A Tunisian asylum seeker in the German city of Leipzig is on trial for brutally murdering and dismembering a couple. After cutting his victims up, he is alleged to have thrown the body parts in a nearby lake.
In other news, yet another student has been stabbed in the neck at a Swedish high school.
To see the headlines and the articles, click “Continue reading” below.
Thanks to AF, Charles Low, Dean, EW, Insubria, JD, LP, Reader from Chicago, SS, 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.
Italy: CONSOB Deals 2.7 Mn in Banca Etruria Fines, Boschi’s Dad Hit
Cabinet secretary’s father fined 120,000 euros
(ANSA) — Milan, September 1 — Stock market regulator CONSOB on Friday handed out a total of 2.76 million euros in fines over Banca Etruria, a lender that went insolvent in 2015, leaving bond and shareholders out of pocket, to former executives, including ex-president Giuseppe Fornasari.
Pier Luigi Boschi, a former vice president of the lender and the father of Cabinet Secretary Maria Elena Boschi, was hit with a fine of 120,000 euros.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Pension Ponzi Exposed: Minnesota Underfunding Triples After Tweaking This One Small Assumption…
Defined Benefit Pension Plans are, in many cases, a ponzi scheme. Current assets are used to pay current claims in full despite insufficient funding to pay future liabilities… classic Ponzi. But unlike wall street and corporate ponzi schemes no one goes to jail here because the establishment is complicit. Everyone from government officials to union bosses are incentivized to maintain the status quo…public employees get to sleep better at night thinking they have a “retirement plan,” public legislators get to be re-elected by union membership while pretending their states are solvent and union bosses get to keep their jobs while hiding the truth from employees.
So what allows this ponzi to persist? It all comes down to one simple assumption: Discount Rates. You see, if you simply discount future liabilities at a high enough discount rate then you can make any massively underfunded pension ponzi look like a stable, healthy retirement gold mine.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Arkema Texas Plant Explodes, “Black Smoke Fills the Air”
You can’t say they didn’t warn us: this afternoon, the VP of US manufacturing Daryl Roberts at French chemicals giant Arkema, said the company was on “high alert” as more fires could start at the doomed facility at any moment. Well, that moment took place around 6pm ET, when ABC Houston reported that the doomed Arkema plant has exploded, causing a “massive” fire and “sending dark, black smoke into the air.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Meteorologists have been shocked at how rapidly Hurricane Irma has been strengthening, and they are already warning that if it hits the United States as a high level category 5 storm the devastation would be absolutely unprecedented. Of course we are already dealing with the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey, and many experts are already telling us that the economic damage done by that storm will easily surpass any other disaster in all of U.S. history. But there is a very real possibility that Hurricane Irma could be even worse. According to the National Hurricane Center, at 5 PM on Friday Irma already had sustained winds of 130 miles per hour. But it is still very early, and as you will see below, next week it is expected to potentially develop into a category 5 storm with winds of 180 miles per hour or more.
I suppose that it is appropriate that such a powerful storm has a very powerful name. In old German, the name “Irma” actually means “war goddess”…
The name Irma is a German baby name. In German the meaning of the name Irma is: Universal, from the Old German ‘irmin’. War goddess.
Irma began forming on Wednesday, and it intensified at a faster rate than any storm that we have seen in nearly 20 years…
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
CNN: Trump’s Longtime Bodyguard to Leave Oval Office Job
President Donald Trump’s longtime bodyguard Keith Schiller, who now serves as the director of Oval Office operations, is looking to resign from his White House post by October.
CNN reported Friday that Schiller has told people his decision to leave the White House is based on financial reasons. He makes $165,000 working for the government, a significant decrease from his annual salary of what CNN reported was $294,000 when he worked as Trump’s head of security before he was granted Secret Service protection during his campaign.
The network did report, however, that Schiller is frustrated with some of the new rules White House Chief of Staff John Kelly has put in place regarding access to Trump. Schiller reportedly has to call the White House switchboard when he wants to speak with Trump on the phone.
Schiller was a fixture on Trump’s presidential campaign and traveled with him everywhere he went. He was spotted racing to the stage during a rally in Ohio last year when a spectator at the event jumped over the barriers.
| — Hat tip: EW | [Return to headlines] |
Connecting the Dots a Real Challenge
Perhaps the best news is that the federal grand jury in Las Vegas refused to convict in the Bundy ranch standoff between the Bureau of Land Management and supporters of ranchers Cliven Bundy near Bunkerville in April 2014. Most of you reading this won’t have a clue how this all developed and how it has unfolded through the years but former prosecuting attorney Judge Jeanine Pirro currently on FOX with her weekly show tells the whole story how then Senator Harry Reid attempted to sell publicly-owned open range to CHINA for untold pounds of gold into is graft holdings. Dirty Harry, as Judge Jeanine calls him, had a great-great uncle Remus Reid, a horse thief, who was sent to Montana Territorial prison in 1885, escaped in 1887, later convicted and hanged in 1889. Senator Reid’s office says Remus Reid was a famous cowboy in the Montana Territory, with a business empire, valuable equestrian assets and much more.
Decades of persecution by the federal government led Western farmers and ranchers to a breaking point and Obama administration’s aggressive use of executive orders to bypass Congress and enacting its own “environmental” regulations indicated we could expect an intensification of the adversarial attitude by federal agencies towards ranchers, farmers and rural property owners unless President Trump intervenes.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Democratic Republic Dies; New World Government Survives
Gore’s business is to make millions of dollars by publishing books, making movies, and giving lectures and using the internet to exploit an unproven scientific base that the earth is warming because of mankind’s pollution where many experts on the subject, using temperature changes state factually that history proves otherwise; that the records show that they are typically cyclical.
This example of sophistry is really a coordinated plan to incorporate Gore’s goals to align the United States within the European climate change mantra which would cause the United States to lose its national independence and places the U.S. under the iron fist of the Global Elite. President Trump, using his authority, refused to bite this apple and in addition not to fall for the TPP, “Trans Pacific Partnership.”
Like the WTO agreements NAFTA, the TPP are an attempt to set the rules that violated U.S. sovereignty. The majority of the Democrat Party and those rancid establishment neocons, the Republikrats, agree with the proponents of the new world order. Despite the desires of Trump and the informed, educated public minority the benefits of Industry setting up production in the United States isn’t wanted by the establishment. There are water walkers in both parties ie; the billionaires who side with George Soros, whose sole purpose is world government, and those billionaires who tepidly call themselves Republicans liked what Hillary offered…complacency.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
FBI, Hold Hillary Clinton Accountable Petition
As an Air Force retiree with over 30 years Military and Civil service as a communications intelligence collector,analyst and specialist, I routinely handled top secret sensitive compartmentalized information. If I had done anything near what Hillary Clinton and her staff had done, I would have been imprisoned regardless of my intent.
Recently, Ty Clevenger, an attorney filed a FOIA request with the Department of Justice (to include the FBI) for specific correspondence and documents related to the Clinton investigation by the FBI. This request was recently rejected by the FBI because, in their opinion, there is not enough “public interest” to warrant release of that information (Story can be found at Canada Free Press).
If you believe in equal justice for all, please SIGN this petition:
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Florida Dem Who Offered to Personally Kill Assange Appears With Debbie Wasserman Schultz
Disobedient Media previously reported that Florida Democrat Evan Ross had offered to personally kill Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, as well as Edward Snowden. Ross responded to our coverage by redoubling his threats. The report at the time indicated that Ross was a member of the Democratic Party, and had at one time served as the leader of the young Democrats. However, at that time there was no evidence of contact between Ross and Debbie Wasserman Schultz.
The initial statements offering to personally execute Wikileaks founder Julian Assange were posted by Ross via Twitter. In our previous coverage, Disobedient Media noted that Ross appeared to have been very well connected within the Democratic party establishment, having posted pictures to social media posing with Presidential Candidate Hillary Clinton and her running mate Tim Kaine.
It has emerged today that Ross joined controversial former DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz at a Florida Commission meeting of the City of Hollywood, which discussed the removal of confederate street signs. Many twitter users expressed disgust at her presence, accusing her of shameless hypocrisy.
Twitter users responded to Schultz’s presence with ire, also noting her involvement with the still— developing Awan IT scandal, as well as the many corruption charges which have been leveled at both Schultz and the DNC.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
George Soros Petition Filed in D.C.
WASHINGTON — FINALLY! A petition to stop George Soros has been crafted and put up on the White House website. It already has 67,952 signatures in the short time this has been up. Soros, who was born in Hungary, is also a resident and citizen of New York, owning two elaborate homes there, one in Katonah, New York and the other in Southampton, Long Island. I did a column on how and why Soros CAN be arrested and charged with Treason and Sedition. Here is that link.
The petition states:
“Whereas George Soros has willfully and on an ongoing basis attempted to destabilize and otherwise commit acts of sedition against the United States and its citizens, has created and funded dozens (and probably hundreds) of discrete organizations whose sole purpose is to apply Alinsky model terrorist tactics to facilitate the collapse of the systems and Constitutional government of the United State, and has developed unhealthy and undue influence over the entire Democrat Party and a large portion of the US Federal government, the DOJ should immediately declare George Soros and all of his organizations and staff members to be domestic terrorists, and have all of his personal an organizational wealth and assets seized under Civil Asset Forfeiture law.”
There is a spot on the petition link above to sign you name. Every reader should sign this.
George Soros is the one man responsible for all the chaos, confusion, violence, destruction, and obstruction of justice, not only in the U.S., but indeed the entire world. He has manipulated currency in various countries including our own to devalue the monetary system. The ‘depressions’ we went through were not coincidental. Our economy was manipulated into depression by Soros.
It is he and he alone who agitated the blacks into a race war that would never have happened otherwise. He totally funded the Black Lives Matter violent protests. He has almost 200 non-profit political organizations for the sole purpose of destroying our government and the political system itself so this nation can morph into a Communist nation and be a part of the New World Order where Soros will become the universal potentate.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Gorka: Trump Has Best Instincts, But Obama Holdovers Are ‘Massive Problem’
[…]
A caller asked Gorka for an up-to-date definition of the “right wing,” which has become heavily factionalized.
“I don’t think there’s a neat, discretely-defined entity out there that it is,” he replied. “It’s the people. It’s the blue-collar workers of the Steel Valley who voted for a billionaire from New York. That’s who it is. It’s the people who are not ashamed of America, but the people who believe in America. It’s the people who think, ‘Why should jobs go to China? Is that what globalization means for me and my family?’“ …
“I’ll give you an example of my experience, two things I learned in the last eight months,” he offered. “I thought I was adequately cynical about the media in America. I had no idea. The fact that the mainstream media would not only lie about me and my colleagues, but would come after my dead mother, my wife, and my teenage son was when the scales fell off my eyes. There is no moral compass. There are people, many thousands of people in this country who call themselves journalists, who have no moral compass. That’s Number One.”
| — Hat tip: AF | [Return to headlines] |
Kettering Police Shooting: Man Ignored Warnings, Chief Says
Kettering police officer Jonathon McCoy gave nearly 30 commands to the occupants of a gray Ford van last Sunday once he saw the front-seat passenger had a gun in his right front pocket.
What started as a traffic stop of the woman driver for not signaling while changing lanes and malfunctioning brake lights escalated into an officer firing nine shots at Jason Hoops.
Many of McCoy’s commands included swear words as he yelled, “You reach for that gun, I will blow your brains out, do you (expletive) understand me?”
Kettering police Chief Chip Protsman said during a Friday press conference that in the 69 seconds from when McCoy, 27, noticed a Ruger handgun’s grip sticking out of Hoops’ front-right pants pocket, the officer told Hoops many times to comply.
Protsman said McCoy told Hoops six times to get his hands up, six times to put his hands on the dash, four times not to move, twice not to reach for the gun, twice not to do anything stupid and four times to relax.
“We know there was a physical confrontation where the officer reached in and grabbed hold of Mr. Hoops’ right arm, trying to stop him from reaching down towards the gun,” Protsman said. “This continues for a little bit.
“We now know through the investigation that Mr. Hoops pulled his hand away from him and then reached down for the gun, and the officer stepped back, and that’s when the shots were fired.”
McCoy told dispatchers, “Shots fired. Shots fired,” before again yelling, “Hands up!” and firing four more shots.
“Through the investigation, we now know that at that time, that Mr. Hoops was looking at him and his hands did drop down towards where the weapon was again and the officer fired again for the second time because he felt threatened.”
Hoops, 33, who rented an apartment in Dayton but also had lived in Fairborn, died of multiple gunshot wounds, according to the Montgomery County Coroner’s Office…
| — Hat tip: Dean | [Return to headlines] |
Mike Cernovich’s Sources: President Trump Cut Off From Outside Contacts — John Bolton Turned Away.
Breitbart News Editor-in-Chief Alex Marlow spoke to journalist Mike Cernovich discussing the Trump presidency, Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump’s influence, and the possibility of President Trump being held under “house arrest.”
As far-fetched as it seems, I see it manifesting before our eyes. We cannot deny at this point, President Trump has seen loyal staffers fall by the wayside one by one. We have been told he “fired” them, but I can guarantee you he did not fire Steve Bannon. Sebastian Gorka resigned, indicating he could be more effective in bringing Trump’s agenda to fruition from the outside.
Cernovich has a running series of posts called “ Dispatches from Trumpland.” His interview with Breitbart revealed the following:
“There’s some pretty explosive stuff in your report,” said Alex Marlow referencing Cernovich’s recent Trump Dispatches, “and so I just wanted to unpack some of it with you, the first place where it starts in your dispatch is that Trump is on house arrest and you cite John Bolton who people thought was under consideration for National Security Advisor, for Secretary of State who can’t even have access to the President right now and this is a pretty big departure from campaign trail Trump.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
More Fake News From Right Wing Watch
ORLANDO, FL — Right Wing Watch (RWW) is a known purveyor of fake news which intentionally lies about the people it covers and has a clear agenda to denigrate and dehumanize its subjects. RWW has people listening to every Christian radio broadcast and then prints statements out of context using outrageous titles for its articles that are not true. RWW creates these false article titles so that they can be tweeted and re-tweeted. The article title becomes the news even when the body of the article does not support the false title. Even worse, unethical writers (not worthy of being called “journalists”) repeat the false stories never once checking with the original source. Right Wing Watch recently published an article disconnecting the title from the body of the article that was republished by Huffington Post, Towleroad and The Advocate. The title stated Mat Staver (they can never use that name without adding a negative modifier) allegedly said that “Anti-gay groups being treated like Jews in Nazi Germany.” But Staver never made such a statement during a recent radio interview.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
MoveOn Solicits Hurricane Harvey Donations for Texas ACORN
Texas Organizing Project is a direct successor organization to the Texas chapter of ACORN
Wow, a not-overtly-political or partisan fundraising email from MoveOn.org arrived in my email inbox.
Or so I thought.
It begins innocently enough.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
President Trump Learned Lessons of Katrina
For people who have been ravaged by such a catastrophe, this encouragement, coupled with a tangible action plan for recovery, is welcome news indeed
After an initially weak federal government response, President Bush did make numerous visits to New Orleans and clearly displayed a true interest in the recovery of the city. However, a negative image was already cemented in the minds of Americans and President Bush never recovered politically. After Hurricane Katrina, his approval numbers collapsed and continued to be poor for the remainder of his presidency.
Almost 12 years later, another monster storm, Hurricane Harvey, hit the United States. This time, the federal government was ready. FEMA, which is now led by Brock Long, a component professional with 16 years of relevant experience, deployed over 9,000 emergency personnel to Texas. In the last week, local and state officials have been working closely with the Trump administration in all aspects of the response.
Instead of waiting almost two weeks to inspect the damage, President Donald Trump made his first visit to Texas while the hurricane was still in the state. His visit was well received by storm victims and he was given a hero’s welcome. While petty critics blasted the footwear of Melania Trump, the people of Texas were happy to see both the President and the First Lady.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Right-Wing Firebrand Milo Yiannopoulos Invited to Speak at Cal State Fullerton
UC Berkeley isn’t the only California academic institution bracing for a torrent of controversy when former Breitbart editor Milo Yiannopoulos comes to campus this fall.
Cal State Fullerton’s chapter of the College Republicans is finalizing plans to host the conservative lightning rod at a Halloween speaking engagement.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Shock Footage: Police Drag Nurse Attempting to Protect Patient From Unauthorized Blood Draw
Nurse was defending unconscious truck driver who had been injured in hit-and-run accident
A Salt Lake City nurse has released police body camera and hospital surveillance footage which she claims shows her being illegally arrested back in late July after refusing police orders to draw blood from an unconscious patient.
Utah University Hospital nurse Alex Wubbels was in charge on July 26th when law enforcement officials arrived and ordered her to extract the blood of an unconscious truck driver who had been injured in a hit-and-run accident earlier that day.
Wubbels says she was just doing her job and was protecting her patient’s privacy when she was arrested and dragged out of the hospital by a Salt Lake City police detective, who the nurse says illegally arrested and assaulted her.
An analysis of the video confirms that on the day of the incident Wubbels correctly informed Detective Jeff Payne of the hospital’s policy when she explained to him that only “three things” would allow her to draw blood from her patient.
You need an “electronic warrant, patient consent,” or a patient must be under arrest for the blood to be taken, the nurse explained to Payne with papers in hand.
That’s when the frustrated detective can be heard asking Wubbels, “So without those in place, I’m not going to get blood? Am I fair to surmise that?”
“We’re done. You’re under arrest,” the detective said.
The detective then grabbed the nurse and dragged her out of the building as she screamed at the top of her lungs and cried, “Help! Help! Somebody help me! Stop! Stop! I did nothing wrong!”
The nurse was then handcuffed and taken to the station where she was later released without any charges.
An internal police investigation into the matter is being conducted and Det. Payne has been suspended from the department’s blood draw program, but still remains on active duty with the force, as the Salt Lake City Tribune reported.
No lawsuit has been filed, but Wubbels is in touch with an attorney and hopes the footage will be used as a police educational tool for future situations.
Watch the exchange from a different angle:
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Socialism: Opiate of the Masses
In 1966, Carroll Quigley, author of Tragedy and Hope, wrote: “The Council on Foreign Relations [CFR] is the American branch of a society which originated in England [and] believes national boundaries should be obliterated and one-world rule established.”
You could call the CFR’s agenda socialism or Globalism or fascism or dictatorship— it doesn’t matter. For the sake of brevity, I’ll call it socialism.
At street level (not within the CFR), every proponent of the socialist “solution” either has no idea who installs it and runs it, or he astonishingly believes “the government” can be transformed into a beneficent enterprise and shed its core corruption, as it takes the reins of absolute power.
Meanwhile, the ultra-wealthy elites who use socialism as a weapon, while propagandizing it as our humanitarian future, know full well THEY will run it, and they have no qualms about placing severe limits on the freedom of populations. They want to impose those limits.
Hope and Change, the slogan of the former US president, was perfect for street-level socialists. It was vague enough to be injected with their own vague dreams and fantasies.
Colleges— or as I call them, Academies of Great Generalities— have been turning out these fantasists by the ton. “If I feel it, it must be true and good.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Southern Poverty Law Center: ‘Our Aim in Life is to Destroy These Groups, Completely’
The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) has gained traction in recent weeks, but contrary to media reports, the group does not exist to “monitor hate groups” but to destroy groups that it targets for “strictly ideological” reasons. In light of large donations from Apple, J.P. Morgan, and George Clooney, and CNN’s favorable coverage of the SPLC, Americans should learn the real motivations behind this far-left organization.
In the words of SPLC former spokesman Mark Potok (who spent 20 years as a senior fellow at the SPLC and only retired this year, according to LinkedIn), the group does not exist to monitor hate groups.
“Sometimes the press will describe us as monitoring hate groups, I want to say plainly that our aim in life is to destroy these groups, completely destroy them,” Potok declared at an event in Michigan in 2007.
Potok reiterated this point at a Vermont school group in 2008. “You are able to destroy these groups sometimes by the things you publish,” he declared. “It’s not so much that they will bring down the police or the federal agents on their head, it’s that you can sometimes so mortally embarrass these groups that they will be destroyed” (emphasis added).
The SPLC “mortally embarrasses” groups by equating mainstream conservative, Christian, and other organizations with the Ku Klux Klan and white supremacists. Make no mistake, this is not a “hate group monitoring” organization, it’s a far-Left defamation racket that exists to target any group it disagrees with politically.
“We see this political struggle,” Potok added in his 2008 Vermont speech. “We’re not trying to change anybody’s mind. We’re trying to wreck the groups. We’re trying to destroy them. Not to send them to prison unfairly or to take their free speech rights away, but as a political matter to destroy them.”
In yet another 2008 speech, Potok explained the SPLC criteria for a “hate group.” The spokesman said, “Our criteria for a ‘hate group,’ first of all, have nothing to do with criminality, or violence, or any kind of guess we’re making about ‘this group could be dangerous.’ It’s strictly ideological” (emphasis added).
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
The Next Big Windows 10 Update Will be Out on October 17
The Windows 10 Fall Creators Update now has a release date: October 17. Microsoft started finalizing the release last week, and we’d expect this release to follow the pattern seen in previous Windows updates: the final build will be done some time in September and roll out to members of the Windows Insider program’s fast, slow, and release preview rings. Then it will hit Windows Update. From there, we’d expect a slow ramp up in availability.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
A favorite past time for many a Texan are the weekend Monster Truck rallies held all over the State. And while the big-wheeled behemoths usually serve up the loud roar of engines, insane long-jumps and family-friendly entertainment, this week a number of Monster Truckers made their way to Hurricane Harvey ravaged Houston and surrounding areas.
Watch as these beasts rescue stranded neighbors and even pull a military supply truck out of eight-foot deep waters to neighborly cheers of “yee haw!”
[Comment: Yee haw! Cool stuff.]
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
5.7 Million-Year Old Human Footprints Found in Crete, Greece
The human foot is distinctive. Our five toes lack claws, we normally present the sole of our foot flat to the ground, and our first and second toes are longer than the smaller ones. In comparison to our fellow primates, our big toes are in line with the long axis of the foot — they don’t stick out to one side.
In fact, some would argue that one of the defining characteristics of being part of the human clade is the shape of our foot. So imagine our surprise when we discovered fossil footprints with remarkable, human-like characteristics at Trachilos, Crete, that are 5.7m years old. This research, published in the Proceedings of the Geologist Association, is controversial as it suggests that the earliest human ancestors may have wandered around southern Europe as well as East Africa.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
EU Fatcats Demand Taxpayers Pay £2 Million to Fund Travel Expenses or Else They Can’t Work
EU officials have been plunged into another taxpayer-funded expenses scandal after the European Parliament demanded millions to fund lavish benefits.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Footprint Find on Crete May Push Back Date Humans Walked Upright
HUMAN-like footprints have been found on an ancient sea shore. They shouldn’t be there. They’re in the wrong place at the wrong time.
HUMAN-like footprints have been found stamped into an ancient sea shore fossilised beneath the Mediterranean island of Crete.
They shouldn’t be there.
Testing puts the rock’s age at 5.7 million years.
That’s a time when palaeontologists believe our human ancestors had only apelike feet.
And they lived in Africa.
But a study into the Trachilos, western Crete, prints determines them to feature prominent human features and an upright stance.
And that’s significant as the human foot has a unique shape. It combines a long sole, five short toes, no claws — and a big toe.
In comparison, the foot of a Great Ape look much more like a human hand.
And that step in evolution wasn’t believed to have taken place until some 4 million years ago…
| — Hat tip: LP | [Return to headlines] |
Tourists were locked inside the Eiffel Tower and the Eurostar evacuated amid a Paris terror alert which saw one man arrested this evening.
People took to social media to share images of the 324-metre-high tourist attraction shut off and surrounded by police.
One person has been arrested. Initial reports said the person was carrying a weapon, with some social media users mentioning both a ‘gun’ and a ‘knife’, but police say these reports are unfounded.
French police said they arrested an unarmed man near the Eiffel Tower on Friday night.
A cordon surrounded the area as officers stopped people from getting close to the landmark.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Hungary and Poland Give No Ground in Row With the EU
Hungary and Poland are refusing to give ground in disputes with the European Union that have deepened divisions in the bloc and exposed disagreement among central European states over future relations with Brussels.
Having faced strong EU criticism for his anti-immigration policies since the height of Europe’s refugee crisis in 2015, Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán has now asked Brussels to pay half the bill for security fences that he erected along his country’s southern borders.
Poland, meanwhile, has accused the deputy head of the European Commission, Frans Timmermans, of meddling in its affairs by urging a rethink of judicial reform that the EU fears will severely undermine the country’s rule of law
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Is Sharia Law Coming to a Neighborhood Near You?
Raheem Kassam, British political activist and Editor-in-Chief of Breitbart News London, addresses this issue in his book, No Go Zones: How Sharia Law Is Coming to a Neighbourhood Near You.
| — Hat tip: Charles Low | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: ATAC Approves Arrangement With Creditors
Unions announce protest, four-hour strike
(ANSA) — Rome, September 1 — The board of troubled Rome transport company ATAC on Friday approved a court-regulated arrangement with creditors as part of the bid to keep it afloat.
Unions, however, have said they will stage a protest at city hall on September 7 and hold a four-hour strike on September 12 against a solution that “endangers employment levels, salary rights and worker regulations”.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Rape Victim Said to ID Brothers in Italy Beach Town Attack
ROME — Two Moroccan teenagers suspected of being among four males who gang raped a Polish tourist and beat her companion unconscious on an Italian resort beach were identified at a police station Saturday by a Peruvian woman who reported being raped by the same gang shortly after the first attack, according to Italian media. Later, a third suspect, also a minor, was reported detained by police.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Sweden’s Säpo Did Not Inform Me of Seriousness of it Leaks: Ann Linde
Sweden’s EU Affairs and Trade minister Ann Linde, who was caught up in the scandal around a cyber security slip-up, says that she was not initially informed about the level of seriousness of the IT failings.
| — Hat tip: Charles Low | [Return to headlines] |
Sweden: Student Stabbed in Neck at School is Third Such Victim in One Week…….
A serious stabbing accident occurred in the Halmstad municipality high school in the Swedish province of Halland in the afternoon.
| — Hat tip: Charles Low | [Return to headlines] |
Sweden’s Lost Forest Language Now Has International Speakers
Why travel to Sweden to learn an anicent Viking language that’s on the brink of dying out? The local spoke to one of the international students at a new course to find out.
| — Hat tip: Charles Low | [Return to headlines] |
European Union’s counter-terrorism co-ordinator Gilles de Kerchove singled out the UK as having more radicalised muslims than any other country in Europe.
Mr de Kerchove also warned Islamic State will attempt a cyber-attack on nuclear power stations or air traffic control systems within five years — possibly by paying Russian hackers to break into vital computer systems.
The official, who is in regular contact with security services, as well as terror experts and governments around Europe, said: “The United Kingdom has identified 20,000 to 35,000 radicals.
Of these, 3,000 are worrying for MI5, and of those 500 are under constant and special attention.
[Comment: This mass migration policy — being masked by “humanitarian” excuses or “guilt-tripping” tactics used on the local population — is evil and traitorous.]
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: ‘Cannibal Serves up Soup Made From a Murdered Clergyman’s Corpse to Guests’ — Police
Roland Peter, 47, was arrested while allegedly preparing a dish in his kitchen with the man’s liver and intestines.
He is said to be a member of a gang who kidnapped and killed the victim in Nigeria.
Police Commissioner Zaki Ahmed said: “The Command arrested Roland Peter, a member of a notorious gang that kidnapped Pastor Samuel Okpara from Edoha.
“They kidnapped, killed and beheaded the victim and used his liver and intestines for pepper-soup and plantain pottage.
“He was arrested while preparing the meal for his gang.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
The threat from homegrown jihadis has reached unprecedented levels after ISIS ordered their followers to carry out deadly attacks in Britain rather than Syria, it was claimed today.
The terror group ‘very cleverly switched tactics’ by winding down efforts to lure British extremists to the fight on the frontline, Security Minister Ben Wallace said.
Instead they are throwing their efforts at radicalising people through the internet and ordering them to slaughter fellow Brits in truck attacks at home.
The stark warning comes after dozens of people were murdered and many more injured after four terror attacks in just three months in London and Manchester.
Meanwhile Max Hill QC, the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, has called for tougher sentences for those peddling extremist propaganda.
He also called for internet giants like WhatsApp to end encryption of anonymous messages to combat terrorism.
[Comment: Note how for the sake of security, all privacy must be relinquished to the State. The Deep state was responsible for the mass migration — to balkanize and create chaos to be used as a pretext for tyrannical globalist policies for their NWO. Mass migration is being used as a club to beat down western nations prior to push for NWO.]
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
The Stranded ISIS Bus Convoy That No One Knows What to Do With
In a bizarre twist to an already unusual story, a convoy of 17 buses carrying Islamic State terrorists and their families has remained stranded since Thursday in the Syrian desert as the US, Russians, and Syrians discuss their fate: attack the convoy or allow it to pass? Regardless of what happens, emerging photos and video depicting ISIS’retreat from Lebanon as well as their current helpless plight stuck in the middle of Syria constitutes perhaps the most significant blow to ISIS propaganda to date.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Osamah Sami, writer and star of the ‘first Muslim rom com’ Ali’s Wedding has l;ashed out at One Nation leader Pauline Hanson, calling her a d**khead
| — Hat tip: SS | [Return to headlines] |
Almost 60 Syrian Militia Fighters Entered Germany as Refugees, Der Spiegel Reports
A German magazine has revealed that dozens of fighters from a Syrian militia group have sought asylum in Germany. A special task force has reportedly been set up to deal with the fighters.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Germany: Tunisian Asylum Seeker on Trial for Killing and Dismembering Couple
A 37-year-old Tunisian asylum seeker in the German city of Leipzig is facing trial for the alleged murder of a couple who he is said to have brutally killed then dismembered before disposing of their bodies in a nearby lake.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Migrant Drug Dealer Tried to Smuggle His Pregnant Wife Into UK on Stolen Passport
A DRUG-dealing African migrant has been condemned for causing a burden to taxpayers after he smuggled his heavily pregnant wife into the UK.
Ali Camara flew to Zaragoza in Spain to collect Gambian-born mother-to-be Oulimatoo Touray and gave her a stolen passport to try to sneak through customs at Stansted Airport. But the couple, who met online, were stopped by officials and Camara was arrested.
Touray, 23, who was seven months pregnant, had been granted permission to stay in Spain. After giving birth to a daughter in this country, she has now been given temporary leave to remain in the UK. Within days of appearing in court for the immigration offence in May, Camara was arrested for selling drugs.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
People Will Freak, But Trump is Right to End DACA
Reports this morning indicate it’s only a matter of time before President Trump ends DACA, which was the Obama-instituted policy that defers immigration action against undocumented people brought into the country when they were under 16.
It was easy to be sympathetic toward most of these people, since it wasn’t their choice to come here illegally and many of them are creating no problems by being here.
Obama often misappropriated the term “prosecutorial discretion,” but rarely as blatantly as he did here
But DACA represents an abuse of executive power and a complete abdication of the rule of law. National Review’s editors expound nicely on these points:
We understand the hesitation, since many of the beneficiaries of this amnesty have sympathetic stories, but as a matter of fidelity to our constitutional system and his campaign promises, Trump must end DACA. If we are going to amnesty an entire class of people, it should obviously be done through the democratic process and, in our view, happen only in exchange for reforms to the immigration system.
DACA contravenes the elementary principle that the legislative branch ought to pass laws and the executive branch ought to enforce them. In 2012, after Congress rejected the DREAM Act, President Obama issued the policy by unilateral decree. Under DACA — Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals — illegal immigrants under the age of 37 can apply to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services for deferred status. And while the Obama administration pretended the policy would be implemented via “prosecutorial discretion,” with each case considered individually, in practice, USCIS officials say, any illegal immigrant who appears eligible is granted deferred status — which comes with benefits such as a work permit, a Social Security number, and a driver’s license. More than 750,000 illegal immigrants currently enjoy this functional amnesty.
Obama often misappropriated the term “prosecutorial discretion,” but rarely as blatantly as he did here. The correct use of the term would mean that a prosecutor looks at an individual case and decides if it warrants action against a suspect, based on the evidence in the case and a whole host of other factors. Obama tried to twist the phrase to mean that entire classes of people would never be charged with a crime, or that entire laws themselves would never be enforced.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Trudeau Government to Move Border-Jumping Migrants From Tents to Trailers
Meanwhile there are no government-provided trailers for many elderly Canadians forced out of homes they can not afford to heat in Premier Wynne’s Ontario, who have no where to go
A steady stream of 7,000 migrants continue border jumping from the United States into Canada, and Canadian officials are now preparing temporary accommodation to see them through the winter.
Officials, who have put out an urgent call for winterized homes with which they will replace the tents where the migrants have been staying, in spite of Trudeau announcing last week that prospective asylum seekers using an irregular route into Canada should expect no exemptions from the rigorous requirements put in place to deal with asylum requests.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
As Its Influence Wanes, Increasingly Militant MSM Promotes Violence and Censorship
[…]
At this point, pretty much every conservative position on abortion, homosexuality, border security, the police, affirmative action, immigration, terrorism, etc., has been labeled as hate speech by the establishment left and many in the media. Moreover, the holding of these beliefs makes you an automatic member of the “alt-right,” which aligns you with white supremacists.
Now that this phase is in place, now that mainstream conservative and Christian beliefs have been toxified as hate, whether they are already aligned with the media or because they have been bullied by the media into joining the cause, the mega-corporations that now control our primary means of communication — the public square that is the Internet — are instituting a wave of censorship.
Hiding behind the media’s absurdly expanded definition of hate (or fake news), America’s Googles, Facebooks, Twitters, advertisers, and Web servers are blacklisting conservatives, banning populists, and outlawing their ideas. People are being disappeared from the public square or, out of fear of being disappeared, they no longer feel comfortable to speak freely.
The violence comes, of course, from the media’s personal army of Brownshirts, the leftwing terrorists in Antifa. Just like Hitler’s henchmen, Antifa spreads out across the country to violently silence speech that the left does not want heard. And it is not only against neo-Nazis in Charlottesville. Almost all of the chaos, rioting, and violence waged by Antifa over the past two years has been against everyday Trump supporters, everyday Republicans.
| — Hat tip: AF | [Return to headlines] |
How did Google become the internet’s censor and master manipulator, blocking access to millions of websites?
Google, Inc., isn’t just the world’s biggest purveyor of information; it is also the world’s biggest censor.
The company maintains at least nine different blacklists that impact our lives, generally without input or authority from any outside advisory group, industry association or government agency. Google is not the only company suppressing content on the internet. Reddit has frequently been accused of banning postings on specific topics, and a recent report suggests that Facebook has been deleting conservative news stories from its newsfeed, a practice that might have a significant effect on public opinion — even on voting. Google, though, is currently the biggest bully on the block.
When Google’s employees or algorithms decide to block our access to information about a news item, political candidate or business, opinions and votes can shift, reputations can be ruined and businesses can crash and burn. Because online censorship is entirely unregulated at the moment, victims have little or no recourse when they have been harmed. Eventually, authorities will almost certainly have to step in, just as they did when credit bureaus were regulated in 1970. The alternative would be to allow a large corporation to wield an especially destructive kind of power that should be exercised with great restraint and should belong only to the public: the power to shame or exclude.
If Google were just another mom-and-pop shop with a sign saying “we reserve the right to refuse service to anyone,” that would be one thing. But as the golden gateway to all knowledge, Google has rapidly become an essential in people’s lives — nearly as essential as air or water. We don’t let public utilities make arbitrary and secretive decisions about denying people services; we shouldn’t let Google do so either.
Big social media companies like Facebook and Google have too much power to manipulate elections.
Let’s start with the most trivial blacklist and work our way up. I’ll save the biggest and baddest — one the public knows virtually nothing about but that gives Google an almost obscene amount of power over our economic well-being — until last.
[Comment: This is why CIA’s venture capital arm funded Google.]
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
A touching advertisement from Dads4Kids celebrating Father’s Day has been pulled after it was deemed to be too ‘political,’ ahead of the upcoming same-sex marriage postal vote.
| — Hat tip: SS | [Return to headlines] |
Yes, Google Uses Its Power to Quash Ideas it Doesn’t Like — I Know Because it Happened to Me
The story in the New York Times this week was unsettling: The New America Foundation, a major think tank, was getting rid of one of its teams of scholars, the Open Markets group. New America had warned its leader Barry Lynn that he was “imperiling the institution,” the Times reported, after he and his group had repeatedly criticized Google, a major funder of the think tank, for its market dominance.
The criticism of Google had culminated in Lynn posting a statement to the think tank’s website “applauding” the European Commission’s decision to slap the company with a record-breaking $2.7 billion fine for privileging its price-comparison service over others in search results. That post was briefly taken down, then republished. Soon afterward, Anne-Marie Slaughter, the head of New America, told Lynn that his group had to leave the foundation for failing to abide by “institutional norms of transparency and collegiality.”
Google denied any role in Lynn’s firing, and Slaughter tweeted that the “facts are largely right, but quotes are taken way out of context and interpretation is wrong.”
Despite the conflicting story lines, the underlying premise felt familiar to me:
Six years ago, I was pressured to unpublish a critical piece about Google’s monopolistic practices after the company got upset about it. In my case, the post stayed unpublished.
I was working for Forbes at the time, and was new to my job. In addition to writing and reporting, I helped run social media there, so I got pulled into a meeting with Google salespeople about Google’s then-new social network, Plus.
The Google salespeople were encouraging Forbes to add Plus’s “+1” social buttons to articles on the site, alongside the Facebook Like button and the Reddit share button. They said it was important to do because the Plus recommendations would be a factor in search results — a crucial source of traffic to publishers.
This sounded like a news story to me. Google’s dominance in search and news give it tremendous power over publishers. By tying search results to the use of Plus, Google was using that muscle to force people to promote its social network.
I asked the Google people if I understood correctly: If a publisher didn’t put a +1 button on the page, its search results would suffer? The answer was yes.
After the meeting, I approached Google’s public relations team as a reporter, told them I’d been in the meeting, and asked if I understood correctly. The press office confirmed it, though they preferred to say the Plus button “influences the ranking.” They didn’t deny what their sales people told me: If you don’t feature the +1 button, your stories will be harder to find with Google.
With that, I published a story headlined, “Stick Google Plus Buttons On Your Pages, Or Your Search Traffic Suffers,” that included bits of conversation from the meeting.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Trump needs to relocate the pro-Obama WH crew and bring in civilian military or other bureaucrats loyal to America and not to the Marxist Democrats. Simple.
“If one group is effectively in control of national governments and multinational corporations; promotes world government through control of the media, foundation grants, and education and controls and guides the issues of the day; then they control most opinions available. The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) and the financial powers behind it, have done all these things and promote the “New World Order” (NWO) as they have for over seventy years”
The CFR is one of the most powerful policy making entities in the world and their flagship publication , ‘Foreign Affairs’ (buy in B@N) gives a road-map of their thinking.
Their views feed into the White House, and especially into the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which makes US foreign policy. (You thought the citizen did? Forget it!)
Years ago I understood what they were about when reviewing our situation in Afghanistan, they barely asked about the heroin cultivation (done by our soldiers) and were happy to be fobbed off (too lucrative a trade for the CIA and its friends!)
What they were specifically uninterested in was an alternative to heroin production – the humble saffron crop – the most expensive ‘herb’ in the world. Growing conditions for it are ideal in Afghanistan. It gives the farmer greater profit than heroin. It is easier to harvest. Fields don’t need to be guarded. Islam approves of it. So why hasn’t the USA insisted on ripping up the poppies and planting crocuses as contingent on our aid?
Because too many evil Americans and their friends would lose their profits. Their voice is the Senate Foreign Relations Committee – straight from the Council of Foreign Relations!
Having lost a child to heroin, I can only despise them from the bottom of my soul and hope all the participants rot in hell!
“Having lost a child to heroin, I can only despise them from the bottom of my soul and hope all the participants rot in hell!”
Dear DiMu,
Knowing (just now) about your personal loss, the anger and aggressive opposition you express towards all of this Tranzi-Globalist evil really snaps into focus.
Please accept my sincere condolences for your loss. Multinational forces allowing Afghani farmers to continue cultivation of opium poppies is just a small part of the paper-thin rhetorical garbage all of us are being force-fed each and every day.
Sadly, Islam is even worse. None of which absolves Western political entities from bearing responsibility for responsibly administering functional solutions to this situation. As in, simply purchasing the entire Afghani opium crop at double or triple price and then diverting it to hospice care for terminal cancer and AIDS sufferers.
Very interesting post. I’m very sorry to hear of your loss from the scourge that is drugs.
I had heard the US didn’t want to eradicate poppies due to the farmers losing revenue. But I had not considered saffron as a replacement.
The US should threaten to spray Roundup on any field that contains poppies. That would defund the Taliban in no-time.
But, you are correct, the US doesn’t want to seem to do this. Despite the devastation it causes along the drug route to Europe and in Europe itself.
I lost a child to methadone, the “replacement” for drugs like heroin.
I have little hope that drug eradication will ever take place until we do what the Chinese did during the Opium Wars: kill all the dealers.
IOW, if we start at the end instead of trying to get at the powerful suppliers, we’ll solve the problem. There’s nothing like the sure fact of one’s mortality to change behavior. Would it be illegal? Yes. Would it be moral? I think so. A lot of mothers in Chicago’s southside would welcome such a step.
Something – many things- must be done to eradicate the scourge of “recreational” drugs.
“I have little hope that drug eradication will ever take place until we do what the Chinese did during the Opium Wars: kill all the dealers.”
Without wishing to judge (something that I rarely avoid), what are your thoughts about Duterte’s war on the shabu dealers in the Philippines? Were the Chinese any more scrupulous than he has been?
Methamphetamine may as well be heroin or its “replacement” for that island nation.
I haven’t read up on the subject. Can you give me a link?
My condolences too, DiMu.
I mean no disrespect to you and others here, but banning something wanted by so many people (unless you’re prepared to be very brutal) only creates a huge criminal enterprise- look at Mexico now, or the US under Prohibition. Legalisation is, imho, the least bad option.
Prohibition against a substance in use for thousands of years is very different from legalizing something that inherently cannot be used in moderation.
That’s a difficult one, Dymphna. At least if, say, heroin were legalised, addicts could get a measured dose, without impurities and without supporting the criminals. And of course opiates have been used recreationally for centuries.
One reason why I will never be a real libertarion is because their main issue too often turns out to be legal access to all recreational drugs. I can be persuaded that there are individuals who can use these drugs in sensible moderation and walk away unscathed. Making the world safer and more comfortable for our safest and least vulnerable people is not a reasonable demand to make upon the resources of those other taxpayers.