Gates of Vienna News Feed 1/30/2019

More than 2,000 lay and clerical members of the Church of England have signed a petition opposing the Anglican position on transgenders. Opponents believe the church’s liturgy celebrating a change of gender can be harmful, especially to children.

In other news, the natural gas utility in central Minnesota is asking people to turn down their thermostats and limit other uses of gas to prevent a catastrophic shortage during the record cold snap.

To see the headlines and the articles, click “Continue reading” below.

Thanks to C. Cantoni, Dora, Insubria, JD, Reader from Chicago, Srdja Trifkovic, 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.

Financial Crisis
» CBO Officer’s Dire Projection: ‘Debt is on an Unsustainable Course”
» John Williams: “The Fed Will Crash Markets & the Dollar”
» U.S. Added 213,000 Private-Sector Jobs in January, ADP Says
 
USA
» Bankrupt California Utility Shedding More Than $40 Billion Worth of Green Energy Contracts
» Breaking: Liberal Woman Who Grabbed InfoWars Hosts Crotch at Women’s March Arrested
» By Defying Apple’s Rules, Facebook Shows it Never Learns
» Can You be a ‘Scientist’ But Reject the Scientific Method?
» Co-Founder of Satanic Temple: Pence ‘Really Scares Me’
» Controlled Opposition Media Collapses Despite Billions of Dollars Propping Them Up
» Dershowitz: Why Was Stone Arrested Instead of Being Asked to Surrender?
» Facebook Pays Teens to Install VPN That Spies on Them
» FBI Arrests 2nd Chinese National for Stealing Trade Secrets From Apple
» Freezing Minnesotans Putting “Significant Strain” On Natural Gas System; Hotel Rooms Offered Amid Outage
» Frigid in Chicago Must Mean Global Warming
» Harris: I’m an Ocasio-Cortez Socialist; Cultural Marxism Foes Will be Dealt With
» Harris Lied at Least 10 Times in Announcement Speech and Got Away With it
» Here’s a Quick Facial Expressions Guide to Ensure You Know When a Smile is a Smirk or a Face is Punchable
» Injuries Reported in Incident Involving President Trump’s Motorcade Outside White House
» Is She “The Next Obama”? Why is the Mainstream Media Working So Hard to Promote Kamala Harris?
» ‘Living Barbie Doll’ Ivanka is Trump’s Most ‘Persuasive Surrogate’, Book Claims
» Mueller Probe May ‘Never End, ‘Says Limbaugh
» Ocasio-Cortez Leads Toward Disaster
» Police Release Photos of “Persons of Interest” In Attack
» Rashida Tlaib in Group That Calls Jews ‘Satanic’
» Roseanne Barr: ‘We Have Hamas in Congress’
» Scientists Discover Brand New Species of Creepy Cave-Dwelling Fish That Looks Like a ‘Swimming Centipede’
» Sheriff Joe on Stone Raid: In 50 Yrs of Raids I’ve Never Sent So Many Units, Even to the Baddest Murders
» Shifting Stories Cloud Claims of Alleged Hate Crime Attack Targeting ‘Empire’ Actor Jussie Smollett
» Starbuck’s Howard Schultz Crucifies the Democrats
» The Real Resistance: Sheriffs in Washington State Refuse to Enforce Unconstitutional Gun Laws
» Tom Fitton: Targeting of Trump’s Team ‘Worst Corruption by DOJ in Modern Times’
» Update: CNN Hid Images and Video of Roger Stone’s 72-Year-Old Wife Being Dragged Out of Home Barefoot and in Nightgown
» Why Was Stone Arrested Instead of Being Asked to Surrender?
 
Europe and the EU
» Bono in Davos: “If Africa Fails, Europe Cannot Succeed”
» European Human Rights Commissioner Criticises France for Violent Yellow Vest Crackdown
» Finland’s Grooming Gangs
» Flash Ball Impacts at 50,000 fps (Video)
» French Conservatives Tap Catholic Hardliner to Headline European Elections Bid
» French Identitarian Activists Arrested Following ‘Defend Europe’ Mission in the Alps
» Italy Rises to 53rd Place in Corruption Perceptions Index
» Nearly 130 Jihadists Set to Return to France in Coming Weeks
» Rallying the Troops, Globalist “Intellectuals” Warn That the EU is “Coming Apart”
» Riot Control Guns: What’s All the Fuss About Flash Balls in France?
» Swedish Party Founder Exposes ‘Islamist Infiltration’ Into Politics
» Swedish Local Election Voided After Populist Party Votes Not Counted
» The European Court of Human Rights Does Not Deserve Its Name
» UK: County Lines Drug Dealing Networks Triple, Fuel Rise in London Crime
» UK: Health Secretary Orders NHS to Resume Blood Drive After Brexit Hysteria
» UK: Labour Civil War Intensifies Amid Backlash at Brexit Rebels
» UK: London: ‘Zombie’ Knife Attacker Has Soft Sentence Overturned, Jailed
» UK: Project Fear Goes to ‘11’: Brexit Could Lead to Thousands of Deaths, Mass Hunger
» UK: PM May Gets Mandate for Brexit Change, But EU Leaders Reject Concessions
» UK: Watch Farage: No Deal Brexit Now More Likely Because of EU ‘Fanatics Who Won’t Compromise’
» Welcome to the New Britain, Where Every Week is Hell
 
Middle East
» Mariah Carey Threats Come After Months of ISIS Supporters Urging Concert Attacks
» Pope Will Preside Over Biggest Act of Christian Worship in Arab World
 
Russia
» Belarusian Escort Who Claimed to Have Evidence Proving Trump-Russia Collusion Now Admits the Truth
 
Far East
» Conditions Worsen for Foreign Journalists in China: Survey
» New Toad Species Discovered in China
» ‘Soros Wants the Continuation of the US Global Empire’
 
Australia — Pacific
» Accountant Admits Beating His Wife, 32, To Death and Burying Her in a Shallow Grave in the Backyard of the Home They Shared With Their Two Young Children
» Australia’s Energy Crisis: Heatwave-Struck Residents Are Hit With a $1.1billion Power Bill Over Just Two Days as Temperatures Soared Towards 50c
» Exclusive: Centrelink Conman, 80, Who Ditched His Family in the US Before Scamming Australia for 30 Years is Finally Set to be Deported — as His Abandoned Daughter Vows to Confront Him for ‘Putting Her Through Hell’
» ‘They See Me, They See a Thief, A Criminal, A Gang Member’: Sudanese Teenager Says She is Unfairly Judged Because She is Black and Claims it’s Just a Matter of Time Before Melbourne’s Race War Claims a Life
 
Latin America
» Anti-Maduro Protests Sweep Across Venezuela as Trump Congratulates Guaidó
» Venezuelan Army Defectors Coordinate Over WhatsApp; Ask Trump for “Freedom” Weapons
» Venezuelan Opposition Leader Pens Op-Ed in NY Times Urging Unity
» WYD Sign Against Nationalism and Walls — Pope
 
Immigration
» Asylum Seekers Travel to Portland in Droves, Overwhelming City Services
» DHS Operated Fake University in Michigan to Apprehend Undocumented Immigrants
» EU Parliament Boss: Efforts to Prevent Mass Migration From Africa a ‘Betrayal of Europe’
» EU Risks Imploding Over Migrant Crisis Warns Macron as Italy Refuses to Soften Stance
» Germany: Berlin Police Academy Rigging Exams for Migrants — Report
» Italy: Salvini Hails Conte Intervention on Diciotti
» Italy: Man Nabbed for Trying to Molest Woman in Rome Underpass
» Italy: EU Delay on Migrants Shocking Says Bassetti
» Swedish Govt: Chain Migration Increase ‘Good for Integration’
» ‘Thousands’ More Troops Headed to Border, DoD Says
 
Culture Wars
» Bracken: Covington Gives a Glimpse of Civil War Two
» Democrats Move to Eliminate ‘God’ From Oath Taken by Witnesses [Video]
» Franklin Graham Urges Cardinal Dolan to Excommunicate Andrew Cuomo
» Northam on Abortion Bill: Infant Could be Delivered and Then ‘Physicians and the Mother’ Could Decide if it Lives
» Old Photo of Soot-Covered Coal Miners is Racist “Blackface,” Says Offended Idiot
» Reeducation Camp Planned for Whites at University in St. Louis
» UK: Anglicans Push Back Against LGBT Guidelines
» UK: Clergy Warns Church Transgender ‘Welcome’ Service Will ‘Harm’ Children
» Virginia Dems Propose Legislation to Provide Abortions While the Mother is in Labor #VirginiaNotForLovers
 
General
» Islam’s Ambitious Mission
 

CBO Officer’s Dire Projection: ‘Debt is on an Unsustainable Course”

The latest economic outlook from the Congressional Budget Office is dire. It’s basically saying that if the federal government continues borrowing and spending at the current rate, an apocalyptic economic crisis is coming.

According to the CBO’s own report, if spending continues at the projected pace the national debt and the federal deficit would reach alarming levels, causing a fiscal crisis in the United States. The federal deficit is expected to reach $897 billion in the fiscal year 2019, alarming many economists.

[Comment: This was the true purpose of the creation of the Fed — to put the nation of the USA into an inescapable debt spiral.]

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

John Williams: “The Fed Will Crash Markets & the Dollar”

Economist John Williams warns the Federal Reserve has painted itself into a very tight no-win corner.

No matter what the Fed does with rates it’s going to be a disaster. Williams explains, “You had some very heavy selling towards the end of the year and when you saw the big declines in the stock market you also saw that accompanied by a falling dollar and rising gold prices.”

“That was foreign capital which was significant fleeing our markets. So if the Fed continues to raise interest rates, and they want to do and they still don’t have rates where they want them, it’s going to intensify the economic downturn. That’s going to hit the stock market. If they stop raising rates . . . and they have to go back to some sort of quantitative easing, that’s going to hit the dollar hard. Foreign investors are going to say the dollar is going to get weaker and let’s get out of the dollar.

Then, you are going to see heavy selling in the stock market.

So either way they go, they created a conundrum for themselves because of the way they bailed out the banking system (in 2008-2009). At this point they don’t have an easy way out of this.”

[Comment: Fed knew exactly what they were doing. Their goal is to bring down the USA economically and blame Trump and the populists. The “solution” will be more power in bankster hands. ]

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

U.S. Added 213,000 Private-Sector Jobs in January, ADP Says

The numbers: Companies in the U.S. added 213,000 jobs in January, ADP reported Wednesday, another strong reading that suggests little letdown in a steadily growing economy.

Wall Street economists had forecast an increase of 174,000.

           — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago [Return to headlines]
 

Bankrupt California Utility Shedding More Than $40 Billion Worth of Green Energy Contracts

Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) may shed more than $40 billion worth of power purchase agreements after the California utility was driven into bankruptcy by liabilities for sparking deadly wildfires, The Wall Street Journal reports.

PG&E wants the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in San Francisco to rule whether the company must honor $42 billion worth of contracts with about 350 different energy suppliers, mostly solar and wind plants.

The court’s decision could have a major impact on California’s renewable energy industry and power makeup. Many green energy suppliers only do business with PG&E, California’s largest utility. Shedding those contracts would likely drive those companies under and cripple California’s ability to meet energy goals set by the state government.[…]

[More at URL]

           — Hat tip: Dora [Return to headlines]
 

Breaking: Liberal Woman Who Grabbed InfoWars Hosts Crotch at Women’s March Arrested

Owen Shroyer provides an update on his case against a woman who grabbed his genitals during this year’s Woman’s March in Washington D.C.

           — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago [Return to headlines]
 

By Defying Apple’s Rules, Facebook Shows it Never Learns

IF AN APP on Facebook behaved the way Facebook has been behaving, Facebook would probably have shut it down by now.

Tuesday’s scathing TechCrunch investigation all but guarantees it. The report found that Facebook has been paying people as young as 13 years old to download an app that grants Facebook access to users’ entire phone and web history, including encrypted activity and private messages and emails. The app, called Research, allows Facebook to see how people’s friends, who have not consented to having their data collected, interact with those users, too.

Facebook says the app was purely for market research. Explained another way: The app allowed Facebook to spot competitive threats on the horizon to help it retain its unprecedented power. Facebook has used another app, called Onavo, to collect similar information; for example, data from Onavo alerted Facebook to the growing popularity of the messaging app WhatsApp before the company acquired it in 2014.

“I think it speaks to the growth-at-any-cost mentality of the company,” says Ashkan Soltani, who served as chief technologist to the Federal Trade Commission during its 2011 investigation of Facebook.

Facebook didn’t respond to WIRED’s request for comment.

At a time when Facebook is under the microscope for violating its users’ privacy, such techniques are bold enough. But what makes the operation even more brazen is that Facebook continued running the program, which launched in 2016 and was sometimes called Atlas, even after Apple banned Onavo from the App store less than six months ago. Apple said it would no longer allow developers to collect information from other third-party apps.

Apparently undeterred, Facebook created a workaround for the Research app. It circumvented Apple’s vetting process using a technical loophole that is only intended for apps Facebook distributes to its own employees. That allowed Facebook to ingest everything a user did on their phones, including teens and minors. While kids under the age of 17 had to receive parental consent to participate, the disclosure form analyzed by TechCrunch minimized the extent of what could be done with all that data. “There are no known risks associated with the project,” it read. Facebook told TechCrunch only 5 percent of the app’s users were teens.

[…]

In a tweet, security researcher Will Strafatch, who helped TechCrunch with its story, said Facebook’s actions were “the most defiant behavior I have EVER seen by an App Store developer.”

After TechCrunch’s story published, Facebook shut down the iOS version of the app, but kept its Android counterpart running.[…]

[NOTE: Read the rest. FaceBook is crimina, could get fined.]

           — Hat tip: Dora [Return to headlines]
 

Can You be a ‘Scientist’ But Reject the Scientific Method?

As reported in Politico on January 27, climate activists at the American Meteorological Society’s annual meeting in January in Phoenix, Arizona admitted they are failing to persuade the American people of the threat of global warming.

Activists pushing climate change socialism are frustrated by their inability to persuade rational people of their irrational arguments. At heart: can you be a scientist while rejecting the scientific method?

There is absolutely zero evidence of man-made global warming — none whatsoever. Moshe Pritsker, a former post-doctoral researcher at Harvard Medical School and CEO of JoVE, told Live Science. “The reproducibility of published experiments is the foundation of science. No reproducibility — no science.” Just because one can buy a lab coat for $46.39, that doesn’t make them a scientist.

Today “science” has degenerated into “thought experiments.” That is, “imagineering” has replaced empirical experimentation.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Co-Founder of Satanic Temple: Pence ‘Really Scares Me’

The co-founder and chief spokesperson for The Satanic Temple says that Vice President Pence’s “theocratic” vision for the U.S. is what “really scares” him.

“[President Trump] is too stupid to predict; the guy has no concept of his own limitations. The thing that makes me most comfortable with Trump is the fact that he has no vision. Mike Pence really scares me,” Lucien Greaves told The Daily Beast in an interview published on Wednesday. “Pence has a clear, theocratic vision for the United States.”

           — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago [Return to headlines]
 

Controlled Opposition Media Collapses Despite Billions of Dollars Propping Them Up

As dinosaur media inches toward extinction, alternative news continues growing.

According to new reports, the internet news company BuzzFeed will lay off about 15 percent of its workers in response to growing financial pressure.

Despite being given half-a-billion dollars in funding over the years, Buzzfeed simply cannot compete with alternative news outlets such as Infowars who is listener-funded.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Dershowitz: Why Was Stone Arrested Instead of Being Asked to Surrender?

The reasons given thus far for Roger Stone’s pre-dawn arrest by armed FBI agents are utterly unconvincing. He was not a flight risk, as evidenced by the low bail and easy conditions of release set by the judge without objection from the government. Stone knew he was going to be indicted and if he wanted to flee, he had plenty of time to do so. The same is true of destroying evidence, wiping his electronics or doing anything else that would warrant an arrest rather than a notice to his lawyer to appear in court at a specified time. A search was conducted of various residences pursuant to a search warrant. No arrest was necessary to conduct these searches.

So, if there was no legitimate reason for the arrest and handcuffing of this presumed innocent defendant, what was the illegitimate reason? To paraphrase the indictment against Stone, the illegitimate purpose of the arrest was to intimidate the potential witness — namely Stone — into not invoking his constitutional right to remain silent, rather than to testify as a government witness.

The arrest was nothing more than a show of toughness — a foretaste of what Stone could expect if he did not cooperate with Mueller. Police do this all the time: “Look, we can do this the easy way or the hard way.” The tough arrest with handcuffs and shackles was a demonstration of the hard way.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Facebook Pays Teens to Install VPN That Spies on Them

Great reporting by TechCrunch’s Josh Constine:

Desperate for data on its competitors, Facebook has been secretly paying people to install a “Facebook Research” VPN that lets the company suck in all of a user’s phone and web activity, similar to Facebook’s Onavo Protect app that Apple banned in June and that was removed in August. Facebook sidesteps the App Store and rewards teenagers and adults to download the Research app and give it root access in what may be a violation of Apple policy so the social network can decrypt and analyze their phone activity, a TechCrunch investigation confirms. Facebook admitted to TechCrunch it was running the Research program to gather data on usage habits, and it has no plans to stop.

Since 2016, Facebook has been paying users ages 13 to 35 up to $20 per month plus referral fees to sell their privacy by installing the iOS or Android “Facebook Research” app. Facebook even asked users to screenshot their Amazon order history page. The program is administered through beta testing services Applause, BetaBound and uTest to cloak Facebook’s involvement, and is referred to in some documentation as “Project Atlas” — a fitting name for Facebook’s effort to map new trends and rivals around the globe.

This is a very interesting case. These users are clearly doing this of their own volition; they are making the choice to give up their privacy so Facebook can see literally everything they do on their iPhone. At the same time, we can all agree this scummy, sleazy, and stupid, and I would love for Apple to have the guts to revoke Facebook’s iOS developer account.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

FBI Arrests 2nd Chinese National for Stealing Trade Secrets From Apple

We imagine there’s nothing that would put a damper on trade talks quite like another indictment accusing a Chinese national of doing the exact thing (corporate espionage and stealing US trade secrets) that senior Trump Administration officials had warned would be deal-breaking for future negotiations.

Yet, on the very day high level trade talks began in Washington, it appears that’s exactly what has happened. Days after the US filed a sweeping indictment against Huawei that included charges its engineers stole trade secrets from T-Mobile (allegations that were also the subject of a civil suit), NBC Bay Area reported that the FBI has arrested another Chinese national working for Apple’s secretive self-driving car project — code-named “Project Titan” — for stealing trade secrets. That’s the second such arrest in six months (readers can find our report on the earlier arrest, which happened in July, here).

           — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago [Return to headlines]
 

Freezing Minnesotans Putting “Significant Strain” On Natural Gas System; Hotel Rooms Offered Amid Outage

Residents in central Minnesota braving a historic cold snap of minus 21 degree s are being urged to turn down their thermostats and reduce how much natural gas they use, according to CBS Minnesota. The announcement by Xcel Energy is due to the extreme weather conditions which have put a “significant” strain on their natural gas infrastructure.

“We need those in Becker, Big Lake, Chisago City, Lindstrom, Princeton, and Isanti to reduce use of natural gas. Until further notice, you are urged to turn down your thermostat to 60 degrees or lower and avoid the use of other natural gas appliances including hot water,” reads a statement by the utility.

           — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago [Return to headlines]
 

Frigid in Chicago Must Mean Global Warming

It would be much easier if the winters were becoming warmer with Chicago 80 degrees and sunny all week in late January. Pretzel logic wouldn’t be required to equate a warm winter with global warming as that would reflect common sense. It’s more of a challenge to blame a cold winter on a warming planet.

When we do have a warm winter, the global warming crowd comes out in full force. The Sochi Winter Olympics in 2014 were held in spring-like weather and this lead the New York Times to publish an op-ed predicting the end of snow.

Now that Chicago and the Upper Midwest are colder than normal, it’s a bit more difficult to claim global warming as the cause of frigid temperatures. But our intrepid media will forge on through the bitter cold to make their argument.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Harris: I’m an Ocasio-Cortez Socialist; Cultural Marxism Foes Will be Dealt With

Make no mistake about Senator Kamala Harris (D-Calif.). She is not, as her looks and soothing voice might suggest, a moderate Democrat who just wants to do the right thing.

She’s a hard-core leftist who, unlike out-of-the-closet totalitarian Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, hasn’t admitted what she really is.

Since announcing her candidacy for president to the adoring coos of the leftist media, she has backed “Medicare for All,” proposed abolishing private health insurance, and has announced support for Ocasio-Cortez’s crazy Green New Deal.

Beyond all that, as she revealed in her presidential announcment, she’s a cultural Marxist bent on punishing those who oppose the anathemas she has declared upon racism, sexism, and all the other phony pathologies with which the Left is obsessed.

Harris is a hard-core, radical socialist.

[Comment: …”will be dealt with”… ie use state apparatus on political opponents. Once this communist power expect srews to be turned on all anti-communists.]

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Harris Lied at Least 10 Times in Announcement Speech and Got Away With it

An Even 10 Lies

The country has known Senator Harris would run for president since Martin Luther King Day, when she discussed it on Good Morning America. It was a good day to announce, given that King had his own problems with the truth, not least confessing academic theft to his gullible professors.

And like the Great Man himself, Harris is nothing if not a committed racialist. After discussing her immigrant parents and the folksy wisdom she picked up at home, Harris launched into a “that’s-not-our-America” refrain, a riff off the old leftist standby, “that’s not who we are.”

But that hackneyed eyewash was nothing compared to her outright lies.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Here’s a Quick Facial Expressions Guide to Ensure You Know When a Smile is a Smirk or a Face is Punchable

With all the hubbub surrounding the dasterdly deeds of the young men who attend Covington Catholic, we thought it appropriate to advise our readers of the facial expressions that may cause others around you to be triggered.

Sometimes a smile isn’t a smile.

And sometimes, your face may be punchable.

Here’s how you’ll know what to do and when, compliments of the fine folks at the Babylon Bee:

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Injuries Reported in Incident Involving President Trump’s Motorcade Outside White House

An incident involving a protester jumping in front of President Trump’s motorcade outside the White House on Wednesday has resulted in injures, according to media reports.

           — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago [Return to headlines]
 

Is She “The Next Obama”? Why is the Mainstream Media Working So Hard to Promote Kamala Harris?

On Monday, I was doing some research on the Internet when I noticed an ad for a CNN town hall featuring Kamala Harris.

I thought that it was very early in the process to be doing a town hall, and I thought that it was quite odd that only one of the candidates was being featured. So curiosity got the best of me and I clicked on the ad.

And sure enough, CNN had given Kamala Harris her very own town hall in a prime time slot, and they had left all of the other candidates out.

Then after the town hall was over, CNN published a glowing editorial about the town hall entitled “It’s Kamala Harris’ race right now” …

There’s a long way to go before the Democratic Party picks its nominee for the presidency. But this week, it’s Kamala Harris’ race.

The senator from California’s performance at a CNN town hall Monday night solidified her standing as a leading contender. She was fluid and engaging, striking that always-tough balance (for women, at least) of being both authoritative and warm. She also took solidly left positions on a slew of important topics.

Ladies and gentlemen, that is what you call a propaganda piece.

[Comment: Because, like them, she hates the Republic of the United States — and seeks to create a USSA.]

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

‘Living Barbie Doll’ Ivanka is Trump’s Most ‘Persuasive Surrogate’, Book Claims

It may seem that every former staffer from the Trump White House draws so much inspiration from the current administration that they all have a story to tell once dismissed.

In his new bombshell-laden book, “Team of Vipers”, Cliff Sims, who served as a communications staffer for the Oval Office, has revealed his first impression from meeting Donald Trump’s arguably favourite daughter — Ivanka.

           — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago [Return to headlines]
 

Mueller Probe May ‘Never End, ‘Says Limbaugh

America is being “scammed” by the special counsel investigation of alleged collusion during the 2016 election because there was no collusion, talk-radio host Rush Limbaugh said Tuesday.

But the probe might never go away, because the left likes having a hammer over the head of its opponents, he said.

His monologue came after FBI Director Christopher Wray told Congress, in the words of Limbaugh, that “even as we are sitting here today, the Russians and the ChiComs are planning to meddle in the 2020 presidential election.”

But there likely was only insignificant meddling in 2016, Limbaugh said. And, he wondered, what are the nation’s intel agencies for, if they can’t stop something they claim is about to happen?

“It just offends every sensibility I have about this, because this investigation into what happened in 2016 is so damn corrupt, so dishonest, so half a— ed. It’s so transparently obvious what it is. It is a silent coup, and now they’re basically setting up the circumstances for these silent coup-type operations to never end because the Russians and the Chinese are trying already to meddle in our elections!” he said.

Limbaugh pointed out that the “meddling” drew no attention until President Trump won the 2016 election, and Democrats and the “deep state” refused to accept that reality.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Ocasio-Cortez Leads Toward Disaster

Elected to Congress in November with no viable opponent, 29-year-old Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is already being considered the future of the Democrat Party, even the nation itself. What she has promised for her New York City constituents, and what will surely be the agenda for others eagerly lining up to follow her lead, spells big trouble for America. If fully adopted, her socialism will accomplish for the United States the suffering in Venezuela and other nations where socialism has replaced even a small amount of freedom. Demagogues regularly insist that their program is the route to progress, even calling themselves “progressives.” What they seek, however, is a proven path toward oblivion.

A member of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), Ocasio-Cortez probably doesn’t even know that implementing the DSA’s platform makes one a follower of Karl Marx. Most of the 70-plus DSA members in Congress likely don’t know that either. However, all DSA adherents believe in the Marxian rhetoric, the Marxian program, and the Marxian pie-in-the-sky promises. They need to be made aware of the results of Marx’s program as it existed for recent decades in Russia and the many nations Moscow swallowed up. Or they could look at nearby Cuba as it continues to suffer after six decades of Marxism imposed on the people by the Castro regime.

An ally and supporter of socialist Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Ocasio-Cortez has attacked capitalism, supported socialized medicine, called for government-provided housing, proposed doing away with tuition for college, advocated cancelation of student debt, and urged draconian taxation on America’s well-to-do (the people whose inventiveness and financial backing creates jobs for others). All of this fits with what Marx advocated more a century and a half ago.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Police Release Photos of “Persons of Interest” In Attack

CHICAGO (AP) — Detectives reviewed surveillance footage of “Empire” actor Jussie Smollett walking to his downtown Chicago apartment, but so far none of the video shows him being attacked by two masked men, although investigators have obtained images of people they would like to question, a police spokesman said Wednesday.

Spokesman Anthony Guglielmi tweeted photos of the “persons of interest” Wednesday evening.

           — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago [Return to headlines]
 

Rashida Tlaib in Group That Calls Jews ‘Satanic’

Rep. Rashida Tlaib, a Muslim Democratic newcomer to Congress from Michigan, already has established a reputation in Washington as a radical.

She has lashed out at President Trump with a foul tirade, was accused of lying to her voters and insisted on using Thomas Jefferson’s Quran for her swearing-in, perhaps not realizing he likely owned it to learn more about the Muslim Barbary pirates who were kidnapping and killing Americans at the time.

Now an investigation by the Daily Caller News Foundation has uncovered anti-Semitic ties that “run deeper than previously known.”

“Tlaib is a member of the Facebook group ‘ Palestinian American Congress,’ where members often demonize Jews,” the investigation revealed. “The group’s founder, Palestinian activist Maher Abdel-qader, was a key fundraiser for Tlaib and organized campaign events for her around the country.”

One year ago, Abdel-qader posted online an anti-Semitic video that “claimed Jews aren’t actually Jewish, and invented their historical claim to Israel and secretly control the media,” the report said.

“The video, which described Jews as ‘satanic,’ also questioned whether 6 million Jews actually died in the Holocaust,” reported the Daily Caller.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Roseanne Barr: ‘We Have Hamas in Congress’

(BREITBART) — TEL AVIV — Comedian Roseanne Barr claimed “We have Hamas in Congress” in reference to the congressional freshman class of 2019, which includes anti-Israel congresswomen Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar.

In an exclusive interview with Breitbart News in Tel Aviv on Monday evening, Barr said BDS has “infected” the Democratic Party.

Asked what she thought of the newly-installed outspoken BDS proponents Tlaib (D-MI) and Omar (D-MN), Barr said, “We have Hamas in Congress.”

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Scientists Discover Brand New Species of Creepy Cave-Dwelling Fish That Looks Like a ‘Swimming Centipede’

Scientists have unearthed a brand new species of cave-dwelling life.

Experts from Texas A&M University, Galveston, participated in 10-day research trip to the Turks and Caicos Islands, where they discovered the ‘swimming centipede’.

Lasionectes, as it has been called, is a previously-unknown form of crustacean from the Remipede family and further expands the scope of ocean life.

           — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago [Return to headlines]
 

Sheriff Joe on Stone Raid: In 50 Yrs of Raids I’ve Never Sent So Many Units, Even to the Baddest Murders

Stone told NewsWars the raid was “the most harrowing and chilling experience of my life.”

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Shifting Stories Cloud Claims of Alleged Hate Crime Attack Targeting ‘Empire’ Actor Jussie Smollett

The incendiary story of an alleged hate crime attack targeting Empire actor Jussie Smollett immediately went viral yesterday, with media reporting the attackers made racial and anti-gay comments while using President Trump’s “MAGA” slogan during the 2 a.m. assault in downtown Chicago.

But conflicting versions of the incident from Smollett himself, and details reported by the media being outright contradicted by Chicago Police have raised questions about what actually happened.

           — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago [Return to headlines]
 

Starbuck’s Howard Schultz Crucifies the Democrats

Howard Schultz is a progressive, ergo a Democrat. But now he wants out. So now Schultz says he’s an Independent. And who could blame him, after watching the tactics of his former party?

Sure Schultz pretends to chastise both parties, but that’s just cover.

Schultz wrote an op-ed in USA Today, where he explains his newfound sentiments:

“Becoming better begins by repairing our broken two-party system, which is why I am seriously considering running for president of the United States as a centrist independent. I will spend the next few months deciding by traveling the country, and listening to my fellow Americans.

I already believe that the idea of a third choice will resonate.

Our two parties are not working for most Americans. Sixty-six percent of likely voters say “neither party is really representing my needs or interests,” according to a recent No Labels/HarrisX poll.

I have met so many people who feel frustrated and ignored because the party they once proudly embraced now embraces extreme ideologies and revenge politics over sensible solutions and collaborative problem-solving. Polarization and divisiveness among Republicans and Democrats are spoiling the potential of our country, making it possible for a new choice to emerge.” […]

[NOTE: It’s Billionaires for Starbucks in 2020]

           — Hat tip: Dora [Return to headlines]
 

The Real Resistance: Sheriffs in Washington State Refuse to Enforce Unconstitutional Gun Laws

The state of Washington is similar to the United States in general. The vast majority of the population lives in a few large cities, distant from the rural and small-town folks in a lot more than just mileage. The left-leaning cities are in direct opposition to the more right-leaning rural communities, but the rural communities are under the thumb of the city voters due to numbers.

Back when they voted on I-1639, 27 of the 39 counties were against the measure, but because the twelve counties that voted FOR it were more populous, the initiative passed.

Does this sound familiar? If it weren’t for the electoral college in national elections, we’d probably have Hillary Clinton as our president, and she’s notoriously anti-gun. The situation of gun owners would look very different right now if that had happened.

Now the state is divided because the counties that voted against the measure are refusing to be governed by unconstitutional laws to which they objected in the first place

And they’re supported by their sheriffs. Some Washington law enforcement officers are refusing to enforce these laws.

Klickitat County Sheriff, Bob Songer, Republic police chief Loren Culp, and Ferry County Sheriff Ray Maycumber are among those who have publicly vowed not to enforce the new unconstitutional gun laws.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Tom Fitton: Targeting of Trump’s Team ‘Worst Corruption by DOJ in Modern Times’

Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton appeared on “Fox and Friends First” on the Fox News Channel to discuss Roger Stone’s indictment and the Mueller Investigation.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Update: CNN Hid Images and Video of Roger Stone’s 72-Year-Old Wife Being Dragged Out of Home Barefoot and in Nightgown

On Monday Roger Stone told Judge Napolitano in a FOX Nation interview that his 72-year-old wife was also forced to stand outside barefoot and in her nightgown.

The Gateway Pundit wrote several CNN executives for comment on this report and why they decided to hide this from the American public. As of this writing we have not heard back from any of our requests.

We spoke with Roger Stone’s associate who told us Roger’s wife was brought out into the yard in her nightgown and barefoot during the raid.

This is police state tactics.

CNN did not report this. They knew what the reaction would be.

Roger Stone: I was wearing a Roger Stone did nothing wrong T-Shirt. You can get those at 1776.shop. The proceeds go to my legal defense fund. I was wearing a pair of shorts but I was bare-footed. They said who else was in the house. I said my wife. They said, “Who else?” I said, “My wife. That’s it.” You sure? I said, “I’m positive plus two dogs and three cats.” I’m a dog lover. I’m an animal lover. You can read my activities on animal welfare on Daily Caller. I was afraid they would go upstairs and my wife was not complying with an order she cannot hear.

Judge Napolitano: Did they take your wife out of the house, Roger?

Roger Stone: They did. I was made to stand in the street, handcuffed and in bare feet. They brought my wife out in her nightgown and also in bare feet to stand next to me even though she’s not accused of any crime.

           — Hat tip: Dora [Return to headlines]
 

Why Was Stone Arrested Instead of Being Asked to Surrender?

by Alan M. Dershowitz

[…]The reasons given thus far for Roger Stone’s pre-dawn arrest by armed FBI agents are utterly unconvincing. He was not a flight risk, as evidenced by the low bail and easy conditions of release set by the judge without objection from the government. Stone knew he was going to be indicted and if he wanted to flee, he had plenty of time to do so. The same is true of destroying evidence, wiping his electronics or doing anything else that would warrant an arrest rather than a notice to his lawyer to appear in court at a specified time. A search was conducted of various residences pursuant to a search warrant. No arrest was necessary to conduct these searches.

So, if there was no legitimate reason for the arrest and handcuffing of this presumed innocent defendant, what was the illegitimate reason? To paraphrase the indictment against Stone, the illegitimate purpose of the arrest was to intimidate the potential witness — namely Stone — into not invoking his constitutional right to remain silent, rather than to testify as a government witness.

The arrest was nothing more than a show of toughness — a foretaste of what Stone could expect if he did not cooperate with Mueller. Police do this all the time: “Look, we can do this the easy way or the hard way.” The tough arrest with handcuffs and shackles was a demonstration of the hard way.

Prosecutors have enormous power and discretion whether and how to use it. All too often they use it the way Mueller has been using it during this investigation: to pressure witnesses to testify against Trump. As Judge T.S. Ellis, III, who presided over the Manafort trial, observed: “You don’t really care about Mr. Manafort’s bank fraud — what you really care about is what information Mr. Manafort could give you that would reflect on Mr. Trump or lead to his prosecution or impeachment.”

Judge Ellis also pointed out the dangers of this tactic: “This vernacular to ‘sing’ is what prosecutors use. What you got to be careful of is that they may not only sing, they may compose.”

If Hillary Clinton had been elected president and if a special prosecutor had arrested one of her associates in the rough and demeaning manner by which Stone was arrested, civil libertarians would be up in arms. They would correctly argue that to marshal dozens of armed FBI agents to arrest an elderly man accused of non-violent crimes is an abuse of authority and a waste of FBI resources. They would complain that it constitutes intimidation and violates the spirit, if not the letter, of the Fourth and Fifth Amendments. But because the arrest is of a Trump associate and the purpose is to get evidence against President Trump, we have not heard from fair-weather civil libertarians who use civil liberties and constitutional rights as tactics to serve their partisan political agendas.

The ACLU has been absolutely silent in regard to the questionable tactics employed by Mueller. They, too, would have been up in arms had these tactics been employed against their favorite candidate and mine, Hillary Clinton. […]

           — Hat tip: Dora [Return to headlines]
 

Bono in Davos: “If Africa Fails, Europe Cannot Succeed”

U2 frontman Bono said that capitalism is “not immoral” while speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, admitting it’s “taken more people out of poverty” than any other system.

The social activist (and capitalist) urged global business leaders to join the fight against extreme poverty in Africa and Aids on a panel debating how to end global poverty by 2030 — a UN goal.

           — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago [Return to headlines]
 

European Human Rights Commissioner Criticises France for Violent Yellow Vest Crackdown

Concerns have been raised “about the number and severity of injuries resulting from the use of force by law enforcement officers” during Yellow Vest anti-government protests in Paris by a pan-European human right body.

The European Commission for Human Rights has published its initial observations following a mission to Paris after Commissioner Dunja Mijatovic travelled to Paris for meetings with the government, police, and “civil society groups” on Monday.

           — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago [Return to headlines]
 

Finland’s Grooming Gangs

Finland is a curious place. Tucked up under the arm of its celebrity sister Sweden and with Russia as a neighbour, it is one of the world’s most northern and geographically remote countries. It takes a hardy kind of European to withstand the severe climate. The Finns in Oulu, the most populous city in northern Finland, go about their lives as normal in —25 degrees Fahrenheit.

With a national population of just over 5.5 million, trees easily outnumber people; two-thirds of this country is blanketed in thick woodland, making it the most densely forested country in Europe.

Yet, this strange, seemingly forgotten land has a hideously metropolitan problem: Finland’s daughters are the target of grooming gangs.

           — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago [Return to headlines]
 

Flash Ball Impacts at 50,000 fps (Video)

Demonstration of force of flash ball impacting steel plate. These things should never be fired at the head or from too close a range.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

French Conservatives Tap Catholic Hardliner to Headline European Elections Bid

French conservative Les Républicains leader Laurent Wauquiez is set to name hardliner François-Xavier Bellamy to lead his party’s list for May European elections. The nod has been criticised within the party for pushing LR yet further to the right.

Unknown to the general public, the 33-year-old Bellamy is an unabashed conservative and a rising star in French conservative circles. A deputy mayor of Versailles since 2008, the young philosophy professor has authored two remarked-upon book-length essays. He notably also took part in the inception of Sens Commun, a political movement that grew out of the Manif Pour Tous anti-gay-marriage rallies and which has sometimes been likened to US hardline conservatives’ Tea Party movement. Bellamy is known to be opposed to abortion “personally”, although he has said he is not willing to call into question the law that allows it in France.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]
 

French Identitarian Activists Arrested Following ‘Defend Europe’ Mission in the Alps

Several members of the French hipster-right anti-mass migration Génération Identitaire were arrested this week for their participation in last year’s “Defend Europe” mission along the French-Italian border.

The activists were arrested Tuesday morning in Lyon, including the group’s spokesman Romain Espino. Prosecutors later stated their arrests were in connection with the Defend Europe mission last year in the Col de l’Echelle area, L’Express reports.

           — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago [Return to headlines]
 

Italy Rises to 53rd Place in Corruption Perceptions Index

Gained 10 places since 2012

(ANSA) — Rome, January 29 — The 2018 Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) published on Tuesday by Transparency International puts Italy in 53rd place worldwide.

It got a total of 52 points out of 100, two points more than in 2017.

Since 2012, Italy has gained 10 points while other countries have found it difficult to implement effective measures. In a statement, Transparency International said that with “an average regional score of 66 out of 100, Western Europe and the EU are doing far better than other parts of the globe. However, for a region that prides itself on some of the most robust integrity systems in the world, the patchwork of partially overlapping national and EU-level integrity systems presents its own problems and still has a long way to go to tackle corruption effectively.” It added that at the bottom of the region, Bulgaria had scored “42, dropping one point since last year. Bulgaria is followed by Greece (45), which dropped three points since 2017, and Hungary (46), which dropped eight points over the last five years.”

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Nearly 130 Jihadists Set to Return to France in Coming Weeks

France is expected to receive around 130 jihadists from Syria who went to fight for terror groups, with the returning fighters expected to be detained and face trial.

All of the men expected to return in the next few weeks are members of Islamic State who were captured by Kurdish forces and are expected to return to France by plane. The move comes after French authorities feared that the withdrawal of U.S. troops could impact their ability to keep track of the jihadist fighters, BFMTV reports.

           — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago [Return to headlines]
 

Rallying the Troops, Globalist “Intellectuals” Warn That the EU is “Coming Apart”

“There are some ideas so absurd that only an intellectual could believe them,” observed 1984 author George Orwell. Intellectuals may fancy themselves to have big ideas. But they’re a small constituency, and now a group of them is complaining about the patriotism of a much larger one: the masses opposing their European Union imperial scheme…

What is the more-equal abstraction? It’s essentially a borderless, polyglot, culturally balkanized European “zone” held together by a central Big Brother, the EU. This is facilitated, of course, by the massive population transfers euphemistically called “immigration.”

Apropos to this, last year French president Emmanuel Macron cited an “Africa expert” who’d said, approvingly, that the number of Africans living in Europe will rise from nine million today to between 150 million and 200 million during the next three decades. Some call this abstraction “Eurafrica.”

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Riot Control Guns: What’s All the Fuss About Flash Balls in France?

French police are equipped with so-called defence ball launchers that are used in riot-control operations.

Often called Flash Balls after the name of one producer of such weapons, they are designed to not penetrate the skin while still packing enough power to stop individuals from advancing.

But such “less lethal” weapons have been blamed for several serious injuries in recent years, including protesters who have lost an eye after being hit by the rounds in the head.

Here’s what you need to know about France’s controversial riot gun…

Despite the description of Flash Balls as a ‘non-lethal’ weapon, they have caused numerous injuries, disfigurations, and at least one death.

On Saturday in the southwestern city of Bordeaux a volunteer firefighter participating in a yellow vest demonstration was struck in the temple, putting him in a coma from which he has yet to awaken.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Swedish Party Founder Exposes ‘Islamist Infiltration’ Into Politics

The Swedish Green Party, which remains part of the “red-green” coalition government, has in recent years been shaken by a number of nationwide scandals involving Islamists and their sympathisers; the most recent involves Sweden’s freshly-minted Culture and Democracy Minister Amanda Lind.

Addressing the recent allegations directed against his party, Green Party founder Per Gahrton admitted that Islamists are trying to infiltrate Swedish parties and get a hand in Swedish politics.

“There are investigations that show that Islamists, unfortunately, are trying to get into almost all parties”, Gahrton said during a public debate on SVT with writer Sofie Löwenmark.

Sofie Löwenmark argued that the Green Party, despite its quest to champion “tolerance” and “diversity”, had instead began to accept intolerance and extremism from certain groups, thus undermining its image as a “feminist party”. Löwenmark also cited Green Party member Kamal al-Rifai, who invited Salman al-Ouda, Osama bin Laden’s mentor, to a lecture in Sweden, where he voiced anti-Semitic views and insisted that the Holocaust never happened.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Swedish Local Election Voided After Populist Party Votes Not Counted

A local election for city council in the Swedish municipality of Vaggeryd was voided after the populist Sweden Democrats receiving no votes, despite candidates claiming they voted for themselves.

The voiding comes after the two candidates, who had given their permission to be on the Sweden Democrat’s list, appealed the election result after finding they had not received a single vote, Swedish broadcaster SVT reports.

           — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago [Return to headlines]
 

The European Court of Human Rights Does Not Deserve Its Name

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) recently ruled that referring to the Islamic Prophet Mohammed’s marriage to a 9-year-old as paedophilia is “beyond the permissible limits of an objective debate.”

As Judith Bergman explained in the wake of the October 25, 2018 judgement, which was handed down seven years after “free speech and anti-jihad activist, Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff, was convicted by an Austrian court of ‘denigrating religious symbols of a recognized religious group’“.

           — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago [Return to headlines]
 

UK: County Lines Drug Dealing Networks Triple, Fuel Rise in London Crime

The number of drug dealing ‘county lines’ have nearly tripled across the country in one year, while the networks are fueling the rise in London crime.

The known number of ‘country lines’ — named for the mobile phone ‘lines’ used to coordinate drug distribution — has risen from 720 from 2017 to 2018 to 2,000 from 2018 to 2019, the National Crime Agency (NCA) has found.

           — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago [Return to headlines]
 

UK: Health Secretary Orders NHS to Resume Blood Drive After Brexit Hysteria

Health Secretary Matt Hancock ordered the National Health Service (NHS) to fulfill its scheduled blood drives in south-east England after it cancelled some events should the UK leave the EU without a deal.

Blood drives were cancelled in Dover and Folkestone in Kent for two weeks before and six weeks after Brexit in anticipation of an EU exit on World Trade Organization (WTO) terms.

           — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago [Return to headlines]
 

UK: Labour Civil War Intensifies Amid Backlash at Brexit Rebels

Corbyn is forced to deny giving ‘nod and wink’ for MPs from Leave seats to rebel in crunch Brexit votes — as it emerges he WON’T sack shadow ministers who helped save May’s plan.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

UK: London: ‘Zombie’ Knife Attacker Has Soft Sentence Overturned, Jailed

Court of appeal judges have overturned a two-year suspended sentence on a London teen who attacked a car with a large ‘zombie’ knife in broad daylight, ordering he be imprisoned for three and a half years.

There was public outcry after Joshua Gardner was given the suspended sentence for committing the attack in May 2018 in Croydon, south London, when he was 17 years old.

At the time of the original sentencing in November 2018, Judge Anuja Dhir QC handed down the original sentence based on the defendant having “reduced… culpability” after the court had heard Gardner had been “kidnapped” weeks prior, the judge also taking into account the youth’s difficult upbringing.

           — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago [Return to headlines]
 

UK: Project Fear Goes to ‘11’: Brexit Could Lead to Thousands of Deaths, Mass Hunger

If you listen to the government tell it, a post-”hard” Brexit Britain will inevitably resemble the post-apocalyptic Australia from “Mad Max”.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

UK: PM May Gets Mandate for Brexit Change, But EU Leaders Reject Concessions

The European Union’s Brexit negotiators flatly refused to accommodate any sort of renegotiation of the bloc’s ‘deal’ with the United Kingdom over Brexit, just hours after the nation’s Members of Parliament (MPs) voted to give the Prime Minister a mandate for change.

           — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago [Return to headlines]
 

UK: Watch Farage: No Deal Brexit Now More Likely Because of EU ‘Fanatics Who Won’t Compromise’

Brexit leader Nigel Farage has vented the frustration felt by many over the European Union’s refusal to compromise over Brexit Wednesday, telling Eurocrats that it is their fanaticism and bad attitude that is pushing Britain towards a full, ‘no deal’ Brexit on World Trade Organisation terms.

           — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago [Return to headlines]
 

Welcome to the New Britain, Where Every Week is Hell

Another week brings another political crisis as the time to reach a Brexit deal runs out.

Theresa May is clinging on as prime minister, her Brexit withdrawal agreement is floundering, and the European Union is showing no signs of budging. Yup, it’s Crunch Week in Brexit Britain.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Mariah Carey Threats Come After Months of ISIS Supporters Urging Concert Attacks

ISIS supporters online have been urging followers to attack Mariah Carey’s upcoming concert Thursday night in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

The threats come as women’s rights activists have been urging the pop singer to cancel the event in protest over the Saudi regime jailing human rights advocates and oppressing women.

           — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago [Return to headlines]
 

Pope Will Preside Over Biggest Act of Christian Worship in Arab World

Pope Francis is set to preside over the largest act of Christian worship in the Arab world next week when he celebrates an open-air Mass at Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

More than 135,000 people are expected to attend the pope’s mass in Zayed Sports City next Tuesday and the Abu Dhabi government if reportedly furnishing hundreds of free buses to shuttle those wishing to attend the Mass.

           — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago [Return to headlines]
 

Belarusian Escort Who Claimed to Have Evidence Proving Trump-Russia Collusion Now Admits the Truth

A Belarusian woman who claimed to possess insider information about Russia’s attempts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election — and what role President Donald Trump’s campaign played in the disinformation campaign — now admits her story was a hoax.

What is the background?

Anastasia Vashukevich, whom the New York Times described as an “escort,” grabbed headlines last year when she claimed to possess secret audio recordings that she said would prove a link between Russian officials and the Trump campaign. She said she obtained the recordings while engaging in an affair with Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska.

           — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago [Return to headlines]
 

Conditions Worsen for Foreign Journalists in China: Survey

Foreign journalists working in China experienced surveillance, government interference and being followed. Conditions were particularly bad in Xinjiang, where “re-education” camps for Muslim minorities have been set up.

Working conditions for foreign journalists in China worsened in 2018, a survey showed Tuesday, partly due to government interference with reporting on Muslim minority groups in Xinjiang.

The Foreign Correspondent’s Club of China said 55 percent of respondents said reporting conditions deteriorated, compared to 40 percent in 2017.

“Not a single correspondent said conditions improved,” the group said, unveiling the results of a survey of its 204 foreign correspondent members, 109 of whom responded to questions.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]
 

New Toad Species Discovered in China

KUNMING, Jan. 30 (Xinhua) — Chinese researchers in biodiversity have announced that they have identified a new species of toad in southwest China’s Yunnan Province.

The new Scutiger species (Scutiger tengchongensis) is found in the Gaoligongshan mountain range in southwest China, said Yang Jianhuan, a researcher from Hong Kong-based Kadoorie Farm & Botanic Garden.

           — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago [Return to headlines]
 

‘Soros Wants the Continuation of the US Global Empire’

US billionaire George Soros used his speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos as a platform to launch an attack on China. Last week Soros spoke at the gathering of global elites warning that the US and China are locked in a cold war that could soon turn into a hot one and that China’s development of AI posed a ‘mortal threat’ to humanity.

Sputnik discussed George Soros’ latest speech at the World Economic Forum with Srdja Trifkovic, a Serbian-American writer on international affairs and foreign affairs editor for Chronicles magazine.

Sputnik: What are your thoughts regarding George Soros and his remark? Is it a valid point about the danger of machine learning and artificial intelligence in undemocratic regimes, namely in one-party China? Does he have a relevant point when he makes this point against China?

Srdja Trifkovic: Whatever point George Soros makes, you can bet your life that he has an ulterior motive and a hidden agenda, and we have to bear in mind that we’re looking at a man who has financed, consistently over the years, some of the most anti-democratic projects that you can imagine, including enforced migration into Europe of the millions the denizens of the world regardless of whether the Europeans wanted it or not, and the imposition of taxes to pay for this. He is primarily an enemy, not of the opponents of the so-called ‘open society’, but an enemy of national sovereignty in its traditional Westphalian form. He’s also an enemy of the multipolarisation of the world; he wants the continuation of the American global empire and that’s why he was so opposed to Trump. Because he feared that with the skepticism that candidate Trump had expressed 2.5-3 years ago about the continuity of NATO and its utility after the end of the Cold War, also with Make America Great Again, that it was in fact a hidden call for a return home from global commitments.

Soros is Trying to Prepare Democrats for a Cold War Against China — ScholarSo George Soros sees in China as well as in Russia and he has criticized Putin savagely in the past, he sees in China one of the prime upholders of the traditional concept of national sovereignty and of the kind of multipolar world that he abhor. So I’m not surprised at this remarkable outburst of his, including calls for, effectively, economic warfare, which is very much at odds with his self-proclaimed preference for free trade. Let me also add that if his opposition to the Belt and Road Initiative is on the grounds theft it is primarily motivated by China’s interest. Well, of course it is, as well as the interest of the other countries. It’s the sort of a give-and-take approach that has been the basis of transactional diplomacy and transactional international economic relations throughout history…

           — Hat tip: Srdja Trifkovic [Return to headlines]
 

Accountant Admits Beating His Wife, 32, To Death and Burying Her in a Shallow Grave in the Backyard of the Home They Shared With Their Two Young Children

Ahmed Dawood Seedat faced Stirling Gardens Magistrates Court, in Perth, via a video link from prison, earlier today, and pleaded guilty to murdering the mother of his children.

           — Hat tip: SS [Return to headlines]
 

Australia’s Energy Crisis: Heatwave-Struck Residents Are Hit With a $1.1billion Power Bill Over Just Two Days as Temperatures Soared Towards 50c

Heatwave struck residents across two Australian states were hit with a $1.1 billion bill for just 48 hours’ worth of energy last week.

           — Hat tip: SS [Return to headlines]
 

Exclusive: Centrelink Conman, 80, Who Ditched His Family in the US Before Scamming Australia for 30 Years is Finally Set to be Deported — as His Abandoned Daughter Vows to Confront Him for ‘Putting Her Through Hell’

Michael Asaad’s criminal rap sheet includes a conviction of heroin supply and multiple counts of fraud — in one case swindling $90,000 out of Centrelink, Australia’s welfare agency.

           — Hat tip: SS [Return to headlines]
 

‘They See Me, They See a Thief, A Criminal, A Gang Member’: Sudanese Teenager Says She is Unfairly Judged Because She is Black and Claims it’s Just a Matter of Time Before Melbourne’s Race War Claims a Life

Alakiir Deng, 15, said the rise of Apex and the emergence of Menace To Society, among other gangs, has led to the entire Sudanese community being painted with the same brush.

           — Hat tip: SS [Return to headlines]
 

Anti-Maduro Protests Sweep Across Venezuela as Trump Congratulates Guaidó

Fresh protests broke out on Wednesday in Venezuela after the highest court in the country froze the bank accounts and restricted the travel of self-declared interim president Juan Guaidó.

           — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago [Return to headlines]
 

Venezuelan Army Defectors Coordinate Over WhatsApp; Ask Trump for “Freedom” Weapons

Defectors from Venezuela’s army who are now loyal to self-declared president Juan Guaidó have called on the Trump administration to arm them in what they refer to as their quest for “freedom,” and are strongly opposed to the United States conducting a broad military intervention.

Two former soldiers, Carlos Guillen Martinez and Josue Hidalgo Azuaje, who live outside the country, told CNN they are in contact with hundreds of willing defectors who want US military assistance in their revolt against the Maduro regime.

           — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago [Return to headlines]
 

Venezuelan Opposition Leader Pens Op-Ed in NY Times Urging Unity

Interim Venezuelan President Juan Guaidó penned a rare op-ed in the New York Times Wednesday urging unity for the country.

Guaidó, who is head of the Venezuelan National Assembly, argues in the op-ed that his leadership is constitutional and writes that “Nicolas Maduro is usurping the presidency.”

           — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago [Return to headlines]
 

WYD Sign Against Nationalism and Walls — Pope

‘Don’t shun universality, meeting of peoples’ says Francis

(ANSA) — Vatican City, January 30 — The recent World Youth Day celebrations in Panama were a “counter-current sign with respect to today’s sad tendency to conflictual nationalisms, that raise walls, and close themselves to universality, to the meeting between peoples,” Pope Francis said Wednesday.

The pope said he had been heartened by “seeing all those flags fluttering together, dancing in the hands of young people who were filled with joy at meeting each other”.

This, he said, had been a “prophetic sign…a sign that young Christians are the yeast of peace in the world”.

Francis was speaking at his weekly general audience about his recent trip to WYD in Panama City.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Asylum Seekers Travel to Portland in Droves, Overwhelming City Services

Portland is attracting the newcomers in part, at least, because the city and state are among the few that offer shelter and financial assistance to the immigrants while their asylum cases are being processed.

The arrival of so many asylum seekers in need of support and basic necessities has overwhelmed local services, including the city’s emergency shelter for homeless families. Families are now filling overflow spaces, sleeping on floor mats in a converted gymnasium and cafeteria. Those arriving through the southern border have added to an increased number of other asylum seekers, forcing the city to add staffing and using up funds set aside for basic assistance.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

DHS Operated Fake University in Michigan to Apprehend Undocumented Immigrants

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said it operated a fake university in Michigan to target students who were undocumented immigrants, according to federal indictments unsealed on Wednesday.

The documents, reported by The Detroit Free Press, stated that eight people were arrested and indicted for conspiracy to commit visa fraud and harboring undocumented immigrants for profit.

           — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago [Return to headlines]
 

EU Parliament Boss: Efforts to Prevent Mass Migration From Africa a ‘Betrayal of Europe’

Italian efforts to block migrant boats from Africa is a “betrayal” of Europe and of its citizens, EU Parliament boss Antonio Tajani has alleged, insisting Brussels must put in place a permanent mechanism which would spread third world migrants throughout the bloc.

           — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago [Return to headlines]
 

EU Risks Imploding Over Migrant Crisis Warns Macron as Italy Refuses to Soften Stance

THE European Union risks “imploding” because of its failure to solve the migration crisis, exacerbated in recent months by Italy’s refusal to offer humanitarian ships safe port, French President Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday.

           — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago [Return to headlines]
 

Germany: Berlin Police Academy Rigging Exams for Migrants — Report

Whistleblower claims Berlin Police filling migrant quotas on force.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Italy: Salvini Hails Conte Intervention on Diciotti

I did not ask for it

(ANSA) — Rome, January 30 — Interior Minister Matteo Salvini on Wednesday hailed Premier Giuseppe Conte’s intervention on the Diciotti Coast Guard rescue ship whose 177 migrants Salvini is accused of kidnapping in a standoff with the EU last August.

Conte earlier said the government assumed collective responsibility for the case.

“I appreciated Premier Giuseppe Conte’s words on the assumption of responsibility on the part of the whole government,” Salvini said, stressing that he had not asked the premier to do this.

“I didn’t request it myself: besides, it is clear that in my actions no crime can be seen”.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Italy: Man Nabbed for Trying to Molest Woman in Rome Underpass

Ivorian, 24

(ANSA) — Rome, January 29 — A 24-year-old Ivorian irregular migrant was arrested Tuesday for trying to molest a woman in an underpass at Rome’s Ostiense train station.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Italy: EU Delay on Migrants Shocking Says Bassetti

Too much hesitation on taking in 47 wretches

(ANSA) — Perugia, January 30 — The EU’s delays in dealing with the Sea-Watch 3 migrant rescue ship are shocking, Italian Bishops Conference (CEI) head Cardinal Gualtiero Bassetti said Wednesday.

“The slowness of Europe is really shocking,” he said.

“That in a giant like Europe, where there are nations which have the most prosperity in the world, there should be so much hesitation to take in 47 wretches, of whom 11 children, is really an immense suffering”.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Swedish Govt: Chain Migration Increase ‘Good for Integration’

Swedish Minister of Migration Morgan Johansson has argued that a new surge in family reunifications, also known as chain migration, will aid in the integration of migrants already in Sweden.

Johansson, who also serves as justice minister, welcomed the new Swedish government policy that will see an increase in the number of family reunifications, saying that the move was “humanitarian” in nature, broadcaster SVT reports.

           — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago [Return to headlines]
 

‘Thousands’ More Troops Headed to Border, DoD Says

Thousands of troops will be headed to the U.S.-Mexico border to meet President Donald Trump’s request to enhance security there, the Pentagon confirmed Tuesday.

While no decision has been made on the exact number or make up of the troops, they will be tasked with adding more concertina wire to the U.S.-Mexico border and supporting surveillance, DoD said in a clarifying statement following Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan’s press briefing Tuesday.

In that briefing, Shanahan said that DoD had informed DHS that the additional capabilities DHS was requesting would take “several thousand” additional forces to complete. But he did not confirm that that level of additional forces would be provided.

Later Tuesday, DoD sent a statement confirming there would be another large deployment.

“As the Acting Secretary said, we are supporting our federal partners on the border and that mission has been extended until September. We are currently sourcing the units involved and there will be an increase of a few thousand troops. We will provide more clarity on the numbers when we have it,” DoD said.

The news comes just as the Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. Adam Smith, D-Wash., questioned why active duty forces were still on the border at all.

“Border security is important, but we have other needs in the world,” said Smith, during a Congressional hearing on the border deployment Tuesday. “We also have ISIS and Syria and Russia and China … (The southern border) is not primary to the military’s mission.”

The current extension of active duty forces to the border runs through September.

           — Hat tip: Dora [Return to headlines]
 

Bracken: Covington Gives a Glimpse of Civil War Two

During the attempted electronic lynching of the Covington Catholic high school boys on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, the mask hiding the Left’s genocidal rage slipped and was momentarily visible. The reality of the confrontation was inverted 180 degrees by the duplicitous mainstream media so that a smiling white teenager was made to face the wrath of an Orwellian two-minute hate that stretched on for days, even after the factual record was corrected. Accelerated by social media, the virtual lynch mob called for, among other horrors, MAGA-hat-wearing teenage boys to be fed headfirst into wood chippers, or for them to be locked en-masse into their school and the school to be burned to the ground.

This hurricane of socially sanctioned racial fury did not arise spontaneously, but was the result of deliberate cultivation over the past few decades by the political Left, academia, the mainstream media, and the Hollywood entertainment elite.[…]

The Covington confrontation points to an ironclad historical pattern. Every previous genocide in modern times was preceded by a similar pattern of public demonization of state-designated scapegoats. But is correlation causation? Does the American Left intend to eventually commit genocide against white heritage American males? In my opinion, yes. Scapegoating is part of a clear pattern of conduct seen during every socialist power grab from the French Revolution until now. In the case of German national socialists, European Jews were the scapegoats of the Nazis during their climb to power. In the case of international socialists, AKA Communists, class enemies were usually but not always the designated scapegoats. Examples of class enemies would include the Kulaks in the Soviet Union, “landlords” in China, and “intellectuals” in Cambodia. But in other cases ethnic groups were targeted as scapegoats by Communists, to include the Ukrainians, Crimeans, Latvians and others.

So, are today’s Democrats already planning to load their white heritage American enemies into boxcars for trips to a new Gulag? Probably not many at this time, but Barack Obama’s political mentor Bill Ayers certainly considered it. Ayers believed that so many Americans would bitterly resist Communism that 25 million would have to be “eliminated.” […]

[Read the rest of Matt Bracken’s essay…]

           — Hat tip: Dora [Return to headlines]
 

Democrats Move to Eliminate ‘God’ From Oath Taken by Witnesses [Video]

A key committee in the Democratic-controlled House that is actually stripping the words “so help me God” from the oath given to witnesses:

Fox News reports:

The draft shows that the House Committee on Natural Resources, of which Democratic Arizona Rep. Raúl Grijalva is chair, would ask witnesses to recite only:

“Do you solemnly swear or affirm, under penalty of law, that the testimony that you are about to give is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?”

[Comment: What else can you expect from Satan’s party?]

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Franklin Graham Urges Cardinal Dolan to Excommunicate Andrew Cuomo

Celebrated evangelical pastor Franklin Graham has urged Cardinal Timothy Dolan to take a strong moral stand against Governor Andrew Cuomo for his recent expansion of abortion in New York in the face of calls for the governor’s excommunication.

Rev. Graham tweeted out a Fox News article in which Catholic leaders call for the excommunication of Gov. Cuomo for “flagrant celebration of pro-abortion bill.”

           — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago [Return to headlines]
 

Northam on Abortion Bill: Infant Could be Delivered and Then ‘Physicians and the Mother’ Could Decide if it Lives

Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam (D.) commented Wednesday about a controversial 40-week abortion bill and in so doing said the law allows an abortion to take place after the infant’s birth.

“If a mother is in labor, I can tell you exactly what would happen. The infant would be delivered. The infant would be kept comfortable. The infant would be resuscitated if that’s what the mother and the family desired, and then a discussion would ensue between the physicians and the mother,” Northam said, alluding to the physician and mother discussing whether the born infant should live or die.

A Democratic lawmaker in the Virginia House of Delegates proposed a bill Tuesday that would allow abortions through the end of the third trimester of pregnancy. The video of Delegate Kathy Tran presenting her bill led to an exchange where she admitted that her bill would allow for a mother to abort her child minutes before giving birth.[…]

[Definitely Read the Rest]

           — Hat tip: Dora [Return to headlines]
 

Old Photo of Soot-Covered Coal Miners is Racist “Blackface,” Says Offended Idiot

Just when you thought snowflakes couldn’t get any more pathetic.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Reeducation Camp Planned for Whites at University in St. Louis

Webster University in St. Louis, Missouri, with the beginning of the spring semester in full swing, plans to operate a “safe space” in the fall of 2019 for recovering white people to admit that they are, by virtue of being white, anti-black racists. Only whites are welcome in these meetings, where students can confess to their racism and their white privilege. Note that it is presumed that being racist is simply part of Caucasian DNA, and since “students of color” can’t be racist, they have no need to go to such meetings.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

UK: Anglicans Push Back Against LGBT Guidelines

Approximately 2,155 clergy and lay members of the Church of England have signed a letter opposing recent guidelines regarding rites sacralizing gender transition in the church.

In December, the church issued a “pastoral guidance,” recommending use of an adapted baptism ritual to mark a person’s gender transition and celebrate his new name and sexual identity.

           — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago [Return to headlines]
 

UK: Clergy Warns Church Transgender ‘Welcome’ Service Will ‘Harm’ Children

Over 2,000 clergy and laity have signed a petition calling for the Church of England to withdraw guidance on “transgender welcome” services, warning that celebrating sex changes could “harm” children.

In response to the mother church of the worldwide Anglican communion issuing instructions in December to parishes on how they should hold “celebratory” ceremonies to mark a parishioner’s gender-swapping, conservative Christians said recognition of the theory that gender is not immutable “carry potential for harm in terms of the psychological and developmental needs of children and young adults.”

           — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago [Return to headlines]
 

Virginia Dems Propose Legislation to Provide Abortions While the Mother is in Labor #VirginiaNotForLovers

Heartbreaking doesn’t even begin to describe what’s in the video below. How can anyone actually have a conversation about taking the life of a baby right before it’s born? How about adoption?

This isn’t in New York, this isn’t in California, this happened just this week right here in Virginia.

@VAHouseDems proposed legislation to provide abortions up to just seconds before that precious child takes their first breath.

Watch for yourself:

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Islam’s Ambitious Mission

Every organization has a mission or a mission statement with a goal in mind. It works day and night to reach its ultimate target. Think of Islam as an organization (not just another religion) with an ambitious mission. What is that ambition? you might ask.

While our fellow Americans are snoozing, or at least not as active or proactive as their counterparts, Muslims never deviate and never stop pursuing their goal of world domination. They place their primary focus on non-Islamic lands — in this case, Europe and the United States.

Knowing Islam intimately, please allow me to assure you that to Muslims, the goal is everything. Let’s call it “religious fascism.” Islam condones any and all means to achieve its goal. The ultimate objective of Islam is the rule of the entire world under the Islamic Ummah — never mind that these life-in-hand soldiers of Allah disagree with one another regarding the Ummah itself and who is to reign over it. That’s a “family dispute” that they will resolve by their usual favorite method: brute force.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

8 thoughts on “Gates of Vienna News Feed 1/30/2019

  1. Can You be a ‘Scientist’ But Reject the Scientific Method?

    Ummmm … no.

    By all means, feel free to doubt and subsequently test the Scientific Method in well-documented, controlled experiments that generate reproducible results.

    Put another way, if you cannot disprove the Scientific Method in a scientific manner, yet seek to discredit the Scientific Method solely based upon unquantifiable personal suspicions or vaguely posited emotional subtexts, then please go so very far away at your earliest convenience before I’m tempted to assist you in some untoward manner.

  2. Poor Timothy Cardinal Dolan…afraid of his shadow. Of course, Franklin Graham is correct. Dolan should toss about 30 Marxist Democrats using the “Catholic” background claim to leverage power in NYS, and Death for the unborn.

  3. **The teenager said she found false assumptions about her and other African Australians offensive, and urged those who judged Sudanese people to educate themselves**

    Not false, though: very well grounded. Don’t lecture Australians. As the old Beatles song goes: “Get back to where you once belonged”.

    Have you also been urging your fellow countrymen, among whom crime and other hateful behavior is hugely disproportionate, to educate *themselves*?

    • Yes, it would be wrong to judge or stereotype Sudanese; they have done such a wonderful job with their own country that hordes of Australians are scheming to illegally migrate there.

      Of course everyone knows about the Sudanese contributions to science and literature, their advanced pharmaceutical industry, and the dozens of Nobel Prize winners from the Sudan. Unfortunately they are not yet well represented in the Olympics; when gang rape and drug dealing are made official sports they might have a chance of bringing home a gold medal or two, although the teams from Afghanistan, Iraq, and Somalia might give them a run for their money.

  4. I can’t link to previous replies at the moment, so apologies if anyone’s commented on “Bracken: Covington… etc”. Call me a cockeyed optimist if you like, and bear in mind that I’m in the UK, not the US, but having followed the link, I find this vision unbelievably bleak.

    Churchill (who was partly American) said that one can always depend on the Americans to do the right thing, after trying everything else. I doubt (and sincerely hope) that they would allow matters to deteriorate so far before pulling themselves together and preventing such an apocalypse as Matt forecasts.

  5. re: EU delay on migrants

    Regarding the continued delay causing the migrants to remain on the ship, the Bishop stated : it is causing “…an immense suffering”

    Years ago I spoke with European migrants who crossed the Atlantic in the 1940’s to come to North America on over-crowded, cold or extremely hot ships with little food.

    Their description for such ‘suffering’ was simply: “It was a long and uncomfortable journey”. Not one of them used the term ‘suffering’ or any similar word. Many used the term ‘an adventure’.

    • Thanks for that link Elena. I emailed Christian Sahner this morning to ask what he thought of the “definitively fake” Covenant of Mohammed with the Monks of Mt Sinai which is something of a bugbear of mine:

      https://ecawblog.wordpress.com/2017/07/28/the-definitively-fake-covenant-with-the-monks-of-mt-sinai/

      To my amazement he replied almost immediately (I find academics almost never reply unless it’s to recommend their latest book), totally agreeing with me except that he used the phrase “historically tendentious” which is nicer isn’t it? It’s good to know that some academics are prepared to stand out against the Islamophilic groupthink among the ivory towers.

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