Gates of Vienna News Feed 8/17/2017

My email started malfunctioning a couple of hours ago, so if you sent me something after about 9pm EDT, I probably haven’t received it. Outgoing mail is also hobbled; I can’t seem to send any messages at the moment.

Besides the news from Spain, look for the report about a new migration route to Europe that seems to have opened across the Black Sea to Romania.

To see the headlines and the articles, click “Continue reading” below.

Thanks to AF, Dean, DV, Gort, JD, LP, SS, 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.

Financial Crisis
» The Stock Market Bubble is So Big Even the Fed’s Talking About it
» Why Elites Are Winning the War on Cash
 
USA
» “Start Throwing Rocks”: Washington Post Op-Ed Calls for More Violence in the Streets
» Charlottesville Violence: What Might be Next
» Corporate Antifa: CEOs Revolt Against American Democracy
» Eyewitnesses: James Fields’ Car Was ‘Attacked, ‘ Police Set Up Rally-Goers to be Assaulted
» Franklin Graham Condemns Using Charlottesville to Attack Trump
» Homeschoolers Save Taxpayers $22 Billion Per Year
» In Their Own Words: The Radical Political Goals of ‘Anti-Fascists’
» Leftist Violence Goes Mainstream in America
» McCain, Romney, And Rubio Join the Republicans for Antifa Club
» Member of “Revolutionary Marxist-Leninist Party” Arrested for Role in Destroying Confederate Statue
» Michigan Foster Parents’ Conundrum: Give Up Gun Rights or Give Up Child
» Michigan Environmental Agency Won’t Let Family Protect Their Home From 80ft Sand Dune
» Police Treating Blast Site as Crime Scene; Homeowners in Medically Induced Comas
» The Link Between Sugar and Depression
» Watch: Fake News in Tears Following Trump Charlottesville Presser
» When Liberals Club People, It’s With Love in Their Hearts
» Why Was This ‘Crowd Hire’ Company Recruiting $25 an Hour ‘Political Activists’ In Charlotte Last Week?
 
Europe and the EU
» Barcelona Terror Attack: Van Ramming Kills at Least 13, Injures More Than 100
» Barcelona Terror Attack: Manhunt Underway, Death Toll Expected to Rise
» German Party Tells Voters to ‘Take Country Back, ‘ Posts Photo of Wrong Country
» No Go Zones: ‘No Whites Allowed After 8 PM’ Graffiti Appears in Birmingham, England
» Spain: Barcelona Terror Attack: Multiple Casualties as Van Ploughs Into Crowd at Las Ramblas
» UK: Wheelchair-Bound Silent Witness Actress, 45, Who Was Stabbed in the Head With Scissors on a Busy London Street Says She is Overwhelmed by Messages of Support From Her Co-Stars
 
Russia
» Assange Vows to Prove That Russia Was Not His Source in 3-Hour Meeting With Congressman
 
Far East
» North Korea’s Nukes Aren’t the Only Weapons of Concern
» The U.S. Military Will be Conducting ‘A Major Military Exercise’ On the Korean Peninsula During the Solar Eclipse
 
Australia — Pacific
» Burqa-Wearing Muslim Wife of Terror Recruiter Pleads Not Guilty to Disrespectful Behaviour in Court — After She ‘Refused to Stand for a Judge Because She Only Stands for Allah’
» ‘No Guard at Any Time Asked to See My Face’: Defiant Pauline Hanson Stands by Burqa Stunt and Insists She Was Trying to Expose Security Flaws by Wearing ‘UN-Australian’ Garment
» ‘To Ridicule Muslims and Mock Their Garments is Appalling’: Visibly Furious Attorney-General George Brandis’s Voice Quavers as He Slams Pauline Hanson for Wearing a Burqa Into the Senate
 
Immigration
» French Authorities Forced to Provide Facilities for Calais Migrants After Court Battle
» Germany: Merkel Jeered in Campaign as Refugee Tensions High
» ISIS ‘Hit Squads’ Are Using the Refugee Program to Infiltrate Western Nations
» Migrant Crisis: New Maritime Migrant Route Opens on Black Sea
» ‘We Need More People Like You’: One Nation’s Pauline Hanson Urges Dick Smith to Get Into Politics as She Praises the Businessman’s ‘Grim Reaper’ Anti-Immigration Ad
 
Culture Wars
» Rebels of Google: Tampons Kept in Men’s Restrooms Because ‘Some Men Menstruate’
» Who Needs Atonement?
 

The Stock Market Bubble is So Big Even the Fed’s Talking About it

The Fed confirmed yesterday that stocks are in a bubble.

Lost amidst the usual Fed-speak about inflation and other items were the following nuggets.

1) “Equities” (read: stocks) were the primary reason the Fed discussed financial stability risks.

2) The Fed raised its assessment of financial stability from “notable” to “elevated.”

3) The Fed discussed “stock valuations.”

This is simply incredible. Remember, we’re talking about the Fed here… a group of people who go above and beyond to ignore risks in order to maintain the status quo.

Put another way, the stock market bubble is now so massive that even THE FED is talking about it. Indeed, the Fed is even openly states that the bubble might cause financial instability (read: a CRASH).

It’s not difficult to see what the Fed is talking about. Based on their cyclical adjusted price to earnings ratio (CAPE) stocks are in CLEAR bubble territory.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Why Elites Are Winning the War on Cash

The real burden of the war on cash falls on honest citizens who are made vulnerable to wealth confiscation through negative interest rates, loss of privacy, account freezes and limits on cash withdrawals or transfers.

Visa recently unveiled its own offensive in the war on cash. Visa is offering certain merchants a $10,000 reward if they refuse to accept cash in the future.

Not surprisingly, Visa’s competitor is also part of the war on cash. Mastercard is increasing its efforts to encourage merchants to refuse cash. Here’s Bloomberg, quoting the CEO of Mastercard:

“Mastercard Chief Executive Officer Ajay Banga has been one of the most ardent supporters of ditching paper currency in the U.S. The 57-year-old first declared his war on cash in 2010.”

These private efforts by Visa and MasterCard exist side by side with official efforts to eliminate or discourage the use of cash coming from governments in India, Australia, Sweden as well as the United States.

These efforts are always portrayed in the most favorable light. Private parties talk about convenience and lower costs. Governments talk about putting pressure on tax cheats, terrorists and criminals.

Governments always use money laundering, drug dealing and terrorism as an excuse to keep tabs on honest citizens and deprive them of the ability to use money alternatives such as physical cash and gold.

But the so-called “cashless society” is just a Trojan horse for a system in which all financial wealth is electronic and represented digitally in the records of a small number of megabanks and asset managers.

Once that is achieved, it will be easy for state power to seize and freeze the wealth, or subject it to constant surveillance, taxation and other forms of digital confiscation.

The war on cash has two main thrusts.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

“Start Throwing Rocks”: Washington Post Op-Ed Calls for More Violence in the Streets

It’s not an exaggeration to say that battle lines are being drawn in America today. You can see it in the news everyday. As time goes on, people in this country are becoming very tribal, as Americans of different races, religions, and political persuasions turn on each other. What we saw in Charlottesville last weekend was just the latest sign that America is turning into a very dark place, where conflict between different demographics is the norm. And it probably won’t be the last indicator to emerge.

So how did we get to this place? How did we reach a point where America resembles Wiemar Germany, with white nationalists and socialist thugs battling it out on the streets and killing people?

If I were to pick one culprit for this mess, it would be the mainstream media. They’re the ones who have, for the most part, stood behind leftist ideologues for decades, and allowed them to bury public discourse under a wave of identity politics. They are at the very least, partly to blame. They’ ve helped stoke divisions in this country that were once faint, or in the process of healing.

And if you don’t think the mainstream media is responsible for nudging our country towards war in the streets, then you should read this op-ed that was recently published by the Washington Post. It was written by N.D.B. Collins, an associate professor at Johns Hopkins University. In it, he appears to shamelessly call for the left to spawn more riots and violence in this country.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Charlottesville Violence: What Might be Next

As everyone reading surely knows, open violence between left and right finally broke out in Charlottesville, Va. last Saturday when an alt-right group tried to hold what they called a Unite the Right Rally. The assembled group, as most groups do, doubtless included people from multiple perspectives no doubt including a few potentially violent KKK and neo-Nazi types.

Central to alt-right beliefs is the idea that the “conservatism” of the GOP mainstream is dead. What has collapsed, of course, is not conservatism but neoconservatism. Alt-rightists have no desire to revive what neoconservatism replaced. If they could tell you what it was, they wouldn’t agree with it. Alt-rightists are not conservatives, therefore. What they also believe — and here my disagreement with them deepens — is that whites need to embrace the identity politics that has been forced on society by the hard left. (I provide a lengthy diagnosis of the philosophical-historical origins and problems with such claims here.)

I may disagree with the alt-right, but why it came about is not hard to fathom.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Corporate Antifa: CEOs Revolt Against American Democracy

[…]

Ip goes on to explain that Corporate America increasingly fears crossing the left on cultural issues. This highlights just how powerful the forces aligned against the Trump administration have become. There is no counter-balancing fear of crossing the right or even openly defying a sitting president.

“This pushback against the right on many issues means Mr. Trump and Republicans can’t count on reflexive support from business simply because they promise to cut taxes and regulations,” Ip writes.

Wednesday’s rebellion, however, did not just show that Trump and his allies cannot count on support from business. It showed that Corporate America is part of the opposition, parroting the oppositions accusations against the president and openly announcing their own opposition.

           — Hat tip: AF [Return to headlines]
 

Eyewitnesses: James Fields’ Car Was ‘Attacked, ‘ Police Set Up Rally-Goers to be Assaulted

Eyewitnesses say that driver James Fields’ car was “attacked” at an intersection in Charlottesville, Virginia minutes before he sped into left-wing counter-protesters, injuring a handful and killing one. This attack could serve as the basis for Fields’ defense. Some cops reportedly believed that Fields struck the counter-protesters by accident while trying to escape violent attackers.

Big League Politics has also learned that Charlottesville police forced Unite the Right rally-goers to walk directly through mobs of un-patrolled Black Lives Matter and Antifa rioters, sparking the violence that led to mayhem and destruction in the streets of Charlottesville Saturday. The police then stood down and allowed the violence to happen. Some of the protesters on the Left were paid agitators.

The scene “was a sh*t show” an eyewitness exclusively told Big League Politics.

“Car that hit those people drove right by us 3 mins after. Was beat all to ****. Big rectangular square holes in rear windshield in addition to all the damage you see done to it in the photos,” the eyewitness said.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Franklin Graham Condemns Using Charlottesville to Attack Trump

Evangelist Franklin Graham (shown) was blunt in his rebuke of those who seized upon the tragic violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, as yet another way to attack President Donald Trump, declaring, “Shame on the politicians who are trying to push blame on President Trump for what happened in #Charlottesville, VA. That’s absurd.”

In a climate in which Trump’s every word is scrutinized and twisted, it should not be surprising that both Democrat and Republican politicians would, as Graham said, attempt to use the events in Charlottesville for some political advantage.

In the aftermath of the weekend protests in which some white supremacists and neo-Nazis were using the city government’s decision to remove the statue of Confederate icon General Robert E. Lee to their own advantage and agenda — only to be met by counter-protesters with another agenda who clashed violently with them — President Trump issued a short statement: “We condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides, on many sides. It has been going on for a long time in our country — not Donald Trump, not Barack Obama. It has been going on for a long, long time. It has no place in America.”

Because the president failed to attack the “white nationalists” and the “alt-right movement” by name in his remarks, politicians and activists looking for a way to slur Trump implied that all the responsibility for the violence was on one side.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Homeschoolers Save Taxpayers $22 Billion Per Year

Taxpayers across America, struggling under the burden of crushing local property taxes in addition to state and federal taxes, should thank a homeschooling family today.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

In Their Own Words: The Radical Political Goals of ‘Anti-Fascists’

They aren’t interested in protecting America’s system of government, according to their own statements — they’re interested in destroying it.

From the very start of the Trump administration, far-left actors declared their intention to use massive demonstrations to disrupt the American political process as much as possible.

A common mantra among far-left groups beginning shortly before the inauguration: make America “ungovernable.”

“We need to make this country ungovernable,” declared a female leader for Refuse Fascism shortly after the inauguration. “We need to do what the German people should have done when Hitler was elected.”…

They similarly want to destroy law enforcement and capitalists.

“We must identify the forces underlying their laws and their order-white supremacy, patriarchy, policing, capitalism, and the state. We have to work together to keep ourselves safe and reimagine the world without them,” the group states in an article, which was reposted on popular antifa website It’s Going Down.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Leftist Violence Goes Mainstream in America

WASHINGTON — Leftists claim they are fighting hate and violence, and they cite the deadly protest in Charlottesville, Virginia, as a prime example.

But the evidence indicates the left is actually spreading hate and violence.

Those are the conclusions of writers for two prominent left-leaning news outlets, the BBC and the Atlantic.

Their articles describe in detail how the taste for violence is seeping from the fringe left into its mainstream.

Peter Beinart’s article for next month’s issue of the Atlantic is titled, “ The Rise of the Violent Left.”

Brenna Cammeron’s article for the BBC on Monday was headlined, “Antifa: Left-wing militants on the rise.”

Beinart found:

“Antifa’s violent tactics have elicited substantial support from the mainstream left.” “[I]n the Trump era, the (violent leftist) movement is growing like never before.” “From Middlebury to Berkeley to Portland,” the use of violence to deny “Trump supporters their political rights … is on the rise, especially among young people.” Cammeron discovered, while the “ violence and murder of a protester in Charlottesville, Virginia, over the weekend has been attributed to far-right elements … many conservatives say blame should be shared by (the violent leftist group) Antifa.”…

In his Atlantic piece, Beinart recalled how leftists “punched and threw eggs at people exiting a Trump rally in San Jose, California,” in June last year, which a website associated with Antifa celebrated as “righteous beatings.”

And how, a few weeks later, 10 people were stabbed at a counter-demonstration by Anti-Fascist Action Sacramento.

Included among all the violent protests after the inauguration of Trump as president, WND reported on the outright call for violence by a Black Lives Matter speaker at an anti-Trump rally in Seattle on Jan. 31.

(Caution: Strong Language — this video contains repeated obscenities)

A woman who described herself as a preschool teacher declared, “We need to start killing people.”

“First off, we need to start killing the White House,” she added. “The White House must die. The White House, your f— ing White House, your f— ing presidents, they must go! F— the White House.”

And, “F— white supremacy, f— the U.S. empire, f— your imperialist a— lives. That s— gotta go.

Beinart further described how leftist violence has actually increased since Trump became president.

In Portland, Oregon, “Masked protesters smashed store windows during multiday demonstrations following Trump’s election,” then, at another rally on June 4, “Antifa activists threw bricks until the police dispersed them with stun grenades and tear gas.”

“Demonstrators have interrupted so many city-council meetings that in February, the council met behind locked doors.”

[Comment: Kill the Soros financing…ban antifa…arrest their leaders for sedition…extradite Soros to Russia.]

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

McCain, Romney, And Rubio Join the Republicans for Antifa Club

As James Bond’s nemesis Auric Goldfinger famously observed, “Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence. The third time is enemy action.” On Tuesday evening, three prominent Republicans — Senator John McCain, Senator Marco Rubio, and 2012 presidential candidate Mitt Romney — endorsed the left-wing media’s preferred narrative and embraced the masked thugs of Antifa as heroes.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Member of “Revolutionary Marxist-Leninist Party” Arrested for Role in Destroying Confederate Statue

Takiyah Fatima Thompson, a member of Workers World Party (WWP) and a student at N.C. Central University, was arrested on August 15 for playing a leading role in toppling a statue of a Confederate soldier that had stood in front of a county administrative building in Durham, North Carolina, since 1924.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Michigan Foster Parents’ Conundrum: Give Up Gun Rights or Give Up Child

Michigan adoption rules collide with the Constitution, so the outcome should be obvious. In Michigan and elsewhere, it isn’t.

Bill and Jill Johnson were asked by the state of Michigan to consider becoming foster parents for their grandchild after the state ruled his mother was incompetent to raise the child. Bill Johnson has had a concealed weapons permit for the last 10 years and has carried for personal protection ever since. So when the social worker told him that, as a condition of caring for the grandchild, he would have to provide the state with a list of the serial numbers of all of his firearms, Johnson resisted. A heated discussion ended when the social worker told Johnson, “You are going to have to give up some constitutional rights here if you want to keep that boy.”

The Johnsons took their case to court where, two weeks later, the judge sided with the state: “We know we are violating numerous constitutional rights here, but if you do not comply, we will remove the boy from your home.”

That’s when Alan Gottlieb, founder and executive vice president of the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF), got mad, and got involved:

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Michigan Environmental Agency Won’t Let Family Protect Their Home From 80ft Sand Dune

Everyone wants to live in a clean environment that is free of pollution and excessive degradation. It’s normal to want to live beside pristine forests and seas, and not have to worry about being poisoned by contaminants in the air, soil, and water. As humans we don’t always succeed in making our world clean, but it’s worth striving for.

Where problems arise in this effort, is when environmentalism forgets its priorities. Hardcore environmentalists have a habit valuing the natural world more than the humans who inhabit it. In some cases they promote ideas that are downright anti-human, like population control. They honestly don’t seem to think that it’s possible to support humanity and the environment at the same time. One must always thrive at the expense of the other.

And that attitude produces outrageous results when its adopted by the government. When the government decides that your life and property aren’t as important as the environment that surrounds it, look out. There’s a good chance that you’re going to lose everything.

That’s what a family in near Lake Michigan learned recently, when they tried to remove sand from an 80ft dune that threatens to destroy their house.

The Department of Environmental Quality has ordered the Dressler family to stop the use of trucks to move sand away from the dune as it creeps closer to their cottage in Silver Lake, according to the Detroit Free Press.

The state says that the sand in question is designated as a critical dune, thus requiring special permits to remove.

‘they’re killing us,’said David Dressler, 58, the property owner who has been denied permission to remove the sand.

‘I’ m so pissed off right now, I’ m beyond words.’

And this isn’t the first time that a home has been threatened by the sand dunes in that area. The Dressler family owned a second home that was enveloped by a sand dune earlier this year. So it’s no surprise that the Dresslers believe that the state of Michigan is violating their property rights by refusing to let them protect their home.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Police Treating Blast Site as Crime Scene; Homeowners in Medically Induced Comas

The city’s police and fire investigators are working to determine details of the chain of events leading to Monday’s house explosion in southeast Lincoln, including interviews, analysis of evidence, lab tests and evaluation of financial and cellphone records.

Police Chief Jeff Bliemeister provided an update Thursday on the investigation into the explosion that leveled Jim and Jeanne Jasa’s home at 5601 S. 78th St.

The Jasas remain in critical condition, both in a medically induced coma, at CHI St. Elizabeth, police said in a Thursday morning news release.

Fire and crime scene investigators have spent the last several days combing through the heap of rubble left in the blast’s wake.

The news release said police obtained a search warrant for the damaged structure and asked anyone with relevant information to call 402-441-6000.

Investigators have said they believe the cause of the incident began inside the home. We will be looking to prove or disprove a crime was committed, Bliemeister said.

The Lincoln Police Department is now leading the investigation, officials said. The focus of the investigation, they said, is the home’s occupants and the property itself.

Chief Fire Inspector Bill Moody’s crew on Wednesday focused on the fragments of the furnace and water heater and the gas connections to them for signs of failure.

Around 4:30 p.m. Monday, the explosion threw the homeowners out of the house and into the backyard, fire officials and neighbors reported.

Neighbors ran to help, assisting the couple toward the street and performing basic first aid until paramedics arrived.

Natural gas is an odorless gas that has a chemical marker, sometimes smelling of rotten eggs, added to help people detect leaks.

           — Hat tip: Dean [Return to headlines]
 

The Link Between Sugar and Depression

Foods have an immense impact on your brain, and eating whole foods as described in my nutrition plan is the best way to support both your physical and mental health. Based on the evidence, avoiding sugar (particularly fructose) is an important prevention and treatment strategy for anxiety and depression, both of which are rising in prevalence.

A number of studies have linked high-sugar diets to a higher risk of depression. Most recently, men consuming more than 67 grams of sugar per day were found to be 23 percent more likely to develop anxiety or depression over the course of five years compared to those whose sugar consumption was less than 40 grams per day.1,2,3

This held true even after accounting for other contributing factors, such as socioeconomic status, exercise, alcohol use, smoking, other eating habits, body weight and general physical health. As noted by lead author Anika Knüppel,4 a Ph.D. student at the Institute of Epidemiology and Public Health at University College London: 5

“Sweet food has been found to induce positive feelings in the short-term. People experiencing low mood may eat sugary foods in the hope of alleviating negative feelings. Our study suggests a high intake of sugary foods is more likely to have the opposite effect on mental health in the long-term.”

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Watch: Fake News in Tears Following Trump Charlottesville Presser

All he did was say both sides were responsible.

President Trump made it clear on Saturday he denounced, decried, rejected and altogether condemned violence from both sides at Charlottesville, Virginia, that cost the life of a protester.

But when he reiterated that fact at a press conference from Trump Tower Tuesday, the media went into hysterics.

Watch this video compiled by The Daily Caller showing the establishment media’s reaction after Trump blamed both sides for the tragedy that ensued in Charlottesville:

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

When Liberals Club People, It’s With Love in Their Hearts

Apparently, as long as violent leftists label their victims “fascists,” they are free to set fires, smash windows and beat civilians bloody. No police officer will stop them. They have carte blanche to physically assault anyone they disapprove of, including Charles Murray, Heather Mac Donald, Ben Shapiro, me, and Milo Yiannopoulos, as well as anyone who wanted to hear us speak.

Even far-left liberals like Evergreen State professor Bret Weinstein will be stripped of police protection solely because the mob called him a “racist.”

If the liberal shock troops deem local Republicans “Nazis” — because some of them support the duly elected Republican president — Portland will cancel the annual Rose Festival parade rather than allow any Trump supporters to march.

They’re all “fascists”! Ipso facto, the people cracking their skulls and smashing store windows are “anti-fascists,” or as they call themselves, “antifa.”

We have no way of knowing if the speakers at the Charlottesville “Unite the Right” rally last weekend were “Nazis,” “white supremacists,” or passionate Civil War buffs, inasmuch as they weren’t allowed to speak. The Democratic governor shut the event down, despite a court order to let it proceed.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Why Was This ‘Crowd Hire’ Company Recruiting $25 an Hour ‘Political Activists’ In Charlotte Last Week?

If your cause is worthy of protest then why would you need to pay $25 per hour to get people to show up?

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Barcelona Terror Attack: Van Ramming Kills at Least 13, Injures More Than 100

A terrorist-driven rental van plowed through a crowded pedestrian plaza in the heart of Barcelona on Thursday afternoon, killing at least 13 people and injuring more than 100, the latest in a series of low-tech attacks in European cities.

Officials in the autonomous Spanish region of Catalonia, which includes Barcelona, said they had arrested two people for the attack in the city’s Las Ramblas district, but not the driver.

The attack appeared related to an explosion the night before in a province about 125 miles south of Barcelona. It wasn’t clear whether authorities had identified any others still at large.

[…]

The ISIS-affiliated Amaq news agency claimed responsibility for the attack, said Ken Wolf, a senior analyst at Flashpoint. But the group has produced no evidence in support of the claim.

The attack unfolded during the height of the tourist season in Spain’s second-largest city, along a boulevard teeming with locals, tourists, merchants and street performers. The pedestrian plaza where the violence took place is known as La Rambla, and it’s in a district known as Las Ramblas.

           — Hat tip: LP [Return to headlines]
 

Barcelona Terror Attack: Manhunt Underway, Death Toll Expected to Rise

BARCELONA — A manhunt is underway for the driver of a van that mowed through crowds of tourists on Barcelona’s most famous avenue on Thursday, killing at least 13 people in an attack that was claimed by Islamic State.

Authorities said the death toll could rise, with more than 100 people injured, some seriously.

Police said they arrested two men, a Moroccan and a man from Spain’s north African enclave of Melilla, though neither was the driver. Witnesses said the driver fled on foot.

Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy said the van attack in Barcelona was “jihadist terrorism” which required a global response.

“Today the fight against terrorism is the principal priority for free and open societies like ours. It is a global threat and the response has to be global,” Rajoy told a news conference in Barcelona.

Also on Thursday, hours beforehand, a person was killed in an explosion in a house about 100 km (62 miles) southwest of Barcelona, in an incident linked to the attack, police added.

It was still not clear how many attackers had been involved. In another incident, police shot dead a man who had driven a car into a police checkpoint in Barcelona, though they had no evidence that this, too, was connected with the van attack.

Witnesses said the white van zigzagged at high speed down Las Ramblas, a busy avenue thronged with tourists, knocking down pedestrians and leaving bodies strewn across the ground.

Islamic State’s Amaq news agency said: “The perpetrators of the Barcelona attack are soldiers of the Islamic State and carried out the operation in response to calls for targeting coalition states” — a reference to a US-led coalition against the Sunni militant group.

The claim could not immediately be verified.

[…]

The incident occurred in the vicinity of the Maccabi kosher and Habibi halal restaurants. They are located across from the city’s medieval Jewish quarter.

Limor Hasson, an Israeli tourist, told Channel 2 that there was a group of about 20 Israelis in the Maccabi restaurant at the time of the attack.

           — Hat tip: DV [Return to headlines]
 

German Party Tells Voters to ‘Take Country Back, ‘ Posts Photo of Wrong Country

The post calls for medical provision to be guaranteed in rural areas in Germany, but it features a picture of a Swiss mountain.

(CNN) It’s an embarrassing error for any political party to make, let alone a nationalist one. On Monday, a branch of Germany’s far-right AfD (Alternatives for Germany) tweeted a picture of a mountain landscape with the headline “Our program for Germany” and a call to action: “Take your country back.”

Just one problem — the mountain is the Matterhorn and it’s in Switzerland.

The tweet, sent from the official Twitter account of the party’s Nuremberg branch, has since been deleted. But the image — and the “take your country back” message — has been used in other tweets from the same account…

           — Hat tip: Gort [Return to headlines]
 

No Go Zones: ‘No Whites Allowed After 8 PM’ Graffiti Appears in Birmingham, England

More evidence of the emerging No Go Zones investigated by Breitbart London editor Raheem Kassam in a new book has emerged in Birmingham, England, where a message reading ‘NO Whites Allowed After 8 pm’ appeared on the side of a building in the inner-city neighbourhood of Alum Rock.

The Birmingham Mail traced the graffiti to the corner of Farndon Road after the image was shared in a Facebook post — since deleted — by a page called Brumz Updates.

Local councillor Ali Khan, a Labour Party representative, told the paper that similar messages had been scrawled on stickers and affixed to lampposts in the nearby district of Saltley around three years ago.

The graffiti is just the latest in a series of anti-white incidents in England recently.

A lecturer from Stratford College was punched in the face and knocked into a freezing canal in January for “being white” by a group of Pakistani youths in January.

A white women was racially abused and had her nose and cheekbone shattered by three “Asian” men near the Coventry Skydome in March…

Researchers for the Department of Communities and Local Government (DCLG) found that the white working class in Birmingham felt areas of the city were turning into No Go Zones as long ago as 2009.

Dr Mohammed Naseem, the chairman of Birmingham Central Mosque, said at the time that the then Labour government was at fault: “No community should be made to feel like they are being treated unfairly and if the Government do think immigration is a problem then perhaps they should take a look at themselves because they allowed these people in in the first place.

“No community should be made to feel like they are being treated unfairly and if the Government do think immigration is a problem then perhaps they should take a look at themselves because they allowed these people in in the first place,” he said.

“They did not just land here from heaven, the Government created a problem for itself, and is now dealing with consequences like this.”

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Spain: Barcelona Terror Attack: Multiple Casualties as Van Ploughs Into Crowd at Las Ramblas

Armed police respond to terror attack in Barcelona

At least two people have reportedly been killed and dozens injured after a suspected terrorist crashed into a crowd of people on a pavement in a popular tourist area of Barcelona.

There are also reports of a live hostage incident at a Turkish restaurant near the scene.

The vehicle hit pedestrians in Las Ramblas, a busy tree-lined promenade in the centre of the city, the Ministry of the Interior said.

Barcelona police have said they believe that the attack is terror-related.

           — Hat tip: Dean [Return to headlines]
 

UK: Wheelchair-Bound Silent Witness Actress, 45, Who Was Stabbed in the Head With Scissors on a Busy London Street Says She is Overwhelmed by Messages of Support From Her Co-Stars

Silent Witness actress Liz Carr has thanked friends for their support after she was stabbed in the head by an attacker armed with a pair of scissors in each hand.

The man, who is in his 20s, attacked the 45-year-old wheelchair user while she was with her carer near London’s Euston station.

Ms Carr, who plays scientist Clarissa Mullery in the BBC crime drama series, was rushed to hospital and she is currently recovering from a slash wound.

A man was arrested at the scene on suspicion of GBH and was later detained under the Mental Health Act.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Assange Vows to Prove That Russia Was Not His Source in 3-Hour Meeting With Congressman

In a three hour meeting with Representative Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) at the Ecuadorian embassy in London, Julian Assange vowed to provide proof that Russia was not the source of his leaks last year and promised more ‘helpful’ information in the near future. Rohrabacher recounted the details of the meeting with Assange to The Hill:

“Our three-hour meeting covered a wide array of issues, including the WikiLeaks exposure of the DNC emails during last year’s presidential election,” Rohrabacher said, “Julian emphatically stated that the Russians were not involved in the hacking or disclosure of those emails.”

Pressed for more detail on the source of the documents, Rohrabacher said he had information to share privately with President Donald Trump.

“Julian also indicated that he is open to further discussions regarding specific information about the DNC email incident that is currently unknown to the public,” he added.

Of course, this is hardly the first time that Assange has publicly denied that Russia was his source for the DNC and/or Podesta leaks. Back in January, Assange recorded an interview with Sean Hannity of Fox News and unequivocally stated that “our source is not the Russian government and it is not a state party.”

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

North Korea’s Nukes Aren’t the Only Weapons of Concern

While the focus on North Korea has been their improvement of missiles and a potential nuclear strike against the United States, many have missed an equally sinister weapon lingering in the rogue nation’s arsenal. And experts say that it’s time to take notice of it.

Experts say there’s another weapon in Pyongyang’s arsenal the globe should keep a very close and watchful eye on. “Nuclear weapons are not the only threat,” Kelsey Davenport, director of non-proliferation policy for the Arms Control Association told the McClatchy Washington Bureau. “North Korea could respond to a U.S. attack using chemical weapons. That would be devastating.” And according to Fox News, Kim Jong Un’s military has been collecting large stockpiles of nerve agents, such as sarin and VX, which is the most dangerous and potent of all nerve gas agents.

North Korea could always choose a chemical attack, rather than a nuclear one; one that could target U.S. military bases in the region and large cities like Seoul and Tokyo, according to a new report. Pyongyang denies that they have chemical agents, yet back in May, it was reported that the UN was helping North Korea obtain a patent for a banned nerve gas agent.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

The U.S. Military Will be Conducting ‘A Major Military Exercise’ On the Korean Peninsula During the Solar Eclipse

On August 21st, approximately 25,000 U.S. troops will join “tens of thousands” from the South Korean military to conduct a “major military exercise” that is already triggering threats from North Korea. Considering the fact that any sort of provocation could cause a nuclear war to erupt on the Korean peninsula, is this really a wise thing to do? The more research that I do on this upcoming solar eclipse, the stranger things become. When I first started hearing about this eclipse many months ago, I didn’t pay too much attention, but now after looking into it extensively I do believe that it is going to be quite significant.

And I didn’t even know about this major military exercise that will happen during the eclipse until today. The following comes from MSN…

The U.S. military is preparing to launch a major military exercise with South Korea in coming days, and faces a dangerous balancing act: How do you reassure allies in the region that you are ready for a war with North Korea without provoking an actual conflict in the process?

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Burqa-Wearing Muslim Wife of Terror Recruiter Pleads Not Guilty to Disrespectful Behaviour in Court — After She ‘Refused to Stand for a Judge Because She Only Stands for Allah’

The burqa-wearing wife of a convicted terrorist recruiter has pleaded not guilty to nine counts of disrespecting a court.

           — Hat tip: SS [Return to headlines]
 

‘No Guard at Any Time Asked to See My Face’: Defiant Pauline Hanson Stands by Burqa Stunt and Insists She Was Trying to Expose Security Flaws by Wearing ‘UN-Australian’ Garment

One Nation leader Pauline Hanson says no security guards even asked to see her face as she walked into the Senate chamber wearing a burqa on Thursday afternoon.

           — Hat tip: SS [Return to headlines]
 

‘To Ridicule Muslims and Mock Their Garments is Appalling’: Visibly Furious Attorney-General George Brandis’s Voice Quavers as He Slams Pauline Hanson for Wearing a Burqa Into the Senate

A top Turnbull government minister has won a rare standing ovation from the Labor benches after ripping into Pauline Hanson’s burqa stunt.

           — Hat tip: SS [Return to headlines]
 

French Authorities Forced to Provide Facilities for Calais Migrants After Court Battle

Part of that effort to deter the creation of another camp has been the refusal by local government to provide facilities, but the new court ruling has overturned that decision, forcing Calais to make toilets and showers available to illegals using the area as a launching pad, against the wishes of locals.

Local government boss Fabien Sudry said Wednesday that to comply with the ruling ten toilets and seven water points had been set up, and more would be coming next week. However, rather than being permanent infrastructure, the equipment would be mobile, to prevent another migrant settlement being established.

But the deployment of facilities has been blasted by pro-migration NGO bosses, who claim the portable facilities are an “inadequate” interpretation of the court order.

           — Hat tip: AF [Return to headlines]
 

Germany: Merkel Jeered in Campaign as Refugee Tensions High

(BLOOMBERG) — Insisting that “people are doing better’’than they were four years ago, Angela Merkel made her re-election pitch to a crowd of some 3,000 in a medieval town square in western Germany, a stump speech marred by a clutch of jeering anti-immigration protesters.

The chancellor was speaking late Monday at an election rally of her Christian Democratic Union in Gelnhausen, a town of just over 20,000 about 50 kilometers (31 miles) east of Frankfurt. While most were placard-waving CDU supporters, several dozen supporters of the nationalist Alternative for Germany party, or AfD, blew whistles and shouted at Merkel.

The German leader didn’t acknowledge the protests in a 32-minute speech that covered the campaign themes of the diesel scandal, her CDU’s hewing to a balanced budget and pledges to increase domestic security. Yet the presence of loud demonstrators, a relative rarity during her rallies, hinted at the lingering tensions that have dogged Merkel since the refugee crisis exploded two years ago — and the residual anger that could inject uncertainty into the Sept. 24 election outcome.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

ISIS ‘Hit Squads’ Are Using the Refugee Program to Infiltrate Western Nations

I know that the headline sounds over the top, but this has actually been confirmed by German intelligence and by the mainstream media. ISIS terrorists have been using the refugee program to sneak into North America and Europe, and yet very little is being done to stop this from happening. One of the reasons why this hits so close to home for me is because leftists are pushing to bring a lot more Islamic refugees up here to north Idaho. Since our area has a low population density, a significant number of refugees could dramatically alter the character of our community very rapidly. Many moved up here in order to have a safe place to raise their families, but now the left seems determined to bring the danger of Islamic extremism to our local neighborhoods.

Refugees typically have little or no paperwork, and it can be exceedingly difficult to tell a terrorist apart from a non-terrorist. German intelligence has discovered that ISIS has been using this confusion to smuggle “ hit squads” and “ sleeper cells” into Germany…

German intelligence services have evidence that “hit squads” from the Islamic State terror group have infiltrated the country disguised as refugees, the deputy head of Bavaria’s spy agency told the BBC Thursday.

“We have to accept that we have hit squads and sleeper cells in Germany,” Manfred Hauser, the vice president of the Bavaria region’s intelligence gathering agency, BayLfV, told the Today program.

“We have substantial reports that among the refugees there are hit squads. There are hundreds of these reports, some from refugees themselves. We are still following up on these, and we haven’t investigated all of them fully,” said Hauser.

Did you catch that?

German intelligence says that there are literally “ hundreds” of reports of ISIS hit squads being among the refugees.

And CNN has reported that two of the Islamic extremists that were involved in the Paris attack last November entered Europe through the refugee program…

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Migrant Crisis: New Maritime Migrant Route Opens on Black Sea

Romanian authorities warn that a fourth migrant route could be opening along the Black Sea after the country experienced a five-fold increase in landings on last year.

The warning comes after 69 Iraqi migrants in a yacht were detained on Sunday after being spotted by a coastguard patrol ship in Romanian territorial waters, about 10 nautical miles from the port of Mangalia.

Bulgarian news agency Novinite reports that the yacht was sailing under the Turkish flag piloted by Bulgarian and Cypriot traffickers.

Romanian authorities note that 2,500 people have been caught trying to cross the country’s borders illegally in the first six months of this year — a five-fold increase on last year. Frontex figures show that only one person attempted to illegally enter the European Union via the Black Sea in the whole of 2016.

           — Hat tip: AF [Return to headlines]
 

‘We Need More People Like You’: One Nation’s Pauline Hanson Urges Dick Smith to Get Into Politics as She Praises the Businessman’s ‘Grim Reaper’ Anti-Immigration Ad

One Nation leader Pauline Hanson has praised businessman Dick Smith and urged him to get into politics after he released a ‘grim reaper’ style anti-immigration ad on Wednesday.

           — Hat tip: SS [Return to headlines]
 

Rebels of Google: Tampons Kept in Men’s Restrooms Because ‘Some Men Menstruate’

[…]

Arthur also gave some insight into the distribution of conservatives and liberals at Google.

“Before the election someone ran an informal poll, and I believe the numbers were 81% Clinton, 19% Trump. While that’s obviously lopsided, it still means that about 14,000 Googlers voted Trump (with current headcount of about 72,000).” 14,000 Google employees, while far from a majority, is still quite a large amount of employees at the liberal Silicon Valley company that support President Trump.

One of the most surprising and bizarre pieces of information from Arthur’s interview is that feminine hygiene products are kept in men’s restrooms at Google. Arthur explained, “There are also women’s hygiene products in the men’s rooms, because as we all know, some men menstruate.”

Breitbart editors initially thought this claim was so absurd that we were being trolled with fake news. However, a previous interviewee, Emmett, corroborated the story saying, “It is certainly true that there are tampons and pads in men’s restrooms. To my understanding, there have been complaints that these were tossed away by men using the bathroom when no one was looking”

An image from a 2013 blog confirms that tampons are at least kept in the unisex bathrooms at Google:

           — Hat tip: AF [Return to headlines]
 

Who Needs Atonement?

The first thing I post on my blog every day is a hymn, and we take requests from readers. When someone asked for “In Christ Alone,” it brought to mind a controversy involving this hymn.

When Keith Getty and Stewart Townend published it in 2001, the new hymn quickly caught on. Churches in many denominations decided to include it in their hymnals.

Even the Presbyterian Church USA considered adding “In Christ Alone” to their stock of hymns: but only on one condition. The PCUSA objected to a line in the lyrics and told the authors they would have to change it before the hymn could be included in the hymnal. In fact, they even told the authors how to change it: get rid of the line, “the wrath of God was satisfied” [by Jesus’ death on the cross], and replace it with “the love of God was magnified,” which make no sense, theologically, but what the heck. When the authors refused, the PCUSA rejected their hymn.

The PCUSA is among the flattest of the flatline Protestant denominations. They are not big on orthodoxy. At their 2010 General Assembly, a lot of them dressed up as animals and pagan gods. And just try to find that embarrassing video anywhere on your computer. Insisting they were proud of what they did, they erased it from the Internet.

So, no, they don’t want any of that wrath of God business. Like, who is God, that He should be mad at anybody? And for that matter, the whole doctrine of the Atonement is a problem for many flatliners. What do we need atonement for? The only sins the PCUSA recognizes are political sins-opposing abortion, supporting Israel, Climate Change Denial, etc.-and those can be dealt with politically. Besides, as a progressive in good standing, Jesus would never forgive such awful sins. I mean, really, there is a limit!

These sins, the Left has decided, are to be purged from the culture by our schools and colleges. And the universities have coined a catch-all term for the whole kit and caboodle of ‘em.

“Whiteness.”

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

15 thoughts on “Gates of Vienna News Feed 8/17/2017

  1. Like, who is God, that He should be mad at anybody? And for that matter, the whole doctrine of the Atonement is a problem for many flatliners. What do we need atonement for? The only sins the PCUSA recognizes are political sins-opposing abortion, supporting Israel, Climate Change Denial, etc.-and those can be dealt with politically.

    SADLY, THIS APPLIES TO ALL THE PROTESTANT CHURCHES AND TO LIBERAL CATHOLICS TOO.

    THE POST-MODERN CHURCH HAS BETRAYED CHRIST AND DESERTED HIS FLOCK. BUT GOD’S WRATH IS ON THE WAY.

    • The seventh Church of Revelation is Laodecia, the Apostate Church, the richest church in worldly goods.

      How fitting that when the Catholic Church – just recently – managed to get truly unbelieveable amounts of money from the Czech government via so called “restitutions” – all their buildings, churches, monasteries, etc. are well kept and renovated – yet they have no people!

      There is like one catholic priest for thirty churches, in the Czech Republic. The catholics have to import Polish priests, because Czechs are just fed up with religion.

      So – here we are. The moment in history when the Catholic Church in Bohemia is richest it has ever been.

      Yet they have no people!

      That is because, as Jesus Christ says:

      For you say, ‘I am rich, and have become wealthy, and have need of nothing’; and you do not understand that you are wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked.

      http://www.biblestudy.org/biblepic/churches-of-revelation-laodicea.html

      • I remember my Czech friend telling me that there ought to have a been a priest hung from every lamp post, such was the degree of animosity.

        Well, they haven’t got masses of Muslims either to sell the churches to, but it won’t be long before Saudi Arabia puts in an offer.

        The reason for the anti-clericalism is that this generation’s parents and grandparents grew up under Soviet Czechoslovakia, where the church was horribly persecuted – nuns and priests murdered – and the people’s only religion was Marxist-Leninism, or atheism.

        No one passed Christianity on to their children!

  2. The man, who is in his 20s, attacked the 45-year-old wheelchair user while she was with her carer near London’s Euston station.

    London now occupies which level of Dante’s Inferno?

    Good luck with ‘Love casting out Fear’ you PC Londoners! Soon you won’t be able to leave your homes as the risk escalates of acid thrown in your face or scissors stabbed into your skull or a Muslim jihadi slitting your throat.

    Just move out to the suburbs and leave the city to those who own it – the Arabs. It will make it easier for those British who keep alive Churchill’s spirit to deal with the scum once they are all concentrated in one area.

  3. Spain: Barcelona Terror Attack: Multiple Casualties as Van Ploughs Into Crowd at Las Ramblas

    Never mind. A gathering of people joining hands, singing ‘We are Barcelona’ followed by teddy bears and hearts and flowers, strewn where the dead and injured lay, should do the trick. And then the world can yawn and get back to attacking the REAL menace – Donald J Trump, Israel and the tsunami of Alt-Right Nazi hate groups which are swarming all over the planet in plague proportions!

    • Why are any Euros wasting time with flowers and candles?

      They should be used to paying the diversity tax at this point.

    • The only hate groups out there are Western governments and their AntiFa auxiliaries.

      Alt-Right is not about National Socialism. Our side must be precise in terminology and objectives. Loosely throwing around the term “Nazi” is the classic distortion of the left. It is like “racism.”

      Whites have an interest in not being extinguished and not having our country handed over to minorities and foreigners. Life in some drifting, rudderless, amorphous, third-world cesspool is not anything whites should tolerate. Israel leads the way on that point.

      Nothing in the 1930s German experience has any bearing on what whites face now. If not being a gutless ponce who wants to grovel before his inferiors means you’re a Nazi then that term has no meaning at all.

      • “Life in some drifting, rudderless, amorphous, third-world cesspool is not anything whites should tolerate.”

        Col. Bunny-

        I am sad to report there are far too many Leftist whites who think it would be amazingly ‘cool’ if the United States transmogrified itself into, “The United States of Senegal,” or “The Republic of Gambia.”

  4. Takiyah Fatima Thompson, a member of Workers World Party (WWP) and a student at N.C. Central University, was arrested on August 15 for playing a leading role in toppling a statue of a Confederate soldier that had stood in front of a county administrative building in Durham, North Carolina, since 1924.

    This white American woman with the funny names and an IQ bordering on minus 100, ought to be sent to be with others of the same ilk – Guantanamo Bay! After all, there’s a lot of room available since Obama emptied it of jihadists so they could return to battle against his nemsis – the USA.

  5. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vQBc1low54

    Ban the Burqa stunt by Senator Pauline Hanson in the Australian Senate can be seen on the above youtube, which is hugely entertaining and revealing of Australia’s dhimmi capitulation to Islam, even by a so-called ‘conservative’ government!

    She is from a (not to put too fine a point on it) mildly racist culture in rural Queensland (think Southern Democrats before they gave up trying to block civil rights legislation – but not so extreme). Perhaps that rural culture has now changed from when I lived there in the early 1970s.

    So you can imagine with what disdain the city slicker politicians regard her country, redneck ways! (in her case- red hair) But her time has come because of Islamic Terror, so she’s stopped going on about the Australian Aboriginal people, as she used to.

    The bloviating, sanctimonious response of the Attorney General is nauseous in the extreme, but promoted by the witless, priggish, Left wing nitwit of ABC news . The Attorney General, is followed by the Lefty, masculine-voiced, butch-haired, feminist Asian Senator Wong, who naturally is also highly outraged by the truth, whilst poor Pauline stumbles inarticulately to get her words out.

    Pauline Hanson is 100% correct, especially in light of the previous entry here:
    Burqa-Wearing Muslim Wife of Terror Recruiter Pleads Not Guilty to Disrespectful Behaviour in Court — After She ‘Refused to Stand for a Judge Because She Only Stands for Allah’

  6. It’s pretty amazing the Atlantic will allow Beinart to publish an article titled, “The Rise of the Violent Left.”

    I wonder what the catch/twist will be?

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