The popular singer Cher, who no longer has a surname but used to be called Bono, is upset that President Trump wants to resettle illegal immigrants in “sanctuary cities”. Previously a supporter of mass immigration, Ms. Bono evidently had second thoughts when she contemplated the possibility of thousands of border-jumpers being resettled in Los Angeles.
In other news, the southern Swedish city of Malmö went through an entire month without a shooting, for the first time in three years.
To see the headlines and the articles, click “Continue reading” below.
Thanks to C. Cantoni, Insubria, JD, Reader from Chicago, SS, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.
Notice to tipsters: Please don’t submit extensive excerpts from articles that have been posted behind a subscription firewall, or are otherwise under copyright protection.
Caveat: Articles in the news feed are posted “as is”. Gates of Vienna cannot vouch for the authenticity or accuracy of the contents of any individual item posted here. We check each entry to make sure it is relatively interesting, not patently offensive, and at least superficially plausible. The link to the original is included with each item’s title. Further research and verification are left to the reader.
70+ Democrats and County Commissioner Switch Parties in Two Weeks
COLUMBUS COUNTY, NC (WWAY) — In the past two weeks, more than 70 democrats in Columbus County have left the party and that includes Columbus County Commissioner Ricky Bullard.
Elections Director Carla Strickland said Bullard switched from Democrat to Republican on Monday.
[Comment: My previous new tips had 52 Democrats switch to Republicans. This is an update — now its over 70.]
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
A Magnitude 4.6 Earthquake Just Struck a Fault Line Off the Coast of Northern California
An unusually large earthquake just hit the west coast. According to the USGS, a magnitude 4.6 earthquake that was centered directly on a fault line happened approximately 221 kilometers west of Ferndale, California on Friday. Fortunately it was far enough away from shore that no major damage was caused. But if this was just a foreshock for a larger event that is still to come, then there is definitely reason to be concerned. Scientists tell us that California is way overdue for the “Big One”, and as you will see below, when it finally arrives it could potentially be the worst cataclysm in American history up to this point.
And of course this magnitude 4.6 earthquake on Friday follows several other significant west coast earthquakes that happened earlier in the week.
On Thursday, a magnitude 3.5 earthquake hit San Bernardino…
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Assange and the Unforgivable Sin of Disemboweling Official Narratives
There is really only one unforgivable sin in the political realm, and that’s destroying the official narrative by revealing the facts of the matter. This is why whistleblowers who make public the secret machinery of the elaborately artful lies underpinning all official narratives are hounded to the ends of the Earth.
Employees of state entities such as Ellsberg, Manning and Snowden are bound by vows of secrecy and threatened by the promise of severe punishment.Outsiders such as Assange are even further beyond the pale because they can’t be accused of being traitors, as they never took the vows of secrecy required by the Deep State.
The single most damaging revelation to all the elaborate lies that make up official narratives is the truth revealed in official emails, documents and conversations. This is why virtually every document and correspondence is now “classified,” so anyone releasing even a mundane scrap can be sentenced to rot in federal prison.
In a recent C-SPAN interview, author Nomi Prins explained the incredible difficulty of accessing papers in presidential libraries now due to virtually everything being classified. Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) applications must be filed, and researchers must wait years to gain access to routine correspondence that was freely available to all a decade or so ago.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
The prosecution in the murder trial of former Minneapolis police officer Mohamed Noor continued yesterday with the cross-examination of officer Jesse Lopez as well as the testimony of officer Joseph Grout, Lieutenant Dan May, and Sergeant Robert Lewis, all of the Minneapolis police department. Performing the task of spinning yesterday’s testimony into a narrative are Chao Xiong and Libor Jany in their Star Tribune story as well as Jon Collins and Riham Feshir in their MPR account. Their pieces give me the freedom to add stray comments or expand on items of interest or pick out whatever I think needs emphasis. That’s what I think I’m doing in this series.
I find the headlines of the daily stories of interest. In this case, the Star Tribune and MPR have gone in different directions. I think the Star Tribune gets it right today (more below). I am not sure I’ve ever said that before, but there it is.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Blacklist: ‘What Google Likes, Goes; What it Doesn’t, Disappears’ — Cyber Expert
The newly leaked Google memo implies that the Silicon Valley giant is policing content, something that users have always suspected, cybersecurity analysts told Sputnik. The exclusively obtained documents cast doubt on Google CEO Sundar Pichai’s December 2018 testimony.
Citing exclusively obtained documents, The Daily Caller reported on 9 April that “Google does manipulate its search results manually, contrary to the company’s official denials”. The report contradicts Google CEO Sundar Pichai, who insisted that the company’s employees do not manually intervene in any particular search result during his testimony before the US Senate Judiciary Committee in December 2018.
According to the records, the high tech firm maintains a blacklist preventing certain websites from appearing in search results. In the process the “Ares manual review tool” is being used, the documents say, which means that Google employees make decisions about what to include in search results.
“The deceptive_news domain blacklist is going to be used by many search features to filter problematic sites that violate the good neighbour and misrepresentation policies… The purpose of the blacklist will be to bar the sites from surfacing in any search feature or news product. It will not cause a demotion in the organic search results or de-index them altogether”, the leaked papers read, as quoted by the media outlet.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Aranda, who is being held on suspected attempted homicide, had been banned from Mall of America in the past, and was charged and convicted of misdemeanors in two separate incidents at the mall in 2015. In July of that year, Aranda was charged with causing damage inside stores, throwing items off of a balcony to a lower level and resisting arrest. Aranda was then charged in October of that year for throwing a glass of water and a glass of tea at a woman inside of Twin City Grill after she refused to buy him food.
Aranda was also charged in August of 2015 with destroying computers in a north Minneapolis library. According to the criminal complaint, Aranda told officers that “he has some anger issues,” and that, “it does not happen all the time.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Conservative Journalist Ejected From Bernie Sanders Rally With No Explanation
Libertarian and gun-toting Kent State grad-turned-journalist Kaitlin Bennett of Liberty Hangout was removed from a Bernie Sanders rally by police before the event began, according to a Sunday video Bennett posted on Twitter.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Hackers Publish Sensitive Personal Information Belonging to 4,000 Federal Agents
In one of the biggest and potentially most threatening hacks since the Obama-era 2015 OPM breach, a group of hackers believed to be based in Ukraine has published sensitive personal information of 4,000 FBI agents after infiltrating three chapters of the FBI National Academy Association.
The group, which corresponded with TechCrunch via an encrypted chat, says it is ‘structuring’ data belonging to employees across several federal law enforcement agencies, and is planning to package the information for sale. When asked if the information could put lives of federal employees at risk, one of the hackers replied: “Probably. yes.”
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Harvard Test-Taking Whiz at Center of College Admission Scandal Pleads Guilty
Mark Riddell, one of the key pieces to the largest ever college admissions scandal, pleaded guilty before a federal judge in Boston late last week after arranging a deal with federal prosecutors. Riddell pleaded to fraud conspiracy and money laundering and faces 33 to 41 months in prison as a result. As part of his deal, he admitted to conspiring with William Rick Singer, the scam’s ringleader.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Kamala Harris Says She Owns a Gun — Meanwhile She Wants to Ban Them
California Democratic Sen. Kamala Harris said she owns a gun for “personal safety” Thursday, adding she wants to protect the Second Amendment after leading efforts to ban assault weapons.
“I am a gun owner, and I own a gun for probably the reason a lot of people do — for personal safety,” Harris told reporters after attending a party with supporters in Des Moines, Iowa, according to Business Insider. “I was a career prosecutor.”
The 2020 hopeful also said she believes she can solve gun control issues, mentioning a lack of leadership.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Police: Woman Asked Husband if She Was Pretty, Assaulted Him When He Didn’t Reply
Her husband’s lack of response when she asked him if she was pretty, causing her to assault him, according to the Laredo Morning Times.
Police said 20-year-old Lizeth Guadalupe Ramirez told them her common-law husband assaulted and tried to strangle her, but her husband had a different story.
The man said he and Ramirez were seeing a movie when she asked him if she was pretty. He said he did not hear the question, but his lack of response irritated Ramirez.
Ramirez then reportedly hit the man several times on their way home before assaulting a relative who tried to break up the fight at the house.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
When pollsters realized the public and elected officials weren’t buying global warming as a concept or policy, in a brilliant political move, they came up with the phrase “climate change.” This helped sell the theory of man-made global warming. Weather is politicized and computer models are only predictions that have been used as pawns in elections and justifying increased government budgets. The global warming/climate change (GWCC) narrative has made Al Gore a rich man peddling unrealized fear.
In January 2012, sixteen eminent scientists published an article in the Wall Street Journal, titled, “No Need to Panic About Global Warming. If mankind is causing global warming then how do you explain:
“Today’s CO2 concentrations worldwide average about 380 parts per million. This level of CO2 concentration is trivial compared with the concentrations during earlier geologic periods. For example, 460 million years ago, during the Ordovician Period, CO2 concentrations were 4,400 ppm, and temperatures then were about the same as they are today. With such high levels of CO2 the Earth should have been boiling.”
It seems more reasonable to be agnostic based upon this fact:
“According to the Climate.gov website, the current global average temperature is roughly ‘shy of 60 degrees Fahrenheit. About 55 million years ago — just after the age of the Dinosaurs — the era known as the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM) saw average global temps as high as 73 degrees Fahrenheit.”
As humans only showed up about 100,000 years ago how do you account for the PETM era? Supposedly, 97% of scientists agree man is the cause of catastrophic GWCC. When in fact that statement is false.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Suspect Who Threw 5-Year-Old From Balcony in Mall of America Named
The suspect accused of throwing a 5-year-old child off the balcony of a Mall of America has been named as 24-year-old Emmanuel Deshawn Aranda.
The victim, Landen Hoffmann of Woodbury, Minnesota, suffered “significant injuries” after he was hurled from the balcony of the mall in Bloomington.
“A bystander who police say witnessed Aranda push the child stopped him from fleeing the scene,” reports the Daily Mail.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Video: CBS Pushes Violence Towards Americans on Twitter
Promo has since been removed from social media after fierce backlash
The paradox of tolerance states that if a society is tolerant without limit, its ability to be tolerant is eventually seized or destroyed by the intolerant.
The First Amendment states that Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.
Which one of those two ideas represents where we are now as a culture? Because Congressional hearings are determining that American patriots are to be labeled white nationalists.
And now a CBS show known as The Good Fight is leading a propagandized rehash of modern-day Bolshevism by legitimizing violence against anyone labeled a white nationalist, and relabeling the paradox of tolerance as the Overton window.
This is a dangerous precedent. And as we tumble headlong into the fray of an impending Presidential election which the left will not accept and a record number of Democratic Presidential candidates agree with.
This Goebbels-level madness, promoting the attack on innocent free-thinking Americans is now accepted.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
What Does Julian Assange Know About Hillary Clinton That She Doesn’t Want Exposed?
Failed 2016 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has done far worse to Julian Assange than what the UK police did when they yanked him out of his Ecuadorian Embassy hideaway of seven years yesterday.
Without proof of any kind, without a trial, Clinton has accused the organization Assange founded of playing “a dangerous role” in her 2016 electoral defeat.
By telling a crowd in New York that Assange needs to “answer for what he has done,” she has already cast him in a guilty-as-charged environment.
What is Hillary Clinton afraid Assange will say if he is tried by the U.S. for Wikileaks?
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
In a delicious irony, this week Attorney General William Barr implied that a new bar might have been set (pun intended) during the 2016 election cycle when he announced that he believes President Trump’s political campaign was spied upon by the federal government.
Just let that sink in for a moment and noodle around in your brain.
Heads need to roll. Maybe even literally. This appears to the crime of sedition, the act of conspiring to incite rebellion against the authority of our government. If it could be proved that a foreign government had been involved in the conspiracy, the crimes involved might even rise to the level of treason. Sedition is bad enough…
How did they know? Bruce Ohr told them. And how did Bruce know? His wife, Nellie, works for Fusion GPS. Meanwhile, Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, James Comey, Andrew McCabe, and others working within the FBI and Obama’s Department of Justice conspired to exonerate Hillary Clinton of serious crimes while charging her opponent with egregiously false, manufactured accusations of colluding with Russia.
How can this not be a plot to overthrow our government?
To make matters worse, Susan Rice, Samantha Power, James Clapper, and Sally Yates were all guilty of improperly “unmasking” innocent American citizens for nefarious political reasons, which led to General Michael Flynn’s unfair prosecution by Mueller after FBI officials had concluded he wasn’t lying to them during their unfair interview. How can this happen?
Where does the buck stop?
Although President Obama frequently claimed he never knew about anything until after he’d seen it in the news, he might not be able get away with pleading ignorance this time. According to texts sent between Lisa Page and Peter Strzok, President Obama wanted to know everything they were doing. In contrast, Nixon didn’t find out about the Watergate break-in until after it had already happened.
Barack Obama has a big problem. He’s apparently involved in this effort to overturn the results of a presidential election up to those oversized ears of his.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Ottawa, April 3rd: A leader addresses his core demographic, stirring many to their feet. Enough to put a smile on the orator’s face, you would think, but Canada’s Justin Trudeau is downcast. Those standing are not offering him an ovation, but condemnation at the handling of a scandal that’s smashed his gleaming premiership against the rocks. With a series of high profile resignations, rampant criticism from political rivals and sliding polls, the one-time poster boy of global liberalism is facing a fall from grace that could yet prove fatal.
Looking at the turned backs of those fifty upright young women, the Canadian prime minister surely wondered how things got so bad so quickly. He was addressing the biannual Daughters of the Vote event, a campaign that shares his much lauded desire to increase the political involvement of women. But rather than espouse the virtues of feminism, Trudeau found himself defending the expulsion of two senior women from his Liberal caucus — just the latest twist in the party’s disastrous SNC-Lavalin scandal.
The controversy erupted months earlier with allegations that Trudeau had pressured attorney general Jody Wilson-Raybould to defer the prosecution of SNC-Lavalin, a Quebec-based engineering firm accused of bribery. When she resisted, he demoted her to a lesser cabinet role…
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
‘Clown World’ Meme Posters Plastered All Over Dublin, Ireland
Honkler clown world meme posters have been plastered all over a wall on on one of Dublin’s busiest streets.
A video posted to Twitter shows numerous Honkler posters displayed near the city’s central bank.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Crosses Covered With Cloth in Italian Cemetery to Avoid Offending Muslims
The crosses on graves in an Italian cemetery in Bologna have been covered with black cloth in order not to offend those who may come from another religion.
The cemetery has also installed motorised blackout curtains in a local chapel to hide Roman Catholic symbols during ceremonies involving other denominations, Il Giornalereports.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Enfant Terrible of French Literature to Receive Legion of Honour
Michel Houellebecq, France’s best-known and most provocative novelist, will receive France’s highest civilian distinction next Thursday from the President, Emmanuel Macron, for his services to French literature, the Elysée palace announced on Saturday.
The 63-year-old was nominated for the prestigious award on 1 January, with his name featured in the New Year honours list.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
European Churches: Vandalized, Defecated on, And Torched “Every Day”
Countless churches throughout Western Europe are being vandalized, defecated on, and torched.
In France, two churches are desecrated every day on average. According to PI-News, a German news site, 1,063 attacks on Christian churches or symbols (crucifixes, icons, statues) were registered in France in 2018. This represents a 17% increase compared to the previous year (2017), when 878 attacks were registered — meaning that such attacks are only going from bad to worse.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Finland Votes in Election Centered on Welfare, Climate and Immigration
The center-left Social Democrats could lead the first left-wing government in two decades. Polls also predict strong gains for the country’s main far-right party.
Some 4.5 million Finns head to the polls Sunday to vote for representatives to the 200-seat Eduskunta parliament.
The ballot is expected to shake up the country’s political landscape following a campaign dominated by debates over how to preserve the country’s prized welfare system, the costs of combating climate change, and immigration.
What do the polls say?
…
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Finland’s Strong Warning to EU: Populist Party Makes Huge Gains in Shock Election Result
FINLAND has sent a strong warning to the EU after the populist Finns party made huge gains in Sunday’s parliamentary elections to come second.
The nationalist Finns Party narrowly avoided victory after taking 17.6 percent after more than 97 percent of votes were counted. They were narrowly pipped to the post by Finland’s leftist Social Democrat party (SDP), with leader Antti Rinne declaring victory after partial results showed his party winning by a tight margin with 17.8 percent.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
France: Teens Use Grindr App to Lure Gay Men to be Assaulted, Robbed
Two 17-year-old young men were brought before a court in Choisy-le-Roi after using a popular gay dating app to lure homosexuals in order to beat and rob them.
The pair had used the gay dating app Grindr to lure four different victims to an area where they were able to assault and rob them of their possessions, one of the victims also being a fellow minor, Le Parisien reports.
Earlier this week, one of the victims, a 28-year-old man, was lured to a residential building where he was attacked on the seventh floor by the two teens, who attempted to steal his phone before fleeing the area.
The man was able to give a detailed description to police of the two attackers, who were then placed into custody on Thursday. Police say the pair were already well-known to them and had been involved in petty crime in the past.
[Comment: Apparently a 23 yrd old Pakistani, and 21 yr old Chechen — mentioned in the comments, not in the article which likely got its information from police officials.]
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
IS Can Still Launch Attacks in Germany: Intelligence Chief
The head of Germany’s domestic intelligence agency has warned against underestimating the threat posed by “Islamic State” despite the militant group’s apparent defeat in Syria and Northern Iraq.
In an interview with German newspaper Welt am Sonntag, Thomas Haldenwang, the head of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) — Germany’s domestic intelligence agency — warned against an increasing threat posed by the return of “Islamic State” (IS) jihadis from Syria and Northern Iraq.
Haldenwang said that the number of radical Islamists in Germany rose to 2,240 in 2018.
“I cannot give an all-clear on IS,” Haldenwang said. “It can launch an attack in Germany anytime,” he added.
…
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Salvini Announces Clampdown on ‘City Lowlifes’
Order to target pushers, thugs, vandals, illegal traders
(ANSA) — Rome, April 10 — The interior ministry said new ordinances to clamp down on “lowlifes” (balordi) in Italian cities will take effect soon in Florence and Bologna. The prefect’s department in the two cities have prepared measures for people who have been reported for drug-dealing, fighting, bodily harm, vandalism and illegal trading in public spaces to be banned from certain areas. “I will issue guidelines for similar procedures to be launched throughout Italy,” Salvini said.
“There must be no tolerance for illegal conduct”.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Opinion: Germany’s Climate Activism is Full of Hypocrisy
Fridays For Future protests, banning combustion engines by 2030, a climate cabinet. The hysteria around climate change in Germany has now lost all objectivity, says DW’s Henrik Böhme.
Germany has never really been a climate “trailblazer,” much as people like to think it is. So you can’t really describe Angela Merkel as the “climate chancellor.” It was a complete coincidence that 1990 was taken as the base year for the reduction in CO2 emissions. It was Germany’s sheer dumb luck that all the dirty factories were still operating in the East. After reunification they had to be shut down very quickly, which of course made the country’s carbon footprint look an awful lot better. By contrast, in the last 10 years, the level of greenhouse gas emissions has barely gone down at all.
If the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan had not happened, German nuclear power stations would still be generating electricity. But the catastrophe caused the self-proclaimed climate chancellor to perform a major U-turn. Shortly after taking office in 2005, she overturned a nuclear phaseout planned by the Social Democrats and the Greens. One year before Fukushima, she talked about “nuclear power as a bridging technology.” Then in the summer of 2011, following Fukushima, she announced a new nuclear moratorium.
Energiewende: A policy that has wasted billions
…
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Steve Bannon Calls Soros a ‘Role Model’, Pope Francis the Enemy
Steve Bannon admires George Soros, hates Pope Francis, and has gone full-throttle to oppose the ‘open-border’ advocates with the launch of a European nationalist powerhouse.
Based out of a thirteenth-century Carthusian monastery 90 minutes outside of Rome, Bannon has teamed up with Italy’s Interior Minister Matteo Salvini, Catholic UK politician Benjamin Harnwell and American Cardinal Raymond Burke — who has called Islam a threat and is an open supporter of US President Donald Trump.
Bannon spoke recently with The New Yorker‘s Elisabeth Zerofsky — who describes him as “corpulent” (clearly a fan), and provided an update to a story we originally reported on last June.
In short, Bannon’s new academy seeks to coordinate nationalist movements across Europe as a “right-wing response to George Soros’s Open Society Foundation,” which Bannon says he admires for its power and organization.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Stone Age Genocide: Vengeful Prehistoric Invaders Who Changed Europe Forever
A MYSTERIOUS race of invaders who embarked on a “genocidal” killing spree after arriving in Europe thousands of years ago, changing the continent forever, were probably motivated by a desire for vengeance, an archaeologist has said.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Sweden’s Malmo Sees First Month With No Reported Shootings in Three Years
March of 2019 has been the first month in three years in which the Swedish southern city of Malmo has not had any reported shootings, according to police.
The last month in which the city saw no reported shootings was in September of 2015, the authorities said, adding that they were pleased there appeared to be a break in such incidents for the month, broadcaster Sveriges Radio reports.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
UK: “Innocent Housewife” Shamima Begum Was in Fact Cruel Enforcer in ISIS’ Morality Police
Shamima Begum was a member of the Isis morality police, a feared group which enforced the terror organisation’s strict interpretation of Islamic law — and she also tried to recruit other young women to join the jihadist group.
The 19-year-old British citizen, who fled her home in Bethnal Green four years ago with two other schoolgirls, has claimed that she was only a “housewife” during her time living with the group in Syria.
But according to a report in The Sunday Telegraph she played a much more active role in the organisation’s reign of terror as a member of the “hisba” — which metes out punishment to those found flouting Isis laws on how to dress and behave.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Farage Urges Voters: ‘Do Not Behave as Though We Have Been Defeated’
Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage has urged voters not to give up on the electoral process and disengage, but to punish the political establishment at the ballot box instead.
The LBC host and former UKIP supremo’s call to action was published by the Express following two launch events for his new party in Coventry and Birmingham, attended by Breitbart London.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Khan’s London: ‘Music Artist’ Jailed for Gruesome Kidnap and Torture of Teen
Five members of a London gang have been handed jail sentences for the “extremely violent” kidnapping and torture of a 16-year-old.
Isaac Donkoh, 22, and his accomplices, aged fourteen and sixteen, were found guilty of offences including kidnap, grievous bodily harm (GBH), and false imprisonment at Snaresbrook Crown Court on Friday.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
WikiLeaks ‘Dead Man’s Switch’? Assange’s Arrest Prompts Speculation About Possible Major Data Dumps
The arrest of WikiLeaks co-founder Julian Assange has re-ignited speculation about the so-called “insurance” — large encrypted files uploaded by the website. What they are and when they will be opened is still unknown.
Assange’s seven-year exile ended on Thursday, when the Metropolitan Police dragged the publisher out of the Ecuadorian Embassy in London. While his fate is in limbo, even more uncertainty surrounds the WikiLeaks “insurance” files — believed by some to be the website’s “dead man’s switch” option: a massive encrypted data dump whose decryption keys will be revealed in case Assange gets arrested or killed, or WikiLeaks gets taken down for good.
Now that Assange is in custody, speculation has swirled that the keys are about to be made public — but nothing has happened so far.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Libya Death Toll Rising, Says UN
The WHO says at least 121 people have been killed in Libya as rival militias fight for control of the capital, Tripoli. The violence has raised fears that the country may descend into a fully fledged civil war.
At least 121 people have died in clashes between rival militias fighting for control of Libya’s capital, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Sunday.
The WHO said in a tweet that 561 others had been wounded since commander Khalifa Haftar launched an offensive earlier this month to take Tripoli, which is currently controlled by a UN-backed government.
In another, earlier tweet, it denounced “repeated attacks on health care workers, vehicles” during the fighting, which began on April 5.
…
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Kim Jong Un Appoints More Generals in Military Shakeup While Extending Hand to Trump
Amidst the ongoing nuclear negotiation standoff with the United States, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has initiated a large-scale military shakeup, bolstering his general officers corps with a wave of promotions.
The move is said to mark the upcoming birthday of his grandfather and North Korea founder Kim Il Sung, according to state media, but more significantly Kim used the occasion to extend another hand to Washington, signaling he’s not given up after the disappointing failed February talks with Trump in Hanoi, which rapidly broke down.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
A heavily tattooed ex-Bandido bikie is to be deported back home to New Zealand after a stint in jail following a string of violent crimes.
| — Hat tip: SS | [Return to headlines] |
Africa: Chibok Girls Still Undereducated, Unsafe Five Years After Abductions
Five years after the kidnapping of 276 girls from Chibok, many schools in northeastern Nigeria are still not safe. Student numbers have dropped and education is still suffering under the threat of Boko Haram.
In May 2017, families finally met up with 82 of the Chibok girls who were released after negotiations with Boko Haram
On April 14, 2014, 276 female pupils at the rural boarding school in Chibok were attacked and kidnapped by Boko Haram militants. Some of the girls were as young as 14. The abductions sparked outrage across Nigeria and around the world as campaigners demanded that officials do more to find and free the girls. Out of the 276 girls, the fate of 112 girls still remains uncertain. Many are still in captivity, but it is believed that not all of the girls survived the harsh conditions of life under Boko Haram.
The Islamist militant group Boko Haram (usually translated as “western education is forbidden”) has repeatedly targeted schools in northern Nigeria and neighboring countries. In February 2018, militants of the group attacked another school in Dapchi, kidnapping 110 girls. Five died in the aftermath. The rest of the girls, including a Christian girl who refused to convert to Islam, were released a month later.
…
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Australian Senator Calls for “Ban on All Muslim and Black African Immigration”
Controversial Australian Senator Fraser Anning has called for a “ban on all Muslim and black African immigration.”
Anning put out the call in a tweet earlier today, adding, “Import the third world, become the third world.”
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Cher Suddenly Doesn’t Support Mass Immigration After Trump’s ‘Sanctuary Cities’ Threat
Pop icon Cher has suddenly had a dramatic change of heart on mass immigration after President Trump threatened to dump illegals in the “sanctuary city” where she lives.
Imagine my shock.
On Friday, Trump said his administration was considering the idea of releasing immigrants into sanctuary cities, partly in retaliation to Democrats’ support for open borders.
Previously, Cher had demanded, “Anyone who can must take a dreamer in2 their home & protect them!! I’m ready 2 do this & others in my business will do the same!! Sanctuary.”
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Half of Migrants Fail Basic German Language Standard Test
Recently revealed figures have shown that efforts to teach newly arrived immigrants the German language are struggling, with only half of the migrants passing basic language standard tests.
The figures come after a written request from populist Alternative for Germany (AfD) MP René Springer and show that only 51.5 percent of the 172,471 migrants who took part in their first German course could reach the “B1” language level target, Die Welt reports.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
NY Dems Reject Tuition Aid for Gold Star Kids After Doling Out Millions for Illegal Students
New York State Assembly Democrats denied hundreds of thousands of dollars in tuition money to relatives of Gold Star veterans on Tuesday but granted $27 million for illegal aliens’ college tuition in a state budget earlier in April.
In a 15-11 vote, New York’s Assembly Higher Education Committee decided not to allocate more money to a $2.7 million program that currently helps 145 students related to or dependent on disabled and deceased combat veterans to pay college tuition, the New York Post reported.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Robert Sarah, an African cardinal who serves as the head of the Vatican’s liturgy office, is often named in traditionalist circles as their hope to one day succeed Pope Francis.
Those who seek to use the Bible to promote migration are pushing a “false” interpretation of the scriptures, Cardinal Sarah said in a new interview with French publication Valeurs Actuelles.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Sunday Times: Ireland Must Shatter Immigration Taboo
Ireland’s fanatical repression of an open debate about “sustainable immigration” is harmful for the future of the nation and for public discourse more generally, David Quinn argues in the Sunday Times of April 14.
The knee-jerk reaction of labeling as a “racist” or “xenophobe” anyone promoting a reasoned discussion of immigration and its limits damages the ability of a democracy to function properly, and such imposed groupthink creates resentment and righteous indignation, suggests Quinn, who runs the Iona Institute for Religion and Society.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Leftism: A Warped Reflection of Christianity
The left has no connection with Christian values and nothing to offer the American people except division and disharmony.
As the long conga line of Democrats prepare for their chance at the Presidency, not since the American Civil War has the country been so divided on critical issues as it is right now. Moreover, although Democrat Socialists, aka leftists, say the country is in a mess, they don’t seem too concerned with the traditional topics of taxes, military spending, and balanced budgets. They are, however, very focused on trying to demonstrate what a bad person they think Trump is and how righteously superior they think they are.
Listening to Democratic candidates lecture Americans on morality regarding a border wall or the sanctity of sanctuary cities their campaign rhetoric sounds more like a religious movement than a political position. It is rather apparent that the left is entirely void of any economic plans or international policies. Instead, it has resorted to becoming pseudo-preachers of a quasi-socialist religion, sounding more sanctimonious by the day. So the only questions Americans can ask themselves at this point is whether or not they want to remain a nation based on the belief in God and laws or a country based on faith in government and social justice?
One of the biggest scams and tactical deceptions that leftists use to gain support from outsiders is the attempt to equate Christian teachings to their socialist policies. As if Christianity is more closely matched with the left’s good socialist intentions rather than the God-centered Constitution. Nothing could be farther from the truth. In fact, according to a February 2016 article on the Action Institute power blog, since the mid-1800s every Catholic pontiff from Pius IX to Benedict XVI has forthrightly condemned socialism.
The American conservative sees God as the architect of everything and originator of man’s freedom, and the view of government is limited to protecting those God-given gifts. Whereas the leftist sees government as a godlike idol and their role as the arbiters that control the allowances parted out to the masses — two opposite ways of life with socialism utterly incompatible with Christianity on every level.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
No Child Will be Left Unindoctrinated
We are seeing an explosion of children and young adults, coming out of government run schools, confused about everything including their gender
About a week ago, a local TV station aired a newscast titled “Schoolyard Bullying”. In the story, a woman said that her son, who identified as a female and liked to wear dresses and makeup, was the victim of bullying by other students. In her words, they shunned him and some even made fun of him. She said her son had been bullied because of his gender identity, and she thought public schools should make an effort to “better educate” children about sexual diversity at a younger age.
The title of the story was disingenuous and misleading because it was really about indoctrinating children into deviant sexual behavior. The story focused on teaching children about gender identity at an earlier age, although most public schools have been teaching children about homosexuality for years. Some day-cares and preschools even read homosexual propaganda to children in kindergarten; propaganda like ‘My Two Dads’ and ‘ Sadly, we are seeing an explosion of children and young adults, coming out of government run schools, confused about everything including their gender. Our government-run public schools produce a steady stream of gender confused atheists that don’t know right from wrong, and there are lots of reasons for it. Government educators and homosexual activists have turned sexual deviancy into sexual diversity, and religious morality into religious bigotry. Religious morality is not inclusive, they say, so they ban the Bible from public schools as hate speech.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
The Masters of the Cyber-Sphere Can’t Even Master Themselves
When Pinchai tried to bring a conservative onto a committee that would impact policy, he got the full-frontal treatment. While Pinchai may seem like he can be reasoned with, his employees are fire-breathing evangelists for every progressive cause. When they heard of a non-lib being on ATEAC, they fired up the emails, which Breitbart and Daily Caller got hold of and published. The pompous, presumptuous vitriol is unbelievable.
“Google employees accused the think-tank [Heritage Foundation] of transphobia, homophobia, and “extremism,” of viewing LGBT people as “sub-human,” questioning their “humanity,” and supporting “exterminationist” views.”
What makes this person think LBGTQ issues were even on the agenda? They clearly think everyone is as consumed with these fringe issues as they are just because this kind of thing is always “trending” on social media. It wasn’t just the hoi palloi here, some of the most severe comments came from Meredith Whittaker, a prominent person in AI circles and head of two projects at Google (three projects if you count the troublemaking). She suggested a petition and helped promulgate it. The article notes:…
So how did Sindar Pinchai handle this? Did he tell them to shut up and get back to work? Did he remind them that he, not they, was in charge? Did he point out that there was not one of them that couldn’t be easily replaced? No — he melted. He called off the whole committee after 24 hours of Lilliputian pummeling. Leadership is apparently not his thing.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Transgender Activists Attack Movie Database Site IMDb for Publishing Trans Actors’ Birth Names
Transgender activists have set their sights on film industry database website IMBD.com for publishing the birth names of trans actors. The activists have created a brand new term for it by accusing IMBb of “deadnaming” people with names no longer in use.
At least two trans actors have reportedly demanded that Internet Movie Database (IMDb) remove their original names and replace them with their new name adopted after becoming transgender. But the site has thus far refused to comply, according to Deadline Hollywood.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp Suffer World-Wide Outage
Almost a month to the day after Facebook experienced its worst outage ever, Facebook, Instagram and Whatsapp are again experiencing worldwide outages that started around 6:30 am Eastern, triggering a flurry of complaints on rival social networks like Twitter.
In areas around the world, Facebook and Instagram feeds wouldn’t refresh, and neither Whatsapp messages nor Facebook messenger messages could be sent or received.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
For the crime of Emmanuel Deshawn Aranda on Landen Hoffmann. Is it really that meaningless? Just imagine the roles reversed. It would have been called racism, genocide and what not. Why not call it that now? Or only whites can be evil.
Good thing they don’t allow weapons in the Mall of America; think of how many lives were saved by the management wisely forbidding that two-legged rat from have a pistol there.
The Federal Penitentiary Service (FSIN) on April 12 introduced a new special transport for transporting convicted persons with disabilities and transporting mothers with children up to three years old, the department said.
There are carriages with a car lift in the avtozak for transportation of disabled people, and special chairs were installed in the children’s ones. The latter will be used to take children to hospitals or for recreation – “to the circus, parks, etc.,” said Irina Larionova, deputy head of the medical department of the FSIN.
https://www.novayagazeta.ru/news/2019/04/14/150866-vo-fsin-predstavili-avtozaki-dlya-perevozki-invalidov-i-maloletnih-detey
Good old Trump, he really figured out how to “fix” them with the idea of sending the migrants to “Sanctuary Cities”.
I’ve taken a liking to this guy: underneath all the bluster, he knows how to take an “unthinkable” (i.e., common sense) idea, and run with it.
“Sweden’s Malmo Sees First Month With No Reported Shootings in Three Years” every citizen over there should be very worried, I know I would be – either the officials gave up on reporting it or something bigger is brewing inside the no-go zones.
Btw. the trial with the two muslim brothers that nearly killed a waiter in Prague last year is about to start at last, they are facing up to 18 years for attempted murder and it seems the general consent among the public is that the judge shouldn’t chicken out and give them the highest sentence possible. Also, as a side note, our media keep reporting of “Dutch brothers”. But they also keep posting their pictures and we all remember well those aren’t Dutch people, they only own a Dutch passport.
“Stone Age Genocide: Vengeful Prehistoric Invaders Who Changed Europe Forever” you know, more than a qualified study, the article sounds like yet another example of “immigrants have always taken over the native population, your ancestors were no different, so now you have to deal with it, because it’s natural”.
** [Google’s] good neighbour and misrepresentation policies… **
When someone has a “good neighbor” policy it’s probably time to lock up your whiskey and your virgin daughters. All of your daughters, actually.
And it’s not a little ironic that a company that’s twisting, distorting, filtering, and omitting search results actually has “misrepresentation” policies.
Another day has dawned in Cyber Bedlam. It is good indeed that I have K Cups and box wine to regulate my mood.
1. Crosses Covered With Cloth in Italian Cemetery to Avoid Offending
Muslims
2. European Churches: Vandalized, Defecated on, And Torched “Every Day”
The churches themselves offend Muslims. Bring on the bulldozers to remove this stain from European soil. We oppress Muslims by requiring them to expend such efforts to vandalize and despoil the churches.
According to sources French President Emanuel Macron insisted that Middle-Eastern Migrants be a large part of the current Notre Dame Cathedral Restoration Project. Was the fire intentionally set??….developing
https://twitter.com/therealcornett/status/1117851116052545536
Re : Facebook, Instagram outage …
I believe the new experimental shadow-banning algorithm accidentally caught sight of itself in a mirror, and initiated a negative recursive feedback loop.
Since the purpose of such an algorithm is to be invisible to those affected, higher-ups at Facebook were unaware of the problem for hours.
Just shows to go ya what it means to be ‘out of the loop’ …
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If You’re White, You Can’t Be This
Tech companies and governments have made it clear what kind of thinking is unacceptable for White people around the world.
https://youtu.be/2acM80rsiHk
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Paul Joseph Watson Says Western Civilization Is Dying
Paul Joseph Watson notes many of the problems of the West—drugs, low birth rates, alcoholism, suicide, mindless consumerism—but he thinks nothing can be done about them. He’s wrong. What the West lacks is confidence and racial identity. If whites regain the spirit of loyalty to their race and love of their heritage, they will save their civilization. No one else can save it for them.
https://youtu.be/tjcXzalEDpg
I disagree, there’s not enough to hang your hat on just using whiteness. It has to be cultural, too. Ask the Danes, Norwegians and Swedes about their cultures and how those stack up against their skin color – just to name three immediate problems. Or the Irish and English, the white Celts and Saxons…not a chance.
Thus, when you say If whites regain the spirit of loyalty to their race, I reply it’s not the white skin, it’s the culture. I have much more in common with my half black/half white neighbor than I do with any Londoner. We share the same holidays, cultural memories, music, language, food, etc.
I agree. “White culture” (a/k/a “European”, “Western”, “Judeo-Christian” culture), if one wants to call it that, extends well beyond “whites”.
There is still a correlation between being white and having this culture, but it’s just that: a correlation. My tiny street in a tiny town has a half-Asian, an Indian, a Jew and an Arab, all in about 20 houses. We’ll all largely as “white” as the others, culturally. It’s a multi-racial street, but not much of a multi-cultural one.
Amusingly, I’ve been told that I have “white supremacist ideas”… by a 100% white SJW person, who also said that I have “racist ideas”… for wanting to treat everyone equally!
I remember getting into a discussion with a mildly racist person and pointing out that it’s really about the culture, and that race is just a proxy for it. To my great joy, I did get some uptake on this.
I think that some people fail to realize this, perhaps because they live in places where the race/culture correlation is very strong. Here, where it isn’t, it’s a lot more apparent that it’s about culture. In fact, here, the culturally problematic people are the (almost all white) SJWs – very very few of the non-whites are into that garbage.
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Stefan Molyneux
Thought Bites: Julian Assange Arrested!
https://youtu.be/GKpQAawDGTA