Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini told EC President Jean-Claude “Drunker” Juncker to shut up about the Italian budget and stop insulting Italians. Mr. Salvini also said that Mr. Juncker “should think about his tax haven Luxembourg”.
In other news, four people-traffickers were arrested for using speedboats to transport illegal immigrants from North Africa to Spain.
To see the headlines and the articles, click “Continue reading” below.
Thanks to AF, C. Cantoni, Insubria, JD, 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.
S&P Upgrades Poland’s Credit Rating
Ratings agency S&P Global has upgraded Poland’s credit rating from BBB+ to A— while describing the country’s outlook as “stable.”
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
You Can Kick the Can Down the Road, But Reality Will Catch Up With You Eventually
Nobody can defy the laws of economics forever. Whether it is an individual, a company or the nation as a whole, reality always catches up with everyone eventually. For years, I have been warning that Sears was eventually going to zero, but of course it didn’t happen immediately. Sears CEO Eddie Lampert kept convincing investors to pour more money into his beleaguered money pit, and so the can kept getting kicked down the road. It takes a great con man to be able to pull off what Eddie Lampert was able to pull off, and we should all be in awe at the level of skill that he has displayed. But all good cons eventually come to an end, and now the retailer that was once the largest in world history is coming to an end. According to multiple media reports, a Sears bankruptcy filing is imminent. For a while there it looked like it would be a Chapter 7 filing which would mean immediate liquidation for Sears. But it appears that Lampert will be able secure enough funding to give Sears a little bit of breathing space. A Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing will allow most of the stores to stay open through the holidays and will give Sears more time to sell off more assets.
I can’t even imagine who would be dumb enough to hand Lampert more money at this point, and this is yet another example that shows that the old saying “ a sucker is born every minute” is definitely true.
And we are not talking about a small amount of money. According to USA Today, Sears is going to need between 300 and 500 million dollars just to keep operating through the holidays…
It is easy to mock Sears, but the truth that America as a whole is on the exact same trajectory.
In my article that lists 101 reasons why the Federal Reserve should be shut down, I explain the absolute insanity of our current debt-based financial system. Our system is literally designed to create as much debt as possible, and that is precisely what has been happening since the Federal Reserve was created in 1913.
[Comment: The Fed was designed from the beginning to intentionally put the USA into an ever increasing debt spiral.]
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
ANTIFA Attacks NYC GOP Club With Warning: “This is Only the Beginning.” #WalkAway
Antifa attacked a GOP club in New York City overnight in the latest effort by the left to see who can go lowest. The Metropolitan Club has been in NYC for 130 years and is hosting speaker Gavin McInnes so Antifa decided to attack. This has gotten so out of hand and hasn’t been helped by the leaders in the Democratic Party who are stoking the flames of violence. The group left a note saying “this is only the beginning…”
Maybe this should be the beginning of severe punishment for these thugs. Isn’t it way past time to severely punish this group that really is a terrorist group because all they do is vandalize everything in their path?
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Awesome Black Man in a MAGA Hat Tells His #WalkAway Story to Man Calling the Hat “Racist” [Video]
Please listen to this man’s story…It is worth the time! He’s spot on!
“The BEST thing to ever happen to me financially was when I was kicked off Food Stamps because I started making too much money. 26 years ago, I was homeless and sleeping on the streets of Atlanta. Through the Grace of God, hard work and the support from many fellow Americans (blacks, whites, Jews & Gentiles); I conquered my adversity and started living my American Dream independent from Government Assistance.”
“This spirit of American Exceptionalism is what MAGA is all about. The United States gives each person the BEST chance of success to work hard and become the greatest version of themselves while embracing patriotism, faith and a willingness to help others become free.”
Our country is not perfect and it’s going to take ALL of us to make America great for MORE of us. We don’t have to always agree, but we can work together through mutual respect to create a more perfect union.” YG Nyghtstorm 5 years ago, YG Nyghtstorm walked away from the Democratic Party. Here’s why…
1. Democratic leaders told me to STOP talking about Christ so much because God offends some of their base. God has given me everything, so I refused.
2. My twins Howard & Hank were aborted in 1999. My PROLIFE stance offended some of their base. They told me to stop talking about saving the unborn, but I refused.
3. The Dems did not like my love for America as some became relentless with their social media attacks against me calling me a coon, sell-out, Uncle Tom and traitor to my race, but I DON’T CARE. YG Nyghtstorm is a former Democrat, now a Conservative Political Advocate that teaches people that they no longer have to be trapped in a “victimhood” status. SHOWING others that faith, hard work and building positive relationships is a gateway to success and achieving the American Dream. This proud father of 7 children loves his country and wants to keep it great for many generations to come!
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Carpetbagging: 99.7 Percent of Donations From Hollywood Execs Go to Democrats
While Hollywood constantly preaches diversity, some of the entertainment industry’s most powerful and influential executives have given almost exclusively to Democrat candidates and left-wing PACs.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, nearly 100 percent of the millions donated from the top executives in Hollywood went to Democrats or PACs working to elect Democrats.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Dems Latest Scheme: ‘Balance’ Supreme Court by Adding Two Liberal Judges
Following the confirmation of President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court pick Brett Kavanaugh, some Democrats and progressive activists are shifting tactics, pushing a scheme to “pack” or “balance” the Supreme Court by adding two new seats to be filled by liberal judges. The Supreme Court expansion plot would be enacted if Democrats retake Congress and the presidency in 2020, according to the plan.
[Comment: Leftists have used the Supreme Court to ram ideology and pretend laws down the throat of Amercians, Now they may lose this judicial activism path, they propose stacking the spreme court in their favour again? Wow, what hutzpah.]
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Is Cultural Marxism America’s New Mainline Ideology?
Marxist theory flourishes today in cultural institutions, in the academic world, and in the mass media.
The way toward the rule of the cultural Marxists is the moral corruption of the people.
While Marxism has largely disappeared from the workers’ movement, Marxist theory flourishes today in cultural institutions, in the academic world, and in the mass media. This “cultural Marxism” goes back to Antonio Gramsci (1891-1937) and theFrankfurt School. The theorists of Marxism recognized that the proletariat would not play the expected historical role as a “revolutionary subject.” Therefore, for the revolution to happen, the movement must depend on the cultural leaders to destroy the existing, mainly Christian, culture and morality and then drive the disoriented masses to Communism as their new creed. The goal of this movement is to establish a world government in which the Marxist intellectuals have the final say. In this sense, the cultural Marxists are the continuation of what started with the Russian revolution.
Led by Lenin, the perpetrators of the revolution regarded their victory in Russia only as the first step to the world revolution.The Russian Revolution was neither Russian nor proletarian. In 1917, the industrial workers in Russia represented only a small part of the workforce, which mainly consisted of peasantry. The Russian Revolution was not the result of a labor movement but of a group of professional revolutionaries . A closer look at the composition of the Bolshevist party and of the first governments of the Soviet state and its repressive apparatus reveals the true character of the Soviet revolution as a project that did not aim at freeing the Russian people from the Tsarist yoke but was to serve as the launchpad for the world revolution…
The way toward the rule of the cultural Marxists is the moral corruption of the people. To accomplish this, the mass media and public education must not enlighten but confuse and mislead. The media and the educational establishment work to put one part of the society against the other part. While group identities get more specific, the catalog of victimization and history of oppression becomes more detailed. To turn into a recognized victim of suppression is the way to gain social status and to obtain the right to special assistance, of respect and social inclusion.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Kesha Partners With Gun Control Activists to Push ‘Vote for Our Lives’
Pop singer Kesha is joining with gun control activists in March for Our Lives to push “Vote for Our Lives,” a movement focused on getting gun control proponents to vote and flip Congress on November 6.
Writing in Teen Vogue, Kesha claimed to support the Second Amendment, which she tied to hunting, and she did not denounce gun ownership in all situations, However, she quickly made clear her belief that the only people who should be able to own guns are those who “meet the correct background checks.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Melania Trump Wore ‘Don’t Care’ Jacket to Show Left-Wing Critics They Will Not Stop Her
“It’s obvious I didn’t wear it for the children,” she made clear. “I wore the jacket to go on the plane and off the plane and it was for the people and for the left-wing media who are criticizing me and I want to show them that I don’t care. You can criticize whatever you want to say but it will not stop me to do what I feel is right.”
He pressed as to whether she was sending a message with the jacket.
“It was a kind of a message, yes,” she confirmed.
President Donald Trump tweeted shortly after she wore it that the jacket “refers to the Fake News Media. Melania has learned how dishonest they are, and she truly no longer cares!”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
The candidate for governor of Michigan is in a little hot water over her flip-flopping and outright falsehoods. She was just quoted as saying she never called to abolish ICE. There’s one BIG problem. She was caught on video calling to abolish ICE in August:
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Spygate: The True Story of Collusion [Infographic]
lthough the details remain complex, the structure underlying Spygate—the creation of the false narrative that candidate Donald Trump colluded with Russia, and the spying on his presidential campaign—remains surprisingly simple:
1. CIA Director John Brennan, with some assistance from Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, gathered foreign intelligence and fed it throughout our domestic Intelligence Community. …
7. The media was the most corrosive element in many respects. None of these events could have transpired without their willing participation. Stories were pushed, facts were ignored, and narratives were promoted. …
Spygate represents the biggest political scandal in our nation’s history. A sitting administration actively colluded with a political campaign to affect the outcome of a U.S. presidential election. Government agencies were weaponized and a complicit media spread intelligence community leaks as facts.
But a larger question remains: How long has the United States been subject to interference from the intelligence community and our political agencies? Was the 2016 presidential election a one-time aberration, or is this episode symptomatic of a larger pattern extending back decades?
The intensity, scale, and coordination suggest something greater than overzealous actions taken during a single election. They represent a unified reaction of the establishment to a threat posed by a true outsider—a reaction that has come to be known as Spygate.
| — Hat tip: AF | [Return to headlines] |
Media are desperate to diminish whatever influence Kanye has
Yesterday, I posted a clip of a CNN panel in which Kanye West was described as a “token negro” and “what happens when negroes don’t read.” It was a grotesque display for which CNN has refused to apologize.
In fact, as you’ll see, they’ve doubled down on it. It also occurred before the Trump/Kanye White House meeting.
If you want to know what Kanye said during that face to face, Dan has the run down right here.
Suffice it to say, it was a litany of political points that conservatives have been making for years, delivered in an admittedly odd way, and it has absolutely terrified the left.
Need evidence that it has them freaked out? Just watch the incredible meltdown on MSNBC:…
The left has had a stranglehold on black voters for so long, that anything which could even threaten to burst that bubble scares the hell out of them. Whether or not Kanye’s love of Trump will actual put a dent in the numbers remains to be seen, but it’s clear they’re worried about it. You simply don’t attack this hard if you’re not concerned…
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Trump Promised America First — and That’s Exactly What We’re Getting
While liberals try to make a racket and clamor that Trump and the Republican Party are stirring up hate and oppressing others, the current administration has actually made life a whole lot better for Americans across every socioeconomic stratum — in two years, no less!
Let’s take a brief look at just a few of the early victories Trump has accomplished in his pursuit of returning greatness to America:
Buy American and Hire American
On April 18, 2017, President Trump signed the Buy American and Hire American Executive Order, which has the goal of creating higher wages and employment rates for American workers, as well as to protect the economic interests of America-first companies by rigorously enforcing and administering immigration laws. The order also directs the Department of Homeland Security, in coordination with some other agencies, to push forth policies that ensure that H-1B visas are awarded to the most-skilled beneficiaries.
As All American Reviews shows, there’s plenty of diversity and quality in American-made products and brands. From furniture and clothing to sporting goods and tools, consumers have plenty of choices. The more the government incentivizes product manufacturing to stay home, the more opportunity there will be for consumers to buy goods that reinvest into the American economy. So far, so good.
Withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement
“I was elected to represent the citizens of Pittsburgh, not Paris,” President Trump said at a ceremony in the White House Rose Garden to announce the withdrawal of the United States from the Paris Climate Accord.
One of Trump’s first big executive orders as president was to remove America from the terrible Paris Agreement that President Obama dubiously “backdoored” his way into. In doing so, he saved the U.S. economy an estimated $3 trillion over the next several decades, saved as many as 6 million industrial-sector jobs, and saved taxpayers $3 billion in an Obama-era slush fund that was created without consulting Congress. In other words, he put America first again.
Enhanced Vetting Processes to Secure Borders
While it’s received a lot of negative press — largely as a result of misleading reports by the national media — more rigorous vetting processes have made our borders safer by making it harder for terrorists and transnational criminals to legally enter the country.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Were You One of the 30 Million Hacked Facebook Users? Here’s How to Check
On September 28, Facebook announced that as many as 90 million users may have had their “access tokens” — which keep people logged into their account, stolen by hackers. On Friday, the company reduced that figure to 30 million accounts whose phone numbers and email addresses were accessed in the largest security breach in the company’s history.
Of the 30 million exposed, 14 million users had much more data harvested, including; “username, gender, locale/language, relationship status, religion, hometown, self-reported current city, birthdate, device types used to access Facebook, education, work, the last 10 places they checked into or were tagged in, website, people or Pages they follow, and the 15 most recent searches,” according to the company.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Children’s Hospital Says it Will Euthanize Kids Without Parental Consent
A recent report from the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto states that they are not only ready to do euthanasia on children but their policy states that a child should be able to die by euthanasia without the consent or knowledge of the parents.
According to an article by Sharon Kirkey for Sun Media, the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto published their policy on euthanasia and assisted suicide as a report in the recent Journal of Medical Ethics. According to Kirkey:
The Sick Kids’ working group says the hospital has willing doctors who could “safely and effectively” perform euthanasia for terminally ill youth 18 and older who meet the criteria as set out in federal law, and that it would be “antithetical” to its philosophy of care to have to transfer these patients to a strange and unfamiliar adult hospital. But it is a suggestion that euthanasia might one day take place without the involvement of parents that has provoked fresh controversy in the assisted-death debate.
Who does the Hospital for Sick Children believe that euthanasia can be safe and effective for?
| — Hat tip: AF | [Return to headlines] |
Brexit Britain Thrives: ‘Brand UK’ Rapidly Growing and Now Fourth Most Valuable Worldwide
THE UK’s national brand has recorded a staggering growth since last year, replacing Japan as the fourth most valuable nation brand in the world and according to Brand Finance the positive result “reaffirms Britain’s ability to make the most of its post-Brexit future”.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
France: Backtracking, Le Pen Meets Bannon and States She is Open to Closer Ties
Marine Le Pen, the French far-right leader, has met with former White House strategist Steve Bannon and signaled her interest in his project to help European populist parties.
Louis Aliot, a vice president of Le Pen’s National Rally party who is also her companion, said Friday on BFMTV station that she met with Bannon a day earlier in Paris.
According to Aliot, Bannon wants to provide “technical assistance” for nationalist parties ahead of next year’s European elections but that he “doesn’t want to play a (political) role.”…
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: 2 Roma Ram Police Car After Burglary
Only solution is BULLDOZER says Salvini
(ANSA) — Milan, October 12 — Two Roma aged 38 and 16 were arrested Friday after ramming a police car after a burglary near Milan.
Interior Minister Matteo Salvini said “for the Roma camps, a disgrace only in Italy, I confirm the only solution was, is and will be the BULLDOZER.
“Nabbed after a burglary, they flee at full tilt ramming a Carabinieri car: two residents of the Roma camp at Muggiano (Milan), aged 38 and 16, have been arrested.
“Police found in their car flashing lights, stop signs, license plates, receivers tuned to police frequencies…nice people. I send my compliments and best wishes for a speedy recovery to the Carabinieri involved in the incident”.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Juncker Should Shut Up, Says Salvini
‘Think abt his tax haven Luxembourg’
(ANSA) — Rome, October 12 — Deputy Premier Matteo Salvini said Friday European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker should “shut up” and “stop insulting Italians and their legitimate government”.
He said the Luxembourg politician “should think about his tax haven Luxembourg”.
Juncker earlier said that “Italy has not kept its word” when asked about the government’s budget in an interview published in Friday’s edition of Le Monde.
“I have nothing against Italy, on the contrary, I love it,” he continued.
“They should stop describing us as cold monsters, locked up in a bunker, insensitive to the appeals of the people. “The Italian authorities are free to make their choices over basic income and taxes for businesses.
“(But) they still must respect the rules to avoid endangering European solidarity”.
The two leaders have bee trading barbs over Italy’s 2019 budget with Salvini saying he “only talks with sober people”.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Katie Hopkins and Michael Stürzenberger: Islam’s Threat to Germany
Michael Stürzenberger is an activist, journalist, and a very brave man.
He was sentenced to six months in prison for sharing a historically accurate photo of Hitler with the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem.
We had a long discussion on the threat of radical Islam in Germany and how it’s influencing the growth of a populist political backlash.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Paper Bomb Attack on Italy’s Far-Right League
ROME (AFP) — The head of Italy’s far-right League on Saturday shrugged off a paper bomb attack on a local party office, a day after demonstrators burned his effigy in the first large protests since the coalition government took power.
The bomb shattered the windows of the Ala office in northern Italy in the early hours of the morning, ahead of a planned visit by Matteo Salvini, who is Italy’s deputy prime minister.
“If they think they can scare us with these cowardly acts they are seriously wrong,” he said on Facebook, blaming the attack on “anarchists” and calling for two suspects detained by police to be jailed…
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Pope Francis: Beware of ‘Well-Mannered Demons’
The devil’s mission is always to destroy, Pope Francis said Friday, but his worst assaults are not frontal attacks, but subtle, “well-mannered” persuasion.
In his homily at Mass in the Santa Marta residence Friday morning, the pope said that Satan is most dangerous when he presents himself as a friend who only wants to help us.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
A Somalian whose deportation from Britain was dramatically halted after airline passengers staged a mutiny demanding his release can be exposed today as a convicted gang rapist who was being kicked out of the country because of his sickening crime.
Officials escorting Yaqub Ahmed on a flight from Heathrow to Turkey were forced to abandon his deportation when around a dozen holidaymakers who felt sorry for him angrily intervened shortly before take-off.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Slovenia: Newspaper Launches Anti-Multiculturalism ‘Patriotic Fairy Tale’ Contest, Angers Left
Leftists have attacked a conservative newspaper for launching a creative writing competition where authors are invited to write a “patriotic Slovenian fairy tale” for children depicting the dangers of multiculturalism, progressivism, and illegal mass migration.
The centre-right Demokracija advertised the competition last week for established and amateur authors to write a child’s fairy tale intended to instil in them the “right values” and ensure “they love Slovenia”.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Family of Pakistani Christian Mother Sentenced to Death for Blasphemy Prays for Deliverance
(AFP) — The family of Asia Bibi, a Christian mother who faces execution for blasphemy in Pakistan, said they hoped the Supreme Court would free her.
But in any case they feared for their future living in Pakistan under the blasphemy laws, they told AFP.
Bibi, who has been on death row since 2010, is at the centre of the high-profile case that has divided Pakistan and drawn prayers from the Vatican.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Chinese Investments in European Ports Come Under Scrutiny
Europe is one of the regions that China has targeted for investment as part of its “One Belt, One Road” initiative, an ambitious plan to build infrastructure that would establish Beijing-centered trade routes throughout the world.
Now, six years after the initiative was first announced by Beijing, the Greek port of Piraeus, which is now under Chinese control, is tainted with labor concerns and accusations of tax fraud.
| — Hat tip: AF | [Return to headlines] |
Trump Administration Resets Policy Toward China in Landmark Speech
[…]
Pence pulled no punches in his speech, which he said is an official resetting of U.S.—China policy. He outlined in detail the intensive and sophisticated influence operations of the Party in the United States.
“As we speak, Beijing is employing a whole-of-government approach, using political, economic, and military tools, as well as propaganda, to advance its influence and benefit its interests in the United States,” he said at the Hudson Institute in Washington on Oct. 4.
“China is also applying this power in more proactive ways than ever before, to exert influence and interfere in the domestic policy and politics of this country.”
Pence said the United States once hoped that “economic liberalization would bring China into greater partnership with us and with the world.”
“After the fall of the Soviet Union, we assumed that a free China was inevitable,” he said. “Heady with optimism, at the turn of the 21st century America agreed to give Beijing open access to our economy and bring China into the World Trade Organization.”
| — Hat tip: AF | [Return to headlines] |
Gandhi Statue Sparks Controversy in Malawi
BLANTYRE (MALAWI) (AFP) — Over 3,000 people have signed a petition opposing a planned statue of Mahatma Gandhi in Malawi’s commercial capital Blantyre, saying the Indian independence hero had done nothing for the southern African country.
Work on the statue began two months ago along a road named after Gandhi. The Malawi government says it is being erected as part of a deal that will see New Delhi construct a $10 million (8.6-million-euro) convention centre in Blantyre.
“Mahatma Gandhi has never contributed anything to Malawi?s struggle for independence and freedom,” a statement from the “Gandhi Must Fall” group said.
“We therefore, feel that the statue is being forced upon the people of Malawi and is the work of a foreign power aiming at promoting its image and dominion on the unsuspecting people of Malawi.”
The petitioners claim that Gandhi, who early in his career practised in South Africa and fought against apartheid-era segregation laws, was racist.
“We are not comfortable with imperialistic and neo-colonial ideologies that seek to impose… foreign influence which deprives us of honour,” Wonderful Mkutche, a member of the group told AFP on Saturday.
“Now more than ever, our nation must rise above pettiness and weakness in international deals…. This must mean that we should only accept investments, partnerships… that are responsible, fair, equal, honourable, sustainable, efficient and transparent.”
But Isaac Munlo, Principal Secretary in the foreign ministry, defended the project saying: “It should be recognised that Mahatma Gandhi promoted values of simplicity, fight against social evils, promoting human and civil rights as well as uplifting of social well-being of people.
“It is also worth noting that all African freedom fighters that fought against colonialism and oppression and thus demanded independence were influenced by what Mahatma Gandhi fought for. In other ways, Mahatma Gandhi is a role model of a human rights campaigner for both Africa and India,” he said.
Malawi and India established diplomatic ties in 1964 and New Delhi is one of the country’s biggest donors.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
US Charity School in Liberia in Rape Scandal Storm
MONROVIA (AFP) — An acclaimed US charity operating in Liberia has admitted to major failings after girls at a school set up to save them from a life of sexual exploitation were systematically raped.
“We are profoundly, deeply sorry,” the charity More Than Me said on its website on Saturday after US investigative media said girls at a pioneering school in a slum had been repeatedly abused by the charity’s co-founder, Macintosh Johnson.
Some victims were as young as 10 and there are fears he infected some with the AIDS virus, of which he eventually died, the investigative site ProPublica said in a piece co-published with Time.
“To all the girls who were raped by Macintosh Johnson in 2014 and before: we failed you,” More Than Me said.
“We gave Johnson power that he exploited to abuse children. Those power dynamics broke staff ability to report the abuse to our leadership immediately.
“Our leadership should have recognised the signs earlier and we have and will continue to employ training and awareness programmes so we do not miss this again.”
The assaults took place at a school at West Point, a notorious slum in the capital Monrovia.
It opened in 2013 to a blaze of publicity, becoming the first of 18 schools that More Than Me opened in the impoverished West African state to empower girls.
The charity eventually raised more than $8 million in funding, nearly $600,000 of which came from the US government, and gained the support of Liberia’s then president and Nobel Peace Laureate, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf.
ProPublica described Johnson as a “charming hustler” who insinuated himself with Katie Meyler, who created the charity.
Meyler, an evangelical Christian, had come to Liberia to try to help the country after its emergence from 14 years of civil war.
She threw herself into the task of helping girls in the slums.
Back in the US, she rubbed shoulders with philanthropist Warren Buffett, TV star and activist Oprah Winfrey and other celebrities in her campaign to drum up donations.
After some of the girls came forward to reveal what was happening, Johnson was suspended by the school and arrested.
He was put on trial in 2015, but this ended in a hung jury amid suggestions of bribes, ProPublica said. He was facing a retrial when he died in 2016 from an illness that the site said was AIDS.
In its statement, More Than Me said it had been “naive to believe that providing education alone is enough to protect these girls from the abuses they may face -? strong institutions, safeguarding policies and vigilance are needed to do that.”
Among the changes it had introduced, the charity maintained, was the providing of “private, school-wide HIV testing” to all students.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
11 Migrants Killed When Smuggler’s Car Crashes in Greece
THESSALONIKI, GREECE — A car carrying migrants collided with a truck in northern Greece Saturday, killing 11 people, police said.
Ten of the victims were believed to be migrants who crossed into the Greece from Turkey. The 11th person was the driver and a suspected migrant smuggler, police said.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Germany: Migrant With Multiple Convictions Arrested for Murder After Prison Release
A migrant from Lebanon with a long record of convictions has been arrested for murder after being released from prison following appeals against a prior conviction.
Omar A. is accused of murdering 54-year-old Detlev L. after he was confronted during a burglary in Berlin’s Kreuzberg district, stabbing the victim with a folding knife in the upper body before fleeing from the scene, Focus reports.
The 54-year-old victim, described as a family man, died in a local hospital from his wounds the next day.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Tunisian, 20, Rapes Slovak, 38, In Migrant Centre
Chemical castration says Salvini
(ANSA) — Rome, October 12 — A 20-year-old Tunisian migrant allegedly raped a 38-year-old Slovakian woman in the Baobab volunteer-run migrant centre outside Rome’s Tiburtina rail station Thursday night, Interior Minister Matteo Salvini said Friday, calling for the chemical castration of the alleged rapist.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy’s Salvini Deports Islamic Extremist Who Wanted to Kill ‘White Tourists’ And ‘Christians’
The Italian government has announced the deportation of three African migrants suspected of close ties with Islamist terrorist groups, including one who had expressed the desire to kill “white tourists” and “Christians”.
The Ministry of the Interior led by Matteo Salvini released a statement on Friday with a brief description of the three men, adding that they had been identified as linked to “Islamic extremism”, were judged to be “a danger for national security”, and therefore “repatriated.”
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Over 12,000 Migrants Crossed Into Greece in 2018 Through Evros Border Alone
Migration Minister Dimitris Vitsas presented data in Parliament last week showing that the number of migrants entering Greece through the Evros border from Turkey has sky-rocketed.
According to the report, 3,300 migrants came to Greece through the Evros border region in 2016 while in 2017 that number climbed to 5,500.
In the first nine months of 2018, however, it appears that 12,000 migrants entered Greece through that point alone. The actual number is likely to be even higher as some entries remain unrecorded.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
People-Smugglers Arrested for Bringing Illegal Migrants to Spain in Speedboats
(AFP) — Four people were arrested in the Spanish overseas territory of Ceuta for charging migrants up to 2,000 euros to take them to the mainland in speedboats normally used for drug trafficking, police said Saturday.
It was unclear whether those arrested had been involved in drug trafficking and decided to change tack, or if they had merely got hold of the vessels for their operation.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
BBC to Fight ‘Heteronormative Culture’ With Gender-Neutral Pronouns, ‘Straight Ally’ Badges
The BBC is to fight a “heteronormative culture” with a raft of pro-LGBT reforms, despite figures showing sexual minorities are already overrepresented as much as fivefold in the broadcaster’s workforce.
Staff will be told to use gender-neutral pronouns for workers who say they are “non-binary” — identifying as neither male or female — under new BBC policies, which also detail plans to put additional support in place for transgender individuals, especially while they are “transitioning”.
Workforce training on diversity, inclusion, and “unconscious bias” will also be expanded to include LGBT issues, while non-heterosexual mentors will guide less senior staff who identify as a sexual minority.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
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Ah, you might protest, we have moved on from Mies van der Rohe et al., and so we have. (By the way, Professor Curl is very amusing on the opportunistic evolution of Mies van der Rohe’s name, as well as his equally opportunistic passage from being pro-Nazi to purely careerist refugee from Nazism.) Nonetheless two things need to be said about this supposed moving on from modernism to postmodernism and other isms: first that the damage, reparable only by demolition on a vast and inconceivable scale, has been done, and second that change is not by itself necessarily for the better. The capacity of eminent architects to spend vast sums of money to build aesthetic monstrosities fit to make Vitruvius weep is illustrated by the Whitney Museum in New York and the Philharmonie in Paris, the latter in particular of truly astonishing hideousness, that would have been almost comical had it not absorbed and wasted so much money, in the process becoming for many generations of the future as pleasing an aesthetic experience as a foreign body in the eye.
The mystery is how and why the patrons, those who choose the designs, stand for it. The key, I suppose, is to be found in Hans Christian Andersen—the Emperor’s New Clothes. The patrons are afraid to be thought by the architects not to understand: an accusation that Le Corbusier leveled decades ago at all those who did not approve of his plans to destroy old cities and cover the world with an ocean of raw concrete and a forest of almost identical towers. In other words, it is intellectual and moral cowardice that makes the world go round.
| — Hat tip: AF | [Return to headlines] |
Facebook Engineer Who Stood Up to Company’s ‘Intolerant’ Liberal Culture Leaves
Brian Amerige, a Facebook engineer who made headlines after he and more than one hundred other employees stood up to the company’s “intolerant” left-wing culture, has left Facebook.
In August, it was reported that “more than 100 politically conservative Facebook employees” had created an “internal group called ‘FB’ers for Political Diversity,’ in an effort to stand up to the ‘intolerant’ liberal culture at the company.”
In one post in the group, Amerige declared, “We are a political monoculture that’s intolerant of different views. We claim to welcome all perspectives, but are quick to attack — often in mobs — anyone who presents a view that appears to be in opposition to left-leaning ideology.”
Now, Amerige has quit his position at the company.
In a memo to other Facebook employees, Amerige wrote, “I care too deeply about our role in supporting free expression and intellectual diversity to even whole-heartedly attempt the product stuff anymore, and that’s how I know it’s time to go.”
Amerige also added, “I’ve been thinking about this for almost a year, and though a certain leak delayed me a bit, I know it’s time for me to move on… I’m not leaving because ‘it’s time for something new. I’m leaving because I’m burnt out on Facebook, our strategy, our culture, and our product.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Gay Muslim Drag Queen Causes Confusion
When science goes wrong
A gay, “non-binary” Muslim drag queen explains how gender and race fluidity is proven by science.
So delighted my BBC license fee is paying for this.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
The Battle of Wills Between the Sexes
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It is in politics that women’s moral genus is most problematic. This is true not only because of the sex differences that I have described, but also because, owing to women’s greater biological value, there is a deep (albeit mostly unconscious) paternal bias in their favor. Therefore, with respect to certain issues, the mere presence of women is such that many people will effectively lose their minds, so that rational discussion becomes exceedingly difficult, if not impossible. …
Constant and pathetic, the male submission we see today is unprecedented in history, and an ominous sign of how far our culture has fallen. Whether people can or will allow themselves to perceive it, the battle of wills between the sexes is a very real, and increasingly grave, problem. Nor will it go away because of ignorance and fear.
Such male submission, it should go without saying, is not attractive to women, for what they want is a man whom they cannot bend to their will. As I have written, like foreign nations, women respect nothing so much as superior power. So Nature Herself has made them, nor can cant about “rights” and “gender equality” change that.
If men keep yielding to women as a matter of course, America will be doomed because, despite fashionable thinking to the contrary, there is very little social order or authority without male leadership. And without those virtues, there is no culture and, eventually, no people at all.
| — Hat tip: AF | [Return to headlines] |
[…] If you haven’t heard of the Brian Banks film, there’s a reason. No one in the media is talking about it. …
The critical reaction to the Banks film has been hilarious. Forced to review the movie after it won the audience award (oh s***, people actually like the film? Suppression shield activate!) for best feature at the Los Angeles Film Festival, Variety’s Peter Debruge devoted his entire column to trying to explain how a movie that is relevant to current events is totally not relevant to current events. …
Debruge condemns the film for failing to acknowledge that sexual assault can harm women in a movie about a woman who was not a victim of sexual assault. The film tells a true, uncontested story in which the man was the victim. So yes, good men can have their lives destroyed by false rape accusations. Debruge calls the “fear that ‘good’ men can have their lives destroyed by such accusations” a product of “misogyny.” No, cretin. That fear is a product of reality. Because it happened. And you admit it happened. And by the way, a-hole, putting scare quotes around “good” when referring to Brian Banks is—how do the kids say it these days?—”racist AF.” …
Today’s American leftists demand allegiance to an even greater myth: Women don’t lie. And we surrender to that myth at our own risk.
Just ask Brian Banks.
| — Hat tip: AF | [Return to headlines] |
Moonmoons (Moons That Orbit Other Moons) Could Exist, Scientists Say
True to form, the internet has endeavored to name an unnamed thing, and the results are hilarious. From the people who brought you Boaty McBoatface— the Arctic research drone that has already returned some very interesting discoveries from the world’s coldest abysses — here come moonmoons: moons that orbit other moons.
Moonmoons — also known online as submoons, moonitos, grandmoons, moonettes and moooons — may not exist in our solar system or any other. However, according to a pair of astronomers writing in the preprint journal arXiv.org earlier this week, the concept of a moon hosting its own mini-moon is, at least, plausible.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
BBC to Fight ‘Heteronormative Culture’ With Gender-Neutral Pronouns, ‘Straight Ally’ Badges
I self-identify as a Newt and I find this whole charade extremely offensive. We Newts like all normal species have only two genders – male and female. We male Newts do not cut off our willies, pretend we have vaginas and grow bumps on the front because there is no necessity…our female Newts attend to such matters on our behalf.
Furthermore, this example of Newtophobia is even more offensive coming as it does from a bunch of sexually deviant humanoids with a terminal psychopathological impediment. Has the world gone mad?
Submitted on behalf of and approved by the Newt Popular Front For The liberation Of Aquatic Species