A stretch of I-68 in West Virginia was closed for a while today after police discovered firearms and explosives in a car during a routine traffic stop. The driver was reportedly bound for Washington D.C., where he intended to kill President Trump and blow up the Pentagon.
In other news, a group of around 100 migrants hijacked the merchant ship that picked them up in the Mediterranean. The culture-enrichers were allegedly upset when they learned that they were to be taken back to Libya.
To see the headlines and the articles, click “Continue reading” below.
Thanks to C. Cantoni, Dora, Reader from Chicago, RR, Srdja Trifkovic, SS, Steen, Vlad Tepes, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.
Notice to tipsters: Please don’t submit extensive excerpts from articles that have been posted behind a subscription firewall, or are otherwise under copyright protection.
Caveat: Articles in the news feed are posted “as is”. Gates of Vienna cannot vouch for the authenticity or accuracy of the contents of any individual item posted here. We check each entry to make sure it is relatively interesting, not patently offensive, and at least superficially plausible. The link to the original is included with each item’s title. Further research and verification are left to the reader.
Chicago is still reeling from yesterday’s extraordinary development in the Jussie Smollett case, in which the office of the State’s Attorney chose to drop all 16 felony chargesagainst the disgraced actor. This set off a volcanic and irate reaction among other city authorities, especially within the police department. Aside from letting Smollett off with a tiny slap on the wrist (in the form of previously-completed community service with Jesse Jackson’s organization and the forfeiture of his bond), prosecutors failed to even force the hoax perpetrator to allocute to his crimes and apologize. This led to a stomach-turning victory dance in which he and his legal team pretended that he was innocent. Furthermore, State’s Attorneys convinced a judge to seal all the case records, thus attempting to guarantee that the public would never see the extent of the evidence that had been gathered against Smollett’s fraud. ABC News reported this shocking detail last night.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Cancer Cluster at California Elementary School Results in Removal of Sprint Cell Phone Tower
A Sprint cell phone tower will be removed from a California elementary school after four students and three teachers were diagnosed with cancer.
Weston Elementary School in Ripon, CA went on high alert after the controversy erupted two years ago — with some parents even pulling their children from school over the tower which Sprint has been paying the school $2,000 per month to place on its property.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Chicago PD Quickly Dump Smollett Hate-Hoax Docs Before Case Sealed by Judge
A last minute FOIA records request in the Jussie Smollett hate-hoax investigation was fulfilled by the Chicago Police Department on Wednesday — shortly before the case was sealed by a Cook County judge.
Livid Chicago law enforcement officials were beside themselves on Tuesday after all 16 felony charges were dismissed against Smollett for allegedly staging his own hate crime with two Nigerian-born brothers.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
FBI Investigating Sudden Dismissal of Smollett Hate-Crime Hoax
Update2: According to ABC7‘s Rob Elgas, the FBI is reviewing the circumstances surrounding the dismissal of criminal charges against Smollett.
Furthermore, according to records obtained from the Chicago police, the FBI was already involved in part of the investigation, and CPD forwarded a copy of a search warrant on Smollett’s iCloud account to an FBI analyst.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Fossils From Diamond Valley Lake Near Hemet Lead to Discovery of New Species: The Pacific Mastodon
When paleontologists realized American Mastodon teeth found during the excavation of Diamond Valley Lake near Hemet were smaller than others found in the country, they couldn’t explain it.
They now have their answer.
Those teeth actually belonged to the Pacific Mastodon, a new species of mastodon announced Wednesday, March 27, at the Western Science Center in Hemet.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Judge Tosses Lawsuit Against Trump Travel Ban, Says Families Can’t Demand Visas for Relatives
A federal judge tossed out one of the remaining challenges to President Trump’s travel ban policy on Wednesday, ruling that the government had the power to refuse visas for people under the affected countries.
Judge Brian M. Cogan also ruled that while there is such a thing as a right to “familial association,” it only applies to people already legally in the U.S., and cannot be used to demand the country let in relatives who aren’t in the country.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
MSNBC Scrambles With 2020 Pivot as Post-Mueller Ratings Collapse
Over the last two years MSNBC has made a mint peddling the Trump-Russia conspiracy, which explains why the network’s $10 million per year host, Rachel ‘cash cow’ Maddow, fought back tears last Friday upon learning that the President of the United States isn’t a traitor.
Earlier on Friday, Attorney General William Barr submitted a four-page summary of findings from special counsel Robert Mueller’s nearly two-year investigation into Russian collusion and obstruction, which unequivocally concluded that President Trump did not collude with Russia.
As the Daily Beast notes — Trump’s vindication has been really bad for business at MSNBC.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
New Law Gives Kentucky College Students ‘Broadest Possible Latitude’ For Free Speech
by FIRE
March 26, 2019
FRANKFORT, Ky., March 26, 2019 — Today, Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin signed HB 254 into law, protecting free speech at the commonwealth’s public colleges and universities by granting students the “broadest possible latitude to speak, write, listen, challenge, learn, and discuss any issue.”
The bill requires institutions to maintain “a marketplace of ideas where the free exchange of ideas is not suppressed” and explicitly prohibits the use of restrictive free speech zones.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
State Police: I-68 Shutdown Was Result of Threat to Kill President Trump, Blow Up Pentagon
PRESTON COUNTY, W.Va. (WCHS/WVAH) — West Virginia State Police said Interstate 68 was shut down several hours Wednesday near the border with Maryland after threats were made to kill President Donald Trump and to blow up the Pentagon
A 42-year-old male has been detained for questioning after a search of the vehicle revealed a fiream and explosive powder, State Police said.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
The Coming Transparency Battle Over the Mueller Report
The battle over the Mueller report will pit national security, executive privilege, and privacy against the public interest in the Russia investigation.
Last Friday, special counsel Robert Mueller delivered his long-awaited report on Russian interference in the 2016 election, possible coordination between Russia and the Trump campaign, and whether President Trump obstructed the investigation. But it remains very unclear how much the public will actually get to read of the most anticipated political document in recent history.
Attorney General William P. Barr and Justice Department staff will have the task of reviewing the Mueller report to determine how much of it contains classified information, grand jury materials, sensitive law enforcement records, and other portions shielded from public release by executive privilege.
The fight over the scope and breadth of the redactions to the public version of the Mueller report will pit privacy, national security, and presidential privilege against the considerable public interest in the Russia investigation. It will play out on two fronts: the Justice Department will face off against Congress, where the House recently voted 420-0 to urge the DOJ to make the Mueller report public; and the DOJ will also have to battle private groups in federal court.
In fact, the latter fight has already begun. On Friday, the same day Mueller delivered his report to Barr, the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit seeking the report and other Special Counsel materials.
It’s going to take a while
Barr’s initial review could take weeks, and FOIA lawsuits can drag on for years. It will be months before EPIC’s lawsuit even gets rolling, and the government is notorious for stringing out public record suits as long as it can.
The federal court system is already jammed with a record number of FOIA lawsuits against the federal government by advocacy groups and news outlets. This is a result of both news organizations’ zeal for investigating the Trump administration and the regrettable fact that the only reliable way to get public records from federal agencies in a useful timeframe is to sue them. (As a general matter, the federal government should release more records proactively and not fight FOIA lawsuits tooth and nail, which would speed up the release of public records.)
There will be many, many redactions
When the public version of the Mueller report is released, expect a lot of black boxes covering “sensitive” information. Some of these redactions will be the result of executive privilege—a power that allows the White House to withhold records concerning the president and his close advisers, under the reasoning that public disclosure would chill the president’s ability to receive candid advice.
Bradley Moss, an attorney in Washington, D.C., who specializes in national security and FOIA litigation, says executive privilege will most likely come into play in the sections of the Mueller report on potential obstruction of justice by Trump.
“It’s going to concern the nature of discussions and interviews with the president’s inner circle—people like Hope Hicks and Don McGahn—who were there when he was ranting about wanting to fire Sessions or Mueller,” Moss says. “The precedents in the Nixon and Clinton cases give us some guidance, but we don’t know how it will play out.”
Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton’s attempts to invoke executive privilege in the Watergate and Monica Lewinsky scandals, respectively, were both rejected by federal courts, which have held that executive privilege is not a blanket protection against investigations into the Oval Office. The Obama White House likewise lost a bid to use executive privilege to withhold records tied to the Fast and Furious scandal from Republican-led congressional committees.
But executive privilege is still a powerful tool. For example, the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy recently invoked executive privilege to deny a FOIA request by Reason for 33 pages of fact-sheets from various federal agencies reportedly describing the dangers of marijuana legalization.
Executive privilege, like the ever-growing executive office itself, could stand to be rolled back…
[Links to be found in the original.]
| — Hat tip: Dora | [Return to headlines] |
The End of the New Deal Era and the Coming Realignment
…In reality, American parties are temporary coalitions forged as tools to self-govern our republic at specific moments of crisis. They bind fractious collections of people who disagree about many things but agree on how to solve the biggest problem of their age. They rally around a unique ideology forged from sometimes clashing principles important to its different factions. And unbeknownst to them in the moment, they are significantly affected by the waves of moral renewal, called Great Awakenings, that have pulsed through American history. The failure to understand the interweaving of these Awakenings with shifts in the party structure over time is one of the great deficiencies of standard American political history.
Once formed, these new parties wage a great national debate over the problems facing the country. That debate goes on for decades, until Americans almost forget that those parties and their ideologies weren’t always there. With time, however, the country changes and the coalitions and ideologies of its parties decay. Eventually, in another moment of crisis, those parties come tumbling down. Out of the rubble of their ruin, America then scrambles to form two new parties and a new debate begins. As a matter of habit and convenience, we arbitrarily label one the left and the other the right.
America throughout its history has had five distinct sets of parties, which scholars call party systems. Each underwent a similar cycle of birth and collapse. During each party-system era, America had two major parties competing on fairly equal terms for about half the national vote. Those parties ruled for decades, attracting consistent coalitions around stable ideologies that were nothing like the Democrats and the Republicans we know today. After decades of battles, however, America slowly changed. When the issues America designed those parties to debate were resolved or faded away, the parties turned into weak institutions coasting on old ideas. Eventually, they crumbled in what the scholars call a realignment. Realignments are the moments in which we tear an entire old order down and build a fresh new era with new coalitions, new ideologies, and new ideas. In the rubble of the old system’s collapse, the American people then create two new coalitions designed to debate new solutions to the nation’s new problems. Sometimes new people or ideas take over the husk of an old party. Sometimes a party simply dissolves and a new one takes its place. Either way, a new era begins with two new coalitions trumpeting new ideas ready to engage in the next era’s great debate.
That’s why American politics seems so troubled. That’s why there’s increasing disorder and chaos. That’s why the political world we’ve always known seems to be decaying before our eyes. The “conservative” Republican and “liberal” Democratic parties we take for granted are merely temporary coalitions built to contest a great debate that’s no longer relevant to our lives. They’re artifacts from an industrial age world built in the wake of a terrible depression that was followed by horrific global war. That great debate is over, so the parties built around it are naturally fading. At the same time, new problems have risen to which those parties have no ready answers because they were never intended to address them. Our parties are dying because one great debate is passing away and another is being born.
[…]
The American Dream isn’t a promise that everyone in America will achieve everything they’ve always hoped for. It is, however, a promise that, with hard work, grit, and a bit of luck, everyone in America has a fair shot at doing anything they want to do and becoming anything they want to become. America has never perfectly kept that promise—and the imperfections have hit some groups more than others. Yet that doesn’t mean the American Dream is merely aspirational. Americans have always believed in the American Dream’s promise, and it’s important they believe America is always working hard to ensure we keep it. That’s the next debate America needs to have. We need to rally our parties around new visions for preserving and protecting the promise that so many Americans now fear is disappearing.
[NOTE: this author has a new book out soon, “The Next Realignment” by Frank J. deStefano]
| — Hat tip: Dora | [Return to headlines] |
The Other LA College Cheating Scandal — The One You Might Have Missed
This story was updated March 26.
UCLA is at the center of a cheating scandal that federal authorities say involved former and current students impersonating dozens of Chinese nationals who needed good scores on English tests to get into college in the U.S.
The six defendants, five with ties to UCLA, allegedly used fake passports, doctored with their own photos, to pass themselves off as the Chinese nationals at testing centers in and around Los Angeles as recently as 2016.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Vice President Directs NASA to Return to the Moon by 2024
On Tuesday, at a museum within a stone’s throw of Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama, Vice President Mike Pence delivered a significant space policy speech that called for American men and women to return to the Moon by 2024. If the Trump administration follows through on the policies Pence outlined—admittedly a huge if—this was arguably the most consequential space speech since President Kennedy’s Moon speech in 1962.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Austria Considers Ban on Identitarian Movement After Christchurch Killer Donation
Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz has said he is considering a ban on the Identitarian movement after it was revealed that the Christchurch killer had donated to leader Martin Sellner in early 2018.
Kurz’s statement comes after Mr Sellner, who is co-leader of the Austrian branch of the Identitarians, had his home raided by Austrian police earlier this week.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Austria Police Arrest ISIS Plot Suspect in Vienna Raid
Special forces have arrested an alleged Islamic State (IS) group supporter in the Austrian capital Vienna, who is believed to have tried to derail trains in neighbouring Germany.
The 42-year-old Iraqi national is thought to have twice put obstacles on rail tracks last year.
Flags for the IS group and writings in Arabic were found nearby, prosecutors said.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Farage to EU: ‘Do You Really Want Me Back? Reject Brexit Delay, Get UK Out’
Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage has told the EU that unless they want to see his return and want their business dominated by Brexit for years to come, they must reject any Article 50 extension and “get Britain out!”
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
France’s president Emmanuel Macron drew fire after criticising an elderly “Yellow Vest” protester who was injured during a demonstration in Nice at the weekend.
Macron has repeatedly been accused of lacking empathy and harbouring an arrogant, dismissive attitude towards ordinary people who complain about having difficulties making ends meet.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Germany: Campaign Manager CDU: “Merkel Unlikely to Complete Her Term”
The conflict between Fidesz and the European People’s Party (EPP) is almost a tragedy, Werner J. Patzelt, campaign manager of the CDU in Saxony, political science professor at Technische Universitat Dresden, told Magyar Hirlap, adding that it’s very important for non-leftist parties to stay together, despite the pressure of the left-wing media and parties.
Patzelt said that Germany’s CDU is under fire by the media, but despite the critical remarks they make about Fidesz in public, the majority in the party wants to have good relations with the Hungarian government.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
It Would be Better if They Had Died in Battle: Danish Justice Minister on Returning Syria Fighters
The minister stressed that Denmark is unable to deny re-entry into the country to its own citizens, even if they have participated as militants in conflicts on foreign soil.
“The fact is that we cannot prevent Danish citizens from coming to Denmark, and that includes foreign fighters. The threat from returning foreign fighters is serious — that is obvious,” he said.
“It would have been better if they had died in battle, but unfortunately, not all of them did,” the minister added.
Police security agency PET has estimated that 150 people have, since 2012, travelled from Denmark to Iraq or Syria to take part in wars there.
| — Hat tip: Vlad Tepes | [Return to headlines] |
‘Italy: Center of the Euro Tragedy’
We have interviewed Ashoka Mody, visiting Professor of International Economic Policy at Princeton University, former deputy director of the International Monetary Fund’s European Department, and chief representative to Ireland during the Troika bailout. Author of the Eurotragedy, a Drama in Nine Acts. Mody is critical of how the Eurozone is being currently managed and sympathizes with Italy’s new spending proposal.
Dear Mr. Mody, you said in a recent piece on Bloomberg that Italy needed a fiscal stimulus, and so increased spending to avoid an “unmanageable crisis”. What would this crisis look like?
Italy’s latest economic slowdown started around January, hence well before this current government came in. The pace of world trade had begun to slow down. The Italian economy moves in close tandem with world trade — when global trade growth increases, the Italian economy does well and when trade slows, so does the Italian economy. With world trade growth below 4 percent, as is currently the case, Italy has historically tipped into a recession. A recession will push up the government’s debt to GDP ratio. The interest rate paid by the government will rise, triggering the sovereign bank “doom loop” — a term used to describe how a rise in government’s interest rate creates losses on banks’ holdings of government debt, which pushes prices of bank stocks down — a weak government and weak banks make each other even weaker. The Italian economy is on the edge of such a loop. To be clear, a recession is likely regardless of what happens in Brussels and Rome, simply because world trade is slowing down. It would, therefore, be a mistake to follow the original agreement between the European Commission and the previous government because that requires austerity. Today, austerity makes no economic sense because, if enforced, it would make the impending recession even worse. Italy needs a modest stimulus…
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Report: German Military is Purging Right-Wing Populists From Its Ranks
For a long time now, the German military has always made a conscious attempt rid its ranks of soldiers who harbor neo-Nazi sympathies. However, recent claims made by a number of prominent German news outlets suggest that the military is now targeting soldiers who merely support the national populist Alternative for Germany (AfD) for expulsion too.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Switzerland: Four Migrants Face Trial in Connection With Transgender Woman’s Death
Four North African migrants are facing trial for their role in the death of a transgender woman whose body was discovered in a Swiss lake last year.
The body of 27-year-old Gaëlle P. was found just off the shore of the Swiss town of Vevey on March 10th last year. Five days later, four migrants, two Algerians, a Tunisian, and a Moroccan aged between 26 and 32 — of which three were illegals — were arrested and face trial over her suspected murder, Le Matin reports.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
The Netherlands’ Luck is Running Out
The terrorist attack in Utrecht may be a sign of what’s to come.
Last week, police arrested a 37-year-old man born in Turkey, Gokmen Tanis, in the shooting on a busy tram in Utrecht, which killed three and injured five. Dutch authorities have said it may have been terrorism, and if it was, it would be the worst Islamist terror attack the Netherlands has ever suffered.
This may seem surprising, since Holland has been at the center of the debate around Islam and European security. One reason is that highly visible, controversial politicians such as Pim Fortuyn and Geert Wilders, who have vociferously condemned the religion, have placed it there. Another is that the Netherlands was the site of one of the most notorious Islamist-led attacks in the post-9/11 world. In November 2004, Mohammed Bouyeri, a Moroccan-Dutch man, killed the director Theo van Gogh on the streets of Amsterdam for making a film critical of Islam. Bouyeri vowed the same for Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a collaborator of Van Gogh’s and, at the time, a Dutch politician…
| — Hat tip: Steen | [Return to headlines] |
Tusk: EU Cannot ‘Betray’ Britons Who Signed Petition, Marched to Stop Brexit
President of the European Council Donald Tusk said that it would be “unacceptable” to “betray” the people who signed an online petition and marched in London to stop Brexit.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
UK: “Indicative Vote” A Spectacular Failure: MPs Reject Every Brexit Alternative
Update (5:40 pm ET): Nearly three hours after the voting began, the results of the indicative vote are finally in, and it looks like MPs rejected every single alternative to May’s Brexit deal that was included on the ballot.
That’s right, not a single option received enough votes to pass by a simple majority. So much for the hopes expressed by Oliver Letwin, the mastermind behind the vote, who had said it would at least help narrow the options down…but that didn’t stop him from proposing that Parliament should vote again on Monday to “reconsider these matters.”
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Brexit Blockade: Everything We Know About Lorry Drivers’ Threat to Shut Down Motorways
A protest group has urged lorry drivers to create havoc on major roads across the UK with a rolling ‘blockade’ should Brexit be delayed — including the M5 in Devon.
Many have been quick to condemn the threatened pro-Brexit action, but others have rushed to support it.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
UK: May Offers Resignation to Get Brexit ‘Worst Deal in History’ Over the Line
Britain’s embattled Prime Minister Theresa May has offered herself as a sacrifice to dissatisfied members of her own Parliamentary Conservative party, promising to resign once she’s got her deeply controversial Brexit ‘deal’ with the European Union through.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Wrong Button? 10 MEPs Who Voted to Reject Debate on Article 13 Say They Didn’t Mean to
A vote to consider amendments to the controversial Article 11 and Article 13 copyright laws has failed in the European Parliament by a margin of five votes. However, enough MEPs to flip the result now say they mis-clicked, RT.com writes.
A total of 13 MEPs have issued corrections to their voting on Tuesday, when the European Parliament narrowly rejected debating amendments that might have watered down or even completely erased Articles 11 and 13 from the updated EU copyright rules.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Hamas: Iran Was Behind Rocket Attack on Central Israel
A senior Hamas official reportedly has implicated Iran as the force behind the rocket attack into central Israel on Monday morning.
In that rocket attack from the Gaza Strip on the Israeli community of Mishmeret, seven people were hurt.
The Israel Hayom daily cites the senior Hamas figure as saying that Iran wanted such an attack to take place in order to hurt Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in his campaign for the April 9 Knesset election.
Tehran allegedly “went over the heads” of the leadership of Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip, and ordered an Islamic Jihad cell to carry out the attack. “In Gaza, it is believed that Israel won’t launch a major operation in Gaza two weeks before the elections,” the official said, according to the report.
Hamas was said to be surprised when Israel did, in fact, respond with a series of airstrikes on Gaza, even after the terror group had relayed a message to the mediating Egyptians that it was prepared to cease attacks in an arrangement of “quiet in exchange for quiet.”
While senior officials in both Egypt and Gaza reportedly confirmed that Iran had ordered the attack, they are said to have asserted that the Hamas leadership was aware of the plans to fire a rocket deep into Israeli territory.
The senior Hamas official cited by Israel Hayom said that his organization does hope that more rocket fire at Israel will hurt Netanyahu’s chances of remaining prime minister after the upcoming Knesset election.
| — Hat tip: Dora | [Return to headlines] |
Detained and Tortured: The Women Who Fought for the Right to Drive
Their story is an unyielding dichotomy between liberation and repression. Images of their faces trickled — almost too slowly — to a waiting world and an eager press. They are the 11 female activists from Saudi Arabia who, in June 2018, were pivotal in the country’s landmark decision to allow women to drive. And for this, on 27 March, they will face their fate before the Criminal Court — with no lawyers or access to legal representation. On 14 March, Amnesty International commented on the trial saying: “Activists brought to trial are amongst Saudi Arabia’s bravest women human rights defenders. They have not only been smeared in state-aligned media for their peaceful human rights work, but have also endured horrendous physical and psychological suffering during their detention. We urge the Saudi authorities to drop these outrageous charges and release the women activists immediately and unconditionally”.
For decades, the country’s obstinate stance on the matter of women’s right to drive was steered by the steely hand of religion and politics…
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Kuwait: New Recruits With 21 Diseases on MoH List to be Denied Entry
Cross-eyed, pregnant expats also barred — Residents exempt, except for contagious diseases
In a bid to cut expenses, achieve health security and prevent the entry of unfit people, the health ministry announced a new list of 21 diseases and ailments that will prevent newly-recruited expatriates from entering Kuwait, said informed sources.
The sources said the new list includes brittle diabetes, irregular high blood pressure, cancer, strabismus (being cross-eyed), weak eyesight, kidney failure, lameness, contagious diseases, HIV, hepatitis B and C, microfilaria, malaria, leprosy, pulmonary tuberculosis, tinnitus, fibrosis and calcification of the lungs, inflammation of the pleura, hypertrophy contractions, pregnancy (for women applying for jobs) and other conditions due to which an expat applying for a visa to enter Kuwait will be deemed unfit and rejected.
The sources justified the measure by the health ministry as an attempt to prevent overburdening the ministry budget, as expats with such conditions will cost a lot to be treated at a time when the ministry is cutting its expenses. Notably, the sources stressed that expats with valid residencies in Kuwait who are diagnosed with any of the abovementioned diseases will not be deported, except those with infectious and contagious diseases like AIDS, hepatitis B and C and tuberculosis.
[Comment: Best ally and strategic partner of USA would not issue you a working visa if you suffer from diabetes or high blood pressure. Germany would expel native octogenarians from council flats to temporary housing to accommodate Sudanese shepherds and Turkish muezzins.]
| — Hat tip: RR | [Return to headlines] |
After Mueller: Time for True Reset With Russia
by Srdja Trifkovic
Now that the Russian Collusion Myth has been revealed to be a mendacious conspiracy by the Deep State, the Democratic Party and the media, President Donald Trump needs to move on with his election promise to improve relations with Moscow. That is a geopolitical and civilizational necessity.
It is essential to note that the same neolib-neocon conspiratorial cabal which manufactured the Collusion out of whole cloth also contains America’s morbidly Russophobic heart of darkness. In the print category, according to The New York Post’s list of media pundits who got it most wrong on Mueller, “the top seed is the never-Trump honcho Bill Kristol.” Last August he predicted that “Mueller will find there was collusion between Trump associates and Putin operatives; that Trump knew about it; and that Trump sought to cover it up and obstruct its investigation.”
As it happens, and as we occasional readers of the late unlamented Weekly Standard well remember, Kristol’s hatred of all things Russian is on par with Hitler’s hatred of all things Jewish. It is to be suspected that the unspeakable “pundit” would be happy to risk an all-out nuclear war just in order to see a hundred million Russians murdered, never mind the consequences for America. Personally I have no doubt that this is the case…
| — Hat tip: Srdja Trifkovic | [Return to headlines] |
Moscow Secretly Funded US Anti-Fracking Groups. Is it Now Attacking US Energy Companies?
Is Moscow funding climate-change activists to damage the American energy industry around the world?
In an effort to slow down US natural gas production, the Russian government backed the anti-fracking movement in the United States. Moscow even funded US anti-fracking activists.
Now, with US climate change activists working to have ExxonMobil banned from addressing the European Parliament, and as Germany builds the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline from Russia, it’s time to ask if Moscow is trying to push American energy companies out of Europe.
Cast of characters
The cast of characters raises questions about whether Russia may be behind an effort to deny an American company access to EU decisionmakers. They are:
Molly Scott Cato, Member of the European Parliament (MEP), Green party. The Greens were formed in the 1980s to counter the United States in Germany, and have spread across the continent. The Greens’ political themes reflected Soviet active measures against United States interests in Europe. The Greens are strongly pro-EU, but have always been a problem for NATO.
Certain members of the Rockefeller family who accuse the company that made them rich, ExxonMobil, of covering up global warming and climate change, and who have a 28 year-old, $500,000,000 investment operation in Putin’s Russia.
Harvard-MIT scholar-activist Geoffrey Supran, who takes
Rockefeller money to attack ExxonMobil and deny it the right to lobby the European Parliament.
Nord Stream 2, a German-Russian gas company run by a former East German Stasi officer. Nord Stream 2 is heavily tied to the Putin regime in Russia and to German politicians and political parties.
“Russia is secretly working with environmental groups campaigning against fracking in an attempt to maintain Europe’s dependence on energy imports from Moscow,” the Telegraph reported in 2014, citing then-NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen.
“Russia, as part of their sophisticated information and disinformation operations, engaged actively with so-called non-governmental organizations — environmental organizations working against shale gas — to maintain dependence on imported Russian gas,” Rasmussen said.[…]
[NOTE: But Bush told us Putin was a good guy, right?]
| — Hat tip: Dora | [Return to headlines] |
Brunei could start whipping or stoning gay people to death next week when strict new laws are introduced, human rights groups have warned.
The tiny oil-rich nation already implements Sharia laws, with homosexuality punishable with up to ten years in prison.
But from the start of next month the government plans to amend the penal code to mean LGBT people and adulterers could be stoned to death, with thieves facing having hands or feet amputated.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
New Cryptic Bird Species Discovered
In the lush, lowland rainforests on the island of Borneo lives a rather common, drab brown bird called the Cream-vented Bulbul, or Pycnonotus simplex. This bird is found from southern Thailand to Sumatra, Java and Borneo. In most of its range, it has white eyes. On Borneo, however, most individuals have red eyes, although there are also a few with white eyes. For 100 years, naturalists have thought the eye-color difference on Borneo was a trivial matter of individual variation. Through persistent detective work and advances in genetic sequencing technology, Louisiana State University Museum of Natural Science researchers have discovered that the white-eyed individuals of Borneo in fact represent a completely new species. Their discovery of the Cream-eyed Bulbul, or Pycnonotus pseudosimplex, was published recently in the scientific journal, the Bulletin of the British Ornithologists’ Club.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
The Present Danger of Our Time is Communist China
Now that President Trump has effectively been exonerated by Special Counsel Robert Mueller of the charge that he and/or his campaign “colluded” with Russia, our national attention must turn to another, far more dangerous and increasingly aggressive enemy: Communist China.
To encourage and inform the needed, focused effort to understand — and counter — the myriad threats posed by the Chinese Communist Party and the country it misrules, several dozen national security practitioners, China experts, business leaders and human rights and religious freedom activists have come together to form the Committee on the Present Danger: China.
Four decades ago, another such committee helped Ronald Reagan defeat the previous totalitarian Communist government that sought our destruction: the Soviet Union. Ours launches today determined to help President Trump do the same with respect to the present, Chinese danger of our time.
Learn more at PresentDangerChina.org.
| — Hat tip: Dora | [Return to headlines] |
A father had his skull pounded in with a can of cat food while his own children watched on in a horror attack in Melbourne.
| — Hat tip: SS | [Return to headlines] |
Thomas Knight-Wagener lost his job at Placemakers Albany, north-west of Auckland, after making the controversial comments.
| — Hat tip: SS | [Return to headlines] |
New Staple-Size Frog is One of the Tiniest Ever Discovered
HOW MANY WAYS can you say “tiny?” How about miniature, miniscule, and minimum, for starters?
These adjectives not only describe three new species of frog from Madagascar, but also serve as their official scientific names.
Mini mum, Mini ature, and Mini scule “are astronomically small,” says Mark Scherz, an evolutionary biologist at Ludwig-Maximilians Universität in Munich, Germany, who described these and two other new tiny frog species in a new study published March 27 in the journal PLoS ONE. Mini is an all-new genus of frog.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
New Species of Short-Tailed Whip Scorpion Discovered
A duo of arachnologists from Brazil has discovered a new species of short-tailed whip scorpion in eastern Amazon.
“Schizomida (schizomids) are an order of small arachnids that display short-range endemism and generally occur in humid tropical and sub-tropical forests, mainly in leaf litter, caves, tree bark or under stones,” said Dr. Gustavo Ruiz and Dr. Roberta Valente of the Universidade Federal do Para.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
This is the terrifying moment an off-duty police officer shot and killed a suspected robber who tried to attack her on a Brazilian street.
The Military Police agent, whose name has not been released, was walking by herself Sunday shortly before midnight in Butanta, a district in the city of Sao Paulo, when she encountered a heavy-set suspect.
A surveillance camera captured the moment Francisco Gonsalves dos Santos Junior, 40, parked his car on the dimly-lit street and rushed out of his vehicle as the officer crosses the street.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
France Deploys Drones to Monitor English Channel Migrants
The French government, in cooperation with the UK, has launched a number of airborne drones to monitor potential illegal immigration in the English Channel.
The planned deployment was announced by the prefect of the Pas-de-Calais region in January, and according to a press release this week, the drones are now ready to be used, La Voix du Nord reports.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
German Pensioner Dead After Alleged Assault by Migrant Teen
An 88-year-old German woman died as a result of injuries sustained after an alleged assault by a 17-year-old Chechen migrant who has now been arrested by police.
Police in the town of Schkeuditz in Saxony say they arrested the Chechen following a series of assaults and robberies of a total of nine senior citizens including 88-year-old Ilse K. who died shortly after he allegedly attacked her, Bild reports.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
German Migration Head: Asylum Application Numbers ‘Too High’
The head of Germany’s Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) has claimed that despite the reduction in asylum numbers since 2015, the number of new applications is still too high.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Rescued Migrants Hijack Merchant Ship Near Libya — Reports
Migrants have hijacked a merchant vessel that rescued them off Libya’s coast, ordering the crew to head towards Malta, reports say.
More than 100 migrants aboard the cargo ship are said to have acted after being told they would be taken back to Libya.
Malta’s military said the ship would not be allowed into its waters. Italy’s Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini described the hijackers as “pirates”.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Spain: Migrants Gang Rape 12-Year-Old, Let Her Friend Go Because She’s Muslim
A group of migrants in Spain subjected a 12-year-old girl to a brutal gang rape but let her friend go because she was a Muslim, with residents complaining that the Mayor of the town helped cover up the incident.
The incident occurred on March 18th last year but full details only just came to light in a report by Spanish newspaper El Mundo.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Facebook Bans White Nationalism and White Separatism
In a major policy shift for the world’s biggest social media network, Facebook banned white nationalism and white separatism on its platform Tuesday. Facebook will also begin directing users who try to post content associated with those ideologies to a nonprofit that helps people leave hate groups, Motherboard has learned.
The new policy, which will be officially implemented next week, highlights the malleable nature of Facebook’s policies, which govern the speech of more than 2 billion users worldwide. And Facebook still has to effectively enforce the policies if it is really going to diminish hate speech on its platform. The policy will apply to both Facebook and Instagram.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Joe Biden Blames “White Man’s Culture” For Violence Against Women
During a speech on Tuesday, potential presidential candidate Joe Biden blamed “a white man’s culture” for violence towards women.
The former VP asserted that Anita Hill, who accused Clarence Thomas of sexual harassment, should not have been forced to forced to face a panel of “a bunch of white guys.”
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Dozens of parents and kids have protested against lessons on gay relationships outside a second primary school in Birmingham.
Parents staged a demonstration against the controversial ‘No Outsiders’ curriculum programme at Anderton Park Primary School yesterday.
They handed out leaflets that declared ‘We DO NOT believe in homosexuality. Parents do NOT want their children’s belief changed.’
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
A few days ago, I made a record of the same news thread about a knife attack on a policeman in Tatarstan on March 22. The attacker shouted unknown “extremist and religious slogans”, which ones – the media did not report.
And just yesterday, only a few media outlets reported on the reasons for the attack. Rustam Kodirov avenged Christchurch.
At the same time, the article focuses on the fact that he did not go to the mosque – he himself was radicalized.
https://www.business-gazeta.ru/article/418259?utm_source=readable-box
“Spain: Migrants Gang Rape 12-Year-Old, Let Her Friend Go Because She’s Muslim” if this doesn’t make it clear they’re attacking white girls specifically, I don’t know what does.
And btw. “Her friends who were outside attempted to intervene but were threatened to stay away by one of the suspects who was carrying a stick.” do Spanish teens not have cellphones? Call the frickin’ police you dumbnuts!
Regarding the muslim parent protest against forcing lessons about gay relationships upon their children, I firmly believe they will prevail. After all, in the victimhood hierarchy, identifying as muslim trumps identifying as homosexual, or anything else for that matter.
Besides, a truth never uttered among the leftist morons who dream up these lesson plans but nevertheless well understood by them is that a LGBT agitator will never cut off their head for a disagreement over implementing such a policy. Even those otherwise brain-dead educators may occasionally find wisdom and discretion after a fashion.
Primary school seems too early to teach children about, at least, transgenderism (not so sure about homosexuality, as they should at least be warned about sexual predators of whatever inclination).
Some pre-pubescent children are confused about their identity, and some of these do turn out to be gay or transgender after they reach sexual maturity- but many don’t; if such young kids show signs of confusion, they should be offered individual counselling, but any kind of “reassignment” should not be an option until at least around eighteen; as has been noted here, the suicide rate among post-op transsexuals is horrendous, and such treatment should not be considered without a thorough assessment of the mature adult’s state of mind.
It began with OJ Simpson. If you play the race card and are well connected, the guilty walk free, with a smirk on top, and the system is further corrupted.
The defenders of equality apparently do not want equality before the law.
Victimology was a thing long before O.J. became a convicted felon.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victimology
You’re right, though: there is a broad consensus approving “separate and unequal”. It has always existed; only the subcategories change.
Anyone see this? This is what happens when liberal progressive politics continue uninteruppted [Video: Seattle is Dying] http://wsenmw.blogspot.com/2019/03/seattle-is-dying.html
Yes, I did see that report on Seattle. What they failed to mention is the fact that much of the local seafood is laced with drugs now. You wouldn’t want to eat, say, a Seattle mollusk. Fentanyl on the half-shell.
The cities and towns on the West coast are all awash in permissive policies which are proving to be lethal to their normal, law-abiding residents. As a result, living or working in downtown San Francisco has become risky. City Hall is now infested with rats and rats are vector animals for human flea-based diseases.
In other warm places where the mentally ill/addicted are living homeless and wreckless – maybe Austin? – look for an eventual return of leprosy. The only known carrier in the US (besides humans) is armadilloes. Carrsville may open back up…if an uptick in leprosy doesn’t change leftist municipal behaviors, nothing will.
City Hall in SF had been infested with rats of the two-legged variety long before infestations of the four-legged kind showed up.
Many places on the Left Coast that have severe liberal infestations as well as inland locales where former Left Coast residents have fled to have begun developing infestations of previously eradicated childhood diseases due to their lack of belief in the science of immunology and vaccination. Long term, lethal epidemics in these communities, combined with the proclivity of the inhabitants to have dogs instead of children, as well as aborting those they were too dumb to prevent conceiving should give those on the right an electoral advantage, assuming stupidity is not also highly contagious within leftist infested populations.
Man I love this site. Refreshing to know I’m not alone in my thinking. When I bring up this type of stuff cats just say I’m a dumb black man for having my views. I just laugh
Brunei brings in death by stoning as punishment for gay sex
People in the tiny south-east Asian kingdom face draconian new penal code based on sharia law
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/mar/28/brunei-brings-in-death-by-stoning-as-punishment-for-gay-sex
Excuse me, can anyone help me?
This link is no longer active because the blog has become closed. I wrote a request for access, but I don’t know if they will consider it.
Could you help us find the same material in another source?
https://counterjihadreport.com/2015/07/11/i-am-an-islamophobe/
Muslims in Russia continue to “probe the ground.”
A group of migrants from Central Asia was detained during namaz
About 30 natives of Central Asia, including citizens of Tajikistan, were detained by the police while they were reading namaz in Lyublino.
In Moscow, at the time of prayers, 27 natives of Tajikistan, Kirghizia, Uzbekistan and Turkey, as well as two Russian citizens, were detained at the Moscow Trade and Fair Complex in Lublin.
25 of the detainees were held administratively liable for violation of the procedure for holding meetings, and protocols on part 3 of Article 18.8 of the Administrative Code of the Russian Federation (Violation by a foreign citizen of the stay of the territory of the Russian Federation) were drawn up against two citizens of Tajikistan.
https://novosti.tj/migraciya/v-moskve-vo-vremya-soversheniya-namaza-zaderzhali-gruppu-migrantov-iz-tsa.html