I’ve been editing video transcripts all day, ever since I got home from church, so that I was unable to post anything. However, when you see the longest and most important of those videos — a speech by Viktor Orbán — I’m sure you’ll agree that it was worth it. Vlad will have the video ready by sometime tomorrow.
The most important news item of the day was that Pope Francis lauded Multiculturalism, saying that migrants always bring riches.
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.
“It Belongs to the People, Not the Bankers” — Italy Moves to Seize Gold From Central Bank
Two weeks ago, somewhat out of the blue, ECB President Mario Draghi issued an odd statement confirming that the European Central Bank needs to approve any operation in the foreign reserves of euro zone countries, including gold and large foreign currency holdings.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Billionaire Hedge Fund Manager Says There’s About to be an Uprising in America
Billionaire hedge fund manager Ray Dalio says that a revolution is coming in America because wages have stagnated and the income gap between the rich and poor is wider than ever.
Dalio, who is worth almost $17 billion dollars, warns that, “Widening income/wealth/opportunity gaps pose existential threats to the United States because these gaps are bringing about damaging domestic and international conflicts and weakening America’s condition.”
The Bridgewater Associates founder says that those who grew up middle class are earning less than their parents because wage growth compared to inflation has been stagnant since the 1980’s.
“Disparity in wealth, especially when accompanied by disparity in values, leads to increasing conflict and, in the government, that manifests itself in the form of populism of the left and populism of the right and often in revolutions of one sort or another,” Dalio writes.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
German Economy Forecast to Slow Sharply
If Britain leaves the EU without a deal, it could get worse
(ANSA-AP) — BERLIN, APRIL 4 — A group of leading German economic research institutes slashed their growth forecast for the country on Thursday, warning that if Britain leaves the European Union without a deal, it could get even worse. In a joint statement, the five institutes said they were reducing their autumn forecast of 1.9 percent growth for Europe’s largest economy downward to 0.8 percent after concluding “political risks have further clouded the global economic environment.” The new assessment is in line with that issued last month by the German government’s panel of independent economic advisers, and lower than the government’s own 1 percent prediction. The institutes, DIW, ifo, IfW, IWH and RWI, said they reached their conclusion March 29, “when it still seemed that a hard Brexit would be avoided.” “This has now become less likely, but is still possible,” they said. “However, if a no-deal Brexit occurs, economic growth this year and the next is likely to be significantly lower than indicated in this forecast.” More than the political risks, the report concluded the economic slump in the second half of 2018 was “primarily due to obstacles to production in industry.”
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez America’s Biggest Socialist-Scripted Act
Much is being written and said about Modern Day Harpy Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC), but no one sys it better than author/journalist Marilyn MacGruder Barnewell: Through AOC, “We’re actually living SNL!”(Saturday Night Live).
SNL became a surrealistic every day reality, when top staff of Bolshevik Bernie Sanders opened Pandora’s Box and let a rarin’to go, fully scripted, screaming meemie AOC out.
AOC was born from a political casting call that chose her from a cast of 10,000 entrants…
Here’s how it went down:
Soon after Election Day 2016, when ‘progressives’ in both public office and media were crying themselves a river, over the surprise election of Donald Trump as America’s 45th, Ocasio-Cortez’s younger brother, Gabriel, sent her name to Brand New Congress (BNC), a Bernie Sanders-inspired group recruiting candidates for the House and Senate.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
American Idiocracy: 50 Years Later, We’re Still Stranded in the Twilight Zone
Have you noticed how much life increasingly feels like an episode of The Twilight Zone?
Only instead of Rod Serling’s imaginary “land of both shadow and substance, of things and ideas,” we’re trapped in a topsy-turvy, all-too-real land of corruption, brutality and lies, where freedom, justice and integrity play second fiddle to political ambition, corporate greed, and bureaucratic tyranny.
It’s not merely that life in the American Police State is more brutal, or more unjust, or even more corrupt. It’s getting more idiotic, more perverse, and more outlandish by the day.
Somewhere over the course of the past 240-plus years, democracy has given way to idiocracy, and representative government has given way to a kleptocracy (a government ruled by thieves) and a kakistocracy (a government run by unprincipled career politicians, corporations and thieves that panders to the worst vices in our nature and has little regard for the rights of American citizens).
Examples abound.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Are Americans Destroying Their Own Country?
We cannot ignore what is happening right before our eyes and say that could never happen in America, but we are seeing it happen. We can’t set back and say someone will take care of this because we are the someone that must act to do something. We pay no attention to who we put into office. We look for a ‘D’ or an ‘R’ after the name and vote that way. We have a Democrat Party that is just this side of satan himself and a Republican party that leans more left than right and both parties are full of globalists that are hell bound to bring America into the New World Order.
Let’s look at a few numbers concerning how islam take a country over from the inside out.
Afghanistan was once a Buddhist nation, Pakistan was once a Hindu nation, Lebanon was Christian. See the pattern.
When the Muslim population remains at or under 2%, their presence tends to fly low under the radar. In the 2% — 5% range, Muslims begin to seek converts, targeting those they see as disaffected, such as criminals. When the population reaches 5%, they exert influence disproportionate to their numbers, becoming more aggressive and pushing for Sharia law. When the population hits the 10%-mark Muslims become increasingly lawless and violent. Once the population reaches 20%, there is an increase in rioting, murder, jihad militias, and destruction of non-Muslim places of worship. At 40%, there are “widespread massacres, chronic terror attacks, and ongoing militia warfare.” Once beyond 50%, infidels and apostates are persecuted, genocide occurs, and Sharia law is implemented. After 80%, intimidation is a daily part of life along with violent jihad and some state-run genocide as the nation purges all infidels. Once the nation has rid itself of all non-Muslims, the presumption is that ‘Dar-es-Salaam’ has been attained — the Islamic House of Peace.
As we look at countries in the European Union, we see this pattern emerge as plain as day, yet we do nothing when we see it happening in America.
Here is the list of muslims who won their elections in America in 2018:
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Bombshell: House Republican Leadership Sends Deep State Draft Indictments to Justice Dept
Finally, Obama/Hillary conspirators named as President Trump moves against attempted coup
Alex Jones explains how President Trump is preparing to move against the Deep State forces that tried to overturn his 2016 election. Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) is leading the congressional counterstrike by sending eight criminal referrals to the Justice Department over leaks, conspiracy, and perjury.
Meanwhile, Democrats are in meltdown mode after Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s two-year witch hunt found “no collusion.”
Former President Obama warned fellow Democrats during a speech in Berlin on Saturday not to succumb to a “circular firing squad” in their pursuit of the 2020 presidential nomination, because dividing the party over certain far-left policies won’t bode well in the general election.
Alex Jones breaks down how his remarks signal the emergence of cracks in the Left’s political armor.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Conservatives Call for Tech Giants to Split Ties With SPLC
Silicon Valley has enormous power over the flow of information that reaches people around the globe.
That’s why it’s vital for Americans to understand how tech giants can manipulate information, either intentionally or unwittingly, to advance a political agenda.
Now, 34 conservative leaders are banding together to call for tech giants Amazon, Facebook, Twitter, and Google to “cut ties” with the Southern Poverty Law Center.
The letter states in part, “It is now clear that the SPLC has proven to be a hate-filled, anti-Christian, anti-conservative organization and nothing more than a weapon of the radical Left, whose goal is to bully people into compliance with their ideology.”
The liberal Left continue to push their radical agenda against American values. The good news is there is a solution. Find out more >As we’ve discussed on previous episodes of “Media Misses,” the SPLC is a far-left civil rights organization that has made wild claims about conservative organizations over the years, lumping them in with hate groups like neo-Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan.
It has come under scrutiny after its founder, Morris Dees, resigned over accusations of discrimination and improper behavior.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Each year, state lawmakers across the U.S. introduce thousands of bills dreamed up and written by corporations, industry groups and think tanks.
Disguised as the work of lawmakers, these so-called “model” bills get copied in one state Capitol after another, quietly advancing the agenda of the people who write them.
A two-year investigation by USA TODAY, The Arizona Republic? and the Center for Public Integrity reveals for the first time the extent to which special interests have infiltrated state legislatures using model legislation.
USA TODAY and the Republic found at least 10,000 bills almost entirely copied from model legislation were introduced nationwide in the past eight years, and more than 2,100 of those bills were signed into law.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Crazed Leftist Loses Job After Attacking Jewish Man in MAGA Hat, Calling Him “Nazi Scum”
If you’re going to attack and threaten to dox an old man wearing a MAGA hat in public, it’s probably best not to identify yourself and post a detailed account of the Trump Derangement conniption on Facebook.
But that’s what a crazed leftist woman did in Palo Alto, California.
Result: Her employer fired her, she wound up doxed, and town leftists were forced to denounce the unhinged TDS sufferer.
But importantly, the reaction might just show that attacking Trump supporters will no longer be permitted. Or tolerated.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Devin Nunes: 8 Criminal Referrals Ready, Including 3 Targeting ‘Conspiracy’ & ‘Global Leaks’
House Intelligence Committee ranking member takes aim at Deep State actors who tried to overthrow President Trump
Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., announced on Sunday he is ready to send eight criminal referrals to the Justice Department next week related to the origins of the Trump-Russia investigation.
“We’re prepared this week to notify the attorney general that we’re prepared to send those referrals over and brief him if he wishes to be briefed,” Nunes said on Fox News.
The ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee has been teasing a referral for months and previously predicted its delivery by the end of last week.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Ex-Dem Staffer Pleads Guilty to ‘Doxxing’ McConnell, Others in GOP During Kavanaugh Hearings
A former House Democratic staffer pleaded guilty Friday to five federal offenses related to posting online the personal information of five Republican senators, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, during hearings for then-Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.
The charges against Jackson A. Cosko, 27, include making public restricted personal information, computer fraud, witness tampering and obstruction of justice.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
A former FBI agent shares in a new book how he repeatedly risked his life to expose his boss as a Russian spy.
Eric O’Neill’s Gray Day: My Undercover Mission to Expose America’s First Cyber Spy tells the story of how the Federal Bureau of Investigation finally nabbed Robert Hanssen in 2001, more than 25 years after he joined in 1985.
The author shares how he was instructed by Special Agent Kate Alleman to both anger and gathering intelligence on the man who referred to him as a ‘worthless clerk’ and in several situations found himself at the mercy of Hanssen, who he had to remind the Alleman wore ‘revolver in an ankle holster and keeps an automatic [weapon] in his desk’.
[Comment: The movie “Breach” is a good docu-drama of this spy and his capture.]
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Google’s Best AI Just Flunked a High School Math Test
The Singularity Is Here. Unfortunately for our new AI overlords, the crusade to take over the world has been stopped in its tracks by an unlikely hurdle: a 16-year-old’s math test.
Faced with the same level of exam that a 16-year-old in the U.K. would take, according to a new paper by Google’s DeepMind, its cutting-edge AI flunked…
It turns out, according to the research, that even a simple math problem involves a great deal of brainpower, as people learn to automatically learn to make sense of mathematical operations, memorize the order in which to perform them, and know how to turn word problems into equations.
But artificial intelligence is quite literally built to pore over data, scanning for patterns and analyzing them. In that regard, the results of the test — on which the algorithm scored a 14 out of 40 — aren’t reassuring.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Investigation Into ‘Dossier’ Snares Another Obama Alum
Government watchdog Judicial Watch has filed dozens of FOIA requests and lawsuits over the “Steele dossier,” the dubious anti-Trump document funded by Hillary Clinton’s campaign and the Democratic National Committee.
Despite its “unverified” claims, as FBI Director James Comey described them, the Obama administration used it as evidence to obtain a warrant to spy on the 2016 Trump campaign.
Judicial Watch has demanded interviews with Hillary Clinton’s aides and access to communications involving most of the top level appointees who dealt with the issue.
Now, it’s Victoria Nuland’s turn.
The former assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian Affairs under Obama is believed to have been the one who turned the dossier over to the FBI.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Michigan AG’s Stasi-Like Speech-Monitoring Scheme Earns a Federal Lawsuit
It’s gratifying to see that the American Freedom Law Center lost no time challenging, in a federal lawsuit, Michigan attorney general Dana Nessel’s unconstitutional “hate crimes unit.” As discussed last month, Nessel and Michigan Department of Civil Rights director Agustin Arbulu have teamed up to target “hate and bias” actions that don’t “rise to the level of a crime or a civil infraction”; in other words, perfectly lawful, constitutionally protected actions like free speech and association that Nessel and her radical friends just don’t like.
Nessel’s Stasi includes “a minimum of one prosecuting attorney” and intends to follow the Southern Poverty Law Center’s reckless “hate map” as its main source for potential suspects. “Civil rights” chief Arbulu warned citizens to “know this, we are watching.” AFLC co-founder and senior counsel Robert Muise neatly summed up Nessel’s new policy for PJ Media: “‘We’re going to keep files on you.’ It’s Orwellian. It’s Big Brother. It’s the thought police.”
The AFLC’s lawsuit names Nessel and Arbulu as defendants in their official capacities and seeks a declaratory judgment that the hate crimes unit violates the AFLC’s First Amendment right to freedom of speech and association and its Fourteenth Amendment rights by unlawfully targeting AFLC “for disfavored treatment based on the AFLC’s political views and the political views of those it represents in court.”
The AFLC, which has done wonderful work in Michigan and across the country defending the First Amendment rights of conservative Jews and Christians, has itself been falsely designated as a “hate group” by the SPLC, the actual basis for AFLC’s standing to sue.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Mom Charged With Falsely Accusing a Man of Trying to Kidnap Her 5-Year-Old at the Mall
She’s the Jussie Smollett of the mommy world: Santana Adams of Milton, West Virginia, has been charged with falsely accusing a man of trying to kidnap her 5-year-old daughter at the mall.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Mueller Express Fails to Deliver, Democrats Head for the Abyss
As the long-running Mueller Witch Hunt pulled into the station empty, the one thing that held together the disparate factions of the Democratic Party — the thought that Mueller would hand them grounds for impeachment — was lost and a “Gadarene stampede” (in Conrad Black’s fine phrase, descriptive of a pack of crazed swine heading for the abyss) has followed.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Mysterious Drug-Resistant Germ Deemed an “Urgent Threat” Is Quietly Sweeping the Globe
“It’s pretty much unbeatable and difficult to identity.”
Thanks to the overprescription of antimicrobial drugs and use of antifungicides in crop production, a relatively new germ that preys on people with weakened immune systems is rapidly spreading across the globe, according to the New York Times.
The infection — a fungus known as Candida auris, kills almost half of all patients who contract it within 90 days, according to the CDC — as it’s impervious to most major antifungal medications. First described in 2009 after a 70-year-old Japanese woman showed up at a Tokyo hospital with C. auris in her ear canal, the aggressive yeast infection has spread across Asia and Europe — arriving in the US by 2016…
Last May, an elderly man who was admitted to the Brooklyn branch of Mount Sinai Hospital for abdominal surgery was found to be infected with the drug-resistant candida. He died after 90 days in the hospital, however C. auris did not according to the Times. According to tests, the germ was everywhere in his room — to such a degree that the hospital required special cleaning equipment and had to rip out ceiling and floor tiles to get rid of it.
“Everything was positive — the walls, the bed, the doors, the curtains, the phones, the sink, the whiteboard, the poles, the pump,” said Hospital president Dr. Scott Lorin. “The mattress, the bed rails, the canister holes, the window shades, the ceiling, everything in the room was positive.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Nunes to Send Eight Criminal Referrals to DOJ Concerning Leaks, Conspiracy Amid Russia Probe
House Intelligence Committee ranking member Devin Nunes exclusively told Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures” that he is preparing to send eight criminal referrals to the Department of Justice this week concerning alleged misconduct from “Watergate wannabes” during the Trump-Russia investigation, including the leaks of “highly classified material” and conspiracies to lie to Congress and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
NYT Critic: Bonnie and Clyde Film ‘The Highwaymen’ ‘Vengeful, Murderous, Politically Terrifying’
A new Netflix offering, The Highwaymen, is the story of the murderous 1930’s bank-robber duo of Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow, i.e. Bonnie and Clyde, transformed into pop legends in the influential 1967 movie starring Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway. But there’s a twist: The tale is told from the other side, “the untold true story of the legendary detectives who brought down Bonnie and Clyde,” with the lawmen played by Kevin Costner and Woody Harrelson.
It debuted on Netflix last week after a limited theatrical release in mid-March, and the film put New York Times movie critic A.O. Scott in a grumpy and sour mood — a disposition he projects upon the law-and-order audience he assumes is the movie’s audience. His review led off with moral preening and political disapproval:…
Scott’s assumption in the bolded sentence is clear: You should hate The Highwaymen” because of its perceived reactionary ideology (and…unsympathetic attitude to mass murderers, apparently):
[Comment: If leftist crtics hate it, then it must be good. Leftists seem to adore serial killers and murders — likely becasue they aspire to do the same to conservatives.]
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Prepare Yourselves for Windows 10 May-Hem. Or is it June, No, July?
Microsoft’s latest update for its ageing OS due to hit Soon(tm)
The Windows 10 May 2019 Update is inbound, but not before it has spent a bit more time in the hands of testers excluded from the disastrous October 2018 Update. Scared looking office consultant hides under desk
Microsoft is taking its time with this one. It was widely expected to be given the April 2019 Update moniker, but now looks like Windows fans can expect to see it in May.
Maybe.
This time around, the gang is “taking further steps to be confident in the quality of the May 2019 Update” by flinging the code at the Release Preview ring of the Windows Insider programme next week to shake out any issues before commercial customers get their hands on it towards the end of the month.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Want to Hang Out With Criminals But Can’t be Bothered to Download Tor? Try Facebook
Network that can’t control ads or content turns out to have trouble with illegal activity
In a report published on Friday, Cisco’s Talos security biz observed that “instead of wheeling-and-dealing using hidden servers on some mysterious dark web address, a surprisingly large number of cyber scofflaws prefer to operate right out in the open using social media.”
Talos found 74 groups on Facebook with names like “Spam Professional,” “Spammer & Hacker Professional,” “Buy Cvv On THIS SHOP PAYMENT BY BTC,” and “Facebook hack (Phishing).” While most of these groups appeared recently, some have been operating for as long as eight years, despite past reports alerting Facebook to the issue.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Watch the Sickening Left Defend Islamic Sex Slavery
Democrats tout oppressive hijab as ‘empowering’
The left constantly criticizes men and western culture while defending even the indefensible act of slavery as long as muslims are committing the act. Alex Jones exposes the dark parts of this hypocritical position.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
75 Percent of Spanish Cannabis Contains Human Faeces
A new study by a Spanish pharmacologist has revealed traces of human faeces in the vast majority of the cannabis sold on the streets of Madrid, Spain, and that it presents a very real health danger.
Manuel Pérez Moreno released his findings in the journal Science Direct and claimed to have found Escherichia coli bacteria, commonly known as E. Coli, in the vast majority of the 90 samples he had purchased off the street and tested, broadcaster RTL reports.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
‘Bring it on!’ Nigel Farage Vows ‘Big Shock’ For Tories in EU Election After Brexit ‘Lies’
NIGEL FARAGE warned Tories are in “for a big shock” in the upcoming EU elections if the UK is forced to take part in the vote due to a long Brexit delay.
The former Ukip leader issued a stark warning to Theresa May’s party, saying his newly-formed Brexit Party is ready to contest all 73 seats allocated to the UK in the European Parliament should Britain be trapped in the EU for longer than a few weeks. Theresa May has asked the EU to grant her a second Brexit extension until June 30, but European Council President Donald Tusk is pushing for a 12 month delay, meaning the UK will need to take part in May’s EU elections. Speaking of a conversation he had with a caller during his programme on his LBC radio show, Mr Farage wrote on Twitter: “A caller on LBC told me: ‘That Brexit vote meant a great deal to me, and I think we’ve been stitched up. The cherry on the cake is Theresa May colluding with comrade Corbyn’.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
EU Says BMW, Daimler, VW Colluded to Limit Emissions Tech
To limit the development of emissions cleaning technology in car
(ANSA-AP) — BRUSSELS, APRIL 5 — European Union authorities say that German automakers BMW, Daimler and Volkswagen colluded to limit the development of emissions-cleaning technology in cars. The EU antitrust regulator said Friday that after an in-depth investigation, it found the companies broke EU laws from 2006 to 2014 by illegally agreeing among themselves to limit the roll-out of the technology, which helps clean the exhaust emissions from both gasoline and diesel passenger cars. The alleged actions would have limited Europeans’ options for less polluting cars, but not their price. The probe is separate from other legal procedures against carmakers for allegedly breaching environmental laws. Emissions have become a big topic for carmakers as authorities try to meet climate change goals and after Volkswagen admitted in 2015 that it cheated on car emissions tests.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
European Union Launches Its Own Online ‘Fact-Checker’ To Fight ‘Europhobics’
The EU has set up its own “fact checking” service in order to combat the spread of so-called “fake news” ahead of May’s European elections.
The new ‘Decoders of Europe’ site, based on the Boulevard St Germain in Paris, seeks to “answer a series of questions or accusations, explaining what constitutes the reality and sometimes the complexity of European policies. Beyond these explanations, our goal is also to better inform, on the eve of the 60th anniversary of the Treaty of Rome, what works in Europe!” according to the EU website.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Fewer ‘Gilets Jaunes’ Across France for 21st Weekend
Just over 22,300 people came out for the 21st gilets jaunes protest across France this weekend, which saw the lowest numbers since the movement began, according to official figures.
There were 3,500 in Paris, according to the ministry for the Interior, although protester figures always show a higher number due to variations in counting methods.
This weekend, some protesters said there were 50,000 more people present compared to official figures.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
German Lawmakers Reject Far-Right Deputy Speaker Candidate
Post would have bolstered its influence and respectability
(ANSA-AP) — BERLIN, 04 APR — German lawmakers rejected Thursday for the third time the far-right Alternative for Germany’s proposed candidate for deputy speaker of parliament, a posting that would have bolstered its influence and respectability. It is customary for each party in the Bundestag to have a deputy alongside speaker Wolfgang Schaeuble, a veteran conservative lawmaker. Alternative for Germany, which is known by its German acronym of AfD, has insisted it has the right to name a deputy since it’s the biggest opposition party in the current parliament. The party’s candidate, Mariana Harder-Kuehnel, received 199 votes in favor and 423 votes against in a secret ballot. The 44-year-old would have required only a simple majority, following two previous rounds of voting in which an absolute majority of the 709 lawmakers in parliament was necessary.
Several prominent lawmakers from other parties said ahead of the vote that they planned to back her, arguing that AfD shouldn’t be given the chance to portray themselves as martyrs.
In spite of her defeat, Harder-Kuehnel received more than twice the number of votes as her party has lawmakers in parliament.
Her colleague Albrecht Glaser, who was first nominated by AfD in 2017, was also rejected three times after suggesting that freedom of religion shouldn’t apply to Islam.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
German Headmaster Suggested Christian Girl Wear a Hijab to Stop Bullies
A school in Frankfurt has come under fire after its headmaster told a young girl she should wear a hijab if she doesn’t want to get bullied.
The student’s mother told the Bild newspaper that her daughter was “beaten and verbally attacked on the way to school” by a group of Muslim girls.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Romania: EU, Government Should Not Touch the Judicial System
It’s necessary for the country to resume the reform path
(ANSA) — BRUSSELS, APRIL 3 — “Romania needs to urgently resume the path of reforms and this means going forward, and avoiding any step that could turn the progress achieved in recent years upside down. In particular, I want to warn against any action of the government, which could upset the judicial system by actually creating systematic impunity for politicians prosecuted for corruption crimes. Such a move would oblige the European Commission to act immediately”. That is what the vice-president of the European Commission Frans Timmermans said at the end of the commissioners’ meeting. “I have had some meetings and phone calls with the Romanian premier in the last two months. We have given the government about forty points and restarted the technical discussions. We need to see some results as soon as possible”, Timmermans added.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
The Never-Ending Threat of Civil War
The abyss looms large beneath us. We are stretched closer and closer to our limits.
The people who are eager for a civil war are fools. They don’t understand the catastrophe they’re begging for. But the people who believe that a civil war is now a real possibility are neither fools nor wild-eyed alarmists. Moreover, the people who believe that, grim though the prospect may be, war might be the lesser of two evils have a daily strengthening case. The Left has shown itself to be dedicated to the destruction of Western civilization itself. We have not been faced with such an existential threat since European armies threw the Turks back from Vienna in 1529. The fascists of the mid—2oth century, for all their loathsome policies, were not the kind of threat to the fabric of our society that we face now. Bad as they were, they did not seek the destruction of Europeans as a people, or of European culture as a living, breathing thing. Progressivism does. What could be more worthy of, if you will forgive the word, “resistance”?
We conservatives have let this ideological cancer metastasize for far too long for its excision to be simple or painless. For too long, we have been patient with outrages we should have fought to reverse. We have let our opponents secede incrementally from us for decades. We have been tolerant and patient. In our tolerance and patience, we have given up our civil society, our political representation, and our freedoms one by one. Our maladies won’t be fixed by delicate adjustments now — half-heartedly performed by yet another generation of narcissistic government planners and invisible elitist bureaucrats. Intellectuals like George Will and think-tanks like the Heritage Foundation have done us little good. Our condition demands a radical, unflinching surgery if we, as a nation, are to survive. Either the cancer wins, and kills us all, or we defeat it — and we accept the scars. Let us not pretend they would not be hideous scars. And let us not pretend it would not be a deeply barbarous and bitter surgery.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: ‘A Woman Must Not Deny Her Husband’— Books on Female Subservience Found in Islamic School
AN ISLAMIC primary school has failed an Ofsted report after inspectors found books saying a husband had the right to “interfere” with his wife’s freedom and others attacking homosexuality.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
An imam recruited to advise the Government on ‘tackling Islamophobia’ has publicly supported a cleric in Pakistan who has campaigned for a Christian woman to be hanged for blasphemy.
Qari Asim, who is part of an 11-strong panel assembled by the Communities Department, supported preacher Khadim Rizvi, who demanded the death penalty for Asia Bibi, who was falsely accused of insulting the Prophet Muhammad.
She spent nine years on death row until she was acquitted in October.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
MENA Region Produces 20.5% of World’s Fossil Fuels
Study by SRM says 10% of global oil and gas traffic passes Suez
(ANSAmed) — NAPLES, APRIL 4 — The Middle East and North Africa region (MENA) produces 20.5% of the world’s fossil fuels, according to a report by the Centre for Study and Research of the Italian South (SRM), part of the Intesa San Paolo banking group.
The “Med and Italian Energy Report” said more than 1.6 billion tons of oil have been produced in the MENA region (37% of worldwide production) and more than 800 billion cubic metres of natural gas (22% of worldwide production).
It said 66% of crude produced by MENA countries is exported, with the majority of Middle Eastern production going to Asian countries, and North African production going above all to Europe.
Natural gas exported by the MENA region is 26% of the total produced.
A total of 32.6% of the natural gas exports that travel through gas pipelines in MENA countries to destinations within the region and the rest to neighbouring countries.
Natural gas is one of the main commodities for worldwide energy systems and infrastructure for its transport is becoming increasingly important.
A total of 23.2% of electricity is generated by natural gas, which makes it the second-highest source after carbon, which is 38.4% of the total.
Four gas pipelines connect the exporting countries of the southern coast (Algeria and Libya) with the European countries of the northern coast, for a total capacity of more than 60 billion cubic metres per year.
Three gas pipelines connect Algeria to Spain and Italy, and a fourth connects Libya to Italy.
A new and growing frontier is that of liquefied natural gas (LNG), the sale of which increased worldwide by 12% in 2017 compared to the previous year.
By the middle of the next decade, the United States is expected to become the biggest LNG exporter worldwide, with the number of plants expected to double between now and 2040.
New capacity is expected to come mainly from the United States and Australia, followed by Russia and Qatar.
There are 19 GNL terminals on Mediterranean coasts, of which 14 are for the regasification for natural gas importation and five for the liquefaction for gas exportation.
Spain is the country with the highest capacity for GNL importation and represents 37.5% of the total regasification capacity in the Mediterranean area.
In terms of GNL exportation, Algeria holds 61.7% of the total liquefaction capacity.
The report said the Mediterranean is also central for transport given that oil and gas goods transported worldwide by sea totaled 3.1 billion tons, of which oil makes up 1.8 billion tons, representing 60% of the total.
The Suez Canal is a critical junction which sees the passage of 10% of global oil and liquefied natural gas traffic.
The other two large energy transit junctions are the Strait of Hormuz and the Strait of Malacca, which, together with the Suez Canal, make up 40% of worldwide naval oil transit.
Italian ports managed traffic of 184 million tons of liquid bulk, 37% of the total.
The top five ports are Trieste, with 43.2 mn ton, followed by Cagliari, Augusta, Milazzo and Genoa, which together make up 70% of national liquid traffic.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy-Qatar: Conte: Foundation for Future Accords With Emir
Productive meeting, stronger friendship between two countries
(ANSAmed) — DOHA, APRIL 3 — Italian Premier Giuseppe Conte on Wednesday told reporters at the Italian embassy in Doha that talks with emir al-Thani during his ongoing visit to Qatar “were not only cordial but very productive”. The meeting “strengthens the friendship and cooperation between the two countries. There are excellent opportunities to boost economic and commercial exchanges”. “With the emir we did not sign any agreement, today was a political day, of exchange between the leadership of the two countries in which we provided the foundation for future commercial agreements”, he explained.
Along with the interest shown by Italian companies for Qatar, “the emir as well was interested in investments in Italy and this pleases us, foreign investors are welcome”, continued the premier. “From Eni to Snam, from Fincantieri to Leonardo, we have leading companies worldwide for their technological know-how which are already working very productively in this country. From this productive dialogue” between leaders from the two countries, said the prime minister, “I expect our companies to vouch for Qatar’s attention towards our country”.
Conte then met with Italian entrepreneurs in Doha.
Before going to the Italian embassy, Conte visited the Decc Center, the central station of Doha’s new subway made by Salini Impregilo with the participation of other companies that subcontracted work like Costruzioni (for the stations’ design) and iGuzzini (lighting).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
The Floods, The Mullahs and the Cinderella in Boots
It may take weeks if not months before the full facts of the current nationwide floods in Iran are established. But we already know that the floods represent one of the biggest natural disasters Iran has suffered in half a century.
According to provisional data from the Islamic Red Crescent, the floods struck in over 300 towns and cities in 22 of Iran’s 31 provinces, affecting 18.5 million people, almost a quarter of the nation’s total population. Some 1.2 million people have been made homeless, at least temporarily.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Turkey: Erdogan Pledges to Convert Byzantine Cathedral Hagia Sophia Into a Mosque
Addressing a rally ahead of the March 31 municipal elections in Turkey, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced plans to convert the Hagia Sophia museum, originally a Byzantine cathedral, into a mosque.
Erdogan repeated this statement the following day during a televised interview. “Hagia Sophia will no longer be called a museum,” he declared. “Its status will change. We will call it a mosque.”
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Chinese City Offers Reward for Ratting on Christians and Other “Illegal” Religious Folk
As China continues its efforts to eradicate Christianity and other faiths, Communist Party officials in Guangzhou (shown), the capital of China’s Guangdong province, are offering a reward to residents who can provide information about underground churches, secret Christians, and others involved in unsanctioned religious activity.
Guangzhou’s Department of Ethnic and Religious Affairs recently announced on its website that it would pay up to 10,000 Chinese yuan (around $1,500) for information leading to the apprehension of unsanctioned religious leaders. That amounts to about two months’ salary for the average resident. Officials are offering smaller rewards for information about churches and other religious meeting places built or used without permission from authorities. Informers can also cash in for ratting on people who incite “religious extremism,” says the website.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Australia leads “developed democracies” in the adoption of poorly thought-through, dangerous tech laws, thanks to its ban on working cryptography, rushed through in late 2018; now, with no debate or consultation, the Australian Parliament has passed a law that gives tech companies one hour to remove “violent materials” from their platforms with penalties for noncompliance of up to 10% of annual global turnover.
The law was rushed through in the wake of the Christchurch mosque shootings, after which the platforms completely failed to enforce their own policies, allowing millions of reposts of the footage streamed by the killer. This is part of a culture of negligence and willful blindness by the platforms, whose unwillingness to confront these matters is the stuff of legend and set them up for this outcome.
The EU was hoping to pass nearly identical legislation but failed to do so in the last Parliament, largely because its focus shifted to mandatory copyright filters, but the passage of the Australian law is sure to influence the European debate after May’s EU elections. But these issues are all connected: once platforms are algorithmically filtering all user speech in the name of copyright, it’s easy to just allow someone to shovel unlimited amounts of unappealable “terrorist” and “violent” content into the blacklist’s hopper. And while computers are incapable of distinguishing copyright infringement from fair use — they’re even worse at distinguishing reports of hate crimes from hate crimes themselves.
[Comment: such “laws” are pushed to create a framework to punish and identify dissidents of the future tyrannical NWO — the wet dream of globalists.]
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Amanpour Links Fox News to New Zealand Massacre
CNN anchor Christiane Amanpour, along with two New York Times writers, sickeningly linked Fox News to last month’s shooting massacre in New Zealand.
On Thursday’s edition of her CNN/PBS show, Amanpour invited on the New York Times’ Jonathan Mahler and James Rutenberg to promote their three-part investigative piece on Rupert Murdoch and indict Fox News as an “anti-immigrant” network that spewed the kind of “ethno-nationalist agenda” that stoked the New Zealand mosque shooter.
After reading an excerpt from their story, Amanpour prompted Mahler to expound on Murdoch-owned networks’ “vilifying people of color at home” and “abroad.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Australia’s Catholic Population Drops 2.7% in Five Years
The number of Catholics in Australia fell by a significant 2.7 percent between 2011 and 2016, the National Center for Pastoral Research reported last week.
Analyzing national census data from the most recent available year (2016), the center reported that the Catholic population had dropped from 5.4 million in 2011 to some 5.3 million in 2016 in its “Social Profile of the Catholic Community in Australia.”
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Be Cautious About Big Internet Platforms Bearing Plans for Global Censorship
In the wake of the Christchurch shooting massacre in New Zealand, there has been a somewhat odd focus on the internet platforms — mainly those that ended up hosting copies of the killer’s livestream of the attack. As we previously discussed, this is literally blaming the messenger, and taking away focus from the much deeper issues that led up to the attack. Still, in response, Microsoft’s Brad Smith decided to step forward with a plan to coordinate among big internet companies a system for blocking and taking down such content…
Some of this may be reasonable, but we should be careful. As Emma Llanso neatly lays out in a series of tweets, before we expand the power and role of GIFCT, we should take care of many of the existing concerns with the program. Here’s a (lightly edited) transcription of Llanso’s concerns:…
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
PewDiePie Roasts Maker of Petition Seeking to Ban Him for ‘White Supremacy’
PewDiePie roasted the maker of a petition that seeks to ban him from YouTube for ‘promoting white supremacy’.
The petition was set up by Maria Ruiz after the Christchurch mosque attack by and has received over 60,000 signatures.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
The Mysterious Unsolved Murder of the Rack Man
[WARNING: Disturbing content.]
August 11, 1994 started out as a calm and clear day for fisherman Mark Peterson, and as he guided his boat up Australia’s Hawkesbury River, just north of Sydney, there was nothing particularly odd or ominous about the sunny day at all. Indeed, as he pulled his boat, the Lady Marion, up to an area off a place called Challenger Head things were actually seeming to look up for him as his net picked up something heavy in the water, which he at first took to be a nice haul of fish. However, as he cranked the net in it soon became quite clear that this was not fish, but rather what looked to be a large steel frame fashioned to look something like a crucifix, with myriad plastic bags hanging off of its sides. Bewildered by his bizarre catch, Peterson bent down to examine one of the bags to find a bone poking through the plastic, then another, and another still. Not knowing if they were animal or human, he notified authorities, thus launching one of the most macabre unsolved mysteries in Australian history.
When police arrived it was immediately confirmed that these were definitely human bones, and that the bags were wrapped around the body of a man. The corpse had been strung up on the makeshift crucifix with wires and rope and held down by a solid metal bar that had been bent around in an L-shape and welded to the rusted frame, and it was very obvious that this man had not ended up there by accident. He was dressed in a plain, nondescript polo shirt and track pants and had no personal belongings on him except a soggy pack of cigarettes and lighter stuffed into his pocket. Nothing to identify him at all.
The soggy remains were taken in for further analysis, where more details were gleaned from them. It was discovered that the victim had been a Caucasian man with dark hair between the ages of 21 and 46, who had likely died from severe blunt trauma to the head, although whether he had been placed on the frame before or after this could not be determined. The victim had been securely fastened to the frame with wire around the wrists and an orange rope about the neck and torso, and the whole macabre thing thrown into the water, where it had remained for approximately 6 to 12 months. In fact, the corpse had been in the water so long that the fingerprints had completely dissolved, and this made identification pretty much impossible as DNA testing was in its infancy at the time and even if it were not the waterlogged remains would likely not have provided any useful tissue anyway.
The enormous cross upon which the victim had been found was also examined and discovered to be far from a ramshackle thing cobbled together on a whim. Whoever had fashioned it had expertly welded and crafted it, perhaps a metalworker, and it seemed to be fitted specifically for the victim, meaning it had been meticulously and laboriously made just for the purpose of tying him to it to die. It was also immensely heavy, which led authorities to suspect that more than one perpetrator may have been involved, although who that could have been was a complete mystery.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
A court heard that an argument between Abdul Kefia and Twayne Bailey turned into a potentially fatal confrontation when Kefia pulled the blade from his hoodie in Newcastle city centre.
| — Hat tip: SS | [Return to headlines] |
Julian Assange accused a “weak” Ecuador of starting to “lean on the United States and the UK for various kinds of support” last October — which he linked to the deteriorating conditions at the country’s London embassy where he has been living for nearly seven years.
Assange made the comments during an October 29, 2018 court hearing requesting the restoration of his ability to communicate with the outside world. Transcripts of the exchange were obtained by the Gateway Pundit‘s Cassandra Fairbanks, who has traveled to London amid reports that Assange is about to be kicked out of the embassy — a claim Ecuador denies.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Pipe Sector ‘Full of Hope’ For Brazilian Economy
Bolsonaro-Maia clash has dampened enthusiasm a little-Baptista
(ANSA) — The war of words between Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro and Rodrigo Maia, the President of the Chamber of Deputies, has caused alarm among traders due to the possible repercussions the tension could have for the pension reform.
But the pipes sector remains “full of hope” for the rest of the year. Carlos Eduardo Baptista, the president of the Brazilian Association for the metal pipes and accessories industry (Abitam), admitted in an interview with ANSA though that he did not expect this “clash” between the executive and the legislature and that enthusiasm has been “dampened a little”.
On the other hand, he does not use the word “disappointing” to describe the economic performance of early 2019. “It (the tussle between Bolsonaro and Maia) surprised us all, but we are still hopeful,” Baptista said. The Abitam president stressed that approval of the pension reform is the starting point for a reorganization of the Brazilian economy and the attraction of investment. The holdup of the recent days, however, showed that the project could take longer than expected to be finally approved. “Everything is still suspended,” argued Baptista, stressing that he would be satisfied with a 1% growth rate for the sector.
Some projects are already moving forward, such as the concessions the government decided on at the start of the year and initiatives regarding the crude presale deposits, but the effects should be felt in the medium and long term. The Abitam representative said that January and February were “a little better” than last year for the pipes industry, although March was not good. FUTURE After an intense exchange of criticism, Bolsonaro and Maia announced they had agreed on reconciliation to help the adoption of the pension reform which, in turn, could help revive optimism — the last two days of trading on the Sao Paulo bourse in March were up after falls for seven consecutive days. Before the clash between the two, the Ibovespa index had registered a period of growth-upon-growth and it even went over the 100,000-points mark for the first time. Furthermore, last week the government raised 2.719 billion Brazilian real from the auction of a section of the North-South railway and another 2.3 billion dollars from concessions regarding 12 of the country’s airports. The expectation is that the economy will improve in the second half of the year and this could be an incentive for Tubotech, the sector’s main trade fair. Organized by CIPA Fiera Milano and Abitam, the event taking place in Sao Paulo October 1-3 is orientated towards this segment’s big clients, such as the oil, gas, car, building, mining and petrochemical sectors.
Brazilian and international producers of pipes, valves, pumps, joints and components such as BTL Steel Works, Citic Pacific Steel, Golan Plastic, HSG Laser, HTIDC, Inductotherm, Intras, Kent do Brasil and Nacional Tubos will be among the exhibitors. “There are still some things to fix and regulate on the fiscal side, but the pensions reform is a starting point,” Baptista concluded.
“There is a road map of actions that need to be applied to make the economy more ordered and this path starts with the pensions”.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Venezuela: Stunning Photos Reveal “Zombie Apocalypse” Conditions as Caracas “Empties Under Darkness”
New reports by the Associated Press and Human Rights Watch paint a grim and increasingly desperate picture of life inside Venezuela’s populous capital city, especially when the sun goes down and entire neighborhoods become “no-go” zones.
A series of AP photographs entitled As the sun sets, Venezuela’s capital empties presents Caracas as essentially becoming a ghost town after sunset, and depict infrastructure collapse and lack of services like electricity, water, and public transport to the point that eerie scenes of the empty streets and stores feel like a zombie apocalypse has hit.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
France Admits There is ‘Real Collusion’ Between People-Smugglers and Migrant ‘Rescue’ NGOs
France’s interior minister says some aid groups operating in the Mediterranean Sea sometimes act like accomplices to human traffickers.
Minister Christophe Castaner pointed at “a real collusion between smugglers and some NGOs,” including through phone contacts to “facilitate the migrants’ departure from Libyan coasts in appalling conditions.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
The 27-year-old mother sitting beside me on a suburban park bench is trembling with a mixture of fear and rage. She can barely suppress her anger as she recalls the moment she watched a video of a refugee being escorted from an aircraft at Heathrow after a mutiny by passengers halted his deportation.
As The Mail on Sunday revealed last year, that man was Yaqub Ahmed, a Somalian who a decade earlier had been convicted and jailed with three others for a sickening gang rape.
Today his victim breaks her silence and, in an exclusive interview, condemns the holidaymakers who stepped in to defend him, ignorant of the horrifying attack that ripped her life apart.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Ireland Launches Police Hijab, Claims ‘Diversity’ Deficit a ‘Time-Bomb’ Making Migrants ‘Radicalise’
Gardai (police) in Ireland have updated uniform rules to allow officers to wear hijabs and turbans, describing the supposed lack of ethnic diversity in the force as a “ticking time-bomb” that could make immigrant communities “radicalise”.
The move to allow religious headwear worn by Muslim women and Sikh men was announced by Garda Commissioner Drew Harris this week, as the force launched a major recruitment drive to hire hundreds of new officers in Ireland.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Judge Apologises for Freeing Migrant Who Killed Italian for Being ‘Happy and White’
The judge who freed confessed killer Said Mechaquat after an appeal has publicly apologised to the family of the Moroccan-born migrant’s victim, Stefano Leo.
Judge Edmondo Barelli Innocenti, who is the president of the Court of Appeal in Turin, publicly apologised to Leo’s family, saying, “As a representative of the state I would like to apologise to the family of Stefano Leo,” but added, “I do not agree to say that the Court of Appeal is jointly responsible for the murder. We did what we had to do,” Il Giornale reports.
This “apology” comes after it was revealed that the Italian-Moroccan had been sentenced in June of 2016 to a year and six months in prison for aggravated assault on an ex-girlfriend.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Kris Kobach to Trump: You Do Not Need Congress to Immediately Solve Immigration Crisis
Former Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach says that despite claims by Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, President Trump does not need Congress to stem the tide of booming levels of illegal immigration at the United States-Mexico border.
In an exclusive interview with SiriusXM Patriot’s Breitbart News Tonight, Kobach said there is much the Trump administration and DHS officials can do to mitigate the soaring levels of illegal immigration in recent months where now about 1.5 million illegal aliens are projected to enter the country this year.
Kobach detailed three steps DHS and the Trump administration can take, immediately, to not only lower illegal immigration levels, but unilaterally end the expanded policy of Catch and Release — where more than 17,000 border crossers and illegal aliens were released into the interior of the U.S. over the last 12 days.
Kobach explained:…
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Last Migrants End Protest, Evacuate Makeshift Camp in Greece
DIAVATA, Greece — The last 60 holdouts from among nearly 1,000 migrants who fought with Greek police for three days have left their makeshift camp in northern Greece.
The migrants clashed with police because they believed false reports on social media that restrictions on travel to central and northern Europe had been lifted.
Police detained a few of the 60 who had no valid papers. The rest left either for migrant camps or apartments across Greece. None of the residents of a nearby official camp were among them.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Pope Francis Praises Multiculturalism: ‘Migrants Always Bring Riches’
Pope Francis continued his immigration crusade this weekend, saying that migrants bring with them the wealth of a multicultural and multi-ethnic world.
“Let us thank God for a multi-ethnic and multicultural society,” the pope told students and faculty of the San Carlo school of Milan gathered in the Vatican Saturday, “because dialogue among cultures, persons, and ethnicities is richness.”
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Report: Nearly 20 Percent of Inmates in Federal Prisons Are Criminal Aliens
According to a new report, criminal aliens currently make up nearly 20 percent of the population in the U.S. Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) system — a total of 34,776.
David Olen Cross, a Salem, Ore., crime and immigration researcher, looked at the number of foreign nationals in the U.S. BOP system based on the most recent federal report. As of March 30, 2019, there were 179,761 inmates incarcerated in federal prisons across the U.S. Their countries of origin, according to the report, are:
Mexico 21,668 inmates, 12.1 percent;
Colombia 1,633 inmates, 0.9 percent;
Dominican Republic 1,425 inmates, 0.8 percent;
Cuba 1,169 inmates, 0.7 percent;
Other/unknown countries 8,881 inmates, 4.9 percent;
United States 144,985 inmates, 80.7 percent;
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Schengen Fails: Austria Rejects EU Free Movement With Border Checks for 18 Months
AUSTRIA has rejected the EU’s fundamental principle of freedom of movement after extending controls at its borders with Hungary and Slovenia until at least November.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Paedophile Illegal Migrant Killed Christian Convert Wife After Visa Row
Iranian illegal migrant and convicted paedophile Dana Abdullah has been sentenced to 18 years and 18 months’ imprisonment for the murder of his wife Avan Najmadeen, who he stabbed 50 times with a kitchen knife because she had refused to support his British visa application.
Stafford Crown Court had heard that after delivering the fatal blows at the victim’s house in Stoke-on-Trent on October 1st, 35-year-old Abdullah then covered the body of the 34-year-old mother in white spirit, BirminghamLive reports.
Ms Najmadeen had been stabbed in the neck and torso, including once in the heart, in what Staffordshire Police described as a “brutal and sustained attack.”
Abdullah and Najmadeen had arrived in the Britain in 2011 and had four children. In 2013, the Iranian was convicted for two offences of sexual assault on a girl under the age of 13 and was jailed for 15 months, after which he was deported to Iran, where the court heard complaints of his ill-treatment, StaffordshireLive reports.
The convicted paedophile migrant then illegally re-entered the United Kingdom.
The court heard that Ms Najmadeen had moved a number of times to evade her husband after she ended the relationship, and Abdullah he had previously threatened to kill her because she had converted to Christianity and began a relationship with another man.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Bosnia: First Gay Pride on September 8 in Sarajevo
Organizers announce event to promote rights
SARAJEVO — The first Gay Pride in Bosnia-Herzegovina is scheduled to take place on September 8 in Sarajevo, organizers have said. They stressed on Monday that the objective is to promote the rights of the homosexual population and change social perception.
Local media said the first Gay Pride in Bosnia was organized by activists in Sarajevo as well as other cities including Tuzla, Banja Luka, Prijedor, Bijeljina.
“We are not only fighting for our freedom but also for that of all people who are discriminated. The representatives of the LGBT population are discriminated every day in their family, at work, in institutions and in public”, said Lejla Huremovic of the NGO ‘Sarajevo Open Center’.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
DePaul vs. Conservatives, From Shapiro and Sommers to Milo and Murray
My time at DePaul University saw much action. As I graduate this summer, I look back on my time as a member of the College Republicans and our adventures with the DePaul administration.
Conservative provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos was sure to bring up an entertaining experience, watching all the snowflakes groan about his verbiage, but no one expected full-on riots. Students from the Black Student Union and community members from Black Lives Matter innervated the energy of the crowd, and the protest began. Where was the security, the campus police?
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Dutch Populist Party Seeks Reports of ‘Left Indoctrination’ on Campuses
A Dutch right-wing populist party set up by an ex-academic has renewed its attack on universities following its election victory, setting up a “hotline” for reports and videos of left-wing “indoctrination” by lecturers.
The anti-multiculturalism, anti-European Union Forum for Democracy was launched as a political party in 2016 by 36-year-old former Leiden University law lecturer, Thierry Baudet — a movement born from his Leiden Ph.D. thesis, Baudet’s former supervisor told Times Higher Education.
The Forum for Democracy gained more votes than any other party in provincial elections for the upper house of the Dutch Parliament held on March 20 (although it only won 14.5 percent of the vote).
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Leftist Celebrates “Gender Transition” Of His 4-Year-Old Son
A leftist on Twitter celebrated the “gender transition” of his 4-year-old son, triumphing the fact that “Waylon” had become “Willow”.
Mike Ginicola tweeted, “It’s official, we have a 4 year old daughter! Waylon is now Willow. Took A LOT of paperwork to make the gender transition.”
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
New Gillette Ad Celebrates Obesity
Gillette — a company once known for selling razors — has moved on from its war on men to something that is supposed to be more positive.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Transport for London Lectures Men on How to “Sit Properly”
Transport for London ads have appeared lecturing men on how to “sit properly” while using public transport.
The ad, which is backed by Mayor of London Sadiq Khan, states in capital letters, “THAT’S NOT HOW YOU SIT — SIT PROPERLY” next to an image of a man with his legs slung over the two people sat next to him at an impossible angle.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Alarmists: Climate Change Causing Deaths of ‘Hundreds’ of Walruses
Walruses are dying by the hundreds by scaling cliffs and then diving to their deaths on the rocks below, according to the latest scare story from climate alarmists.
“Shocking Our Planet footage shows how climate change is causing walruses to plunge to their deaths off cliffs ‘they should never have scaled,’ as retreating sea ice pushes them further onto shore,” the Daily Mail proclaimed Saturday.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Copyright Enforcement Service Claims $600 Billion-Worth of Images Are ‘Stolen’ Every Day
A new “report” has been released by Copytrack, supposedly detailing the insane amount of “stealing” that goes on every day. “Report” is in quotes for reason. First, the “report” [PDF] opens up with a literally unbelievable statistic conjecture.
[I]t is estimated that more than 2.5 billion images are stolen daily. These license violations have the potential to result in up to €532.5 billion in damages daily.
Not even in the most fevered dream of the most overwrought copyright maximalist could this number be considered plausible. As attorney/law professor Jeff Pearlman points out, this hilarious extrapolation from facts not in evidence conjectures that copyright infringement of images alone results in a number that swallows the entirety of the world’s economy.
[Comment: They sound like the propaganda arm of the pornography “industry”.]
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Islam and the West: Is Peaceful Coexistence Possible?
Relations between the West and Islam seem to be worsening with an increase in Islamist and far-right terrorist attacks. Why is Islamic integration in the West so difficult? How can dialogue be improved? We have interviewed Shadi Hamid, a Muslim-American who is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and author of the book Islamic Exceptionalism: How the Struggle Over Islam is Reshaping the World, for a different insight on these pressing questions.
You have worked extensively on the relationship between Islam and the West — do you think the two can co-exist peacefully in the future, even as Muslims grow in numbers in Western countries, with what appears to be a proportionate rise in intolerance towards them?
I don’t think there is a real risk of serious violent conflict or war. Citizens with different attitudes towards religion can and should try to live together with that difference. I acknowledge that there are fundamental differences in how the religions are practised, for example, 54 per cent of French Muslims think religion is very important for them, compared to only 11 per cent of French citizens overall. The biggest problem in a country like France is that the latter believe Muslims are not respecting their secular ideals — and these are people who tend to feel very strongly about secularism. So it’s an interesting question to ask if Christians in Europe were more observant, whether they would get along better with observant Muslims, but what we know in the American case is that being a conservative Christian does not necessarily make you more sympathetic towards Muslims. But maybe in Europe, because secularism is more dominant, religious Christians sympathize with Muslims since they would both, in a sense, be religious minorities trying to live within aggressively secular societies…
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
The Delusional Futurism of ‘Liberal World Order’ Academics
It’s a funny coincidence that supposedly objective elitist academics always come to the conclusion that THEY are the best equipped people to manage society.
The academic cabal is not entirely naive, however. They have realized over time that their sales pitch of an intellectual priest class and Utopian pyramid schemes are not very effective, and they have opted to switch narratives. The new narrative is one of inevitability; the inevitability of socialism, the inevitability of globalism and the inevitability of algorithmic automation.
In other words, globalism will be the apex social structure and artificial intelligence will govern the daily machinations of that structure, regardless of what the public wants. The elites won’t rule the world directly, but their ilk will create the algorithms and the policies that will rule the world by virtue of social and technological evolution. Like Jean-Luc Godard’s French New Wave film, Alphaville, the idea is that the elites can simply sit back and let the dark “logic” of algorithmic governance do the dirty work. For, after all, how can we possibly argue with a computer?
An example of one of the academic elitists of which I speak is Yuval Noah Harari. His editorials are getting a lot of play in the mainstream media lately and they focus on the necessity of globalism as well as the need for humans to quickly adapt to technocracy lest they find themselves obsolete. Harari is a prototypical academic philosopher, regurgitating old concepts of aristocracy and feudalism thinly veiled in futurist imagery. His arguments are the type that other lesser academics absorb and endlessly parrot as if they are profound.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
I am puzzled as why doesn’t pope keep his mouth shut then we would mistake him for a wise man.
Riches? what riches? How can he tell so glaring lies when he is drowned in incidents perpetrated by jihadis? eccentric-brained. Passionately perverted. unqualified to lead anything. Does not understand anything about his religion and other religions. Delusional. Seeking popularity at the expense of Christians principles. Has no principles or scruples. Neither conscience. You cannot say something when the opposite is just under your nose.
In Italy they say “ogni morte di papa”, that is “every pope’s death” for events that occur very rarely. When this robust 82-years old creep at long last croaks, culture-enrichers are going to dearly miss him, but not the European natives, whose genocide he actively advances.
With a massive decline in RC church attendance and decline in income, they have decided to become a NGO of the UN with the pope as the CEO.
#MakeThePopeCatholicAgain
As a Catholic, I’m constantly baffled and mortified by the things he says.
Someoone, please disinter the Polish Pope. We need him now.
Re: Transport for London lectures men on how to “sit properly”. With all respect to Paul Joseph Watson, from whose blog this is taken, I too have a penis and testicles, but don’t find it necessary to “manspread” myself across the adjacent seats on the bus or tube- indeed I’d find it unnatural; it’s simply rude and inconsiderate.
Ummm….perhaps your “junk” doesn’t get in the way.
I agree…manspreading is rude (at best) but it has many parallels in womanscreeching. It’s not a deal.
This video is on topic for radical Islam, from Black Pigeon speaks.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UESBPWEk1Qw
Burma | No Country For Radical Islam
Aung San Suu Kyi is no longer PC it seems.