Micah Xavier Johnson, the sniper who murdered five Dallas police officers and wounded a number of others, reportedly had plans for a much larger attack that would have involved explosives. He also is reported to have scrawled cryptic messages in his own blood on the walls of the parking garage where he was eventually killed.
In other news, after the Kuwaiti government initially approved plans for the building of churches in Kuwait, the projects were vetoed by the country’s parliament because they violate sharia law.
To see the headlines and the articles, click “Continue reading” below.
Thanks to AF, Dean, ESW, Fjordman, Insubria, JLH, MC, Papa Whiskey, RL, 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.
Dijsselbloem Says Italy Must Respect Bail-in Rules
Eurogroup chief admits others helped banks with public money
(ANSA) — Milan, July 7 — Eurogroup President Jeroen Dijsselbloem said Italy must respect the EU bail-in rules as it seeks to support some weak lenders laden down by bad loans.
“Other countries managed to restructure their banks with public means and the Italians did not do so at the time,” Bloomberg quoted Dijsselbloem as saying. “But now the rules are stricter”.
Premier Matteo Renzi’s government is in talks with the European Commission on how to help the Italian banking system, which has come under intense pressure on the financial markets since the Brexit vote, without breaking rules against State aid and complying with the bail-in regulations, designed to stop public money being used to save lenders.
“Continuous talks are ongoing with Italy,” said a spokesperson for Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager.
“Our position has not changed”. Giovanni Sabatini, the director general of Italian banking association ABI, said the nation’s lenders should not face any major problems due to Britain’s vote to leave the EU.
“The exposure of the Italian banking sector to financial institutions and the private sector in the United Kingdom is limited and below that of Germany, France and Spain,” he said. “The Italian banks are among those least exposed to the Brexit risk and yet it seems like Italy has been overwhelmed after the vote”. Lower House Speaker Laura Boldrini said the EU must help Italy find a solution.
“The banks problem does not just regard Italy. It concerns many other countries that have it the same, or have had it, because the European rules of today don’t seem capable of managing the problem in many countries, including Italy,” she said. “The solution cannot be national. It must be European. I’m worried”.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
EU Banks Need $166 Billion, Deutsche Bank Economist Tells Welt
Europe urgently needs a 150 billion-euro ($166 billion) bailout fund to recapitalize its beleaguered banks, particularly those in Italy, Deutsche Bank AG’s chief economist said in an interview with Welt am Sonntag.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: OECD Says 57% of Young Workers in Unstable Jobs
Number of under-25s in same job for less than year up to 43%
(ANSA) — Paris, July 7 — The OECD said in a report Thursday that 57.1% of Italian under-25s in work in 2015 were employed in temporary posts or with contracts that give them little job security. It said that was up from 56% in 2014. The OECD added that the percentage of young people in the same job for less than a year went up to 43% in 2015, compared to 37.9% in 2014. “A recovery is finally underway in the Italian labour market but at a slow pace,” the OECD said in its Employment Outlook 2016. “The employment rate has been rising since the 1st quarter of 2015, but it remains the third lowest among OECD countries after Greece and Turkey and by the end of 2017 is projected to remain below its pre-crisis level.
“The unemployment rate has declined to 11.5% in the 1st quarter of 2016 from a peak of 12.8%, and a further decline is projected to 10.5% by the end of 2017. It remains above that of the Euro Area but the pace of recovery should gain momentum”.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Six Mln Pensioners in Italy Get Under 1,000 Euros a Month
Mostly women on low pensions
(ANSA)- Rome, July 7- Almost six million pensioners in Italy, or 38% of the total, receive a monthly pension payment of less than 1,000 euros, social security agency INPS said in its annual report presented on Thursday.
INPS said this section of the population received only 15.6% of their total spending, or just over 43 billion euros in 2015. Women make up 3.95 million of the 5.96 million people in this group.
A new system of part-time work ahead of retirement introduced on June 2 was used by only 100 people in its first month, INPS President Tito Boeri said, noting high administration costs.
Spending for permits to use in cases of severe disability or to assist family members amounts to more than three billion euros per year, with big differences between the public and private sector, Boeri said.
He added that stricter controls were needed to monitor who received these permits, and that their use was too high in the public sector.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Armed Robbers Used Pokemon Go App to Target Victims, According to Cops
A string of armed robberies that took place Saturday night in Missouri were perpetrated by suspects who targeted their victims using Pokémon Go, a popular augmented reality game, according to police.
“This morning at approximately 2 am we responded to the report of an Armed Robbery near the intersection of Highway K and Feise Road,” the O’Fallon Missouri Police Department said in a statement. “We were able to locate four suspects occupying a black BMW a short time later and recover a handgun. These suspects are suspected of multiple Armed Robberies both in St. Louis and St. Charles Counties. It is believed these suspects targeted their victims through the Pokemon Go smart phone application.”
O’Fallon Police Sgt. Robert Kendall told ABC News that his department did not have knowledge about all of the robberies committed by the suspects, but that a handgun was recovered, and that the department would be applying for warrants today of the four suspects in question.
“Nobody was hurt, and no shots were fired in ours,” he said, referring to the robbery that took place in his jurisdiction.
O’Fallon Police said the perpetrators of the robberies used the game by adding “a beacon to a PokeStop,” referring to an aspect of the game that enables users to lure additional players…
| — Hat tip: Dean | [Return to headlines] |
The Falcon Heights, Minnesota police shooting of Philando Castile is based around an entirely false narrative. Castile and Ms. Diamond Reynolds (Facebook video uploader) were pulled over by police because Castile matched a BOLO Alert for an armed robbery suspect from four days prior.
Unfortunately, the false statements in the video — which have gone viral, and are being pushed by the mainstream media — have created a backlash against police officers.
Police officers in: Dallas, Tennessee, Missouri and Georgia have been shot or killed in the past 24 hours as a result of a false narrative driven by the Black Lives Matter movement. It is important to get the truth out quickly.
Saint Anthony, MN, Police Officers Jeronimo Yanez and Joseph Kauser pulled over Mr. Castile and Ms. Reynolds because the driver, Philando Castile, matched the suspect profile in an armed robbery which occurred on July 2nd, at a convenience store, only a few blocks from where their car was pulled over.
[Includes disturbing photos. — PW]
| — Hat tip: Papa Whiskey | [Return to headlines] |
Dallas Shootings: Killer ‘Prepared Larger Attack’
The man who shot dead five police officers in Dallas and wounded seven more was planning an even larger attack, the city’s police chief says.
Micah Johnson, 25, was angry with the recent killings of black men by police and wanted to kill white officers, police say.
Police chief David Brown said he was “convinced” Johnson had wider plans.
He told CNN that Johnson, a military veteran, appeared to have practised detonating explosives.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Dallas Shooter Scrawled Letters in Blood at Parking Garage
The shooter who killed five Dallas police officers taunted authorities during two hours of negotiations, laughing at them, singing and at one point asking how many officers he had shot, Police Chief David Brown said Sunday.
Micah Johnson, a black Army veteran, insisted on speaking with a black negotiator and wrote in blood on the wall of a parking garage where police cornered and later killed him, Brown told CNN’s “State of the Union.”
Johnson, who was apparently wounded in a shootout with police, wrote the letters “RB” and other markings, which investigators are trying to decipher by looking through evidence from Johnson’s suburban Dallas home, Brown said.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
How We Got to the Brink of Civil War, And How to Stop it
[…]In his Sabbath sermon, my rabbi — who works closely with police here in Santa Monica, where the chief is a black woman — lamented the sudden decline of race relations as a throwback to the past. We all went through a common experience, when things improved — why are we being dragged backwards?
And the answer is that our leaders made a deliberate choice to radicalize our politics, unnecessarily. The racism and mistrust followed, because they are necessary to sustain that radicalism.
The Tea Party arose not because of racism, but because President Barack Obama made clear he was going to push through his agenda regardless of the wishes of the opposition or the constraints of the Constitution, and because voters realized that the Republicans, left to their own devices, were not going to stop him.
That’s all. That had nothing whatsoever to do with racism, but Obama and his party found it convenient to invent it — like the lies about the N-word being shouted at black legislators in 2010.
| — Hat tip: AF | [Return to headlines] |
Hundreds Arrested as Anger Boils in US Over Police Violence
More than 200 arrests have been made across the United States as protesters denounce killings by police. A prominent activist has been detained in Louisiana, and Dallas police released new details about the shooter.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Leftist Pastor Behind Dallas Black Lives Matter Protest Wrote of Becoming Muslim
The hard-Left Islamochristian “Rev.” Jeff Hood wrote this in November 2015:
When Jesus bound his body and ultimately became the stranger in Matthew 25:35, he left no doubt that he was calling us to do the same. Since the Paris attacks, Muslims have been strangerized over and over. From calls for registration to violent language around refugees, the rhetoric has grown worse and worse with every day. Jesus is bound to the stranger. Jesus becomes the stranger.
In our Islamophobic society, I have no question that Jesus is so intimately incarnated with and connected to our Muslim friends that he has become one. If we want to walk with Jesus in this moment of extreme oppression and marginalization, we will too.
Amen.
With his Salafi beard, Hood certainly has a distinctly Islamic look, even down to the scrupulous avoidance of isbaal:..
| — Hat tip: RL | [Return to headlines] |
Minnesota Police Pelted With Rocks, Rebar; 102 Arrested After Protests Turn Violent
More than 100 people were arrested and 21 police officers injured in Minnesota Saturday night when protests over recent police killings of black men morphed into rioting.
St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman detailed at a Sunday press conference what he called an “extreme incident” Saturday night that led to 102 arrests after protesters pelted police officers with rocks, rebar and incendiary devices, including Molotov cocktails. The injuries to officers were “significant, but none were life-threatening,” Coleman said.
The protests, which started with a march from the governor’s mansion around 8 p.m., were among several demonstrations nationwide following the deaths of 32-year-old Philando Castile, a black man who was shot in a Minneapolis suburb by a police officer during a traffic stop, and 37-year-old Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge, La. Sterling, who was black, was shot after a scuffle with officers outside a convenience store.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Murdered Dallas Cops Were Veterans, Husbands and Fathers Who Died Protecting Protesters’ Rights
hey were military veterans, husbands and fathers who served the city of Dallas — and died protecting the rights of fellow Americans to criticize their brethren in blue.
Five police officers — four from the city’s main department and one from Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART) — were killed by a racist sniper late Thursday as they guarded anti-police brutality marchers. By Friday evening, all had been identified: Brent Thompson, Michael Krol, Patrick Zamarripa, Mike Smith and Lorne Ahrens.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Donald Trump is a racist, bigot, sexist, xenophobe, anti-Semitic and Islamophobe — did I miss anything? The left and the media launch these hideous kinds of attacks at Trump everyday; yet, nothing could be further from the truth about the real estate mogul. As an entertainment journalist, I’ve had the opportunity to cover Trump for over a decade, and in all my years covering him I’ve never heard anything negative about the man until he announced he was running for president. Keep in mind, I got paid a lot of money to dig up dirt on celebrities like Trump for a living so a scandalous story on the famous billionaire could’ve potentially sold a lot of magazines and would’ve been a “yuge” feather in my cap. Instead, I found that he doesn’t drink alcohol or do drugs, he’s a hardworking businessman and totally devoted to his beloved wife and children. On top of that, he’s one of the most generous celebrities in the world with a heart filled with more gold than his $100 million New York penthouse.
In 2004, the first season of “The Apprentice” aired and at that time I worked as an entertainment columnist for the “RedEye Edition of the Chicago Tribune” and as a freelancer for “Us Weekly”. I had a gut feeling that Chicago contestant, Bill Rancic, was going to win the reality show. So I contacted him and covered the hit show the entire season. I managed to score an invite to New York for the show’s grand finale and after-party. This is where I first met Trump and got to ask him a few questions. That year, Rancic did win “The Apprentice”. I attended “The Apprentice” finale the next two years in a row. Between that and the frequent visits Trump and his family made to Chicago during the construction of their Trump International Hotel & Tower, I got a chance to meet most of his family too and I’ve had nothing but positive experiences with them. Since the media has failed so miserably at reporting the truth about Trump, I decided to put together some of the acts of kindness he’s committed over three decades which has gone virtually unnoticed or fallen on deaf ears…
| — Hat tip: JLH | [Return to headlines] |
Berlin Riot: 123 Police Injured in Anti-Gentrification Protest
Police in Berlin say 123 officers were injured in clashes with leftist protesters over the redevelopment of a district in the east of the city.
About 3,500 protesters marched through Friedrichshain on Saturday. Some were masked and threw missiles, police said.
The protest was the most violent in the past five years, they said.
Tensions have risen since moves began in June to evict squatters in the area. Friedrichshain has undergone rapid gentrification in recent years.
About 1,800 police were deployed at the protest, which began peacefully but escalated into violence.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Did EU Chief Confirm Aliens Exist? Juncker ‘Speaks of Brexit to Leaders of Other Planets’
ALIEN conspiracy theorists were sent into overdrive after European Commission president Jean Claude Juncker appeared to say he had “heard from the leaders of other planets”.
Clips of the EU big wig speaking in a Brexit debate are going viral online, after he was heard to say aliens were worried about the looming Brexit by the UK from the union.
He said, translated from French: “You need to know that those who observe us from afar are worried.
“I have have seen, listened and heard many leaders of other planets and they are very worried because they wonder about the course the EU will follow.
“So we have to reassure both the Europeans and those who observe us from afar.”
It was apparently nothing more than a slip of the tongue, as even some alien conspiracy websites have pointed out.
| — Hat tip: AF | [Return to headlines] |
Far-Left Riot in Berlin Ends in Injuries and Arrests
Left-wing extremists and police have clashed in Berlin after months of tension. Some 1,800 officers were on duty to patrol demonstrators upset with the constant police presence outside a popular left-wing meeting point.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Head of French Police: France is on the Brink of Civil War
The internal terrorist threat in France is so urgent that the commander of the French security services has twice warned the French Parliament about the possibility of new terrorist attacks could trigger a civil war.
The chief of security, Patrick Calvar, is considered one of those in France with the best insight into the inner threat situation in the country, writes Le Figaro.
In connection with the violent terrorist attack on Friday 13 November last year, which led to the French government appointed a commission of inquiry, he stated behind closed doors in parliament this year that France “stands on the brink of civil war.” He has also warned the Parliament’s defense committee that if there are more terrorist attacks from Islamic ranks, the far right could exploit the situation to trigger a civil war.
| — Hat tip: AF | [Return to headlines] |
Report: Over 1,200 Women Assaulted in Germany on New Year’s Eve
Germany’s federal police have found that over 1,000 sexual crimes were committed across Germany on New Year’s Eve. Over 2,000 men are believed to have taken part in the crimes, though only 120 have been identified.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
by Tuvia Brodie
The next war could be World War Three. If that happens, it won’t be original. It will be a copycat war. It will be a Muslim war against the Jew derived from Adolph Hitler.[…]
Today’s Arabs are like those Germans. They have the same self-image, the same vocabulary, the same sense of injustice, the same sense of humiliation—and the same drive for war against the Jew.
Pre-World War Two Germans and today’s Arab Muslims have a lot in common. Both claim their enemies are immoral. Both seek to ‘recover lost land’. Both suffer ‘humiliation’. Both seek to unify a world around a glorious ideal (the Third Reich for Germany; the Caliphate for Arab Muslims). Both seek ‘justice’ for their ‘people’. Both use an almost psychotic Jew-hate to motivate their followers.
These are not accidental similarities. Hitler sought to create a great colonial Empire in Eastern Europe by defeating Soviet Russia, exterminating all its inhabitants, and then planting the vacant territories with Germans (ibid, p.10). Today’s Arab Muslims seek to create a Caliphate in Israel by defeating the Jew, cleansing the land of Jews and then planting the vacant territories with ‘Palestinian refugees’.
Today, thousands of Arab Muslims dream of killing infidels (remember Boston) without qualm or question just as thousands of Germans killed for Hitler without qualm or question. Just as Hitler bears responsibility for destroying German democracy, creating concentration camps and implementing mass exterminations (ibid, p.27), so too Muslims today destroy Arab democracy, create concentration camp-like conditions for ‘Arab refugees’ and call for the killing of Jews.
Hitler’s war isn’t over. It never ended. Arab Muslims copy it. They want to finish the job Hitler started—and they’re close to starting World War Three to do it.
Arab Muslims dream to exterminate Israel. They dream a Nazi dream of conquest. They call this dream their religious Destiny.
One day soon, we may call that dream World War Three.[…]
| — Hat tip: MC | [Return to headlines] |
Kuwait MPs Block Church Building Because it ‘Contradicts Sharia Law’
Plans to build churches in Kuwait have been rejected by MPs because they “contradict Islamic Sharia law”.
The Gulf country’s government, which is unelected and seperate from the elected MPs in parliament, initially accepted the church building proposals and allocated a number of sites for construction.
However it was rejected by MPs in the legislature. Islamist MP Ahmad al-Azemi said he and other MPs would reject the plans because they “contradict Islamic Sharia law”.
He said his rejection is based on constitutional and religious grounds since Islam is the official religion of Kuwait and the main source of legislation. He added that Islamic scholars are unanimous in banning the building of non-Muslim places of worship in the Arabian Peninsula.
News that the government had approved sites for church building was reported to local press by Ahmad al-Manfoohi, general director of the municipality. It was met with extensive public criticism and al-Azemi urged the government against taking decisions that weren’t in line with the view of Kuwait’s conservative religious society…
| — Hat tip: ESW | [Return to headlines] |
Internet Reposts Can Mean Jail in Russia Crackdown
Moscow (AFP) — Recent graduate Maxim Kormelitsky did not think twice when he shared a picture online with an expletive-ridden caption about Russian Orthodox believers and their tradition of jumping into freezing cold water.
But then he got a summons from investigators in his small Siberian hometown. Within a few months the 21-year-old was put on trial on charges of inciting hatred and sentenced to more than a year in jail.
The harsh punishment for Kormelitsky is part of a broader trend in Russia that has seen a small but growing number of people prosecuted for reposting messages online. For critics, this is a crackdown on the one place authorities don’t yet control — the internet.
| — Hat tip: AF | [Return to headlines] |
How One Man Spread a Killer Virus in Hospital
Paris (AFP) — A single patient infected 82 people with the deadly MERS virus in an overcrowded South Korean emergency room in 2015, according to a scientific investigation released Saturday.
The study, published in the medical journal The Lancet, maps a lethal outbreak of Middle Eastern Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) in South Korea that caused 186 known infections in all, including nearly 40 fatalities.
The case is the most prolific transmission of MERS virus from one patient outside the Middle East.
As long as the highly-contagious respiratory disease — with a 30-40 percent mortality rate — continues to circulate in the Middle East, governments and health care providers should be prepared for sudden outbreaks elsewhere, the researchers warn.
| — Hat tip: AF | [Return to headlines] |
South Sudan ‘Back to War’, Says VP Riek Machar’s Spokesman
South Sudan is “back to war”, a spokesman for the vice-president has told the BBC, as rival factions clash and hundreds have been reported killed.
Forces loyal to Vice-President Riek Machar say government troops attacked their positions in the capital, Juba.
But Information Minister Michael Makuei Lueth said the reports of war were “dishonest”.
The UN mission said hundreds had sought shelter in its compounds, and called for leaders to restrain their troops.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon condemned what he called the “senseless violence”. The UN Security Council is holding an emergency session to discuss South Sudan.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Turkey to Grant Millions of Syrian Refugees Citizenship as it Ramps Up Bid to Join EU
MILLIONS of refugees taken in by Turkey over the last five years will be offered citizenship, Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said.
The country, which is currently in talks to join the European Union, has taken at least 2.7million Syrians into its shelters.
Speaking in Kilis province, south Turkey, which hosts 120,000 Syrians, Erdogan said: “There are steps our interior ministry has taken on the issue.
| — Hat tip: AF | [Return to headlines] |
Alarmism: Claiming Normal as Abnormal Began on a Global Scale With Ozone
With the introduction of the new paradigm of environmentalism and the subset global warming, natural events were presented as unnatural. The strategy provided a ‘no lose’ situation. People were easily misled because they don’t know what is normal. The few with some knowledge were easily marginalized as skeptics or conspiracy theorists. The sequence is to announce the imaginary problem, produce false science to make it ‘real’, introduce political strategies that do nothing except cost jobs and inconvenience people, and wait. When conditions return to “normal,” you claim victory for your science, policies, and wisdom. It is like the ice hockey defender who was considered good when he was so slow he missed the attacker’s feint and caught him coming back.
[Read it all.]
| — Hat tip: AF | [Return to headlines] |
Let’s Cook Limestone to Raise Atmospheric CO2 to 1000ppm
The world has a CO2 problem — there is not enough free CO2 in the atmosphere, to maximise food production, alleviate world hunger, green deserts, and to attempt to hold off the next ice age. But if my calculation is correct, raising CO2 to a safer level would be surprisingly affordable.
Although a lot of nonsense has been written about CO2 harming plant growth, the reality is commercial greenhouse growers maintain elevated CO2 levels of around 1000ppm, because one of the most effective means of promoting plant growth is to make sure plants get enough CO2 — enough being defined as a significantly higher concentration than is currently available in the atmosphere.
The world is also almost certainly teetering on the brink of the next glaciation. I’m not suggesting it will start tomorrow, but interglacials, of the kind we are currently experiencing, typically only last 10-15,000 years. We are well past the Holocene Climatic Optimum, the peak of our current interglacial. Without serious anthropogenic intervention, it is all downhill from here. There is no guarantee raising CO2 will prevent or mitigate the slide into the next glaciation period, but given the catastrophic consequences the coming ice age will have on human civilisation, it has to be worth a try.
| — Hat tip: AF | [Return to headlines] |