of a motor vehicle to willfully destroy, damage, impair, alter or gain unauthorized control of the motor vehicle,” faces life in the slammer.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Firefighters Contain Huge Fire at New York City Church
NEW YORK — The main body of a fire that heavily damaged a historic church in New York City has been knocked down.
Authorities report one minor injury in the blaze that started Sunday evening at the Serbian Orthodox Cathedral of St. Sava in Manhattan. Firefighters are still putting out small pockets of flames.
The blaze sent smoke plumes billowing into the sky and completely destroyed the roof of the Gothic Revival style building. It broke out on the same day Orthodox Christians around the world celebrated Easter.
A church priest, Father Djokan Majstorovic, says he felt he was “in a nightmare” as he tried to get to the fire scene that was blocked off by firefighters.
The church was built in the early 1850s and was designated a city landmark in 1968.
| — Hat tip: Dean | [Return to headlines] |
Former Senator Blasts Congress: “America Doesn’t Trust You Anymore… Not One Party, Both”
Editor’s Comment: As many recent polls have shown, most Americans have less confidence in their representatives and misleaders in government than they do in almost anything else, though distrust is nearly universal for the media, too. Regardless of their position in the political spectrum, nearly every American paying attention is fed up.
The empire is over-stretched, has buried the population in debt, and has steered them into being controlled, tracked and packaged as a commodity. Only, this time, they’ve had enough of being lied to and used.
“You’ve Lost Their Confidence” Tom Coburn Exhorts Congress “America Doesn’t Trust You Anymore”
by Tyler Durden
“America doesn’t trust you anymore. That’s the truth… and that’s not one party, that’s both” raged former Senator Tom Coburn during a hearing before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs this week. As FreeBeacon reports, Coburn, making his first appearance before the Senate since his farewell speech when he retired in late 2014, pleaded with Congress to take action to reform government, quoting de Tocqueville, that an ever more centralized control reduces its citizenry “to nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd.“…
Coburn said “too much government” and “too intrusive a government” is to blame for median family incomes being the same size as in 1988. Throughout Coburn said Congress needs to stop focusing on fixing the symptoms but focus on fixing the disease. He called for a more simple and fairer tax code, which he said could eliminate 90,000 IRS agents, who make 77 percent more than the average American.
He pointed to Alexis de Tocqueville, quoting at length the French political philosopher’s Democracy in America, to explain the current upheaval in American politics and the presidential race.
“Some of you may have read it, some of you may not have, but it tells me where we are today in our country,” Coburn said. “And having been in 21 states the last year, and 15 already this year, and what I’m hearing, I’m hearing what Tocqueville described back in the late 1700s.”
Coburn cited Tocqueville observations that centralized power of “small, complicated rules, minute and uniform” leads to the “will of man … not shattered, but softened, bent, and guided.”
“Such a power does not destroy, but it prevents existence; it does not tyrannize, but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes, and stupefies a people, till each nation is reduced to nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd,” Coburn said, quoting Tocqueville.
“That to me in my experience, my opinion, is where we are today in our country,” Coburn concluded. “I think that’s why you see the presidential race that we’re seeing.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
It’s 2016 and Now Your Internet-Connected Bathroom Scales Can be Hacked
Owners of Fitbit’s Aria internet-connected smart scales are being advised to install a firmware patch following the discovery of critical security flaws.
Tavis Ormandy of Google’s Project Zero was credited with finding the vulnerabilities in the Wi-Fi cyber-scales. While Fitbit isn’t providing specific details on the nature of the flaws, it says that, in general, “critical” issues are those which “if exploited could allow attacker-supplied code to gain unrestricted access and potentially go undetected by the customer.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
‘Make America Mexico Again’: We Warned You About America-Hating Mobs
by Lee Stranahan
Since the advent of the of the Occupy Wall Street movement and continuing though the rise of Black Lives Matter, Breitbart News has been warning and educating our audience about the real nature of the radical protest movements that act both as the vanguard of the revolution for the far-left and the shock troops for establishment Democrats.
The protests that America saw in California on Thursday and Friday should be wake-up call about the real nature and goals of these movements. The facts were all there about the people coming together not merely to protest Donald Trump but to strike out at America itself. Everyone could see the American flags burning, the Mexican flags flying, the violence and the vulgarity all aimed at capitalism, freedom, and white Americans.
In my appearance Thursday morning on Breitbart News Daily on SiriusXM Patriot Channel 125, I connected the dots on a modern day axis of evil we see destroying the modern world: the deadly alliance between radical Islam and the radical Left.
| — Hat tip: AF | [Return to headlines] |
Anti-Trump open border goons kicked, punched, screamed at, and swarmed a Trump supporter on his way inside the California Republican Convention in Burlingame, California on Friday.
At one point the Trump supporter screamed at the police, “Are you going to let me get beat up?”
The man continued to get harassed and abused until he was backed into a row of bushes. At that point he was forced to crawl over the bushes to escape the violent far left mob.
Here is the raw video of the attack:
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Why Can’t California Farmers Get the Water They Need?
The oft-repeated media fib that farmers use 80 percent of California’s water, is not true. What they don’t admit, however is California’s most recent drought is mostly a man-made crisis.
Droughts are nature’s fault; they are naturally occurring. But water shortages are the fault of government officials. The state of California hasn’t significantly invested in water storage since the 1970s when Jerry Brown was governor the first time around. “This is an era of limits and we all had better get used to it,” Brown said upon being elected governor in 1975, embracing the “small is beautiful” way of thinking. Since then, California’s population has doubled, as have environmental demands. More than fifty-percent of the state’s water resources are allowed to flow out the San Francisco Bay to the Pacific Ocean.
The truth is that 50 percent of California’s water goes toward environmental purposes. Of the rest of the water, only about 10 percent goes to “urban” uses for homes and businesses, and 40 percent is used by agriculture. A full 50 percent of the water is used for environmental purposes.
“The statistic is manufactured by environmentalists to distract from the incredible damage their policies have caused,” according to Rep. Devin Nunes of California. “Environmentalists have manufactured the 80 percent statistic by deliberately excluding environmental diversions from their calculations. Furthermore, in many years there are additional millions of acre-feet of water that are simply flushed into the ocean due to a lack of storage capacity -a situation partly explained by environmental groups’ opposition to new water-storage projects.“
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Denmark: Copenhagen Crime 80% Nonwhite
Eighty percent of all criminals active in the Danish capital city of Copenhagen are nonwhite “foreigners,” according to the Danish police.
In particular, Gypsies from Romania and Africans from Nigeria are prominent in the crime figures.
As reported in Denmark’s Metroxpress newspaper, only one in five criminals arrested are “Danish,”-that, is have Danish nationality, which does not mean that they are European.
The huge “foreign” crime element is, Metroxpress said, a “huge burden on police resources.”
The 80 percent foreign crime rate came to light when a Copenhagen police report was uncovered by that newspaper.
The report said that four out five criminals appearing in Copenhagen’s Dommervagten (the preliminary hearing courts) were “foreigners”-and that “Romanians and Nigerians” dominate the lists.
The “Romanians” are of course actually Gypsies-a notoriously criminal group of Indian-origin nonwhites who use their Romanian European Union nationality to spread all over western Europe looking for richer pickings.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
EU Prepares Military Police Force to Shut Down Protests
600 members of European military forces train for civil unrest
600 members of various European military forces recently conducted an exercise in the German North Rhine-Westphalia province to prepare for civil unrest.
European affairs spokesman for the German Government Andrej Huko said the force, a component of the European Union’s Lowlands Gendarmerie program, is preparing to shut down “political meetings” and “protests.” Hugo asked to attend the training exercise but was prevented from doing so.
He said the “militarization of the police [is]… extremely worrying and contrary in Germany to the principle of separation of police and military.”
“To have police officers on the street who are not directly under the control of the directly elected British government is frankly frightening,” said British UKIP defense spokesman Mike Hookem.
[Comment: Will be unleased on citizens of the various countries in Europe who protest the hijra and those who are against the globalist NWO and are now marked as “terrorists”.]
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Federal Government in the US and EU is Pushing Politics to the Brink
You don’t hear the totemic vision of a “United States of Europe” being touted much at the moment. I wonder why. That ideal of the European continent as a unified entity, presenting an alternative presence in the world to the overweening superpower across the Atlantic was once the whole point — wasn’t it? I can remember a German politician explaining to me very forcefully why it was necessary for Europe to have a single currency: this was an essential step in the creation of a parallel union of states which would be big enough to challenge the hegemony of the dollar and US political domination. The clear model for economic success and global influence was a federation extending, as an American patriotic hymn puts it, “from sea to shining sea”.
But, as I say, nobody who favours remaining in the EU is talking up that idea these days. In fact, it’s the other guys — the ones who want to leave — who are most inclined to remind us of it, to the clear embarrassment of the Remainers. Could this be because the political model itself — the American success story of a federation of states joined together under a central government — seems to be going badly wrong? The nation that appeared to have found the ultimate solution to conjoining separate states, each with its own semi-autonomous authority, under one set of national governing institutions is now apparently facing an electoral choice between the demagogic and the disreputable. At the national level — precisely the point at which its structure is most relevant to the concept of European federalism — American politics is clearly in crisis. The idea that a centrally governed confederation of states can be an unfailingly rational, functioning system seems to be falling apart…
| — Hat tip: Seneca III | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Cabinet Appoints New Intelligence Chiefs
Pansa to head DIS intelligence agency
(ANSA) — Rome, April 29 — Cabinet on Friday named National Police Chief Alessandro Pansa to lead the Information and Security Department (DIS), which coordinates Italy’s two intelligence agencies: AISI (domestic intelligence) and AISE (foreign intelligence). General Mario Parente was named new AISI chief, Rome Prefect Franco Gabrielli will replace Pansa as national police chief, General Giorgio Toschi was named Finance Police commander and Admiral Valter Girardelli is the new Navy commander.
As well, Army General Carmine Masiello was appointed as the premier’s new military advisor.
“These are all figures with proven experience in the relevant sectors,” Premier Matteo Renzi said. All the mandates are for two years because a general election will be held in 2018 and that government will decide whether or not to renew them, the premier said.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: PD Councillor Nabbed With 20 kg of Drugs
Siracusa city councillor on his way to Malta
(ANSA) — Ragusa, April 29 — A Democratic Party (PD) Siracusa city councilmember was arrested Friday while on his way to Malta with 16 kilos of marijuana and three kilos of hash.
Antonio Bonafede, 31, was cuffed along with Antonio Genova, 44, and Salvatore Mauceri, 32, just before they boarded a ferry in the town of Pozzallo. They were charged with drug dealing and taken to prison, police said.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Police Detain 400 Protesters at Party Convention in Germany
“Refugees can stay, Nazis must go”
(ANSA-AP) — BERLIN — Police have detained about 400 leftists who were protesting against the national convention of the populist Alternative for Germany party in Stuttgart.
German news agency dpa reported that protesters were shouting “refugees can stay, Nazis must go,” as some 2,000 party members arrived at the convention center on Saturday morning.
Protesters temporarily blocked a nearby highway and burned tires on another road leading to the convention center. Some 1,000 police officers were on the scene to prevent violent clashes between far right party members and demonstrators.
Alternative for Germany, or AfD, has been growing in political influence as it campaigns on an anti-refugee and anti-Islam platform.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Poll: “Total Rejection’ of Islam in France From All Across the Political Spectrum
An Ifop poll for Le Figaro measuring perceptions of Islam has found that people have a growing sense of unease about its role in France.
What’s notable about the results is that where once such sentiments were perceived as the preserve of the “extreme right”, they are now felt across the political spectrum. Back in 2010, 39 per cent of Socialist Party voters felt Islam was too prominent within French society — a majority of 52 per cent feel this to be the case six years on.
Le Figaro says the poll confirms a “total rejection” of the religion in France, after its capital in 2015 saw two deadly Islamist terror attacks.
Seventeen people were murdered over three days in January, including most of the writers of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo. Then, on November 13th a series of coordinated attacks claimed 130 innocent lives, including 89 people shot dead at the Bataclan theatre.
The poll also found that 47 per cent of people consider the presence of Muslim communities a threat to France’s identity, up five points from 2010. However, 19 per cent believe Muslims culturally enrich the country…
| — Hat tip: Seneca III | [Return to headlines] |
Prominent UK Journalist: Anti-Semitism in Labour a Chronic Condition, Not Just a ‘Problem’
Nick Cohen says party faces almost insurmountable task of rooting out anti-Semitism; 83 Jewish supporters of Labour slam ‘wider campaign’ against leadership
A prominent British journalist said Saturday that the UK Labour party did not have a “problem with anti-Semitism” — amid an intense row involving the suspension of several party members for alleged anti-Semitic comments, including most recently Ken Livingstone — rather that the party, and more generally, the Left, had a “chronic condition.”
In a column in The Guardian, Nick Cohen, a die-hard atheist who now identifies as Jewish (despite not being Jewish, at least according to the principles of matrilineal descent), wrote: “The Labour party does not have a ‘problem with antisemitism’ it can isolate and treat, like a patient asking a doctor for a course of antibiotics. The party and much of the wider liberal-left have a chronic condition.”…
| — Hat tip: KS | [Return to headlines] |
The EU Wants You to Log Into YouTube Using Your State-Issued ID Card
But, EU Robo-Commish: we don’t have one. And we don’t want one
Analysis The EU’s enquiry into online plantations platforms will recommend a hands-off approach that will delight Silicon Valley. A draft of the enquiry was leaked this week.
The study, part of the EU’s Digital Single Market wheeze, also sneaks in one of the EU bureaucrats’ top favourite obsessions: national ID cards. You shouldn’t be surfing without one, the report suggests.
Logging into internet services using an eID gives the state the ability to see where you’re surfing without that pesky bulk surveillance technology, or asking ISPs to retain records.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Muslim Strong Favorite to Win London Mayoral Election
First to head major western capital if elected
Sadiq Khan, a Muslim lawmaker from Britain’s opposition Labour Party, is the strong favourite to win London’s mayoral election on Thursday after a bitter contest marked by religious tensions and accusations of racism.
Polls show Khan, the son of a bus driver, is as much as 20 percentage points ahead of rival Conservative Zac Goldsmith in the race to run one of the world’s top financial centres. If he wins, he will succeed current Conservative mayor Boris Johnson to become the first Muslim to head a major western capital.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Invasion and the Wrecking of Libya
The African invasion of Europe across the Mediterranean Sea has been caused by the British and French governments’ wrecking of the Gadhafi regime in Libya-and is now also being aided by Libyan warlords and the Italian mafia.
According to an article in Germany’s Bild newspaper, the “disintegrated” state of Libya following Gadhafi’s fall made it much easier to send boats to Europe and “anyone who wants to, can do trafficking. The militia and the Italian mafia are earning their share.”
The Bild newspaper gained access to one of the Libyan government’s seaside detention centers being run by the new “anti-illegal immigration” department, and reported on the conditions prevailing among the sub-Saharan African inmates.
The country of Libya is in “disintegration,” the newspaper says.
The European Union-supported government “governs” from ships off the coast-because it is unable to govern from Tripoli, which is under the control of a “moderate Islamist” organization, Fajr Libya…
In other words, the 2011 destruction of the Gadhafi government was the single greatest factor in opening the sluice gates of sub-Saharan Africa into Europe.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Livingstone Muddies History to Support Claims on Hitler and Zionism
Former London mayor confuses agency with intention, with fatal consequences for his garbled argument
Ken Livingstone persists in mangling facts to suit his argument in his continued attempt to defend his comments on Hitler and Zionism.
He took swipes at both “old Blairites” and the media on Saturday, and cited comments made by Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, at the World Zionist Congress, seeming to suggest the comments had been made in recent days and had gone unnoticed by the media.
Livingstone seemed unaware that Netanyahu’s remarks, which he cited selectively in his defence, were made in October and caused a storm of controversy both in Israel and internationally. The Israeli prime minister was roundly criticised for suggesting that the grand mufti of Jerusalem, a Palestinian, had persuaded Hitler to exterminate and not just expel Europe’s Jews.
His comments were so controversial, in fact, that Netanyahu felt compelled to clarify them: “Contrary to the impression that was created, I did not mean to claim that in his conversation with Hitler in November 1941 the Mufti convinced him to adopt the Final Solution. The Nazis decided on that by themselves.”
The reality is that Livingstone’s latest attempt to defend his comments that “Hitler supported Zionism” in 1932 before going “mad and killing six million Jews” is in line with his previous controversial remarks, invoking dubious history to support his claims.
The problem, as others have pointed out, is that Livingstone appears to conflate multiple mistaken notions to suggest Hitler “supported” Zionism — as if at some stage he had felt positively towards a strand of Jewish political thought which even in the 1930s encapsulated different and competing ideas and individuals.
The reality is that Hitler had harboured hostile views towards Jews since the 1920s, which coalesced first in the antisemitism of Mein Kampf, published in the middle of the decade.
There is a twisted kernel of truth at the heart of Livingstone’s claims when he alludes to the so-called Haavara (transfer) Agreement, although it took place in 1933 not 1932 as Livingstone suggests.
Deeply controversial amid a Jewish European boycott of German trade, it saw an agreement between Germany and German Zionists to facilitate the emigration of Jews to British Mandate Palestine — not Israel as Livingstone states, which did not exist until 1948 — by ensuring would-be Jewish emigrants could transfer part of their property.
As Yf’aat Weiss explains in an essay for the Holocaust Memorial centre at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, the Haavara agreement allowed “German Jews emigrating to Palestine to retain some of the value of their property in Germany by purchasing German goods for the Yishuv [the Jewish settlement in Mandatory Palestine], which would redeem them in Palestine local currency”.
Its context, as Weiss points out, was as a deal forged under the threat of Nazi persecution. Following the end of Jewish emancipation in Germany, she writes: “German Jewry had to formulate survival tactics vis-Ã -vis the Nazi government of their own country.”
The interest of some in the Zionist movement was to flee the rampant and increasingly dangerous antisemitism of the National Socialists, but the German interest in the Haavara agreement was both fear that the Jewish boycott of Germany might have wider economic effects — ultimately a misplaced anxiety — and a desire to push German Jews to flee.
The Haavara agreement was designed to encourage the emigration of Jews from Germany in line with National Socialist policies, but it did not have in mind the foundation of a Jewish state in Palestine, a key tenet of Zionism.
Indeed, by late 1937 an anti-Nazi German official involved in administering the agreement suggested that fear in Nazi circles that it might lead to a Jewish state, to which Hitler was implacably opposed, was leading to suggestions “it should be terminated.”
Fatally for his garbled argument, in the final analysis Livingstone confuses agency and intention. Hitler wanted neither Jews in Germany nor in their own state. The Nazi vision was for the Jews to be removed from any kind of political influence. He facilitated some emigration in pursuit of a policy of ethnic cleansing to “concentrate” German Jews elsewhere.
None of which amounts “to Hitler’s support for Zionism”, no matter how complex the history.
As the Haaretz columnist Anshel Pfeffer summed up Livingstone’s three days of interventions: “His historical version of the Holocaust was only slightly more bizarre than his contention that someone who only hates Jews living in Israel — but not outside it — cannot be considered an anti-Semite.”
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Report: Corbyn-Backed Charity Funded Gaza Event Featuring Kids’ Play on Killing Israelis
Daily Mail says Interpal, which featured UK Labour party’s leader in promotional video, gave some $10,000 to cultural festival
A British pro-Palestinian charity supported by UK Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn reportedly funded a festival in the Gaza Strip this week that included a play in which Palestinian children simulated violent acts against Israelis.
The report in the Daily Mail on Thursday came as Labour was in turmoil over repeated anti-Semitic and anti-Israel remarks by its members. The party on Thursday suspended former London mayor Ken Livingstone for claiming Adolf Hitler backed Zionism, as he came to the defense of an MP suspended a day earlier over a 2014 Facebook post in which she called for Israel to be dismantled…
| — Hat tip: KS | [Return to headlines] |
Have Sanctions Stopped Joint Iran — North Korea Nuclear ICBM Development?
This has been a banner year for North Korea and its partner, the Islamic Republic of Iran. They have demonstrated the failure of the JCPOA, UN Res. 2231 and “tougher” March 2, 2016 UN sanctions to deter, let alone stop, provocative violations by both…
| — Hat tip: Jerry Gordon | [Return to headlines] |
ISIS ‘Army of Orphans’ Vows Revenge in Disturbing Propaganda Video
Video shows a four-year-old infant blowing up three prisoners
Numerous orphans who lost their parents due to foreign anti-terror intervention in Syria are becoming thirsty for revenge, a new ISIS propaganda video claims, showing a squad of well-equipped child soldiers preparing for battle.
The footage created by the jihadist group’s media arm, Alhayat Center, starts off with a child walking across the ruins of a city destroyed during the Syrian conflict. Amid the scenes of destruction, the faces of Western leaders and politicians blend in with carefully drafted propaganda messages, accompanied by the Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) nasheed tune sung in French.
The terror group vowed payback for the “massacre” perpetrated by the West against the self-proclaimed caliphate in the name of “so-called precious freedoms,” the inserts read, reassuring followers that the extremist organization has enough means by which to defend their cause.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Israel, Hamas and Egypt Form Unlikely Alliance Against Islamic State Affiliate
CAIRO — The Islamic State’s affiliate in Egypt is staging increasingly sophisticated and daring attacks, officials and analysts say, prompting Israel, Egypt and the Palestinian militant group Hamas to form an unlikely alliance against the terrorist group.
Hamas deployed several hundred fighters last week to Gaza’s border with Egypt’s lawless northern Sinai as part of a deal with Egypt to keep militants of the Islamic State — also known as ISIS or ISIL — from entering the coastal enclave.
That came days after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised his country’s decision to build a new barrier along the Israel-Egypt border, warning that “we would have been overflowed by thousands of ISIS fighters from Sinai.”
The growing concerns have given birth to the greatest cooperation between the militaries of Egypt and Israel since their 1979 peace deal, according to officials from both countries.
| — Hat tip: AF | [Return to headlines] |
Seymour Hersh Says Hillary Approved Sending Libya’s Sarin to Syrian Rebels
Eric Zuesse, originally posted at strategic-culture.org
The great investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, in two previous articles in the London Review of Books (“Whose Sarin?” and “The Red Line and the Rat Line”) has reported that the Obama Administration falsely blamed the government of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad for the sarin gas attack that Obama was trying to use as an excuse to invade Syria; and Hersh pointed to a report from British intelligence saying that the sarin that was used didn’t come from Assad’s stockpiles. Hersh also said that a secret agreement in 2012 was reached between the Obama Administration and the leaders of Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar, to set up a sarin gas attack and blame it on Assad so that the U.S. could invade and overthrow Assad. “By the terms of the agreement, funding came from Turkey, as well as Saudi Arabia and Qatar; the CIA, with the support of MI6, was responsible for getting arms from Gaddafi’s arsenals into Syria.“ Hersh didn’t say whether these “arms” included the precursor chemicals for making sarin which were stockpiled in Libya, but there have been multiple independent reports that Libya’s Gaddafi possessed such stockpiles, and also that the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi Libya was operating a “rat line” for Gaddafi’s captured weapons into Syria through Turkey.
So, Hersh isn’t the only reporter who has been covering this. Indeed, the investigative journalist Christof Lehmann headlined on 7 October 2013, “Top US and Saudi Officials responsible for Chemical Weapons in Syria” and reported, on the basis of very different sources than Hersh used, that “Evidence leads directly to the White House, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Martin Dempsey, CIA Director John Brennan, Saudi Intelligence Chief Prince Bandar, and Saudi Arabia´s Interior Ministry.“ And, as if that weren’t enough, even the definitive analysis of the evidence that was performed by two leading U.S. analysts, the Lloyd-Postal report, concluded that, “The US Government’s Interpretation of the Technical Intelligence It Gathered Prior to and After the August 21 Attack CANNOT POSSIBLY BE CORRECT.” Obama has clearly been lying.
However, now, for the first time, Hersh has implicated Hillary Clinton directly in this “rat line.” In an interview with Alternet.org, Hersh was asked about the then-U.S.-Secretary-of-State’s role in the Benghazi Libya U.S. consulate’s operation to collect weapons from Libyan stockpiles and send them through Turkey into Syria for a set-up sarin-gas attack, to be blamed on Assad in order to ‘justify’ the U.S. invading Syria, as the U.S. had invaded Libya to eliminate Gaddafi. Hersh said:
That ambassador who was killed, he was known as a guy, from what I understand, as somebody, who would not get in the way of the CIA. As I wrote, on the day of the mission he was meeting with the CIA base chief and the shipping company. He was certainly involved, aware and witting of everything that was going on. And there’s no way somebody in that sensitive of a position is not talking to the boss, by some channel.
This was, in fact, the Syrian part of the State Department’s Libyan operation, Obama’s operation to set up an excuse for the U.S. doing in Syria what they had already done in Libya.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Islamic Bank Offers Billion-Dollar Loan to Suriname
PARAMARIBO, Suriname (CMC) — A delegation from the Islamic Development Bank (ISDB) has ended a fact finding visit here offering Suriname a loan of US$1.75 billion, Finance Minister Gilmore Hoefdraad has announced.
He told reporters that the loan would be extended over a five to 10-year period and would fund projects that will be part of two multi-year development programme.
Hoefdraad said government was considering the loan and that while projects that will be funded through this loan would be taken through a rigorous selection process, funds would immediately be made available to finance imports of social merchandise, such as basic goods and medicines.
It would also furnish a US$60 million injection into the utility company EBS, as well as and infrastructural and agricultural projects.
The crisis has been attributed to the sustained drop in the prices of gold and oil on the world market, which has caused internal reserves to decline. Combined with the closure of bauxite miner Suralco’s alumina refinery in late 2015, pushing the economy into a recession.
The exchange rate for the US dollar has skyrocketed in the past six months, plummeting the local Surinamese dollar to almost half its initial value.
Government has said that is considering seeking support from the World Bank, the Caribbean Development Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to help it deal with the recession.
The IMF said last week that it would consider an application from the Desi Bouterse government following a visit of an IMF delegation.
Finance Minister Hoefdraad said that the loans would help Suriname through difficult times, after which the economy should have bounced back.
In recent days government has had to deal with several street protests.
Last Friday, while secondary school teachers were ending a one-week strike, several people took to the streets in protest marches and waving anti-government placards in front of the National Assembly building.
The protesters are blaming the government with mismanagement and widespread corruption for the crisis that has pushed the exchange rate for one US dollar to over six Surinamese dollars in six months, and doubling prices for basic goods in the Dutch-speaking Caribbean Community (Caricom) country.
| — Hat tip: Fausta | [Return to headlines] |
Austria Tells Italy Not Violating EU Law on Brenner Pass
Ready to respect Schengen ‘as long as it works’
(ANSA) — Rome, April 28 — Austria on Thursday rejected Premier Matteo Renzi’s charge that it is violating EU rules over the Brenner Pass. “Austria does nothing in violation of European law,” Interior Minister Wolfgang Sobotka said after meeting with his Italian counterpart, Angelino Alfano. “We respect the Geneva Convention…we always act based on European law and we hope everyone else does the same — we seek everyone’s solidarity”. Renzi said earlier in the day that Austria’s idea of introducing controls to stop asylum seekers is “flagrantly against European rules”.
Sobotka added Austria is ready to respect the European treaty on free circulation “as long as Schengen works” and that the EU and Hungary should face up to their responsibilities.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Latino Activists Vow More Trump Protests as Tensions Heighten
“I think it’s going to get worse if he gets the nomination and is the front-runner. I think it’s going to escalate.”
Latino activists said they expect more large protests as Donald Trump moves his presidential campaign into California.
Trump faced large and hostile demonstrations outside a rally Thursday night in Costa Mesa and at the Burlingame hotel where he delivered a speech to the California Republican Convention on Friday.
“I think it’s going to get worse if he gets the nomination and is the front-runner. I think it’s going to escalate,” said Luis Serrano, an organizer with California Immigration Youth Justice Alliance. “We’re going to keep showing up and standing against the actions and the hate Donald Trump is creating. We are going to continue to just show up in numbers and stand together.”
[Comment: Collection of useful idiots, communists, Soros paid lackey’s, illegals and morons. Take a look at how Mexico deals with illegal immigrants and you’ll see the hypocrisy. The political class are traitors to their country — it’s obvious those puppets don;t work for America, but for those that wish to deconstruct nation states.]
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Mafia Taking Over as Italy Flooded With Migrants
As more migrants come to Italy the Italian Mafia is running migrant services because the government doesn’t have the capacity.
A combination of factors has led to a rise influence for the Italian Mafia. Every day ships set sail from the North African coast in Libya and elsewhere for Italy and the government can no longer cope with the numbers. The situation on the border with Austria has not helped matters either and many fear that Italy is quickly turning into a failed state, Die Welt reports.
The closure of the Brenner Pass by Austria, combined with new laws that would allow Austria to turn away migrants at the border has angered Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi who has condemned Austria’s actions and continues to do so on an almost daily basis saying Wednesday, “The proposal of closing the Brenner Pass is shamelessly against European regulations, as well as against history, against logic and against the future.”
The Italian media have dubbed the tensions between Italy and Austria a migrant “cold war” and try to evoke images of the Berlin wall comparing the Austrians to the East German regime.
| — Hat tip: AF | [Return to headlines] |
Swigging what appears to be vodka in broad daylight and ignoring police warnings, these are the dozen or so migrants now living in the shadow of one of the world’s most prestigious 5-star hotels.
Pictures show groups of men and woman huddled up in warm clothing, some lighting cigarettes and others in sleeping bags, after making themselves at home just yards from The Ritz in London’s Green Park.
Despite such close proximity, the luxury of the iconic Grade II listed hotel, built in 1906, is a world away from the everyday existence of those sleeping rough nearby — many of whom are believed to be from Eastern Europe.
It is not the first time migrants have used parks in the capital as a temporary home.
Last June, a dozen were pictured camping at a memorial to victims of the 7/7 London bombings — eating dinner off the plaque and even using the site as a makeshift toilet — on the eve of the tenth anniversary of the terrorist attacks.
The homeless group were branded ‘deeply disrespectful’ by survivors after being caught on camera cluttering the Hyde Park memorial with their sleeping bags and suitcases, seemingly oblivious to the tribute’s significance.
One witness said at the time how a mourner had gone to pay their respects early one morning only to be confronted by a ‘rubbish heap’ at the memorial.
| — Hat tip: AF | [Return to headlines] |
Army Ordered to Pass Women, Lower Standards
Women to register for draft
The House Armed Services Committee approved an annual defense policy bill early Thursday morning that includes a provision that would require women to register with the Selective Service System.
[Comment: Women being killed in wars on the frontline (under the guise of equality) is all part of the depopulation agenda. Couple this with mass migration and you can see that the western population is to be replaced — to become minorities in their own countries. The candle is being burned at both ends. In addition any army whose force is half women on the front line will be obliterated against an all male army. Also part of the assault on the west — – a society that is constantly defeated in war is psychologically affected by the constant loses. patriotism decreases — also part of the plan. Women are the ones that replenish the society’s population to make up for men who have been killed in war. Any attrition in that women base population will affect the demographics of that society. Any society that sends women to the frontline is doomed to wither. ]
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
How much will it cost in America to be a faithful Christian? Consider the case of Dr. Eric Walsh a renowned public health expert who also serves as a lay minister. It is is his preaching from the pulpit that has led to the troubles he now faces. Back in 2014 he was invited to deliver the commencement address at Pasadena City College in California. But the homosexuals fiercely opposed him. They examined his sermons and accused him of being anti-homosexual.
He was forced to back out of that commencement address, but with the power of the homosexual lobby against him, he was forced to resign his post as the city’s public health director. Then he was hired by the State of Georgia Department of Public Health. But as his attorney reports, “The reality is that it wasn’t anything [Walsh] did at work. It wasn’t anything he said at work. He was fired because the State of Georgia told four or more of their employees to spend hours, literally hours of time, digging through sermons line by line and finding stuff that they didn’t agree with — and then they fired him.“ The sermons he delivered related what the Bible said on the issues of health, marriage, sexuality, world religions, science and creationism. He also preached on what the Bible says about homosexuality… First Liberty has accused the government agency of religious discrimination and retaliation… The powerful Georgia homosexual lobby got their way.
They said, “Dr. Walsh’s public displays of anti-gay propaganda and religious rhetoric will become symbols of the department and will further isolate an already vulnerable population. We believe this hire is detrimental to the wellbeing of our community, as well as to the effectiveness of the Department to conduct meaningful outreach to LGBT Georgians,” executive director Ellis told the publication.[1] So there you have it, religious freedom supposedly secured by our First Amendment is trampled in the mud by a group of sexual anarchist who demand Christians be persecuted and the government complies by persecuting Christians all in the name of a tolerance that will not tolerate the truth of the Bible and a so called diversity that is actually a monolithic doctrinaire demand that everyone comply with its single vision of sexual anarchy.
The stark choice is becoming pointedly clear in our day, to follow the Lord Jesus Christ in a land that is controlled and dominated by homosexuals will mean being persecuted for that choice.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
The former Democratic senator from Pennsylvania, Harris Wofford, has announced his plans to marry his boyfriend, Matthew Charlton, this weekend. To most anyone over 30 years old (who might not have heard about this engagement) the news should naturally still knock a bit of the wind out of you. When I see an announcement of marriage where both the names of the intended are male (or female), I am old enough, and have sufficient common sense to see that at least the unconventional is (again) being put in front of me for any number of reasons — least of all, for my information. In this case, it amounts to nothing more than marketing.
At ninety, Harris Wofford is experienced enough to know that he is effectively dropping a gauntlet before what is left of the shriveling remnant of any Americans who might openly take issue with his behavior here. But he doesn’t have to say a word in explaining himself to people who still feel as I do — because PC America has been adequately programmed to respond for him. And that machine must now begin to walk under its own steam. Call this a test run.
Most of us baby boomers were given no explanation of the morality that was largely imposed upon us by rote. Parents are supposed to teach by example — but, in the past sixty years especially, so many have dropped the ball in making that handoff. In the mid sixties, electronic media saw that fumble, and immediately seized the opportunity to lump anything that smacked of morality, prudence or discretion into pitiful caricatures like Archie Bunker, Boss Hogg or George Jefferson. And it worked.
Big network tv quickly realised its power to shape our thinking. It began refining its ability to mold a wide-eyed, gullible audience into whatever mindset the biggest money demanded. And the old landmarks the Bible told us to keep in place have been falling like a house of cards ever since. What used to be considered valuable wisdom and godliness, liberal media has ‘exposed’ as outdated and/or ‘hate speech.’ Today more and more people are just folding up and backing away from even acknowledging the twist that is evolving in the American perception of right and wrong, good and evil. It’s because few people are anymore equipped to understand or defend it.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
“The protests that America saw in California on Thursday and Friday should be wake-up call about the real nature and goals of these movements.”
Just what kind of ‘civil unrest’ does BHO need in order to declare an emergency and cancel the election?
I think BHO is planning on rigging the election to HRC then announcing her DOJ prosecution around Christmas. With no precedence he can wave his rainbow wand and declare the election null and void. He will get around to holding another election after a decade or so dragging thru his courts or until AIDS claims his life.
We’ll have to find an attorney who specializes in Constitutional law, but I’m certain there are rules in place for the incapacitation of a newly-elected president-to-be. They don’t include having the old president continue in office.
Besides, Obama can’t wait to get outta Dodge. A lot of his “transformations” are sending us down the tube and he’s got a 35 million-dollar estate waiting in Hawaii…though he and Mrs. O are threatening to hang around in Washington until his daughter graduates from high school. Frankly, I think they’re saying that just to rattle the chains of their foes.
I’ve also seen rumblings that M[ichelle] is waiting till his presidency is over to divorce him.
I’ve heard the same. Which is maybe why they already have his-and-her money.
OTOH, I kind of feel sorry for him. He’s had to share the White House with his mother-in-law, a woman who reads chicken entrails (though no longer allowed to do so on govt property), and is considered the genetic forbear in Michelle’s ummm…aggressive side. My guess is they’ll wait until their youngest child is in college. The only problem with that is one many divorcing parents make: college kids are what are often referred to as ‘the threshold generation’ – i.e., they’re out of the house most of the time but the Bank of Mom & Dad and the emotional needs are still operative.
Oh I think he’ll be fine if he can keep Reggie Love on the line. Otherwise, I’m sure there are still gay bath houses in Chicago and they probably know him well there too.
The only [redacted and possibly actionable paranoia].
“East European migrants” is the euphemism for GYPSIES in the PC world. I would only point out that East Europeans’ experience with Gypsies over the centuries is one of the factors behind current sceptic attitudes towards the pseudo-“refugees”. We have seen these strangers originating from India to loiter around Europe – Eastern Europe in particular – for centuries without any effort to integrate, on the contrary – resisting state initiatives to this end. One would hardly convince a Slovak (Bulgarian, Romanian, Hungarian etc) that “diversity” is beneficial when he/she has encountered the Gypsies in real world, particularly in places where they are a majority. And these guys have been around since 1400 AD! Now the British newspaper reports “East European migrants” using a memorial to 7/7 victims as a dining place and a toilet (the simultaneous use doesn’t bother them, they do the same in their ghettoes). Good they didn’t steal the memorial to sell it as scrap.
The PC equivalent for Gypsies is “Roma” or, in the UK, “Traveler families.” And, approx. 15 years ago, an 8th- or 9th-grade student (13 to 15 years of age) corrected me in class when I unthinkingly used the word “gypped.” He said that this was an ethnic slur against the Gypsies.
I hadn’t ever heard that and told him so, but also thanked him for having the integrity to raise his concern in class. I did *not* apologize.
But how many people would realize that “welching” on a bet was originally “welsh-ing” on a bet? Hmm….
That goose/gander sauce stuff strikes again.
And don’t forget “Dutch treat”. I’m sure H. Numan finds that offensive. 🙂
Then there’s the Chinese fire drill…
And then there is FRENCH RETREAT!
And French letter, too…
I like the Microsoft pit stop. That’s when you take something that has stopped working properly and just turn it off for a few minutes to see if that fixes the problem. My own term.
Yep, but they reserve “travelers” for their own handful of Gypsies (that creates a lot of mayhem too). The ones coming say from Romania are normally described in the media as “Romanians” – I remember a report about a “Romanian family squatting in a private house, the owners return from vacation and are helpless” or “Bulgarians killed and ate Her Majessty’s swans from the pond so and so” – when you see the photos, it’s clear what sort of “Bulgarians” these are. There is a tendency in Old Europe press to demonize East Europeans.
And demonize “asians” too, at least in Britain where all the Pakistanis are deemed “Asians”. As if that somehow makes them less offensive.
*** electoral choice between the demagogic and the disreputable. ***
The Telegraph weighs in with its take on American presidential politics obtained by overnight courier from Lena Donehim, George Swill and the girls at National Review.
Any moment now we’ll hear about the “climate of violence” (COV) encouraged by the Trumpinator against masked Dorm Abteilung idealists, Soros-financed debating clubs, and Mexican flag-waving patriots dispatched by the Mexican ambassador to liven up his rallies attended by dreary xenophobes and inconvenient Americans.
*** to prevent violent clashes between far right [AfD] party members and demonstrators. ***
If you’re anti-refugee and anti-Islam you’re “far right” but if you block roads and burn tires you’re “a demonstrator.”
Yep, more p.c. differentiations. As if endless repetitions will make us believe it.
MC
I sincerely hope that BHO is too much of a weenie to try that but who knows?
Dear God, it’s time to pray hard.
Well, it certainly took the French long enough to realize it’s not smart to have the enemy living with you, in your country.
Now, what about the rest of the western world? Unlike Stephen Harper, ‘meathead’ can’t drag them fast enough into Canada.
Re: “Leading us down the aisle”.
1) It’s now pretty well recognised that homosexuality is not a “lifestyle choice”, but the result of incorrect dosages of testosterone in the womb.
2) Many gay men, and many more lesbian women, form lasting relationships*. While no clerics should be forced to perform marriages against their consciences, I cannot see how civil ceremonies diminish the value of heterosexual couples’ commitments; if they view their bonding as a sacrament, they will surely marry in church (synagogue, etc) anyway.
*I recall an old joke: “What do gay men do on the second date?”- “What second date?” “What do lesbians do on the second date?”-“Book the removal van”. For the hard of thinking, the joke is about sterotypically different attitudes to intimate relationships among “average” men and women, gay or straight.
I have some dear friends, a gay couple living in Pennsylvania (frequent visitors to London), who married a couple of years ago after living together for over thirty years. It’s a delight to see how they care for one another; I cannot see how this union is inferior to any other.
Long-lasting gay marriages are not inferior, they’re simply statistically rare. The “joke” about the lack of a second date highlights the bath house culture in which gay men go through life with thousands of partners. And they often pay the price for that risky behavior.
The average man is much more attuned to sex than the average woman. This is a mundane truth that drives radical fems to sputtering rage. In their quest for equality they decided to act like men. Instead of trying for an authentic equality they drink too much (women get drunk on far less alcohol than men do), end up going home with whomever and those who survive get up the next day and do it all over again, celebrating their Anaïs Nin-type freedom. No one talks about the fact that she died of vaginal cancer, once a rarer disease than it is today.
Whatever the latest fad, people live longer and healthier when they are in monogamous marriages, particularly men. Not “relationships” but marriages. Men whose wives die first don’t fare as well unless they remarry in short order. Women do a bit better because they often have social networks to fall back on.
No, I don’t have the sources to hand – I did a lot of research on it when I began hearing spurious “research” from feminists – those “men=fish on bicycles” type fems.
One of my favorite philosophers who writes about boys’ needs in our current cultural chaos is Christina Hoff Sommers. I recommend her videos. Here’s one -Five Feminist Myths that Will Not Die
Boys especially, but girls too, need fathers. I don’t endorse gay or lesbian couples being allowed to adopt or have AI treatment, but I have the same reservation about single women.
Gay couples are less stable than heterosexual ones, but at the present time that’s not saying much. HOwever, having seen the horror of foster care both as a kid and as a worker and supervisor in the system, a broken parental unit of whatever sort seems a better bet for kids than foster care…
There are so many lost children – just one reason those grooming gangs were able to get away with their vile behavior: many of the kids were “in care”, as the Brits say. Just as in the U.S., children get lost in the bloated bureaucratic shuffle.
Obama himself once said – long before he became president and had to watch his mouth more closely – that with the numbers of addicted moms abandoning children (instead of the more ordinary father abandonment), group homes would be an improvement over what we have. Having been in those, also, I agree with him. At least a child has cohorts for company and is less likely to be subject to erratic caretaking behavior than one experiences in foster care.
So yeah: gay/lesbian couples adopting the already-born is a good idea.
I’ll just remain thankful for all those free, front-page-above-the-fold ads, in the biggest markets, that Donald gets.
Do you mean all the coverage he’s getting in the MSM? He must be taking the “just-spell-my-name-right” approach. In fact, except for his fight with Ms. Kelly on Fox, I don’t think he mentions the media much…but I’m going on 3rd hand info since I can’t bear to listen to politicians…none of ’em.
I say that as a long-time admirer of Dr. Ben Carson. I liked his speech at the Prayer Breakfast a few years ago. But as soon as he became a candidate, I quit listening. Very glad he’s outta there and back to his education foundation.
Every time there’s a picture of some group’s outrage, it’s a free ad for Trump. Every time Hillary opens her mouth in West Virginia, it’s a free ad for Trump. Every TMm* in every MSM is a free ad for Trump. The best are on view to every passing soul, and they don’t have to spend a dime to read the prattle. Trump would be wasting money for even a column-inch of ad space in those rags. The list is endless.
*Thugs Matter matters.