Gates of Vienna News Feed 5/31/2015

Secretary of State John Kerry was hospitalized in Switzerland after falling off his bicycle and breaking his leg. Mr. Kerry is in stable condition, and reportedly in good spirits.

In other news, hundreds of thousands of Turks took to the streets of Istanbul yesterday to celebrate the 562nd anniversary of the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople.

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

Thanks to C. Cantoni, Erick Stakelbeck, Fjordman, Insubria, JD, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.

Notice to tipsters: Please don’t submit extensive excerpts from articles that have been posted behind a subscription firewall, or are otherwise under copyright protection.

Caveat: Articles in the news feed are posted “as is”. Gates of Vienna cannot vouch for the authenticity or accuracy of the contents of any individual item posted here. We check each entry to make sure it is relatively interesting, not patently offensive, and at least superficially plausible. The link to the original is included with each item’s title. Further research and verification are left to the reader.

Financial Crisis
» A Recession Within a Recession
» Another Housing Collapse Looms Over Horizon
» Greece’s Tsipras Attacks Creditors Over ‘Absurd’ Reforms
» Greek Prime Minister Talks Bailout Deal in New Conference Call With Hollande, Merkel
» Is the 505 Trillion Dollar Interest Rate Derivatives Bubble in Imminent Jeopardy?
» Texas Senate Passes Bill to Establish Bullion Depository, Help Facilitate Transactions in Gold and Silver
 
USA
» 15 Chinese Citizens Indicted in Alleged College Test-Taking Scheme
» A Virtuous Society
» Baltimore Residents Fearful Amid Rash of Homicides
» Bill Nye Wants to ‘Remind Voters’ — Do Not Support Climate Change Deniers
» Biotech Shills Posing as Economists Try to Boost GMO Sales by Proposing Subsidies for Junk Food and Taxes for Organic Food
» California Dreaming: Record $500 Million Tag on L.A. Home
» Current NSA Officials Admit Agency is Drowning in Too Much Info
» Divide and Conquer: The Political Philosophy of the New Millennium
» Emergence of a National Police Force
» Emergency Powers Give Barack Obama Authority Over Just About Everything During a Major National Crisis
» Full Slate of Democratic and GOP Presidential Hopefuls Roar Above the Din Sunday
» Joe Biden’s Son Beau Dies of Brain Cancer, Aged 46
» Looking Behind the Curtain in Texas Education Reform
» Massive Dirty Bomb Exercise Set for June: “We Are Clearly Seeing an Undeniable Buildup to a So Far Unknown Event”
» Michael Jackson’s Neverland Ranch Up for Sale
» Muslim Woman Claims United Airlines Attendant Refused Her an Unopened Can of Diet Coke Saying it Could be Used as Weapon
» Newborn Baby Dies After Receiving Eight Vaccinations on Schedule; Pathologists Confirm Vaccines Responsible for Death
» ‘No Diet Coke for You’: Islamophobia at 30,000 Feet Leads to Viral United Airlines Boycott
» NSA Director Wants ‘Maritime’ Law for Internet
» Rand Paul in Chicago: Crime ‘Not a Racial Thing, It is a Spiritual Problem’
» Report: US Police Officers Kill More Than Two People a Day
» So Far, All Clear: New Horizons Team Completes First Search for Pluto System Hazards
» Swordfish Kills Fisherman Who Was Trying to Catch it in Hawaii
» The Americans
» The Year of Homegrown Jihad: Already 41 U.S. Citizens Arrested on Terror-Related Charges in 2015
» This is How Little it Cost Goldman to Bribe America’s Senators to Fast Track Obama’s TPP Bill
» Trouble in the Skies
» U.S. Approaching an Abyss
» US Vice-President Joe Biden’s Son Dies
» Using the King’s Star Chamber to Smackdown Private Property Rights
» Washington Post Editorial Board Functions as Quack Science Monsanto Operatives… Key Articles Essentially ‘Written’ By Monsanto… Eat More GMO!
» We Need Actual Free Trade, Not the TPP
» Why Won’t Pamela Geller Behave?
 
Canada
» Canada’s Police Edited Out Islamic Prayers From Jihad Murderer’s Video
 
Europe and the EU
» Czech City Remembers Expelled Ethnic Germans
» Denmark to Standardize Halal Rules
» Denmark’s Radical Parties Vie for Power as Terror Casts a Shadow Over Poll
» Germany Referred to EU Court on Airport Security and E-Waste
» German Police Alerted to Armed Mob, Find Asparagus Pickers
» In Germany the Lowest Birth Rate in the World
» Intesa Sanpaolo: Italy Risks Losing Opportunities in the East
» Italy’s Parmigiano Reggiano Exports Booming
» Italy: Piedmont Suing Fuksas for 14mn
» Italy: League Leader Salvini ‘Like Hitler’ — Roma-Sinti Foundation
» John Kerry Breaks Leg in Bicycle Crash in France
» Netherlands: More Primary School Pupils Attend Muslim Schools
» Next-Generation Plane Engines Take a LEAP Towards Delivery
» Scrapping Britain’s Fleet of Sub-Hunting Planes Has Left Russia Free to Spy on Trident, Warn Defence Chiefs
» Sweden: ‘Poison is Spreading’ In the Land: Finance Minister
» UK: C of E Crisis as it Loses 1.7m Followers — and Islam Gains 900,000
» UK: Fury as BBC Brands Churchill ‘An Enemy of the People’: New Documentary Depicts Former Prime Minister as a Deeply Hated Drunk
» UK: Rapist Alan Wilmot Who Attacked Four Women Let Out on Day Release ‘To Rape Again’
» UK: Subway Removes Ham and Bacon From Nearly 200 Stores and Offers Halal Meat Only After ‘Strong Demand’ From Muslims
» UK: Village at War Over the ‘Speed Gun Nazi’
» UK: Watch Amazing Scenes as Mosque Meeting Turns Into a Mass Brawl With Chairs and Punches Thrown and Blood Spilled
» Welfare Jihad in Europe
 
North Africa
» Egypt Demolishes Former President Hosni Mubarak’s Party Headquarters
» Gene Study Shows Humans Took Egyptian Path Out of Africa
» ISIS Advances in Libya, Sirte Airport Seized
 
Israel and the Palestinians
» Protests Shine Spotlight on Challenges for Ethiopian Jews in Israel
 
Middle East
» Christian Syrian Fighter Beheads ISIS Prisoner in Revenge Attack
» Churches in Turkey on the Verge of Extinction
» Hundreds of Thousands Celebrate Ottoman Conquest of Istanbul
» Iran’s School Textbooks — Can Congress Afford to Ignore it?
» IS Commander Who Helped British Girls in Syria
» ‘Islamic State’ Calls for a Shiite-Free Arabian Peninsula
» Turkey Breaks Poster World Record, With Image of President and Prime Minister
» US-Trained Special Forces Chief Joins ISIS, Vows to Bring Jihad to Russia & America
» Why ISIS is Winning, And How Its Foes Can Reverse That Success
 
Russia
» European Union Anger at Russian Travel Blacklist
» ‘I’m Proud’: Blacklisted EU Politicians Welcome Russia Travel Bans
» Putin Shut Out From G7 Meeting
» Russian Aircraft Head Off American Destroyer in Black Sea
» Russia Puts 89 Western Leaders on Secret Ban List
 
South Asia
» India: Lynch Mob Justice as ‘Guru’ Is Beaten to Death for Beheading a Boy, 5
» Nepal Quake: Schools in Affected Areas Start to Re-Open
» Rain Brings Little Relief as India Heat Toll Passes 2,200
» UN Calls on Kyrgyz Authorities to Revise Bill That Labels NGOs as “Foreign Agents”
 
Far East
» China Dismisses US Accusations of Expansionism in South China Sea
» Japan is Working on Mega-Lasers to Blast Space Junk
» Thyroid Cancer Rates in Japanese Children Living Near Fukushima Catastrophe Skyrocketed by 6,000%
 
Australia — Pacific
» Solar Impulse Plane Begins Pacific Crossing
 
Latin America
» Police Arrest Meteorite Thieves With 1,500 Kilos of Rock in Argentina
 
Immigration
» Coulter: Some Cultures, Like Mexico’s ‘Obviously Deficient’
» France: Calais Police Tackle Illegal Migrants Stowing Away on Trucks to UK (Photo Report)
» Hugh Fitzgerald: No, But it Will Help
» Most Democrats Think Illegal Immigrants Should Vote
» Now EU Plans to Bribe Countries With Their Own Money to Take Boat Migrants
» Trojan Horse Federal Refugee Program Brings Jihadi Threat to America: An Interview With Ann Corcoran
» Tunisia PM: Destroying Boats Used by Smugglers Won’t Stop Flow of Migrants to Europe
» With Amnesty, Elites Conspire Against the Middle Class
 
Culture Wars
» Churches Next for Homoactivists
» Complaints Prompt Catholic University to Remove Statue of Priest Praying Over Indians
» Education System Now Graduating Al Gores From Public Schools
» Power From the King for the Kingdom
» Sleep Training ‘May Reduce Racism and Sexism’
» So the GOP Must Embrace Evil to Survive. Really?
» UK: Strictly ‘To Have Same-Sex Pairs’: Judge Craig Revel Horwood Predicts Two Men or Two Women Could Dance Together on the Show Within Two Years
» Virgin Mary Painting Covered in Dung and Porn to be Sold at Christie’s
 
General
» FIFA’s Sepp Blatter Victim of Conspiracy, Daughter Says
» Is Sex Hormone Testosterone to Blame for Corrupting World Leaders? New Study Reveals Surprising Science Behind Corruption and Power
 

A Recession Within a Recession

On Friday, the federal government announced that the U.S. economy contracted at a 0.7 percent annual rate during the first quarter of 2015. This unexpected shrinking of the economy is being primarily blamed on “ harsh” weather during the first three months of this year and on the strengthening of the U.S. dollar. Most economists are confident that U.S. GDP will rebound back into positive territory when the numbers for the second quarter come out, but if that does not happen we will officially meet the government’ s criteria for being in another “ recession” . To make sure that the numbers for Q2 will look “ acceptable” , the Bureau of Economic Analysis is about to change the way that it calculates GDP again. They are just going to keep “ seasonally adjusting” the numbers until they get what they want. At this point, the government numbers are so full of “assumptions” and “estimates” that they don’ t really bear much resemblance to reality anyway. In fact, John Williams of shadowstats.com has calculated that if the government was actually using honest numbers that they would show that we have continually been in a recession since 2005. That is why I am referring to this as a “recession within a recession” . Most people can look around and see that economic conditions for most Americans are not good, and now they are about to get even worse.

For quite a while I have been warning that another economic downturn was coming. Well, now we have official confirmation from the Obama administration that it is happening. The following is an excerpt from the statement that the Bureau of Economic Analysis released on Friday…

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Another Housing Collapse Looms Over Horizon

I bought my first home in 1990. It was a small townhouse and I paid $100k, put 10% down, and obtained a 9.875% mortgage. I was thrilled to get under 10%. Those were different times, when you bought a home as a place to live. We had our first kid in 1993 and started looking for a single family home. We stopped because our townhouse had declined in value to $85k, so I couldn’t afford to sell. In 1995 I convinced my employer to rent my townhouse, as they were already renting multiple townhouses for all the foreigners doing short term assignments in the U.S. We bought a single family home in 1995 with the sole purpose of having a decent place to raise a family that was within 20 minutes of my job.

Considering home prices on an inflation adjusted basis were lower than they were in 1980, I was certainly not looking at it as some sort of investment vehicle. But, as you can see from the chart, nationally prices soared by about 55% between 1995 and 2005. My home supposedly doubled in value over 10 years. I was ecstatic when I was eventually able to sell my townhouse in 2004 for $134k. I felt so smart, until I saw a notice in the paper one year later showing my old townhouse had been sold again for $176k. Who knew there were so many greater fools.

This was utterly ridiculous, as home prices over the last 100 years have gone up at the rate of inflation. Robert Shiller and a few other rational thinking people called it a bubble. They were scorned and ridiculed by the whores at the NAR and the bimbo cheerleaders on CNBC. Something smelled rotten in the state of housing. We now know who was responsible. Greenspan and Bernanke were at least 75% responsible for the housing bubble and its eventual implosion, which essentially destroyed our economic system. They purposely kept interest rates at obscenely low levels, encouraging every Tom, Dick and Julio to buy a home with a negative amortization, no doc, nothing down, adjustable rate mortgage, so they could live the American dream of being in debt up to their eyeballs.

And now we come to present day and something really smells fishy again. Home prices crashed by 40% between 2005 and 2012, putting prices back to 1978 on an inflation adjusted basis. All of the bubble gains were wiped out in the blink of an eye. Bernanke and his Wall Street owners had a real problem with this development. Wall Street banks had/have billions in toxic mortgages on their books and only accounting fraud by not having to mark them to market has kept these banks from having to declare bankruptcy. Bernanke, Geithner, and the Wall Street banks hatched their master plan to save themselves at the expense of young people in 2011/2012.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Greece’s Tsipras Attacks Creditors Over ‘Absurd’ Reforms

Greece’s Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras on Sunday attacked its creditors for insisting on what he described as absurd reforms which have only held up progress in negotiations for a deal aimed at preventing his country from defaulting.

“The lack of an agreement so far is not due to the supposed intransigent, uncompromising and incomprehensible Greek stance,” Tsipras wrote in a column published by French newspaper Le Monde.

“It is due to the insistence of certain institutional actors on submitting absurd proposals and displaying a total indifference to the recent democratic choice of the Greek people,” he added…

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]
 

Greek Prime Minister Talks Bailout Deal in New Conference Call With Hollande, Merkel

ATHENS, Greece — Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras has had a conference call with the leaders of France and Germany to discuss progress in the talks between Athens and its lenders, officials say.

The Sunday evening call with French President Francois Hollande and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the second in three days, lasted 35 minutes, “went very well” and it was agreed that a deal must be completed very soon, the officials said.

The German government described the conversation as constructive but gave no further details.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Is the 505 Trillion Dollar Interest Rate Derivatives Bubble in Imminent Jeopardy?

All over the planet, large banks are massively overexposed to derivatives contracts. Interest rate derivatives account for the biggest chunk of these derivatives contracts. According to the Bank for International Settlements, the notional value of all interest rate derivatives contracts outstanding around the globe is a staggering 505 trillion dollars. Considering the fact that the U.S. national debt is only 18 trillion dollars, that is an amount of money that is almost incomprehensible. When this derivatives bubble finally bursts, there won’ t be enough money in the entire world to bail everyone out. The key to making sure that all of these interest rate bets do not start going bad is for interest rates to remain stable. That is why what is going on in Greece right now is so important. The Greek government has announced that it will default on a loan payment that it owes to the IMF on June 5th. If that default does indeed happen, Greek bond yields will soar into the stratosphere as panicked investors flee for the exits. But it won’ t just be Greece. If Greece defaults despite years of intervention by the EU and the IMF, that will be a clear signal to the financial world that no nation in Europe is truly safe. Bond yields will start spiking in Italy, Spain, Portugal, Ireland and all over the rest of the continent. By the end of it, we could be faced with the greatest interest rate derivatives crisis that any of us have ever seen.

The number one thing that bond investors want is to get their money back. If a nation like Greece is actually allowed to default after so much time and so much effort has been expended to prop them up, that is really going to spook those that invest in bonds.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Texas Senate Passes Bill to Establish Bullion Depository, Help Facilitate Transactions in Gold and Silver

A bill taking a step towards gold and silver as commonly-used legal tender in Texas passed in the state Senate today by an overwhelming 29-2 vote.

Introduced by State Rep. Giovanni Capriglione (R- Southlake) and four co-sponsors on Feb. 12, House Bill 483 (HB483) would create a state bullion depository. It reads, in part:…

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

15 Chinese Citizens Indicted in Alleged College Test-Taking Scheme

PITTSBURGH (AP) — Fifteen Chinese citizens have been indicted by a federal grand jury in Pittsburgh in a scheme to take college entrance exams on behalf of others, who then were able to obtain student visas.

The indictment announced Thursday says the alleged conspirators scammed tests run by Educational Testing Service and the College Board — such as the Scholastic Aptitude Test, or SAT — under false pretenses.

The indictment clearly identifies six suspects as students and five as test-takers, but isn’t clear on the role of the others — including three whose names remain under seal.

The indictment says some students paid nearly $6,000 to have the tests taken in their name.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

A Virtuous Society

Benjamin Franklin emphasized that without virtue, free societies could not properly function. He said, “Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters.”

With freedom comes responsibility. The responsible society is one that is virtuous. A man with virtue is a man that possesses “sacred honor.” It is for the sake of a free society that men must deny the evils of human nature, and implement the principles of being virtuous into their own lives. It is best for society, and for one’s own existence, to strive for betterment, to strive to improve oneself each and every day. To be civilized, and be restrained from the temptation of mob rule, is among the cornerstones of a free society.

Benjamin Franklin established that the journey to being a moral culture is anchored in thirteen virtues. Franklin worked daily to achieve a moral life by pursuing these thirteen virtues. He even kept a journal and charts to assist him in keeping track of his progress in living his life with each of the virtues as his guide. Franklin admitted that perfection is unattainable, agreeing with biblical doctrine that “all have fallen short of the Glory of God,” but he believed that being in constant pursuit of a moral life would make him, and anyone else that pursued this kind of life, a better and happier individual. If society was filled with such people who sought a moral life, society would remain prosperous and free, and liberty would be maintained.

The thirteen virtues were; Temperance, Silence, Order, Resolution, Frugality, Industry, Sincerity, Justice, Moderation, Cleanliness, Tranquility, Chastity and Humility.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Baltimore Residents Fearful Amid Rash of Homicides

BALTIMORE (AP) — Antoinette Perrine has barricaded her front door since her brother was killed three weeks ago on a basketball court near her home in the Harlem Park neighborhood of West Baltimore. She already has iron bars outside her windows and added metal slabs on the inside to deflect the gunfire.

“I’m afraid to go outside,” said Perrine, 47. “It’s so bad, people are afraid to let their kids outside. People wake up with shots through their windows. Police used to sit on every corner, on the top of the block. These days? They’re nowhere.”

“Before it was over-policing. Now there’s no police,” said Donnail “Dreads” Lee, 34, who lives in the Gilmor Homes, the public housing complex where Gray, 25, was arrested.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Bill Nye Wants to ‘Remind Voters’ — Do Not Support Climate Change Deniers

Nye appeared on CNN Friday and used the opportunity to compel voters to support only those candidates who believe man-made global warming is worsening natural disasters around the world.

The Science Guy tied the recent Texas and Oklahoma flooding to man-made global warming and said that it’s past time to talk about climate change in the media at the level of Ferguson and Baltimore. He also called attention to how expensive monetary relief can be for areas affected by natural disasters and urged more effort to combat global warming.

Speaking to Carol Costello, who seemed unconvinced at times, Nye made his pitch:

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Biotech Shills Posing as Economists Try to Boost GMO Sales by Proposing Subsidies for Junk Food and Taxes for Organic Food

(NaturalNews) As the drought in California — home to much of the nation’s food production — worsens, desperation is rampant as politicians, policymakers and others scramble for ways to mitigate the worsening crisis.

One of the most recent ideas is also one of the most foolish because it is based on a series of misconceptions and outright falsehoods that have been perpetuated in large part by the mainstream media.

As reported by The Daily Caller, economists who are allegedly “environmentally savvy” are suggesting that growers of organic foods in the state be taxed, as if that will solve the water crisis.

According to this line of thinking, organic farms are not as efficient with their use of water as “conventional” (as in, GMO-producing) farms, say economists with the Property and Environment Research Center and the Hoover Institution. These economists say that pricing that “inefficiency” into organic products will lead consumers will use less of them.

In other words, they propose punishing people who want a healthier choice of foods and products as well as the growers who provide them.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

California Dreaming: Record $500 Million Tag on L.A. Home

One of the biggest homes in U.S. history is rising on a Los Angeles hilltop, and the developer hopes to sell it for a record $500 million.

Nile Niami, a film producer and speculative residential developer, is pouring concrete in L.A.’s Bel Air neighborhood for a compound with a 74,000-square-foot (6,900-square-meter) main residence and three smaller homes, according to city records. The project, which will take at least 20 more months to complete, will exceed 100,000 square feet, including a 5,000-square-foot master bedroom, a 30-car garage and a “Monaco-style casino,” Niami said.

“The house will have almost every amenity available in the world,” he wrote in an e-mail. “The asking price will be $500 million.”

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Current NSA Officials Admit Agency is Drowning in Too Much Info

Former top NSA officials have repeatedly said that the NSA is collecting TOO MUCH information on Americans to be able to stop terror attacks.

The Intercept reports that current mid-level NSA officials confirm that the NSA is gathering TOO MUCH information… and it’s making it impossible to focus:

“We in the agency are at risk of a similar, collective paralysis in the face of a dizzying array of choices every single day,” the analyst wrote in 2011. “‘Analysis paralysis’ isn’t only a cute rhyme. It’s the term for what happens when you spend so much time analyzing a situation that you ultimately stymie any outcome …. It’s what happens in SIGINT [signals intelligence] when we have access to endless possibilities, but we struggle to prioritize, narrow, and exploit the best ones.”

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Divide and Conquer: The Political Philosophy of the New Millennium

How can we know what we read in the newspapers or on the Internet or see on television or hear on the radio is factual? If it’s factual, how do we know the person being blamed is the real villain? Often, no one has time let alone the experience or contacts to know where to look for verification, so how can we know when we are being misinformed?

What has caused the downward spiral in which America finds itself?

If you answered “divide and conquer,” go to the head of the class.

When you read or hear or watch news and find yourself being subtly pulled to support one group against another group — a divisive technique — beware. The enemy’s primary tool is divide and conquer. Any information someone tries to feed you that causes a division between people of faith, people who love their country, people of different races, constitutionalists, — it is a big red flag that you are being fed a story that supports an enemy of a strong America. When news networks cover a story over and over again for a week or more, ask your self if something major is happening that “they” are hiding and are diverting your attention with a story designed to do just that. For example, on 3 Apr 2014 Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 disappeared. It provided news watchers/readers with tremendous drama and happened on the same day North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said he had approved nuclear weapons sufficient to start World War III. We didn’t hear about that — perhaps that’s what they were hiding?

Or were they hiding what was going on in Ukraine which was a major issue… so too was Syria, Isis, Iran, and many other events — like a pipeline for Qatar that would diminish Russia’s hold on the provision of oil to European nations. The false flag worked… no news source was providing any information about these and other items of importance. All we heard about was Flight 370.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Emergence of a National Police Force

With the recent shooting in Ferguson and deaths in New York City and Baltimore of residents there involved in criminal activity at the time of their arrests, there is an outcry from the likes of civil rights activist Al Sharpton and others for nullification of state’s rights and the takeover of local and state police forces nationwide by the Federal Government, specifically by the Executive Branch.

In all of this, keep in mind that Obama has very successfully used “straw man” arguments to advance his objectives. In this particular case, the “straw man” argument being put forward is that all law enforcement agencies across America are inherently racist and that only his takeover of them will fix these racist organizations.

He has essentially painted a bull’s eye on the backs of our local and state law enforcement personnel and endorsed instead the criminal element in America that has responded by assassination style shootings of law enforcement personnel in NYC and most recently in Mississippi as well.

The nationalization of our local and state police forces is indeed a very bad idea and should be adamantly opposed by both the states and the general populace for several reasons.

First and foremost, it would bring ALL organized armed personnel, namely the American Military, Homeland Security, and all local and state police under the direct control of one man, namely Obama and any future Presidents of the United States.

That would in turn allow for tremendous abuses of that power that we have already seen in this Administration, such as use of the IRS and DHS against what he perceives to be his domestic enemies, namely anyone who opposes him and his policies.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Emergency Powers Give Barack Obama Authority Over Just About Everything During a Major National Crisis

Presidents have always exercised emergency powers, but now thanks to dozens of new laws, regulations, court decisions and executive orders, Barack Obama is the most powerful president in all of U.S. history. Of course the U.S. Constitution does not actually give the president any special powers during a time of national emergency, but over time presidents have decided that they should be able to exercise such powers and the courts have generally agreed with them. During World War II and prior to that, these emergency powers were largely uncodified and were primarily used during times of war. But since World War II things have completely changed, and this has particularly been true since 9/11. Over the past decade or so, a whole host of extraordinary powers have specifically been given to the office of the president, and all that it takes to exercise them is a major “ national emergency” . So if we do have a full-blown economic collapse, a historic natural disaster, a significant war or a massive pandemic, Barack Obama could use the emergency powers that he has been given to essentially take authority over everything.

There is not a single document or series of documents that contain all of the emergency powers that Barack Obama could potentially wield during a major national emergency. As I mentioned above, these powers come from literally dozens of laws, regulations, court decisions and executive orders. But in this article I will discuss a few important documents. One of these is a presidential directive that was issued during the second term of George W. Bush. It is entitled NATIONAL SECURITY PRESIDENTIAL DIRECTIVE/NSPD — 51/HOMELAND SECURITY PRESIDENTIAL DIRECTIVE/HSPD — 20, and you can take a look at it on the FEMA website right here. This document is primarily concerned with the continuity of our federal government in the event of a catastrophic emergency. So precisely what would constitute a “ catastrophic emergency” ? The following is how the document defines that term…

“ Catastrophic Emergency” means any incident, regardless of location, that results in extraordinary levels of mass casualties, damage, or disruption severely affecting the U.S. population, infrastructure, environment, economy, or government functions;

That sounds quite broad to me. It could apply to all sorts of scenarios.

If we do have such a “ catastrophic emergency” , the president essentially becomes a dictator at that point.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Full Slate of Democratic and GOP Presidential Hopefuls Roar Above the Din Sunday

Nearly a dozen GOP and Democratic presidential candidates and hopefuls took to the national stage on Sunday, trying to distinguish themselves on such key issues as education, Wall Street, the future of NSA surveillance programs and stopping the Islamic State.

Nine candidates, in fact, spoke on five different Sunday morning political shows, including former Hewlett-Packard chief executive Carly Fiorina, who continues to argue that her lack of political experience doesn’t disqualify her from being president.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Joe Biden’s Son Beau Dies of Brain Cancer, Aged 46

Former Delaware Attorney General Beau Biden, the son of US Vice-President Joe Biden, has died of brain cancer.

The 46-year-old was taken to hospital earlier this month at the Walter Reed Army Medical Centre, near Washington.

Beau Biden was seen as a rising star of US politics but suffered health problems in recent years. He had intended to run for Delaware state governor in 2016.

“The entire Biden family is saddened beyond words”, the vice-president said.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Looking Behind the Curtain in Texas Education Reform

Sweeping changes are coming in education reform. Those of us who follow what has been transpiring in Washington D.C. are following closely the number of bills currently up for debate in various committees in the House and the Senate. It’s all about reauthorization of ESEA. The last time the landmark education bill of 1965 was reauthorized was 2002 when No Child Left Behind left its imprint on education. Now the nation is going to get another bill of misguided semantics, The Every Child Achieves Act of 2015.

Of great importance, also, is what is happening in the states. Currently debated in the Texas Legislature are education reform bills that stand to reshape the educational landscape in The Lone Star State. Depending on which side of the debate you are on, these bills will provide new possibilities for parents of Texas to have choice in where their children attend school, or will send the schools in the state into further decline as stricter sanctions are placed on them through new school accountability laws. In the Texas publication Teach the Vote from April of 2015 we see the link between what is currently being debated in Washington on the re-authorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) and what is debated in the Texas legislature. What is tying the two government bodies together is a sweeping change of legislation that promises to turn the public and private educational systems upside down.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Massive Dirty Bomb Exercise Set for June: “We Are Clearly Seeing an Undeniable Buildup to a So Far Unknown Event”

A massive simulated dirty bomb attack exercise is set to take place at the end of June in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Operation Northern Exposure will include over 1,000 Michigan National Guard soldiers and will be the first time in history that local authorities have worked with the National Guard.

According to WoodTV.com, the drill will use a city landfill as the site for the simulated dirty bomb attack and a middle school for the “decontamination center.”

“The public may notice more military vehicles in the area, as well as helicopters bringing crews to and from the sites, but the general public won’t be impacted. Local officials said traffic in the area won’t be affected.”

[Comment: Possible cover for a “false flag” event?]

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Michael Jackson’s Neverland Ranch Up for Sale

Michael Jackson’s Neverland ranch has gone up for sale with a price tag of $100m (£65m), reports the Wall Street Journal.

The Santa Barbara development was once home to a zoo, an amusement park and its own fire station.

Much of this has gone but there is still a floral clock and a railway.

Jackson bought the house in 1987 for $19.5m but struggled to pay for it, until an investment company stepped in to help him save it from auction.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Muslim Woman Claims United Airlines Attendant Refused Her an Unopened Can of Diet Coke Saying it Could be Used as Weapon

Tahera Ahmad claimed on her Facebook page she was denied an unopened can of Diet Coke on a United Airlines flight because, the flight attendant said, it could be used as a weapoon.

United Airlines has been accused of discrimination after refusing to give an unopened can of Diet Coke to a female Muslim passenger.

Tahera Ahmad said in a post on her Facebook page that the flight attendant was “clearly discriminating against me” after giving the male passenger seated next to her an unopened can of beer.

She did not respond to the Daily News’ request for comment.

Ahmad, who is the Muslim chaplain at Northwestern University, said that in the ensuing argument, one of her fellow passengers told her: “You (are) Moslem, you need to shut the f—k up.”

The alleged incident happened as she asked for the can of pop on a flight from Chicago to Washington on Friday. Ahmad was traveling to attend an interfaith event for KIDS4PEACE to promote peaceful conversations between Israelis and Palestinians.

Ahmad was given one can that had already been opened, but said she wanted an unopened can for hygienic reasons.

But she said she was told by the flight attendant: “Well, I’m sorry. I just can’t give you an unopened can, so no Diet Coke for you.”

Ahmad said she then pointed out that the man next to her had just been handed an unopened beer and told the attendant she was being discriminated against. The employee then quickly opened her neighbor’s beer can.

The flight attendant then told the passenger: “We are unauthorized to give unopened cans to people, because they may use it as a weapon on the plane.”

Asking other passengers for help, she was then told to “shut the f—k up,” Ahmad claimed.

“I can’t help but cry on this plane because I thought people would defend me and say something,” she wrote in the post. “Some people just shook their heads in dismay. “#IslamophobiaISREAL”

But people on the Internet have supported her and the post had received nearly 7,000 shares as of Sunday morning. Some Twitter users pledged to boycott the airline and are sharing a picture of a can of Diet Coke with the hashtag #unitedfortahera.

United said in a statement issued Saturday night that the flight attendant on Shuttle America flight 3504 attempted “several times” to accommodate Ahmad’s request and there was an initial misunderstanding.

They also said the flight’s crew talked to her when they arrived and the company further reached out Saturday afternoon to apologize to her.

“We look forward to having the opportunity to welcome Ms. Ahmad back,” United said.

A United spokesman declined additional comment to the Daily News.

But Ahmad said in another post early Sunday morningthat she was “truly disappointed” by the company’s response, which she said labeled the incident as a can of soda-specific issue and did not addressed the bias she said she encountered.

[Return to headlines]
 

Newborn Baby Dies After Receiving Eight Vaccinations on Schedule; Pathologists Confirm Vaccines Responsible for Death

(NaturalNews) A Michigan mother’s painful journey to find answers to her son’s mysterious death has unearthed yet another case of vaccine-induced early mortality. The untimely fate of Elijah Daniel French, who was born on May 4, 2007, and died just days after receiving eight routine vaccinations in accordance with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)’s recommended vaccine schedule, has been determined by a child death investigator and several pathologists to have been caused by the vaccines.

As originally reported by VacTruth.com (and archived here), young Danny’s (as his parents called him) heartbreaking story begins like many others: He was completely healthy, smiling and normal until being jabbed by establishment white-coats with multiple government-recommended vaccines all at once. He quickly digressed into poor health, almost immediately suffering from breathing problems and high fever.

According to the family’s account, Daniel was vaccinated for seven different conditions at five-and-a-half months old, including with DTaP, hepatitis B, polio, Hib and pneumococcal vaccines. Despite suffering immediate adverse effects, Daniel was brought back to the doctor’s office just a few months later and jabbed again with all the same vaccines. This time his condition worsened, and he quickly developed asthma.

Believing that her child’s doctor knew what was best, Daniel’s mother brought him back for a third round of vaccines at 14 months old. This time, the boy was given eight vaccines in four separate injections: MMR (measles, mumps and rubella), Hib, varicella and DTaP. This is when things for Daniel took a serious turn for the worse…

The initial autopsy report declared that Danny had died from asphyxia in an undetermined manner, but the boy’s mother wasn’t satisfied with this explanation. She soon discovered that the official death report noted acetaminophen from the Tylenol in Danny’s blood, but nothing from the vaccines, pointing to a cover-up.

As it turns out, the medical examiner involved was bent against implicating vaccines as a possible cause of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). Danny’s mother decided to consult with other medical experts to gain second opinions, and what they all unanimously determined is that, based on blood and tissue samples taken from Danny’s body, the boy had definitely died from the vaccines.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

‘No Diet Coke for You’: Islamophobia at 30,000 Feet Leads to Viral United Airlines Boycott

Muslim chaplain Tahera Ahmad’s Facebook post alleges discrimination, saying man next to her was served beer as airline says it will ‘get a better understanding’

What happens when you ask for an unopened can of Diet Coke on an airplane? If you’re a Muslim woman, according to one report, you don’t get served.

And the man sitting next to you gets an unopened can of beer just fine.

Tahera Ahmad, a Muslim chaplain at Chicago’s Northwestern University, documented these allegations from onboard a United Airlines flight this weekend in an episode that almost immediately went viral — and led to pledges to boycott the airline.

On her Facebook page, Ahmad claimed a flight attendant was “clearly discriminating against me” after she asked for an unopened of soda for hygienic reasons and says was told, “Well, I’m sorry. I just can’t give you an unopened can, so no Diet Coke for you.”

When the man next to her allegedly got an unopened beer can from the in-flight service, Ahmad said she was told something even more inflammatory: “We are unauthorized to give unopened cans to people, because they may use it as a WEAPON on the plane.”

Ahmad said her fellow passengers were of no help: “you Moslem, you need to shut the F up,” Ahmad said, in the Facebook post, that she was told by another male passenger across the aisle. “[y]es you know you would use it as a WEAPON, so shut the F up.”…

[Return to headlines]
 

NSA Director Wants ‘Maritime’ Law for Internet

International partners should embrace a sort of “Law of the Sea” for the internet, the head of the United States National Security Agency now says, in order to keep the web open and safe from bad actors, state-sponsored or otherwise.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Rand Paul in Chicago: Crime ‘Not a Racial Thing, It is a Spiritual Problem’

Kentucky U.S. Sen. Rand Paul brought his presidential campaign to Chicago on Wednesday, appealing to African-Americans on the South Side, entrepreneurs downtown and Republicans in the suburbs.

On a stage set up on a blacktop parking lot in front of an American flag mural at 66th Street and South King Drive, Paul continued a unique approach for GOP White House contenders — making an appeal to African-Americans who tend to favor Democrats.

Paul opened his speech by referring to the “black lives matter” refrain used by protesters after the controversial deaths of African-American men at the hands of police. Paul said the phrase reminds him of the deaths of Eric Garner, who was choked to death by officers in New York, and Freddie Gray, who was fatally injured in police custody in Baltimore. But Paul said the phrase also has meaning in Chicago.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Report: US Police Officers Kill More Than Two People a Day

US police have reportedly shot and killed 385 people over the past five months, a rate of more than two per day, reports the Washington Post. The figure is much higher than typical federal counts.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

So Far, All Clear: New Horizons Team Completes First Search for Pluto System Hazards

NASA’s New Horizons team has analyzed the first set of hazard-search images of the Pluto system taken by the spacecraft itself — and so far, all looks clear for the spacecraft’s safe passage

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Swordfish Kills Fisherman Who Was Trying to Catch it in Hawaii

(CNN) A boat captain is dead after being speared by a swordfish in Hawaii. Randy Llanes, 47, was killed Friday while trying to catch the swordfish with a spear gun, according to the Hawaii Police Department.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

The Americans

The AMERICANS strongly believe that life, liberty, citizenship and the pursuit of happiness are the unalienable RIGHTS of every American Citizen that cannot be taken or transferred. However, not until We the People become brutally frank with ourselves and with each other will the Constitution be taken off the shelf and once again become operational. Only then can the Republic can be restored and preserved in its original ordained Constitutional Power and form.

We The People have suffered enormously since 1913 under the combined rule of two domineering political parties of 536 elected politicians along with those they have appointed. Tax and Spend, along with whatever it takes to rule, is the quest of one of the domineering parties. In the opposing party, weak backbones, failing to stand up and lead for what a majority of citizen voters want, coupled with the elite of the party stealthfully blending in with the tax and spend party, have destructively allowed the confiscation of far too much of the wages and retirement incomes from the citizens who pay income taxes.

These facts are now becoming more recognized with the most recent dastardly additions of: countless political deceptions, lies, national economic destruction, purposeful job-killing, the stealthful demise of America’s middle class, no Administration help for the massive unemployment of Black Americans plus the politically purposeful illegal alien invasion of the United States. Along with forty percent of the people within the fifty state borders who are receiving food stamps. This all is treason to each separate state and to the citizens within the several states and it is perpetuated by the elected and appointed inside the Washington DC beltway.

The Constitution requires that all laws must be faithfully executed, but far too many are not and have not been — — — specifically by the Executive Branch. Nor has the Oversight Power of Congress been exercised to ensure Executive Leadership enforcement of United States laws. These self-serving political failures have become destructive to the well-being, liberty and happiness of most American citizens. It must be recognized that “New Guards” for future personal safety and National Security must peacefully be put into place by citizens beginning with votes at the ballot box. Failed leadership can no longer stand if the Constitution and the Republic are to be preserved for our children and all future generations.

[Comment: Worth reading.]

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

The Year of Homegrown Jihad: Already 41 U.S. Citizens Arrested on Terror-Related Charges in 2015

I knew it was bad.

And as I’ve documented many times recently, getting worse—seemingly by the day.

But upon first glance, the number of American citizens that have been arrested by U.S. authorities this year for supporting ISIS and other Islamic terror groups still stunned me.

My friend Patrick Poole, one of America’s leading investigative journalists and a top authority on all the latest developments in the global jihad, wrote this week that no less than 41 U.S. citizens have been arrested on Islamic terrorism charges—overwhelmingly ISIS-related—since January 1st of this year alone.

To put it in even more stark terms, that averages out to roughly two U.S. citizens arrested every week since the beginning of this year for supporting ISIS. And according even to Obama administration officials, not exactly the most forthcoming bunch when it comes to admitting the severity of the jihadist threat, the trend shows no sign of slowing down. ISIS is not only metastasizing in the Middle East, South Asia, North Africa and beyond. It is steadily building up a dangerous network here in the West.

According to Poole:…

           — Hat tip: Erick Stakelbeck [Return to headlines]
 

This is How Little it Cost Goldman to Bribe America’s Senators to Fast Track Obama’s TPP Bill

It took just a few days after the stunning defeat of Obama’s attempt to fast-track the Trans Pacific Partnership bill in the Senate at the hands of his own Democratic party, before everything returned back to normal and the TPP fast-track was promptly passed. Why? The simple answer: money. Or rather, even more money.

Because while the actual contents of the TPP may be highly confidential, and their public dissemination may lead to prison time for the “perpetrator” of such illegal transparency, we now know just how much it cost corporations to bribe the Senate to do the bidding of the “people.” In the Supreme Court sense, of course, in which corporations are “people.”

According to an analysis by the Guardian, fast-tracking the TPP, meaning its passage through Congress without having its contents available for debate or amendments, was only possible after lots of corporate money exchanged hands with senators. The US Senate passed Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) — the fast-tracking bill — by a 65-33 margin on 14 May. Last Thursday, the Senate voted 62-38 to bring the debate on TPAto a close.

Those impressive majorities follow months of behind-the-scenes wheeling and dealing by the world’s most well-heeled multinational corporations with just a handful of holdouts.

Using data from the Federal Election Commission, the chart below (based on data from the following spreadsheet) shows all donations that corporate members of the US Business Coalition for TPP made to US Senate campaigns between January and March 2015, when fast-tracking the TPP was being debated in the Senate.

The result: it took a paltry $1.15 million in bribes to get everyone in the Senate on the same page. And the biggest shocker: with a total of $195,550 in “donations”, or more than double the second largest donor UPS, was none other than Goldman Sachs.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Trouble in the Skies

FOX Business’ “Trouble in the Skies,” a six month investigation of the FAA’s new hiring practices, uncovered changes that may put the nation’s flying public at risk as well as allegations that the newest air traffic control recruits had access to answers on a key test that helped them gain jobs with the FAA.

Also uncovered was an FAA effort to promote diversity that discarded 3000 qualified college graduates with degrees in air traffic control despite their following FAA procedure and obtaining FAA accredited degrees.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

U.S. Approaching an Abyss

The majority of blacks don’t realize that white elites in government — a bastion of real privilege — sold them a bill of goods from top to bottom right from the start. Today, they’ve basically developed a different culture, one lived in decrepit public housing and on the streets. Perhaps in a sense those of us who lived in safe, well-kept neighborhoods should feel “privileged” not to have grown up in that environment. But such claims won’t bear the weight cultural leftists are placing on them. How do they explain why Asians, with far fewer numbers than blacks and often unable to speak English, came to the U.S. with nothing but the clothes on their backs and went on to succeed brilliantly at whatever they tried, often outperforming whites in business or their studies? Is there some hidden “Asian privilege” none of the lefties or media elites have noticed?

All this is somewhat beside the point. The potential for media-fomented clashes between blacks and police are taking the U.S. closer to an abyss. For there will continue to be clashes. One day, conditions will be just right for another police murder, perhaps caught on video, to provoke a riot. Again, police will be ordered to stand down (as they were in both Ferguson and Boston). National Guard troops will be called in. Someone will get trigger happy, and instead of the situation coming under control, it will spread.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

US Vice-President Joe Biden’s Son Dies

The eldest son of US Vice-President Joe Biden has died. Beau, a former Delaware Attorney General and US military lawyer, lost his battle with brain cancer.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Using the King’s Star Chamber to Smackdown Private Property Rights

Control the water, control the land This is the largest, illegal, private property land grab in U.S. history

Good EPA “laws” (read: “rules”, “regulations”) are long extinct, but if you had to pick one it would be the 1972 Clean Water Act (CWA) passed by congress four years after the Cuyahoga River in Ohio caught fire (Images for cuyahoga river fire burning—it wasn’t the first time) because of the pollution in it.

The Act authorized the clean-up of this kind of mess in America’s navigable lakes, rivers, and streams, and prohibited further dumping of dangerous industrial chemicals, waste, and other byproducts into these bodies of waters. It also allowed states to manage the clean-up of their own waters under the Clean Water Act (CWA), and enabled federal and state officials to work together to get the job done, .

Fast forward and we find today the EPA has redefined Congress’s intent and definition of navigable waters to now include all waters found in America and by fiat, the land it’s on, meaning the EPA now has “control” of all American farms, ranches, and private property, including

  • Dry arroyos, coulees, and washes
  • Man-made drainage ditches
  • Directional sheet flow
  • Isolated wet meadows
  • Storm sewers and culverts
  • Drain tiles in fields
  • “Point sources” such as pipes, ditches, channels, and conduits
  • Sewage treatment plants

Waterworks appurtenances such as mains, pipes, hydrants, machinery, and buildings. 100 year flood plains

Channels and streams with intermittent or ephemeral flows (but not seasonal flows), Nonnavigable, isolated, intrastate waters, including rainwaters, and hundreds of others

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Washington Post Editorial Board Functions as Quack Science Monsanto Operatives… Key Articles Essentially ‘Written’ By Monsanto… Eat More GMO!

Hold your laughter on this when you read the Washington Post’s explanation of why GMOs are safe. (It would earn them an “F” in high school science!) Their article claims “Men and women have been cross-breeding — genetically modifying — plants and animals since the dawn of agriculture.”

This hilariously ignorant science explanation is ripped from page one of Monsanto’s quack science trolling playbook. It intentionally conflates selective breeding with genetic engineering, deceitfully implying that they are biologically equivalent.

Selective breeding, of course, is a natural process where plants with the most desirable traits are chosen to pollinate the next generation of plants. This is how modern corn was developed over thousands of generations of breeding that began with grasses.

Any high school science student would earn an “F” if they answered the test question, “Explain genetic engineering” with the ludicrous answer offered by the Washington Post: It’s basically the same as selective breeding. The Washington Post’s editorial board, it seems, flunked out of basic science, and that unfortunate state of cognitive incompetency weaves its way through the paper’s science scribblings on a daily basis.

As any educated scientist knows, genetic engineering is the artificial alteration of the genetic code of a plant by inserting genes which often come from soil microbes, insects, or other life forms “alien” to that plant. Genetic engineering is artificial and fraught with potential danger because it is a self-replicating technology with unknown long-term consequences to the biosphere. GMOs are therefore a potential source of genetic pollution in addition to all the other risks they pose to consumers and the environment. Beyond that, GM crops are also giving rise to herbicide-resistant superweeds in exactly the same way that modern medicine’s abuse of antibiotics has given rise to superbugs.

None of these issues seems to bother the Washington Post. Its editorial board hilariously pretends none of these risks exist at all. What? Me worry? Heck, there are advertisers to please, even if it means the Post has to neuter its own journalistic integrity and trade credibility for cash. (C’mon, Bezos, fire those dolts already! Surely you can turn this paper around and restore it to something resembling honest news…)

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

We Need Actual Free Trade, Not the TPP

Brendan Nyhan at The New York Times seems to be under the impression that the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) has something to do with free trade.

Nyhan writes that the TPP is the latest step in a decades-long trend toward liberalizing trade — a somewhat mysterious development given that many Americans are skeptical of freer trade.

But Americans with higher incomes are not so skeptical. They — along with businesses and interest groups that tend to be affiliated with them — are much more likely to support trade liberalization.

Nyhan is probably correct that much of the population — especially the part that’s never studied economics — is against the lowering of trade barriers. After all, much of the population is wed to ancient ideas of mercantilism which views trade with foreign countries as a zero-sum game in which anything that benefits foreigners must be harmful to “us.” As Henry Hazlitt wrote with exasperation in Economics in One Lesson, “popular thought … in everything connected to international relations, [has] not yet caught up with Adam Smith …”

Nyhan is apparently deeply confused, however, since he equates the Trans Pacific Partnership with “trade liberalization.” In fact, the TPP is not about any type of liberalization, but is about centralizing political power. The TPP will further transfer the negotiation and implementation of trade policy into the hands of a small number of global regulators and bureaucrats, while further reducing the prerogatives of Congress and state legislators in the US. Indeed, citizens of all twelve member nations of the TPP will see trade policy become more remote and unknowable thanks to the TPP. And, since trade is but one small part of the agreement, we can expect a further shift toward opaque and authoritarian global decision making on everything from environmental policy to the internet to immigration.

There is no denying that the secret negotiations among unelected elites appointed by TPP members may result in the lowering of trade barriers for selected friends of the global regulators. This cronyist system of rewards and punishments for global favorites, however, should most certainly not be confused with free trade.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Why Won’t Pamela Geller Behave?

by Lorna Salzman

Which is worse? Being an uncouth truth teller or a polite dissembler? Being uncouth is a violation of social protocols, just nasty bad manners. Being mendacious, censoring speech and making excuses for religious-based violence are policy “crimes” and do more damage to the political fabric than anyone like Geller could do. Those who dislike her aren’t being forced to listen to her any more than they are to Ann Coulter or Rush Limbaugh. The fact that she has attracted more attention and resentment is arguably a testament to the veracity of what she says. No one pays attention to the soothsayers who predict the End Times. But they do pay attention to someone whose pronouncements are substantiated daily in the media. If Geller prevails, it will not be a measure of the success of right wing paranoia but because she has given us the evidence to back up her opinions…in contrast to Glenn Greenwald, Chris Hedges, Juan Cole and other leftist bloggers who make a career out of promoting hatred of America. But no one ever built a successful movement based on hatred of one’s country. Nor can they build one based on palpable lies or fanatic ideology, secular or religious……except Islam.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Canada’s Police Edited Out Islamic Prayers From Jihad Murderer’s Video

This is their explanation: the withholding was for “security purposes”: “In order to maintain the integrity of the ongoing investigation, the RCMP was limited in the amount of information it was able to publicly release.”

That’s a lot of hooey. There is nothing relating to security in the withheld sections — only Islamic prayers. They cut them out so that the public wouldn’t be in danger of getting the idea that Zehaf-Bibeau’s attack had anything to do with Islam. For whatever reason, Canadian authorities, as well as those in the United States and Europe, are determined above all else — even security considerations — to keep their people ignorant and complacent regarding the jihad threat. This cannot, and will not, end well.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Czech City Remembers Expelled Ethnic Germans

Hundreds of Czechs have taken part in a march to remember the deaths of 1,700 ethnic Germans 70 years ago. Some 20,000 Germans were expelled from the city of Brno at the end of World War II.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Denmark to Standardize Halal Rules

COPENHAGEN — In a bid to boost its halal meat exports, Denmark aims to develop common industry standards through collaboration between producers, brokers and marketers of the meat in the Nordic country.

“There is a shift towards more stringent halal rules in a number of countries,” Stig Munch Larsen, a senior consultant to Danish Agriculture & Food Council trade and market department, told Global Meat News on Friday, May 29.

“Malaysia is the country with the strictest rules, but also countries such as Indonesia, Saudi Arabia and Singapore have strict requirements, while African countries can also have stringent regulations.”

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Denmark’s Radical Parties Vie for Power as Terror Casts a Shadow Over Poll

Wearing his trademark flat cap, Lars Aslan Rasmussen was full of optimism as he began canvassing in Nørrebro, a volatile Copenhagen enclave that epitomises the two dominant issues of the Danish election, immigration and welfare. But the mood swiftly changed.

Aslan Rasmussen was surrounded by a group of extreme Islamists as he distributed leaflets at the suburban train station, a labyrinth of dark passages, cracked windows, graffiti and very un-Danish litter. “They said I should leave their territory and that Muslims are not allowed to vote. They were very aggressive and told me that you don’t go to paradise when you participate in democracy.”

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Germany Referred to EU Court on Airport Security and E-Waste

Brussels is asking to apply a daily sanctions on WEEE Directive

(ANSA) — BRUSSELS — The European Commission has referred Germany to the EU Court of Justice for failing to regularly monitor all aviation security measures at some German airports, as required by EU legislation, and also over its failure to transpose EU legislation on the recycling of waste electrical and electronic equipment (known also as WEEE Directive).

Security measures are in place to help prevent criminal acts and in particular are expected to protect airports and planes against terrorist attacks with arms or explosives. Inspections by the Commission have shown that Germany does not comply with the minimum frequency and the scope of controls required under EU legislation.

The WEEE Directive modernises previous legislation, making it fit for purpose and more forward-looking. It introduces an ambitious new collection target of 45 % of electronic equipment sold that will have to be met in 2016 and, as a second step in 2019, a target of 65 % of equipment sold or 85 % of WEEE generated. The EU Commission is asking the Court to impose a penalty payment on Germany in the amount of 210,078 euros per day until this law is enacted.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

German Police Alerted to Armed Mob, Find Asparagus Pickers

Police in rural northeastern Germany rushed out to track down a reported mob of up to 15 people armed with knives and sticks. Instead, they found a group of asparagus harvesters.

Police in the town of Ludwigslust said a man called their emergency number Saturday to report having seen “10 to 15 people armed with knives and sticks” on a local road.

Within minutes, six police cars were on their way to the scene. Officers quickly discovered, however, that the group was asparagus harvesters walking along the road with their work tools as they went to take a lunch break.

White asparagus is a popular delicacy in Germany and a ubiquitous sight on restaurant menus in late spring.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

In Germany the Lowest Birth Rate in the World

8,3 newborn babies every 1.000 inhabitants, worst than Japan

(ANSA) — BERLIN — Germany became the country with the lowest birth rates in the world, a study of the auditing company Bdo and of the Hamburg World Economic Institute shows. According to the research, in the last five years the average birth rate in Germany fell to 8,3 births per 1.000 inhabitants, just below the value registered in Japan. In the EU, only Portugal (8,9) and Italy (9,2) have values closer to the German one.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Intesa Sanpaolo: Italy Risks Losing Opportunities in the East

Due to Russian crisis, decline in trade with Eurasian Union

(ANSA) — ROME — The eastward shift, away from Europe, of the centre of world’s economic gravity caused by geopolitical tensions with Russia, will damage not only the EU, but also the whole Italian economic system, if the country does not arrange its affairs in accordance with the new rules. This is what Antonio Fallico, president of Banca Intesa Russia and chairman of the Association “Conoscere Eurasia” said, opening the kick-off meeting of the Eurasian Seminar, organized in Rome by “Conoscere Eurasia” together with St. Petersburg International Economic Forum and in collaboration with Intesa Sanpaolo, Banca Intesa Russia and the law firm Gianni Origoni Grippo Cappelli & Partners. According to the Management of the Research Department of Intesa Sanpaolo, which processed the Istat data, the trade exchange between Italy and the Eurasian Economic Union (4 members) in 2014 stood at about 30 billion, with a 18% decrease over the previous year. This decline is continuing even in the first two months of 2015, with a 30% decrease in imports, whereas exports dropped by more than 31%. Italy is the second European supplier after Germany, thanks to exports of machinery and electrical and electronic equipment (40%), textile products and clothing (20%), agricultural products and food (6.2%).

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Italy’s Parmigiano Reggiano Exports Booming

(AGI) Reggio Emilia, 20 May — Exports of Parmigiano Reggiano cheese rose sharply early this year, with a 10.1 percent growth in the first two months. The U.S. was the driving force behind this boom as it increased its imports of the parmesan cheese by 11 percent in January and February. The president of the Consortium of Parmigiano Reggiano, Giuseppe Alai, was cautiously optimistic. “Consumption is good in Europe, which is still the main market, so much so that in February total exports within and outside the EU grew by 9.4 percent. These results have allowed us to absorb the impact of the Russian embargo, but we hope that soon international diplomatic action will lead to the reopening of the borders of this important market. This would lead to a further acceleration of our product’s exports.” Sales of grated parmesan cheese also increased significantly in the first two months of 2015 (9.8 percent). While exports grew, production of Parmigiano Reggiano fell by 1.2 percent in April and by 1.9 percent over the first four months.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]
 

Italy: Piedmont Suing Fuksas for 14mn

‘Project errors’ in skyscraper

(ANSA) — Turin, May 29 — The Piedmont region is suing architect Massimiliano Fuksas for 14 million euros for “project errors” in a new skyscraper destined for regional offices, officials said Friday. The architect allegedly “gave a different interpretation” of his 20-million-euro fee, Piedmont Governor Sergio Chiamparino said. Construction on the 42-story skyscraper with a hanging forest taking up the top floor began in November 2011.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Italy: League Leader Salvini ‘Like Hitler’ — Roma-Sinti Foundation

Northern League supremo accused of ‘inciting hatred’

(ANSA) — Rome, May 29 — The head of an NGO supporting Roma and travellers charged firebrand Northern League leader Matteo Salvini Friday with being “like Hitler,” saying he had “instigated racial hatred” in the wake of public outrage over a fatal car accident involving Roma youths in Rome.

“Salvini like Hitler? The incitement to hatred and his propaganda is very similar to what happened in Germany in the 1930s,” Dijana Pavlovic, head of the “Roma-Sinti Together Foundation, told Radio 24.

“I hope not to compare anyone to Hitler today or in the future,” she said, “but only yesterday I brought an action against the League’s (Gianluca) Buonanno who in a television broadcast called me ‘scum of society’. That is the principle under which the Nazis exterminated half a million people”.

Asked if Salvini was like Hitler, Pavlovic was quoted as saying “Salvini instigates racial hatred, now anybody is allowed to say whatever they want, later I don’t know what they will allow themselves to do”.

Speaking about an accident in which a woman was run down and killed by a car driven by speeding teen fugitive Roma in the capital, Pavlovic said “nobody denies that there are problems in the Roma camps”.

“The politicians and the police have turned a blind eye.

There have never been serious policies to integrate the Roma, there have only been policies to do business, policies with which everyone got fat, except the Roma.”

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

John Kerry Breaks Leg in Bicycle Crash in France

The US Secretary of State John Kerry has broken his leg in a biking accident in the French Alps.

Mr Kerry, 71, was in a stable condition in hospital in nearby Geneva, Switzerland, a spokesman said.

He was expected to make a full recovery after breaking his right femur and was in good spirits, said John Kirby.

Mr Kerry, who was in Switzerland for talks on Iran’s nuclear programme, has called off visits to Madrid and Paris and will fly to the US for treatment.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Netherlands: More Primary School Pupils Attend Muslim Schools

The number of pupils attending Islamic primary schools in the Netherlands has risen 22% over the past five years, the AD reports on Friday. In 2010, some 9,000 children attended an Islamic primary school, but this has now reached almost 11,000, the paper says. ‘The current climate in the Netherlands means Muslims are increasingly sticking together,’ Abdelsadek Maas, director of an Islamic school group in The Hague, told the paper. ‘If you wear a headscarf, you get weird looks. Children can be themselves at an Islamic school.’

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Next-Generation Plane Engines Take a LEAP Towards Delivery

If there’s one key selling point that aerospace giants Airbus and Boeing have both been using in marketing their new aircraft, it is fuel efficiency.

But neither of the two major plane makers are directly responsible for much of the promised improvement in fuel usage.

It is in fact largely down to French company Safran and GE, whose joint venture CFM International is making the LEAP motors that will power most of the next-generation of the planes which will be the future workhorses of airlines.

The promise of 15 to 20 percent fuel savings moved closer as LEAP engines made their first flight tests that are a key step for the Airbus320neo to enter service next year and Boeing’s B737 MAX in 2017 as planned.

The LEAP-1B for the B737 MAX made its first test flight in California on May 7 on a modified Boeing 747…

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]
 

Scrapping Britain’s Fleet of Sub-Hunting Planes Has Left Russia Free to Spy on Trident, Warn Defence Chiefs

Russian submarines are likely to have gathered ‘valuable intelligence’ on Britain’s nuclear deterrent since the Government scrapped maritime patrol aircraft, senior RAF figures have warned.

The UK’s lack of submarine-hunting planes following the decision to axe the Nimrod fleet has given opportunities for ‘intruders’ which could ‘prejudice the security and effectiveness’ of Trident, they said.

In a letter to the Daily Telegraph, the five retired senior officers wrote: ‘The need to reintroduce Maritime Patrol Aircraft (MPA) into the British frontline is now widely recognised.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Sweden: ‘Poison is Spreading’ In the Land: Finance Minister

In an unusually personal speech at a Social Democratic party conference on Sunday, Finance Minister Magdalena Andersson talked of the need to counter a “poison” of inequality and xenophobia spreading across Sweden.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

UK: C of E Crisis as it Loses 1.7m Followers — and Islam Gains 900,000

The Church of England has suffered a dramatic slump in its followers, shocking new figures show.

Between 2012 and 2014, the proportion of Britons identifying themselves as C of E or Anglican dropped from 21 per cent to 17 per cent — a fall of about 1.7 million people.

Over the same period, the number of Muslims in Britain grew by nearly one million, according to a survey by the respected NatCen Social Research Institute.

Former Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Carey warned last night that unless urgent action was taken, the Church was just ‘one generation away from extinction’.

[Comment: CoE abadoned a strong Christian message; this is why they are losing followers.]

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

UK: Fury as BBC Brands Churchill ‘An Enemy of the People’: New Documentary Depicts Former Prime Minister as a Deeply Hated Drunk

A BBC documentary depicting Winston Churchill as a drunken enemy of the working class has been branded as ‘graceless’ and ‘ill-informed’ by his grandson.

Churchill: When Britain Said No, broadcast on BBC2 last week, was an account of how the wartime leader lost the 1945 General Election.

It showed him as a deeply hated figure among the working class, in part because of the harsh economic policies he pursued as Chancellor in the 1920s.

The most vocal critic of Churchill in the programme was a man presented as ‘activist and writer’, Dave Douglass. He said of Churchill: ‘His role during the rise of fascism across Europe, in Spain and in Italy and in Germany was a loathsome one.

‘It was one of supporting the rise of fascist tyrannies because he had seen socialism and communism as the enemy of his class and he had seen fascism as its ally.’

Douglass also made reference to Churchill’s fondness for drink and questioned his skills as an orator. He said: ‘I think most people see him as a Boris Johnson kind of a character, a buffoon… He is obviously p***ed out of his head and everybody listening to the radio knew he was p***ed up.’

What viewers were not told was that Douglass is a self-confessed ‘revolutionary Marxist and anarchist’ who is also known as ‘Danny the red’.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

UK: Rapist Alan Wilmot Who Attacked Four Women Let Out on Day Release ‘To Rape Again’

Alan Wilmot, 49, is serving a life sentence for three brutal rapes carried out in the late Eighties. But when on day release from prison he raped another woman, who he had been emailing and texting from his cell.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

UK: Subway Removes Ham and Bacon From Nearly 200 Stores and Offers Halal Meat Only After ‘Strong Demand’ From Muslims

Fast food giant Subway has removed ham and bacon from almost 200 outlets, and switched to halal meat alternatives in an attempt to please its Muslim customers.

It has confirmed turkey ham and turkey rashers will be used instead in 185 of its stores, where all the meat will now be prepared according to halal rules.

The chain, which has around 1,500 outlets across the UK, explained its decision by saying it had to balance animal welfare concerns with ‘the views of religious communities’.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

UK: Village at War Over the ‘Speed Gun Nazi’

Vigilantes’ report 3,500 motorists to police…then fed-up drivers snub them in pub and insult their German-born leader with Hitler salutes

It’s an idyllic English village celebrated for its historic thatched houses and Norman church.

But the tranquillity of St Mary Bourne in Hampshire has been destroyed by a bitter row after locals bought a speed gun to monitor drivers — and report lawbreakers to the police.

The scheme has mired the village in acrimony, and the German-born pensioner who came up with the idea has been insultingly dubbed ‘the speed Nazi’.

Michael Widen, 74, has even been given ‘Heil Hitler’ salutes after reporting 3,500 drivers to police over two years, resulting in a huge reduction in speeding traffic through St Mary Bourne.

The anti-speeding scheme in the picture-postcard village, one of the wealthiest in the country, has involved six volunteers deploying the speed gun.

But they have been the target of a hate campaign by furious motorists, assailed by fast-food cartons thrown from cars and snubbed by regulars in the two village pubs.

And the scheme has now been dropped after the parish council heard that the team had suffered ‘intimidation in the street, on the roadside and in the pubs’.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

UK: Watch Amazing Scenes as Mosque Meeting Turns Into a Mass Brawl With Chairs and Punches Thrown and Blood Spilled

It may look like a tavern brawl in a Wild West movie — but these were the shockingly violent scenes at a mosque meeting in Leeds yesterday.

Astonishing footage captures an angry mob hurling chairs, swinging makeshift weapons, throwing punches and fighting with police officers attempting to calm the angry crowd.

The video, captured on a mobile phone, was taken in the Bangladeshi Community Centre, next door to a mosque, and has caused uproar since surfacing on Facebook and YouTube.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Welfare Jihad in Europe

by Soeren Kern

More than 30 Danish jihadists have collected unemployment benefits totaling 379,000 Danish krone (€51,000; $55,000) while fighting with the Islamic State in Syria, according to leaked intelligence documents.

In Austria, police arrested 13 jihadists in November 2014 who were allegedly collecting welfare payments to finance their trips to Syria. Among those detained was Mirsad Omerovic, 32, an extremist Islamic preacher who police say raised several hundred thousand euros for the war in Syria. A father of six who lives exclusively off the Austrian welfare state, Omerovic has benefited from additional payments for paternity leave (Väterkarenz).

Austrian police also arrested, in August 2014, nine other jihadists who were attempting to join the jihad in Syria. Their trip was being financed by Austrian taxpayers by way of social welfare payments.

In Belgium, 29 jihadists from the Flemish cities of Antwerp and Vilvoorde were prevented from receiving social welfare benefits from the state. The move came after an investigation found that the individuals had been accessing their Belgian bank accounts by withdrawing money from banks in Turkey, just across the Syrian border.

Per capita, Belgium is the largest European source of jihadist fighters going to the Middle East; up to 400 Belgians have become jihadists in Syria and Iraq.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Egypt Demolishes Former President Hosni Mubarak’s Party Headquarters

Egypt has begun demolishing the headquarters of the now-dissolved party of former President Hosni Mubarak. The building in Cairo near Tahrir Square was torched in the 2011 uprising that toppled Mubarak.

Mubarak’s National Democratic Party (NDP) was dissolved in April 2011 and its assets, including its headquarters on the River Nile, were seized.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Gene Study Shows Humans Took Egyptian Path Out of Africa

Anatomically modern humans migrated out of Africa, but where and how? For years, researchers have argued about whether anatomically modern humans took the northern route through Egypt into Eurasia, or the southern route via the Arabian peninsula. Genomic analysis of hundreds of people from the area reveals that we took the high road — but that’s far from the end of the story.

“I think we’re only at the beginning of trying to understand the out-of-Africa migration,” says Michael Petraglia at the University of Oxford.

This event probably occurred between 50,000 and 60,000 years ago.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

ISIS Advances in Libya, Sirte Airport Seized

Tripoli ‘premier’ warns EU, ‘We will defend our waters’

(by Laurence Figà-Talamanca) (ANSAmed) — ROME, MAY 29 — Isis and its ‘brand’ are continuing to advance in Libya. Taking advantage of the instability, of the political rift and gang wars, jihadists from the Islamic State are boosting their position in the country and are not confined within Cyrenaica anymore.

The latest move was seizing the civilian airport of Sirte, set in the Mediterranean gulf by the same name, half way between Tripoli and Benghazi. The news came from the spokesman of the 166 Brigade in Misrata, the same that has been trying for months to stem the Islamic State’s advance towards the west and reconquer Sirte. The Brigade, explained the spokesman, was forced to withdraw from the base of al-Qardabiya after aid failed to arrive from Tripoli.

For its part, Isis has confirmed the report, claiming it has also gained control of some buildings that are part of the ‘Great artificial river project’, the largest waterworks worldwide promoted by Muammar Gaddafi.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Protests Shine Spotlight on Challenges for Ethiopian Jews in Israel

(CNN) Decades of frustration boiled over on the streets of Tel Aviv and across Israel, as thousands of Ethiopian Jews marched against discrimination in a series of protests. It wasn’t the first time this community has taken to the streets, but now they have the country’s attention, following a viral video that showed two Israeli police officers beating an Ethiopian-Israeli soldier in uniform. Both officers were fired.

The video was a tipping point, and a symptom of a much bigger problem. Ethiopian Jews say they are treated like second-class citizens.

Police beat Ethiopian-Israeli soldier, sparks protests

“These young people were born in Israel and they feel Israeli, but still people see them as Ethiopians,” said Mehereta Baruch-Ron, the deputy mayor of Tel Aviv from the left-wing Meretz party. Baruch-Ron is an Ethiopian Jew who came to Israel when she was 10 years old, escaping Ethiopia on foot to Sudan before she could fly to Israel.

“Ethiopian Jews dreamed for 2,000 years to get to Jerusalem,” she said, remembering well her excitement as a child when her father told her they would be leaving for Israel.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Christian Syrian Fighter Beheads ISIS Prisoner in Revenge Attack

[WARNING: Disturbing Content.]

The execution took place in the north-eastern Syrian province of Al-Hassakah where the Christian fighter beheaded the ISIS militant ‘in revenge for the abuses committed by the terror group’ (file photo).

The Christian was allegedly fighting for Kurdish forces who drove ISIS out of dozens of Assyrian villages in Al-Hassakah earlier this month.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Churches in Turkey on the Verge of Extinction

by Uzay Bulut

One of the common features of the Ottoman Empire and modern Turkey seems to be their intolerance of churches.

“Turkey is not converting churches into mosques because there is a need for more mosques… The message conveyed … is that Turkey is an Islamic state and no other religion is tolerated.” — Constantine Tzanos, author.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Hundreds of Thousands Celebrate Ottoman Conquest of Istanbul

Hundreds of thousands of people on Saturday turned out in Istanbul to mark the 562nd anniversary of the Ottoman conquest of the city.

The huge crowds gathered for a mass ceremony on the outskirts of Istanbul for what Turkish authorities described as “the biggest ever celebration in modern Turkey’s history”.

To mark the occasion, the Turkish armed forces formed a 562-strong ceremonial brigade dressed as Ottoman soldiers. An Ottoman military band played conquest songs.

A passage from the Koran was recited on the stage as crowds waving flags shouted slogans in favour of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the Islamic-rooted ruling Justice and Development (AKP)…

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]
 

Iran’s School Textbooks — Can Congress Afford to Ignore it?

Iranian school textbooks, such as The Qur’an and Life (Grade 12, p. 125) prepare Iranian children for the Ayatollahs’ sublime goal: the apocalyptic, horrifying, millenarian, military battle against the USA and other “arrogant oppressors of the world,” which are ostensibly led by “idolatrous devils.” While the “savior”—the infallible, immortal, divinely ordained and eventual global leader, the Mahdi—has not surfaced yet, Iranian children are taught that the battle is already raging throughout the world, awaiting their sacrifice.

School textbooks of Western democracies are the most authentic reflection of peoples’ values and worldview. School textbooks of tyrannies are the most authentic reflection of the nature and mission of the regimes.

Iranian school textbooks reflect the strategy and tactics of the Ayatollahs, much more authentically than speeches, interviews, diplomatic statements and conversations conducted by President Rouhani and Foreign Minister Zarif. The latter have mastered the art of Quran-sanctioned Taqiyya—doubletalk and deception-based agreements, aimed at shielding the “believers” from the “disbelievers,” to be abrogated once conditions are ripe.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

IS Commander Who Helped British Girls in Syria

A senior female commander from Islamic State has told Sky News she has no doubt that three London teenagers who crossed into Syria in February were groomed by a team of social media experts in Raqqa.

The woman, who calls herself Um Asmah and who defected from IS just days ago, was the first person to contact foreign girls crossing the border.

Her job was to introduce the new recruits to life under Islamic State’s strict and brutal regime.

In her first interview, she says she was surprised by how young and naive Shamima Begum, Kadiza Sultana and Amira Abase were.

Amira Abase, 15, Kadiza Sultana, 16, Shamima Begum, 15, at Gatwick.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

‘Islamic State’ Calls for a Shiite-Free Arabian Peninsula

A Saudi branch of “Islamic State” has urged the kingdom’s youth to join its cause of clearing the region of Shiites. The Sunni militant group has carried out two attacks on Shiite mosques in Saudi Arabia this month.

According to the US-based SITE monitoring group, an IS-affiliated group in Saudi Arabia has defended attacks on Shiite Muslims in a 13-minute long audio message, which it posted online late Friday.

The so-called Najd Province group said in the message that Shiites should be “killed everywhere.”

The IS “has ordered its soldiers everywhere to kill the enemies of religion, especially the Rafidha (Shiites),” a group spokesman is heard saying in the audio.

“They are disbelievers and apostates, and their blood is permissible to be shed, and their money is permissible to be taken. It is a duty upon us to kill them … and even to purify the land from their faith,” the message continued.

The Sunni militant group IS, which has taken over vast swathes of territories in Syria and Iraq, claimed responsibility for two separate suicide bombings on Shiite mosques in eastern Saudi Arabia on May 22 and May 29, which killed 25 people in total. The majority of the Sunni-dominated kingdom’s Shiite population lives mostly in the eastern parts of the country.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Turkey Breaks Poster World Record, With Image of President and Prime Minister

The faces of the Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan and prime minister Ahmet Davutoglu have entered the Guinness Book of Records after being emblazoned on the world’s biggest poster.

The 4,709 square metre poster was prepared by the country’s ruling Justice and Development Party, known by its Turkish initials, AKP, as a “surprise” to the two leaders, as the country prepares for a general election next month.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

US-Trained Special Forces Chief Joins ISIS, Vows to Bring Jihad to Russia & America

Meet Gulmurod Khalimov, the US-trained and funded former commander of Tajikistan’s special forces, who, as Reuters reports, has now gone to Syria to fight with ISIS. He has a message: “Listen, you American pigs, I’ve been three times to America, and I saw how you train fighters to kill Muslims…God willing, I will come with this weapon to your cities, your homes, and we will kill you.”

As Reuters reports:

Colonel Gulmurod Khalimov commanded the Central Asian nation’s special-purpose police known as OMON, used against criminals and militants. He disappeared in late April, prompting a search by Tajik police.

He reappeared Wednesday, vowing to bring jihad to Russia and the United States as he brandished a cartridge belt and sniper rifle, in a professionally made, 10-minute video clip posted in social networks.

Here is an excerpt of that video, in Russian

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Why ISIS is Winning, And How Its Foes Can Reverse That Success

(CNN) A combination of Iraqi forces has converged on Ramadi in an effort to reverse ISIS’ stunning success in seizing the city.

But ISIS is vulnerable on defense.

ISIS’ desire to attack (even when it’s defending gains) may yet be its Achilles’ Heel. It has thrown fighters into futile situations (around Kobani in Syria last year and at Eski Mosul in January), even when the odds are heavily stacked against it. But on other occasions — notably in Tikrit — it has ultimately retreated to save manpower, using snipers, dozens of IEDs and barriers (such as downed bridges, trenches and berms) to slow the enemy’s advance.

Michael Knights says ISIS suffers from what he calls “chronic ‘tactical restlessness,’ an almost pathological need to take the initiative and attack the enemy,” even when — as in Kurdish regions earlier this year — success was highly unlikely.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

European Union Anger at Russian Travel Blacklist

The European Union has responded angrily to Russia’s entry ban against 89 European politicians, officials and military leaders.

Those banned are believed to include general secretary of the EU council Uwe Corsepius, and former British deputy prime minister Nick Clegg.

Russia shared the list after several requests by diplomats, the EU said.

The EU called the ban “totally arbitrary and unjustified” and said no explanation had been provided.

EU sanctions were imposed after Russia annexed Ukraine’s Crimea region in March 2014, and they have been extended amid ongoing fighting between government troops and pro-Russia separatists in eastern Ukraine.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

‘I’m Proud’: Blacklisted EU Politicians Welcome Russia Travel Bans

The European Union has slammed Russia’s decision to impose a travel ban on 89 European politicians over their criticism of Moscow’s handling of the Ukraine crisis. Those banned said they were proud of their stance.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Putin Shut Out From G7 Meeting

Russia’s Vladimir Putin won’t be on the guest list when President Barack Obama and other world leaders assemble in Germany next week, as part of the punishment for alleged Kremlin-supported aggression in Ukraine.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Russian Aircraft Head Off American Destroyer in Black Sea

Russian military aircraft were scrambled to head off a U.S. warship that was acting “aggressively” in the Black Sea, state news agency RIA reported on Saturday, citing an anonymous source in Russia’s armed forces in Crimea.

The source was quoted as saying that the U.S. destroyer Ross was moving along the edge of Russia’s territorial waters and heading in their direction.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Russia Puts 89 Western Leaders on Secret Ban List

Britain’s former deputy PM Nick Clegg is among a secret list of 89 western leaders declared persona non-grata by Russia, prompting the UK government to say that there was no justification for the move.

Clegg, the outgoing Liberal Democrat leader, appears to have angered the Kremlin by calling for Russia to be stripped of the 2018 football World Cup in an interview with Sunday Times last July, after President Vladimir Putin’s aggression in Ukraine.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

India: Lynch Mob Justice as ‘Guru’ Is Beaten to Death for Beheading a Boy, 5

GRAPHIC CONTENT: Nanu Mirdha, a guru in his 30s, was lynched by a mob in the remote Rangapara Tea Estate, in Assam, after he allegedly sacrificed Sajan Bag, five, to the Hindu god Kali.

A lynch mob has beaten a guru to death in India after he allegedly beheaded a five-year-old boy as part of a grisly sacrifice to the Hindu god of death.

Nanu Mirdha, who was in his 30s, had his hands tied and was attacked after the blood-soaked body of Sajan Bag was found inside his prayer room in Rangapara Tea Estate, Assam.

Gruesome video of the beating shows a mob using their feet, fists, and large pieces of wood to strike Mirdha, who is believed to be dead as the footage starts.

Locals at the tea estate said Mirdha was a sorcerer and had ‘sacrificed’ the boy during his prayers — or puja — towards Kali, the Hindu goddess of death.

They accused Mirdha of forcing Sajan inside his home before attacking him. The boy’s severed head was found beside his body.

Once the villagers realised what had happened, the holy man was lynched and his house was burned down before police could arrive.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Nepal Quake: Schools in Affected Areas Start to Re-Open

Thousands of schools damaged during April’s devastating earthquake in Nepal have begun to re-open.

More than 25,000 classrooms in some 8,000 schools were destroyed in the 7.8 magnitude quake and its aftershocks, and more than 8,000 people died.

Many have only been rebuilt on a temporary basis using materials such as bamboo, wood and tarpaulin.

Classes will initially focus on group activities to help children recover from the trauma of the disaster.

Earlier this week, the United Nations said that one month on from the quake, the world needed to provide more food and shelter for those left homeless.

Meanwhile, the Nepalese government — which has been criticised for being slow to respond — has called for more direct aid funding.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Rain Brings Little Relief as India Heat Toll Passes 2,200

Despite hopes that weekend thundershowers would help end a raging heat wave in southern India, the rain brought only limited relief as the death toll since mid-April approached 2,200. Officials said Sunday that the intense heat was likely to continue for another day in worst-hit Andhra Pradesh and Telangana states.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

UN Calls on Kyrgyz Authorities to Revise Bill That Labels NGOs as “Foreign Agents”

The bill would affect foreign-funded organisations involved in political activities to register as foreign agents. For UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, the bill fails to define “political activities” and could jeopardise human rights and freedom of association. Human Rights Watch warns that the bill will “only stigmatize” NGOs working in the country.

Bishkek (AsiaNews) — The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has called on Kyrgyzstan to review a draft law on “foreign agents” that could have a negative impact on many rights groups active in the country.

In a statement, UN rights spokesman Rupert Colville said that the draft law requires foreign-funded non-commercial organisations involved in political activities to register as foreign agents without clearly defining the term “political activities.”

Colville said the draft, which the Kyrgyz parliament is scheduled to begin its first reading today, refers only to “activities aimed at influencing the decisions of public authorities in order to change their policy, as well as activities aimed at influencing the public opinion for the above-mentioned purposes.”

“This vague wording may put at risk numerous organizations working to deliver services or conduct human rights advocacy,” says the UN statement.

For this reason, Kyrgyz authorities should “ensure that the freedoms of expression and association are protected in line with international human rights law and standards.”

The statement ends by urging “a review of this draft law to ensure that it does not restrict the important work of civil society organizations in the country.”

In a similar statement issued on 21 May, Human Rights Watch said, “Such inappropriate and unjustified interference would be incompatible with the right to freedom of association.” The latter is guaranteed by Art. 20 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted by the United Nations in 1948.

For the New York-based rights group, the bill “blatantly flouts” Kyrgyzstan’s national and international human rights commitments, and will “only stigmatize” NGOs working in Kyrgyzstan.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]
 

China Dismisses US Accusations of Expansionism in South China Sea

China has said its land reclamation work around disputed islands in the South China Sea is for peaceful purposes. The comments come after the United States charged that China was violating international norms.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Japan is Working on Mega-Lasers to Blast Space Junk

There are 3,000 tons of space junk in orbit around Earth, and that junk will become a big problem down the road when important orbits get clogged with derelict satellites or fragments imperil important probes. The problem needs to be taken care of before it’s a bigger problem.

There are a lot of proposals out there. Giant magnets. Giant fishing nets. Space vacuum cleaners. But Japan’s RIKEN, a network of research labs, wants a solution that’s a little more high tech. They want to shoot it with lasers.

This isn’t the first time it’s been proposed. The idea is a mix of sci-fi superweapon and more mundane physics. Lasers could be used to nudge things out of orbit by changing their path ever so slightly so they burn up in the atmosphere. But scaled up to the “laser cannon” that Wired suggests, lasers might actually be used to incinerate space detritus.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Thyroid Cancer Rates in Japanese Children Living Near Fukushima Catastrophe Skyrocketed by 6,000%

(NaturalNews) An oversight committee looking at the health of folks living in the Fukushima Prefecture of Japan near the stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power facility has found that the thyroid cancer rate in young people has jumped by an astounding 6,000% throughout the region since the disaster first occurred back in 2011.

Reports indicate that, since January of this year, 16 new cases of thyroid cancer have emerged, bringing the total number of young people diagnosed with the disease to 103. Correspondingly, as many as 127 people have been diagnosed with or are suspected of having thyroid cancer, according to Japan’s Asahi Shimbun.

The Fukushima Voice reports that, as of March 31, all 16 identified cases have been confirmed as definitive papillary thyroid cancer, with an additional nine suspected cases. The figures represent reported cases from both the first round of initial screening, which included looking at 368,000 individuals 18 years and younger, as well as a second round.

“Full-Scale Screening (the second-round screening), to be conducted every 2 years until age 20 and every 5 years after age 20, additionally targets those who were born in the first year after the accident, aiming to examine approximately 385,000 individuals in a 2-year period,” explains the Fukushima Voice.

Committee head determines that patient profiles of Fukushima thyroid cancer have a “striking similarity” to Chernobyl

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Solar Impulse Plane Begins Pacific Crossing

Swiss pilot Andre Borschberg has begun his bid to cross the Pacific, from China to Hawaii, in the zero-fuel Solar Impulse aeroplane.

The experimental aircraft, which has a wingspan bigger than a jumbo but weighs little more than a large car, left Nanjing at 02:39 (18:39 GMT).

It is likely to take Mr Borschberg five to six days of continuous flight to reach his central Pacific destination.

He will try to stay awake for much of that time, taking only short catnaps.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Police Arrest Meteorite Thieves With 1,500 Kilos of Rock in Argentina

Police in Argentina have arrested four men who were trying to steal meteorites in the northern province of Chaco. The region is world famous for the space rocks which are protected under law.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Coulter: Some Cultures, Like Mexico’s ‘Obviously Deficient’

Columnist and author of “Adios, America,” Ann Coulter stated that “there are cultures that are obviously deficient,” such as Mexico’s in an interview set to air on Tuesday’s “America with Jorge Ramos” on Fusion.

Coulter defended her prior argument that Americans “should fear immigrants more than ISIS,” stating, “I have a little tip. If you don’t want to be killed by ISIS, don’t go to Syria. If you don’t want to be killed by a Mexican, there’s nothing I can tell you.”

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

France: Calais Police Tackle Illegal Migrants Stowing Away on Trucks to UK (Photo Report)

Tensions are rising in the French port of Calais as an increasing number of migrants try to enter Britain illegally. These photos show French riot police tackling migrants trying to stow away on lorries heading across the channel.

A migrant jumps out of a lorry after being discovered by French police officers during a failed attempt to cross the English Channel and seek asylum in Britain.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Hugh Fitzgerald: No, But it Will Help

Headline: Tunisia PM: Destroying boats used by smugglers won’t stop flow of migrants to Europe

Of course, what the Arabs in North Africa want is lots and lots of Western aid. You know — the bottomless pit of ending “poverty” and other “root causes” of that migrant flow. But since the poverty of the Muslim and sub-Saharan Africa is forever, and since these peoples continue to have families with eight, ten, fifteen children apiece (just look at the population figures, since 1920, of the Arab states, and compare, for example, the ten-fold increase in Iraq’s population, with the steady state of indigenous populations in France, the United Kingdom, Italy). and is the result of a cultural incapacity which, in the case of Muslim migrants, has everything to do with Islam and the ways it stunts mental growth, discourages free inquiry, punishes “bida” (new ways of doing things), and encourages the habit of mental submission, until Islam’s power is diminished — and when will that be? — there will always be these attempts to migrate to the advanced, well-run, and much-too-generous West, that should close its doors to such disruptive, expensive, and dangerous immigrants, whose unwelcome presence is steadily degrading in so many ways, recognized and unrecognized, the lives of the indigenous non-Muslim peoples of Europe.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Most Democrats Think Illegal Immigrants Should Vote

Are voters ready to let illegal immigrants vote? A sizable number, including most Democrats, are.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that one-out-of-three Likely U.S. Voters (35%) now believes that illegal immigrants should be allowed to vote if they can prove they live in this country and pay taxes. Sixty percent (60%) disagree, while five percent (5%) are undecided. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

Fifty-three percent (53%) of Democrats think tax-paying illegal immigrants should have the right to vote. Twenty-one percent (21%) of Republicans and 30% of voters not affiliated with either major political party agree.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Now EU Plans to Bribe Countries With Their Own Money to Take Boat Migrants

The European Commission has announced plans to bribe member states with their own money in a bid to cajole them into accepting migrants from across Africa and the Middle East. The scheme has already attracted widespread criticism not only for economic reasons, but due to the opportunities it presents terrorists wanting to enter Europe.

The commission wants to see 60,000 migrants, 20,000 of whom have not yet even reached the EU, relocated across the member states. To that end, it has promised to pay the countries £4,250 for each person they accept, costing European taxpayers a grand total of £35.5 million, the Daily Mail has reported.

So far Britain has managed to negotiate an opt-out from taking a proportion of the 40,000 migrants, the majority from Syria and Eritrea, currently stranded in Italy and Greece having successfully crossed the Mediterranean. But the government is still under pressure from the Commission to accept some of the 20,000 migrants from non-EU countries that it wishes to disperse across the bloc under a quota system.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Trojan Horse Federal Refugee Program Brings Jihadi Threat to America: An Interview With Ann Corcoran

by Jerry Gordon and Mike Bates

According to the Pew Research Religion and Public Life Project (Pew Research) there are an estimated 2.7 million Muslims in America. Pew Research reported in 2013 over I million legal immigrants entered the US of which 100,000 were Muslim. More than 1.3 million Muslims have been brought into the US via the billion dollar US Refugee Admissions Program (US RAP). Annually the US RAP brings in 70,000 refugees allotted by the UN High Commissioner of Refugees (UNHCR). These annual USRAP allotments are virtually controlled by the UNHCR, which designates refugee populations most at risk. The current USRAP allotment exceeds that of all other countries combined. Separate from the US RAP are other legal avenues for Muslim immigration that include the asylum program that converts illegal border crossers into legal immigrants with benefits equivalent to refugees, the Diversity “Green Card” Lottery and the investor EB-5 Visa Program.

According to Ann Corcoran, editor of the Refugee Resettlement Watch (RRW) blog, this UN refugee agency “virtually calls the shots” for the US RAP that provides legal refugee immigrants with a veritable smorgasbord of cash welfare, Social Security benefits for elderly refugees, Medicaid, educational assistance and a pathway to ultimate citizenship. Including both federal and state level benefits; some experts estimate that the annual total cost of the US RAP could be upwards of $12 to $20 billion annually.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Tunisia PM: Destroying Boats Used by Smugglers Won’t Stop Flow of Migrants to Europe

Tunisia’s prime minister says a European Union proposal to destroy boats used by smugglers to ferry migrants to Europe from Libya probably won’t work and is risky because it is similar to military intervention.

Prime Minister Habib Essid told reporters Friday during a visit to Lisbon that authorities must fight the root of the illegal migration problem by helping raise living standards in the countries the migrants come from.

He said intervention to destroy the rickety boats before they cross the Mediterranean “is considered by Tunisia as almost a military intervention.”

He added he doesn’t “think the problem will be solved” through such actions.

The majority of migrants travel from Libya to Italy. More than 1,800 are believed to have died or gone missing at sea this year.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

With Amnesty, Elites Conspire Against the Middle Class

For 40 years, the people have tried to tell politicians they want less immigration, but the politicians won’t listen.

Every single elite group in America is aligned against the public — the5 media, ethnic activists, big campaign donors, Wall Street, multimillionaire farmers and liberal “churches.”

They all want mass immigration from the Third World to continue. Both political parties connive to grant illegal aliens citizenship and bring in millions more legally, and the media hide the evidence.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Churches Next for Homoactivists

If the U.S. Supreme Court this June finds that our Constitution contains approval for same-sex marriage, there will be only one major institution left to speak for the truth —the Bible-believing church. And the full wrath of the homoactivists will be focused upon us.

Capitulation is almost complete. One by one, state and local governments, universities and colleges, mainline protestants, judges at every level, the White House, legislatures —all have bowed to the homosexual bullies. Their march is under the banner of tolerance, but question their behavior and they quickly prove that tolerance is a one-way street. Full approval is their only goal.

The violence of their knee-jerk reaction was evident early. In 1978, San Francisco passed an anti-discrimination ordinance protecting sexual “orientation.” Soon after, a local church found their organist to be a practicing homosexual. Unable to convince him of his sin, they fired him. He sued, based on the new ordinance.

Soon the media stirred the pot and the pastor and church was flooded with obscene calls, letters containing pornography, death threats, and detailed plans to kidnap, assault and murder the church leaders’ children.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Complaints Prompt Catholic University to Remove Statue of Priest Praying Over Indians

Saint Louis University has removed a statue on its campus depicting a famous Jesuit missionary priest praying over American Indians after a cohort of students and faculty continued to complain the sculpture symbolized white supremacy, racism and colonialism.

Formerly placed outside the university’s Fusz Hall in the center of the private Catholic university, the statue will go to the university’s art museum, a building just north of the bustling urban campus.

The statue features famous Jesuit Missionary Pierre-Jean De Smet S.J. praying over two American Indians dressed in traditional clothing. Last Monday, just two days after graduation, it was removed from the location it has called home on campus for decades.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Education System Now Graduating Al Gores From Public Schools

The next generation of global warming-spouting Al Gore type activists are already in training in America’s classrooms.

The big lie called man-made global warming, birthed by the United Nations and lib-left world leaders out to make a fast buck in the impossible-to-fail money maker advanced on society by global warming/climate change, is here to stay.

As permanent a fixture in modern society as career politicians and rising taxes, the future of global warming will be played forward by school children, who although they can’t read or write, will fill the ranks of the environmental protest movement calling attention to the supposed inherent dangers of man-made global warming.

Teaching school age children how to be politically correct far exceeds educating them. In education, indoctrination has become a lucrative cottage industry, because it can count of the support of generous government grants.

Rather than school kids wanting to talk about the family’s next planned trip to Disneyland, they will be probing the size of their parents’ carbon footprint, per the instructions of their classroom teacher—and coming up with creative ways to shrink it.

With a colossal number of parental eyes fixed on Common Core, added to the never-ending worry of why so many school children still struggle with reading and writing, this is what the Department of Education slipped in:

“Under the guise of the first new K-12 science curriculum to be introduced in 15 years, the real goal seems to be to expose students to politically correct climate-change orthodoxy during their formative learning years. (Wall Street Journal, May 27, 2015).

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Power From the King for the Kingdom

The rejection of God’s Law means they also will reject and persecute those who desire to live in obedience and submission to God’s Law. We have seen the persecution of florist, photographers and bakers, one being fined $135,000, but that is just the tip of the iceberg as the Supreme Court hearing revealed. What we are up against if the Supremes do what it is expected they will do, is taxation imposed upon every non profit organization as well as every church which holds to the Biblical standard regarding marriage. And as the Court has stated in the past, “The power to tax is the power to destroy.”

For some it is already become very personal; “Like most states, Arizona gives judges the authority to solemnize marriages and many, probably most, of them do so. The Arizona Supreme Court Judicial Ethics Advisory Committee has now issued an advisory that says judges cannot refuse to perform same-sex weddings if they choose to perform opposite-sex weddings. The advisory says: a judge who chooses to perform marriages may not discriminate between marriages based on the judge’s opposition to the concept of same-sex marriage. Rule 2.3(B) of the Arizona Code of Judicial Conduct provides that a judge shall not, “in the performance of judicial duties,” manifest bias or prejudice based upon sexual orientation….”

Washington State has a similar rule and one judge is now being disciplined for his refusal to perform such sodomite unmarriage ceremonies. You see it isn’t an issue of tolerating those who disagree with them. The sodomites demand that those who don’t agree with their sin must be made to change their mind and now celebrate their sin. We are facing persecution in America unless something dramatically changes and quickly.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Sleep Training ‘May Reduce Racism and Sexism’

Levels of unconscious racist and sexist bias have been reduced by manipulating the way the brain learns during sleep.

A team at Northwestern University, Chicago, played sounds while people slept to trigger and enforce memories of an exercise earlier in the day.

The trial on 40 people, published in the journal Science, showed the changes lasted at least a week.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

So the GOP Must Embrace Evil to Survive. Really?

The Democrats callously view every disaster, accident or whatever as an opportunity to exploit for political purposes. Democrat Corrine Brown despicably tried to blame the tragic Amtrak crash on Republicans. The inconvenient truth is the engineer was going twice the train’s speed limit at the turn. This did not stop Brown from ranting about evil Republicans being the blame. Brown exploited the deaths of over 7 passengers. That’s evil folks.

Before the Infants Protection Act, medical professionals were legally obligated to discard babies who miraculously survived abortions. Babies were placed in store rooms to die. Protecting his political aspirations, when he was an Illinois senator, Obama rejected the Born Alive Infants Protection Act three times to ensure himself the radical feminist vote. That is bone chillingly evil folks.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

UK: Strictly ‘To Have Same-Sex Pairs’: Judge Craig Revel Horwood Predicts Two Men or Two Women Could Dance Together on the Show Within Two Years

Strictly Come Dancing judge Craig Revel Horwood has predicted same-sex couples will soon be competing for the glitterball trophy.

The openly gay 50-year-old, who has been on the judging panel since Strictly began in 2004, said he expected to see two men or two women dancing together on the BBC show within the next two years.

He told OK magazine: ‘A same-sex couple on Strictly — that is on the cards.’

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Virgin Mary Painting Covered in Dung and Porn to be Sold at Christie’s

Chris Ofili’s 1996 painting “The Holy Virgin Mary,” which caused a furor when it was shown at the Brooklyn Museum in October 1999 as part of an exhibition of works by young British artists, is going up for auction at Christie’s on June 30.

The 8-foot-high depiction of a black Virgin Mary is “encrusted with a lump of elephant dung and collaged bottoms from pornographic magazines.” Former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, described Ofili’s painting and other works in the Brooklyn Museum exhibition as “sick stuff.” He tried to close the exhibition by withholding public funds, but was rejected by a federal judge.

The painting, estimated at about $2.3 million, will be included in Christie’s auction of postwar and contemporary art in London. That estimate “reflects Mr. Ofili’s status as a respected midcareer artist whose critical reputation has been enhanced in recent years by retrospectives at Tate Britain in London and the New Museum in New York,” wrote the New York Times, which posted a photo of the painting.

This is the same New York Times that refused to post a photo of Bosch Fawstin’s winning entry — or any entry — in the recent controversial Draw Muhammad contest which incurred an attempted terrorist attack.

It seems the art world loves provocative paintings, as long as the right people are being provoked.

[Comment: Catholics will head there en masse to burn the building and the “art” to the ground, along with the “artist”…Not.]

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

FIFA’s Sepp Blatter Victim of Conspiracy, Daughter Says

Fifa president Sepp Blatter is the victim of a conspiracy from “behind the scenes”, his daughter has told the BBC amid the corruption crisis gripping world football.

“Nobody is without fault but […] he’s not the person who is taking money,” Corinne Blatter said.

Her comments come as key Fifa officials face a string of bribery charges.

Mr Blatter, who has been re-elected as Fifa president, has not been implicated but faces calls to stand down.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Is Sex Hormone Testosterone to Blame for Corrupting World Leaders? New Study Reveals Surprising Science Behind Corruption and Power

Researchers in Switzerland reveal that the more power someone has, the more likely they are to be corrupted by it. Higher levels of testosterone also contribute, as it reduces the person’s empathy.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]