A year ago the “Jungle” migrant camp near Calais was demolished. But the migrants haven’t really departed, not all of them. Some of them moved up the coast to Grande-Synthe, while others are still near Calais, sleeping rough.
Many thanks to Ava Lon for translating this TV report, and to Vlad Tepes for the subtitling:
Video transcript:
Caption: Seating order in the chamber made easy
Singer: Now, dear colleagues, a round of musical chairs.
Thought Balloon: Oh, God, I hope I don’t end up next to Gauland.
This past week marked an historic moment in Germany: representatives of the AfD (Alternative für Deutschland, Alternative for Germany) have taken their seats in the Bundestag for the first time.
Below is an interesting look at the dynamics and strategies of the AfD’s first day in the Bundestag. Many thanks to JLH for translating this article from Die Zeit:
First Session of the Bundestag
It Won’t Be Boring
by Lisa Caspari
October 24, 2017(A turbulent Bundestag: Merkel confronts Gauland, the SPD tries out being the opposition, the AfD shows it is a protest movement. And a Holocaust survivor sits silently on the dais.)
Exactly a month after the Alternative for Germany [AfD, Alternative für Deutschland] turned from candidates into representatives, the caucus met in the plenary chamber for the first time. Seen from the government seats, their seats are at the far right. The 92 representatives stand in front of their blue seats, happily shake hands with each other and take photos. Caucus leader Alice Weidel enters wearing light-colored slacks and a dark blue sport coat, a file folder held lightly under one arm. In the next seat her co-leader, Alexander Gauland, wears his customary beige tweed jacket.
It is quite different from 1983, when the Greens first entered the Bundestag in gym shoes, with flowers in their hair. The AfD, which sees itself as a middle-class party, is not visually striking. The only thing that stands out is the consciously traditional dirndl worn for this special day by a young female AfD representative. Blue, of course — the party color.
Then the chancellor makes her entrance. The cameras whir, Angela Merkel takes the same route as always, through the rear-right entrance, right next to the government seats. This position has long belonged to the Union (CDU-CSU), but is now the place for the AfD.
How Does Merkel Deal With Gauland?
So Merkel, whom AfD supporters call a “traitor to the people” and whose removal the party campaign posters called for, walks by the new representatives. Gauland, whose row of seats is directly opposite Merkel’s government table, stands, and ostentatiously seeks eye contact.[1] Ultimately, the old-new chancellor nods courteously in his direction. It makes no difference.
Later, when the session has begun, Alterspräsident [temporary president by virtue of being the oldest member] Hermann Otto Solms of the FDP will say that he wishes no stigmatizing of the new representatives: “We all have the same mandate, the same rights and the same duties.” Parliament must reflect the diversity of opinion in Germany, and can thus “prove that our democracy is capable of integration.” The AfD claps especially loudly, as does the FDP. Other representatives aren’t sure whether they should join the applause, but do it anyway. Because Solms is right. Still, it seems strange that he was the one who said it.
AfD Criticizes Government’s “Transparent Maneuver”
Because without a short-sighted rule change by the Grand Coalition at the end of the previous legislative period, Solms would not have opened this session. It would have been Wilhelm von Gottberg. At 77, the AfD politician is the oldest representative in the Bundestag, but the government wanted to prevent him from being Alterspräsident. So Solms, as the oldest in service with 33 years in the legislative body, is the first speaker.
The Catalan parliament voted to declare independence from Spain, prompting residents of Barcelona to take to the streets in jubilant celebration. The Spanish government reacted by revoking the region’s autonomy and instituting direct rule from Madrid. The first steps will be the replacement of the regional police force with national police, and the collection of taxes directly by the central government. Prime Minister Rajoy warned Carles Puigdemont, the Catalan separatist leader, that he may face thirty years in prison for rebellion.
In other news, a deportation center in Germany that cost more than €2 million has only managed to deport 86 people in the past year.
To see the headlines and the articles, click “Continue reading” below.
Thanks to AF, Charles Low, LP, Reader from Chicago, RonaldB, Seneca III, 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.
The latest from the Sharia TipSheet.
ACLU on Sharia: Don’t Worry, Be Happy
The ACLU chapter president in Palm Beach, Florida recently gave a deceptive presentation entitled “Sharia Law: Nothing to Fear”. Mark Schneider, a non-lawyer, attempted to put a happy face on this alien and malignant doctrine, plowing straight ahead without realizing just how bad he looked doing it.
Early on, he said not to worry about sharia law because, while stoning for adultery, chopping off hands for thievery, and other barbaric punishments are on the law books in some Muslim countries, they are infrequently used. However, stoning for adultery is found in multiple hadiths, an authoritative source of sharia law. The hadiths also allow execution for blasphemy. Chopping off a thief’s hands is specified in Quranic verse 5:38. Schneider admitted during the presentation that barbaric punishments are to be found in the Quran. You have to blinker Islam’s holy book and other expressly stated Islamic doctrines to believe that such barbaric punishments would never be imposed if America were to fall under sharia law. Schneider’s argument is downright strange: Don’t worry about sharia law because it’s not enforced in some countries as much as it is in others. Huh?
Schneider acknowledged the gender bias in sharia law. It’s heavily stacked in favor of men. Men can get a divorce simply by saying ‘I divorce you’ but women don’t have the same privilege. Four male witnesses are required to prove a case of rape. Good luck with that, ladies. But don’t worry because… because there’s nothing to worry about. Feel better now?
Schneider pooh-poohed the idea that sharia law is encroaching on U.S. courts. One case he cited was of a Muslim man in New Jersey who got off for beating his wife because his belief in sharia law — which permits wife-beating — meant that he did not have the requisite intent to commit assault under New Jersey law. But don’t worry, Schneider said, because the case was later reversed on appeal. Hey, Schneider, maybe you should leave that one out next time.
Schneider then claimed the real threat is ‘dominionism’, a Christian belief that the U.S. Constitution should be replaced with Biblical law. Why do progressives always try to change the subject? Just because dominionism might be a threat doesn’t mean that sharia is not a threat. Besides, how many dominionists have flown planes into buildings lately, hmm?
But it was during the Q&A that Schneider was at his most evasive and the weaknesses in his thesis most apparent. There followed an appalling string of evasions, dodges, and non sequiturs:
| Q: | Doesn’t the Quran say to kill the infidel? | |
| A: | Yes, but that only means Shia Muslims. |
That would be news to the 270 million Africans, Christians, Hindus, Buddhists and Jews killed by Islam over the centuries. Moreover, the Shia-Sunni split occurred 50 years after the Quran was written. Therefore, the Quran, in instructing Muslims to kill infidels, could not possibly be referring to Shia Muslims. But, Schneider said, “you don’t have anything to worry about.” Then, in what would become Schneider’s standard M.O.:
Next question.
| Q: | Don’t most ‘moderate’ Muslims, including those in the U.S., want to live under Sharia law? | |
| A: | It’s just flat wrong to claim that, even though most polls show that to be the case. Next question. |
Res ipsa loquitur.
Egyptian president visits France: Declares “modernity” while Coptic church is seized
By Ashraf Ramelah
During President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi’s press conference upon his visit to France a few days ago (Saturday, Oct 21), a journalist asked about Egyptian human rights. The President replied that Egypt is suffering from disorder and chaos, adding, “I am keen to establish a modern and civil state.”
Meanwhile, in Egypt on the same day, the government Zoning and Planning Commission paid a visit to a four-year-old, owned and occupied Orthodox building containing a church, for a surprise inspection. The Upper Egypt region of Egypt is primarily Christian and subject to Gestapo-like scrutiny with a view to shutting down churches. The village of Al Hager in Suhag has three thousand Coptic Orthodox inhabitants with only one church a mile away — too far to walk.
The following morning before Sunday’s church service, worshipers and the priest arrived to find police forces surrounding the church building while the water and electricity were being disconnected. The reason given was that the state was concerned with security and safety due to complaints from Muslims in the town.
The Church of the Virgin Mary and the Martyrs of Margaregs and Abi Sefin has been harassed for years by the state and is constantly under threat of closure.
Church of the Virgin Mary — Its history of abuse
Beginning in 2006, the Virgin Mary Church was under construction for seven years as a four-story service and sanctuary building. The first floor was for priests only, the second floor for worship service, and the third floor dedicated to the children’s nursery. The top floor provided social services for the congregation.
Delays in construction were endless as they waited for a state church-building permit to be issued (which generally takes many years). The building was finalized and occupied before receiving it. Copts know that non-issuance of church permits is one way the state attempts to obstruct Christian worship.
Upon completion and occupancy in 2013, the Zoning Commission issued a demolition order, but fortunately the courts overturned it when Copts challenged the decision. In the middle of 2013, Copts began to hold two masses weekly on Friday and Sunday mornings.
This is a website whose time has come: TELL DADDY. It’s modeled on “Tell MAMA”, an organization with the mission of gathering information on Islamophobic incidents in the UK, so that the government can use the data to prosecute Islamophobes where appropriate. Tell MAMA is headed by Fiyaz Mughal, whose name has inspired various amusing wordplays, most of which are too impolite to post on this blog.
Tell Daddy aims to collect data on Europhobia in Britain, which has now reached epidemic proportions. Below is a partial mirror of the initial post at Tell Daddy.
Tell Daddy
by Seymour Clare
24 Oct 2017
To help do our bit for hate-crime awareness week we are starting a new initiative to encourage the reporting of Europhobic hate crimes.
We are concerned about a wave of attacks, harassment, and hate-filled speech against Europeans … there has been an unprecedented number of incidents. Including a rise in street harassment of Europeans — unprovoked, opportunistic attacks from strangers as Europeans go about their lives.
Explosives, pistols, machine guns, cars, trucks, knives and hammers….have all been used to indiscriminately murder innocent civilians.
Hundreds have died, thousands have been injured and traumatised.
Incidents of sexual violence against women and children have also massively increased.
Europeans have been attacked in swimming pools, train stations, metros, parks, playgrounds, concerts, schools, graveyards and hospitals.
Tens, some say hundreds of thousands of school-children have been groomed, raped and forced into prostitution.
There have been numerous large-scale sexual assaults, some involving as many as a thousand Europhobes and hundreds of victims. There has been a massive increase in brutally violent gang rapes.
This is far from an exhaustive list of the type of crime against person and property perpetrated by Europhobic criminals and ideological Europhobic zealots.
The state has more or less lost control of hundreds of zones in Europe … police, fire brigades and medical staff have all been attacked, just for doing their jobs.
The scale of the lash is astounding … there has been a massive spike in anti-European prejudice. A sense of endemic fear has gripped European communities.
Over the past 20 years or so, these sorts of hate crimes have noticeably increased in number and, in many instances, particularly in the last 5 or 10 years, have arguably become much more extreme.
Who will put a stop to this unprecedented wave of violence and destruction, being wrought mostly by people, of whom elites tell us, are the solution to a ‘pension problem’ in Europe?
European leaders seem to have admitted defeat and dejectedly tell us we should “just get used to it”.
It’s really not that bad, you’re far more likely to be in an accident on the motorway. So don’t panic and carry on.
Europhobes blowing themselves up on the tube or spraying bullets around a concert hall of children, or horribly torturing and murdering nightclub goers, is merely part and parcel of urban life. Or so we are told.
Candle-lit vigils and teddy bears are now so passé after yet another mass shooting, bombing or vehicle and knife attack by hate-filled Europhobes, they have become a parody.
To add insult to injury, we are told it’s the potential “backlash” to this unprecedented wave of violent Europhobia, that is really the problem, often before the latest victims have even been laid to rest.
It has become enormously insulting.
So what can we do?
According to media reports, Catalan President Carles Puigdemont has sent his wife and children away as the risk grows that he will be arrested by Spanish authorities. He has also “indefinitely” cancelled a speech on Catalonian independence. Meanwhile, hackers for “Anonymous” have targeted Spanish government websites under the banner of “Free Catalonia”.
In other news, security personnel in Berlin migrant homes have reportedly forced underage migrants into prostitution.
To see the headlines and the articles, click “Continue reading” below.
Thanks to AF, Charles Low, Dean, DV, Reader from Chicago, Red Mike, SS, TB, Vlad Tepes, 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.
This essay was published earlier today at Western Rifle Shooters Association.
Is the NFL ready for a stadium attack on a Las Vegas scale?
My first novel, Enemies Foreign and Domestic, published in 2003, begins with a sniper shooting into a packed football stadium. Ninety bullets are fired from long range into an upper deck, precipitating a stadium-wide panic stampede that results in over a thousand deaths. In the book, a combat veteran holding a semi-automatic rifle is quickly located by a SWAT counter-sniper in a helicopter, after a citizen’s tip is phoned to the police. However, the veteran is just a patsy, and the true perpetrators of the massacre are a pair of mid-level federal law enforcement agents who are seeking to increase their departmental budgets and overall bureaucratic power. The liberal mainstream media accept the false narrative without close examination. Right-leaning military veteran “gun nuts” are universally tarred as potential mass murderers. Within a week, semi-automatic so-called “assault rifles” are banned. The first chapter can be read here.
My goal with the plot of Enemies Foreign and Domestic was to encourage news consumers not to blindly accept convenient official explanations after traumatic national events. Since the release of this novel, we have, in fact, seen federal agents and bureaucrats at a much higher level than my two fictional villains conspire to commit mass murder with the intention of spinning a false news narrative. We know this intentional mass murder plot as “Operation Fast and Furious”, whereby thousands of semi-automatic rifles from Southwestern gun dealers were deliberately sold to criminals with the expectation that they would be transported to violent cartels in Mexico. This resulted in mass carnage which would then be blamed on the Second Amendment and lax American gun laws. Honest gun dealers were coerced by the ATF into making otherwise illegal straw purchases to criminals in bulk quantities. No attempt was made to track the guns once they left ATF observation at the point of sale. The Mexican government was never informed of the murderous gun-running plan. Operation Fast and Furious was not a legitimate law enforcement operation gone wrong. It was a covert murder plan from start to finish, conceived and carried out for political purposes.
Before the evil scheme was exposed after the shooting death of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry in 2010, President Obama, Attorney General Holder, and Secretary of State Clinton were regularly touting as fact the lie that 90% of the guns found at Mexican murder scenes had originated in the USA. Eric Holder was found in contempt of Congress after stonewalling their attempts to investigate Operation Fast and Furious, when the half-hearted investigation was leading directly to his office. None of the principals behind this murderous plan have ever been held accountable. I revisit Fast and Furious in case any readers of this article learn the premise of my first novel and declare that federal law enforcement officials would never be involved in a mass murder scheme concocted for political ends.
That Rubicon was already crossed with Operation Fast and Furious.
Since then, we have witnessed other scandals which involved selling the American public a false narrative. One example is the lie that the deadly attacks on our nearly undefended diplomatic missions in Benghazi were the result of an angry local response to an obscure video about the life of Mohammed. My point in recounting this history is to encourage Americans to always search beyond the “official narrative,” which, as we have seen, can sometimes be manufactured from whole cloth for public consumption. If the false narrative coincides with the liberal mainstream media’s underlying biases and preconceptions, you can be certain that very little honest journalism will be done to expose the lies and reveal the truth to the public.
This brings me to Las Vegas, with its ever-changing timelines and other dark mysteries, such as the motive of Stephen Paddock, the presumed shooter. Columnist Mark Steyn proposes a theory of the case that, in the absence of any declared motive or connections to international terrorism, “the medium is the message.” In Las Vegas, then, the message would be that the ready availability of semi-automatic firearms constitutes a menace to American society, and the Second Amendment must be curtailed to prevent future massacres. Limiting the right of Americans to keep and bear arms has been a long-standing goal of the Left. So-called progressives well understand that their dream of imposing a “socialist utopia” cannot be achieved while Americans possess sufficiently effective weapons to mount a furious armed resistance. If Paddock had left a note declaring this end to be his true motive, he would have discredited his own purpose.
Of course, Paddock might have simply been a deranged psychopath, bent, for his own twisted reasons, upon topping the record books as America’s most successful mass shooter. We’ll never know because he’s conveniently dead and, apparently, he left no departing message. The lack of a declared motive, the ever-shifting timeline, and the fact that it took more than an hour after the shooting had ceased for the police to enter Paddock’s suite means that mystery may cloud the Las Vegas Massacre for years or decades to come.
One outcome is certain: millions of Americans are unlikely to accept any “official narrative” released after the investigation has concluded, and with good reason. The FBI and other federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies have squandered their reputations for honesty and integrity in recent years, and we can no longer assume that politics and corruption have not trumped even-handed truth telling.
The following news story from the Hamburg area in Germany is bestial and disturbing. Sensitive readers are advised to skip the video and the transcript.
Many thanks to Ava Lon for the translation, and to Vlad Tepes for the subtitling:
Video transcript:
Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Löfven and other members of his government are determined that all member states of the European Union be coerced into adopting the same immigration policies as Sweden.
Many thanks to FouseSquawk for translating this article from Fria Tider:
Stefan Löfven: Punish countries that do not receive immigrants
October 26, 2017
Border controls within the EU will remain for a long time. This was said by Prime Minister Stefan Löfven (Social Democrats) in a speech on Thursday. At the same time, he identified “xenophobia” as the major threat to Europe, pointing out that EU countries that do not receive enough immigrants should be punished economically.
It was during a speech at Uppsala University on Thursday that Stefan Löfven stated that border controls are unlikely to disappear in the near future.
On the contrary, they will probably stay well into the future.
Löfven, who in the early stages of the asylum wave in Autumn 2015 stated that “my Europe did not build walls”, now called controls “a necessary evil”.
“As long as we do not have a working system in the EU, and as long as the system and security can not be guaranteed, border controls will not disappear in Europe,” said Löfven, according to SVT News , pointing out that this will have negative consequences for free mobility within the EU.
The prime minister also said that the negotiations currently underway on the EU’s future asylum policy are “complicated”. But he is willing to compromise.
Migration Minister Heléne Fritzon (Social Democrats) has previously said that Sweden can not have an asylum policy that differs significantly from the EU’s upcoming policy. The Swedish government is therefore trying to influence the negotiations so that all EU countries are forced to hand out permanent residence permits to hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers. But other countries do not agree.
“The Swedish position at the opening of the negotiations is for permanent residence permits. But when I listen to the other Member States, I do not hear very many say that,” she told Ekot’s Saturday interview this weekend.
In his speech at Uppsala University, Stefan Löfven also declared that EU countries refusing to receive so-called refugees should be punished by eliminating their EU financial support.
According to SVT, Löfven also noted what he considers to be the major “threats” to the EU today: “populism”, “xenophobia”, and Brexit, that Britain is leaving the Union.
Matt Bracken is in the doghouse again on Facebook.
Whoops — that’s offensive! I should have said he’s in the goathouse. There, that’s better.
Here’s what Matt said when he sent the image below:
I am currently just beginning a 30-day FB ban for rudely offending moslem rape apologists. FISBEP (Facebook Islamic Sharia Blasphemy Enforcement Police) nailed me again.
As most of you already know, back in August the German Counterjihad activist Michael Stürzenberger was sentenced to six months in prison for posting on Facebook a historical photo of the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem shaking hands with a Nazi. For those who are not familiar with his case, in the video below Mr. Stürzenberger does an admirable job of explaining it himself.
The latest twist: the prosecution has already filed an appeal, because they believe the defendant deserves an even harsher sentence than the one handed down by the trial judge.
Many thanks to Nash Montana for the translation, and to Vlad Tepes for the subtitling:
References:
Video transcript:
Ed Gillespie, the Republican candidate for governor of Virginia, has opened up a significant lead over his Democrat opponent, Lt. Gov. Ralph Northam, according to the latest polls. Mr. Gillespie is now running eight points ahead of Mr. Northam, with less than two weeks to go before the election.
In other news, Catalans in France have arranged to open up their homes to Catalonian leader Carles Puigdemont so that he can establish a government in exile across the border in the event the Spanish government forces him to flee the country.
To see the headlines and the articles, click “Continue reading” below.
Thanks to AF, Charles Low, Dean, Dora, 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.
It seems that there is a tradition in Tunisia of pardoning prisoners during the holy month of Ramadan. Based on the following report from Italian TV, during the most recent Ramadan the Tunisians emptied their jails so that the Ramadan parolees could take a boat to Italy as soon as possible.
Many thanks to Elle Bowlly for the translation, and to Vlad Tepes for the subtitling. A note from the translator:
Tunisia was also celebrating their independence. They pardoned 1,600 people who were in for drug-related crimes and property crimes. They say half of them may already be in Italy.
Video transcript:
