As you all know, today was Election Day here in the USA, the midterm elections for Congress. As of this writing it seems that the Republicans have gained control of the Senate, and substantially increased their majority in the House of Representatives.
A decade ago I might have found the news exhilarating, but not this time. It’s more like: “Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.”
I’ll venture a few predictions for the next two years under an all-Republican Congress:
| 1. | The first thing the new Republican majority in the Senate will do when they are seated in January will be to “reach across the aisle.” | |
| 2. | For the next two years, anything bad that happens in the United States will be blamed on the Republicans in Congress. | |
| 3. | President Obama — or rather, the Marxists on his staff who direct his actions — will, in classic Cloward-Piven fashion, make sure that plenty of bad things happen as soon as the new Congress convenes. | |
| 4. | The Republican majority in the Senate will gladly assist in the passage of some form of “amnesty”. | |
| 5. | The Republican-controlled Congress will not repeal ObamaCare. |
On that dyspeptic note, I will relinquish my grey hairs to my midnight pillow with relief.
To see the headlines and the articles, click “Continue reading” below.
Thanks to ESW, Fjordman, Insubria, JD, Takuan Seiyo, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.
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Consob Probes Hong Kong Firm’s 10-Bn Euro Bid for MPS Shares
Shares in Siena bank rise ahead of capital plan
(ANSA) — Milan, November 4 — Financial market watchdog Consob said Tuesday that it is probing allegations of market manipulation following reports of a 10 billion-euro offer to buy shares in troubled Italian Monte dei Paschi di Siena bank — an offer almost three times its market capitalization.
Hong Kong-registered NIT Holdings announced late Monday that it wanted to invest that amount in MPS, which is working on a plan to fill a 2.1 billion-euro capital hole.
MPS said late Monday it had not received any such proposal from NIT Holdings, an international investment company which is reportedly being investigated in connection with a separate offer earlier this year for shares in another Italian bank Popolare di Spoleto. The news seems to boost MPS shares on the Milan Stock Exchange, where they rose by 7.05% by mid-afternoon to trade at just over 0.66 euros.
Meanwhile, the Italian government hinted Tuesday that possible nationalization of MPS could be on the table for the economy ministry.
Cabinet undersecretary Graziano Delrio said that Economy Minister Pier Carlo Padoan “is considering his options” in the case.
The economy ministry has previously said that the government would not offer any more support to MPS and Padoan himself has said that “market solutions” would be best for MPS and for another Italian institution, Banca Carige.
Those two banks were singled out for their capital shortfalls during extensive stress testing by the European Central Bank. Both banks have said they are planning to boost capital in order to plug the holes and MPS said its board intended to meet on Wednesday to discuss and approve a capital plan.
On Tuesday, the bank said it did not intend to seek any government help.
MPS has been troubled for some time, twice receiving government bailouts. It is still repaying the last government assistance received in early 2013 and raised about five billion euros in capital earlier this year to pay off its government debt and avoid nationalization.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
ECB to Supervise Banks, Most Important Step Since Euro
To directly oversee 120 lenders starting today
(ANSAmed) — ROME, NOVEMBER 4 — The European Central Bank on Tuesday will start directly supervising 120 banking groups in the Eurozone, representing 82% of total assets, the ECB said in a statement.
The European Central Bank explained that “for all other 3,500 banks the ECB will also set and monitor the supervisory standards and work closely with the national competent authorities in the supervision of these banks”.
ECB policymaker Benoit Coeure described today’s step as the most important towards integration after the introduction of the euro.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
A Lesson on Free Speech and Sharia in Knoxville
by Andrew Harrod
A recent legal victory by Freedom X upheld the right of private citizens to discuss openly sharia law at a Knoxville, Tennessee, high school. “This is a victory for free speech,” Freedom X’s PresidentWilliam J. Becker rightly explained, in yet another instructive example of Islamists seeking to subvert the United States Constitution’s First Amendment.
A local Knoxville chapter of ACT! for America began the case by arranging an April 24 evening town hall at Farragut High School (FHS). The event featured Dr. Bill French, Center for the Study of Political Islam founder under the pen name Warner, and Matt Bonner, regional director of the Crescent Project, a Christian evangelization ministry for Muslims. They intended to address the encroachment in America of sharia, vaguely described in one online report as “Islamic laws governing worship and lifestyle.” Becker correctly clarifies that “Sharia is incompatible with our constitutional and legal protections” in numerous ways.
Both local and national Muslims groups, however, greeted the event with harsh opposition. Abdel Rahman Murphy, a Muslim chaplain at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, emailed then FHS principal Mike F. Reynolds on April 8 requesting the event’s cancellation. The town hall flyer had “kind of an aggressive tone,” Murphy argued to reporters. “Feel free hosting” the event “anywhere else by renting out a banquet hall,” Murphy added, “but to host it at a public place…is not comfortable for the rest of us.”
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a radical faux civil rights group and an unindicted terrorism financing coconspirator, also objected. An April 11 CAIR news release publicized a letter by CAIR National Communications Director Ibrahim Hooper to FHS the previous day that “vilifies…French, Bonner and ACT! for America” with a “false attribution” of “anti-Muslim hate” refuted by Becker’s complaint. “We support the First Amendment right to free speech—even…hate speech used by these speakers,” Hooper argued. The “need for a safe and inclusive learning environment,” though, makes a “school…not the proper setting.”
Principal Reynolds’ April 10 letter to Knox County Schools Superintendent James P. McIntyre, Jr. shared Hooper’s sentiments. “Groups promoting hate rather than tolerance” would have the event “serve as a public forum for harassment and bullying practices that contradict the open-minded, academic discussion we seek to…foster at” FHS, Murphy wrote. The event would generate “little positive press or educational benefit,” yet “polarize our community” when “deemed ours by association.” Concerns of “potential backlash” and “future security threats” from “retaliation of opposing groups” existed. These “expressed concerns…about…disruption” from an event unsuitable for “a safe, healthy and comfortable learning environment” caused McIntyre to rescind ACT!’s invitation in an April 11 letter to its Knoxville chapter leaders.
A Knoxville school official was “happy to announce” ACT!’s uninviting. Hooper boasted of the school’s decision, arguing that “this event in a public school would send an implicit message of endorsement for the bigoted views of the speakers.” Knoxville schools must “remain a safe place for all students,” concurred Remziya Suleyman from the Tennessee-based Muslim organization, American Center for Outreach.
The Knoxville ACT! chapter’s president John Peach held the event in a church, not seeking other public venues for fear of another cancellation. “Sharia is not well-understood and we wanted to inform the public” as “concerned Americans,” Peach said. An “American…should” not “be afraid to speak out on public matters in a public forum.”…
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A Nation of Robots: American Trance State and the Road to Total Freedom
America is in the greatest crisis in the history of our nation and the mass population has lost its ability to intellectually process the obvious. The American Middle Class is quickly becoming lower class and the rising food prices are but one indication that more trouble is ahead. Race wars and riots are starting to surface in our inner cities and as societal pressures increase masses of people are beginning to get primal and retreat back into their ethnic and racial identities. Psychologists are talking about the death of optimism in America and how the American spirit, our “can do” optimism, has faded. But the most disturbing trend of all is that countless millions of people appear to be increasingly disconnected from reality and act more like robots than real people.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
America — Going, Going, Gone Unless, You Wake Up
Common Core Standards (CCS) accomplishes the goal for a Global workforce. The purpose of education is: To confuse, so the child will only be capable of pressing an APP for answers. Ignorant people require less of their government. The government becomes the “NANNY STATE”, taking care of…and CONTROLLING… the ignorant populace!
CCS creates total reliance on the government with individuals incapable of making decisions. They can only make choices, the “choices” provided by their government.
Isn’t it curious that all of the talking heads can shout, “Close the border, Keep Americans safe.”
Yet legislators just talk with little accomplished. No commentator asks, “Why are our elected officials allowing the Destruction of America?”
The answer is simple: “THIS IS WHAT IS LEARNED IN SCHOOL.”
As Abe Lincoln said, “Whatever is learned in school today — is in government tomorrow.”
So what do our students learn?
America is not special. Eliminate borders. Bye, bye, America. Americans are Evil. Evil Americans who caused all of the world ills, must pay for those ills. School instills an American guilt complex. Therefore, America must be replaced with a New World Order — with a One-World Government, controlled by the United Nations. There are no truths, only values made up as we go along. Whatever works for that moment is fine as long, as you feel good about it. You are only one individual, your voice doesn’t count. You, alone, cannot make a difference. You must act as part of a group, for the sake of the group… for FAIRNESS, for SOCIAL JUSTICE.
[Comment: Recommended reading.]
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Anti-American Disinformation on Ebola and AIDS
Stories that the Pentagon manufactured Ebola in a laboratory have been surfacing in a number of U.S. and foreign media outlets, helping to create even more of a panic over the spreading disease.
A new variation of an old Soviet charge, it is designed to besmirch the reputation of the United States in black Africa. In the hands of Russian disinformation specialists, it could spark protests against the stationing of U.S troops in Africa to restrict the Ebola outbreak.
It turns out the charges are based on a book written by one Leonard Horowitz, who cited Soviet and pro-Cuban sources for his sensational allegations, and also claims tuning forks can be used as “healing instruments” to confront a looming “biological apocalypse.” He sells them for $26 each.
Horowitz thinks the media are covering up his book, Emerging Viruses: AIDS & Ebola, Nature, Accident or Intentional?, as the source of the “headline news in Liberia” about “the man-made origin of Ebola and AIDS.”
But if the panic over AIDS was any indication, the Russian disinformation apparatus will make sure the bogus charges about Ebola get even more attention.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Charter School Gravy Train and Total Ruination of American Education, Part 2
Never ever forget there has been a massive national and international organized plan to privatize education which has been in the process of being implemented over several decades. Billionaires such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Carnegie, Broad Foundation, Bush Dynasty and the Pearson Corporation among others, have infiltrated hundreds of governmental bodies including school boards, city and county councils and other sections of our local, state and federal government.
You don’t think former President Johnson pulled the original ESEA out of his hat do you? Then there’s George H.W. Bush first talk about Charter schools and volunteerism to be used toward a student gaining their diploma.
Ever since the Carnegie Foundation put out their 1934 Report on the Commission on Social Studies things regarding education have been headed down a slippery slope.
“The True Goal of School Choice” by Charlotte Iserbyt is extremely telling!
The goal is to turn the education system into a for-profit center worth tens of billions of dollars while at the same time turning our kids into “worker-bees” for the factories and fields. They can spout all they want to about 21st Century College and Career Readiness and fancy acronyms like STEM, but if this were true then why in the world would our children be learning Skinnerian Outcome Based Education through the CCS and at the same time masquerading that Charter/Choice is the better road to take…
Have you all forgotten we have foreign Gulen Charter schools in this country with the blessings of the U.S. State Department and they are also funded by YOUR tax dollars? What is wrong with American parents to think it is “kool” for their kids to attend an Islamic school when they are not Islamic and to allow their child to travel to Turkey for 4-5 weeks during the summer for private indoctrination?
Has everyone lost their minds?
[Comment: Recommended reading.]
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Constitution Not a Self-Enforcing Document
It has always been so, that the greatest threat to the people’s liberties, is the centralized power of civil government. It is strikingly apparent now that the agenda coming from Washington, DC represents an attempt to centralize and extend the control of the few over the many.
In an amazingly short period of time, the central government has nationalized the banks, the insurance industry, the automobile industry and the health care industry. All this is illegal. And all the while this has been occurring at unprecedented speed, the president has been insisting that he is NOT doing exactly what he IS doing.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Ebola: A Conspiratorial Analysis, Part 2
Fact: The main eugenic solutions for population control preferred by eugenicists worldwide are abortion, homosexuality, war and pestilence.
Fact: Under the control of the CFR globalist conspirators, the U.S. has become an enormous eugenics machine. During the past 30 years, abortion and homosexuality have increased tenfold in the U.S., and the U.S. is exporting those eugenics measures as a keystone of its foreign policy. Moreover, since the 1970s the country has been in a constant state of war, causing tens of thousands of deaths.
Fact: The U.S. Army has secret labs at Fort Detrick, Maryland, mostly devoted to the creation of highly contagious, deadly pathogens for bacteriological warfare, among them the Ebola virus.
Fact: April 24, 1974. National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger (CFR) wrote National Security Study Memorandum 200 (NSSM 200), titled “Implications of World Wide Population Growth for U.S. Security and Overseas Interests.” The document delineates a genocidal policy of depopulating much of the Third World, particularly the African continent, to allow U.S. transnational corporations, not Africans, exploit the continent’s natural resources. Among the countries targeted for depopulation are Pakistan, India, Turkey, Egypt, Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Mexico, Brazil, and Colombia.
In this memorandum, Kissinger stated, “depopulation should be the highest priority of U.S. foreign policy towards the Third World.” He mentioned reasons of national security, and also because…
Fact: Both the Center for Disease Control and the World Health Organization have violated their own safety protocols involving the spread of deadly contagious diseases by allowing Ebola patients to travel out of the contaminated areas.
Fact: The U.S. government has refused to ban flights from countries where persons infected with the Ebola virus have died.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Election Day: Will Cultural Pride Get Latinos to Vote?
This year’s midterm election campaigns kicked into high gear just after President Barack Obama put plans for taking executive action on immigration reform on hold, following Republican inaction on legislation.
Advocates such as Ben Monterroso, executive director of Mi Familia Vota, knew the president’s delay would make getting out the Latino vote tougher, but was uncertain how far it would sway Latinos from their demonstrated preference for the Democratic party.
Fast forward to Election Day and Latino advocacy groups are feeling better about turnout as many key races are near deadlocked and as they have seen accelerated momentum in get out the vote efforts.
They fought the “Latinos are angry at Democrats over immigration” narrative by making voting an issue of cultural pride, of keeping and building clout and about making immigration reform more permanent by backing reform-friendly candidates.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Elect Vets to Congress — It Makes a Difference
Wonder why America has been transformed from world leader to its present degraded state in the progressive liberal Era of Obama? Military. com reports: “Veterans In Congress Could Fall To The Lowest Level Since Word War II.”
Veterans and other patriotic Americans are witnessing the devolutionary “transformation” of America sought by a progressive liberal President and Commander-in-Chief, Barack Hussein Obama, His Great Incompetence, who never served a day in military service and who, confronted with war by Muslim terrorists and tyrants, has been “leading with his behind” from one feckless policy failure to another.
It is a “transformative” decline wrought by Obama in a period in which patriotic veterans who were once numerous in House and Senate have been replaced by elitist non-veteram progressive liberals who consider themselves “citizens of the world,” as does Obama, himself. While paying rhetorical “lip service” to “our veterans,” these elitist progressive liberals sneer privately and sometimes even publicly at veterans and other American patriots — — “clinging to their guns and religion,” as Obama infamously put it — and, indeed, smugly sneer at the very ideas of “patriotism” and of American exceptionalism in the 21st Century.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Genetics, Not Upbringing, Main Influencer in a Child’s IQ, Study Says
Can parents make their kids smarter? New research published in the journal Intelligence suggests they can’t influence intelligence— at least beyond their genetic contribution.
To answer the oft-asked question, professors at Florida State University, the University of Nebraska, West Illinois University, King Abdulaziz in Saudi Arabia, and Erasmus University in the Netherlands used an adoption-based research design.
The study authors drew participants from a representative sample of between 5,500-7,000 non-adopted youth and a sample of between 250-300 adopted children from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Holder Sends Poll Watchers to 18 States
The Department of Justice plans to send federal monitors to 18 states to watch for discrimination against voters.
Monitors will head to Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Kansas, North Carolina, Nebraska, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas and Wisconsin.
“One of the Justice Department’s most sacred responsibilities is ensuring access to the ballot box for every eligible American,” Attorney General Eric Holder said in a video message on the department’s website.
“I want the American people to know that the Justice Department will stand vigilant — working in a fair and nonpartisan manner to ensure that every voter can cast his or her ballot free of intimidation, discrimination or obstruction,” he said.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Jeanne Shaheen Thwarts Scott Brown in New Hampshire Race, Networks Project
Senator Jeanne Shaheen, the Democrat of New Hampshire, defeated the Republican Scott P. Brown, according to network projections.
Mr. Brown’s efforts to tie Ms. Shaheen, a former governor, to President Obama proved unsuccessful, and she managed to cast him as a “carpetbagger” for moving from Massachusetts to the state to seek election.
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Louisiana Senate Race Heads to Runoff
Louisiana is headed for a runoff election, as neither Senator Mary L. Landrieu, the Democratic incumbent, nor Republican Representative Bill Cassidy captured 50 percent of the vote, according to The Associated Press.
The Republican vote was diluted by Rob Maness, a retired Air Force colonel who is also a Republican. Mr. Maness has benefited from the backing of Tea Party supporters who feel that Mr. Cassidy is not sufficiently conservative.
Ms. Landrieu, a three-term senator who turned to keg parties to generate support among young people, has been under pressure for her support of President Obama’s health law.
The second election will take place on Dec. 6.
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Obama’s Ambivalence Toward American Life
President Obama’s unwillingness to ban passage of people from Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea to the United States unless and until medically certified as Ebola-free; his dispatch of 4,000 American troops to infected regions of West Africa; and his failure to employ full military force to obliterate ISIS reveal a profound lack of concern for, an ambivalence toward the protection of, American life. Any president who truly valued American life would do whatever was necessary to guard against the lethal threat posed by Ebola and by ISIS, but this President has chosen to act long past the opportune moment and inadequately in any event…
Moreover, it is not the role of the United States military to build hospitals and provide medical support. Our fighting men and women should not be required to put their lives on the line to provide medical aid in foreign countries, particularly in response to a disease that is lethal some 70% of the time. Indeed, provision of the means to build hospitals and care for people with the disease could have been given without the additional risk to American lives of placing 4,000 U.S. troops on the ground in the regions hardest hit by Ebola.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Republican Cory Gardner Defeats Senator Mark Udall in Colorado
Representative Cory Gardner of Colorado, a two-term Republican congressman, defeated Senator Mark Udall, dealing a blow to Democrats’ prospects of holding the Senate, according to The Associated Press.
Mr. Gardner successfully tagged Mr. Udall as a patron of President Obama, hammering him for voting with the president 99 percent of the time. A rising star in the Republican party, Mr. Gardner capitalized on Mr. Obama’s unpopularity despite the state’s demographics, which have been shifting in favor of Democrats.
Mr. Udall tried to counter those criticisms by claiming that Mr. Gardner is too conservative for Colorado’s electorate on social issues such as abortion.
However, Mr. Gardner softened his stances on some issues as the race dragged on, winning him wider appeal.
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Republicans Win Senate Majority for First Time in 8 Years
Republicans wrested back control of the Senate on Tuesday night by adding at least six seats to their ranks, riding a wave of discontent with and resentment toward President Obama and his policies and consolidating Republican power on Capitol Hill.
The sixth Democratic seat the Republicans picked up was in North Carolina, where Thom Tillis defeated incumbent Democratic Senator Kay Hagan. Voters in Arkansas and Colorado ousted Democratic incumbents Mark Pryor and Mark Udall and elected Republicans in West Virginia, Montana and South Dakota.
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Republican Joni Ernst Defeats Bruce Braley in Iowa Senate
Race Iowa’s Joni Ernst, the Republican state senator who gained national prominence for commercials in which she brandished a gun and talked about castrating pigs, has defeated Democratic Representative Bruce Braley, adding to the avalanche of losses that Democrats faced on Tuesday.
The win deals another blow to Democrats as Republicans captured the seat of Tom Harkin, the retiring Democratic senator.
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Defining terrorism has practical implications because formally certifying an act of violence as terrorist has important consequences in U.S. law.
Terrorism suspects can be held longer than criminal suspects after arrest without an indictment They can be interrogated without a lawyer present. They receive longer prison sentences. “Terrorist inmates” are subject to many extra restrictions known as Special Administrative Measures, or SAMs. The “Terrorism Risk Insurance Act of 2002” gives corporate victims of terrorism special breaks (it is currently up for renewal) and protects owners of buildings from certain lawsuits. When terrorism is invoked, families of victims, such as of the 2009 Ft. Hood attack, win extra benefits such as tax breaks, life insurance, and combat-related pay. They can even be handed a New York City skyscraper.
Despite the legal power of this term, however, terrorism remains undefined beyond a vague sense of “a non-state actor attacking civilian targets to spread fear for some putative political goal.” One study, Political Terrorism, lists 109 definitions.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
The Lone-Wolf Canard — Andrew McCarthy
Since Thursday afternoon,newscasters have incessantly told us that the late and unlamented Zale Thompsonwas a “lone wolf.” Thompson was the 32-year-old Muslim from Queens who attackedfour New York City police officers with a hatchet on Thursday, breaking one’sarm and critically wounding another with a gash to the head…
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
‘There is No God But Allah’: Father Pulls Son From School Over Pro-Islam Textbook
A father in Massachusetts has pulled his son from school over outrage that students were being taught about Islam in a positive light, including a section that includes the sentence, “I bear witness that there is no God but Allah.”
“Muhammad never expected to change the world,” the textbook reads. “He was kind, and his nickname was ‘the truthful one.’“
“Muhammad tended sheep on the dry hills like many young Arabians. Later he became a successful merchant and married a wealthy widow. However, he felt as though something was missing in his life, so he went on a retreat,” it continues. “Muhammad went up to Mount Hira to pray in a small cave. He had studied both Judaism and Christianity, and he wanted to find a deeper meaning for his life.”
The reading assignment goes on to explain that the founder of Islam was “upset about the cruelty of his people” because they “killed baby girls” and “treated their slaves unkindly.”
“Muhammad had a strong sense of right and wrong,” it reads.
The textbook also included the Muslim Call to Faith, which states, “Allah is the greatest. I bear witness that there is no God but Allah. I bear witness that Muhammad is his prophet.”
[Be sure to browse the comments to the article. Here are several:
KenS: The point is that they are teaching about Islam but yet we cannot teach about Christianity in the schools.
IftikharA: Muslim children not only need halal meat or Eid Holidays but they need state funded Muslim schools with Muslim teachers as role models during their development period also. There is no place for a non-Muslim child or a teacher in a Muslim school. Legally, the state has an obligation to respect the rights of parents to ensure that ‘education and teaching(of their children) is in conformity with their own religious and philosophical convictions.’ The schools must satisfy the spiritual, moral, social, and cultural needs of Muslim pupils. State schools with non-Muslim monolingual teachers are not in a position to satisfy their needs… Terrorism and sexual grooming is nothing to do with Masajid, Imams and Muslim schools. Those Muslim youths who have been involved in terrorism and sexual grooming are the product of western education system which makes a man stupid, selfish and corrupt. They find themselves cut off from their cultural heritage, literature and poetry. They suffer from identity crises and I blame British schooling.
Lizzy: The information they give is false. Mohammed was a violent persecutor, he murdered six to nine hundred Jews of Medina by beheading them when they had unconditionally surrendered. They then sold the women and children into slavery. Does that sound familiar? The religion he started is faithful to its father. This is so opposite of genuine biblical faith in Christ as can be seen by the persecution of believers in the Middle East.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Dr. Bob Arnot, an infectious disease specialist who spent time on the ground in developing nations saving lives, recently told Judge Jeanine of Fox News, “There is no medical reason to bring them here. I believe there is a diabolical reason for allowing flights from West Africa to America. It is to get the Ebola virus into the American population to create panic and more dependency upon the government. The same reason there are open border policies, a flat no growth economy, along with a higher percentage of Americans than ever depending on the federal government for their meager existence.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Why Haven’t States Kicked Monsanto Out?
Instead of protecting the American people and our food supply, incumbents for sale to the highest bidder in the Outlaw Congress- the ones who will get reelected tomorrow — passed legislation to protect the destroyers. The Monsanto Protection Act is not law since it was signed by a criminal impostor in the White House who usurped the office by fraud. Any member of the Outlaw Congress who voted for that Act should never serve in public office again, it’s that egregious:
‘Monsanto Protection Act’: 5 Terrifying Things To Know About The HR 933 Provision
“1.) The “Monsanto Protection Act” effectively bars federal courts from being able to halt the sale or planting of controversial genetically modified (aka GMO) or genetically engineered (GE) seeds, no matter what health issues may arise concerning GMOs in the future. The advent of genetically modified seeds — — which has been driven by the massive Monsanto Company — and their exploding use in farms across America came on fast and has proved a huge boon for Monsanto’s profits.
“But many anti-GMO folks argue there have not been enough studies into the potential health risks of this new class of crop. Well, now it appears that even if those studies are completed and they end up revealing severe adverse health effects related to the consumption of genetically modified foods, the courts will have no ability to stop the spread of the seeds and the crops they bear.”
Want to see how your U.S. House member and counterfeit U.S. Senator voted to sell us out, again? Click here and scroll down to the vote…
Let me give you but a few items about Monsanto that will open your eyes:
Comparison of GMO and non-GMO corn — the real statistics will astound you!
“GMO corn contains alarming glyphosate levels. The amount of formaldehyde and glyphosate in GMO corn is unbelievable. To break it down, American EPA standards allow glyphosate in water of up to .7ppm. European tests indicate that animals begin experiencing liver damage at .0001 ppm of glyphosate in water. Putting these two statistics together, America’s water levels contain glyphosate that is 7,000 times greater than the amount required for animal liver damage! GMO corn takes that statistic up yet another notch. GMO corn contains 13 ppm of glyphosate, or the equivalent of 130,000 times more toxicity than EPA water standards!
“The formaldehyde level of GMO corn is unspeakable. In a similar study on GMO corn, Dr. Huber found out that animals avoid GMO corn at all costs. When given a choice between both GMO and non GMO varieties of corn, animals always go for the real organic corn. Huber also found out that .97ppm of formaldehyde is toxic to animals. The GMO corn he tried to give the animals contained 200 times that amount!”
[Comment: A must read article. Appears to be an insidious plan to kill off the “useless eaters”; ie. a depopulation agenda advocated by elites. Also, Google sterility and glyphosate. ]
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Austria’s Muslims Fear Changes to Historic Islam Law
A row has broken out in Austria over government plans to overhaul the country’s century-old law on Islam.
The new draft, which is partly aimed at tackling Islamist radicalism, forbids any foreign funding. But Austria’s official Islamic Community says it reflects a widespread mistrust of Muslims and fails to treat them equally.
Islam has been an official religion in Austria since 1912. The Islam law, the “Islamgesetz”, was brought in by the Habsburg Emperor Franz Joseph, after Austria’s annexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina.
Under the law, Muslims, like Catholics, Jews and Protestants, are guaranteed wide-ranging rights, including religious education in state schools.
Roughly half a million Muslims live in Austria today, around 6% of the population. Many of them have Turkish or Bosnian roots.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Berlin: UK Threatening Foundation of EU
Is it a storm in a teacup or a real problem? Britain is struggling with the question of immigration from other EU states. A media report over alleged comments by Chancellor Merkel has heated up the debate.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Europe’s Muslims Feel Under Siege
“The stigma against Muslims is just getting worse, and I have considered moving across the border to Sweden,” he said. “I feel that here, they are saying that integration means forgetting your religious values. I don’t agree with that.”
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
From Ancient DNA, A Clearer Picture of Europeans Today
About 50,000 years ago, humans from Africa first set foot in Europe. They hunted woolly mammoths and other big game — sometimes to extinction. Eventually, they began grazing livestock and raising crops.
They chopped down forests and drained swamps, turning villages into towns, then cities and capitals of empires. But even as they altered the Continent, Europeans changed, too.
Their skin and hair grew lighter. They gained genetic traits particular to the regions in which they lived: Northern Europeans, for example, grew taller than Southern Europeans.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: ‘You Have Taken the Divisive Path’ CGIL Tells Renzi
‘Stop winking at business, govt still lacks serious policies’
(ANSA) — Rome, November 3 — The leftist CGIL trade union federation on Monday warned center-left Premier Matteo Renzi that he has taken a divisive path.
“The premier has taken the wrong path — one that divides the country,” CGIL, which has traditional ties with Renzi’s Democratic Party (PD), said in a statement.
“The premier’s words betray a lot of ill temper,” the CGIL said. “He conjures plots and specters, issues warnings and launches tirades, but what he does not say is how to create jobs and restart the country”. The CGIL went on to say it expects “fewer accusations and more reflection” from the country’s leader.
“We would like to hear a bit more reflection on the errors of finance and business,” CGIL said. “Rather than winking at entrepreneurs, inventing strange and improbable plots, or turning things into a political brawl, the premier should try to come up with serious answers…the government still lacks job-creation policies and an industrial policy…it takes rights away instead of extending safeguards”.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Roma Couple ‘Tried to Kidnap Girl for Forced Marriage’
Pair arrested near Turin
(ANSA) — Turin, November 3 — A Roma (gypsy) couple were arrested Monday after trying to kidnap a 12-year-old Roma girl to marry to their son, police said.
The pair, aged 43 and 49, tried to seize the girl on October 23 at San Carlo Canavese near Turin, police said.
The girl’s parents heard her screaming, rescued her, and called the police.
It is customary for Roma to arrange marriages when the future spouses are in their teens.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Juncker Snaps Back at Renzi Over ‘Bureaucrats’ Remark
EC head says commission ‘worthy of respect’
(ANSA) — Brussels, November 4 — European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker on Tuesday snapped back at Italian Premier Matteo Renzi, saying the EC is not a “gang of bureaucrats”. Juncker said the EC is “an institution that deserves respect (and is) no less legitimate than the governments” representing its member States. Renzi promptly replied that Italy “won’t go to Brussels hat in hand, to be told what to do”. Juncker had been answering a question posed in the European Parliament by Manfred Weber of the European People’s Party about remarks made by Renzi last month outside scheduled meetings of EU leaders.
“I would like to know what you think of the Italian premier when he refuses to toe the line dictated by Brussels technocrats — which is unacceptable,” Weber said.
Renzi, who has previously complained about bureaucrats, had said the Commission should “resolve problems, not create them”. In response, Juncker defended the work of the Commission and its staff. “I have always been convinced that the European Council serves to solve problems, not create them,” said Juncker. “Personally, I always take notes during meetings,” he added. “Then I listen to statements made outside those meetings, and they often don’t coincide”. Renzi has lobbied hard for the EU to relax budget rules for recession-bound countries such as Italy, to allow them more room for spending on infrastructure and projects designed to boost the economy.
That had set him on a collision course with some of the bureaucracy of the relevant EU bodies.
Outside the latest meetings of EU leaders, Renzi said that the European Union’s main problem was not extra budget costs but “technocracy and bureaucracy”. And in a television interview with American network CNN on October 3, Renzi said that much of Europe’s problem lies with “management”. “Reducing the power of bureaucracy in Europe is of the utmost importance. I think it is absolutely crucial to reduce the level of power of the technocrats in Brussels,” he said. On Tuesday, Juncker snapped that “if the Commission had listened to the bureaucrats, its opinion of the Italian budget would have been very different”. The Commission earlier this month sent the Renzi government a letter warning that its 2015 budget plan, featuring 18 billion euros in tax cuts as part of an effort to revive the recession-battered Italian economy, would breach the EU Stability and Growth Pact. As a result, the government updated its three-year financial and economic blueprint (DEF) after Renzi’s executive bowed to pressure from the EC to change its 2015 budget bill.
The changes include 4.5 billion euros in measures to reduce Italy’s structural deficit by 0.3% of GDP in 2015, greater than the 0.1% cut originally planned.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Juncker Raps Cameron on EU Payments
‘Not just a British problem but one concerning entire EU’
(ANSA) — Brussels, November 4 — European Commission President Jean Claude Juncker on Tuesday criticised the way UK Prime Minister David Cameron explained to the British public a hefty payment to Brussels.
The UK has been asked to pony up an additional 2.1 billion euros in EU contributions after Britain’s GDP figures were revised upward to reflect proceeds from crime.
“This is not a British problem but that of the European Union as a whole, and it needs a common answer,” Juncker said.
“The impact on some States was greater than that on the UK”. Cameron last week told parliament the UK will not pay two billion euros by December 1 demanded by the European Commission following updated GDP figures. “We will be challenging this in every way possible,” he said. Earlier in the year, countries including Italy changed their accounting methods in calculating GDP per new EU measures that said proceeds from criminal activity must be included.
In Britain, September GDP figures doubled to 5% from earlier calculations of 2.5% GDP growth, explaining its high bill.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Mogherini to Name Investigator for EULEX Probe
Allegations of corruption at EU civilian mission in Kosovo
(ANSA) — Brussels, November 4 — European Union High Foreign Affairs Representative Federica Mogherini said Tuesday she would designate an “independent legal expert” to investigate allegations of corruption in relation to the European Union Rule of Law Mission in Kosovo (EULEX). “It’s in our interest to be totally transparent,” Mogherini said, adding that the expert would be nominated shortly. The biggest and most expensive civilian EU foreign mission, EULEX deals with organised crime, corruption, and war crimes.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
The “Explosive Growth” Of Jihadism in the Netherlands
by Soeren Kern
“The increasing momentum of Dutch jihadism poses an unprecedented threat to the democratic legal order of the Netherlands.” — Dutch intelligence service, AIVD.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Egypt: Jihadist Site Calls for Attacks on Cairo and Sharm El-Sheikh
(ANSAmed) — CAIRO, NOVEMBER 4 — The Islamic State (ISIS) has threatened Egypt again with ‘‘advice to Egyptian combatants’’ published on a jihadist site.
‘‘The struggle needs to move to central Cairo,’’ says the statement, published on the ‘Tribune of Jihadist Information’ website, which has in the past launched appeals to extremists in Egypt. ‘‘The attacks must reach Sharm El-Sheikh. The entertainment of foreign tourists and Jews must stop.’’ The lengthy statement also calls for the targeting of Shias and Copts. ‘‘Understand that the regime does not care as much about those killed in Sinai as it does about those dead in the capital,’’ it states, urging that the fight shift to Cairo so that ‘‘the Sinai can enjoy peace and become a jihadist rearguard.’’
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Libya: 142 Dead, 518 Wounded in 2 Weeks of Clashes in Kikla
At least 13 dead overnight in Benghazi battle
(ANSAmed) — CAIRO, NOVEMBER 4 — A reported 142 people have died and 518 were injured in two weeks of clashes between the Libyan army and pro-Islamist militia from the Dawn of Libya group, in the Berber city of Kikla, some 150 km south-west of Tripoli, a local doctor in the town of Ahmed al Zein was quoted as saying Tuesday by local media.
At least 13 died and dozens were injured in clashes last night in the port area of Benghazi, in eastern Libya, between pro-government forces and militants from Ansar al Sharia, according to Libyan military sources.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Spain’s Most Dangerous Neighborhood
Few visitors to Ceuta, Spain’s exclave on Morocco’s Mediterranean coast, ever venture into the Príncipe Alfonso district. Home to the city’s poorest inhabitants (all of them Muslim), lacking the most basic amenities and crippled by 90-percent unemployment, it’s a third-world slum dominated by rival drug gangs fighting each other to control a trade that has moved away to Tangier. “It’s a pressure cooker that could blow at any time,” says a member of the Spanish security forces. “This is Spain, but it isn’t Spain. Quite simply, there is no law here, the state is absent.”
Outsiders are not welcome in el Príncipe, and neither are the police, who rarely enter, and whose duties are limited to mediating in domestic disputes. In any case, the area’s narrow streets and alleyways prevent cars from patrolling; there is no station house. Even ambulances and fire services only come in when protected by the Civil Guard. The neighborhood, which sprawls up a windswept, barren hillside known as Monte Chico, is Spain’s African outpost.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Italy and Palestine Ink Bank Cooperation Accord
(ANSAmed) — RAMALLAH, NOVEMBER 4 — The Italian consulate in Jerusalem on Tuesday signed a Protocol of Understanding with the Palestinian Monetary Authority (PMA) to set up a ‘cooperative banking system’.
The three-year Start Up Palestine program aims to ‘‘foster new businesses and a stronger economy to benefit more marginalized sectors of society by facilitating access to financial services.’’ ‘‘Italy,’’ said Consul General Davide La Cecilia — who along with PMA governor Jihad Al-Wazir signed the agreement — ‘‘pledges to promote sustainable job opportunities and stable economic growth in Palestine through the introduction of an innovative banking system similar to savings and loans cooperatives.’’ The project will begin in mid-December, when financial sector and civil society representatives will come to Italy to take part in workshops on cooperative credit.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
How the Islamic State Evolved in an American Prison
In March 2009, in a wind-swept sliver of Iraq, a sense of uncertainty befell the southern town of Garma, home to one of the Iraq war’s most notorious prisons. The sprawling Camp Bucca detention center, which had detained some of the war’s most radical extremists along the Kuwait border, had just freed hundreds of inmates. Families rejoiced, anxiously awaiting their sons, brothers and fathers who had been lost to Bucca for years.
“Before their detention, Mr. al-Baghdadi and others were violent radicals, intent on attacking America,” wrote military veteran Andrew Thompson and academic Jeremi Suri in the New York Times this month. “Their time in prison deepened their extremism and gave them opportunities to broaden their following. … The prisons became virtual terrorist universities: The hardened radicals were the professors, the other detainees were the students, and the prison authorities played the role of absent custodian.”
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Iran Volleyball Match Jail Woman on Hunger Strike
Mother says protesting against ‘legal limbo’
(ANSA) — Rome, November 4 — Goncheh Ghavami, a British-Iranian woman who received a one-year jail sentence after attempting to watch a volleyball match in Teheran in June is on hunger strike for the second time her mother told the BBC, Tuesday.
Ghavami is protesting against her “legal limbo”: the judge still needs to confirm the accusation of “propaganda against the regime”, but the 25 year-old law graduate has already been sentenced to a one-year jail term, her family explained.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Iran’s Jailing of Woman for Volleyball Protest is ‘Appalling’: Amnesty International
NCRI — The British Iranian woman — Ghoncheh Ghavami — jailed in Tehran’s Evin prison since June for trying to watch men’s volleyball has been sentenced to one year in jail, her lawyer said.
State-run media in Iran quoted her lawyer as saying no official reason was given to him for Ghavami’s conviction.
Responding to reports on Gahavami’s sentence Amnesty International UK Director Kate Allen said on Sunday:
‘This is an appalling verdict.
‘It’s an outrage that a young woman is being locked up simply for peacefully having her say about how women are discriminated against in Iran.
‘Ghoncheh is a prisoner of conscience and the Iranian authorities should quash the sentence and release her immediately and unconditionally.
‘The authorities should also investigate allegations that Ghoncheh was subjected to death threats by her interrogators and provide compensation for her arbitrary detention and her prolonged solitary confinement.’
“Ghoncheh Ghavami, a 25-year-old Iranian-British national, has been held in Tehran’s Evin Prison since 30 June, largely in solitary confinement without access to her lawyer. She is a prisoner of conscience, arrested solely for taking part in a peaceful protest against the ban on women attending Volleyball World League matches in Tehran’s Azadi Stadium,” Amnesty International said in an Urgent Action on September 12 calling for her release.
The statement added: “On 30 June, plainclothes agents went with her to her house to confiscate her laptop and books and then took her to Section 2A of Evin Prison, where she was kept in solitary confinement, without access to her family or lawyer for 41 days.”
“She was subsequently transferred to a cell shared with another inmate. Ghoncheh Ghavami has said that during her prolonged solitary confinement, the interrogators put her under psychological pressure, threatening to move her to Gharchak Prison in the county of Varamin, Tehran Province, where prisoners convicted of serious criminal offences are held in dismal conditions, and telling her that she ‘would not walk out of prison alive’.”…
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ISIS Document Sets Prices on Christian and Yazidi Slaves
A document issued by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) mentioned the prices set by the terrorist group to sell Yazidi and Christian women and children abducted by its members.
According to the document “The market to sell women and spoils of war has been experiencing a significant decrease, which has adversely affected ISIS revenue and financing of the Mujahideen.”
ISIS decided to impose price controls over the sale of women and spoils, vowing to execute whoever violates those controls, which are as follows:
- A (Yazidi or Christian) woman, aged 40 to 50 years, is for 50,000 dinars.
- The rate of a (Yazidi or Christian) woman, aged 30 to 40 years, is 75,000 dinars.
- The rate for a (Yazidi or Christian) woman, aged 20 to 30 years, is 100,000 dinars.
- A (Yazidi or Christian) girl, aged 10 to 20 years, is for 150,000 dinars.
- A (Yazidi or Christian) child’s price, aged 1 to 9 years, is 200,000 dinars.
| — Hat tip: ESW | [Return to headlines] |
ISIS: Fabius: “After Kobane, Saving Aleppo is Key”
(ANSAmed) — PARIS, NOVEMBER 4 — French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius on Tuesday called on the international community opposing jihadists from the Islamic State to focus efforts on Aleppo, Syria’s second-largest city and “the bastion of the moderate opposition”, threatened both by regime and jihadi forces.
After Kobane, saving Aleppo is key, wrote Fabius in a column published by Le Figaro in France, the Washington Post in the United States and Al Hayat in the Arab world.
France is taking part in raids against the Islamic State in Iraq, but not in Syria, where the US are engaged alongside Arab countries.
“Aleppo is the martyred center of the resistance to Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, having been under constant bombardment by his forces since 2012. Now Aleppo is caught between the regime’s ‘barrel bombs’ and Daesh’s cutthroats”, Fabius wrote in the English version of the column published by the Post, explaining he referred to ISIS as Daesh, as it is known in the Arab world, rather than Islamic State “because the group is neither truly Islamic nor a state”.
Aleppo has been divided since July 2012 into two sectors, one faithful to Damascus and another, in the east, held by rebels.
“Assad and Daesh are two sides of the same barbaric coin”, wrote Fabius.
“These two faces of barbarism share a common aim: to destroy the moderate opposition”, the French minister wrote.
“Abandoning Aleppo would mean condemning 300,000 men, women and children to a terrible fate: either a murderous siege under the regime’s bombs or the terrorist barbarity of Daesh”.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Islamic State Seizes Natural Gas Field in Syria
Islamic State terrorists took over a natural gas field in the Homs province of Syria, as well as several caches of weapons from the Syrian fighters, several military sources said.
“Pictures show that the Islamic State has taken control of the Hayan gas plant,” United Press International reported, citing the Long War Journal’s photographic evidence.
The U.S. Defense Department — as well as coalition partners — has hit at the oil installations that are under terrorist control as a means of cutting off the group’s revenues and fuel supplies, UPI said.
The Islamic State used to control up to seven oil fields — a holding that allowed it to collect as much as $2 million a day in revenues.
That’s been trimmed a bit by international air strikers, but it’s not yet known how this new capture of the natural gas will bolster Islamic State abilities.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Israel Threatens to ‘Plunge Lebanon Back Into the Stone Age’
If Hezbollah were to attack it; in reply to Nasrallah’s speech
(ANSAmed) — TEL AVIV, NOVEMBER 4 — If Hezbollah were to attack Israel, the latter would “plunge Lebanon back into the Stone Age”, said Transport Minister and high-ranking Likud official Israel Katz.
The remark was made as a response to a threatening speech made on Tuesday by Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah for the Shia holiday Ashura. Nasrallah said that his armed organization is able to strike targets anywhere in Israel and halt operations at the Tel Aviv airport and the country’s seaports. Minister Katz said that “the cowardly, boastful Nasrallah should keep in mind that this option does not exist for him, since if it were to happen we would destroy Lebanon entirely.
The country would go back to the Stone Age, and he would be buried under the rubble.” The Israeli army has nevertheless taken Hezbollah’s threats seriously. In recent days a high-ranking official said that if another conflict were to break out against Hezbollah, operations at the Tel Aviv airport and the Haifa port would be halted from the first day of fighting.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Kurds Help ISIS With Terrain, Language in Battle for Kobani
Ethnic Kurds are helping members of the Islamic State group in the battle for the key Syrian Kurdish town of Kobani, sharing their knowledge of the local terrain and language with the extremists, according to Iraqi and Kurdish officials.
It is not clear how many Kurds are aiding the estimated 3,000 Islamic State militants in the Kobani area — and fighting against their own Kurdish brethren — but activists say they are playing a major role in the 7-week-old conflict near the Turkish border.
A top military commander for the extremists in the town is an Iraqi Kurd, known by the nom de guerre of Abu Khattab al-Kurdi, helping them in the battle against fellow Kurds.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Saudi Reliance on Oil ‘Dangerous’, Says Billionaire Prince
The fall of crude oil prices below $80 a barrel proves that Saudi Arabia’s reliance on petroleum revenue is “dangerous”, billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal said on Tuesday.
“Clearly the fact that the price of oil went down to below 80 proved that we were correct by asking the government to have other sources of income”, Alwaleed told reporters in the Red Sea city of Jeddah.
“Saudi Arabia depends 90 percent on oil, which is not right, it’s wrong and it’s dangerous, actually,” added the prince, who is a nephew of King Abdullah.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Turkey and Denmark Relations Under Strain
Turkey wants Denmark to account for the release of ten Kurds suspected of funding the PKK, while Denmark continues to wait for answers about Turkey’s release of a man suspected to trying to kill a well-known Islam critic.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Turkey: Erdogan’s Vast New Palace to Cost Over $600 Million
Ankara (AFP) — President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s grandiose new presidential palace is costing Turkey more than $600 million, nearly twice previous estimates, the country’s finance minister said Tuesday.
The vast new 1,000-room palace — more than 30 times larger than the White House and bigger even than France’s sprawling Palace of Versailles — has been condemned by the opposition as an absurd extravagance that showed Erdogan was slipping towards authoritarian rule.
Answering questions from opposition MPs, Finance Minister Mehmet Simsek said that the palace was costing around 1.37 billion Turkish lira (490 million euros, $615 million).
This included over 300 million lira ($135 million) that has been allocated in the budget for 2015, he added — a steep rise on previously quoted price tag of $350 million.
Simsek also revealed that another new Erdogan acquisition — a brand new Airbus A330-200 presidential jet — has cost $185 million.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
US Mulls Broadening Airstrikes to Include Jabhat Al-Nusra
Al-Qaeda makes gains against FSA. Isis tortured teenagers, HRW
(ANSAmed) — NEW YORK — As the Syrian Al-Qaeda affiliate Jabhat Al-Nusra defeats moderate Free Syrian Army (FSA) forces and advances towards a strategic border crossing with Turkey, the US has begun to consider widening airstrike operations to target this local rival of the Islamic State (ISIS) as well. “We want to help the opposition, we want to keep the border crossings open, and we’re looking a lot of things,” the Washington Post quoted an anonymous US official as saying on Tuesday. He added that “all of those actions are immensely complicated, for reasons you can imagine.”
Other sources told the daily that no decision had yet been made on the issue. However, in recent days US-backed rebels said that Jabhat Al-Nusra had entered numerous FSA bases in the northwestern Syrian province Idlib, west of Aleppo, and that they were only a few kilometers from the Bab Al-Hawa border crossing, one of the only two that the US and its allies continue to send humanitarian assistance and vital military provisions through.
Broadening the campaign of airstrikes to include Jabhat Al-Nusra — which has only once been targeted by the US-led coalition, on the first day of the bombing in Syria — would lead to a series of problems, the sources say, including a potential de facto alliance with the Bashar Al-Assad regime, which Nusra is also fighting against.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Thousands around the world on social media have shared the image of the “Angel of Kobane” or “Rehana”, a Kurdish fighter who has become a symbol of resistance against Islamic State. According to the stories, she’s slain as many as 100 Islamic State fighters. Only one hitch: she’s probably not who people think she is.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Poroshenko Asks to End East Ukraine’s Autonomy After Vote
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko will ask parliament to revoke a law giving more autonomy to regions occupied by pro-Russian separatists after the rebels held elections condemned by the U.S. and the European Union.
Ukraine is sticking to a Sept. 5 cease-fire, Poroshenko said, even as the government in Kiev accused insurgents of continuing to shell government forces and Russia of massing troops and military vehicles in rebel-occupied Luhansk and Donetsk. The results of Nov. 2 ballots in the two regions will be annulled and the votes redone in government-condoned votes slated for Dec. 7, Poroshenko said.
The law granting more autonomy to the eastern regions was at the center of the truce agreed in Minsk, Belarus, last month by Ukraine, Russia and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. Ukraine and the OSCE are the only parties adhering to the agreement, and the autonomy law’s revocation won’t affect the deal, Poroshenko said.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Russian Nationalists March on, Under Kremlin’s Wary Gaze
Russia’s nationalists will be on the march this week. And the Kremlin will be looking on — somewhat warily.
Russia’s motley nationalist community will hold its annual Russian March on November 4, an event traditionally held to coincide with the official Unity Day holiday. The main event is in Moscow, but spin-off marches will be held in various Russian cities and — for the first time this year — in the Ukrainian region of Crimea that was annexed by Russia in March.
Although President Vladimir Putin and his government have moved sharply in the direction of nationalism and patriotism over the last year, the authorities have turned a surprisingly cold shoulder to the Russian March this year. Instead of being held in the center of Moscow as organizers originally hoped, it has been pushed to the edge of the city.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Siberia’s Massive Moose Geoglyph Dated
CHELYABINSK, RUSSIA—Three years ago, researchers discovered a 900-foot-long stone structure in the shape of a moose high in the Ural Mountains. Now further archaeological work at the massive geoglyph has uncovered clues to its construction and allowed researchers to date it to between 4000 and 3000 B.C. Some 155 stone tools have been found near the geoglyph, most of which were used for digging or breaking stones. “Judging by the different sizes of the tools—from 17cm-long and weighing about three kilograms to some being just two centimeters—we can assume they were used by both adults and children,” Chelyabinsk History and Archaeology Institute archaeologist Stanislav Grigoryev told the Siberian Times.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Two Pakistan Christians Burned Alive for ‘Torching Koran’
By 400-strong crowd in village south of Lahore
(ANSA) — Rome, November 4 — Two Christians were burned to death in Pakistan by a 400-strong crowd angry at their allegedly burning copies of the Koran, local sources said.
The two, named as Shahzad and Shama, were burned alive ina village south of Lahore.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
The Terrible Beauty of a Mexican Mass Grave
As night falls over the slopes of the Cerro Gordo, the kaleidoscope of colours from yellow to black should be a delight for a photographer like myself. But the stunning natural beauty of the site in southern Mexico conceals a horrific hidden truth. The majestic mountain is a mass grave, a dumping ground for dozens — if not hundreds — of people fallen victim to the hellish violence of the Mexican drug trade.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
America and Western Countries: Becoming the World’s Refugee Camps, Part 6
Let’s talk about our sociological future. It’s not pretty. While we used to be a “melting pot” for many people, we now face becoming a conflagration of explosive religions, ethnic tensions and sociological mayhem.
Former Colorado Governor Lamm spoke about it in October 2003. You may have read my commentary on his speech: How to Destroy America.
Lamm said, “If you believe that America is too smug, too self-satisfied, too rich, then let’s destroy America. It is not that hard to do. No nation in history has survived the ravages of time. Arnold Toynbee observed that all great civilizations rise and fall, and that, “An autopsy of history would show that all great nations commit suicide.”
Lamm said. “First, turn America into a bilingual or multi lingual and bicultural country. History shows that no nation can survive the tension, conflict and antagonism of two or more competing languages and cultures. It is a blessing for an individual to be bilingual; however, it is a curse for a society to be bilingual. The historical scholar Seymour Lipset put it this way, “The histories of bilingual and bicultural societies that do not assimilate are histories of turmoil, tension and tragedy. Canada, Belgium, Malaysia, Lebanon — all face crises of national existence in which minorities press for autonomy, if not independence. Pakistan and Cyprus have divided. Nigeria suppressed an ethnic rebellion. France faces difficulties with Basques, Bretons and Corsicans.”
Lamm continued, “Invent ‘multiculturalism’ and encourage immigrants to maintain their own culture. I would make it an article of belief that all cultures are equal. That there are no cultural differences! I would make it an article of faith that the Black and Hispanic dropout rates are due to prejudice and discrimination by the majority. Every other explanation is out of bounds.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Two Egyptian ‘Migrant Traffickers’ Arrested
Men allegedly responsible for trafficking 58 immigrants
(ANSA) — Pozzallo, November 3 — Police stopped two men on Monday believed to be the speedboat pilots responsible for trafficking 58 immigrants who landed near the Sicilian coastal city of Ragusa on October 31.
The men, 32-year-old Mouhamed Mouhamed and 59-year-old Adel Ale Mouhamed Ale, both Egyptian, are under investigation by the Ragusa prosecutor’s office for conspiracy to aid illegal immigration.
The immigrants, rescued by the British merchant ship Normand Cutter, told investigators they were kept locked in a warehouse and beaten repeatedly until the day of the speedboat’s departure, and that they paid an average of 1,200 euros each for the trip.
Immigrants who landed at Pozzallo near Ragusa are currently being transferred to other centers because the Italian Coast Guard is bringing 350 more immigrants to that city’s port on Monday.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Our Leaders Must be Taught to Fear Us
You’re deeply upset by the way our country’s going, and in a few days there will be a national election. What will you do?
But first, what’s there to be upset about?
The party currently in power, the Democrats, has in recent years erased our southern border and imported Ebola into our country by refusing to ban incoming flights from African countries where the disease is running wild. Banning the flights would conflict with their open borders, citizens-of-the-world ideology.
They’re making your health insurance premiums go up more than you can afford to pay, as part of their project for a complete government takeover of the healthcare industry. Obamacare was only the first step.
They intend to grant “executive amnesty” — just try to find that in the Constitution — to unspecified millions of illegal aliens, all at once, thus voiding our immigration laws and laying the groundwork for the creation of a new electorate that will give them a license to do anything they please, as long as the welfare checks keep coming. That this will depress the national economy beyond repair means nothing to them.
They have, in just six years, instilled a culture of lawlessness within the government, abandoning their sworn duty to uphold the law.
They have pursued a foreign policy whose only recognizable objective seems to be to weaken our country and embolden her enemies. Other than that, it is no policy.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Sweden Prepares for Asylum Seeker Hike
Sweden’s Migration Board will announce the total number of asylum seekers it expects to move to the country by the end of the year at a key press conference at midday. Ongoing fighting in Iraq and Syria has already led to a sharp rise in asylum applications in Sweden.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
The Law and Assimilation at Issue
There is no more guess work needed to accurately assess the current immigration policy of the United States Federal Government, all three branches. The current policy is designed to forever alter the social fabric and population demographics of the United States.
Because Americans would never willingly accept “global governance” or Marxist notions like “social justice,” it was necessary to flood America with anti-American illegal aliens and legal immigrants. To “change” America, they have to “change Americans.”
An immigrant is someone who enters our country “legally” and abides by our laws, assimilating into American society, speaking our language and revering the principles of freedom and liberty that brought them to our shores.
Those who come here by any other manner are not “immigrants,” they are “illegal aliens.” They are mere illegal migrants, “inhabitants” of the territory, and certainly not “citizens.”
The Rule of Constitutional Law
In the United States, amendments and statutes which are of themselves not constitutional — have no force of law behind them. For any statute to enjoy the force of law, it must be in pursuance of the Supreme Law of the Land, the U.S. Constitution, to include the Bill of Rights.
Over the past 227 years, legislatures have drafted and passed many federal, state and local statutes which are directly in violation of the U.S. Constitution. In addition, the courts have assumed unconstitutional legislative authority via Common Law Rules of Precedent and Procedure, issuing numerous case rulings (aka common law) which directly undermine and subvert the Rule of Constitutional Law. The courts have unconstitutionally altered the Supreme Law of the Land by way of broad ungrounded interpretations and irregular applications of law.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Priebus’ promise that, should the GOP capture the U.S. Senate, they will stop Obama’s executive amnesty is just so much hot air. I guess he thinks that we have all forgotten then Speaker of The House Newt Gingrich’s “Contract With America.”
During the congressional elections of 1994, Gingrich promised the American people that if they put Republicans in charge of the Congress, they would pass legislation to eliminate five federal departments (Education, Energy, Commerce, Interior, and Housing and Urban Development), 95 federal domestic programs, and slash federal spending across the board. The GOP promises made during the ‘94 elections became known as the “Contract With America.”…
Now we have a Democratic President, Barack Obama, who is one of the most unpopular presidents of our entire history, and the GOP is struggling to energize its own base. How pathetic is that? That’s why RNC Chairman Reince Priebus took to the air with a live conference call with Tea Party activists. The national GOP has so alienated Tea Party conservatives that it is concerned that even with a despised Democrat President, disenfranchised conservatives within the GOP could stay home in large numbers next Tuesday.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Immigration From Outside Europe ‘Cost £120 Billion’
New report shows immigration over the Labour government years cost the public purse billions of pounds, while recent migration from inside Europe generated a £4 million surplus
Immigrants who came to live in Britain from outside Europe cost the public purse nearly £120 billion over 17 years, a new report has shown.
The major academic study also found, however, that recent immigration from Europe — driven by the surge in arrivals from eastern European — gave the economy a £4.4 billion boost over the same period.
Experts from University College London also said native Britons made a negative contribution of £591 billion over the 17 years — because of the country’s massive deficit.
The report analysed figures from 1995 to 2011, during most of which the Labour government was pursuing vigorously pro-immigration policies.
It found that migrants from outside the European Economic Area (EEA) made a negative contribution to the public purse of £117.9 billion because they consumed more in public expenditure — including NHS costs, welfare hand-outs and education — than they contributed in taxes.
The report, to be published in the Economic Journal, said the non-EEA group — largely made up of immigration from countries such as India, Pakistan and African Commonwealth countries — contributed less because families tended to have more children and lower employment rates…
| — Hat tip: Takuan Seiyo | [Return to headlines] |
Increasing gender and sexuality diversity equity in schools is important and valuable work.
As educators, we have the power to ensure that all students feel safe, respected, and welcome in our schools and classrooms. And that has the potential to transform society.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Soccer: Arezzo Boss Unrepentant After ‘Queers’ Jibe
Lippi said ‘the same thing’ claims Capuano
(ANSA) — Arezzo, November 4 — The manager of third-tier Arezzo, Ezio Capuano, was unrepentant Tuesday after saying he would not stand having “queers” on the field after a defeat Sunday.
“One of Italy’s greatest coaches, Marcello Lippi, once said he didn’t want to see any ‘little women’ flouncing around, and my comment was in the same vein,” Capuano said.
“In any case I apologised to my centre forward,” he added.
Capuano said after Sunday’s home loss to Alessandria Sunday: “I want players with balls and I don’t want to see any queers on the pitch”.
He added Monday: “I didn’t mean to offend anyone but I’m not going to apologise.
“I’m not homophobic, racist or sexist,” Capuano said.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Vatican ‘Condemns’ Brittany Maynard Assisted Suicide
Pontifical Academy for Life grants ‘sanctuary of conscience’
(ANSA) — Vatican City, November 4 — The Vatican on Tuesday condemned the assisted suicide of American brain cancer sufferer Brittany Maynard at the weekend while also recognising the “sanctuary” of individual conscience.
“Brittany Maynard’s gesture is in itself to be condemned, but what happened in her conscience is not for us to know,” Ignacio Carrasco de Paula, president of the Pontifical Academy for Life, told ANSA.
“We always choose by seeking what is good, the problem is when we get it wrong,” he continued “Conscience is like a sanctuary that cannot be entered. But let’s reflect on the fact that if one day the project according to which all patients take their own life were to be fully realised they would be totally abandoned,” Carrasco de Paula said.
“Society does not want to shoulder the cost of disease and this risks becoming the solution,” he continued. “This woman (took her own life) thinking she would die with dignity, but this is the error, suicide is not a good thing, it is a bad thing because it is saying no to life and to everything it means with respect to our mission in the world and towards those around us,” he said, describing assisted suicide as “an absurdity”. Maynard, 29, announced weeks ago that she was planning to end her life by taking prescribed lethal drugs probably on November 1 after being diagnosed with terminal brain cancer early this year. She and her husband moved from their home in northern California to Portland to be able to take advantage of Oregon state’s death with dignity legislation in order to do this. “She died as she intended — peacefully in her bedroom, in the arms of her loved ones,” said Sean Crowley, a spokesman for the advocacy group Compassion & Choices with which Maynard worked.
The video Maynard posted on Youtube in which she announced her decision has been viewed 9.8 million times, making her a key advocate in the right-to-die movement in the US and beyond.
In an obituary released by Compassion and Choices Maynard thanked all her supporters, whom she said she had “sought out like water” during her life and illness.
“It is people who pause to appreciate life and give thanks who are happiest. If we change our thoughts, we change our world! Love and peace to you all,” she said.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
All of our institutions fear both the Muslims and the homosexuals. The officials know that either group would launch such a venomous attack that no elected official would survive. The hypothetical mayor in this hypothetical situation would long ago have been forced to resign.
Will the Christians gathering in Houston this Sunday demand the resignation of the lesbian mayor? Why not? Why are our institutions no longer afraid of the Christians?
Population statistics reveal that Muslims make up less than 1% of the American population. Government statistics recently showed that the homosexual population makes up 1.6 % of the American population.
Let those numbers sink in. Why do both groups make Christians cower and run for cover?
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Largest Sunspot in 24 Years Wows Scientists, But Also Mystifies
The biggest sunspot to grace the face of the sun in more than two decades just rotated out of Earth’s view, but it was responsible for kicking up some truly amazing solar activity this week.
The sunspot (called Active Region 12192 or AR 2192) shot off four powerful flares in four days recently, with many more smaller flares sprinkled in as well. The sunspot region was about the size of the planet Jupiter and is the largest solar flare observed in 24 years.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
6. Whenever the Dems mention the word “shutdown,” any Republican strategy then in play will be abandoned with written apologies.
(Reuters) – U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) 68%, who is expected to become the Senate majority leader in January when Republicans take control of the chamber, on Wednesday ruled out government shutdowns or any default on the national debt on his watch.
It is what I have been afford of – they will not impeach P. Obozo and they will not repeal Obozocare. I am afraid that most of these Republicans are RINOs and phonies. Like Dr. Michael Savage has said two sides of the same coin. I am afraid we will see more wars to feed the Military Industrial Complex. check out http://www.infowars.com
Col Bunny, I believe him. The long nightmare of snarky games may be finally over. I am only now beginning to realize how I’d cauterized the feelings I had as I watched the Dems play sadistic games with legislation.
http://is.gd/00g00T
From a co-op editorial by McConnell and Boehner:
“Now We Can Get Congress Going Again”
[…]
It remains to be seen if Boehner will keep his position as Speaker of the House. If they’re smart, they’ll allow a period of transition so that the decision will be made with due consideration…Or it may be that Boehner is like Moses- i.e., he won’t dwell in the Promised Land.
Any move to impeach Obama — the “obozo” and other insulting variations on his name stopped being funny about 6 years ago — would be a distraction and an immoral waste of time. Meaningless.President Obama sits in not-so-splendid isolation with his wings cut. All he can do is look mean-spirited if he stomps on bills. Folks will get a good look at his royal sulks.
I pray that the GOP learned their lesson with the impeachment of Clinton. What a waste. If they’re smart they won’t get revenge, they’ll get even by PASSING A BUDGET and by limiting the debt. Sure Obama can veto, but when it goes back for reconsideration, he can’t stop the legislative branch anymore. His party’s over.
A hollow victory in deed, thought and word. The sign now hung outside the Congress is, ‘business as usual’. Little Johnny Boehner will make sure of that! Oh! Things could have been so different with the right people in place!
I disagree. This is a sea change. The GOP has been frozen out, emasculated and demoralized by the Dems. There was NO way that could have happened with the previous Senate.
We’ll have to agree to disagree on this one.
I understand that the US constitution emphasises the separation of powers, checks and balances etc, but wouldn’t it make things easier for you guys (and more comprehensible for the rest of us) if you re-elected your President, all of Congress and even your Governors at the same time? You could call it, oh, I don’t know… A General Election!
just a guess, but I think our elective scheme is another aspect of the separation of powers doctrine. w/ representatives submitting to an election every 2 years, 1/3 of the senators every 2 years (each senator serves a 6 year term), and the president every 4, it would be very difficult for a single party to maintain control of both the legislative and executive branches unless they were doing a very good job.
http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/nov/05/libyan-troops-flown-home-uk-training-camp?CMP=twt_gu
Libyan troops flown home as Cameron scraps UK training camp
Camp was intended to train 2,000 soldiers to bolster security in Libya but indiscipline – including rape charges – was rife
What about their human rights. Indiscipline and rape – imagine that from true believers of this beautiful “religion”. Very unislamic. Were they boarding with loving local Christian families? The levels of absolute ignoring reality is beyond comprehension. How can Turkey not “have a go” somewhere.
One of the Libyan soldiers said:
“It was the British from the beginning. They should have sought a solution and finished the training well. They didn’t tell us about British law and what’s the difference between right and wrong here.”
That’s what you get when you import people from an alien culture. They don’t even know the difference between right and wrong. Apparently they didn’t know that rape was wrong.
Maybe I’m cynical, but I view those comments of the accused as a sad attempt to justify their actions to the larger public by adopting the language of the victim.
They know perfectly well how such ploys appeal to the liberal leadership and media that are currently in the process of destroying the UK.
I may be completely wrong about this but I have a strong suspicion that whoever came up with this plan to train ISIS in the UK must be a bit too out of touch to be leading. Hopefully their mentors are not in Pakistan or Turkey. It has become so tic-tic bizarre.