Reader’s links for December 2 – 2016

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In order to preserve the flow of conversation about various posted items, and also in order to make it easier for visitors to find the list of related links being shared by other readers, regulars and interested parties in one place, each day a post is automatically created at a minute past midnight ET.

This way, under the various posts of the day, conversation can take place without as much ‘noise’ on the various links and articles and ideas in the main posts and all the news links being submitted can be seen under these auto-posts by clicking on the comments-link right below these ones.

Thank you all for those that take the effort to assist this site in keeping the public informed. Below, typically people can find the latest enemy propaganda, news items of related materials from multiple countries and languages, op-eds from many excellent sites who write on our topics, geopolitics and immigration issues and so on.

About Eeyore

Canadian artist and counter-jihad and freedom of speech activist as well as devout Schrödinger's catholic

96 Replies to “Reader’s links for December 2 – 2016”

  1. Migrant says he has ‘sexual compulsion’ after group sexually assault teen girls at party (express, Dec 2, 2016)
    http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/739253/Migrant-Germany-Munich-sexual-assault-attack-Cologne-teenage-girls-party

    “MIGRANTS sexually assaulted a group of 18-year-old girls and tried to drag one screaming teenager into an empty room against her will.

    A Syrian student also “aggressively fondled” a young victim and relentlessly tried to kiss her despite her physically fighting him and begging him to stop.

    Police in Munich, Germany, arrested the Middle Eastern man, who later claimed he had a “sexual compulsion”.

    The annual party is specifically for 18-year-olds, many of whom were badly shaken by events.

    One teenage girl said several migrants “aggressively danced with three girls” and would not step away from them even after they were told to stop.

    Five young men reportedly loitered in front an empty room and kept approaching young women before asking them to come inside.

    When one girl refused, two men attempted to drag her into the room but they were stopped by security.

    The 1,360-strong party was organised by mayor Dieter Reiter from the Social Democratic Party of Germany.

    He said: “The fact that apparently young men with a migration background were involved should not be argued away, but it has to be labelled as well.

    “I would not tolerate such behaviour at all. Luckily, the security forces have reacted quickly and well, but we will do everything we can in the future to prevent such attacks, possibly in advance.”

    The police press office confirmed 10 migrants had been thrown out of the party…”

  2. Fury as watchdog says it’s OK to send gay people death threats – but only if you’re Muslim (express, Dec 2, 2016)
    http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/739275/Dutch-watchdog-OK-send-gay-people-death-threats-Muslim

    “FURIOUS Dutch MPs have demanded an immediate public inquiry after a government-backed watchdog said it was acceptable for Muslims to send gay people death threats.

    In a shocking move, the taxpayer-funded hotline said it would not pursue a criminal complaint over horrific messages from radical Islamists because the Koran says gay people can be killed.

    The disgraceful stance came to light when a member of the public complained about death threats posted to an online forum which called for homosexuals to be “burned, decapitated and slaughtered”.

    Dutch MPs today reacted with horror to the revelations, demanding an immediate inquiry into the remarks and calling for the hotline to be stripped of public funding.

    According to Dutch media advisors from the anti-discrimination bureau MiND said that, while homophobic abuse was usually a crime, it was justifiable if you were Muslim due to laws on freedom of religious expression.

    They argued that the Koran says it is acceptable to kill people for being homosexual, and so death threats towards gay people from Muslims could not be discriminatory.

    In a jaw-dropping email explaining why they could not take up the complaint, they wrote: “The remarks must be seen in the context of religious beliefs in Islam, which juridically takes away the insulting character.”

    They concluded that the remarks were made in “the context of a public debate about how to interpret the Quran” and added that “some Muslims understand from the Quran that gays should be killed”.

    And they went on: “In the context of religious expression that exists in the Netherlands there is a large degree of freedom of expression. In addition, the expressions are used in the context of the public debate (how to interpret the Koran), which also removes the offending character.”

    The death threats had been made in the comments section for an article about a Dutch-Moroccan gay society, which had been posted to an online platform for Holland’s large Moroccan community.

    The revelation that they were so easily brushed aside by the anti-discrimination hotline will fuel an intense debate in the Netherlands over freedom of expression.

    Far-right politician Geert Wilders, whose party is expected to win next spring’s general election, is currently on trial for inciting racial hatred after telling a rally there were “too many Moroccans” in the Netherlands.

    And two right-wing MPs, Joram van Klaveren and Louis Bontes, have now announced their intention to bring up the incident in the Dutch parliament by asking questions of the Justice Minister.

    The pair argued that public prosecutors must be permitted to take up cases of homophobic abuse, especially where it concerns threats of violence, no matter who is making the discriminatory remarks.

    Mr Van Klaveren will ask: “Do you share our disgust at the fact that this explicitly states that inciting violence is not a problem if it comes from the Islamic belief?”

    A spokesman for the MiND hotline admitted that after “further research” of the issue it had concluded that the complaint had been “unjustly assessed”.

    He added that when the complaint involved calling for violence against a particular group, the beliefs of the person making the threats should not matter.”

  3. Not particularly surprising, but:

    Awarding the Nobel Peace Prize to US President Barack Obama in 2009 failed to achieve what the committee hoped it would, its ex-secretary has said.
    Geir Lundestad told the AP news agency that the committee hoped the award would strengthen Mr Obama.
    Instead, the decision was met with criticism in the US. Many argued he had not had any impact worthy of the award.
    Mr Lundestad, writing in his memoir, Secretary of Peace, said even Mr Obama himself had been surprised.
    “No Nobel Peace Prize ever elicited more attention than the 2009 prize to Barack Obama,” Mr Lundestad writes.
    “Even many of Obama’s supporters believed that the prize was a mistake,” he says. “In that sense the committee didn’t achieve what it had hoped for”.

    http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-34277960

  4. https://www.rt.com/news/369042-armed-man-hostage-paris/

    A siege in a Paris travel agency office has come to a close with the release of six hostages, but the suspect is reportedly still at large.
    Local media reports suggest that the incident was a botched robbery attempt.

    It started at approximately 6:30 p.m. Friday when the man, who was reportedly armed with a handgun, stormed the Asieland agency on Boulevard Massena, in the 13th Arrondissement.

    • Forgiving those who seek no forgiveness only encourages further transgressions. If the attackers are unapologetic, then they should face massively disproportionate retaliation.

      So long as Islam’s victims refuse to repay unrepentant Muslims in their own coin of violence and bloodshed, only more violence and bloodshed will follow. Islam’s “cycle of violence” is carefully calibrated to discourage the exact sort of retribution that will terminate its endless predation. Only utter fools and idiots will continue to convince themselves that negotiation or dialogue will have the slightest remedial effect.

      Wouldn’t it be terrible if a mosque in the same neighborhood burnt to the ground? What would Muslims have to say then about the wisdom of destroying Christian churches?

      As it is, the perpetrators can only be experiencing a sense of accomplishment and feeling emboldened to commit another attack that is similar or worse. After all, there weren’t any repercussions to this one, now were there?

      At the very worst, Christians can exercise their faith without having a single church to preach in. The same cannot be said for Muslims, whose ideology too often requires concealment of their indoctrination methods and announced agendas.

  5. Hamsphire College will reinstate the American Flag after widespread protest and outrage. The college decided to discontinue flying the flag to ‘open a discussion about bigtory.’

    “We understand that many who hold the flag as a powerful symbol of national ideals and their highest aspirations for the country — including members of our own community — felt hurt by our decisions, and that we deeply regret,” the college’s president, Jonathan Lash, stated Friday. He added, “We did not lower the flag to make a political statement. … We acted solely to facilitate much-needed dialogue on our campus about how to dismantle the bigotry that is prevalent in our society.”

    http://downtrend.com/markeece/hampshire-college-to-restore-flag-after-1000-veterans-protest

  6. Obama considering post-presidential digital media career, sources say

    President Barack Obama has been discussing a post-presidential career in digital media and is considering launching his own media company, according to multiple sources who spoke on background because they were not authorized to speak for the president.

    Obama considers media to be a central focus of his next chapter, these sources say, though exactly what form that will take — a show streaming on Netflix, a web series on a comedy site or something else — remains unclear. Obama has gone so far as to discuss launching his own media company, according to one source with knowledge of the matter, although he has reportedly cooled on the idea of late.

    When contacted for comment, White House communications director Jen Psaki told Mic in a statement, “While the president will remain actively engaged in inspiring young people and he is interested in the changing ways people consume information, he has no plans to get into the media business after he leaves office.”

    According to another source, Obama met privately with Facebook CEO and co-founder Mark Zuckerberg in Lima, Peru, on the sidelines of the recent APEC summit to discuss the matter.

    https://mic.com/articles/161028/obama-considering-post-presidential-digital-media-career-sources-say#.Vsbf1z7Zk

    • President Barack Obama has been discussing a post-presidential career in digital media and is considering launching his own media company…

      I predict that 0bama will switch from jamming legislation down our throat to blowing smoke up our @ss.

  7. Samford University recently declined to recognize a prospective Young Americans for Freedom (YAF) chapter because of the group’s “inflammatory” anti-communist stance.

    Karalee Geis, the student spearheading the effort to establish the group on campus, told Young America’s Foundation that she and other would-be YAF members spent at least 20 minutes presenting their case to the Faculty Senate, which then convened privately for another half-hour to discuss whether to approve the group.

    “I would have expected some roadblocks if this was any other school… but not Samford.” Tweet This

    According to Geis, two faculty members subsequently emerged to inform the YAF leaders that the Senate had voted to deny their application, but would be willing to reconsider the issue next semester provided that the group made revisions to its club constitution.

    [RELATED: Drake student gov rejects conservative club for ‘harmful’ views]

    The faculty’s specific objection related to YAF’s founding document, the Sharon Statement, which Geis claimed the professors interpreted as “not being kind to those who had a communist background.”

    http://www.campusreform.org/?ID=8467

  8. With Populist Anger Rising, Italy May Be Next Domino to Fall

    TURIN, Italy — Italy’s prime minister, Matteo Renzi, only 41, once seemed to have solved the riddle of how to survive Europe’s populist, anti-establishment tempest. But with a critical national referendum on Sunday, the populist wave is now threatening to crush him and plunge Italy into a political crisis when the European Union is already reeling.

    From Washington to Brussels to Berlin, fears are rising that Italy may be stumbling into its own “Brexit” moment. What should be an inward-looking referendum on whether to overhaul Italy’s ossified political and electoral system has taken on much broader import. Financial analysts warn of a potential banking crisis, and pro-Europe supporters fear that a “no” vote in the referendum could accelerate the populist movement across the European bloc.

    Italy is potentially the next domino to fall, partly because of the disillusionment of young voters. They have been swept up by many of the same forces that led peers in Spain and Greece to vote for upstart parties, the British to vote to leave the European Union, and Americans to elect Donald J. Trump. In France, President François Hollande announced on Thursday that he would not seek re-election — another establishment figure succumbing to the political moment.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/02/world/europe/italy-referendum-matteo-renzi.html?_r=0

  9. Italian Banks Flirt With Disaster Again as Renzi Teeters

    They’re burdened with a mountain of bad loans. Their stocks have cratered. And they have to operate in an economy prone to recession and political upheaval.

    Signs have been mounting for months that Italy’s weakest lenders, and in particular Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena SpA, were sliding toward the precipice, threatening to reignite a broader crisis.

    But don’t be surprised if Italy’s troubled banks sidestep disaster yet again.

    The next chapter could start Sunday, when polls conducted before a pre-election blackout suggest Italian voters will reject a constitutional change to streamline the legislative process, a decision that could lead Prime Minister Matteo Renzi to resign. Should he quit, Italy may enter a period of political and market turmoil just as its fragile banks are struggling to win back the confidence of investors and regulators. Monte Paschi is in the middle of a 5 billion-euro ($5.3 billion) capital raising, while UniCredit SpA, Italy’s biggest lender, is considering its own stock offering.

    https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-12-02/italian-banks-flirt-with-disaster-again-as-government-teeters

  10. http://www.westernjournalism.com/thepoint/2016/12/01/revealed-these-tough-guys-really-lost-sleep-over-trumps-election-try-not-to-laugh/

    REVEALED: These ‘Tough Guys’ Really Lost Sleep Over Trump’s Election – Try Not To Laugh
    Poor babies ….


    According to a report by “CBS This Morning” correspondent Margaret Brennan, the 60 detainees remaining at the federal prison in Guantanamo Bay Cuba had apparently been rooting so hard for a Hillary Clinton victory that they needed tranquilizers to get to sleep when it became apparent Trump would win.

  11. Mother Of OSU Attacker Says Her Son Was Killed ‘For No Reason’

    “… a dream to be someone to help his community …”

    On Thursday, the mother of Somali-born Ohio State University student Abdul Razak Ali Artan said before his funeral that her son was killed for “no reason.”

    The 18-year-old Artan drove his car into a crowd, exited the vehicle and proceeded to attack nearby students with a butcher knife before being fatally shot by campus police officer Alan Horujko, who was the first to arrive on the scene.

    Artan was the only fatality in the attack, which left 11 people injured at the campus in Columbus, Ohio.

    Ahmed Sh. Ahmed, the director of the Ibn Taymia Mosque and Islamic Center where the ceremony was held, recalled Artan’s mother in tears as she kissed the body of her son for a final time before his burial.

    “She was crying, and said, ‘I love you, my son. I know they kill you for no reason,’” Ahmed said.

    “I asked his mom yesterday, ‘Did you see any change, any kind of change?’ and she said, ‘No, everything was normal, everything was the same,’ Ahmed told WCMH-TV in Columbus.

    Ahmed said relatives and those close to Artan perceived him to be a “nice young man” and “a good student.”

    He said that Artan’s aunt told him her nephew “had a dream to be someone to help his community and serve his community.”

    Artan worked at a Home Depot a few miles from his home. A customer of the store told the Columbus Dispatch that Artan seemed “very happy, very engaged in his work. Very polite.”

    Monday morning prior to the attack, Artan purchased a knife at a Walmart, although authorities have not confirmed if it is the same knife used in the attack.

    Columbus police and the FBI believe Artan was likely inspired by extremist propaganda, although they have not yet found a clear link between Artan and any terrorist groups.

    A social media post made just hours before the attack and believed to have been written by Artan said, “I am sick and tired of my fellow Muslim brothers and sisters being killed everywhere.”

    The post talks about reaching a “boiling point” after seeing Muslims being killed in Burma and and concludes with, “I can’t take it anymore.”

    http://www.westernjournalism.com/mother-of-osu-attacker-says-her-son-was-killed-for-no-reason/

  12. Bergdahl requests pardon from President Obama, US officials

    Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl–held captive for five years after being captured by the Taliban in Afghanistan–has requested a pardon from President Obama, Fox News has learned from two senior US officials.

    According to a well-placed source, Bergdahl thanked the president for rescuing him in May 2014 in a controversial exchange for five Taliban prisoners from Gitmo, in addition to asking for a pardon in the letter.

    The Secretary of the Army was copied on the letter to the president, but the pardon was not formally requested through the military chain of command.

    A Justice Department official confirms that it received a pardon petition from Bergdahl. Pentagon and White House officials would not immediately respond for comment.

    Bergdahl’s pardon letter was sent to the president via the Department of Justice, officials said. There was no immediate comment from DOJ.

    Reached by phone, Eugene R. Fidell, the attorney representing Sgt. Bergdahl, would not comment on the letter.

    Last month, Sgt. Bergdahl’s court-martial trial was delayed for a second time and will now begin May 15 at Fort Bragg, NC.

    Bergdahl faces charges of desertion and misbehavior before the enemy and could face up to life in prison.

    President-elect Donald Trump called Bergdahl a “dirty, rotten traitor” early in his presidential campaign during a town hall in August 2015.

    The Army general who investigated Bergdahl’s disappearance from a remote outpost in eastern Afghanistan on June 30, 2009 recommended that Bergdahl not receive jail time.

    After being captured by the Taliban a short time after he left his post, Bergdahl was transferred to the Haqqani network, which top officials say is the most dangerous militant group in the region.

    The State Department designated the Haqqani network, based in Pakistan, as a foreign terrorist organization in 2012.

    The US officials have long accused Pakistan’s spy agency, Inter-Services Intelligence, of supporting the Haqqani network made up of Taliban fighters in both Afghanistan and Pakistan.

    During the U.S. military’s intensive man-hunt for Bergdahl over a five-year period it was reported that up to six American soldiers died and others were wounded in the search, but these claims have been disputed.

    Shortly after he was returned to US custody, President Obama’s national security advisor Susan Rice said Bergdahl served his country with “honor and distinction.”

    http://www.foxnews.com/us/2016/12/02/doj-confirms-bergdahl-requests-pardon-from-president-obama-us-officials.html