Some interesting updates on the story of the house that exploded early on Friday morning in Rockville, Maryland:
- The owner had allegedly been tapping the shut-off gas line illegally for the past two years.
- Investigators have now discovered firearms and CO2 canisters in the debris.
- The bank that foreclosed on the homeowner’s mortgage announced on Wednesday that the house would be auctioned on Friday. The house blew up at 1am on Friday.
- Today (Saturday) investigators found remains of a human and a dog in the debris.
In European news, a man wrestled a gun away from a female French soldier at Orly airport in Paris, and said that he wanted to die for Allah. Before he could fire the gun, he was shot to death by other soldiers.
In other news, the legendary rock-and-roller Chuck Berry has died at the age of 90. He could play a guitar like ringing a bell. May God rest his soul, and show him the way to the Promised Land.
To see the headlines and the articles, click “Continue reading” below.
Thanks to Dean, Insubria, JD, LP, 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.
Are Collapsing Pensions “About to Bring Hell to America”?
Along with the student loan debt bubble and other major financial factors, the looming pensions crisis is bound to be the death of us all.
Because it’s based on a future promise to pay, it has long been a benefit dangled to solve strikes and union disputes — because, in the end, it is just more debt, whether private or public.
With tens of trillions in unfunded liabilities, the weight of an avalanche remains dangling over our heads. An aging population is cashing in on needed retirement benefits while the younger generations must support multiples that are unsustainable financially.
Somewhere between the retiree that needs clothing, food and lodging, and the bankruptcy of cities and state governments is the makings of the next economic crisis.
via AgainstCronyCapitalism.org:
This is one of those things that few will pay attention to until it’s a 5 alarm fire. Then the policymakers will run around with their hands in the air saying they didn’t see it coming.
Of course they did. But addressing the problem is hard and will make people unhappy in the short term.
This blog pointed out the sad, and quiet fact that entities like the government of South Carolina are deep in debt over pensions. Everywhere there are failing social systems.
And somewhere, the rubber is going to met the road, and people are going to get hurt.
As SHTF previously reported:…
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
AI Will be Smarter Than Humans by 2029 Before We Merge With Machine, Google Chief Says
MARK the year 2029 in your diary as it is when artificial intelligence will finally be smarter than humans, a top ranking Google executive has claimed.
Google’s director of engineering Ray Kurzweil has said the AI singularity will happen in the year 2029, and just a few years later humans will merge with machines.
The AI singularity is the point where machines match human-level intelligence.
Speaking at the SXSW Conference in Austin, Texas, Mr Kurzweil said: “By 2029, computers will have human-level intelligence.”
He added that the process has already begun.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
As Anthem-Protesting Colin Kaepernick’s Free Agency Goes Nowhere, Sports Writer Searches for Answers
After spending half the season perpetrating an anti-American protest against the national anthem, NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick announced his free agency. But, with teams snapping up players, Kaepernick has thus far gone ignored by the NFL. Now, sports writer Mike Freeman, searching for a reason for the player’s fall, ultimately decided that Kaepernick is being punished for “the crime of speaking his mind.”
For BleacherReport.com, Mike Freeman seems gobsmacked that no team has come forward to offer the 49ers second-string quarterback a new birth.
With his analysis, Freeman seems to blame the country and the NFL for being racist for not allowing Kaepernick to have unlimited success and untold accolades. Freeman also proclaims that Kaepernick is being punished for “the crime of speaking his mind.”…
It is absolutely correct that Kaepernick has the right to say America has never been great, to slam our soldiers, the police, and other first responders, to tout Black Lives Matter and the like. But, it is the fans’ corresponding right to decide they don’t like him when he expresses those ideas.
It is also highly logical for teams assessing Kaepernick’s free agency to decide they don’t want to bring his controversial views into their locker rooms and to assault their fans with his protests. Kaepernick has a right to speak out, but he doesn’t have a right to expect no repercussions from that speech.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Babysitter Who Filmed Sexual Abuse of Toddler Gets 60 Years
(Miami Herald) A babysitter who took photos and videos of himself sexually abusing a toddler at the request of a Broward man must serve 60 years in prison, a federal judge in Miami ruled Thursday.
Jason Barber, 39 of Las Vegas, previously pleaded guilty to charges including producing and distributing child pornography. Benedict Shaw, the man who police say received the images and requested certain poses of the 2-year-old, has been sentenced to 45 years in prison.
U.S. District Court Judge Robert N. Scola Jr. handed down the 60-year sentence Thursday despite pleas from Barber’s defense attorney for a more lenient sentence of 30 years.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Bank Sale Loomed for Md. House Leveled in Blast; Officials Search for Owner
ROCKVILLE, Md. — The owner of a Rockville house that was in foreclosure and was destroyed in an early morning blast remains unaccounted for Friday evening — hours after the explosion woke neighbors and rained debris onto nearby homes, leaving one uninhabitable, fire officials said.
Ten homes and nine vehicles were also damaged in the blast that rocked the Randolph Hills neighborhood, which witnessed a similar house explosion six years ago. Residents of the most severely damaged house were staying in a hotel as on Friday night.
No injuries were reported, but fire officials don’t know whether they will find the remains of the owner inside the rubble or whether he is alive and well.
Montgomery County Fire Chief Scott Goldstein said that finding the owner is a key goal as the investigation into what caused the explosion continues.
Investigators have yet to enter what remains of the structure, including the basement. Work on Friday focused on making the area safe and clearing potentially dangerous items such as CO2 canisters and an array of weapons, which police carted off, Goldstein said.
Investigators would return on Saturday to continue to process the scene, scrutinizing each layer of the debris for clues about what happened and why, he said.
The one-story, brick home in the 11400 block of Ashley Drive had been in foreclosure since 2015, according to court records. And the home, worth about $340,000, was slated to be sold at auction on Friday afternoon, according to a legal notice published in The Washington Post this week and an auction listing on RealtyTrac.com.
The foreclosure is also a part of the investigation, Goldstein said.
Investigators haven’t ruled out any cause for the blast and resulting fire, including whether it was an intentional act or whether unauthorized use of natural gas could have leveled the home, he said…
| — Hat tip: Dean | [Return to headlines] |
Chuck Berry: A Founding Father of Rock ‘N’ Roll, Dies at 90
Chuck Berry, the singer, songwriter and guitar great who practically defined rock music with his impeccably twangy hits “Maybellene,” “Roll Over Beethoven,” “Memphis,” “My Ding-a-Ling” and “Sweet Little Sixteen,” has died. He was 90.
The singer/songwriter, whose classic “Johnny B. Goode” was chosen by Carl Sagan to be included on the golden record of Earth Sounds and Music launched with Voyager in 1977, died Saturday afternoon, St. Charles County Police Department confirmed. The cause of death was not revealed.
During his 60-plus years in show business, Berry in 1986 became one of the first inductees into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He entered The Blues Foundation’s Blues Hall of Fame in ‘85 and that year also received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.
He performed in 1979 for President Jimmy Carter at the White House, landed at No. 6 on Rolling Stone ‘s list of the “100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time” and trademarked his stage showmanship with his famous “duck walk.”…
| — Hat tip: LP | [Return to headlines] |
Even when Hillary Clinton is no longer running for president, laptop “accidents” continue to follow her.
As regular readers will recall, shortly before the election, the FBI revealed that a laptop containing some of Hillary Clinton’s emails mysteriously disappeared in transit, while several months later, another laptop belonging to Anthony Weiner just as mysteriously was found to contain emails between his then-wife Huma Abedin and her boss, Hillary. The laptop in question prompted the FBI to reopen its probe into Hillary Clinton’s emails just days before the presidential election.
Now, according to the New York Daily News which cites police sources, a laptop computer containing information about the Hillary Clinton email investigation, as well as floor plans for Trump Tower and other national security information, was stolen from a Secret Service agent’s vehicle in Brooklyn.
The secret service agent reported the laptop contained floor plans for Trump Tower, evacuation protocols and information regarding the investigation of Hillary Clinton’s private email server. The agent also told investigators that while nothing about the White House or foreign leaders is stored on the laptop, the information on the computer “could compromise national security.” The thief also took “sensitive” documents and the agent’s access keycard, though the level of the agent’s access wasn’t immediately clear.
The laptop was stolen on Thursday morning and authorities have been “frantically” searching for it ever since.
[Comment: Should not these laptops have strong encryption enabled by default?]
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Limbaugh: ‘We Are on the Verge of a Genuine Constitutional Crisis’
Friday on his nationally syndicated radio show, conservative talker Rush Limbaugh warned of a coming constitutional crisis should the certain federal judges continue to deny President Donald Trump the ability to institute his policies.
Limbaugh pointed to the precedent set by the federal judiciary’s effort to deny Trump’s travel ban and argued it could lead to other limits on the president’s powers down the road.
Partial transcript as follows (courtesy of RushLimbaugh.com):
We are on the verge of a genuine constitutional crisis because of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals opening the door for this Hawaii Obama-appointed judge to deny Trump’s travel ban the second time going, and I want to get into detail as to what this really means and what the left is really doing here.
It’s not a legal dispute. This is, as I said yesterday, is a silent coup that is taking place that I’m sure has been strategized since before Trump was inaugurated. But the profound, devastating possibilities that result from this in terms of a president losing all constitutional — do you realize with this judge’s ruling, I’ll tell you where this is going.
Let’s say that Donald Trump decides at any time in the near future that he needs to deploy troops, and so he does, and so a leftist activist goes to a court, shops and finds a judge, like the guy in Hawaii, and claims that Trump said during the campaign that he was gonna do X Y, or Z, whatever, and the deployment of troops is not really for the stated purpose, and the judge could shut it down!
This judge’s ruling has — if the guy’s not stopped, if the Supreme Court doesn’t overturn this, or if Trump doesn’t just ignore it like Andrew Jackson did, then we’re getting to the point where the president, because of the judiciary, will have totally lost constitutional authority to defend the country because of this little ruling in Hawaii that was made possible by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. And it’s all about this idiotic notion that a presidential candidate on the campaign trial making statements is the equivalent of an inaugurated president stating policy.
But even at that the judge doesn’t have the right to do what he did! He doesn’t have the congressional right, he doesn’t have the statutory right to do what he did, because basically this judge shut Trump down because, in this judge’s opinion, Trump is a bigot. And anti-Muslim means bigot, and we are not going to allow our president to represent us this way is essentially what this judge was saying.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Malkin: ‘Deep State Operatives Are Embedded in Every Corner of the Federal Government’
Political commentator Michelle Malkin spoke about the “deep state” on Fox News’ Watters’ World Saturday.
On the show, Malkin told Watters that the “deep state” plays by a “guidebook” of “A-B-C’s” which she said are: “Agitation — A, Barack — B, […] and C — chaos.”
“There are deep state operatives embedded in every corner of the federal government [and] I think they need to be exposed.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Remains of Adult, Pet Found at Scene of House Explosion
Cause of blast not yet determined, fire officials say
ROCKVILLE, Md. — The remains of an adult and a pet have been found in the wreckage of a house in Rockville that was leveled by an explosion.
The house was leveled early Friday by a thunderous explosion heard for miles around, a blast so powerful it shattered windows and caused other damage to several neighboring homes, authorities said.
Montgomery County Fire Chief Scott Goldstein said Saturday that the remains were found in the wreckage of the home on Ashley Drive in Rockville. It was not clear whether the remains belonged to the home’s owner, who has not been accounted for since the explosion early Friday. Goldstein says the medical examiner’s office will do an autopsy to identify the remains and determine a cause of death.
Investigators are still searching for clues to the explosion’s cause and Goldstein says it is still too early to know whether the explosion was intentional or accidental.
The explosion shook the city of Rockville about 1 a.m. and scattered debris widely, a fire official said, adding that while the cause wasn’t immediately known.
As a precaution, utility workers turned off gas and power at the home and others nearby. Fire and utility officials also went door to door asking neighbors to leave for their safety. Yellow police tape cordoned off the site.
“It’s just a pile of bricks. There’s not anything left of the house,” said Pete Piringer, chief spokesman for Montgomery County Fire & Rescue Service. “I’ve heard there were calls from miles away.”
A legal notice appearing in The Washington Post on Wednesday stated the home would be sold at auction on Friday afternoon, but the auction firm’s website no longer listed it Friday morning. The auction firm referred questions to Brock & Scott, the firm advertising the sale, but they did not return calls seeking comment.
Gas service at the home was turned off in June 2015, but Washington Gas spokesman Brian Edwards said unauthorized use had been detected at the home since January. A bill had been sent to the house, he said. Tests on Friday showed no leaks in the neighborhood or from the street to the house, Edwards said…
| — Hat tip: Dean | [Return to headlines] |
The 2016 election threw the global nation-wrecking cabal into a tailspin when political outsider Donald J. Trump defeated “sure thing” Hillary Clinton to become the 45th President of the United States. In that process, Trump defeated sixteen Republican challengers, the pro-Clinton and Obama media and most importantly, more than 200 George Soros NGOs (non-governmental organizations), through which Soros has spent billions to destroy the United States Constitutional Republic.
This event not only set the global left into a tailspin, it set the global left on the path to the “Purple Revolution” aimed at removing Trump from office, nullifying elections, finishing off the U.S. Constitution and placing the USA back on track to Open Society globalization under a Karl Marx version of “liberal democracy.”
What’s the strategy?
(…)
So, the strategy is to use “fake news” to create the public perception that Trump is “incompetent” or otherwise “unfit” for the office. Vice President Mike Pence is the key figure in making this strategy work. If public approval for Trump can be driven down via “fake news” stories, Republican undermining of Trump promises in congress and an endless stream of lawsuits decided by Obama appointed and Soros approved judicial activists, such as those currently blocking any Trump effort to stop the importing of jihadists from the Middle East, then Pence may make a move against Trump “for the greater good.”
(…)
So long as Soros and his network of NGOs exist, there will be no draining of the swamp. Every move Trump makes to drain the swamp is being immediately countered by Soros operatives in the media, the courts, congress and hundreds of single issue NGOs engaging and funding millions of Purple Revolution activists on the ground — now threatening lawmakers at town hall and legislative events and causing chaos on the college campus, in the courts and on the streets.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Trump Wins: G-20 Drops ‘Anti-Protectionist, Free-Trade, & Climate-Change Funding’ Commitment
After delays and hours of discussions amid tensions over ‘trade’ comments between the United States and the rest of The G-20, it appears President Trump has ‘won’. While China was “adamantly against” protectionism, the finance ministers end talks without renewing their long-standing commitment to free trade and rejection of protectionism after US opposition.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Trump Jobs Boom: IBM to Hire 2,000 Vets After Meeting With Prez
The Trump jobs boom continues, with computer giant IBM announcing that it is set to hire 2,000 veterans of the U.S. Military after a meeting with President Donald J. Trump.
IBM CEO Ginni Rometty, who serves on Trump’s business advisory board, is to announce the new plans on Friday.
The company intends to open 20 new P-TECH schools in the U.S. and will retrain and certify the veterans over a four-year period, Axios reported.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
WikiLeaks Threatens to Reveal Tech Companies That Haven’t Responded to Help Offer Against CIA Hacks
WikiLeaks said it plans to take action against technology companies that “continue to drag their feet” in communicating over software and products that might be vulnerable to the CIA’s hacking program revealed in the “Vault 7” publication on March 7.
In a statement posted to Twitter late Friday, WikiLeaks founder and editor-in-chief Julian Assange said companies such as Mozilla have already exchanged letters after his organization offered its help in working with them by offering the technical details of the CIA’s alleged hacking methods.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
A Month of Islam and Multiculturalism in France: February 2017
February 1. The Interior Ministry reported a 45% decline in attacks against Jews and Muslims in France in 2016, but a 17.5% increase in attacks against Christians. The ministry said there were 1,125 attacks against Jews and Muslims in 2016, down from 2,034 attacks in 2015. It also reported 949 attacks against Christians in 2016, up from 808 attacks in 2015. Attacks against Christians jumped by 245% between 2008 and 2016.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Most of you are well-familiar with the quintessential “community organizer” and Marxist grass-roots manual written by Saul Alinsky, “Rules for Radicals.” This primer on agitation and “soft” revolution has a principle that the Marxists have utilized successfully with the labor unions (Richard Trumka, for example) that has not been lost outside of the U.S. as well. With St. Patrick’s Day, we can see a prime example of where an organization formed ostensibly for one reason is transformed into another. The Alinsky principle is to take over an entire organization by “converting” its heads/leaders…called “organizing the organized.” In this way, the social network stays in place, “led” into a new way of thinking and conduct by the converted leadership. For this example outside of the U.S., look no further than Sinn Fein.
Established as a political party that supported active Irish independence from Great Britain, it presently is far from what it was originally intended. Visit their website and find they support LGBT issues and same-sex marriage, along with a whole bunch of other platforms that could come right out of the Planks of the Communist Manifesto. The U.S. Union boss Richard Trumka’s counterpart in Ireland is none other than Gerry Adams.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Analysts: Geert Wilders Force to be Reckoned With After Dutch Elections
THE HAGUE (AFP) — Geert Wilders may have been beaten into second place in the Dutch elections but the far-right MP will enjoy a magnified role in parliament and remain a force to be reckoned with, analysts said.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
German Foreign Minister: Turkey ‘Further Away From EU Membership Than Ever’
Turkey has never been less likely to join the European Union than now and the bloc should seek a special relationship with Britain, German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel said as relations between Ankara and Berlin hit a low point.
“Today Turkey is definitely further away from becoming a member of the European Union than ever before,” Gabriel said in an interview with news magazine Der Spiegel published on Saturday.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Gunman Shot Dead at Paris Airport
ORLY, France — Yelling that he wanted to kill and die for Allah, a suspected Islamic extremist attacked a French soldier Saturday at Paris’ Orly Airport and wrested away her assault rifle, a French prosecutor said.
Two colleagues on her patrol shot and killed the man before he could fire the military-grade weapon in the busy airport terminal.
The attack forced the airport’s terminals to shut down and evacuate, sent passengers and workers fleeing in panic and trapped hundreds of others aboard flights that had just landed.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Ferrero Buys Fannie May
Gets US chocolate maker from 1-800-Flowers.com
(ANSA) — Turin, March 16 — Italian confectionery giant Ferrero on Thursday said it had bought US premium chocolate maker Fannie May Confections Brand from 1-800-Flowers.com. Fanny May makes the Fannie May and Harry London chocolate brands.
Ferrero said it would also stipulate a strategic commercial partnership accord with the aim of including a selection of Ferrero and Fannie May products in gift baskets and on 1-800-Flowers.com’s e-commerce sites. In a statement, Ferrero said it saw the United States as a major market for growth.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: ENI Sells Mozambique Stake to ExxonMobil for $2.8 Bn
Area 4 offshore field
(adds ‘stake’ in slug). (ANSA) — Rome, March 9 — Italian fuels group ENI said Thursday it was selling its 25% share in the Area 4 field off Mozambique to US multinational ExxonMobil, for around $2.5 billion.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Marine Le Pen Hails ‘Extremely Positive’ Dutch Elections
Despite Dutch anti-mass migration politician Geert Wilders coming second in the Dutch national elections this week, French presidential candidate Marine Le Pen called the result “extremely positive”.
Earlier this week, the Dutch Party for Freedom (PVV) under the leadership of anti-Islamisation politician Geert Wilders came second in the national elections. Many in politics including Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte and the media claimed Wilders coming second means the end of the populist movement sweeping Europe.
French anti-mass migration presidential candidate Marine Le Pen has firmly disagreed, Tiroler Tageszeitung reports.
Ms. Le Pen called the result which saw the PVV increase its seats in the parliament “extremely positive”. The vote also led to the total collapse of the Dutch Labour party which went from 25 per cent of the vote in 2012 to only 6 per cent, losing the majority of its seats in the parliament.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Poland Experiencing Baby Bom: Report
Poland is experiencing a baby boom, with estimates forecasting that up to 400,000 children will be born by the end of 2017, the Dziennik Gazeta Prawna daily has reported.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Radicalized Muslim Killed After Seizing Soldier’s Gun at Paris Orly Airport in Terrorist Attack
A man was shot dead by security forces after seizing a soldier’s gun at Paris Orly airport on Saturday while in a separate incident a police officer was shot and injured north of the French capital, the French Interior Ministry said.
The incident is being investigated as a terrorist attack.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Bradford Couple Jailed for Terrorism Offences
A husband and wife from Bradford have been jailed after pleading guilty to preparing for acts of terrorism in November last year.
Ijaz Khan, 28, was arrested in February 2015 at Manchester Airport after information was received that he was planning to travel to Syria to fight with Daesh.
Afsheen Khan, also 28, was arrested by officers from the North East Counter Terrorism Unit (NE CTU) in October 2015.
Detectives say Ijaz Khan made arrangements to travel from Bradford to Syria and obtained money to fund this journey from his wife, Afsheen.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Even Muslims Outraged Over Islamic Rape Law
One of the big criticisms of Islam is that it treats women as second-class people, notes a new report in Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin.
Women in many Muslim cultures don’t have the same inheritance rights as men and don’t make decisions about important issues such as marriage. They sometimes aren’t allowed to drive or pursue certain jobs.
In some societies they must be accompanied by a man when they go out.
But even Islamists now are erupting in anger over the treatment of Muslim girls in Islam-dominated Tunisia.
It’s because the law there states, and the courts have upheld, that a man who attacks and rapes a girl, even a 13 year old, can have all charges dismissed by marrying her.
“The luster and magic and a 13-year-old girl’s childhood are murdered by rape by a young man who is definitely of the age of legal responsibility but who appears to be at the age of anarchy, stupidity, carelessness and animalism,” wrote Tunisian journalist Na’ Ima Al-Qadri in the e-daily Al-Sahafah.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Amaal Elhaaj is fighting the same radical Islamic terrorism that threatens people around the globe, including in her home country of Libya. She’s also a Muslim who agrees with President Donald Trump’s travel order and his effort to keep Americans safe.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Turkey Calls Germany ‘Hypocrites’ Ahead of Referendum After Frankfurt Anti-Erdogan Protest
THE Turkish government has accused Germany of hypocrisy after it allowed tens of thousands of Turkish Kurds to hold a protest in Frankfurt against Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s presidency.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
30 Countries Are Refusing to Take Back Criminal Illegals
Approximately 30 countries are refusing to accept the deportations of illegal immigrants who have committed serious crimes in the U.S., according to Texas Rep. Henry Cuellar.
While these countries are refusing to accept the deportations of these criminals, the U.S. government is still issuing visas and student visas to citizens of those countries, according to the Texan congressman. There is already a law on the books which allows the U.S. to hold visas from a country that is not taking back its criminals, but according to Cuellar, the U.S. is not enforcing it.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Appeals Court Judges Explain Why Donald Trump’s Immigration Order is Legal
The full U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit on Wednesday voted against rehearing the three-judge panel decision that had affirmed a lower court’s blocking President Donald Trump’s first executive order on immigration from terror-prone nations.
Five conservative judges on the San Francisco-based court dissented from that denial of an en banc rehearing, writing an opinion explaining why their court should reconsider the case.
The dissent by written by Judge Jay Bybee, who began his 26-page dissent by stating, “Whatever we, as individuals, may feel about the President or the Executive Order, the President’s decision was well within the powers of the presidency, and the wisdom of the policy choices made by the President is not a matter for our consideration.”
Bybee quoted a 1950 Supreme Court case which declared, “The exclusion of aliens is a fundamental act of sovereignty.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Canada Sees Major Uptick in Mexican Immigration
More Mexican nationals attempted to enter Canada in the first 67 days of 2017 than in any of the three previous years, according to a report published Friday evening.
The Canada Border Services Agency detained 444 Mexicans from Jan. 1 to March 8. In 2016, the country detained a total of 410 people, while in 2015 that number was 351 and in 2014 it was 399.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
ICE Returns Man to Ethiopia for Mutilating Daughter’s Genitals
(CNN) An Ethiopian man convicted in Georgia of mutilating his 2-year-old daughter’s genitals has been sent back to his home country by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
ICE removed Khalid Adem, 41, on Monday after he served 10 years in prison. ICE officials said the case is thought to be the first criminal conviction in the United States for female genital mutilation, a widely scorned but persistent procedure the World Health Organization calls a “global concern.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Must-See: Shockingly Blatant Propaganda as Washington Post Changes Immigration Headline
“Doesn’t Want You To Know Illegals Are On Benefits Paid By… You”
They’re not even trying to hide their bias any more.
Despite efforts by the mainstream media to convince an ever disinterested public that they are still relevant and non-partisan, a last minute headline change by the Washington Post proves just how desperate they are to maintain their big government narrative.
After running an immigration article entitled “Immigrants are now cancelling their food stamps for fear that Trump will deport them,” someone at the Post decided it just wasn’t impactful enough. That illegal immigrants were cancelling food stamp benefits seemed to suggest the Trump administration was acting in the interest of overworked and underpaid American taxpayers.
And we definitely don’t want to give anyone the idea that undocumented immigrants entering the country illegally are somehow putting a burden on the system. Thus, the only solution is to flip-flop the story so that it looks like President Trump and Americans who support common-sense immigration policies are putting a horrific burden on the people collecting government benefits illegally.
In response to this disastrous mistake to their own narrative, the Washington Post modified their title to ensure all of the blame was put directly at the feet of Donald Trump:
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Video: Trump Tells Merkel “Immigration is a Privilege, Not a Right”
Pivoting to immigration, a topic on which the two leaders have vastly different views, Trump said the focus must be on national security.
“Immigration is a privilege, not a right, and the safety of our citizens must always come first,” he said, adding that the US will respect historic institutions and the “right of free people to manage their own destiny.”
Our alliance is a “foundation of a very hopeful future,” he said.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Principal Recruits Students for Secret ‘Gay’ Club
Faculty and staff members at a charter school in Sandpoint, Idaho, set up a clandestine student “gay” club, recruited students for it and concealed their activism from the affected students’ parents apparently in violation of federal law, according to letter from the nonprofit legal organization Liberty Counsel.
Consequently, Liberty Counsel will “take further action to prevent irreparable harm to the rights of our clients, as well as the parents of other children whom the school is recruiting in the absence of their parents’ knowledge and permission,” the group says in a letter to school officials from Richard L. Mast Jr.
Principal Mary Jensen of Forrest Bird Charter School, which runs middle and high school operations, “admitted the secrecy under which school staff and others had operated,” Liberty Counsel says.
School employees even “facilitated kids meeting off-campus at a local library under the supervision of ‘supportive’third parties.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
They’re Coming for Your Children
Major cities along the East Coast may not have gotten the snowstorm meteorologists predicted this week, but every day snowflakes fly across the country on college campuses.
These delicate student loan machines melt at the prospect of their “safe spaces” being invaded by things that are perfectly normal. We’re still a few years away from these participation-ribbon recipients even coming close to sniffing the reins of power, but if and when they do, we are screwed.
I didn’t graduate college all that long ago, (December 2000, to be exact), but the culture on campuses has changed so dramatically in those years that it’s akin to when the Soviet Union fell, only in reverse.
Liberals have always lamented the fall of communism, the failure of which is ignored in their glowing affection for the island prison of Cuba. Rather than accept that their ideology simply does not work, they cling to the belief that although it may not have worked so far, that’s only because they weren’t the ones implementing it…
Even if parents were to attend occasional classes, the propaganda would be difficult to notice. That’s how indoctrination into left-wing ideology works — – like Chinese water torture, one drop at a time.
This slow brainwashing was on display in Iowa this week when students from one high school apologized to another for wearing red, white and blue to a basketball game. Yes, you read that right. They apologized for wearing the colors of the American flag to a game.
Why would students from Valley High School need a mea culpa for a display of patriotism they routinely make throughout the year? Because at this particular game, they were playing Des Moines North High School, and North has some players who “are from refugee families.”
Some supporters of North were offended on behalf of those refugee families, seeing wearing the colors of our flag as, you guessed it, “racism.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
In European news, a man wrestled a gun away from a female….
Wrested a gun away. Wrestle is something else
http://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/wrest+from
I think the pushing of Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the stamping on each of us in future of 666 writ large that no one with any real influence is reporting on.
For those who doubt such a scenario, I would ask that you think about this: It is now common, in fact in some areas, mandatory, to ‘microchip’ the family pet as a precaution to ensure that one’s pet does not get lost in the concrete jungle. However, anyone who has an affinity with their pet will choose to train them to never run off, chase cars or attack strangers, the type of training that is really easy to do – its a no brainer!
So why do pets need a microchips?
I would suggest that microchipping one’s pet/s is a precursor to having microchips inserted into child vaccines, you know the one’s that are only 99% safe according to those who promote them while disregarding that Autism and other not so prevalent problems with our young being vaccinated today that are on the rise – please see Robert F. Kennedy Junior and Robert DeNiro’s press conference on their interpretation of what vaccination truly represents if you seek further info.
Just type in their names and vaccinations together to get that info.
We are being herded into a world that no one will ever escape from or be able to do anything about unless we take matters into our own hands, now!
Yes, the opening of borders, causing chaos, and here comes the need to “vet” everyone (as from “check by the veterinary”). Financial chaos, hackers take out bank computers, or EMP, or whatever – and we might get some kind of bitcoin solution…
Safe digital currency, I heard, works on the basis of “computers keeping another hundred or a thousand computers “in check”” – so that the financial information about the individual “subjects” can be safely recovered, because the info is decentralized – like bit torrent.
Hmm, a network of billions of small computers keeping info collectively about thousands other computers each…
“And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed.”
this would be racist……what does it matter whether they have different skin colour, if they are all Brit bornborn
Pets do get stolen, though, especially pedigree ones.
Someone stole my German shepherd right out of my front yard. I found out later that four other German shepherds in the area had been stolen as well. That’s just evil. 🙁
On that ‘stolen’ laptop from a Secret Service Agent. Laptops do not get stolen from those who value their position for which they have been hired to fulfill.
The News Feed is the place for comments which are not necessarily “on topic”, so please indulge me.
I work a couple of days a week as a volunteer in a charity shop (“thrift shop”, I believe, to Americans) in central London. All the people mentioned here (excluding myself) are female.
The manager, “M”, is a native Brit, Jewish on her mother’s side, atheist, strongly feminist and socialist. We have some interesting (!) discussions, but like each other.
Last Friday, M talked to me about two of my fellow volunteers. One, “E”, is a Christian from Ethiopia, whose priorities are her faith and motherhood. The other, “Y”, is a black woman from the DRC, also a (single) mother, and a more relaxed and extrovert personality. M was concerned that E treated Y pretty much as a non-person because she’s “black” ; M put this down to the influence of the Italian occupation of Ethiopia and Eritrea, encouraging the natives to see themselves as distinct from, and superior to, black people from sub-Saharan Africa, while acknowledging that E identified with Arabs from northern Africa. I pointed out that irrespective of religion, Arabs have long regarded “black” Africans as inferior, as demonstrated recently in Darfour, and over many centuries of Arab enslavement and slaughter of “blacks”. M was nonplussed, which doesn’t happen often (her two step-daughters, by the way, are half-Ethiopean).
M has asked Y whether she’s troubled by E’s attitude, and Y says not; if she were, M would certainly act, as she wouldn’t accept racism from any quarter.
I’m not posting this to start a controversy, just pointing out how complicated relationships can be in a multicultural city such as London.
Mark, as you point out the differences between you all, although you haven’t mentioned yourself in this comment, and I am assuming that you are native British, in other words a Briton – and which is not a word or even a concept that gets bandied around much these days, I would put it to you that if everyone with whom you work had been born and bred as British the only differences one might then find between you all would be the various skin colors?
Would you agree with that?
Unfortunately not, Nemesis; as we know, some people of immigrant origin, especially Muslims, do not integrate well.
We have another volunteer, a young Muslim student of Algerian origin; she’s pleasant and intelligent, and wants to be a doctor, but has no apparent cultural interests.
I should have excluded Islam in that picture because Muslims generally attend their own kind of indoctrinating education classes (schools and mosques) that is as much British orientated as an Afghan cameleer.
My point in that comment was that any country who values its own culture as being paramount to the ‘assimilation process’ will automatically exclude those who do not share those values and include those who will aspire to them, regardless of their origin.
Islam is an ideology, not a religion, otherwise the Muslim would find it easy to assimilate.
Hi, your example reminds me strongly of the talk Communist Apparatchiks would have with “fellow citizens of insufficient political whatever”.
“Comrade, I saw your bad look at our comrade Odungo Bongo from democratic republic of the jungle, what did you mean by it comrade?”
or
“Comrade, I know that you are from a bourgeoisie family and traditionally hate our comrades from the republic of the mudhuts. I am here to tell you, comrade, that we will not tolerate your attitude, and if I see you looking badly at our comrades, or even saying the bad words, major political problems might come in your way… comrade.”
…in other words, freedom of speech should apply to everyone, and everything, or we’ll end up with “word games” and “PC”.
What’s M business in E’s beliefs anyway? Where is leading by example, and why do MnM’s think that a direct face to face political action is required to get rid of someone’s beliefs?
M is the shop manager, and responsible for maintaining good working relationships. If E considers “blacker” Africans than herself inferior, that’s her business (and loss, imho). If she manifests this in her behaviour and this causes upset (which apparently it hasn’t) then of course it’s M’s business; politics are beside the point.
Nemesis, I didn’t answer your question; I’m a native Brit, from the North of England with some Scottish ancestry.
Personally I think Self-Censorship is the most dangerous one.
I’m so surprised to see Sandpoint, ID, in the news for such a thing! I lived there for several years (stunningly gorgeous landscape, the people are kind of bizarre). It’s a very conservative area, so if anything I’d expect the schools to have a policy to out suspected gay students to their parents, not that that’s a great idea either. The charter school wasn’t there yet when I lived in Sandpoint, but the public school was terrible, so if the charter school is more academically rigorous, it’s worth having even if you have to keep an eye on the administration to keep them from going full SJW on you.