Edinburg Votes to Join Texas, Accelerating Mexico Crisis

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I wrote this post yesterday (March 6) while our site was down. Vlad was kind enough to let me post it last night at his place. Readers may enjoy looking at the comments on it there.

The latest on the Mexican crisis, from Reuters:

EDINBURG, Mexico (Reuters) March 6, 2022 — Edinburg’s legislature voted to join Texas on Thursday and its Washington-backed government set a referendum within 10 days on the decision in a dramatic escalation of the crisis over Tamaulipas state in Mexico.

The Edinburg region of Texas — which was ceded to Mexico in 2016 by then-President Barack Obama to satisfy domestic political pressures — consists on the former counties of Webb, Zapata, Jim Hogg, Starr, Hidalgo, Willacy, and Cameron. The region is now part of Tamaulipas state.

The sudden acceleration of moves to bring Edinburg, which has an Anglo majority and has effectively been seized by Texan forces, formally under Austin’s rule came as UN leaders gathered for an emergency summit to find ways to pressure Texas to back down.

Russian President Vladimir Putin took steps to punish those involved in threatening the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Mexico, ordering the freezing of their Russian assets and a ban on travel into Russia.

The Russian Navy announced a guided-missile destroyer, the Archangel, was heading to the Gulf of Mexico in what it said was a long-planned training exercise and not a show of force.

The Edinburger legislature voted unanimously “to enter into the Republic of Texas with the rights of a citizen of the Republic of Texas”.

The vice-governor of Edinburg, home to Texas’ Gulf of Mexico military base in Port Isabel, said a referendum on the status would take place on March 16. He said all state property would be “nationalized”, the U.S. dollar could be adopted and Mexican troops would be treated as occupiers and be forced to surrender or leave.

The announcement, which diplomats said could not have been made without U.S. President Rand Paul’s approval, raised the stakes in the most serious east-west confrontation since the beginning of the Great Collapse.

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Ridin’ The Range Once More…

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Gene Autry’s gonna entertain y’all whilst the Baron finds the key to the front door.

Again.

The Baron says we’ve been under some kind of strange attack for more than 24 hours, but it’s not clear yet exactly what is happening. If our site has to be restored from a backup, some posts and comments may appear to be missing.

What brought us down this time? Leprechauns. Mean little green guys with an attitude and a computer axe.

This is getting old. People are piling up on the welcome mat, trying to get in…

Bear with us — this probably isn’t over yet…

Gates of Vienna News Feed 3/6/2014

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This news feed was generated while GoV was down on March 6. I’m not sure when it will be posted.

The big story concerns the phone conversation about Ukraine between Catherine Ashton, the foreign minister of the EU, and Urmas Paet, the Estonian foreign minister, about the snipers in Kiev during the demonstrations. According to Mr. Paet, the snipers — who shot both police and demonstrators — were hired by the organizers of those same demonstrations. The conversation was surreptitiously recorded a week or so ago, but has just now hit the news.

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

Thanks to Fjordman, Insubria, JD, JP, KP, MC, Vlad Tepes, 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.

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Silence Means Assent

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Below is a thoughtful guest-essay from our German translator JLH.

Silence Means Assent
by JLH

I sometimes think of Martin Niemöller’s famous lines describing how Nazism stamped out a nation’s decent impulses through intimidation, lies and fear:

First they came for the communists,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a Jew.
Then they came for me,
and there was no one left to speak out for me.

And I wonder how we should describe what has happened to us… how the best characteristics of a culture can be destroyed by the enemies within, who yearn to control and intimidate. And this is what I think:

When they said we were war-mongers, I said nothing, because I knew we had not been war-mongers, and I thought everyone knew that.

When they said we were racists, I said nothing, because I knew we were not racists, and I thought everyone knew that.

When they said we were Nazis, I said nothing and even smiled a little, because I knew we were not Nazis, and I thought everyone knew that.

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Gates of Vienna News Feed 3/5/2014

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Israeli naval commandos boarded and seized a ship carrying advanced rockets from Iran that were bound for the Gaza Strip. The Panamanian-flagged cargo ship will be escorted to the Israeli port of Eilat within the next few days.

In other news, according to the latest census figures, the foreign-born population of Wales rose by 82% between 2002 and 2011.

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

Thanks to ESW, Fjordman, Insubria, JD, Jerry Gordon, JP, KP, 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.

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Waitin’ for That Train

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As you may have noticed if you tried to open this blog during the last two or three hours, Gates of Vienna was down for a while. The hosting service has been working on the problem, and just brought the site back up.

At the moment we don’t know what caused the outage. But, thanks to our generous readers, we now have a more robust service package that mitigates these outages (whether caused by DoS or other problems), reducing both their frequency and duration.

So we’re back on the tracks once more…

“Easy Meat”: Child Sex Slavery in the UK

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As we reported here a few days ago, Gavin Boby of the Law and Freedom Foundation has been working intensively on the issue of child sex slavery in the UK. The activities of the largely Muslim “grooming and pimping” gangs have been known for decades to the police and the social service agencies, but the perps went largely unpunished before 2012.

The LFF has just published a comprehensive report on the grooming issue, “Easy Meat”: Multiculturalism, Islam and Child Sex Slavery by Peter McLoughlin (download a copy here [pdf]).

Mr. Boby notes:

The report examines in detail:

  • What these gangs do
  • The chronology of the problem
  • Institutional failure and the abuse of the narrative of racism
  • The Islamic cultural background
  • The scale of the problem

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Gates of Vienna News Feed 3/4/2014

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An Egyptian court has outlawed all activities of the terror group Hamas — the Palestinian chapter of the Muslim Brotherhood — within Egypt. In the months since the ouster of Muslim Brotherhood President Mohamed Morsi, the Egyptian army has destroyed most of Hamas’ smuggling tunnels leading from Sinai into Gaza.

In other news, the Islamic terror group Boko Haram burned eleven people to death inside their homes. A Roman Catholic bishop in Nigeria says that Boko Haram jihadists have burned down twenty churches in their attacks.

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

Thanks to C. Cantoni, Erick Stakelbeck, Fjordman, Insubria, JD, JP, KP, 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.

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Grover Must Go!

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The Center for Security Policy has launched a petition demanding that the American Conservative Union (ACU) expel Grover Norquist, whom CSP identifies as the center of a Muslim Brotherhood influence operation in the organization:

Tell the ACU: Grover Norquist Must Go

On February 11, 2014, ten influential national security practitioners sent a letter to American Conservative Union board member Cleta Mitchell, urging her and her colleagues to take action against Grover Norquist and Suhail Khan, two ACU members who have for years been running influence operations against conservatives on behalf of the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamist causes. She ignored it.

Both Norquist and Khan have had relationships with a bevy of individuals with strong ties to the Muslim Brotherhood — including jailed al-Qaeda and Brotherhood member Abdurahman Alamoudi and onetime head of Palestinian Islamic Jihad Sami al-Arian — that make their participation in the American Conservative Union anathema to the organization’s supposed vision. It behooves true conservatives, Republicans — and, indeed, the American people as a whole — to resist such subversive operations and to expose and counter those who enable them.

The time has come for the American Conservative Union to disassociate itself from Norquist and Khan. Nothing less than the Board of Directors’ repudiation of these individuals will suffice. The coming together of thousands of conservative activists at this year’s CPAC offers an opportunity for mainstream conservatives to demand the ACU distance itself from Norquist and Khan.

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The Maximum Freedom to be Maximally Offensive

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The Canadian journalist Ezra Levant is in court again this week. This time it’s not the Human Rights Commission that’s after him, but the Canadian Islamic Congress, who have forced him to defend himself (at enormous expense) against a defamation lawsuit in a Toronto courtroom.

Last Saturday Trykkefrihedsselskabet (the Danish Free Press Society) presented Mr. Levant with the Sappho Award for 2014. Many thanks to Henrik Ræder Clausen for recording this video of the event, and to Vlad Tepes for processing and uploading it:

For more details on the CIC’s lawsuit, see this clip from Ezra Levant’s SUN TV program.

Visit Steen’s place for lots of photos and text (in Danish).

The following excerpts are from the prepared text of the introduction to Mr. Levant’s speech given by Katrine Winkel Holm, the acting President of the Free Press Society, as published by Dispatch International:

In February 2006, Ezra Levant’s news magazine, The Western Standard, was the first media in Canada to reprint the Danish Muhammed cartoons.

Trouble was to follow.

An imam was so incensed at these — as he described them — “hateful” drawings that he went to the police and demanded that Ezra Levant be arrested. When the police refused to comply, the imam went on to one of Canada’s numerous “human rights commissions” empowered to implement the country’s hate speech laws.

“I am expecting a formal apology … from The Western Standard. Please help,” the imam said.

Instead of rebuffing the imam with a condescending smile, the human rights commission took his complaint dead seriously.

The entire apparatus was mobilized against Ezra Levant. Later he found out that the commission had spent 900 days and secured the services of no less than 15 government employees to prepare the case against him.

When Ezra Levant contacted his lawyer, he was told that faced with the might of the human rights commission, most people give up, pay up and apologize.

Nobody had ever been acquitted after being accused of a human rights violation.

Ezra Levant could have chosen to cave in. He did the opposite: The human rights commission would get all the opposition he could muster.

In early 2008, he was summoned to a preliminary interrogation based on the imam’s complaint that he had violated the Koran’s proscription on blasphemy.

In Levant’s own words: “It was really happening: I had become the first journalist in the free world to be grilled by a government inquisitor about the cartoons.”

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Looking Back, Looking Forward

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The Winter Fundraiser ends here. Instead of a bang or a whimper, let’s go out in full voice with hope for the future, whatever it holds…

We ran out of time before we ran out of Odd Jobs. Interesting ones remain, but I’ve asked the Baron to save the best of them for another time. The tale is worth the telling, but we’ve past the right time — the kairos moment — to pass it on. However, it could well serve as the foundation for another theme in another quarter — closer perhaps to Christmas.

Looking Back One Last Time

We also ran out of time before I was able to adequately ‘end’ my own recitation of Odd Jobs. We (rightly I think) focused on the enormous changes which occurred when the Baron’s good friend invited him to do real work — you know, the kind where you dress up in business clothing and go to an office to work with grown-ups? This new job required new clothing, and even where men’s attire was concerned, discovering what they now wore had a learning curve. Many years before, when this same friend got married, the Baron was woefully ill-dressed for their wedding; our friends always had great forbearance. They could have said, “Hey, you know those two paintings we bought at the last show? How about you take some of the proceeds and get some threads for our wedding, dude… oh, wait. Maybe not “threads”. He was already wearing those. But you get the idea.

The start of that job was an abrupt right turn in the Garden of Forking Paths and it happened just in time. The future Baron’s college expenses loomed, and there was that last piece of high school tuition to get through. I am still amazed at the way things seemed to just ‘happen’… even though, in hindsight, each step of the way seemed to follow naturally from the previous decision.

I was still working in town, but it was getting harder and harder to make the drive. I began to fall asleep at the wheel. Sometimes I would get to a job — a big house to clean — haul in my equipment and then sleep on the floor for an hour before I could start. Running up and down the stairs with my favorite heavy vacuum cleaner became harder and then it became impossible. I finally had to tell all my customers goodbye. I saw this as temporary and had no idea what was wrong except that I was sooo VERY tired. I couldn’t get enough sleep.

The exact order of things is gone now, but it probably took about seven years until we understood what was wrong. I began to have strange body aches and my doctor referred me to physical rehab. The exercises made my condition worse, so I’d sleep it off. By then our son was driving himself to school and the Baron was home twice a week to spend the night before returning to work. He had moved on from that first contract to consulting work in Richmond so it was easier for him to stay with family than make that long drive each day…

… After long months of fatigue I began to feel a bit better. Garden work before the weather turned very hot seemed to help, though I noticed I was losing my depth perception and even my proprioception. So I tripped over my own feet. A lot. If I remember correctly we went on vacation several times with friends but I mostly slept while they went out and did things. Thus began my years of “I’ll feel better tomorrow”…

The doctor nagged me to get a mammogram and they found a lump. Not a small lump, mind you, but one big enough for its own zip code. Within two weeks I’d had a full mastectomy, “just to be sure”. There was no hormonal involvement and no the nodes were free of any cancer cells. They tried to shoehorn me into a series of radiation treatments but I refused. I knew the chances of leukemia down the road if I were to agree to their “gold standard” of treatment. When I mentioned my concern about leukemia, the radiologist left mad, slamming the door behind her. I did reluctantly agree to chemotherapy and I regret doing so. In cases like mine, it’s a scam. In others, it might help but the whole Breast Cancer Awareness hype gave me the creeps. Chemo permanently altered/poisoned my brain and my ability to perceive. I never fully recovered from that “treatment”.

But to the extent I did recover, I wanted to try working again. This Odd Job was advertised in the paper — imagine, a job the old-fashioned way. The Drop-In Center for the chronic but stable mentally ill adults was looking for a case worker. Any previous mental illness would be considered a plus… I almost fell off the chair laughing. These people were going to love my PTSD.
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Gates of Vienna News Feed 3/3/2014

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The crisis in the Crimea intensified today, with Ukraine reporting that the Russian navy had threatened its warships, demanding that they surrender. The Russian stock market and the ruble took a tumble because of fears of the turmoil in Ukraine, but President Vladimir Putin shows no sign of backing down.

In other news, terrorist gunmen opened fire outside a Pakistani courtroom, killing at least eleven people.

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

Thanks to C. Cantoni, Egghead, Fjordman, Insubria, JD, Jerry Gordon, JP, KP, 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.

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Betrayal of Islam? Or Betrayal to Islam?

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If you appreciate this essay by Fjordman, please consider making a donation to him, using the button at the bottom of this post.

On 22 May 2013, two militant African Muslims armed with knives and Koranic quotations beheaded a British soldier in broad daylight in the streets of Woolwich, London. The murderers praised Allah and stated that the British would never be safe in their own streets anymore. The unarmed man beheaded by the two Islamic fanatics was Lee Rigby — a 25-year-old serviceman described as a “loving father” to his two-year-old son Jack.[1] Witnesses said the suspects hacked and chopped at his body and shouted the Islamic phrase “Allahu akhbar!”

British Prime Minister David Cameron stated in 2013 that this murder was a “betrayal of Islam.”[2] Cameron further claimed that “There is nothing in Islam that justifies acts of terror.”[3] Similar sentiments were echoed by London Mayor Boris Johnson as well as other Western political leaders and media outlets.

On 26 February 2014, Rigby’s attackers Michael Adebolajo and Michael Adebowale were sentenced to life imprisonment for this brutal public murder. Adebolajo responded by shouting “Allahu akhbar” (God is greater). Justice Sweeney, coincidentally echoing the exact words used by the country’s Prime Minister, stated that their crime was a “betrayal of Islam.”[4] That sounds nice, but it’s unfortunately not true. This mantra is based on wishful thinking, not facts.

As noted by the scholar Lawrence A. Franklin, the medieval Muslim warrior Saladin has long been romanticized. Yet the historical Saladin choreographed the mass execution of prisoners of war. He even personally ordered clerics in his Jihadist army to behead at least one Christian knight. Only a few prisoners saved themselves by “converting” to Islam.[5]

For centuries Muslim writers have commented on the psychological impact of beheadings upon their enemy’s fear factor and will to resist. This is indicated by Koran 8:12: “I will cast terror into the hearts of those who have disbelieved, so strike them over the necks and smite them over all their fingers and toes.”[6]

Professor Timothy R. Furnish explains that during nearly 1,400 years of Islamic history, beheading has been a recurring theme.[7] A variation upon this theme would be slitting the throats of infidels, as happened to the Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh in Amsterdam in 2004. The practice of beheading non-Muslims extends all the way back to Islam’s founder. Ibn Ishaq, the earliest biographer of Mohammad, is recorded as saying that the Prophet ordered the execution by decapitation of 700 men of the Jewish Banu Qurayza tribe in Medina.

Centuries later, the Turks of the Ottoman Empire were quite enthusiastic about decapitating Christian Europeans and others. Decapitation has also been used against those deemed to commit blasphemy or seen as apostates from Islam. Over the past decades, modern Saudi Arabia has decapitated hundreds of people for alleged crimes ranging from drug running to witchcraft and apostasy.

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