A Moroccan immigrant stabbed a man for wearing a crucifix in the central railway station in Rome. Meanwhile, a church in the south of France was set on fire and badly damaged.
In other news, Saudi judicial authorities executed 37 people today, with one of them being crucified.
To see the headlines and the articles, click “Continue reading” below.
Thanks to C. Cantoni, Dora, 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.
2020 Democrats Don’t Mention Sri Lanka Islamist Attacks Once at CNN “Town Hall”
Considering CNN’s recent ratings, this probably isn’t that big of a deal, but worth mentioning nonetheless.
Last Night, the liberal cable network held yet another “Town Hall,” which is really just them getting 2020 Democratic Presidential candidates together to toss them softball questions.
There were all manners of promising free stuff to everyone, bashing Trump, etc.
Yet, one topic was curiously missing.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Attempted Takedowns of Trump — Behind the Deep State
In this episode of Behind the Deep State, we break down the failed takedown of President Trump with the Mueller Report and Russian “collusion.” The Deep State is regrouping as we speak scheming the next flavor of the month in attempt to remove Trump from office.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Bernie Sanders Says Boston Marathon Bomber Has Right to Vote
“They’re coming up with all kinds of excuses why people of color, young people, poor people can’t vote, and I will do everything I can to resist it.”
Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who is seeking the Democratic presidential nomination, told a CNN town hall on Monday night that “every person has a right to vote,” even people who have been convicted and imprisoned for committing acts of murder and terrorism, even the Boston Marathon bomber.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Bipartisan Support for Electric Vehicle Handouts Betrays Taxpayers
Under current law, a federal tax credit of up to $7,500 is available to consumers of the first 200,000 vehicles sold by each manufacturer, after which the credit is phased out. Both Tesla and General Motors have exceeded the cap, a fact that has driven a lobbying frenzy to extend the benefit. This wouldn’t be the first time the credit was expanded, as the original incarnation of the credit applied only to the first 250,000 electric vehicles sold across all manufacturers.
This new legislation will allow for the purchase of an additional 400,000 vehicles to be eligible for a $7,000 credit, but it might as well be permanent. If Congress passes the bill and it’s signed into law, Washington will be sending a clear signal to manufacturers that the gravy train may never end. All the EV makers must then do is flood Washington with lobbying and campaign donations once the next deadline approaches and the cycle could no doubt continue.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Buchanan: The Credibility of the Democratic Party is Now at Issue
The release of the Mueller report has left Democrats in a dilemma. For consider what Robert Mueller concluded after two years of investigation.
Candidate Donald Trump did not conspire or collude with the Russians to hack the emails of the DNC or John Podesta. Trump did not distribute the fruits of those crimes. Nor did anyone in his campaign. On collusion and conspiracy, said Mueller, Trump is innocent.
Mueller did not say Trump did not consider interfering with his investigation. But the investigation went on unimpeded. Mueller’s document demands were all met. And Mueller did not conclude that Trump obstructed justice.
On obstruction, then, not guilty, by reason of no indictment.
We are told Trump ranted to subordinates about firing Mueller.
Yet, as Attorney General Bill Barr pointed out, Trump had excellent reasons to be enraged. He was being pilloried for 2 1/2 years for a crime he not only did not commit but a crime that had never taken place.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
BuzzFeed Busted for Fake News in Story About Fake News
BuzzFeed continues to litter the internet with trash reports and listicles since US President Donald Trump called it “a failing pile of garbage” for uncritically reporting on a fake dossier on Trump (paid for by his political opponents) back in 2017.
Shortly after the Notre Dame fire went viral online, BuzzFeed fake-news patrol journalists published an article — “Here Are The Hoaxes And Misinformation About The Notre Dame Fire” — claiming there was “zero evidence Muslims were responding to the fire with with ‘smiley faces.’“
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
HR 1: Blueprint for an Electoral Takeover
HR 1, a bill sponsored by Representative John Sarbanes (D-Md.) and Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has already passed in the House of Representatives and has been read in the Senate. The title of the bill is For the People Act of 2019, but a more accurate name for the bill might be The Federal Takeover of Elections Act of 2019. This bill includes components that, while being portrayed as making voting easier on Americans, are not only going to lead to corruption but to an unconstitutional takeover of elections by the federal government.
Is HR 1 Constitutional?
Is HR 1 Constitutional? The obvious answer for anyone familiar with the U.S. Constitution and the Federalist Papers is a resounding “No,” because there is no grant of power given to the federal government to simply take over elections.
This bill’s supporters would likely disagree with that claim and quote Article I, Section 4 of the U.S. Constitution as justification, which says:
The times, places, and manner of holding elections, for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the legislature thereof, but the Congress may at any time by law make or alter such regulations, except as to the places of choosing Senators.
To the casual observer, this could reasonably appear to be a general grant of power to Congress to take over and regulate elections nationwide, but it’s not.
Of course, the first clue that this isn’t a general grant of power for ongoing operations can be seen in its placement. It is not among the 18 specifically enumerated powers listed in Article I, Section 8 where one can find grants of power for routine ongoing operations of the federal government, such as coining money, establishing post offices, etc.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Judicial Watch: FBI Admits Hillary Clinton Emails Found in Obama White House
Also Confirms Over 49,000 Clinton Server Emails Found on Weiner Laptop
(Washington, DC) — Judicial Watch announced today that a senior FBI official admitted, in writing and under oath, that the agency found Clinton email records in the Obama White House, specifically, the Executive Office of the President. The FBI also admitted nearly 49,000 Clinton server emails were reviewed as result of a search warrant for her material on the laptop of Anthony Weiner.
E.W. (Bill) Priestap, assistant director of the FBI Counterintelligence Division, made the disclosure to Judicial Watch as part of court-ordered discovery into the Clinton email issue.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Jussie Smollett Case: Brothers Accused of Carrying Out Attack Sue Actor’s Legal Team for Defamation
Corrections and clarifications: The headline of this story was updated to reflect that the Osundairo brothers are accused of carrying out the attack against Jussie Smollett.
The two brothers who say “Empire” actor Jussie Smollett paid them to stage his Jan. 29 assault announced Tuesday that they have filed a federal defamation lawsuit against his legal team, including celebrity attorney Mark Geragos.
Abimbola “Bola” (also known as Abel) and Olabinjo “Ola” Osundairo didn’t appear at the Chicago press conference to announce the lawsuit against Geragos and one of his partners, Tina Glandian.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
McDonald’s is adding some of its biggest hits from around the world to its American menu.
In early June, the fast-food giant is adding four “Worldwide Favorites” to the menu, according to internal documents shared with Business Insider.
The new menu items are the Grand McExtreme Bacon Burger from Spain, the Stroopwafel McFlurry from the Netherlands, the tomato-mozzarella chicken sandwich from Canada, and the cheesy bacon fries from Australia.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Left-Wing Leanings of the U.S. Intelligence Community Exposed
Prior to people such as John Brennan (shown), James Clapper, and James Comey, it was an inviolable rule that the FBI, CIA, NSA and the Pentagon didn’t get involved in partisan politics. If it wasn’t obvious that that rule is no longer in effect by listening to the Trump bashing from the likes of Brennan and Clapper on CNN, along comes an article written by former CIA analyst John Gentry detailing an institutional left-wing bias in America’s intelligence gathering institutions.
“A considerable body of evidence, much of it fragmentary, indicates that many CIA people have left-leaning political preferences,” Gentry said, while adding the caveat, “less evidence show that political bias influences CIA analyses.”
Gentry acknowledged that “bias may have crept into CIA analyses.”
In 2016, those biases became obvious as members of the Obama intelligence community began working actively against Republican nominee Donald Trump in his campaign against Democrat Hillary Clinton.
“The attacks on Trump were unprecedented in their substance, tone and volume,” Gentry wrote. “Critics went far beyond trying to correct Trump’s misstatements about U.S. intelligence; they attacked him as a human being.”
Gentry also condemned former CIA Deputy Director Michael Morrell for having the audacity to shill for Hillary Clinton during the 2016 campaign. Morrell believed that his stint as a CIA bureaucrat gave him the bona fides to tell ABC’s This Week program in August of 2016 that he “would trust [Hillary] with the crown jewels of the United States government.”
Gentry claims that Morrell stepped well outside of his purview by endorsing Clinton. “He [Morrell] was trained and authorized to ‘make the call’ about foreign intelligence issues within the classified, internal world of the U.S. government…. He did not recommend policies, including voting choices.”
Gentry concluded that the bureaucracies of the intelligence communities were packed with leftists during the Obama administration as a result of underhanded, demographics-based hiring policies.
“The U.S. government has traditionally and wisely declined to ask its job applicants and civil service about their political affiliations,” Gentry explained. “But [the Obama administration] got around the policy by mandating hiring from demographic groups known to be generally pro-Democratic.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Mueller Report Spells Out Russia-Related Charges for WikiLeaks Founder Julian Assange
Special counsel Robert Mueller’s report specifically implicates WikiLeaks’ founder — the now-jailed Julian Assange — in the direct cybertransfers of stolen Democratic Party documents from hackers in Russian military intelligence to his anti-secrecy group.
Mr. Mueller brought an indictment in July against Moscow’s elite cyberwarriors who conspired with WikiLeaks, but the federal prosecutor didn’t call out Mr. Assange by name and identified his operation only as “Organization One.”
Mr. Assange repeatedly denied receiving thousands of emails from Russia and suggested his source was a Democratic insider. The Mueller report accused him of lying by using such words as “dissembling” and “implied falsely.”
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
New Plant Species Discovered in San Luis Obispo
A new species of plant was recently discovered in the Irish Hills Natural Reserve, according to the City of San Luis Obispo.
The Irish Hills spineflower, Chorizanthe aphanantha, was reportedly discovered after the city commissioned an environmental consulting firm to conduct a biological assessment of the Waddell Ranch area, a 154-acre site at the southern end of the Irish Hills Natural Reserve that the city purchased in 2017.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
There are so many crimes — or potential crimes — involved in what the Obama White House orchestrated through his Justice Department and FBI (among other departments) that it’s impossible to list them all.
In a stunning analysis in the World Tribune entitled Justice: Suddenly, the hunters have become the hunted, historian Victor Davis Hanson is quoted as saying that those “who cried the loudest about leaking, collusion, lying, and obstruction are themselves soon very likely to be accused of just those crimes.” Among them, Hanson lists the following:
Clockwise from top left: James Clapper, John Brennan, Andrew McCabe and James Comey
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
“This is truly a miracle, it’s like he fell off a bicycle rather then off the third floor of the mall.”
The five-year-old boy named Landen thrown three stories off a balcony at the Mall of America by a 24-year-old convict with multiple priors is reportedly experiencing a “miraculous” recovery.
Though he has broken bones all over his body, including fractures in his face, his pastor Mac Hammond of the Living Word Christian Center who met with his doctors shared good news with his congregation during his Easter service.
“There was zero evidence of brain damage — there wasn’t even swelling,” Hammond said Landen’s doctors told him. “No spinal chord injury, no nerve damage, no internal injuries that were life-threatening — there was some small internal bleeding that had to be addressed.”
Hammond said one of the attending physicians told him, “This is truly a miracle, it’s like he fell off a bicycle rather then off the third floor of the mall.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Veteran Reporter Woodward Calls for FBI, CIA to be Investigated Over Steele Dossier
“Real intelligence experts looked at this and said no, this is not intelligence, this is garbage.”
Bob Woodward, the reporter who broke open the Watergate scandal, has called for the FBI and CIA to be investigated regarding the agencies’ handling of the debunked dossier that formed the basis of the Mueller investigation of the Trump campaign.
During an interview with Fox News’s Chris Wallace, Woodward declared that the dossier authored by former British intelligence agent Christopher Steele “has got a lot of garbage in it”.
“What I found out recently, which was really quite surprising, the dossier, which really has got a lot of garbage in it and Mueller found that to be the case, early in building the intelligence community assessment on Russian interference, in an early draft, they actually put the dossier on page two in kind of a breakout box.”
“I think it was the CIA pushing this. Real intelligence experts looked at this and said no, this is not intelligence, this is garbage and they took it out,” Woodward added.
“But in this process, the idea that they would include something like that in one of the great stellar intelligence assessments, as Mueller also found out, is highly questionable.” he added, saying that it “Needs to be investigated.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Another French Church Burns on Easter Sunday, Probable Arson
Police have confirmed that a fire in the French church of Notre-Dame de Grce on Easter Sunday appears to have been intentionally set, making it the latest in a string of desecrations of Christian churches in the country.
The fire was started in a large, wooden confessional around 4:30pm and proceeded to consume a dais in the presbytery of the eighteenth-century church located in the southern French town of Eyguières, near Provence. “Flames several meters high were coming out of the church,” said the mayor of Eyguières, Henri Pons, before a team of 30 firefighters with six vehicles arrived and managed to contain the blaze.
An area of some 20 square meters in the church was destroyed but observers have noted that the damage would have been far worse had it not been it not for the bold intervention of a local inhabitant.
A man who lives in front of the church saw the flames emerging from a stained-glass window, the mayor said. He “used fire extinguishers from the village movie theater and courageously entered the church while waiting for firefighters to arrive.”
“If this brave citizen, a former top sportsman, had not intervened, the church would probably have burned to the ground,” the mayor reported. “It was Easter Sunday and there was almost nobody in the village.”
The local hero, a judo champion by the name of Joel Jouve, said afterward that the air in the church was “unbreathable” and there was very little light when he entered, but he was able to find two holy water fonts, which he emptied onto the fire.
“I shouted for someone to find me fire extinguishers and I used them on the fire,” he said, adding he was just happy to have “saved something.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Barrister Seeks Britons Barred From EU Election Vote
A French barrister known for fighting for Britons’ EU citizenship rights in France is now seeking British people who would have liked to vote in the EU elections in France but are unable to due to the last-minute extension of Brexit.
Anyone to whom this applies and who feels strongly about it may contact avocat Julien Fouchet for more details at jfouchet.33@gmail.com
Mr Fouchet has been seeking to challenge the French no-deal Brexit laws on the basis that they treat British people after Brexit as having lost their EU citizenship rights, which he disagrees with.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Brexiteer Calls for May to go ‘Today’, MPs Push for a Departure Date
Officer of the 1922 Committee Nigel Evans has said that there is now a “clamour” of calls for Theresa May to resign and that he wants her to confirm she will be stepping down as prime minister “today.”
Mr Evans made the comments on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Tuesday after The Telegraph reported that backbench Members of Parliament are planning to change the party rules to force the prime minister to name her departure date.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Brussels Fears Spanish Election May Not End Political Instability
The EU is hoping for a “stable” majority after nearly five years without solid governments, says one high-ranking official
Elections are one of those defining moments in the history of a country. Spain is viewing the general election of April 28 as some sort of second democratic Transition, following a decade of recession that left lingering scars in the form of unemployment and inequality. There is also the biggest political crisis in 40 years to contend with — Catalonia — as well as a new and imperfect five-way party system that is going to turn parliament on its head.
Spain’s young leaders (they were all born after 1972) have opted for a confrontational tone that complicates post-election alliances. This ulcerous atmosphere also makes it hard to hold far-reaching debates: besides the headline-grabbing sound bites, hardly anyone is taking a clear stand on the main issues driving Europe’s agenda, from Brexit to immigration or the future of the euro.
Some EU sources are warning about the negative consequences of prolonging political instability in Spain. “Brussels is hoping for a government with a stable parliamentary majority that will be able to push the budget through and put an end to all the wavering that has been the rule since 2015,” said a high-ranking European official in a conversation with EL PAÍS…
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
CUK Party Launch: Down to Earth Candidates Include Yoga Teacher and Ex-BBC Presenter
Heidi Allen MP launched the “Remain alliance” Change UK (CUK) party Tuesday, heralding the string of MEP candidates “from every background” including a yoga instructor, a former BBC journalist, and top politician Boris Johnson’s sister.
One notable member of the new MEP candidates for the anti-Brexit party is Jessica Simor QC, who worked in the legal team that forced the Government to seek Parliament’s permission to invoke Article 50, the mechanism for leaving the EU.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Donald Trump to Make Full State Visit to United Kingdom in June
President Donald Trump will make a full state visit to the United Kingdom between the 3rd and 5th of June 2019.
The visit, which stands as distinct from the previous ‘working’ visit in 2018, as a full state occasion would come as part of the 75th-anniversary commemorations of the D-Day invasion by joint U.S., British Empire, and other troops against Nazi Germany-occupied Europe in June 1944.
UPDATE 1230 — Buckingham Palace confirms state visit
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
France: Union Condemns Ban on Journalist From Protests
Video reporter vows to ignore court order and carry on filming demonstrations on the ground
An independent journalist has vowed to continue attending gilets jaunes demonstrations in Paris and said he will also be at the May 1 marches, despite a court ban pending a trial in October.
Gaspard Glanz was arrested at Saturday’s gilets jaunes protest in the capital, and will face charges of “contempt of a person holding public authority” when he goes to trial on October 18. Until then, he has been banned from publishing content in Paris on Saturdays and on May 1.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
France: Notre-Dame Architect Pledges to ‘Heal’ Paris Cathedral
The architect in charge of the stricken Notre-Dame cathedral in Paris has pledged to “heal” the building from its “nightmare suffering”, after visiting the site for the first time since the fire disaster on April 15.
Architect-in-chief Philippe Villeneuve was able to enter the cathedral for the first time this week, after its access had been forbidden in the wake of the devastating accidental firethat destroyed the spire and most of the roof.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Germany: 24 Injured After ‘Confused’ Somali Storms Easter Mass While Shouting, Pelting Stones
More than 20 people were injured at a church in Germany after mass panic ensued when a ‘mentally confused’ Somali stormed into an Easter service, shouting and throwing stones.
Two dozen people were treated for injuries, including four hospitalised with minor injuries after the 36-year-old suspect burst into St Paul’s Church in Munich at 9.30 pm Saturday, about an hour into the Easter Vigil of its Croatian Catholic community.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Priest Gets 1 Yr 10 Mts for Abusing Minor
In Marsala
(ANSA) — Marsala, April 23 — An elderly Italian priest got a suspended sentence of one years ten months Tuesday for sexual violence against a minor from the Gambia.
Father Nicolò Genna, 76, was found guilty of offering the boy money and a job in exchange for sex.
Father Genna has been a parish priest in Marsala for the last 40 years.
He was found guilty of trying to sexually abuse the boy, judicial sources said.
The attempted abuse took place in the priest’s contrada Addolorata parish, they said.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Man Wearing Crucifix Stabbed in Rome
Moroccan national accused of attempted homicide, religious hate seen as an ‘aggravating factor’
(ANSA) — Rome, April 23 — Interior Minister and Deputy Premier Matteo Salvini said Tuesday that he has called for security to be beefed up after a Moroccan national stabbed a man wearing a crucifix at Rome’s central Termini train station on Saturday evening.
The victim, a 44-year-old Georgian national, suffered an injury to the throat.
Rome prosecutors have accused a 37-year-old Moroccan of attempted homicide over the attack, with “religious hate” cited as an ‘aggravating factor’ in the crime. Salvini said he had written to Italy’s prefects and police chiefs after the attack, telling them to “increase checks and attention in places of aggregation of Islamic citizens in order to prevent any type of violence against innocent citizens”.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: We Won’t Bring Down Govt After EU Elections — Salvini
Deputy premier dismisses speculation he may break off alliance
(ANSA) — Rome, April 23 — Deputy Premier and Interior Minister Matteo Salvini on Tuesday dismissed speculation that his League party could break off its alliance with the 5-Star Movement after May’s European elections and bring down the government. “No we have got too much to do,” Salvini told RAI radio when asked about this possibility. “The League doesn’t want to bring all this down”.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Labour MP Who Said ISIS Bride Should “Come Back” To UK Wants to Ban President Trump From State Visit
Left-wing Labour MP Rupa Huq, who said that ISIS bride Shamima Begum should “come back” to the UK, is now calling for President Donald Trump to be banned from entering the country on a state visit because of “racism”.
During a radio interview in February, Huq said Begum, who had her citizenship revoked, had suffered “trial by media” and should have been allowed to return to the UK from Syria.
This despite the fact that Begum literally stitched bombs into suicide vests to ensure they exploded when taken off during her time alongside ISIS jihadists in Syria.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Macron’s initial promise to restore the magnificent cathedral to its former glory has been shoved aside. Now he says it will be rebuilt “consistent with our modern, diverse nation”, and at the same time the French Government has announced an international competition to redesign the Notre Dame spire.
After the announcement designers haven’t missed the opportunity to respond with their ideas, proposing that it should not be faithfully restored, but rebuilt with “contemporary” features such as a glass roof, steel spire, or even a minaret.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Scola Told His Supporters, “Vote for Bergoglio”. the Secrets of the Conclave That Changed the Church
The supporters of the then Argentinean archbishop defeated the rumors about his illness and alleged collusion with the dictatorship
In the frenetic days after Benedict XVI’s historic and shocking resignation, the predictions were in favor of an Italo-Brazilian duel between Cardinals Scola and Scherer. With the Archbishop of Milan favored for the succession to the Throne of Peter. But the result of the first Conclave vote told a different story: Joseph Ratzinger’s Italian pupil received 30 votes, but not the forty that many expected; right behind him was Bergoglio, “the surprise”, chosen by 26 cardinals. Third Marc Ouellet with 22. The Archbishop of São Paulo at 4. This meant first of all that the Italians were divided on their compatriot, and that, as Cardinal Oswald Gracias says, “the Holy Spirit was guiding us in a particular direction”.
Gerard O’Connell, Vatican expert of America, the New York Jesuit magazine, author of an extraordinary 270-page work, “The Election of Pope Francis: An Inside Account of the Conclave That Changed History” (Orbis Books, 2019, in bookshops today), tells it all. Among other things, O’Connell also followed the 2013 Conclave for Vatican Insider, the portal of La Stampa, which has been quoted several times in the book…
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Some women have reportedly re-formed units of the militants’ feared religious police, the ‘Hisba,’ and enforce rules and punishments on other residents of the at the al-Hol and Roj camps.
| — Hat tip: SS | [Return to headlines] |
Kuwaiti academic Dr. Mariam Al-Sohel claims to have invented anal suppositories that “cure” homosexuality” by exterminating an “anal worm” that feeds on semen.
Yes, really.
In a clip taken from Kuwaiti television and translated by MEMRI-TV, Al-Sohel claims that her product ‘cures sexual urges’ of gay men and “butch lesbians”.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
The country’s interior ministry announced on Tuesday it executed 37 Saudi nationals in connection with terrorism crimes, state media reported.
| — Hat tip: SS | [Return to headlines] |
AOC Blasted for Not Posting a Single Tweet About Sri Lanka Terror Attacks
Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is receiving heat for failing to tweet a single time about the Islamic terror attacks in Sri Lanka despite tweeting 14 times about the mosque attack in New Zealand.
“Twitter-obsessed @AOC posted 14 times about the terror attack on Muslims in New Zealand, but has posted nothing about the terror attack on Christians by Muslim extremists in Sri Lanka. Very odd,” tweeted UK journalist and broadcaster Piers Morgan.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
BBC Frets Over “Nervous and Afraid” Muslims Following Islamic Terror Attacks in Sri Lanka
Following attacks by Islamic terrorists that killed hundreds of people in Sri Lanka, BBC News expressed concern for “nervous and afraid” Muslims.
BBC News’ live coverage of the aftermath of the bombings, which primarily targeted Catholic Christians, made a point of highlighting how “Sri Lankan Muslims are left nervous and afraid.”
This would be as absurd as worrying about the safety of white people following the Christchurch mosque massacre.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Brunei Defends Death-by-Stoning for Gay Sex
Brunei has fired off an angry letter to the European parliament defending its decision to begin stoning people for gay sex and adultery on April 3 in accordance with sharia law.
In a four-page letter to MEPs, Brunei writes “For several centuries, Islam has been the official religion of Brunei,” and that because of cultural diversity, they should be given “tolerance, respect, understanding and the giving of policy space, especially for small states like Brunei.”
In other words; be tolerant of our intolerance based on our religious beliefs.
[Comment: Soon coming to Sharia councils in the UK?]
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Brunei Cites ‘Cultural Diversity’ As Reason it Should be Allowed to Stone Gay People to Death
Brunei has sent an angry letter to the European parliament asserting that ‘cultural diversity’ and “tolerance” of Islam should allow it to stone gay people to death without criticism.
The Islamic country recently introduced new punishments for the offenses of theft, robbery, adultery and sodomy. They include amputation, whipping and stoning to death.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
The bombs used in the Easter Sunday attacks are thought to have been made in a copper factory in Wellampitiya, a suburb of Colombo. One of the attackers, Inshaf Ahamad, owned the factory.
| — Hat tip: SS | [Return to headlines] |
Hungary Pledges Funds to Aid Christians After Sri Lanka Bombings
Hungary is making an immediate donation of 30,000 euros to assist survivors and orphans of the Sri Lanka Easter massacre and is discussing an additional larger gift.
“The Hungarian government is offering nine million Hungarian forints in emergency aid to the severely injured survivors and the orphaned children of the Easter Sunday attacks in Sri Lanka,” the State Secretary for the Aid of Persecuted Christians and the “Hungary Helps” program announced Monday evening.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Manik Suriaaratchi and her 10-year-old daughter, Alexandria, were among 290 people killed in the bomb blasts that targeted tourists and Christians in Negombo, north of Colombo, Sri Lanka.
| — Hat tip: SS | [Return to headlines] |
Zahran Hashim, a radical Islamic cleric known for posting incendiary videos on YouTube, was allegedly one of the suicide bombers who targeted the Shangri La hotel in Colombo.
| — Hat tip: SS | [Return to headlines] |
A colleague has revealed the final text message sent to a Perth-based UK doctor killed in the devastating Easter Sunday terror attacks in Sri Lanka.
| — Hat tip: SS | [Return to headlines] |
Knights of Columbus Pledge $100,000 to Victims of Sri Lanka Easter Massacre
The Knights of Columbus have pledged $100,000 in assistance to the victims of Sunday’s jihadist suicide bombings of Sri Lankan Christian churches and luxury hotels.
The coordinated attacks targeted Christians on the most important feast of the year, commemorating Christ’s resurrection, bringing about the death of more than 300 people with hundreds more wounded.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Pakistan: Underage Girls Being Kidnapped and Forced Into Marriage
Holi, the Hindu festival of colours steeped in ancient legend, celebrates the coming spring as winter ebbs. On March 20, while the local Hindus in Sindh’s Ghotki province of Pakistan delighted in the religious revelries, two sisters were allegedly abducted from their home.
Raveena and Reena Meghwar, said to be 12 and 15 respectively, came from a poor, working-class family from Daharki — a region notorious for underage Hindu girls being kidnapped, forced to convert to Islam, and married off to grown men. When their father discovered that they were missing, he immediately launched a search of the entire area with their two brothers. Desperately, they also checked local hospitals and the police station. By the time morning had broken, there were still no signs of the girls.
The following day, a video emerged of the girls with a maulvi or an Islamic preacher, who laid claims that the sisters walked to Dargah Bharchundi Sharif in Daharki of their own accord. The maulvi said that the sisters wished to convert to Islam but ‘were not afforded the opportunity’. As such, he said that the girls had accepted the religion, consequently making them the responsibility of all Muslims. Flanked on either side of them were their new husbands — both of whom it was later revealed were already married. The priest stated that the girls were married of their own free will.
Another video followed suit, which promptly went viral, showing Raveena and Reena’s father, sitting on the ground outside of the police station, distraughtly thrashing himself and asking for someone to shoot him.
Seven people were arrested in connection with the girls’ disappearance, including the cleric and the husbands’ families, with an investigation pending…
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
The silence began at 8.30am, the time that the first of six bombs detonated in Sri Lanka on Sunday, unleashing carnage at hotels and churches packed with Easter worshippers.
| — Hat tip: SS | [Return to headlines] |
In the video the eight suspected Sri Lanka attackers stand in a circle, touch hands and pledge their loyalty to the elusive ISIS caliph, who has not been seen in public for five years.
| — Hat tip: SS | [Return to headlines] |
The men, whose names haven’t been revealed, blew themselves up at the Shangri-La and Cinnamon Grand hotels. Pictured: The suspected suicide bombers. It is unclear which are the brothers.
| — Hat tip: SS | [Return to headlines] |
Sri Lanka Attacks Were Response to NZ Mosque Massacre
In an address to the nation’s parliament, Sri Lanka’s Defense Minister said that the Islamic terror attacks on luxury hotels and churches which killed nearly 300 people and injured hundreds more were a response to the New Zealand mosque shooting.
“Investigations reveal that this attack was carried out in response to the Christchurch Mosque Attack in New Zealand on Muslims. There was a security lapse leading to this devastation in Sri Lanka,” said Ruwan Wijewardene.
The defense minister confirmed that two domestic Islamist terror groups were responsible for the bloodshed.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Security services in Sri Lanka face backlash as its revealed Muslim groups alerted military intelligence officials to Easter Sunday bombers, National Thowheed Jamaath and its leaders, three years ago.
| — Hat tip: SS | [Return to headlines] |
UK Archbishop Calls for Recognition of ‘Anti-Christianism’ After Sri Lanka Attacks
The Coptic Archbishop of London has called for acknowledgment that “anti-Christianism” is as real a phenomenon as anti-Semitism and Islamophobia following the horrific Easter massacre of Sri Lankan Christians.
“It is time for us all to #StandTogether and recognise #Antichristianism as much a real phenomenon and epidemic as #Antisemitism and #Islamophobia and deal with it as such,” wrote Archbishop Angaelos in a tweet Monday.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Zoologists Discover Two New Bird Species in Indonesia
Zoologists from Trinity College Dublin, working with partners from Halu Oleo University (UHO) and Operation Wallacea, have discovered two beautiful new bird species in the Wakatobi Archipelago of Sulawesi, Indonesia. Details of their discovery—of the Wakatobi white-eye and the Wangi-wangi white-eye—have been published today (April 24) in the Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society, which is the same journal in which Alfred Wallace and Charles Darwin published their game-changing original ideas about speciation in 1858.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Queensland Senator Fraser Anning has sparked controversy once again after blaming the terrorist attacks in Sri Lanka on ‘Islamic populations creating violence’.
| — Hat tip: SS | [Return to headlines] |
Image of Jacinda Ardern Dressed in a Hijab Will be Painted on a 25-Metre Street Silo in Melbourne
The iconic photo of New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern hugging a woman in the wake of the Chritchurch massacre will be painted as a huge mural on a Melbourne street silo.
| — Hat tip: SS | [Return to headlines] |
According to a witness, the man ‘opened his package’ and injected himself as the child watched on in Melbourne’s ‘heroin capital’ of Richmond.
| — Hat tip: SS | [Return to headlines] |
Large Earthquakes Cause Tall Buildings in Mexico City and Manila to Sway Back and Forth
When skyscrapers start moving back and forth, that definitely is not a a good sign. In recent months, there has been a tremendous amount of seismic activity along the “Ring of Fire”, and a couple of significant earthquakes on Monday got a lot of attention because they happened in very heavily populated areas. Fortunately the damage was fairly limited and only a few people died, but scientists assure us that it is only a matter of time before a killer quake hits a major city. And considering the fact that hundreds of millions of people live along the perimeter of the Pacific Ocean, when a killer quake does strike we could potentially be talking about a disaster unlike anything we have ever seen before.
Let’s start our discussion by talking about the large quake that just hit southern Mexico…
An earthquake in southern Mexico caused tall buildings to sway in the Mexican capital Monday, prompting hundreds of office workers to evacuate along a central avenue temporarily. There were no initial reports of damage or injury.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Receive Gay Migrants if Under Threat at Home — Top Court
Authorities must see if persecution from family as well as State
(ANSA) — Rome, April 23 — Italy’s supreme Court of Cassation has ruled that the authorities must verify whether a gay asylum seeker is adequately protected against discrimination in their homeland before rejecting a request for refugee status.
Therefore, the fact that the home country does not have laws that are discriminatory against gays is not sufficient reason to deny the request. The supreme court expressed this position as it upheld an appeal by a gay man from Ivory Coast against the refusal of his request by a committee in the southern city of Crotone.
The committee based its decision on the fact that unlike other African States, homosexuality is not a crime in Ivory Coast and the country was not in a state of armed conflict.
But the court said this is not enough and the authorities also needed to verify whether the applicant came under threats from private individuals.
This was because in this case the appellant could face threats from members of his families.
Indeed, the man said his partner had been killed by his father, a Muslim imam.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Neighbours Complain After Belgian Woman Hosts 100 Illegal Migrants in Her Garden
A woman in the Belgian village of Spy is causing controversy among other residents by hosting around 100 migrants in her garden while they attempt to illegally reach the UK.
The woman, named Améline, has hosted a number of migrants on her property for the better part of a year but the number has grown to where there are now nearly one hundred, mostly African, migrants camped in tents in the area, broadcaster RTL reports.
The migrants are fed, housed and cleaned for by Améline and her family. “We try to do our best, they are clean … we are always behind them, but it’s not easy for us, we are starting to become exhausted,” Améline said.
While at least one neighbour helps Améline, several others have demanded that the police act and move the illegal migrants from the village, with one resident arguing that the camp smelled terrible in the summer.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Sweden: 2018 Saw Largest Labour Migration in a Decade
According to figures from the SOM Institute in Gothenburg, in 2018 Sweden saw the largest number of people moving to the country to work since the rules for labour migration were relaxed in 2008.
The figures come from a survey undertaken by the SOM Institute that revealed increased support for more labour migration from members of the Swedish public with Political scientist Elina Lindgren, author of the survey, arguing that the increase in support is likely due to the lack of skilled workers and an ageing labour force, Sveriges Radio reports.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Activists Dressed as Clowns Protest ‘Drag Queen Story Hour’
Activists dressed as clowns interrupted a local ‘drag queen story hour’ event in New Orleans to draw attention to the absurdity of the situation.
Drag queen story hour, which first surfaced in 2015, sees men dressed as women tour public libraries and schools across the United States and Canada reading books to children.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Protecting “diversity” requires total uniformity.
The media is threatening to dox a female Microsoft employee after she revealed in an internal message board that “senior leadership is awarded more money if they discriminate against Asians and white men.”
The leftist rag Quartz said the comments amounted to an attack on “diversity” and threatened to dox her in response…
Two posts on the board criticizing Microsoft diversity initiatives as “discriminatory hiring” and suggesting that women are less suited for engineering roles have elicited more than 800 comments, both affirming and criticizing the viewpoints, multiple Microsoft employees have told Quartz. The posts were written by a female Microsoft program manager. Quartz reached out to her directly for comment, and isn’t making her name public at this point, pending her response.
“Does Microsoft have any plans to end the current policy that financially incentivizes discriminatory hiring practices? To be clear, I am referring to the fact that senior leadership is awarded more money if they discriminate against Asians and white men,” read the original post by the Microsoft program manager on Yammer, a corporate messaging platform owned by Microsoft. The employee commented consistently throughout the thread, making similar arguments. Quartz reviewed lengthy sections of the internal discussion provided by Microsoft employees.
“I have an ever-increasing file of white male Microsoft employees who have faced outright and overt discrimination because they had the misfortune of being born both white and male. This is unacceptable,” the program manager wrote in a comment later. The Microsoft employees who spoke to Quartz said they weren’t aware of any action by the company in response, despite the comments being reported to Microsoft’s human resources department.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Mystery Babylon Has Begun to Burn
The secular agnostic-atheist and Muslim peoples of the world have united against the culture and faith within the Western Christian nations. The Western governments, often run by secular or Christian-in-name-only politicians, have welcomed in Muslim immigrants, flooding and overwhelming America, Europe, and other westernized Christian nations, knowing full well that Muslim immigrants will never assimilate to the culture or religion of their new immigrated to nation. The Western secular politicians, wanting to fully implement a New World Order, with a central world government, view Judeo-Christian values as a major impediment slowing them down from attaining their globalist government vision. Thus, the secular politicians, who have nothing in common with Muslims, have embraced them, as they know that Islamists will be an enemy of their enemy: Christians.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Supreme Court Schedules Transgender Debate in 2020 Presidential Campaign
The Supreme Court is expected to debate and decide by Summer 2020 whether the nation should define peoples’ legal sex by their biology or their “gender identity.”
The news was announced Monday when the court said it would decide if decades-old sex-discrimination laws must be reinterpreted to include people who merely say they are members of the opposite sex.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Tucker: Left Struggles to Say the Word ‘Christians’
Their euphemisms aren’t accidental: They believe Christians are the problem.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Vegan Feminist Café That Imposed 18% “Gender Surcharge” On Men Closes Down
A vegan feminist cafe in Australia that imposed an 18 per cent “gender surcharge” on men and gave women priority seating has closed down.
The Handsome Her cafe, which only opened a few years ago and was located in inner city Melbourne, described itself as “by women, for women”.
The venue attracted headlines in 2017 for challenging the “gender pay gap” (which doesn’t exist) by charging men extra.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
5 Environmental and Human Trends Worth Celebrating
Peak Population: The world population will likely peak at 9.8 billion people at around 2080 and fall to 9.5 billion by 2100 in the medium fertility scenario calculated by demographer Wolfgang Lutz and his colleagues at the International Institute of Applied Systems Analysis.
Alternatively, assuming rapid economic growth, technological advancement, and rising levels of educational attainment for both sexes—all factors that tend to lower fertility—Lutz projects that world population will more likely peak at around 8.9 billion by 2060 and decline to 7.8 billion by the end of the 21st century. Global population stands at about 7.7 billion now.
Other global trends such as steeply falling child mortality rates, increased urbanization, rising incomes, and the spread of political and economic freedom all strongly correlate with families choosing to have fewer children. Instead of having many children in the hope that a few might survive, more parents around the world now at aim at providing those few that they do have with the skills and social capital that will enable them to flourish in a modern economy.
Forest Expansion: Global tree canopy cover increased by 2.24 million square kilometers (865,000 square miles) between 1982 and 2016, reported researchers at the University of Maryland in a September 2018 study in ?Nature?.
Using satellite data to track the changes in various land covers, they found that gains in forest area in the temperate, subtropical, and boreal climatic zones are offsetting declines in the tropics.
Tree canopy in Europe, including European Russia, has increased by 35 percent—the greatest gain among all continents. The researchers attribute much of that increase to the “natural afforestation on abandoned agricultural land,” which has been “a common process in Eastern Europe after the collapse of the Soviet Union.” The tree canopy in the U.S. and China has increased by 34 and 15 percent respectively.
Simon Resource Abundance Index: Data for 50 foundational commodities covering energy, food, materials, and metals was collected by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund between 1980 and 2017. Adjusted for inflation, the prices for 43 commodities declined, two remained equally valuable, and five commodities increased in price. On average, the real price of 50 commodities fell by 36.3 percent.
Between 1980 and 2017, the inflation-adjusted global hourly income per person grew by 80.1 percent. Therefore, in terms of the amount of work required, commodities became 64.7 percent cheaper. Put differently, commodities that took 60 minutes of work to buy in 1980, took only 21 minutes of work to buy in 2017.
U.S. Air Pollution Trends: The Environmental Protection Agency reports that between 1980 and 2017, U.S. gross domestic product increased 165 percent, vehicle miles traveled increased 110 percent, energy consumption increased by 25 percent, and U.S. population grew by 44 percent. During the same period, emissions of carbon monoxide fell by 72 percent; lead by 99 percent; nitrogen oxides by 61 percent; compounds from automobile exhaust associated with ozone by 54 percent; sulfur dioxide by 89 percent, and particulates by 61 percent. During the same time period, total emissions of the six principal air pollutants dropped by 67 percent.
Peak Farmland: Global arable land (annual crops like wheat and corn) and permanent crops (such as coffee and cocoa) were planted on 1,371 million hectares in 1961. That rose to 1,533 million hectares in 2009. Rockefeller University researcher Jesse Ausubel and his co-authors project a return to 1,385 million hectares in 2060, thus restoring at least 146 million hectares to nature. This is an area two and a half times that of France or the size of ten Iowas. While cropland has continued to expand slowly since 2009, the World Bank reports that land devoted to agriculture (including pastures) peaked in 2000 at 4,918 million hectares and had fallen to 4,862 million hectares by 2015. This human withdrawal from the landscape is the likely prelude to a vast ecological restoration over the course of this century.
| — Hat tip: Dora | [Return to headlines] |
Christian Charity: Average of 345 Christians Killed Per Month Globally
Christians have become one of the most persecuted religious groups in the world according to figures from charity Open Doors which claims that per month on average around 345 Christians are murdered globally because of their beliefs.
The Christian charity, which is based in the United States, has revealed that per month at least 105 churches or places of worship are vandalised or set on fire and approximately 219 Christians are put on trial or sent to prison for expressing their faith in the Christian Gospels, Italian newspaper Il Giornale reports.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
They were about to return to Australia, but they didn’t remove their muzzles.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6948253/Women-children-joined-ISIS-Syria-terrorised-female-extremists.html
Their grandmother surprises me: why isn’t she trying to de-radicalize her grandchildren?
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I don’t know if you heard the story of the bride of Jihad Varvara Karaulova in the West. In all the photos she is without a hijab. Therefore, I think that she is a possible FSB agent.
But those who bring Kadyrov from Syria and Iraq are dressed a-la Salafit-style.
What’s going to happen in regard to things Christian is that true believers are going to go underground (as they already are in some places) and quietly live according to the principles.
There’s no sense in weeping and wailing over things like someone with a crucifix getting stabbed or Notre Dame cathedral or priestly abuse of children or for that matter daring to agree or disagree with what the Pope just said.
The Catholic system at least has built in procedure that covers everything without the formal rigmarole.
“Heidi Allen MP launched the “Remain alliance” Change UK (CUK) party” – [redacted]
Re: ‘mentally confused’ Somali
I wonder how the song Officer Krupke sounds in Somali.
Well, there’s certainly a “social disease” involved!
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Do not let America Become London: Katie Hopkins
https://youtu.be/RbQ1zwhnotU