Dzhokar Tsarnaev, the surviving Boston Marathon bomber, is said to have written various things on the inside of the boat he was hiding in before he was surrounded and captured by police. Among his scribbles was the phrase “Praise Allah”, as revealed by cell phone videos taken by local cops. Police officers were asked by the FBI to turn over their phones to the Bureau, so that no information would leak, but the cops refused to do so.
In other news, a new report on corporate graft reveals that Croatia and Slovenia are the most corrupt nations in the European Union.
To see the headlines and the articles, click “Continue reading” below.
Thanks to Fjordman, Gaia, Insubria, JD, Jerry Gordon, McR, Nick, 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.
Hollande Calls for EU ‘Economic Government’
Speaking at a news conference marking his first year in office, French President François Hollande called for an “economic government” for the eurozone that would have a president, its own budget and a coordinated tax system.
French President François Hollande called Thursday for the establishment of a eurozone “economic government” that would have a president, its own budget and a coordinated tax system.
Speaking at a news conference marking a year since he took office on May 15, 2012, Hollande said that France wanted to create a more politically integrated European Union within two years.
He said the initiative would help put an end to the “lethargy” that was threatening Europe’s future.
“If Europe does not advance, it will fall or even be wiped off the world map,” Hollande said. “My duty is to bring Europe out of its lethargy.”
Hollande also called for new investments aimed at tackling skyrocketing unemployment among Europe’s young people, which in Spain hit 56 percent in March. Average youth unemployment in the European Union stands at 23.5 percent and at 24 percent across the eurozone.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Fiscal Discipline Can Bear Political Cost, Warns Bonino
Austerity will not end economic crisis, says foreign minister
(ANSA) — Rome, May 15 — Austerity alone won’t pull Europe out of the current economic crisis, Foreign Minister Emma Bonino said Wednesday.
Speaking to the Foreign Affairs Committees of the House and Senate, Bonino said that “not everyone understands” the harm that austerity can do.
Fiscal discipline is important, she said, but it also bears a steep political cost.
Critics of the spending cuts brought in by many governments say it has played a role in dampening economic growth.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy Won’t Team Up Against Germany Says Letta
Youth unemployment ‘a nightmare for all European leaders’
(ANSA) — Rome, May 16 — Italy will not try to team up with France against Germany to wrest control of European policy from Berlin, Premier Enrico Letta said Thursday.
Letta said he “fully agreed” with French President Francois Hollande that all countries should try to work together to “make the right choices”.
Italy and France are trying to get German Chancellor Angela Merkel to ease austerity policies and make moves to stoke growth and create jobs, especially for young people.
Germany has been hoping struggling EU members will make the structural reforms Berlin achieved a decade ago to boost growth while avoiding deficit spending.
On Thursday Letta stressed that the two policy areas were not incompatible.
“Budget discipline is the condition for implementing growth policies, and (policies) for young people,” he said, acknowledging that Italy had in the past racked up “too much debt”.
“My generation has learned how much damage can be done when you solve today’s problems using tomorrow’s resources,” he said after talks with Polish Premier Donald Tusk in Warsaw.
Letta called youth unemployment “a nightmare for all European leaders”.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Stretching into the distance under grey skies, the only signs of life on this deserted Spanish highway are the occasional lone cyclist or pack of stray dogs.
The MP-203 in Madrid has remained unfinished for six years — despite initial investment of 70 million euro in the shelved project in recession-hit Spain.
Weeds can be seen growing on the surface of the abandoned route today, as it emerged the Eurozone has slumped into its longest recession ever.
Construction workers downed tools six years ago when the 12.5km route was 70 per cent complete, due to issues with the Madrid-Barcelona high speed railway and the connection to Spain’s R-3 highway.
These images reveal how the project — intended to relieve congestion on the Barcelona highway (A-2) — has fallen into decline, on a day of further economic blows to the beleaguered Eurozone.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
The Truth behind the Holder Justice Department’s search for leaks
According to one intelligence official close to the situation who provided information specific to this incident, Holder’s Justice Department not only attacked the sacred separation of powers through his agency’s actions by obtaining the aforementioned telephone records, but what has yet to be disclosed is that all electronic communications data was included in this overreach. According to this source, the records not only included those within the cloak room, but in other areas throughout and within the Capitol. Not in real time, of course, so as to maintain the infamous Nixonian plausible deniability amid the semantics serving to sully the truth.
The purpose is to identify the media contacts used by members of the House and Senate as they look for leaks in the house of the people.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Desperate Holder Throws Underlings Under the Bus
Holder can only serve as long as he maintains the support Obama. That he still does, speaks volumes — about both men.
In testimony before the House Judiciary Committee yesterday, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder reinforced the notion that he is unfit to remain in office.
Although he was grilled about many of the scandals afflicting the Obama administration, the seizure of phone records from the Associated Press (AP) remained the major concern for both Republicans and Democrats. Holder made it clear they were wasting their time trying to get answers about the investigation from him. “I was not the person involved in that decision,” he insisted. “I was recused in that matter as I described in a press conference held yesterday. The decision to issue this subpoena was made by the people presently involved in the case.”
Holder said he recused himself from the probe because “I am a possessor of information eventually leaked.” He expressed faith in the ability of those looking into the leaking of top-secret information to the AP. the leak revealed details of a CIA operation in Yemen that undermined an al Qaeda plot to get an underwear bomber on a jetliner. “I have faith in the people who actually were responsible for this case, that they were aware of the rules and that they followed them,” Holder said. “But I don’t have a factual basis to answer the questions that you have asked, because I was recused.”
That was an understatement. Holder wasn’t even able to answer the most basic questions about the investigation.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
‘F***’ America, ‘ Boston Marathon Bomb Suspect Wrote in Boat: Officials
As police searched for him, and as he lay bleeding in his boat hideout, Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev wrote “F*** America” on the side panel of the boat, police in Massachusetts told ABC News.
Officers said they also discovered the phrase “Praise Allah” on the boat’s side panels and several anti-American screeds, including references to Iraq, Afghanistan and “the infidels.”
A Massachusetts official showed ABC News what he said was a cell phone picture of the phrase “Praise Allah,” written in black ink, with a bullet hole above it, believed to have been written by Dzhokhar as he hid inside the boat in Watertown, Mass.
Also seen in the picture was the faintly written word “brother,” which the official said was part of a reference by the younger Tsarnaev “that was something about his brother is lucky to be with Allah first.”
Tamerlan Tsarnaev was killed hours earlier during a shootout with police several blocks away from the location of the boat.
Spokespeople for the Massachusetts State Police and the Watertown police had denied the existence of the writings when first asked about them by ABC News two weeks ago.
Today, both departments referred reporters to the FBI. A federal law enforcement official confirmed reports first broadcast by CBS News that writings had been discovered inside the boat.
The discovery of writings intensified tensions between the FBI and local police when FBI agents believed some Boston officers and state police had taken cell phone pictures of the writing.
Agents demanded the phones of all officers at the scene the night of the capture of Dzhokhar be confiscated to avoid the photos becoming public before being used as evidence at trial, according to two law enforcement officials.
A FBI spokesperson said agents cannot confiscate phones without a warrant and officials said none of the police approached would agree to turn over their phones to the FBI.
| — Hat tip: Vlad Tepes | [Return to headlines] |
Google and NASA Team Up to Study Artificial Intelligence
The company that could be called the king of the Internet has joined up with the gatekeeper of space to study artificial intelligence by creating a computer that relies on the unique properties of quantum physics, NASA and Google have announced.
To study artificial intelligence and create this computer, the two giants are forming the Quantum Artificial Intelligence Lab, which will be housed at NASA’s Ames Research Center located in California’s Silicon Valley. They expect the quantum computer, which will complete calculations way faster — by some estimates at least 3,600 times faster — than today’s supercomputers, will be up and running by the third quarter of this year, the New York Times reported. The quantum computer would be able to find complex patterns in information in order to determine creative outputs, a process called machine learning.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
How Angelina Jolie Was Duped by Cancer Doctors Into Self Mutilation for Breast Cancer She Never Had
(NaturalNews) In a New York Times op-ed explaining her decision to have both of her breasts surgically removed even though she doesn’t have breast cancer, Angelina Jolie cited risk numbers as key to her decision. She said that doctors told her she had an “87% risk of breast cancer.” Her solution? Undergo three months of surgical procedures and have her breasts cut out.
Problem solved, right? With her breasts removed, she says her risk of breast cancer is now reduced to a mere 5 percent. The same bizarre logic can also be applied to men who cut off their testicles to “prevent testicular cancer” or people who cut out their colons to “prevent colorectal cancer.” But that would be insane, so nobody does that, because one of the most basic principles of medicine is that you don’t subject patients to the considerable risks and costs of surgery and anesthesia to remove organs that have no disease!
But the really sad part about all this is that Angelina Jolie was lied to. She didn’t have an 87% risk of breast cancer in the first place. All the women reading her NYT op-ed piece are also being lied to. Here’s why…
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
How Obama Illegally Bought the Black and Latino Rural Vote
The following paragraphs outline a story about blatant, in-your-face political corruption, racketeering, graft and fraud by former President Clinton, Obama, the Obama Administration, along with Obama appointees in the Justice and Agriculture Departments and certain members of Congress that included a scheme to buy off Black, Latino, Indian and women farmers for their votes with your tax money, for alleged racial discrimination by the U. S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). It is a story of unbelievable twists, turns, corruption and graft at the highest levels of government.
Andrew Breitbart actually broke the story several months ago but he was vilified by the press and those belonging to the Donkey party, as being a bigot, a racist and a sloppy reporter that was loose with the facts. It turns out that Breitbart was uncannily accurate, as proved out by a 5,000 word expose’ on the front page of the New York Times on April 25, 2013 [url]… the New York Times mind you, no friend of conservative issues! Read the article. You won’t believe that your government could be this reckless with your money!
[…]
Early on in the Pigford payoff scandal, it was reported that President Clinton ordered USDA to pay 60% of the Black farmer claims and reject 40% of the claims as a template for the payouts. President Clinton also suggested a payout amount of $50,000 to Black farmers and that became the standard. No wonder he was labeled the first “Black” president.
After the initial payouts to Black farmers, Senator Menendez, a Hispanic senator, and other sympathetic Democratic senators in September of 2009 cried foul and said that Hispanic farmers were also discriminated against and should be compensated as well. Menendez wanted the same payout for Hispanic farmers who had been allegedly discriminated against by USDA. With such a large payout for alleged discrimination, claim filers, Black and Latino, crawled out of the woodwork to get their share of the loot. In one county alone, claims filed were four times the number of farmers in the county.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
IRS Criminality Proves Big Government is Lawless, Unrestrained and Utterly Out of Control
(NaturalNews) Without any direction from the President, if you believe the current denials, the IRS went on a politically-motivated rampage that turned its own agents into weapons of intimidation and censorship against any non-profit which taught the Constitution or used conservative buzzwords like “We the People.”
As part of its campaign of tyranny, the IRS demanded from the groups titles of all the books they had recently read, details of Facebook posts and names of all their donors. They even asked for the names of students they taught! Applications for non-profit status were routinely denied or delayed, and a huge number of individuals including Catholic priests were warned that if they didn’t stay silent about opposing Obama, they would be “scrutinized” even further (i.e. audited or worse).
Obama says he knows nothing about any of this, even though he was of course the primary beneficiary of all this activity. But let’s assume he’s telling the truth for a moment, as bizarre as that idea may seem to most. If Obama really knew nothing about all this, it paints an even more frightening picture of a rogue government group with unlimited power that answers to no one and does whatever it wants, regardless of the legality of its actions or directions from Washington.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Minnesota Woman Given 20 Years for Fund-Raising for Al-Shabab
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — A Minnesota woman convicted of conspiring to send money to the terrorist group al-Shabab in Somalia is sentenced to 20 years in prison.
Amina Farah Ali was sentenced Thursday in U.S. District Court in Minneapolis on 13 terror-related counts. Each count held a maximum penalty of 15 years in prison.
Authorities say Ali and her co-defendant, Hawo Mohamed Hassan, went door-to-door raising money in the name of charity, but routed the funds to al-Shabab.
| — Hat tip: Nick | [Return to headlines] |
Obama to Name Daniel I. Werfel, White House Official, As Acting I.R.S. Chief
President Obama is naming Daniel I. Werfel, the controller of the Office of Management and Budget, to be the new acting commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service, the White House announced Thursday.
Mr. Werfel, who currently manages many of the day-to-day operations at O.M.B., will replace Steven Miller, the current acting director of the agency, who is at the heart of the controversy over the targeting of conservative groups.
The announcement from the White House said Mr. Werfel will begin his new job on May 22.
| [Return to headlines] |
Refugee Jihad Terror in Boston
Bostonians may be relieved that the week of terrorism perpetrated by the Tsarnaev brothers which began at 2:49PM April 15, 2013 at the Boston Marathon Finish Line ended dramatically on April 20, 2013 with the capture of surviving younger brother Dzhokhar. However, the nation is perplexed about why this heinous and cowardly act occurred and what can be done to prevent possible re-occurrences in America. 26 year old Tamerlan, a 6’ 3” tall aspiring boxer was mortally wounded in a hail of bullets in a shoot out in Watertown, Massachusetts early Friday morning, April 19, 2013.
| — Hat tip: Jerry Gordon | [Return to headlines] |
Rich Manhattan Moms Hire Handicapped Tour Guides So Kids Can Cut Lines at Disney World
Article: New York Post
They are 1 percenters who are 100 percent despicable.
Some wealthy Manhattan moms have figured out a way to cut the long lines at Disney World — by hiring disabled people to pose as family members so they and their kids can jump to the front.
The “black-market Disney guides” run $130 an hour, or $1,040 for an eight-hour day.
“My daughter waited one minute to get on ‘It’s a Small World’ — the other kids had to wait 2 1/2 hours,” crowed one mom, who hired a disabled guide through Dream Tours Florida.
“You can’t go to Disney without a tour concierge,’’ she sniffed. “This is how the 1 percent does Disney.”
The woman said she hired a Dream Tours guide to escort her, her husband and their 1-year-old son and 5-year-old daughter through the park in a motorized scooter with a “handicapped” sign on it. The group was sent straight to an auxiliary entrance at the front of each attraction.
Disney allows each guest who needs a wheelchair or motorized scooter to bring up to six guests to a “more convenient entrance.”
The Florida entertainment mecca warns that there “may be a waiting period before boarding.” But the consensus among upper-crust moms who have used the illicit handicap tactic is that the trick is well worth the cost.
Not only is their “black-market tour guide” more efficient than Disney World’s VIP Tours, it’s cheaper, too.
Disney Tours offers a VIP guide and fast passes for $310 to $380 per hour.
Passing around the rogue guide service’s phone number recently became a shameless ritual among Manhattan’s private-school set during spring break. The service asks who referred you before they even take your call.
“It’s insider knowledge that very few have and share carefully,” said social anthropologist Dr. Wednesday Martin, who caught wind of the underground network while doing research for her upcoming book “Primates of Park Avenue.”
“Who wants a speed pass when you can use your black-market handicapped guide to circumvent the lines all together?” she said.
“So when you’re doing it, you’re affirming that you are one of the privileged insiders who has and shares this information.”
Ryan Clement runs Dream Tours Florida with girlfriend Jacie Christiano, whom the rich Manhattan mom indicated was her family’s guide.
A working phone number for Christiano couldn’t be found, and Clement refused to put The Post through to her. A message left on Facebook was not immediately returned by Christiano.
Clement denied that his gal pal uses her disability to bypass lines. He said she has an auto-immune disorder and acknowledged that she uses a scooter on the job.
Disney did not return repeated requests for comment.
| — Hat tip: McR | [Return to headlines] |
The $124 Billion Secret Welfare Program You’ve Never Heard About
(NaturalNews) To be sure, there are many Americans who, through no fault of their own, have become disabled through physical or mental illness over which they had no control. That’s what Social Security’s disability benefit was established to address — to help Americans with legitimate assistance for a legitimate disability.
But in the Age of Obama, a president who has never met a government program not worthy of expanding (think of his ending the work requirement in the 1996 welfare reform law), America is being “fundamentally transformed” into a dependency nation, and the disability program is just the latest tool the president and his Big Government allies are using to fleece taxpayers and buy more voters.
Per National Public Radio:
“In the past three decades, the number of Americans who are on disability has skyrocketed. The rise has come even as medical advances have allowed many more people to remain on the job, and new laws have banned workplace discrimination against the disabled. Every month, 14 million people now get a disability check from the government.”
According to NPR and other outlets, the total number of Americans now receiving disability benefits has soared to a figure larger than the population of cash-strapped Greece (whose government is also guilty of over-providing benefits, to the detriment of the country’s ability to pay them — but I digress).
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
White House Wants Pastors to Promote Gun Control
A group of influential pastors and ministers recently met with Vice President Joe Biden at the White House where the Vice President called on them to use their influence to help pass President Barack Obama’s new gun control measures. Of course, these measures include the outlawing of all semi-automatic rifles, outlawing high-capacity magazines, and establishing a government-mandated national gun registration policy, which is subtly identified as “Universal Background Checks.” These measures were recently defeated in the US Senate, so now the White House is calling on the clergy to help sell this gun grab to America’s churches.
Here is how Breitbart.com covers the story: “Vice President Joe Biden wants pastors, rabbis and nuns to tell their flocks that enacting gun control is the moral thing to do. But another vote may have to wait until Congress wraps up work on an immigration overhaul.
“Biden met for two-and-a-half hours Monday with more than a dozen leaders from various faith communities — Christian, Jewish, Muslim and Sikh, to name a few. Both Biden and the faith leaders encouraged each other not to give up on what has been an arduous and thus far fruitless effort by Biden and President Barack Obama to pass new gun laws in the wake of December’s schoolhouse shooting in Connecticut.
…I seem to recall that this is exactly what Hitler’s Nazi government instructed the pastors of Germany to also do. But this is just a coincidence, right?
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
EU: Bonino Urges ‘United States of Europe’
(ANSAmed) — Rome, May 15 — Italy’s foreign minister Emma Bonino has called for a ‘United States of Europe’.
“I am a confirmed federalist and so is this government,” Bonino said on Wednesday.
“Our objective remains the United States of Europe” and “a system that guarantees major results and also savings in the area of defence, research, major infrastructure and obviously foreign policy”.
Bonino was speaking to the House and Senate foreign affairs committee.
“I believe that the Italian presidency of the EU in the second half of 2014 will be an important opportunity to push for this,” she said.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
France: Hotel-Dieu, Oldest Parisian Hospital, Closes
Medieval building near Notre-Dame, doctors protest
(by Tullio Giannotti) (ANSAmed) — PARIS — Another historic Parisian landmark, Hotel-Dieu, a hospital created in 651 near Notre-Dame to treat pilgrims and the poor, will be closed. Authorities said it is too old and prefer to invest in other hospitals downtown where a number of services originally provided by Hotel-Dieu have already been moved. But for Parisians, the shutdown is a chapter of their history that is closing.
Doctors’ and nurses’ unions along with most leftist parties sitting in parliament are protesting against the decision although authorities made it official on Tuesday. The hospital’s emergency room will close on November 4. Even Mayor Bertrand Delanoe wrote a letter against the shutdown saying he was ‘very attached’ to Hotel-Dieu, to no avail. The hospital’s average 43.000 patients a year will now be treated at other major hospitals downtown, from Cochin to Pitié-Salpetrière, Lariboisière and Saint-Antoine.
The Hotel-Dieu, founded in 651, some 400 years after the oldest hospital in the world, Florence’s Santa Maria Nuova, will remain open only for daycare procedures. It will offer treatment to patients whose conditions are not diagnosed as serious and will have a couple of ambulances in the Medieval court to transfer patients requiring more specialized care to other hospitals, said Mireille Faugère, the director in charge of turning the hospital into a museum.
Authorities decided to shut down the ER after many specialized services were terminated and investments in new technologies interrupted, jeopardizing ‘the security of patients’.
Historically, an Hotel-Dieu was created in many Medieval French cities beside the church or main cathedral. It was originally built to welcome pilgrims and convert the homeless but later became hospices, rescue centers and institutions where the sick were treated. During plague epidemics, these were the only places treating the sick.
Located in the heart of Paris, on the Ile de la Cite’, it is in a strategic position in the IV arrondissement and has therefore often been chosen by tourists who get sick while visiting the French capital.
The Hotel-Dieu should in the future become a museum and a research and teaching centre training doctors and scientists.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy and France Should Work With Germany, Says Hollande
‘Important to honor commitments’
(ANSA) — Brussels, May 15 — Italy and France would be better served by working together with Germany, rather than by teaming up against the economic powerhouse, French President Francois Hollande said Wednesday.
In fact, conflict with Germany “would be against the interests of Europe and Italy and France,” Hollande said after a meeting with European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso.
“We can work together in a constructive spirit in the interest of Europe,” said Hollande.
Many critics have complained that Germany’s emphasis on austerity, and its power to enforce that, within the European Union has seriously damaged other smaller economies.
Some, such as Italy’s ex-premier Silvio Berlusconi, have made a habit of directly attacking Germany and its policies.
Hollande noted that Italy and France are both dealing with several similar economic issues — particularly, high youth unemployment.
But, he added, both countries would want to “honour the commitments” that their governments have made with the rest of the EU on fiscal matters.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: M5S Senators Demand Italy Withdraw From TAV High-Speed Rail
Turin-Lyon line under fire for ‘environmental threat, high cost’
(ANSA) — Turin, May 15 — Senators from Beppe Grillo’s anti-establishment 5-Star Movement (M5S) demanded Wednesday that Italy pull out of a controversial rail link project with France.
M5S Senators presented a bill, signed by their entire caucus, demanding a repeal of the September 2002 treaty that Italy signed with France for the Turin-Lyon high-speed-rail project.
M5S, led by comedian-turned-politician Grillo, won around a quarter of the vote in Italy’s general elections in February and therefore carries significant influence.
Some critics of the rail link, which Italy and France say they will begin building next year, have staged violent protests denouncing its high cost and claiming it will cause environmental damage.
The infrastructure and interior ministers held an emergency meeting in Turin Tuesday after activists destroyed parts of a TAV construction site and hurled Molotov cocktails in clashes with police. Proponents are promising 1,000 new jobs, lasting about 10 years in total, will be created by the project.
Late last year, Italy’s Senate budget committee approved a 10-year allocation of 2.25 billion euros for the rail project.
Both countries say that it is a piece of “strategic” and “priority” infrastructure for the entire European Union.
Italy has also said the project is an important driver of economic growth.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Veiled Threat on Anti-High-Speed-Rail Blog Probed
‘No TAV’ post chided rail workers for ‘selfish’ choice
(ANSA) — Turin, May 15 — A veiled threat appeared on an Italian blog against construction on the TAV high-speed rail on Wednesday, sparking a probe by anti-terrorism police and fear for construction workers.
The ‘No TAV’ blog said workers at the TAV construction site in Chiomonte, in northern Italy, had made a “selfish choice” that “puts them outside the community” and “condemns them to a difficult coexistence with the territory”.
Turin prosecutors are taking the blog seriously after Molotov cocktails and fireworks were lobbed in an attack on a construction site two nights ago.
Investigators believe the blog post is significant given the new aims of an extremist faction of the No TAV activists.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Fresh Strains Hit Letta’s Fledgling Government
Splits on Berlusconi ‘ineligiblity’, wiretap bills
(By Denis Greenan).
(ANSA) — Rome, May 16 — Fresh strains hit Enrico’s Letta’s fledgling right-left government Thursday with the centre-left Democratic Party (PD) suggesting centre-right People of Freedom (PdL) leader and media magnate Silvio Berlusconi should not be allowed to serve as Senator because of a 1950s law barring the holder of government licenses from working in government.
The two strange bedfellows, who almost tied in February’s general election, also clashed over the PdL’s revived controversial efforts to restrict the use and publication of police wiretaps. PD Senate Whip Luigi Zanda told bishops’ daily l’Avvenire that a so-far never-applied legal bar to Berlusconi’s holding public office because he has a government license to run three TV channels should be considered “properly this time around”.
“According to (an Italian) law (of 1957) Silvio Berlusconi is ineligible for office because he is a (government) licensee,” Zanda said.
Anna Maria Bernini, interim spokesperson for Berlusconi’s People of Freedom (PdL) party, said Zanda’s words were “mines planted under the political ground the Letta government is acting on”.
She claimed Zanda was “emulating the fanaticism” of the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement (M5S) which came third in the general election and has repeatedly called for the ineligibility law to be enforced.
After Zanda’s sally, M5S Senate Whip Vito Crimi reiterated: “We’re ready to vote for ineligibility, we think the issue should be tabled as quickly as possible”.
PdL bigwig, former minister Altero Matteoli, said the issue could topple the government.
“If the PD and M5S vote for ineligibility, we’ll all go home,” the head of the Senate labour committee said.
This prompted Zanda to stress that “my view is my own, personal one, and does not bind the party at all. I’ve been saying this for 10 years”.
“My opinion will not affect government stability,” he said.
It was in any case unlikely that the PD would press on the issue as Berlusconi is a linchpin in the government.
Long-time enemies PD and PdL forged their unprecedented alliance after two months of post-election stalemate in April.
Berlusconi’s legal woes, including a trial for alleged sex with a minor, and differences over tax reform were already putting pressure on Letta’s administration.
The ‘ineligibility’ issue was revived after Berlusconi’s ownership of Italy’s three main non-State TV channels helped boost his recent political comeback.
His flagship channel aired a programme Sunday that presented his defence in the Milan sex trial, sparking controversy.
The prosecutor in that trial on Monday requested a six-year jail term and a life ban from public office.
The PD is now also worried about two bills the PdL resurrected Wednesday to allegedly ‘gag’ the judiciary with a new restrictive law on wiretaps.
“That gagging law is not among the government’s priorities,” said Zanda.
“What we should do, however, is cut down on leaks of inappropriate wiretaps which have nothing to do with criminal offences to the press”.
On tax reform, Letta unveiled plans Wednesday to scrap a June payment of a property tax called IMU on primary residences.
But he stopped short of extending the move to factories, saying EU-mandated budget restrictions would not allow it.
PdL ministers went into a huddle Wednesday night with some of them determined to battle the PD but Berlusconi reportedly called them to order, the Italian media said.
Berlusconi campaigned on a pledge to scrap IMU altogether and repay last year’s revenues but has shown signs recently he is willing to reach a deal with the PD.
The three-time premier’s insistence on the emergency government despite initial and strong resistance from the PD has allowed him to pose as a statesman who puts Italy’s interests first, his supporters say.
President Giorgio Napolitano, who forged the unlikely alliance after being re-elected following a PD internal rebellion, on Thursday reiterated the government must move quickly to pass urgent reforms and try to revive an economy which is in its longest recession on record.
Napolitano praised the two main political parties for making Letta’s government possible but warned that elements in the political class have not realised the country is on the “razor’s edge”.
The president said in an interview published in Rome-based daily Il Messaggero that he saw the start of new government as “serious and serene” and that Letta was not letting himself “be intimidated by polemics or incidents along the way”. But the head of State added that it was not easy for the forces within government to “live together” as “the parties do not stop reacting to events, each on their own way”. He also said that: “some people don’t realise that we are on the razor’s edge with respect to Brussels”.
Letta’s government is hoping to convince the European Commission to remove its excessive-deficit procedure against Italy, with it forecasting that the deficit-to-GDP ratio will be just below the permitted 3% threshold this year, at 2.9%.
Letta’s predecessor, Mario Monti, helped steer Italy out of the centre of the eurozone debt crisis at the helm of an emergency technocrat administration.
But the country is seen as vulnerable to ‘contagion’ from problems in other countries because of its massive public debt of over two trillion euros. Napolitano also called on the parties to have measured reactions to criminal trials, a comment that seems directed at the PdL, with Berlusconi involved in a number of cases aside from the sex trial. “The fewer disordered reactions there are, the better,” Napolitano said.
Italy has an “acute need” for institutional reform, he added.
Premier Letta has said institutional reforms to make Italy easier to govern are a priority for his government.
These reforms should include a new election law to replace the much-criticised current one that failed to produce a clear winner in February’s general election. The measures will also look to change the current parliamentary set-up in which all laws must be approved by both the House and Senate. This is blamed by many for being one of the major sources of dysfunction for Italy’s institutions.
“Renewal of our institutions and of our institutional representatives is what our country has an acute need of,” Napolitano said.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: House Speaker Urges Tougher Approach on Internet Threats
Boldrini speaks at conference on violence against women
(ANSA) — Rome, May 17 — Italian House Speaker Laura Boldrini on Thursday urged for more action to be taken to prevent threats to women being made over the Internet, saying that violence carried out through the Web is not less serious than that carried out in person due to its “amplifying” powers.
Boldrini was making an introductory speech at a conference taking place in Rome on violence against women. Fighting Internet violence “doesn’t mean gagging, it doesn’t mean that the law kills the freedom of the Web. It simply means that the laws that already exist are applied on the Web. Today false identities and servers located on the other side of the world block investigations”, Boldrini said.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Magistrates Association Against New PdL Wiretapping Bill
Proposal would limit use if turned into law
(ANSA) — Rome, May 16 — Italy’s National Magistrates Association (ANM) expressed its opposition to a bill proposal presented in parliament by the centre-right People of Freedom (PdL) party, which aims to curb the use of wiretapping by prosecutors. The PdL presented the bill in parliament earlier this week to limit the use of wiretapping in investigations by prosecutors, and comes as tension increases in politics amid PdL leader and former premier Silvio Berlusconi’s increasing political woes and as the coalition government, which includes his party as well as its traditional rival, the center-left Democratic Party (PD), grapple with the ongoing economic crisis.
Berlusconi said he is the victim of persecution from left-wing magistrates after his legal problems grew more serious this month. Meanwhile, the Supreme Council of Magistrates (CSM), the Italian judiciary’s self-governing body, on Wednesday asked Justice Minister Anna Maria Cancellieri to support judges “without any uncertainty” from Berlusconi’s claims.
“We are against measures that affect conditions, methodology and timeframes of wiretappings”, said ANM president Rodolfo Sabelli, referring to the la proposals. “We are contrary to any measures that limit the effectiveness or makes more difficult the use of this instrument”.
The bill proposal follows a similar failed attempt in 2011 when similar measures were introduced in parliament to try to curb reporting of wiretapping in legal cases before they reach the trial stage, a process that can take years in Italy. Under the previous bill, anyone found guilty of releasing or publishing wiretaps before the ‘filter’ hearing would have faced jail sentences ranging from six months to three years.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Fiat Denies it is Mulling Headquarter Relocation to U.S.
Reports Fiat was evaluating move
(ANSA) — Turin, May 16 — A Fiat spokesman Thursday denied a media report stating the company was considering moving its headquarters to the US from Italy, the nation it has been based in since it was founded in 1899.
“This subject, which has already been discussed by news organizations from all over the world on many occasions, is not an issue that is being considered, as confirmed recently by Chief Executive Officer Sergio Marchionne”.
Bloomberg on Thursday reported Marchionne was mulling the move from Turin, Italy, where Fiat is currently located.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Muslims in Italy Have Been Victims of Violence, Leader Says
Attacks began after alleged discovery of Islamist cell
(ANSA) — Bari, May 16 — Italy’s Muslim community on Thursday said numerous individuals of Islamic faith have suffered physical violence in the southern Italian region of Puglia, as well as in other areas of the nation in recent weeks by “unidentified assailants”.
Sharif Lorenzini, who heads the Italian Muslim community, said in an interview with ANSA that he had taken testimonies, including one from a young man in the city of Bari who was hooded and beaten violently. Lorenzini said the incidents started after April 30, when the Carabinieri military police discovered a so-called undercover Muslim cell in Puglia, where Bari is located.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Survey: Croatia and Slovenia Most Corrupt in EU
BRUSSELS — Croatia, about to enter the EU, is one of the most corrupt countries in Europe according to a new survey. But Slovenia — an EU and eurozone member — is even worse.
The findings come in an annual report on corporate graft published on Tuesday (7 May) by the US-based financial services company, Ernst & Young.
It interviewed 3,459 company board members in 36 countries worldwide, including 22 EU member states.
It asked whether businesses offer bribes to win or retain contracts or if they deliberately misstate their financial performance.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
A butcher who forced an Indian woman into modern-day slavery and raped her was jailed for 11 years today.
Enkarta Balapovi, 54, subjected the 39-year-old to four months of sexual abuse behind his wife’s back while forcing his victim to sleep on the floor of his single room flat.
He forced the woman to cook and clean for him, and threatened to burn her passport unless she stripped naked and performed sex acts.
When the married victim resisted his advances, Balapovi threatened to throw her on to the streets without any identity documents if she did not sleep with him.
The illiterate woman had been lured to the UK with the promise of work as a nanny, hoping to earn money for her poverty-stricken family in India.
But she found herself locked indoors and forced to work 16-hour days during a four-year ordeal at the hands of Balapovi and co-accused secretary Shamina Yousuf and optician Shashi Obhrai.
Routinely beaten and used as a sex toy, the mother-of-four was burned with an iron, threatened with hypodermic needles, and had a knife held to her throat by Obhrai, 54, when she tried to escape.
Her passport was seized by Yousuf, 33, as soon as she arrived, and the woman, who is now wheelchair-bound, was passed between three families as a ‘dogsbody’, earning just £2,300 for year’s of gruelling work.
Despite dubbing Obhrai as ‘wicked’, Judge Shani Barnes spared her a jail sentence because she is the primary carer for her terminally ill millionaire husband Balram Obhrai, 59.
Mr Obhrai had been accused of trafficking and making threats to kill but the prosecution offered no evidence against him because he has a brain tumour and is on his death bed at home.
Yousuf, 33, had first recruited the woman when she came to the UK in 2005 to earn money for her poverty-stricken family in Hyderabad, India.
After nearly three years as a ‘servant’ for Yousuf’s family and friends, the woman confronted him.
Yousuf, whose marriage was breaking up, threw a mug at the woman’s foot which left a two-inch gash.
| — Hat tip: Gaia | [Return to headlines] |
More than 100 Conservative MPs condemned the Government last night for not bringing forward an EU referendum Bill.
A total of 130 MPs, including 12 Labour rebels and DUP members, backed an unprecedented motion expressing ‘regret’ that last week’s Queen’s Speech did not include legislation paving the way for a referendum.
In all, 114 Tories — more than half the party’s backbenchers and one in three of its MPs — backed the amendment.
Ministers abstained on the issue, in which Tory backbenchers were allowed a free vote. The vote was the most significant on Europe since October 2011, when 81 Tory MPs revolted in a bid to call for an in/out referendum.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
[WARNING: ** Disturbing Content. **]
A cheating husband who smashed his wife’s head into a cabinet has been jailed.
Muhammed Khalil, 38, then asked his mistress to lie for him to police saying that he was actually the victim of abuse.
However, he was jailed yesterday for 15 months for the brutal assault that left Biklis Parveen, 33, with a serious head injury.
Birmingham Crown Court heard that the former probation officer flew into a rage and attacked his wife when she refused to let him take their two children away from the family home in October.
He slapped her across the face then rammed her head into the furniture.
Khalil then fled their home in Hall Green, Birmingham, before starting to weave his web of lies.
His new lover, Anarkali Habib, 34, told police she saw him being attacked by his wife when she was driving past their house.
She claimed she was driving past their house when she saw Mrs Parveen attacking Khalil and handed him her mobile phone to call police.
However, a jury found Khalil guilty of assault after hearing the pair had been having an affair.
Khalil was jailed for 15 months at Birmingham Crown Court on Wednesday after also pleading guilty to attempting to pervert the course of justice.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: The Oxford Sex Ring and the Preachers Who Teach Young Muslim Men That White Girls Are Cheap
[WARNING: ** Disturbing Content. **]
[Dr Taj Hargey] The terrible story of the Oxford child sex ring has brought shame not only on the city of dreaming spires, but also on the local Muslim community.
It is a sense of repulsion and outrage that I feel particularly strongly, working as a Muslim leader and Imam in this neighbourhood and trying to promote genuine cultural integration.
There is no doubt that the evil deeds of these men have badly set back the cause of cross-community harmony.
In its harrowing details, this grim saga of exploitation, misogyny, perversion and cruelty fills me not only with desperate sorrow for those girls and their families, but also with dread and despair.
If I were the judge in this case, I would hand out the harshest possible jail sentences to these monstrous predators, both to see that justice is done for their victims and to send out a message to other exploiters.
And when I say harsh, I mean it: none of this fashionable nonsense about prisoners being released only a quarter of the way through their sentences. There is no pattern of good conduct these men could follow behind bars that could possibly make up for all the terrible suffering they have inflicted on others.
But apart from its sheer depravity, what also depresses me about this case is the widespread refusal to face up to its hard realities.
The fact is that the vicious activities of the Oxford ring are bound up with religion and race: religion, because all the perpetrators, though they had different nationalities, were Muslim; and race, because they deliberately targeted vulnerable white girls, whom they appeared to regard as ‘easy meat’, to use one of their revealing, racist phrases.
Indeed, one of the victims who bravely gave evidence in court told a newspaper afterwards that ‘the men exclusively wanted white girls to abuse’.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Benghazi: Where Are Gen. Ham and Adm. Gaouette?
Who knows the whole truth about why Navy SEALs Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty along with State Department officials Chris Stevens and Sean Smith died in Benghazi 11 September 2012?
It’s now public knowledge that the ever evolving official administration stories on Benghazi are all bold faced lies. It’s clear that the four Americans who were brutally murdered in Benghazi did not have to die. What’s not clear yet, is who is responsible for these murders? Nothing the Obama administration has told the people about Benghazi is true… but who is responsible?
General Carter Ham and Admiral Charles M. Gaouette know the answer to this question. Where are Ham and Gaouette today? Why hasn’t Issa’s investigative committee called these decorated Military officers to testify before the committee investigating Benghazi?
We have known since 30 October 2012 that these two officers…
1. Were ordered to STAND DOWN in Benghazi 2. Ignored those orders 3. Were relieved of duty for refusing orders to STAND DOWN
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Egypt: Agents Kidnapped in the Sinai, Morsi Calls Ministers
Negotiations ongoing, two North Sinai cities shut down
(ANSAmed) — CAIRO — Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi has called an emergency meeting with Defense Minister Abdel Fatah el Sissi and Interior Minister Mohamed Ibrahim to discuss the kidnappings of a soldier, four navy guards and two national security agents in the Sinai. Negotiations for their release are ongoing, security sources said Thursday. Access to the cities of el Arish and Sheikh Zuayed has been shut down, while security in the Northern Sinai has been beefed up and the police and the army have set up a crisis task force.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
As the details of Benghazi are beginning to emerge from “whistleblowers” and the murderous events are being rightfully elevated to the proper realm of criminal conspiracy, other scandals have suddenly seemed to erupt, almost as if cued by a complicit choreographer. Most egregious misdeeds of the Internal Revenue Service, for example, that allegedly targeted Conservative groups, from 501(c)3 organizations to any group with Tea party or Constitution in their names, were suddenly “revealed.”
Other scandals of lesser significance, but nonetheless poking at the embers of public ire and intolerance are popping up as well. Watching the people who are reading the multiple news headlines on various news aggregator sites are like watching spectators at Wimbledon, as their heads move from side to side as they follow the ball in play. The white noise of new problems are constantly erupting, resulting in a feeding frenzy in the waters surrounding the Executive branch.
While fascinating to watch, has anyone stopped to consider that the process of chumming the waters with a flurry of cascading news events, combined with a docu-dump of 100 pages of Benghazi e-mails is actually a methodically orchestrated diversion? What is it we are not supposed to be seeing amid the white noise of new controversies of varying values?
[…]
By order of magnitude, however, this missing time is far greater than anything we saw with Watergate. Instead of 18 1/2 minutes of presidential time, it’s nearly 18 1/2 hours of time involving the actions, utterances, commands or lack thereof of Barack Hussein Obama as Americans were being killed a half-world away.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Smuggled KFC Popular in Gaza Strip
Delivery service offers ‘finger-lickin’ good’ meals
(ANSAmed) — GAZA, MAY 16 — A growing number of Gazans have been ordering Kentucky Fried Chicken takeaway meals from Egypt’s northern Sinai over the past few weeks.
The ‘fast food’ is smuggled through tunnels crossing into Gaza from Egypt’s Sinai, tunnels previously used as supply lines for weapons, explosives and munitions trafficking. Now they are instead employed to bring a whiff of Western lifestyles to Gazans, in the shape of buckets teeming with KFC delicacies. A Gaza-based company specialising in delivery services, Al-Yamama, hit on the idea in early May. It calculated that it would take about four hours to get the precious buckets of fried chicken from the nearest KFC fast food joint in Al Arish to Gaza’s urban areas. For security reasons, night deliveries are not offered. The issue of prices was dealt with next. A sit-down KFC meal in Al Arish will set the customer back some three euros, but the relay over desert routes, through tunnels with their requisite tolls and the sending of the buckets to inside of Gaza results in a price six times higher than its original. Al Yamama initially wondered whether there would really be enough demand to justify the service. A bit of word-of-mouth and television ads did the trick.
Orders started rolling in, with Gazans “hungry for a sense of normality”. For security reasons, none of the large international fast food chains (such as McDonald’s, Pizza Hut and Dominos) has an outlet in the Gaza Strip. And so the chance to sink one’s teeth into the famous KFC ‘finger-lickin’ good’ chicken worked its magic on many a family in Gaza — even if by paying such a hefty price they could instead treat themselves to a more refined dining experience in one of the city’s best restaurants. And so, with the entrance of KFC buckets has come a bit of reprieve from the strict lifestyle Hamas has imposed on Gaza. No local politician has yet spoken out against the service, and some say that among them there may even be fans of the tasty American-style morsels.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
China Beats EU to Arctic Council Membership
The Arctic Council at its biannual meeting on Wednesday (15 May) in Sweden allowed in six new observer states, but deferred the EU’s application until a later date.
China, along with India, Italy, Japan, South Korea and Singapore, are now part of a select club of countries that oversee the exploitation and conservation of a changing landscape in the polar cap.
“It strengthens the position of the Arctic Council on the global scene,” said Sweden’s foreign minister Carl Bildt.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Serengeti Highway Compromise Proposed by Famed Scientist
Building an elevated highway across the Serengeti may not sound like the most feasible or wise idea. But that’s exactly what Kenyan scientist and conservationist Richard Leakey proposed yesterday (May 14), saying it could be the best solution for humans and wildlife.
Speaking yesterday (May 14) at a conference on wildlife crime and poaching here at Rutgers University Leakey — son of famed paleontologist and fossil hunters Louis and Mary Leakey, and himself a paleoanthropologist — said building an elevated highway would allow animals to cross underneath. The 30-mile-long (48 kilometers) road would also allow drivers to see the creatures pass by.
“It would be a grand spectacle, to see animals migrating by underneath, and signal Africa’s commitment to wildlife,” Leakey said during the keynote speech he gave at the meeting. “If I can drive over 30 miles of elevated highways in New Jersey, why not in the Serengeti?”
It would cost about 40 percent more than a paved highway, Leakey said, and the money would have to come from international donations. But the problem isn’t money, he added — it’s political will.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
20th Century Mexico’s Catholic Uprising Against Tyranny
In 1924, Plutarco Elias Calles became President.
In 1926, the president (left) and his clique launched a new offensive which they hoped to be definitive: “Now there must be a psychological revolution,” Calles declared. “We must penetrate and take hold of the minds of the children and the youth because they must belong to the revolution.”
The Catholic schools were shut down, the congregations expelled, Christian trade unions forbidden, numerous churches confiscated and profaned (turned into stables or halls) or destroyed. Public school attendance became mandatory, atheism was officially taught, and religious insignia (medals, crucifixes, statues, and pictures) were forbidden, even at home. God was even chased from the language! The use of such expressions as Adios, “If God wills,” or “God forbid,” was subject to a fine.
Lastly, the priests were “registered”: some states (Mexico is a federal republic) required them to swear not to proselytize, others tried to command them to marry if they wished to continue in their function! Msgr. Carvana, the Apostolic Nuncio, protested; on May 12, 1926, he was expelled. Throughout the country, Catholic public figures were assassinated, girls coming out of church were kidnapped, imprisoned, raped. Msgr. Curley, the Archbishop of Baltimore, vented his indignation: “Calles persecutes the church because he knows that he has Rome’s approval. Our government has armed Calles’s killers. Our friendship has encouraged him in his abominable enterprise: to destroy the idea of God in the minds and hearts of millions of Mexicans.”17
On May 28, Calles received the Masonic medal of merit from the hands of the Great Commander of the Scottish rite in Mexico. On July 12, the following communique appeared in the press: “International Masonry accepts responsibility for everything that is happening in Mexico, and is preparing to mobilize all its forces for the methodic, integral application of the agreed upon program for this country.”18
On July 26, an elderly shopkeeper was coldly struck down by two policemen in civilian clothes. His crime? In his shop he had posted a sign reading Viva Cristo Rey! Long live Christ the King! The Mexicans peacefully reacted to the persecution: they boycotted state-owned enterprises (tobacco purchases and railroad traffic were reduced by 74%, and in just a few weeks, the national bank suffered a 7 million peso loss), and they also circulated a protest petition signed by 2 million (out of a population of 15 million).
But Christians have something even better than that, they have prayer, and the country was crisscrossed by gigantic penitential processions: 10,000, 15,000 faithful, barefooted, crowned with thorns, implored God for their country. The powers that be could not tolerate that; their heavy machine guns dispersed the processions, and the first martyrs fell, singing.
In January 1927, Catholic Mexico rose: 20,000 combatants (30,000 by the end of the year, and 50,000 in 1929); few arms (a few rifles and carbines, but mostly hatchets, machetes, and sometimes simply sticks); few horses; but all the people supporting them, offering them their money, and necessaries. A Cristero peasant recounted how they set out with songs and prayers on their lips: “We were 1,000, then 5,000, then more! Everyone set out as if to go to the harvest….We firmly intended to die, angry or not, but to die for Christ.”
Against them were 100 mobile columns of 1,000 men each, veritable “infernal columns” financed by the US (light armored cars, tractor-drawn artillery, combat aircraft…). The first clashes were bloody massacres. An officer of Calles wrote: “They are more like pilgrims than soldiers. This isn’t a military campaign, it’s a hunting party!” The president himself predicted: “It will be wrapped up in less than two months.”
But when a pilgrimage takes up arms, it becomes a crusade! The Cristeros were able to equip themselves from the adversary, profiting from their cowardice or their corruption. The “Federales” were more like pillagers, drunk on tequila and marijuana, rather than soldiers worthy of the name. On March 15, 1927, they were defeated at San Julian; at Puerto Obristo, they left 600 dead. In November, the military attache of the US began to worry about the success of the “fanatics,” 40% of whose troops were now equipped with excellent Mausers recuperated from the enemy. How was it possible?
| [Return to headlines] |
A Nation Divided, Then and Now
The passage of Obamacare which nationalizes 16% of the nation’s economy is bringing the nation to the brink of rebellion. More than half of the states have filed suits against it and passed laws resisting its implementation. The same state that led seccession in1860, South Carolina, is leading the opposition to it.
Another constitutional issue, the protection of the Second Amendment, is generating a similar response. Millions of Americans are rallying around this constitutional freedom.
The debate about immigration is a third leg of the stool as Americans grow fearful over the failure of the federal government to protect its southern border from millions of illegal aliens in our midst (not unlike southern fears of its black population), the costs of public services, and the implications of enfranchising them, shifting political power to the Democratic Party which is responsible for Obamacare and other social programs draining the public treasury.
It is surely an irony of history that a majority of voters have now twice elected the first black President of the nation, initially responding to his message of “hope and change” until that change manifested itself as the socialism that has led some European nations to the brink of bankruptcy. Half the voters now see his administration as a threat to their freedoms and are being joined by others who are beginning to see the lies surrounding the attack in Benghazi (on September 11, 2012, the anniversary of 9/11) as an impeachable offense.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Denmark: Highest Number of Asylum Seekers in Over a Decade
Despite Europe-wide rise in asylum seekers, policial opposition attempts to tie rise in Danish asylum numbers to ‘weak’ immigration policies
The number of asylum seekers travelling to Denmark in 2013 is expected to be the highest in 12 years and opposition parties say the reason for the influx is the government’s introduction of more humanitarian living conditions.
According to the Justice Ministry, the number of migrants applying for asylum in Denmark is expected to rise above 7,000, the highest number since 2001 when over 12,000 applied.
Both Dansk Folkeparti (DF) and Venstre blame the rise on the government’s improvement of living conditions for asylum seekers. These include the right to live and work outside asylum centres after six months as long as the applicant demonstrates a willingness to co-operate with repatriation if their application fails.
“We are reaching the same level that we experienced before Dansk Folkeparti and the right-wing coalition government tightened the asylum rules, and it is proof that the government has given up on trying to control asylum,” Martin Henriksen, DF’s immigration spokesperson, told Kristeligt Dagblad. “We are once again going to receive a lot of asylum seekers who will be hard to integrate into the Danish society.”
When the government took power in 2011, it also abolished starthjælp, a benefit given to immigrants and successful asylum applicants who could not provide for themselves during their first years in Denmark.
Starthjælp was a very small benefit and critics argued that it trapped recipients in poverty instead of providing an incentive for them to find work, which was its stated cause.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Citizenship Reforms Cannot be Delayed, Says Minister
Parliament may soon deal with law reform in Italy
(ANSA) — Rome, May 15 — Italy’s Parliament must soon deal with a reform of its citizenship laws, Integration Minister Cecile Kyenge said Wednesday.
“Citizenship reform is a real need and cannot be postponed,” said the Congo-born Kyenge.
Among other advantages, reforms could improve economic growth prospects for the recession-struck country, she added during question period.
Reform could occur via gradual regulatory changes made in consultation with all government ministries, but work must begin quickly, said the minister.
“I am confident that Parliament will soon begin to deal with reform,” said Kyenge.
The minister has stirred controversy with her plans to press for reforms granting automatic Italian citizenship to the children of immigrants born in Italy.
Automatic citizenship is rare in Europe, with France providing the exception to the general rule of blood-based citizenship rules.
However, most European countries are less rigid than Italy regarding naturalization, and grant easier paths toward citizenship for the children of immigrants.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
US Denies Christian Homeschoolers Asylum
An American appeals court has denied a fundamentalist Christian family from Germany the right to asylum in the US. The family claimed they were being persecuted for not being allowed to homeschool their children.
In its Tuesday ruling, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati, Ohio, said there was a difference between the persecution of a group and prosecution of violators of a law that is applied across the board — in this case, Germany’s rule on mandatory schooling.
News agency AP reported that the family is planning to fight the decision.
“Regrettably for the Romeikes they have not shown that Germany’s enforcement of its general school attendance law amounts to persecution against them, whether on grounds of religion or membership in a recognised social group,” the judge’s opinion read.
An immigration judge in the state of Tennessee initially ruled in 2010 that parents Uwe and Hannelore Romeike, and their five children, were free to remain in the United States, where they had been living for the past five years.
But the US government successfully appealed the decision two years later, and on Tuesday the Cincinnati court upheld that ruling.
The Romeikes, originally from Baden-Württemberg, said they decided to homeschool their children because public schools were teaching children to adopt an “anti-Christian worldview,” AP said.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Manitoba Teachers: Every Lesson a ‘Gay’ Lesson
Imagine being a kid sitting in a classroom, and hearing things like this:
“Two plus two equals four, children — and I didn’t say ‘boys and girls’ because there’s no such thing as boys and girls. Gender is a state of mind!”
“When a verb ending in i-n-g is used as a noun, it’s called a gerund; and same-sex marriage is great for society.”
“Constantinople fell to the Turks in 1453, and having two dads is wonderful.”
The Manitoba Teachers Society, a union with some 15,000 members, has proposed a “sweeping inclusion of sexual-orientation issues throughout education curricula,” reported The Winnipeg Free Press, May 3. Translation: “gay” stuff gets into everything. The announced purpose is to “ensure that same-sex families and LBGTTQ people and themes are reflected in all curricula.” Note the use of the word “all.”
Because it’s Canada and not the U.S.A., “provincial curricula must be followed by all Manitoba schools, public and private.” In Ontario they’ve ordered Catholic schools to set up “gay” clubs. There’s no escape into the private schools for Canadians. Anyhow, the teachers’ union has its general meeting May 23-25, at which this bizarre proposal will likely be endorsed.
In the history of the civilized world, has any group ever been more fawned upon, treated with more fearful deference, backed up with more coercion from the state, or catered to more than homosexuals are today? Don’t people wonder about that — or have their minds been dulled by non-stop repetition?
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Report: Sexual Minorities in EU Face Hate Speech, Violence and Discrimination
BRUSSELS — Equal rights for gays, lesbians, bi-sexual, trans and inter-sex (LGBTI) people are still patchy across Europe, with advances in some areas offset by discrimination, hate-speech, bullying and violence elsewhere.
The 2013 review of the human rights situation of LGBTI people by the Brussels-based NGO ILGA-Europe found that “degrading, offensive and defamatory language” is one of the “most common trends” across the continent.
The bias goes all the way to the top of the society. When it is not politicians themselves making derogatory comments, it is often religious leaders, representatives from conservative parties, “traditional family organisations” or people from far-right organisations.
Meanwhile, violence against LGBTI people “remains a truly pan-European phenomenon” regularly motivated by nationalism, traditionalism or fundamental religious beliefs.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Sneering at Parents, Hiding Behind “Science” — The Emergency Contraception Controversy
Looking for evidence that our society is losing its mind? Just look at the controversy over so-called “emergency contraceptives” and a federal judge’s effort to make these drugs available, over the counter, to girls of any age.
Last month, Judge Edward Korman of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York handed down an order forcing the Food and Drug Administration to make emergency contraceptives, sometimes called the “morning-after pill,” available without a doctor’s prescription or parental permission to girls without any restriction on age.
Judge Korman’s order would open the door for girls as young as 10 or 11 to obtain the morning-after pill without any involvement by either a doctor or a parent. That same girl, of course, could not be given an aspirin in a school clinic without parental permission, much less a simple antibiotic like penicillin. Nevertheless, this federal judge ruled that girls and women of any age must be allowed over-the-counter access to emergency contraceptives.
The Obama Administration had previously set the age for access to the morning-after pill, or Plan B, at age 17. That was not good enough for Judge Korman, nor for the abortion rights and feminist groups clamoring for any age restriction to be removed. On April 30, the Food and Drug Administration announced that the age for unrestricted access to Plan B would be lowered to 15. This move, shocking enough to most parents, was not acceptable to the groups demanding an end to all age restrictions.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Targeted Action Requires a Clear Plan … LGBTI Issues Are No Different
BRUSSELS — If you are a lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans or intersex person (LGBTI) today in the European Union, there is a 60 percent chance that you have experienced homophobia at school because of your identity.
There’s also a 25 percent chance that you have experienced violence, and if so, it is very likely that you did not report it to any public authority.
These are just two of the figures already released from the largest survey ever conducted on discrimination and violence faced by LGBTI people, to be published by the EU’s Fundamental Rights Agency on Friday (17 May).
Through its work with LGBTI organisations across Europe, ILGA-Europe knows that this is only part of the picture.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Top 5 Christian Leaders Targeted by Gay Activists
Defending what the Bible teaches about homosexuality can often lead to public condemnation from gay activists. In recent years especially, Christians have been ridiculed and called bigots for their beliefs. Here are five well-known Christian leaders who have been targeted for their beliefs.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
“In other news, a new report on corporate graft reveals that Croatia and Slovenia are the most corrupt nations in the European Union.”
And Slovenia has done its level best to keep Croatia out.