New York City is abandoning its English-proficiency tests for would-be taxi drivers. The city is hoping that the relaxation of the rule will allow more immigrants to get behind the wheel of a cab.
In other news, Adel Kermiche, the young man who halal-slaughtered a priest in a church near Rouen, has finally been laid to rest in a crypt owned by his family.
To see the headlines and the articles, click “Continue reading” below.
Thanks to Dean, Fjordman, JD, Jerry Gordon, Reader from Chicago, 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.
Shocking Government Report Finds $6.5 Trillion in Taxpayer Funds “Unaccounted for”
Last week, we first touched on a topic which, in any non-banana republic, would be a far greater scandal than what Ryan Lochte may or may not have been doing in a Rio bathroom: namely, government corruption, falsification and potential fraud and embezzlement, which has resulted in the Pentagon being unable to account for up to $8.5 trillion in taxpayer funding…
“Where is the money going? Nobody knows,” said Franklin Spinney, a retired military analyst for the Pentagon and critic of Defense Department planning, cited by Reuters.
The significance of the accounting problem goes beyond mere concern for balancing books, Spinney said. Both presidential candidates have called for increasing defense spending amid current global tension; the only issue is that more spending may not be necessary — all that is needed is less government corruption and theft.
[Comment: Probably funneled by globalists to run black-ops destabilization programs.]
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Bin Laden Raid Bestseller’s Author to Pay $7m
A former US Navy Seal who wrote a bestseller about his role in the raid that killed Osama Bin Laden is to pay nearly $7m (£5m) to the government for violating non-disclosure agreements.
Matt Bissonette failed to get clearance from the Pentagon before the book No Easy Day was published in 2012.
He has agreed to forfeit all profits and royalties, as well as film rights and speaking fees.
In exchange, the government will dismiss other liability claims.
The al-Qaeda leader was killed in a May 2011 Navy Seal raid on his compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, and his body was buried at sea.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Climate-Change Activists Want to ‘Tax’ Childbirth
(WASHINGTON TIMES) Climate-change activists are mobilizing to cut the birthrate, arguing that richer nations should discourage people having children in order to protect them from the ravages of global warming and reduce emissions.
Travis Rieder, assistant director of the Berman Institute of Bioethics at Johns Hopkins University, told NPR that bringing down global fertility by half a child per woman “could be the thing that saves us.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Ever-Vigilant Against ‘Right-Wing Violence’
Exclusive: Joseph Farah labels leftists warning of Trumpian mayhem ‘deranged’
The hysteria is reaching a breaking point. Any moment now these reports suggest we are about to see something we’ve never seen before — conservatives turning to violence, force, intimidation and rioting because they are not getting their way.
They are ever-vigilant against potential violence from their political opponents — potential violence that never manifests itself.
It’s long been this way.
Even as riots and shootings by so-called “progressives” in Milwaukee, the latest battleground, the warnings keep coming that Trump supporters are about to go off the deep end. Even as one Trump supporter after another gets pummeled by so-called “progressives,” the real threat is looming right around the corner.
The truth is evident, though, for anyone with eyes to see.
Left-wing activists maintain a virtual monopoly on political violence, bullying and intimidation.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Ex-Navy Seal to Pay Feds $6.6 Million to Settle Suit Over Book on Bin Laden Raid
The former Navy SEAL who wrote a book about his role in the raid that killed Usama bin Laden will pay the government more than $6.6 million for violating non-disclosure agreements and publishing without getting the document cleared by the Defense Department, according to federal court documents.
Matt Bissonnette, who wrote “No Easy Day” under the pseudonym Mark Owen, will give the U.S. government all profits and royalties from the book or movie rights. The proceeds already total more than $6.6 million. He will have four years to pay the bulk of that.
The payments were outlined in settlement documents filed in U.S. District Court in Virginia.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Fla. Pair Busted After 16 Bodies Found Neglected at Funeral Home
A Florida man and woman were busted after 16 bodies were found decaying at a funeral home in the Panhandle.
Gregory Dunphy, 64, and 39-year-old Felicia Boesch, the daughter of the Callaway funeral home’s owner, were charged with a combined 16 misdemeanor counts of unlawful storage of human remains.
The remains of people whose families had requested cremation had not been cremated at Brock’s Home Town Funeral Home, according to the sheriff’s office.
“It’s really disgusting. Now we have to put up money again for the cremation because the low lives took the money and didn’t do their job,” Shannon Luck wrote on Facebook, according to the News Herald. “So over a month later, we have to have him moved from medical examiner’s office to another funeral home to hopefully move forward.”
Investigators found corpses in a refrigeration unit at an improper temperature, the Bay County Sheriff’s said in a Facebook post earlier this week. Other remains were in the funeral home’s main section, and none had been embalmed…
| — Hat tip: Dean | [Return to headlines] |
Judge Refers Sheriff Joe for Criminal Contempt Charges
(KNXV-TV) A federal judge has referred Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, among others, for criminal contempt charges in connection with a racial profiling case.
Earlier this year Judge Murray Snow held Arpaio in civil contempt for disobeying court orders regarding a lawsuit over racially profiling Latinos during traffic stops.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Lib Prof Broke Ethics Rules in Shot at Trump
(LawNews) A series of tweets by well-known Harvard law professor Laurence Tribe caused a bit of firestorm online amongst legal ethics experts.
It started on Tuesday when Prof. Tribe sent out this Tweet:
I have notes of when Trump phoned me for legal advice in 1996. I’m now figuring out whether our talk was privileged. https://twitter.com/bobshrum/status/765574959619903490 …
What followed was a rather lengthy back and forth on Twitter, with some encouraging Tribe to reveal the notes and others accusing him of breaking various legal ethical rules governing the attorney client relationship.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
NASA Just Made All Its Research Available Online for Free
Care to learn more about 400-foot tsunamis on Mars? Now you can, after Nasa announced it is making all its publicly funded research available online for free. The space agency has set up a new public web portal called Pubspace, where the public can find Nasa-funded research articles on everything from the chances of life on one of Saturn’s moons to the effects of space station living on the hair follicles of astronauts.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
New Gun Control Idea: Take Guns From Senior Citizens
John Hopkins University’s Shannon Frattaroli sees danger in gun ownership among senior citizens, and pointed out Thursday that California’s Gun Violence Restraining Orders (GVROs) provide a way that families can have guns confiscated from older relatives.
Senior citizens have been among the most adamant Second Amendment advocates in recent years, such as the late Otis McDonald (above), who challenged Chicago’s handgun ban at the U.S. Supreme Court — and won.
But Frattaroli, who works at the John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, has expressed concern over what an grandparent with a gun might do to him or herself via suicide, or the danger that may befall a grandchild who finds the gun.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Patriots Must Carry Trump Across the Finish Line
Patriots, to save our country, it has become clear that we must hoist Trump up on our shoulders and carry him across the finish line into the Oval Office. The mainstream media has blatantly joined crooked Hillary and her minions to brand Trump unfit to serve as president. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black. I cannot stomach watching CNN. Almost every evening I am at my local gym on an aerobic machine working to keep my blood sugar numbers good. CNN is always on a few of the TV sets hanging from the ceiling. Reading headlines posted on the lower third of the screen with the sound turned down is quite revealing. It makes it plain to see CNN’s relentless efforts to demonize and destroy Trump.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
It Appears That the Vancouver Housing Market Has Slammed Shut.
Which is hardly a surprise: virtually everyone saw it coming, the only question was when. Eilers says he’s been warning of a real estate slow-down for at least a year due to the region’s unsustainable and unsupportable prices. West Vancouver, where he does a large part of his business, had a benchmark detached home price of almost $3.4 million in July according to the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver.
“The market in West Van is up 450 per cent since 2001. So is everyone making 600 per cent more income than they were so they can pay their taxes and buy their houses? Of course not. So how is this inflation been financed? By off-shore money and record debt.” Precisely what we said at the start of the year when we first heard horror stories about Chinese buyers paying cash, sight unseen, for any and every local luxury, and not so luxury home.
It appears that it is not just the 15% luxury tax implemented on on July 25 that has burst the bubble: according to Eilers sales were dropping even before the tax. According to the data, July was another slow month in West Vancouver with only 44 sales, down from 80 in 2015. June saw 74 sales, also down from 102 the year before.
The pattern has left the market “devastated”, Eilers adds.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
BBC Says Opposing Shariah Law is ‘Islamophobic’
We’re being told to be politically correct when we don’t want to be politically correct’
(Breitbart) The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) — a public broadcaster funded by a “TV licence” fee forced on UK television owners — has declared that resistance to Shariah law is “Islamophobic”.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
France: Another ‘Insane’ Response to ‘Allahu Akbar’ Terror Attack
‘Mentally ill’ mantra follows Muslim’s stabbing of Jew in France
The latest attack came in Strasbourg, France, where an Orthodox Jewish rabbi was attacked in broad daylight Friday and left hospitalized by a knife-wielding Muslim yelling “Allahu Akbar!”
The incident was immediately scrubbed by French police as “not terrorism related” in what has become a pattern across Europe, Canada and the United States.
Instead of calling it terrorism, the authorities initially refer to the assailant as mentally ill or “suffering from psychiatric issues,” as the Daily Mirror reported on the latest incident, which took place just outside the rabbi’s home about 500 yards from the main synagogue in the city’s Jewish quarter.
As recently as Aug. 11, a woman ran over two police officers in Montreal with her car while yelling “Allah!” and she was also deemed mentally ill by Canadian authorities, CIJ News reported.
[Comment: Recommended reading. Long list of “mentally ill” attackers.]
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
France: Nice Attack Death Toll Rises to 86 as Injured Man Dies
The number of people killed when a lorry ploughed into crowds in the French city of Nice on 14 July has risen to 86.
A French government official said a man who had been injured in the attack on the Promenade des Anglais died of his injuries.
The man, who has not been named, leaves behind a wife and two children.
The attack, which has been claimed by so-called Islamic State, was carried out by a Tunisian man living in France.
Eighty-three people died on the night of the attack on Bastille Day and three have since died in hospital of injuries sustained when Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel drove a lorry into celebrating crowds.
Among the dead were 10 children and teenagers.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
German Right-Wing Leader Backs Citizen’s Right to Arm Themselves
Reuters) — The leader of the populist Alternative for Germany (AfD) party has spoken out in favor of people arming themselves with guns and self-defense devices following a series of violent attacks last month.
The anti-immigrant AfD has won growing popular support in Germany due in part to Europe’s migrant crisis, which has seen more than 1 million refugees arrive over the past year, and it now has seats in eight of Germany’s 16 state assemblies.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Italy’s Five Star Movement is Revolutionising the Country and Could be the EU’s Next Nightmare
IT LOOKS like the summer of a lifetime for Alessandro di Battista.
The 37-year-old Italian is touring the county on a Vespa, taking selfies at the beach and Italian lakes with crowds of adoring fans and posting them online.
Only the Instagram-worthy road trip is a political revolution in the making that could topple the Prime Minister and lead Italy out of the eurozone.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Italy Imam Defends Burqinis With Beach-Going Nuns Photo
The Imam of Florence, Izzedin Elzir, waded into the controversial burqini debate on Thursday by posting a photo on Facebook of habit-wearing nuns splashing around on the edge of the shore — only for the social network to block his account.
Wednesday’s post — a response to some French beach resorts banning burqinis — garnered over 2,000 shares.
But when he tried to access his account the next morning, Elzir, who is also the president of the Union of Italian Islamic Communities, found it was blocked.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: “Go Away!”, Frustrated Venice Locals Tell Tourists
Venice locals have vented their frustration against tourists in Italy’s famous canal city, as mayor Luigi Brugnaro pledges to come down hard on unruly visitors.
Flyers have appeared across the city, which attracts some 20 million people a year, over the last few days, telling tourists exactly what some locals think about their presence.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
New Reports of Swedish Festival Sexual Assaults
One arrest on suspicion of rape — later reclassified as sexual assault — has been made amid a raft of reports of sexual and other crimes at a festival in Stockholm.
The arrest was made on Friday night during the We are Sthlm festival.
“Laying hands (on someone) is considered a sexual assault, any more than that and we consider it a (possible) rape,” Kjell Lindgren of Stockholm Police told TT.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Priest Killer Jihadist Buried in France
One of the jihadists who murdered a French priest in July was buried in a Paris suburb, where his family owns a crypt, a local official said on Saturday.
Adel Kermiche, 19, was shot dead by French police after he and another assailant attacked a church on 26 July in Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvroy in northern France, murdering priest Jacques Hamel and seriously injuring another hostage.
On Friday evening, Kermiche was buried in a discreet funeral in the Muslim section of a multi-faith cemetery in the Puiseux-Pontoise suburb northwest of Paris.
“All we did was strictly apply the law. The family owns a crypt in the cemetery, and the… law guarantees the right to be buried, regardless of the circumstances surrounding the person’s death,” a local official said.
France has wrestled with the conundrum of where to bury the jihadists behind a string of deadly attacks in recent months.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Revealed: Record Number of Migrants Now Trying to Get to UK From Violence-Ravaged Calais
The latest census by the prefecture of Pas-de-Calais shows those waiting to enter the UK in the French port town is now 6,901 — the maximum since the camp’s formation in April 2015.
Economic migrants trying to reach Britain have been settling in the Jungle Camp at an speeding rate.
The “precise and exhaustive” census carried out by border law enforcement officials shows a shocking 53 per cent increase in residents in two months, with the last count on June 13 being 4,480.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Children Are Being Put at Risk Because Ministers Are Failing to Protect Whistleblowers
A commission of MPs said Rotherham Council’s failure to listen to people speaking out contributed to organised abuse and whistleblowers need better legal protection.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Muslim Woman Fined for Lying About Attack Over Hajib
(ITV) A woman who claimed she was subjected to a racist assault — telling the police and media she’ d been targeted for wearing a hijab — has been fined for wasting police time after CCTV enquiries showed she made up the attack.
The 18-year-old reported being set upon by a man in New Street, near the Odeon cinema, at 7.30am on 23 November and punched in the face.
She suggested the assault was racially-motivated — triggered by the fact she wears a traditional Muslim head scarf — and that the incident left her afraid of walking alone in central Birmingham.
Detectives trawled CCTV footage in and around New Street and accompanied the teenager on a walk through the city centre to help her pinpoint the offence location. But after monitoring her movements they could find no evidence of the alleged attack.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
WHO Manual Directing “Authorities” On How to Respond to Vaccine Deniers in Public
The endlessly increasing vaccine push on the public, at the behest of pharmaceutical companies, can be looked at as nothing more than a psychological operation (PSYOP). From the European Regional Office of the World Health Organization (WHO) comes the 2016 “Best Practice Guidance 1st Edition: How to Respond to Vocal Vaccine Deniers in Public”. From this guide parents and communities will understand how to see through the simplistic messaging maneuvers and counter the ongoing public PSYOP. The WHO’s guiding document opens on page one with the following statement:
“This guidance document provides basic broad principles for a spokesperson of any health authority on how to respond to vocal vaccine deniers.The suggestions are based on psychological research on persuasion, on research in public health, communication studies and on WHO risk communication guidelines.”
The document centers on how to address “science denialism” for health authorities in a public venue or discussion. The document reads like a marijuana propaganda piece from the 1960’s. According the the WHO, those who question “science” and “experts” are chopped up into three categories: a vaccine refuser, a vaccine skeptic or a vaccine denier…
Overall the document reads like a military PSYOPS manual on how to properly craft and deliver specific messaging to a conquered enemy force. Given the massive amounts of scientific corruption, conspiracy “facts” and political revolving doors with vaccine manufacturers (i.e. Julie “Merck” Gerberding), the WHO’s document is glimpse to a future where forced medicine, directed by drug manufacturers, will give the public no quarter.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Viorst’s “Zionism” Is a “Sloppy Hit on Israel”
There has not been a serious critical review of Milton Viorst’s, Zionism: The Birth and Transformation of an Ideal, until David Isaac published, “A Sloppy Hit on Israel” in today’s Washington Free Beacon. Isaac is the creative force behind the history of Zionism educational documentary website, Zionism 101.org. See our Iconoclast post on a previous review by Isaac: “Why are Jews Against Israel.”
Viorst has been the Middle East commentator of record for The New Yorker since the early 1980’s. He is not an admirer of Revisionist Zionist founder Ze’ev Jabotinsky. Moreover, he believes the 40 years, since the election of Likud government beginning with Menachem Begin culminating in the several governments of current Israeli PM Netanyahu, have suborned the original objectives of the historic figures of Zionism beginning with the founder of political Zionism, Theodore Herzl. In successive chapters Viorst opines on those involved with the establishment of the modern State of Israel: Chain Weizmann, David Ben Gurion, Golda Meir and the tragic Yitzhak Rabin…
| — Hat tip: Jerry Gordon | [Return to headlines] |
ISIS is Still Holding Nearly 2,000 Yazidi Women as Slaves
The Islamic state still holds nearly 2000 Iraqi women as slaves, most of them Yazidis, and more than 300,000 Yazidis are still displaced almost two years after the group swept into the northern Iraqi district of Sinjar, according to a new United Nations report.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Several Dead in Turkey Blast Near Wedding in Gaziantep
An explosion has caused deaths and many injuries near a wedding in the southern Turkish city of Gaziantep, officials say.
Security sources quoted by Reuters news agency said eight people were killed and 60 injured.
Gaziantep Governor Ali Yerlikaya told Turkey’s Anadolu news agency that the “terror attack” took place in Akdere, in the city’s Sahinbey district.
Gaziantep is about 64km (40 miles) from the Syrian border. A suicide bomber killed two policemen there in May.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
US Moves Nuclear Weapons From Turkey to Romania
After weeks of speculation about the security of US tactical nuclear weapons inside Turkey’s Incirlik Air Base, reports are emerging that the US is in the process of moving the weapons to Deveselu, in Romania.
The Romanian Foreign Ministry has “strongly denied” that this was the case, while the US Air Force refused to make specific comments on the matter, saying it was “speculation.” The reports broke at Euractiv, which only mentioned “more than 20” weapons. Previous reports have suggested the US had as many as 50 weapons there.
A report earlier this week cautioned that the weapons are at risk of seizure so long as they remain in Turkey, just 70 miles from the Syrian border.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Leaked Memo Shows Soros Pushed Greece to Support Ukraine Coup, Paint Russia as Enemy
Last week we reported on the DC Leaks hack of what was over 2,500 documents detailing how George Soros and his NGOs influence world leaders, drive foreign policy, and help to create unrest in sovereign nations, that many times leads to chaos and civil war.
One country of particular focus for George Soros and his NGOs is Ukraine.
It is now accepted fact that Soros was deeply involved in the Maiden protests in 2014 and the violent coup, that saw a democratically elected government overthrown in the name of “EU values”.
What is even more troubling, as revealed by the DC Leaks hack, is how Soros and his network of “non-profit organisations” worked to lobby EU member states into not only buying his Ukraine “Maidan” narrative, but to also disavow any ties and support for Russia.
Leaked documents show that George Soros was active in mapping out the Greek media landscape with generous grants, so as to further his Ukraine project, while also using his deep pockets to get Greek media to turn against the Russian Federation…in what can only be described as a well-funded and orchestrated smear campaign.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Power Struggle Seen in Russia’s Shelving of Bashneft Sale
A power struggle within President Vladimir Putin’s inner circle may lie behind Russia’s surprise decision to delay selling a stake in Bashneft PJSC, its biggest asset sale in a decade, according to analysts.
“There was an internal conflict among the elite over who would get the assets that had potential long-term consequences,” Yevgeny Minchenko, head of the Moscow-based International Institute of Political Expertise, said Wednesday. Rosneft PJSC chief Igor Sechin, Lukoil PJSC’s billionaire head Vagit Alekperov and smaller regional groups were all unable to convince the Kremlin that they deserved the asset, “so the issue was kicked down the road,” he said.
Among reasons for the postponement “as we see it, is Rosneft’s Sechin insistence that if he can’t have Bashneft, no one will,” Luis Saenz, head of equity sales and trading at BCS Financial Group in London, said in an e-mailed note.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
China Builds First Overseas Military Outpost
It was February this year when camel drivers first spotted the Chinese troops staking out a patch of coastal scrubland about 8 miles from the largest U.S. military base in Africa.
Chinese navy ships had visited this tiny East African nation before. They sometimes picked up supplies in the old French port, farther down the arid coast, during antipiracy patrols off Somalia.
This time, the Chinese military was here to stay. The camel herders watched as the troops secured a plot next to a construction site where a vast new bulk and container port is taking shape.
The 90-acre plot is where Beijing is building its first overseas military outpost—a historic step that marks a bold new phase in its evolution as a world power.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
China’s ambition to revive an ancient trading route stretching from Asia to Europe could leave an economic legacy bigger than the Marshall Plan or the European Union’s enlargement, according to a new analysis.
Dubbed ‘One Belt, One Road,’ the plan to build rail, highways and ports will embolden China’s soft power status by spreading economic prosperity during a time of heightened political uncertainty in both the U.S. and EU, according to Stephen L. Jen, the chief executive officer at Eurizon SLJ Capital Ltd., who estimates a value of $1.4 trillion for the project.
It will also boost trading links and help internationalize the yuan as banks open branches along the route, according to Jen.
“This is a quintessential example of a geopolitical event that will likely be consequential for the global economy and the balance of political power in the long run,” said Jen, a former International Monetary Fund economist.
Reaching from east to west, the Silk Road Economic Belt will extend to Europe through Central Asia and the Maritime Silk Road will link sea lanes to Southeast Asia, the Middle East and Africa.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Glass Bridge: China Opens World’s Highest and Longest
The much-heralded “world’s highest and longest” glass-bottomed bridge has opened to visitors in central China.
It connects two mountain cliffs in what are known as the Avatar mountains (the film was shot here) in Zhangjiajie, Hunan province.
Completed in December, the 430m-long bridge cost $3.4m (£2.6m) to build and stands 300m above ground, state news agency Xinhua reported.
It has been paved with 99 panes of three-layered transparent glass.
And according to officials, the 6m-wide bridge — designed by Israeli architect Haim Dotan — has already set world records for its architecture and construction.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
After Confiscating Their Guns, Venezuela’s Maduro Has Another Warning for Coup Plotters
Yesterday we reported that Venezuela’s Interior Minister, Nestor Reverol, launched a campaign in Caracas to “disarm” citizens in an effort to curb rampant violence…
However, the real reason for the crackdown on guns was different: after last month’s failed Turkish coup, the socialist ruler is worried — with good reason — that he may be next.
So in order to preempt “next steps”, and just in case gun confiscations are insufficient to prevent the inevitable, the Venezula ruler took to direct threats, warning his countrymen that Erdogan’s purge would look like child’s play compared with the action he would take if opposition tried something similar in the OPEC nation.
“Did you see what happened in Turkey?” said Maduro, in a televised public event on Thursday evening. “Erdogan will seem like a nursing baby compared to what the Bolivarian revolution will do if the right wing steps over the line with a coup.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Venezuela Proposes Blacklisting Opponents Amid Recall Push
In a replay of one of the ugliest chapters in the two-decade rule of the socialist party in Venezuela, a top government official said Thursday that a list of those who signed a petition seeking to recall President Nicolas Maduro will be handed over to government ministries and state-run companies.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
EU May Block ‘More Generous’ Asylum Policies in Sweden
Sweden will be unable to adopt a more generous policy on refugees should the EU approve tougher laws of its own, says Fredrik Beijer, Director of Legal Affairs at the Swedish Migration Board (Migrationsverket), reports Sveriges Radios Ekot.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
New York City Scraps English Test for Taxi Drivers
New York City taxi drivers will no longer have to pass an English test under new rules designed to make it easier for immigrants to get behind the wheel of a yellow cab.
The test for a taxi license will be available in several languages under regulations that went into effect Friday.
The change was approved by the City Council in April and signed into law by Mayor Bill de Blasio.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Federal Buildings Open Women’s Bathrooms to Men
WASHINGTON-The Government Services Administration (GSA) has issued a regulation declaring that transgender employees and visitors must be allowed to use the bathrooms that match their so-called “gender identity.” The new policy by the GSA, which manages more than 9,000 federal building and offices in more than 2,000 cities nationwide, applies to federal courthouses and offices such as the Social Security Administration and the Department of Veterans Affairs. It will not, however, apply to the U.S. Capitol or national parks, which are not under GSA control.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Seattle Offers ‘White Fragility’ Workshop
(London Daily Mail) An academic and author is offering courses for white people teaching them how to cope with their ‘ white fragility’ — and tickets for the lectures have sold out.
The City of Seattle is offering the class through its Office of Arts and Culture, with Dr. Robin DiAngelo taking students through the course.
The workshops, which cost $60 to attend and had its first four-hour session on Wednesday night, focus on: ‘the specific way that racism manifests through White Fragility and provides the perspectives and skills needed for white people to have more constructive cross-racial interactions’ .
The Office of Arts and Culture also defines ‘ white fragility’ as: ‘the inability for white people to tolerate racial stress.’
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
The million dollar (plus) houses in Vancouver are usually old or/and small, or poorly built.Especially in the mid to west end of the city. The real value is in the property itself. In Seattle (a much nicer city) 1 K will get you a 4 bedroom,2 bathroom,2 car garage “mansion”. With a large front lawn. In Vancouver you end up with a WW II shack with a poor roof and a postage stamp lawn. A tear-down.The lot is a quarter or one third smaller than the Seattle one. The Vancouver mayor wants everyone to grow WHEAT in front of their homes ! I don’t know why but that’s the narrative . I could be making this up but I’m not. Canada’s weirdest city…
My brother in (North) Vancouver would tell a different tale. Rich Chinese, many from Hong Kong, buy fine, reasonably large houses built decades ago, demolish them, uproot mature trees, dig up gardens, and build larger houses occupying most of the lot, overlooking adjoining houses, often digging into the rock to create basements, all accompanied by much noise and disturbance for their neighbours.
Since it’s obviously one of those days … a friend I was recently re-acquainted with lives in an old apartment somewhere in your neck of the woods, Fredericksburg I believe and he was saying how his place was used as storage for dead union soldiers and that one of two are still around and quite frisky, banging around in the bathroom afterhours in redcoat. Said friend is part of that subculture that celebrates death and he’s sound guy for some creepy goth bands so you know he bought the place specifically for the old friends resident there. We agreed it’s a sad state of affairs that goths and metalheads everywhere are being forced to support Trump openly when they’re much rather be throwing eggs at him and cracking the bones of dead babies, and we lamented the sad state of the world. However, we agreed that we’d prefer 72 pizzas to 72 virgins, theoretically, and that got me thinking … and I thought it is for very good reason the Muslims bury their dead before nightfall. No three-day open casket wakes for them. And since the last thing we want is jihadi jinn roaming the neighbourhood looking for their virgins … we might be thankful when the Muslims grab their holy martyrs and get them underground before nightfall.
**Probably funneled by globalists to run black-ops destabilization programs **
Or Obama’s civilian security force?