Thousands of military veterans gathered at various memorials in Washington D.C. today and tore down the barricades that had been erected by the federal government after the shutdown took effect two weeks ago. The protesters carried the sections of metal fencing to the White House, where they were confronted by riot police.
In other news, two 14-year-old “British” schoolboys were allowed to return to their school in Lancashire, despite their refusal to shave their beards, for religious reasons. The school had been told that keeping the boys out of school would be a violation of the European Convention on Human Rights.
To see the headlines and the articles, click “Continue reading” below.
Thanks to C. Cantoni, Fjordman, Insubria, JD, Jerry Gordon, JP, Papa Whiskey, 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.
And… It’s Gone! The Fed and US Could Simply Cancel All $5 Trillion of Intragovernmental Debt
As we documented here, Congressman Alan Grayson is correct that the Fed could cancel its own US national debt holdings of ~$2 trillion. This could begin public justice from how our current system transfers public assets into 1% private profits: currently conservatively estimated at $30 trillion held in tax-free offshore accounts, and satirized in South Park’s Emmy Award-winning episode on our bailing out the big banks with the catchline, “And it’s gone.”
If one understands the mechanics of canceling $2 trillion in debt, there’s equal wisdom to likewise cancel all ~$5 trillion of the debt held by Social Security and other intragovernmental holdings as simple book-keeping because we literally owe this to ourselves.
And in this light, we could enact what is called “monetary reform” for the US Treasury to pay the outstanding ~$12 trillion of debt held by the public as it becomes due with debt-free currency created by the US government (criminal 1% elements in banking would be identified and their crime-gained assets seized).
Ending the national debt once and for all, forever, is just one benefit of the several models (and here) of cost-free government already known, beginning with Benjamin Franklin’s pamphlet on colonial Pennsylvania operating its government debt-free and without taxes, to Thomas Edison explaining debt-free money with Henry Ford in a 1921 summer media tour. Debt-free money could be created to directly pay for public goods and services, and government could be employer of last resort for infrastructure investment. Because infrastructure creates more economic output than investment cost, this results in falling prices. So, we can have full-employment, the best infrastructure we can imagine, and falling costs to consumers…
Government Comprehensive Annual Financial Reports (CAFRs) have literal multiple trillions in surplus taxpayer assets, as they fraudulently claim deficits “forcing” austerity upon the 99%. For example, California’s own CAFR proves a ~$16 billion claimed budget deficit is absolutely refuted by ~$100 billion in liquid surplus funds and ~$500 billion in claimed investments (explanation and complete documentation here, television interview to explain here, documentation of official lies to keep this information hidden here).
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Cash-for-Castles: Italy Sells Off Historic Sites to Plug Budget Holes
A Grand Inquisitor’s villa, a Pope’s fort and a Venetian island will be sold off to fill Italy’s depleted state coffers, local media reports. It’s hoped the 50 historic sites will raise 500 million euros needed to obey strict EU austerity rules.
The plan to offer some of Italy’s state-owned real estate to private investors is part of an emergency decree aimed at keeping the country’s 2013 budget deficit within 3 percent threshold set by Brussels, the Corriere della Serra newspaper reports.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Government Bailed Out Chrysler Spends $1.2b to Expand in Mexico
Editor’s note: Federal government spent $12.5 billion to bailout automaker in 2009.
Chrysler Group says it’s investing more than $1.2 billion in two Mexican plants to build commercial vans and engines.
Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne confirmed the amount Thursday at the dedication of Chrysler’s new Van Assembly Plant in Saltillo.
Chrysler spent about $1.1 billion to build the plant, which began making the Ram ProMaster van in July. The plant will employ 1,100 workers by the end of this year.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
IMF Discusses a Super Tax of 10% on All Savings in Eurozone
One of the latest reports from the IMF discusses a super taxation of 10% on savings in the Eurozone. That would solve the debt problem in most sovereign countries. It would be an alternative of higher taxes or spending cuts.
The economists who wrote the paper hasten to say that it is a theoretical proposal. Still, it appears to be “an efficient solution” for the debt problem. For a group of 15 European countries such a measure would bring the debt ratio to “acceptable” levels, i.e. comparable to levels before the 2008 crisis.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Middle-class children will be poorer than their parents by the time they grow up, a worrying report has warned.
For the first time in a century, the children from families with above-average income will have a worse standard of living than their parents, the Government-commissioned findings will reveal.
Middle-class students face the ‘perfect storm’ of graduate debt, lack of finance to buy homes and job insecurity as they graduate from full-time education.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Are Terrorist Dry Runs Occurring on U.S. Flights?
A report by the union representing U.S. Airways suggests that terrorists may have conducted dry runs on commercial flights throughout the country, the Montgomery Advertiser reported. According to the US Airlines Pilots Association memo, “there have been several cases recently throughout the (airline) industry of what appear to be probes, or dry runs, to test our procedures and reaction to an in-flight threat.” The most recent run occurred on a flight from Washington, D.C.’s Reagan National Airport that was headed toward Orlando, Fla. In the memo, it states that four “Middle Eastern” men created a disturbance in several instances. One witness claimed one of the men ran from his coach seat to the flight deck door, then made a quick left and entered the bathroom where he remained “for a considerable length of time.” As the first man…
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Breaking: Riot Police Confront Veterans as They Liberate Memorials
War veterans remind Americans how to resist tyranny
Riot police are now arriving at the White House to harass the veterans who openly defied the Obama administration by tearing down the barricades surrounding outdoor war memorials.
Thank God we have baton wielding riot police to protect us from 85 yr old vets in wheelchairs. Thanks, Mr. Obama pic.twitter.com/hrxWzMkO18
— James Woods (@RealJamesWoods) October 13, 2013
Today’s confrontation is a stark contrast to Tuesday’s immigration rally at the National Mall in which pro-amnesty supporters met little police resistance.
“You have a legal obligation to evaluate the morality and legality of all orders you receive,” a sign posted today on the White House fence reads. “You will be held responsible some day before God, humanity and (hopefully) courts of law for all orders that you carried out.”
A new description for the Obama administration has emerged as a hashtag on Twitter: #SpiteHouse
Dear #SpiteHouse — those monuments aren’t yours to #Barrycade #1MVetMarch
— Mike (@mrjc1) October 13, 2013
Below are some videos and photos taken of this historic day of resistance:…
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
CNN Mocks Million Vet March as Tea Party Crazies
CNN.com covered Sunday’s “Million Vet March” in Washington D.C. against the Obama administration’s closure of military memorials by castigating the marchers as Tea Party kooks and fringe crazies. “At tea party-like rally, Obama told to ‘put the Quran down,’“ the headline read. CNN derided the size of the crowd.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Could the Kenya Attack Happen Here? It Did
By Paul Sperry
After Islamic gunmen attacked the Westgate Mall in Nairobi, Kenya, the collective reaction from the US media was to speculate whether such terror could happen here, as if a jihadist assault on a mall inside America had never before been tried.
CNN was typical: “Can it happen here? Yes, say security experts, but it hasn’t.”
News flash: it did.
On the evening of Feb. 12, 2007, a young Muslim man walked into the Trolley Square mall in Salt Lake City with a pistol-grip, 12-gauge shotgun and a 38-caliber revolver and opened fire on shoppers, killing five and wounding four others, including a pregnant woman.
Police say he “sought to kill as many people as possible.” He had a backpack full of ammunition, enough firepower to massacre dozens of innocent people. But fortunately, an off-duty cop returned fire and eventually, with the help of other police, put an end to the terrorist’s life and grand plans.
Twice as many people were killed at the Utah mall than the Boston Marathon. Yet the attack garnered few national headlines.
Local media wrote it off as the act of a madman, parroting the quick conclusion of law enforcement.
Officially, the FBI declared the mass shooting was not an act of terrorism.
“We were unable to pin down any particular motive,” said Tim Fuhrman, then-special agent in charge of the bureau’s field office in Salt Lake City. “Unfortunately, his motivations went to the grave with him.”
But the FBI ignored much of the shooter’s background.
The shooter was Sulejmen Talovic, an 18-year-old Bosnian immigrant named after Suleiman the Magnificent, the 16th-century jihadist-turned-sultan.
[Walk heavy. Watch your six. And bear in mind the words of the late great Jeff Cooper: “Your best protector is you!” — PW]
| — Hat tip: Papa Whiskey | [Return to headlines] |
District of Columbia, The Seat of Power and Corruption
On the worst of days, D.C. is a place to fear and the seat of power, corruption, and pettiness
Washington, D.C. and its surrounding suburbs are interesting places to visit. Populated by over two hundred different nationalities, legal and illegal, it is a hodge-podge of humanity stuck in bumper to bumper traffic on most days and nights.
One of the most densely policed places in the world, it is easy to lose yourself in the many purposefully narrowed streets to make them difficult to vehicular traffic; the roads with double names, one name before it crosses a major highway and another name on the other side; the barricaded buildings; the check points, and the unmarked police cars and menacingly looking plain-clothed police armed for urban assault.
On the worst of recent days, D.C. was a dangerous place for an unarmed young mother with a toddler in the back seat of her car who got so lost and frightened, trying to escape from so many men and women pointing guns at her, she did not stop in time and was shot. Did she deserve to die? Should they have shot her tires first or used road spikes? Life used to be precious to our Western culture, not death.
On the worst of days this week in D.C. the vets, who were arrested for crossing over the barricades at the Vietnam Memorial, were shocked when illegal aliens who broke our laws and crossed our borders illegally were allowed to rally on the National Mall, demanding amnesty. The illegal aliens and their progressive activists and lobbyists have more power and rights under this administration than American citizens do.
Breitbart News reported that an elaborate set of “four Jumbotrons, port-a-potties, special event fencing, tents, and raised and lighted stages” were set up across the National Mall for illegal aliens who invaded the U.S. in violation of our law. Meanwhile, veterans who fought in Normandy, Europe, Iowa Jima, North Africa, and freed Europe of the scourge of Nazism were told by gun-carrying park police to back off and move along from the monuments they paid for with their blood and treasure.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Doctors Fired, Administrators Hired: America’s Naivety Leads to Bad Medicine
Laying-off “thousands” of physicians
A question for the American Medical Association: What were you thinking?
Despite the national news media’s near-complete refusal to report it, the news was no less real. United Healthcare, a managed care health services company based in Minnesota, is underway with laying-off “thousands” of physicians in Connecticut.
The reason? The company won’t dare say this, but they had to do something to stave-off their decline in revenues, a phenomenon brought about by — you guessed it — the new federal healthcare law, AKA “Obamacare.”
President Obama once famously promised “if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor,” but that promise is not being kept for Medicare patients in Connecticut. The physicians who are losing their employment are specifically assigned to treat Medicare benefits’ recipients there. And this may be only the beginning of Medicare patients “losing their doctor,” because the Obamacare law reduces funding for the elderly and disabled recipients of Medicare benefits, just as it takes-on the burden of funding new websites, databases, subsidies for those who will receive health insurance “for free,” and lots and lots of new federal “administrators.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Doing the Math on What ObamaCare is Doing to Americans (Video)
Obamacare is designed to enrich insurance corporations and impoverish the American people.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
(NaturalNews) In yet another example of how the federal bureaucracy was not established to aid and assist American liberty and entrepreneurship, a small-time grocer, who has his life savings wrapped up in his business, is now in danger of losing everything, compliments of Uncle Sam’s Administrative State.
According to the Institute for Justice, a non-profit libertarian civil rights legal group, the Feds appear to have seized more than $35,000 from Terry Dehko and his family, through “civil forfeiture” laws, without justification or good cause.
– From the institute, per a web release:
Can the government use civil forfeiture to take your money when you have done nothing wrong — and then pocket the proceeds? That is the question to be answered by a major federal lawsuit filed today by Terry and Sandy Dehko — owners of a family grocery store in Fraser, Mich. — and the Institute for Justice (IJ). In January 2013, Terry and Sandy were astonished to discover the federal government seized their entire checking account without warning, even though the Dehkos did nothing wrong.
They can seize it all — without ever charging you with a crime
“Federal forfeiture law allows the government to take your entire bank account just because it doesn’t like the way you deposit or withdraw your money,” said IJ Senior Attorney Clark Neily. “The government should not be allowed to just show up at your doorstep like a playground bully and take away your milk money. But that’s exactly what the government did to Terry and Sandy.”
How does that happen in America?
Well, according to the IJ, here’s the story.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Food Stamp Recipients Panic as Federal EBT System Crashes; Government it Systems Rapidly Unraveling
I’ve often said that 72 hours after EBT cards stop working, every U.S. city will collapse into chaos. In case you’re not familiar with the term, EBT cards are “digital food stamps.” Nearly 50 million Americans are right now using EBT cards which are automatically refilled each month with welfare money the government doesn’t have, increasing the national debt.
Under Obama, food stamp enrollees have exploded. The annual usage statistics for food stamps are found here, but you can’t see them because under the Obama administration’s contrived “shutdown theater,” the USDA.gov website has been taken offline. Note, of course, that the food stamp program itself is still online (most of the time), thereby proving there really isn’t a “government shutdown” as claimed by Obama.
If you really want to see the data, you have to go to a private website like this one that shows the annual food stamp enrollment from 1975 to 2012: http://www.dailyjobsupdate.com/wp-content/up…
There, you can clearly see the explosion of food stamps under Obama, who has more than doubled the number of Americans on the program. That’s considered “economic growth” by democrats, by the way: the more people who subsist on government, the better the economy.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
How Long Can a Nation Stand Idly by While a Rogue Administration Grabs Power and Control?
The First Amendment to the Constitution guarantees the right of the people to peaceably assemble and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. Article 1, Section 7 of the Constitution says, “All Bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives.” The vote to withhold funding for an unpopular law is not only proper and not only voicing the will of the people, but it is also constitutional.
How can it be constitutional for a president to change a law whenever he wants to do so? Should we just add this to the list of unconstitutional acts the present administration has perpetrated since gaining power? How long can a nation stand idly by while a rogue administration grabs power and control? How long will a timid and overawed opposition refrain from raising the cry, “Impeachment!” when faced with the illegal actions of a naked Progressive coup?
Just because something is legal does not mean it is right. Hitler gained power legally. He assumed totalitarian power legally. He built concentration camps legally. He waged war and killed millions legally. So did Stalin. Just because something is legal does not mean it is right. How long America? How long? Have we been giving these Progressive camels inches for so long we don’t even notice they have already taken the whole mile?
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Humanoid Hunter Killer Robot Can Cross Rough Terrain in Pursuit of You
Scientists have developed a humanoid robot that is empowered to cross rough terrain. The best thing about the robot is that it can maintain its balance on one leg even when hit from the side. WildCat is the latest creation of Boston Dynamics, a US robotics company part-funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. The robot is a part of Darpa’s Maximum Mobility and Manipulation programme.
Noel Sharkey, professor of Artificial Intelligence and Robotics at the University of Sheffield, told the BBC that the achievement is astonishing and a remarkable feat. Prof. Sharkey, who is also chair of the International Committee for Robot Arms Control, said, “We do not know what military purpose it will serve but certainly it is a step towards a high-speed ground robot that could be weaponised to hunt and kill”.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Janet Yellen a Dangerous Person, At a Dangerous Time, Heading a Dangerous Institution (Video)
Peter Schiff on the new Fed boss.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Neuro-Enhancement in the Military: Are Mind Controlled Soldiers an Inevitable Future?
So far the applications of brain stimulation proposed by the military are far-fetched, but what happens when the science catches up with their ambitions? What army wouldn’t take advantage of a method that could make soldiers more alert, faster to react, faster to learn, less likely to binge-drink off duty, and more compliant with authority? What intelligence agency wouldn’t embrace a technology that could help their operatives become better liars, or which limits the ability of prisoners to lie under interrogation? Applications like these, in turn, raise ethical questions. Would a soldier be able to refuse brain stimulation, and if not, wouldn’t that violate the principle of consent underlying ‘medical’ interventions? Would soldiers under the influence of brain stimulation still be accountable for their actions in conflict? Would a prisoner subjected to brain stimulation lose their right to silence?
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Speaker John A. Boehner told House Republicans on Saturday that the White House has rejected their compromise proposal to lift the nation’s debt ceiling and possibly reopen the government, while blaming President Obama for failing to negotiate in good faith. Rep. John Fleming (R-La.) said that Boehner (R-Ohio) told his rank-and-file in a closed-door meeting that, in retrospect, it was “obvious” that Obama “had no intention of negotiating with us in good faith.” Asked to characterize the mood of his party members as they left the meeting, Rep. Matt Salmon (R-Ariz.) said, “People are incredulously mystified.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) believes that we’re living in the End Times — — and she claims to have proof. In an interview Saturday with Jan Markell on the Christian radio program “Understanding the Times,” Bachmann accused President Barack Obama of giving aid to terrorists. This, she says, is solid evidence that we have entered the Last Days. “President Obama waived a ban on arming terrorists in order to allow weapons to go to the Syrian opposition,”Bachmann said. “Your listeners, U.S. taxpayers, are now paying to give arms to terrorists including al Qaeda. This happened, and as of today, the United States is willingly, knowingly, intentionally sending arms to terrorists,…
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Replace ObamaCare With Nothing
Obamacare. If not gutted and allowed to die off, that monster will be one of the single largest contributors to the final death of the economy already on life support.
Comrade Nancy Pelosi’s famous let’s get it passed and then everyone will find out what’s in the bill is spewing anger across the country. Americans are now experiencing sticker shock! They didn’t read the bill signed by an impostor president into “law” and now, oh how it hurts:
Democrat Voters Confused: “I Didn’t Realize I Would Be The One Who Was Going to Pay For It Personally”
“Cindy Vinson and Tom Waschura are big believers in the Affordable Care Act. They vote independent and are proud to say they helped elect and re-elect President Barack Obama. Yet, like many other Bay Area residents who pay for their own medical insurance, they were floored last week when they opened their bills: Their policies were being replaced with pricier plans that conform to all the requirements of the new health care law. Vinson, of San Jose, will pay $1,800 more a year for an individual policy, while Waschura, of Portola Valley, will cough up almost $10,000 more for insurance for his family of four.
“I was laughing at Boehner — until the mail came today,” Waschura said, referring to House Speaker John Boehner, who is leading the Republican charge to defund Obamacare. “I really don’t like the Republican tactics, but at least now I can understand why they are so pissed about this. When you take $10,000 out of my family’s pocket each year, that’s otherwise disposable income or retirement savings that will not be going into our local economy.”…
If you haven’t read Congressman McFadden’s famous speech in 1934 on the “Federal” Reserve,(//hiwaay.net/~becraft/mcfadden.html) do take the time. Heck, just book mark this column so you can go back and read as time permits…but time is running out.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Shutdown Drags On: ‘It’s Taken Far Too Long’
Washington (CNN) — Thirteen days into a partial government shutdown, four days before the U.S. government bumps up against its projected borrowing limit, and there was little sign of movement Sunday toward resolving the latest budget impasse.
The Senate reconvened Sunday afternoon, with Majority Leader Harry Reid saying he would do “everything I can throughout the day” to reach some sort of bargain with the chamber’s Republican minority.
But a source familiar with the ongoing Senate discussions expressed doubt that any significant progress would be made Sunday evening.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Southern California Muslim Convert Arrested for Alleged Material Support to Al Qaeda in Syria
7:30AM, Friday, October 11, 2013, 24 year old Sinh Vinh Ngo Nguyen, 24, a Muslim convert, also known as Hasan Abu Omar Ghannoum (Nguyen/Ghannoum), was arrested by the FBI at the Transportation Center in Santa Ana, California about to board a bus to Mexico. He appeared shackled Friday afternoon in a Federal District Courtroom in Santa Ana to answer an indictment brought by the US Attorney for the Central District of California, Andre Birotte, Jr. According to the Los Angeles Times report , Nguyen/Ghannoum was charged with providing material support to the terrorist group, Al Qaeda and “lying on a passport application Aug. 23, making false statements about his name, his date of birth, his place of birth and other information “. Nguyen/Ghannoum’s arrest has unnerved the little Vietnam community in Southern California distressing his own family, who arrived as refugees at the conclusion of the Viet Nam conflict. If Nguyen/Ghannoum was ‘radicalized’, where might that occurred two years ago in his home community of Garden Grove or elsewhere in Southern California? Certainly, Nguyen/Ghannoum was active in social media expressing his radical views and support for Jihad in Syria.
| — Hat tip: Jerry Gordon | [Return to headlines] |
Spirit of Iwo Jima as Vets Storm Barricades (Pictured)
Stunning display of patriotism as vets and patriots defy feds.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Transforming America’s Schools Into Authoritarian Instruments of Compliance
These days, it is far too easy to rattle off the outrageous examples of zero tolerance policy run amok in our nation’s schools. A 14-year-old student arrested for texting in class. Three middle school aged boys in Florida thrown to the ground by police officers wielding rifles, who then arrested them for goofing off on the roof of the school. A 9-year-old boy suspended for allegedly pointing a toy at a classmate and saying “bang, bang.” Two 6-year-old students in Maryland suspended for using their fingers as imaginary guns in a schoolyard game of cops and robbers. A 12-year-old New York student hauled out of school in handcuffs for doodling on her desk with an erasable marker. An 8-year-old boy suspended for making his hand into the shape of a gun, in violation of the school district’s policy prohibiting “playing with invisible guns.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Two Arrested After 5 People Shot During Festival
TULSA, Okla. (October 13, 2013)—Two men were in custody Sunday facing multiple charges in a shooting at a Hmong New Year’s festival in Tulsa, Okla. that left five people wounded.
Boonmlee Lee, 21, and Meng Lee, 19, both of Tulsa were in custody Sunday, each facing five counts of shooting with intent to kill plus firearms charges.
Tulsa police spokesman Capt. Steve Odom said a gun was recovered, but said it will have to be tested to determine if it is linked to the shooting Saturday night.
Odom says the suspected gunmen and the victims were all Hmong and that there was “probably a relationship” between the men charged and the victims.
Witnesses said at least 200 people were at the celebration.
The names of the victims, who police say remain hospitalized, weren’t released.
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US Fears Back-Door Routes Into the Net Because It’s Building Them Too
If the Snowden revelations have taught us anything, it’s that the NSA has been up to the sort of covert practices it claims to be so concerned about
…At the Black Hat security conference in August last year, for example, a researcher named Jonathan Brossard demonstrated software that can be burned into the hardware of a PC, creating a back door that would allow secret remote access over the internet. And — here’s the really scary bit — the secret entrance couldn’t even be closed by switching off the computer’s hard disk or reinstalling its operating system.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
[…]
Members of the so-called “Million Vet March” descended on Washington, D.C., Sunday to protest the Obama administration’s decision to close the city’s public memorials.
Thousands of demonstrators arrived early in the morning and tore down barricades that had been set up to block people from visiting the popular attractions, WTOP reports.
The group said military personnel and veterans are “being used a political pawns in the ongoing government shutdown and budget crisis,” according to a statement on its website.
The group also said it has no political leaning, but believes that the closing of memorials is “a despicable act of cowardice.”
Sens. Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Ted Cruz (R-Texas) spoke to the crowd at around 9:30 am ET and were later joined by former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.
.The crowd energized itself by chanting “Tear down these walls!” and singing “God Bless America” and other patriotic songs.
“Tractor-trailers headed down 17th Street toward the Mall, blaring their horns. The Metropolitan Police Department blocked off the street, prompting the crowd to head up the street, shouting at the police to move their vehicles,” WTOP reports.
“By 11 a.m., the group had headed back to the memorial, and dozens congregated around World War II veterans, shaking their hands and thanking them for their service,” the report adds…
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We Need Zero Tolerance for “Zero Tolerance”
Schools, teachers, administration engaging in their usual liberal indoctrination and taking it to the extreme
Last month, in Osceola County, Florida, an 8-year-old was kicked out of class for playing cops with his friends at Harmony Community School and using his finger to similar a handgun. He was suspended for a day. He had never been in detention or suspended before…for pointing his finger!
Also in September, a seventh-grade student from Virginia Beach, Virginia, may be suspended for the rest of the school year for shooting an airsoft gun with a friend in the yard of his home while they waited for the bus to come. Khalid Carabello, 12, and his friend Aidan, were suspended for “possession, handling and use of a firearm.” It was a TOY. He was on the property of his own HOME.
I suggest this isn’t just a matter of two schools using bad judgment and failing to apply the most minimal common sense. This is a national trend and it has to stop. There has to be zero tolerance for “zero tolerance.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Alice Munroe — Nobel Prize Winner is No Tolstoy
If people like Henry Kissinger and Barrack Obama can win the Nobel Peace Prize, it shouldn’t shock us that a depressive who depicts middle class Canadian life as tawdry and banal should be honored last week with the 2013 Nobel Prize in Literature.
The Nobel Prize Committee is promoting a constrictive and demeaning image of life, as opposed to one that is universal, insightful and uplifting.
Christian Lorentzen describes what now passes for great literature.
The state of Art reflects the state of politics.
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Greek Far-Right Leaders Accused of Organized Violence
Her training over, she was a full member of Golden Dawn, the far-right party whose rage against foreigners has propelled its stiff-arm saluting leader Nikolaos Mihaloliakos and 17 others into parliament in Athens in the wake of the Greek debt crisis.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
I Don’t Know if Crooks Fear Britain’s New FBI — But it Should Terrify the Rest of US
…Instead, the Government is spending almost half a billion pounds on the National Crime Agency, a rather sinister body (with a big baseball cap budget) whose very existence defies our national traditions.
It is directly under the control of the Government, which appoints its boss. That boss can issue orders to chief constables, who are supposed to be independent of government but now are so no longer.
Its officers are civil servants who must obey their superiors.
This sets them apart from traditional British constables who swear an oath to uphold the law, and so are actively obliged to refuse unlawful orders.
But NCA officials can be granted the same powers as sworn constables, to arrest, to search premises and to carry firearms.
Few now know any of our national history, but Parliament refused for decades to allow the creation of police forces in this country, because they had seen what such forces had become on the European continent.
They were hated engines of state oppression, and a menace to liberty. Robert Peel’s ingenious compromise — an unarmed, non-military force under local control — was devised precisely to avoid that danger.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: ‘Ferramonti Was Not a Death Camp’
Thousands of Jews were imprisoned at the Ferramonti di Tarsia concentration camp in Calabria during the Second World War. But as one survivor tells The Local, it was not like other terror camps in Europe.
During a recent visit to Calabria, at the tip of southern Italy, Judith Itzhak said “every day is a good day”.
It was her response to a pleasantry about the previous day, when she visited Tarsia, the home of the former Ferramonti concentration camp, in Cosenza for the first time since 1945.
“I appreciate the fact that I’m alive,” she tells The Local.
Judith was five years old when she was freed from Ferramonti, the largest of fifteen camps set up by Italy’s dictator Benito Mussolini between 1940 and 1943.
Between 3,000 and 5,000 Jews were imprisoned at the camp as Mussolini, a key figure in the creation of fascism, cooperated with Adolf Hitler and passed racial laws in Italy.
Judith and her parents arrived at Ferramonti — an area plagued with malaria — in early 1940, when she was just 17 days old.
Her mother, who came from a wealthy family, was heavily pregnant when she and her husband fled their native Germany, with “no idea about what was going to happen, or whether they would survive”.
Prisoners slept on wooden planks in their designated barracks and were assigned a mattress, a pillow, two blankets, two sheets and a towel upon arrival, according to a report by Centro Primo Levi, a New York-based organization for Italian Jewish studies. They were also subjected to “heavy restrictions on all aspects of their personal life…initially, any form of assembly including teaching and praying was forbidden,” the report said.
The distribution of quinine — essential for the treatment of malaria — was also prohibited, although this measure was later amended, the report added.
Even though her family feared for their future, Judith says that “ending up at Ferramonti, and not another camp in Europe, is definitely something to be happy about”.
This is because Ferramonti was not like any of the other camps, Judith continues.
“Firstly, the camp was run by Italians and not Germans,” she says.
“This was a camp made to house people the Italian government didn’t know what to do with. It was not part of a plan like Germany had to annihilate the Jewish race; the whole set-up was different, it was not a death camp or labour camp.”
It was perhaps also Ferramonti’s location in Italy’s deep south, far away from Rome’s radar, that kept people safe.
People there were unaware of the atrocities happening in camps such as Auschwitz in Poland, where Judith’s father later found out his mother and sister perished. Though inmates went hungry, nobody starved, according to the Centro Primo Levi report.
Being imprisoned at Ferramonti is also believed to have saved Jews from deportation to other camps, including Auschwitz.
“There was a priest at the camp with connections to the Vatican, and he managed to block a decision to order us to be deported,” Judith says.
She puts the “fair treatment of the people and the cooperation and humanity of the situation” down to the “decency of the people from Calabria”. She also says that “persecution was far from the minds of the camp’s management, even though they were fascist.”
Though they lived under restrictions, inmates were allowed to “make the best” of their lives within the camp.
“They looked after their needs…there was a theatre, school, library and concerts. People played bridge and chess; they made life bearable.”
Young couples, who met and fell in love in the camp, also married there. Four weddings are said to have taken place, while there were 21 births.
There were also doctors and dentists among the inmates, who would help the local villagers, who in turn would assist the prisoners, such as bringing them items from Cosenza and allowing them to receive Red Cross parcels.
“Even if the conditions were not ideal, somehow we made the best of it.”
Still, Judith is quick to point out that life in the camp was “no Club Med”, however, “you couldn’t compare it to other camps in Europe.”
Perhaps the most fearful episode was when a British airplane bombed the camp after mistaking it for a German army training camp, killing one person and injuring others.
Otherwise people who died within the camp died of natural causes, Judith says.
This was how it remained until the Jews were liberated from the camp by the Allied forces in late 1943.
Judith remembers the day well, as she says it was the first time she tasted chocolate.
Most prisoners stayed at the liberated camp until 1945 as they awaited visas, but it was also the safest place for them to be.
Judith and her parents, along with some friends made within the camp, then left for Palestine.
“My father said he didn’t want to go anywhere he’d be hit in the street for being a Jew.”
Judith later went on to marry and have three children and six grandchildren.
She made the trip back to Ferramonti last week as part of a tour of “Southern Italy Through Jewish Eyes”, organized by the Italian Jewish Cultural Center of Calabria.
Judith was accompanied by her granddaughter, who remarked on the friendliness of the Calabrians, who are also credited for helping to save the Jews.
“These are the kind of people you find in southern Italy,” says Judith…
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Priebke Refused to Repudiate Nazi Past in Last Testament
War criminal ‘never repented’
(see related story) (ANSA) — Rome, October 11 — Former SS officer and war criminal Erich Priebke refused to repudiate his Nazi past in his last testament, his lawyer revealed after he died aged 100 in Rome Friday.
Priebke was serving a life sentence under house arrest for his part in a 1944 reprisal at a quarry known as the Ardeatine Caves outside Rome that killed 335 men and boys including 75 Jews.
The atrocity, ordered by Hitler a day after 33 SS policemen from the northern Italian German-speaking city of Bolzano were killed by a partisan bomb in Rome, was one of the worst war crimes in Italy in the Second World War. “Loyalty to the past is something that is linked to our convictions,” Priebke said in an interview-last testament.
“It’s my way of seeing the world, my ideals, what was the world view for us Germans and is still linked to a sense of self love and honour.
“Politics is another issue. National socialism disappeared after the defeat and today it would not have any chance of returning”. Priebke’s lawyer Paolo Giachini said the war criminal will be buried in Argentina, where he was tracked down in 1994. “I can’t say I’ll cry. A murderer who killed more people than a serial killer, who never repented what he did and lived for a long time very happily, has died,” said Francesco Polcaro, the head of the Rome branch of the National association of Italian Partisans (ANPI).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Mayor Trying to Prevent War Criminal’s Burial in Rome
(AGI) Rome, Oct 12 — The mayor of Rome said he is trying hard to prevent war criminal Erich Priebke, who died on Friday, from being buried in the Italian capital. “I will do all I can to prevent this. I’m in constant contact with the prefect of Rome, Giuseppe Pecoraro”, said Ignazio Marino. “I have asked him if we have the instruments to forbid the funeral for security reasons. Apart from my conscience, it is the city that is asking me to do this. People are sending me messages and letters, and they want me to take a clear stance in this matter”, the mayor added.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Democrat Renzi Sticks to His Guns on Jail Overcrowding
(AGI) — Rome, Oct 13 — Rising-star Democrat Matteo Renzi on Sunday denied being at loggerheads with President Giorgio Napolitano on the jail amnesty issue. With Napolitano having recently urged the Italian parliament to address jail overcrowding and a potential amnesty for lesser offences, Renzi said: “I have never spoken out against the President.” “What I will say is that this country’s last amnesty was in 2006 and that it would be neither fitting, nor responsible, nor would we be setting the right example by opting for another amnesty.” Jail overcrowding “will not be solved by repeated amnesties,” he argued. “If Parliament fails to address the issue by way of new laws, that’s Parliament’s problem.”
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Malta: ‘EU Has Abandoned Us’ — PM
Prime Minister Joseph Muscat lashes out at the European Union for helping Greece in its financial crisis but abandoning Malta and Italy in their humanitarian tragedies.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Pope Francis Receives Vatican Whistle-Blower
Carlo Maria Vigano’ stolen correspondence sparked Vatileaks
(ANSA) — Vatican City, October 10 — Pope Francis on Thursday received the Apostolic Nuncio to the United States Carlo Maria Vigano’ for an audience at the Vatican.
Vigano’ was formerly the second-ranked administrator to the pope under Pope Benedict XVI, serving as secretary-general of the governatorate of Vatican City State from July 2009 to September 2011.
In letters to Benedict XVI and to Vatican Secretary of State Tarcisio Bertone, Vigano’ begged not to be transferred to the US for blowing the whistle on alleged corruption that may have cost the Vatican millions of euros in inflated procurement contracts.
Vigano’s correspondence was stolen and leaked to the press by Benedict XVI’s butler, Paolo Gabriele, giving rise to the Vatileaks scandal.
The Vatican court sentenced Gabriele to 18 months in prison for theft in October 2012. Pope Benedict XVI pardoned the former butler in December 2012.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Sweden: Man Wounded in Gothenburg Shooting
A new shooting took place in Gothenburg on Friday evening as a man in his thirties was hit and severely injured in the Bergsjön area of the city, which has been marred by violence recently.
“Nobody has been arrested. There are many people at the location and we are knocking doors,” Björ Blixer of the Västra Götaland region police force told news agency TT on Friday night.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Turkey: Poll: 74% of People “Lost Hopes to Join EU”
People who stil believe in EU decreased to 17% in just a year.
(ANSAmed) — ISTANBUL — Turks are entertaining ever-diminishing beliefs that their country will one day join the European Union, a recent poll has indicated, citing the financial crisis in the 17-nation eurozone and the reluctance of European leaders. As daily Hurriyet reports, according to a poll conducted by the German-Turkish Foundation for Education and Scientific Research (TAVAK), around 74% of Turkish people do not believe the country will acquire EU membership. The percentage of people who say “Turkey will become an EU member” witnessed a steep fall in 2012, decreasing from 34.8% to 17% in just a year.
The number of people who believe the country can join the EU moved up slightly this year to 19%, but the number remains very low compared to the beginning of membership negotiations in 2004. The biggest driver behind the Turkish people’s loss of belief is their increasing economic confidence. Around two-thirds of respondents responded “no,” when they were asked whether Turkey economically needs the EU.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Bearded Muslims, 14, To be Allowed in Classes
Two Muslim schoolboys barred from classes because they would not shave off their beards will be allowed to return to school unshaven.
Both 14-year-olds had been placed in “isolation” from the start of the new term at Mount Carmel Roman Catholic High School in Accrington, Lancashire, and this week were sent home as the school maintained they had to be clean shaven. But the school has now performed a U-turn as it explained it had to comply with the European Convention of Human Rights…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Pub Rescue Group ‘Delighted’ At Mosque Refusal
A group who help to rescue pubs from demolition or conversion have spoken out in support of a decision to refuse an application for a new mosque. Around 200 people gathered outside a packed council chamber on Tuesday night as Waltham Forest Council’s planning committee decided on the application from the Faizan-e-Islam organisation to convert the Waltham Oak in Lea Bridge Road, Walthamstow…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
The Mail on Sunday today reveals the real cause of soaring energy costs — a bewildering web of green taxes and subsidies which add £132 to the average household’s bill.
The taxes range from levies to help fund domestic solar panels and windmills to subsidies for strict European greenhouse gas limitations.
The shock figures are based on official information from the Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC) about average annual bills, showing what they cost now, and how much they will have risen by 2020.
It is predicted that by then, some 33 per cent of household electricity bills will be going towards green taxes — up from 17 per cent now.
Put another way, in 2020 consumers will be paying £270 a year to fund green initiatives, some imposed by ambitious targets set by the 2008 Climate Change Act, which was piloted through the Commons by Ed Miliband when he was Energy Secretary.
Last week a political storm was triggered by energy firm SSE’s announcement of an 8.2 per cent price rise. Other companies are expected to follow suit shortly.
Yesterday Energy Minister Greg Barker said: ‘The higher energy bills falling on to people’s doormats have Ed Miliband’s smudgy fingerprints all over them.’
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
De-radicalisation rarely occurs with a bang, with an instantaneous “Eureka!” moment of self-awareness. More often, it occurs over a period of time, beginning with much questioning and doubt, followed by a physical disengagement from one’s radical affiliations, followed — in some but not all cases — by a comprehensive re-alignment of one’s values. Tommy Robinson says he has now renounced the English Defence League (EDL) and, by extension, some of his former associates. This physical disengagement from the group and its members, likely only partial at present, is therefore not the end of a de-radicalisation process but is rather the first small step of a much longer spiritual and intellectual journey…
[Reader comment by Sarka on 10 October 2013.]
Blimey, even when Robinson does something the gatekeepers of progressive piety applaud, they have to treat him with the same quite repulsive condescending snobbery with which they earlier decried him. Horrible article, reminds me of some particularly sneery, conceited, and really rather stupid cleric carrying on about what some benighted sinner needs to really do for full repentance and second birth. Yuk Yuk Yuk. I’m going to have to go and have a bath now…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Egypt: Authorities Arrest 76 Extremists in Sinai — Army
Army forces continue their efforts to clear 20 villages in North Sinai from armed extremists and outlaws, Egypt’s army spokesman said.
Spokesman Ahmed Mohamed Aly said in a Facebook statement that 76 extremists and outlaws were arrested in security operations on Saturday.
Attacks on security personnel have increased in the Sinai Peninsula since the ouster of Islamist President Mohamed Mursi. The police and army began an intensive campaign in August to capture all the outlaws and assailants and restore order to the region.
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Israel Discovers 2.5 Km Tunnel to Gaza
(AGI) Jerusalem, Oct 13 — Israeli Defence Forces discovered a 2.5 km tunnel from the Gaza strip to the territory of Israel which was built by militant Islamist groups, probably with the aim of carrying out a terrorist attack. The tunnel was discovered last Monday next to the Ein Hashlosha kibbutz on the border with Gaza, close to the Palestinian town of Deir El Balah, the Israeli army reported. The tunnel, the military said, was built for “terrorist activities against Israeli civilians and military personnel inside Israel”.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Iran: Woman Who Converted to Christianity Jailed
Tehran, 11 Oct. (AKI) — A court in Tehran has sentenced to four years in prison an Iranian woman who converted to Christianity, the Iranpressnews website reported on Friday.
The court found Mariam Naqqash guilty of “endangering national security by spreading religious propaganda in the country”, the website reported.
Naqqash was also accused of spying for Britain and Israel and is being held in Tehran’s Evin prison.
Rights activists report that numerous underground churches have sprung up in Tehran and the nearby cities amid a sharp increase in recent years in the number of young people converting to Christianity from Islam.
Conversions from Islam to Zoroastrianism and the Bahai faith have also been on the rise, according to the activists.
Iran’s Sharia law does not allow conversations from Islam to other religions and renouncing the Muslim faith is punishable with the death penalty.
Over 300 Iranian converts to Christianity have been arrested over the past two years, according to opposition websites.
Conversions from Islam to other faiths often take place in secret.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
India: Karnataka: No End to Violence Against Christians
The president of the Global Council of Indian Christians (GCIC) appeals to the state’s chief minister, asking protection for minorities. Over the past four months, Hindu extremists have carried out 21 anti-Christian attacks. In the latest case, a Protestant clergyman suffered a heart attack after he was beaten by fundamentalists and arrested by police.
Mumbai (AsiaNews) — Hindu ultra-nationalists continue their “brutal and relentless” violence against Christians and churches in the Indian State of Karnataka, this according to Sajan George, president of the Global Council of Indian Christians ( GCIC ), who in a letter called on the state’s Chief Minister Siddaramiah to intervene.
The seriousness of the situation is such that the central government acknowledged the situation, defining the Karnataka one of the six states in which extremist forces are targeting minorities for their own political end.
Last May, when the state went to vote, nine years of government under Hindu ultra-nationalist the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) came to an end after the Indian National Congress won the elections with an absolute majority. A secular and democratic party, Congress is in power at the Union level.
Yet, attacks by militants from the Sangh Parivar (a Hindu extremist umbrella organisation) intensified, Sajan George said. Just in the last four months, the GCIC recorded 27 acts of violence against Christians, compared to four between January and June.
The latest episode occurred on 5 October. Rev Anil Kumar, a Protestant clergyman in Hubli, was the victim. On that day, the religious leader visited a widow whose Christian husband, NB Holemarore, had died of cancer a few years ago, to hold a prayer vigil in his memory.
The next morning, some Hindu militants armed with machetes surrounded the woman’s house, preventing the reverend from leaving. Then they stormed the building, dragged Rev Kumar out, accusing him of conducting forced conversions, and beat him. The beating took place under the eyes of Siddapura police agents who had arrived on the scene.
Instead of stopping the attack, they took the clergyman to the police station where they slapped him around and charged him with violating Section 109 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (concerning “suspected persons”).
After he was released on bail, Rev Kumar suffered heart attack and was hospitalised in intensive care.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
NATO Soldier Killed in Apparent Insider Attack in Afghanistan
KABUL, Oct. 13 (Xinhua) — A man in Afghan military uniform on Sunday shot dead one NATO soldier in eastern Afghanistan, the coalition forces confirmed. “An International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) service member was killed today when an individual wearing an ANSF (Afghan National Security Forces ) uniform shot the ISAF service member in eastern Afghanistan,” the NATO-led ISAF said in a statement…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Vast Crowds Pay Tribute to Vientam War Hero General Giap
Huge crowds turned out on Sunday to watch the body of General Vo Nguyen Giap, the military leader in Vietnam’s wars with the French and the Americans, being driven through the streets of Hanoi before being flown to its place of burial in the village where he was born.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Somalia: Puntland Govt and Telecom Company at Loggerheads Over Message Dissemination
Garowe — Puntland government in northern Somalia and the largest telecommunications operator in the region, Golis are now at loggerheads over the dissemination of what the government called ‘political messages’ to mobile subscribers, Garowe Online reports.
The message which was part of other three messages and sent via mobile phones to Puntland people sparked feud between Puntland government and Golis Telecom as Media Association of Puntland (MAP) and local journalists previously expressed their displeasure with the messages which were transferred to Puntland by the Somali Federal Government in Mogadishu and finally declared in statement that media houses wouldn’t broadcast the messages. Sources close to Puntland government told that both sides are currently negotiating about the motives behind the dissemination of the political messages…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
GOP RINOs Must Pay Penalty for Actions Allowing Illegals USA Entry
There is no question that the principal proponents of allowing illegal aliens to come into our country unfettered are the Socialist-communist liberal Democrats who absolutely must have these extra votes to not only remain in power but to change the U. S. into prisoner state with few, if any, freedoms. The people who provide the votes for these treasonists are high up on the chain of blame as well.
But in my estimation, and of many other conservative loyalists to ABBO, ‘America Before Barack Obama’, the most hated and egregious cretins in this play for attention are the RINO’s who are the recipients of the pre-ABBO country of the free United States.
Idiots and outrageously un-Americans who should know better than any one else of the value and strength of the former America who turned their backs on loyal Americans and threw in with traitors and treasonists of the socio-commie hordes led by top traitor Obama followed by Reid and Pelosi and loyal Americans should destroy people like McCain, Graham, Collins, Alexander, Hatch, Rubio, Ayotte, and the 20 or so other solid RINO’s.
As if this country needed more information about these anti-Americans, the Conservative Action Alerts (CAA) writer Nelson Hultberg wrote a column on October 10, 2013 titled “Illegals Swarm In — Dallas Transformed” calling attention to a previous column (CAA August 30, 2013) that he wrote about “the twin evils of illegal immigration and Keynesian economics and how they had decimated various neighborhoods of Dallas, Texas.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Illegal Immigration Should Remain a Crime, Says Minister
(AGI) Rome, Oct 13 — Minister of Infrastructure Maurizio Lupi spoke against the abolition of the crime of illegal immigration. “If we thought that abolishing the crime would solve the problem of immigration we would do it tomorrow morning,” he told Sky TG24 news. “The crime of illegal immigration from my point of view is a crime that a country should ratify and affirm,” continued the Minister of Infrastructure, adding that it is a crime “in all major countries”. Lupi also asked the government not to talk about creating different coalition majorities. “I say to minister Kyenge: stick to the Prime Minister’s position, adding: “Letta was very right to say yesterday that the (centre-left) Democratic Party and (centre-right) People of Freedom hold different opinions on the issue of immigration.” (AGI) .
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
More Security But No Solidarity
PresseuropIl Manifesto, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
At an October 8 meeting in Luxembourg, which was partly devoted to the question of immigration in the wake of the recent tragedy in Lampedusa, EU Justice and Home Affairs Ministers decided to reinforce protection of the EU’s external borders and to improve procedures for processing refugees, while clamping down on the networks that smuggle people into the EU, reports Il Manifesto.
Headlining with “On the Frontex”, the paper reports that the EU agency responsible for border management, Frontex, has decided to award Italy an additional €2m to deal with immigration flows. As of December 2, Frontex will also be able to take advantage of Eurosur, a surveillance system aimed at reducing the number of illegal immigrants and improving sea rescue operations. Funds for Eurosur will total €340m by 2020.
However, the 28 Member States, and in particular Germany, rejected Italy’s request for greater solidarity in the distribution of the refugees among member states — as well as its call for a review of European immigration regulations, notes German daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.
In another response to the recent tragedy, notes Il Manifesto, EU Commission President José Manuel Barroso, Home Affairs Commissioner Cecilia Malmström, traveled to Lampedusa on October 9, accompanied by Italian President Enrico Letta and his Home Affairs Minister, Angelino Alfano. On arrival, they were greeted by protesting residents of the island, who say they have been left alone to face the waves of migrants arriving on their shores.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Spain’s Escalating Mosque Wars
Police in Spain have forcibly removed Muslim activists from an illegal mosque in a small town in Catalonia, an autonomous region in northeastern Spain that is home to the largest Muslim population in the country. The eviction ends — for now, anyway — a highly public one-year standoff in which Muslim immigrants in the Catalan town of Mollet del Valle’s openly and aggressively challenged the authority of municipal officials to evaluate and determine the proper location of new mosques based on established urban planning regulations. The dispute over the unauthorized mosque is the latest in a growing number of mosque-related conflicts resulting from efforts by towns and cities across Spain to relocate overfilled mosques from congested downtown areas to uninhabited industrial parks…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Syrians Flee Catania Holding Centre in Sicily
(AGI) Catania, Oct 13 — Hundreds of Syrian migrants fled Catania holding facilities in Sicily on Sunday. As many as 63 women and 79 minors climbed the gates of Catania’s Palaspedini indoor arena where they were being held and, according to eyewitness reports, and made their way to the nearest railway station. The party had landed in Sicily on Tuesday after they were rescued 60 miles off Syracuse by a Panamanian cargo ship.
The migrants’ likeliest next stop is northern Europe and Germany.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
The Daily Telegraph
The UK government unveiled a host of new measures to combat illegal migration on October 10, including demanding banks, property landlords and driving licence issuing authorities check the immigration status of suspected migrants, reports The Times.
The Immigration Bill, which has yet be approved by MPs and looks set to become law in spring 2014, also aims to streamline the immigration appeals court process and make temporary migrants, such as visitors staying on student visas, contribute to health service costs in order to avoid “health tourism”.
Meanwhile, The Daily Telegraph praises the government but points out that failures, such as the recently publicised “e-borders” programme, show much work still needs to be done. It adds –
Theresa May, the Home Secretary, should be commended for trying to get to grips with such glaring shortcomings once and for all. [But] similar crackdowns on illegal immigration have been promised in the past but have not materialised.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Barilla Boss Denied Award Over Gay Remarks
Councillors for Italy’s People of Freedom (PdL) party have withdrawn their nomination for Guido Barilla, the president of the Barilla pasta firm, to receive Milan’s prestigious Ambrogino d’Oro award after he said he would never allow adverts featuring gay families.
PdL councillors Pietro Tatarella and Matteo Forte have backtracked their decision to nominate Barilla’s president for the prestigious Ambrogino d’Oro award following the media storm that erupted over the president’s comments on Italian radio.
With a maximum of 30 medals awarded each year, the Ambrogino d’Oro is an award conferred by the council of Milan. The prize-giving takes place on December 7th.
“We want to avoid controversy. We will propose his nomination next year, so we can discuss it with the utmost calm,” the councilors were quoted by Corriere della Sera as saying.
Speaking on Italy’s Radio24 in September, Barilla had told listeners: “I am for the traditional family, I will never have an advert with a gay family.”
“For us the concept of the family is sacred…we will not do a gay advert because ours is a traditional family,” he was quoted in the paper as saying.
Confident in his decision, the company president continued: “If you don’t like what we say, you can eat another [pasta brand].”
The comments sparked an immediate backlash calling for Barilla products to be boycotted, with #boicottabarilla trending on Twitter.
He has since taken to social media to apologize.
“While we can’t undo recent remarks, we can apologize. To all our friends, family, employees and partners that we have hurt or offended, we are deeply sorry,” the family-owned company said on its US Facebook page.
In the last few days Barilla has also met with representatives from Italian gay rights groups.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Christian Couple, Lives in Ruins After Campaign of Hate, Take Last Stand in UK’s Supreme Court
Peter and Hazelmary Bull run a Bed and Breakfast in Cornwall in southwest England, though the business they run is now for sale. The couple had a well advertised policy of only letting rooms with double beds to married couples, regardless of sexual orientation, since the business started in 1986. Then arrived a gay couple, Martin Hall & Steven Preddy, in 2008.
The gay men sued and were awarded £3,600 in county court, upheld on appeal, after being refused a room with a double bed. Then began the hatred! The Bull’s received death threats, their building was vandalized, and their website was hacked and replaced with pornography. Such is the hatred of the supposedly tolerant left!
Last month Daily Mail columnist Richard Littlejohn underscored this, writing that the Bulls suffered a “campaign of hatred, vilification and intimidation” under the guise of tolerance. He continued “Not for the first time it’s obvious that those ‘liberals’ who preach ‘tolerance’ are themselves the most vile, intolerant bigots imaginable”.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Doctors: Patients Don’t Need to be Dead Before We Harvest Their Organs
The attacks on the dead donor rule — which requires death as a precondition of donating vital organs — are continuing in the world’s most prestigious medical and bioethical journals. Take the New England Journal of Medicine, which has just published opposing articles about the issue. The pro-killing for organs article — by Robert D. Truog, M.D., Franklin G. Miller, Ph.D., and Scott D. Halpern M.D. Ph.D., contends that past assurances about donors being dead were, essentially, lies. (I disagree.) But rather than urge a return to ethical standards, the authors go all in for legalizing homicide for organs. From, “The Dead-Donor Rule and the Future of Organ Donation:”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Parents Informed That More Gay Porn Will be Added to School Curriculum
President Obama already has declared June to be homosexual “Pride” month, but “gay” activists now are designating October “LGBT History Month.” The move has prompted a pro-family organization in California to issue a warning to parents across the United States about the possibility their children would be confronted with explicit pornography in their public schools this month. Teachers, they explain, could introduce material that promotes homosexuality. The homosexual-rights group Equality Forum, which is promoting LGBT History Month, is profiling various homosexuals and lesbians for each day of the month, including some whose work can accurately be described as triple-X rated.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Here Are Two of the Reasons Why the Increasing Global Persecution of Christians is Not Trending
One reason it’s not trending is because of the silence of the victims’ natural allies. “Christians in the Middle East and Africa are being slaughtered, tortured, raped, kidnapped, beheaded and forced to flee the birthplace of Christianity,” Kirsten Powers wrote last week in the Daily Beast. “One would think this horror might be consuming the pulpits and pews of American churches. Not so. The silence has been nearly deafening.” At least as deafening, though, has been the silence of Western secular journalists. Sometimes, yes, reporters cover the murder of Christians, at least when the fatalities get into double or triple figures. But mostly there is just silence. There are at least two reasons the Fourth Estate ignores the global, chronic abuse of Christians.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
‘No Monsanto!’: World Marches Against GMO Food
Thousands took to streets across the world’s cities on Saturday to protest the use of GMO products, with Giant Monsanto being the main target. Over 50 countries have been taking part in the march for world food day, and across 47 different US states.
Berlin, Strasbourg, Chicago, London, Sydney and Mumbai are just a few of the 500 cities worldwide involved in the rallies, with each one drawing hundreds.
Kids against GMO #MarchAgainstMonsanto #WashingtonDC pic.twitter.com/RUfOBy5Aot
— Anissa Naouai (@AnissaNowRT) October 12, 2013
The demonstrators have been calling for the permanent boycott of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) and “other harmful agro-chemicals,” according to March Against Monsanto’s official webpage…
“There a Smartstax corn that Monsanto has made…it is a corn that resists six different types of herbicide, so you can spray it with six different chemicals and it won’t die,” Heidi Ostermannm, a nutritionist participating in the Berlin march told RT.
“It also produces two insecticides in its own kernels and you can’t wash it off — I don’t even know if technically that’s food. In my mind as a nutritionist, that’s no longer food,” she said.
Dietrich Wittel, vice president of the True Food Foundation cited experiments conducted on rats, bringing a large poster with him showing the tumors suffered by the animals subject to being fed Monsanto corn.
“There are subtle signs of organ damage even in 90 days. But in two years, the lifetime of a rat is shortened — they have massive organ damage, massive breast tumors in the female rats, and that is really, really frightening,” he said, going on to discuss the effects on larger animals.
“Recently, a study from Australia has shown that igs that are fed these corn products get massive stomach ulcers… we have a much longer lifespan that a rat. If we are waiting for cancer to show as a result of GMOs, we’ve got to wait,” he said.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Greetings, GoV.
Just thought you may care to have some reports from Russia.
You do not have to publish my post, just use the links if you want.
http://rt.com/news/moscow-nationalists-killing-violence-142/
http://rt.com/politics/moscow-muslim-sacrifice-holiday-528/
Thank you.
On the Diane West / Horowitz battle. Interesting twist with the Milliband Senior story in the Daily Mail, poor old D’acre. There is a connection between Ralph Milliband and David Horowitz and a KGB asset in London called “Lev”.
No wonder West was keel hauled for writing a book about the subversion of American and western politics by communists.
The Diane West thing.
Here you see why Horowitz reached badly to West’s book.
http://books.google.com/books?id=eZt8AKYQAPAC&pg=PA140&lpg=PA140&dq=horowitz+lev+radical+son&source=bl&ots=ipS1Zfa-5l&sig=bGz4vO7rI3PeECVyXQXSsQo7Cds&hl=en&sa=X&ei=FthbUu-TPIKNrgG_2YDoDg&ved=0CDYQ6AEwBQ