Reader’s links for March 1st 2017

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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

67 Replies to “Reader’s links for March 1st 2017”

  1. “So how did the trans lobby become so influential?

    The answer lies in the fact that in the past 20 years, gay people have become more mainstream, with civil partnerships and gay weddings widely accepted.

    Not everyone, though, was content to let gays like me — who came out in the Eighties and fought for equality — enjoy our new-found freedoms.

    The extremists among us became bored by what had effectively become conventional mainstream lifestyles.

    Rebels without a cause, they had to find a new one. And they did: gender politics.

    So it is that they have spawned a baffling array of acronyms for what used to be called the LGBT community — that’s lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans.”
    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-4269792/ANDREW-PIERCE-powerful-transgender-lobby.html

    When you let your conscience slide to admit mentally ill people in to your country, the much more radical will soon follow. The compromised mother syndrome. Socialism.

    Mentally ill people distract themselves from their demons through self harm. Whenever close to stillness, to things settling down – the fear of hearing reality kicks in to seeking rescue away from their repressed memories of violation and abuse.

    The madder and madder the society gets, it achieves this homosexual perceiving and arguing for a better world – as if they themselves stood in the place of wisdom and normal. (When twenty years prior to him coming out, a news sketch would have been written exactly like this about him and the fall of civilization). And that is the whole point.

    A world made violent, irrational and illogical will then makes Muhammad hold the comparative virtues of a saint. The matter of degrees, of putting a finger into boiling water and then they will be comforted by the luke warm.

    • So in a regular restrictive and hostile Islamic community, the kufar will be relieved and affectionate for the great teacher who stated, “there is no compulsion in Religion.”

      However, in a sane land, the idea that any cherry-picked ideas can be fossilized for all time will be abhorrent and the precursor to sects and cults.

  2. Islamic State supreme leader’s speech admits defeat in Mosul: source (iraqinews, Mar 1, 2017)
    http://www.iraqinews.com/iraq-war/islamic-state-supreme-leader-admits-defeat-mosul-speech-source/

    “The Islamic State’s supreme leader has delivered a speech ordering his fighters to flee urban areas in Mosul, a presumable acknowledgement of defeat to U.S.-backed Iraqi forces and militias fighting to retake the city.

    Alsumaria News quoted local sources saying that Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi made a “farewell speech” to his combatants in battlefields, ordering them to “flee and hide in mountainous areas” in Iraq and Syria. The text of the speech was disseminated among other speakers to read out to fighters at various areas in western Mosul.

    The directives tell fighters to blow themselves up once encircled by Iraqi troops, the source claims, adding that senior commanders close to Baghdadi were moving on the borderline between Syria and Iraq. “The leaders of the so-called Mujahideen Shura (advisory) Council have all fled Nineveh and Tal Afar to Syria.”…”

  3. Turkish media mogul Dogan summoned to court over fuel smuggling (reuters, Mar 1, 2017)
    http://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-turkey-media-idUKKBN1684AD?rpc=401&

    “The honorary chairman of Turkish conglomerate Dogan Holding was summoned on Wednesday to appear in court over accusations of fuel smuggling, a day after Turkey’s president criticised a story published in the group’s Hurriyet newspaper.

    Aydin Dogan, 80, who founded and ran media-to-energy conglomerate until 2010, is a prominent figure in Turkey’s secular establishment and has had strained ties with President Tayyip Erdogan and the ruling Islamist-rooted AK Party in the past.

    His group has faced charges that it ran a fuel-smuggling ring a decade ago and Dogan and Isbank’s Ersin Ozince, 64, face up to 24-1/2 years in prison on charges of setting up a criminal gang, smuggling and fraud.

    This is the first time, however, that Dogan has been summoned to court in the case, rather than being represented by his lawyer. Dogan and Ozince have denied any wrongdoing.

    The Istanbul court ordered that Dogan be compelled to attend the next hearing in the case where 47 defendants are being tried, state-run Anadolu Agency said.

    The group’s newspaper Hurriyet has come under fire for a Feb. 25 story saying the government had not sought the opinion of the army before lifting a ban on the headscarf in the military.

    The headline was seen as implying discord between the army and government and was criticised by Erdogan on Tuesday, sending shares in Hurriyet and Dogan Holding tumbling.

    The shares fell further on Wednesday with Dogan Holding down 4.2 percent and Hurriyet 1.4 percent lower.

    The court case covers the 2001-2008 period when Dogan Holding and Isbank owned stakes in Petrol Ofisi, Turkey’s biggest chain of gas stations, now operated by Austria’s OMV. The retailer is accused of avoiding customs taxes.

    Erdogan has repeatedly accused Dogan Holding of bias against the government, which the media organisation denies.

    Aydin Dogan has dismissed the oil smuggling case, saying it lacked reason and legal basis.”

  4. Saudi King Salman packs 460 tonnes for nine-day trip (skynews, Mar 1, 2017)
    http://news.sky.com/story/saudi-king-salman-packs-460-tonnes-for-nine-day-trip-10786126

    “It’s hard to travel light for anyone but especially tough if you’re a royal. Just ask the king of Saudi Arabia.

    He’s arrived in Indonesia as part of a rare royal tour of Asia with nearly 460 tonnes of luggage and an entourage of 1,500 people, according to Indonesian officials.

    Had King Salman been flying with a commercial airline he’d have needed 23,000 bags to split his gear into typical 20kg suitcases. On Easyjet that would have led to a £690,000 bill for excess baggage.

    Thankfully for the king his official jet was on hand to take him to Halim airport in Indonesia’s capital, Jakarta.

    Several other jets carrying his entourage and equipment also arrived in the country…”

  5. DAILY MAIL -AUSTRALIA Now you understand why people are terrified of mosques being built in their backyards’: Pauline Hanson claims vicious Islamic brawl is why Australia should STOP building new prayer centres

    Pauline Hanson has commented on a recent brawl outside a Melbourne mosque
    One Nation leader said it was proof that Australia should stop building mosques
    She also said it showed why the government should hold an inquiry into Islam
    The conflict outside Preston Mosque rose over banned Sheikh Mohamad Eid
    Sheikh accused of inappropriate behaviour, claims have now been withdrawn
    He claims mosque management had misappropriated donations

    Pauline Hanson claims a brawl outside one of Melbourne’s largest mosques is proof that Australia should stop building the Islamic centres and hold an inquiry into Islam.

    Confronting footage captured outside of Preston Mosque on Friday showed a group of men exchanging blows over the treatment of banned Sheikh Mohamad Abou Eid.

    The One Nation leader shared a video of the brawl online, writing: ‘After watching this can you understand why people are terrified about new mosques being built in their backyards?’

    ‘It’s because of things like this that we need to immediately stop building mosques and hold an inquiry into Islam!'[…]

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4269530/Pauline-Hanson-condemns-fight-Melbourne-mosque.html

  6. Germany: ‘Political Islam’ is the ‘fascist threat of our time’ – FPO’s Strache

    Chairman of far-right Freedom Party of Austria (FPO), Heinz-Christian Strache, said that “political Islam must be banned” and that it is the “fascist threat of our time” at the political Ash Wednesday conference in Osterhofen.

    • NATIONAL REVIEW – The Swamp Takes Aim at Seb Gorka – Andrew C. McCarthy

      A series of hit pieces is part of an effort to take down the White House counterterrorism adviser.

      They’ve taken down General Michael Flynn. The former Trump national-security adviser resigned under fire when a false narrative — his purported collusion with election-hacking Russians — was inflamed by criminal intelligence leaks, exacerbated by his poor judgment (or, at the least, poor execution of his duty to brief senior administration officials). Now, the swamp is after its next scalp, Sebastian Gorka, a White House counterterrorism adviser. If the White House is wise, they won’t get it.

      Seb is a friend of mine. He is also an accomplished scholar of jihadist ideology and methodology. A series of transparently coordinated hit pieces against him has issued from the usual mainstream-media sources. They have been ably rebutted, among other places, here at National Review Online, in a column by Colin Dueck, and at the Washington Free Beacon, in reports by Bill Gertz and Adam Kredo. The notion that he is racist, “Islamophobic” (as opposed to anti-jihadist), or uninformed is absurd. I wish only to add a couple of observations to the mix.

      First, Washington’s government-centric clerisy has forged its own counterterrorism industry over the years, consisting of former investigators and intel analysts, along with the academics who collaborate with them. Much of the work they have done is very solid. But some of it has been highly politicized — in the Bush years, when the powers that be took umbrage at any suggestion that Islamic culture and some mainstream currents of Islamic thought are inherently resistant to Western democracy; and in the Obama years, when any whisper of the nexus between classical, scripture-based Islamic doctrine and terrorism committed by Muslims was a firing offense.

      Gorka, an American citizen who grew up in London and holds a doctorate in political science from the Budapest University of Economic Sciences and Public Administration, is an outside-the-Beltway academic. His clear-eyed understanding of totalitarian ideology, as we shall see, is largely based on having experienced its wages. In short, he is a gate-crasher who does not share the industry’s presumptions. Worse, from the industry’s perspective, he is an extraordinarily effective speaker and writer, who connects well in the classroom, on the page, in the council hall, and at the television studio. He is anathema to an expert class that has spent years willingly putting itself in the service of such farce as “countering violent extremism,” “workplace violence,” “Arab Spring,” “religion of peace,” and other manifestations of willful blindness.

      There is thus a target on his back. The Trump administration’s quick cashiering of General Flynn has convinced establishment Washington that it may not take much character assassination for the next guy to be thrown under the proverbial bus.

      Second, Flynn was replaced as national-security adviser by General H. R. McMaster, a commendable warrior but one lodged firmly in the Bush/Obama see-no-Islam mindset, which is at odds with Trump’s oft-stated determination to recognize the connection between Islam and terrorism. General McMaster evidently objects to Trump’s naming of “radical Islamic terrorism” as the enemy. As I’ve contended, naming the enemy is necessary but not nearly sufficient; it is but a first step toward the real necessity of understanding the enemy. I have expressed my own reservations about the term “radical Islamic terrorism,” so I can hardly fault McMaster on that score. I can quarrel, though, with his reportedly Obama-esque position that the Islamic State is not Islamic. That is no more sensible than saying that the Islamic State is perfectly representative of Islam.

      There is wide diversity in the observance of Islam, and significant diversity — though less of it — in Islamic doctrine. If that were not the case, there would be no Muslim reformers, since there would be nothing objectionable to reform. I’ve argued that there is enough internecine conflict among Muslims to call into question whether there actually is a “true Islam”; and that it has thus been a waste of precious national-security energy to debate for nearly the last 40 years whether jihadists — who are practicing a scripturally endorsed form of warfare — are “un-Islamic.” From the perspective of Americans concerned about security and liberty, what matters is that (a) a sizable plurality of the world’s 1.5 billion-plus Muslims believes classical sharia — which fundamentally contravenes our Constitution — is the required framework for governing society, and (b) some percentage of that plurality is active in the pursuit of that belief, including a small but not insubstantial subset of violent jihadists. Whether these sharia-supremacist Muslims are faithful or heretical is not something non-Muslims are going to decide for Muslims, nor are Muslims much interested in our meanderings on the subject.

      There is not only diversity in Islam, there are salient contextual differences in how we must deal with this diversity. There are places in the world where American interests are at stake and where Islamists are the only game in town — such that alliances with unsavory elements are unavoidable if worse elements are to be quelled. Warriors like General McMaster were thrust into such situations and could not have carried out their missions otherwise. Understandably, they have a perspective on the prudence of going the extra mile not to give offense to Muslims that is apt to be different from, say, a federal prosecutor whose case hinges on a jury’s understanding of the nexus between the defendants’ fundamentalist Islamic doctrine and their terrorist actions. It ought, moreover, to be common sense that how we should deal with Islamists on their turf when our security requires it may be markedly different from how we should deal with them on our turf when they are making demands that run counter to our principles and culture.

      What these and other permutations ought to tell us is that group-think burdened by political correctness is the enemy of security. If an administration is going to meet our challenges effectively, it needs General McMaster and Dr. Gorka. It needs patriotic experts whose goal is the same — to protect the United States — but whose well-grounded views and experiences of what that requires may be very different. To untold millions of Muslims, jihadist terror is an abomination. But if the president is hearing only that terrorism is “un-Islamic,” he is missing a big part of the picture, and he can never “know thine enemy.”

      Seb Gorka is far from an extremist. His short, accessible, best-selling book Defeating Jihad is a good, macro-level primer on the Islamic doctrinal and scholarly roots of jihadist terror. He is quite clear in it, as he has been in his public presentations, that Muslims are, by far, the most numerous victims of jihadism. Indeed, while I see the focal point of the threat as adherence to classical sharia, Seb emphasizes takfiri jihad, which targets Muslims who do not adhere to the brutal al-Qaeda and ISIS construction of Islam.

      There are three major takeaways from the book, all rooted in Seb’s argument that the threat against us is ideologically-based. First, the ideological challenge is as much within Islam as about Islam, so it is critical that we empower our Muslim allies. Second, it is an ideological challenge of a nature we have successfully dealt with before (the book seeks a modern analogue to the Cold War containment doctrine championed by George Kennan and Paul Nitze). Third, it is an ideological challenge rooted in totalitarianism, a subject Seb grasps with particular clarity. The most riveting part of the book is the prologue, in which he relates the story of his own father, an operative in Hungary’s anti-Soviet resistance, who was detained for years and tortured after being double-crossed by Britain’s traitorous Philby spy ring. The elder Gorka made his way to the West, and to freedom, in the chaos of the 1956 uprising, even as the Kremlin crushed it.

      Seb Gorka has valuable insight about the need for clarity and resolve in confronting a determined, remorseless enemy. He is a resource the Trump national-security team is fortunate to have. They’d be well advised to keep him, regardless of the Swamp’s preferences.

      http://www.nationalreview.com/article/445342/sebastian-gorka-counterterrorism-adviser-trump-administration-not-extremist

    • FORBES – Journalists Beware: Your War On Sebastian Gorka Is Only Hurting You

      Tomahawk in hand, reporters have been hunting Sebastian Gorka, a national security advisor to President Trump, for more than a week. They are scalping themselves instead.

      Media attacks on Gorka are wide-ranging and, seemingly, coordinated. Some are straight-up character assassinations, such as trying to tie Gorka to anti-Semites by playing six-degrees-of-separation with Hungarian populists. Others contend that Gorka has an “extreme” view on Islam and seeks a war with its more than one billion followers—ignoring that he writes in his 2016 book Defeating Jihad: “We are not at war with Islam.” Then, there is the major media’s respectful coverage of a weird Twitter storm touched off by a self-described “terrorism expert,” who has virtually no credentials, who nevertheless contends that Gorka is “unqualified.” Finally, there are the attacks on Gorka’s 2007 dissertation for having too few footnotes, among other trifles.

      All of these accusations are treated as news and amplified by the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times and other major outlets. The aim? Bring down another Trump national security advisor, after National Security Advisor Michael Flynn and would-be National Security Council spokeswoman Monica Crowley. They want Gorka for their next scalp.

      Let’s explore each accusation because, collectively, they reveal how the media is on a suicide dive into an empty pool. If there were serious and genuine concerns about Gorka, that would be one thing. But when Gorka’s antagonists know (and often admit) how baseless their allegations are, and yet traffic in them anyway, it tells us something new and disturbing about American journalism.

      First, there is the strange allegation of anti-Semitism. Charges of anti-Semitism are like hand grenades thrown into backyard barbecues; even if they don’t go off, their arrival shocks everyone and irreversibly recasts the moment. Gorka’s foes know what they are doing when they make such shocking allegations, and they know how weak their claims are.

      The Forward contends that “Gorka’s involvement with the far right includes cofounding a political party with former prominent members of Jobbik, a political party with a well-known history of anti-Semitism; repeatedly publishing articles in a newspaper known for its anti-Semitic and racist content; and attending events with some of Hungary’s most notorious extreme-right figures.”

      Reporters know that this is just “guilt by association.” Gorka founded a party that included some people who came from another party and that other party had some figures who… Really? This is the argument here? Gorka wrote for a newspaper that also published content that critics called “anti-Semitic” and hung around opposition figures that included people that critics say are “anti-Semitic,” therefore…. Even if the critics were right about the alleged “anti-Semitism” of the other journalists and the other politicians (and there are good reasons to believe that their characterizations are highly questionable), it reveals nothing about Gorka or his beliefs. Sharing a room with Helen Keller does not make one blind; sharing a subway car with Albert Einstein does not make one a genius.

      The other piece of “evidence” put forward by the Forward, and other publications, is a small medal that Gorka sometimes sports. Here’s how Foreign Policy magazine put it: “He went to one of Trump’s inauguration balls wearing a medal that some saw as “a nod to Miklos Horthy,” the leader of Hungary who entered his country into an alliance with Nazi Germany.”

      This kind of thing used to be ridiculed as a story “too good to check.” The reality is more prosaic and more believable. The medal was given to his father in 1979 for starting an anti-communist organization at his university in Hungary—a courageous and dangerous act under a Soviet-backed dictator. The Order of Vitez, the organization that awarded the medal, is not a Nazi front group. During World War II, it did include some pro-Nazi figures as well as many others who died fighting the Nazis. Anyway, the identity of some members of a group more than 70 years ago says nothing about the beliefs of contemporary members. Consider that, also in the 1940s, the AFL-CIO included people who were members of the Communist Party as well as people opposed to America’s entrance into World War II. Does that mean that today’s union members are communists or isolationists?

      Needless to say, the medal does not include a swastika or any other Nazi symbol.

      So why does Gorka wear it? I asked him this question when we met in Budapest in 2006. He said: In memory of his late father, whom he reveres and misses. At the time, Gorka was a Hungarian citizen who had no reason to dissemble and no plans to move to Washington. He gives the same explanation to reporters today.

      Only a strange paranoia by some journalists can transform a family keepsake into a crypto-Nazi secret sign.

      Next, there is contention that Gorka has “extreme” views on Islam. This one is widely reported and equally impervious to evidence.

      Gorka has been very clear, over the past decade that I have known him, that we must wage a multipronged war on terrorism. That would include a “war of ideas” in which we name the enemy ideology that we face and openly argue against its tenets—just as we did in fighting communism in the Cold War. The enemy today is a form of radical Islam, a Salafi variant, that is a body of thought that is, more or less, the code of dozens of militant groups—from Egyptian Islamic Jihad and al Qaeda to ISIS and AQIM. Its core beliefs can be found in the writings of Sayyid Qutb and similar thinkers, not the Koran or early Muslim scholars.

      Gorka has been emphatic that the enemy is not Islam. He has said those words explicitly, without any hedging. He has also been clear that there is an ideological war among Muslims, a small fraction of which side with al Qaeda and its ilk against the vast majority of Muslims, who are among the terrorists’ most numerous victims. He also points out that the war on terror can never be won without the support of Muslims. Does this sound like the ravings of some “anti-Muslim extremist”?

      Sadly, facts do not matter. Any time analysts, like Gorka, talk about radical ideology, certain politically correct buzzers go off. Do you mean all Muslims? Critics cry, with horror, that one-fifth of the human race is being named as our enemy. No matter how many times these politically correct idiots (what else do you call someone who refuses to accept the plain meaning of words?) are reassured that Gorka does not mean what they imagine, they keep imagining it and keep asserting that is what is really being said. Thus, beginning in the Bush years and accelerating in the Obama years, national security documents were all but stripped of the words “jihad” and similar words. Why do these words matter? If you are going to engage the ideas that are the life force of al Qaeda and its sisters, we must be able to name and discuss these ideas—and their opposites.

    • Remember, ideas win wars. If Lincoln had been silent on the evil institution of slavery, if FDR had been silent on the evils of the Nazi dictatorship, if Reagan had not explained why the Soviet Union truly was an “evil empire,” our world would be very different. Without a contrast of ideas between freedom and slavery, between individualism and collectivism, war is just a meaningless slaughter that commands no one’s allegiance. It is no more than leaders playing chess with human lives. People willingly risk their lives in war because of their side’s ideals and the enemy’s ideas.

      Gorka’s point is so obvious and so obviously right, that it is hard to imagine that his critics are really reading or hearing him. Instead, they have conjured a straw man and are fighting with it.

      Then, there is the Smith incident. I was surprised to see Michael Smith II so respectfully quoted in the Wall Street Journal and other outlets…because I have met him. He is an ankle-biter, not a serious analyst.

      Smith came to the media’s attention via his near-daily Twitter attacks on Gorka. He recently tweeted at Trump: “You are endangering the lives of Americans by hiring fake ‘terrorism experts.’” He meant Gorka. He supplied no evidence or explanation.

      Smith should know something about “fake terrorism experts” as he has precious few credentials of his own. The 2007 College of Charleston graduate has had a few stray encounters with members of Congress and then billed himself as a terrorism expert advising Congress. Several members of Congress have asked him to stop misrepresenting himself. He is not a terrorism advisor to Congress, although he did do some freelance work for some committees and mailed staffers some of his research papers. Throw in a few broadcast appearances and op-eds and you have the whole of his body of work.

      Smith has not served in any military or intelligence agency, does not hold an advanced degree in the subject, has not travelled in the Arab world nor met senior intelligence figures there, and has not published any important work in either the academic or popular press. He appears to have never had a national security clearance of any kind. Nor has he been recognized by a federal judge as a “subject-matter expert” on terrorism. (Gorka, by contrast, has each of these credentials in addition to having taught graduate-level counterterrorism courses at the National Defense University and Marine Corps University.)

      So this whole affair seems strange. “Chutzpah” seems too small a word to cover Smith’s accusations here. If anything, the arrow of “unqualified” should point the other way.

      Unlike Gorka, I have met the Charleston-based analyst. He was known for hanging around a now-defunct monthly meeting of South Carolina conservatives, once held in the Mills House hotel on historic Meeting Street. (UPDATE: Smith claims in a tweet to be a co-founder of this gathering. It may be true, or not, but, either way, it is immaterial.) The monthly meeting organizer, Mallory Factor, spotted me answering a question from Smith. “Stay away from him,” he later warned me. “He’s a nut.”

      Despite Factor’s warning, I later had a drink with Smith, as I was willing to meet anyone involved in studying terrorism. (UPDATE: We also discussed, as Smith reminded me in a tweet, the possibility of Smith doing some freelance fundraising for a non-profit I was affiliated with, but nothing ever came of it.) Smith was soft-spoken and polite, but was clearly in the grip of various conspiracy theories. One example: He thought the Muslim Brotherhood had penetrated the Department of Homeland Security at the highest levels. A classic poseur, he claimed to have an array of secret intelligence contacts. I thought he was harmless and earnest, but not serious or careful observer of world events.

      Aside from being asked to review a manual for the U.S. House of Representatives counterterrorism committee, to which he made no memorable changes, I am unaware of any national security contributions by Smith.

      When Smith launched a series of daily Twitter attacks, Gorka phoned him and asked him to stop. Of course, Smith refused. He was getting more attention for his baseless 140-character attacks than he received in his entire career. Naturally, Smith recorded the call and released it the press to win himself another round of attention. Listening to the call, Smith is clearly trying to goad Gorka, not explain his own “concerns.”

      On the call, Smith repeats his claim that Gorka is “wholly unqualified to advise the president” on national security. When Gorka, incredibly, invites him to come to the White House and present his evidence, Smith’s response is telling: “There is no evidence to bring.”

      To the extent Smith has a case at all, it revolves around Smith’s disagreement with Gorka about waging an ideological war against terrorism. Revealingly, Smith is enraged at the media’s straw man of Gorka’s views (he wants to fight all Muslims!) rather than Gorka’s published work.

      It was unwise for Gorka to parry with an irrational, ambitious figure like Smith, who is beyond the reach of reason. Yet one can understand why Gorka might try. These attacks came out of nowhere. There was no inciting incident; it is not as if Gorka ran over Smith’s cat. The two never met or even dueled online. Gorka wanted to see if there was some honest misunderstanding that might be cleared up. He didn’t realize that he was being used; Smith hoped to raise himself by attacking upward. The bigger question: Why did reporters at major publications give Smith a forum when he lacks any standing or credibility?

      Then there is the matter of Gorka’s dissertation. Various bloggers and academics have read it and taken shots at it. Cheap shots. There aren’t enough footnotes. Their illustrations are crude. And, finally, it is not written in an academic style that would be accepted in the United States. These are all opinions, not facts. If there were truly “fringe” views expressed in Gorka’s dissertation, those tell-tale statements would be widely quoted. The absence of such shocking quotes speaks volumes.

      Reading these criticisms of Gorka’s Ph.D. work leaves one feeling somewhat embarrassed for his critics. This nitpicking and harrumphing makes them appear small-minded and overly partisan. They are stooping to punch a 2007 graduate-school paper.

      One critic, a dean at the Fletcher School of Diplomacy, ventures that he had never heard of Gorka before—the implication being that he can’t be that important if the dean had not bumped into him at some conference. This turns things upside down. Academics become relevant and important by knowing White House personnel, not the reverse.

      Finally, anyone advising the president is, by definition, not a fringe character, but a player in the center of the action. Fringe views are the ones that are not even considered by those in power.

      Which brings us back to the state of American journalism. All of Gorka’s critics know, or should know, that their contentions about anti-Semitism, extreme views or poor qualifications, are empty. The evidence just isn’t there. Similar arguments, on stronger evidence, could be made about Obama’s advisor Ben Rhodes, a former creative-writing student who ended up advising the president on national security.

      Yet no one published such silly articles about Rhodes. Why? At major publications, reporters knew that editors would push back and say: “Where is the chain of facts that unambiguously links this person to that conclusion?”

      With Gorka, editors should have said: Wearing a medal or publishing an op-ed in a newspaper that publishes other op-eds that some find objectionable simply does not prove anything. Come back, they should say, when you have proof.

      But they did not.

      For some reason, in the Trump era, editors have abdicated their traditional role. They have stepped down from their thrones and become what they once accused bloggers of being–reckless and feckless. Without the standards and the safeguards of genuine journalism, there is no reason for the public to respect journalists. Making frightening claims with no compelling evidence will have real consequences. Just ask the boy who cried “wolf” too many times.

      When the media wonders why its credibility is ebbing away, remember Sebastian Gorka.

      https://www.forbes.com/sites/richardminiter/2017/02/28/journalists-beware-your-jihad-on-sebastian-gorka-is-only-hurting-you/

      • Thank-you, Martin.
        I read that horrible article in the NYT, and it’s obvious the Swamp is energized. We can’t let another Good Guy fall like Flynn. The White House had planned to appoint Clare Lopez for some important post, but the Swamp bared its fangs and the transition team backed down.

        The biggest loss would be Bannon. He’s essential. [My source for that is a Republican activist in Wisconsin, a NRA stalwart.]

        • The swamp will win a few but in the long run they are going to lose.

          While Claire Lopez would do a lot of good in the White House she will do as much good in the private sector, especially since she hasn’t been slimmed and in need of rehabilitation before she will be effective. General Flynn will be back working to ensure our survival but he will have to be rehabilitated before he can be effective.

  7. GOP wants to eliminate shadowy DOJ slush fund bankrolling leftist groups

    The Obama administration funneled billions of dollars to activist organizations through a Department of Justice slush fund scheme, according to congressional investigators.

    “It’s clear partisan politics played a role in the illicit actions that were made,” Rep. John Ratcliffe, R-Texas, told Fox News. “The DOJ is the last place this should have occurred.”

    Findings spearheaded by the House Judiciary Committee point to a process shrouded in secrecy whereby monies were distributed to a labyrinth of nonprofit organizations involved with grass-roots activism.

    “Advocates for big government and progressive power are using the Justice Department to extort money from corporations,” Judicial Watch’s Tom Fitton told Fox News. “It’s a shakedown. It’s corrupt, pure and simple.”

    There is a recent effort by Republicans to eliminate the practice, which many believe was widely abused during the Obama administration.

    When big banks are sued by the government for discrimination or mortgage abuse, they can settle the cases by donating to third-party non-victims. The settlements do not specify how these third-party groups could use the windfall.

    So far, investigators have accounted for $3 billion paid to “non-victim entities.”

    Critics say banks are incentivized to donate the funds to non-profits rather than giving it to consumers.

    “The underlying problem with the slush funds is we don’t know exactly where the money is going,” Ted Franks, director of The Competitive Enterprise Institute Center for Class Action Fairness, told Fox News. “Using enforcement authority to go after corporate defendants, DOJ bureaucrats are taking billions away from taxpayers to fund their pet projects overriding congressional preferences.”

    http://www.foxnews.com/us/2017/03/01/gop-wants-to-eliminate-shadowy-doj-slush-fund-bankrolling-leftist-groups.html

      • Since the 60s the left has set up several things that have the tax payers paying for the people trying to force socialism on us, with luck this will be change in the next 4 years.

        • Soros leverages his [stolen] money with looting public monies. Every Color Revolution has been a profit center for him. If he succeeds in putting Macron in office in France, he’ll make a bundle.

          • Yeah, all of the AstroTurf protesters don’t realize that while they are demonstrating against billionaire businessmen if they succeed in their actions they will make Soros much richer and end up being thrown under the bus when that will either make him money or protect him.

  8. Germany: Backpack ban brought into force for Cologne cathedral visitors

    Security measures were strengthened outside Cologne cathedral, Wednesday, in a bid to ensure safety inside the building.

    Cologne cathedral prevost and prelate Gerd Bachner stated that, from March 1, 2017, security officials and cathedral staff will be carrying out security controls at the cathedral’s entrance, and that large luggage is no longer admitted inside the building.

  9. Protest Organizers Recorded Meeting Ahead Of Senator Cassidy’s Breaux Bridge Town Hall

  10. Majority of Quebecers opposed to more immigration: poll

    A majority of Quebecers oppose the idea of welcoming more immigrants to Canada, a new survey suggests.

    A poll conducted by SOM for Cogeco Nouvelles and published Wednesday suggests that 55 per of respondents think Canada shouldn’t accept more immigrants in the wake of anti-immigration measures announced by U.S. President Donald Trump, while 36 per cent are in favour of welcoming more immigrants and nine per cent are undecided.

    The survey also found that 75 per cent of the 1,010 respondents polled online are in favour of tightening surveillance on Canada’s borders to prevent the arrival of illegal immigrants.

    Meanwhile, the survey also suggests that only 36 per cent of respondents favour a decision by city council to designate Montreal a “sanctuary city” for illegal immigrants while 41 per cent oppose the idea. Nearly one in four respondents — 23 per cent — were undecided on the issue. But the survey, conducted between Feb. 24-27, found that the younger and more educated of the respondents favoured the concept of a sanctuary city, which would allow immigrants with no official status to receive full access to public services offered by Montreal.

    The poll’s margin of error is 3.4 per cent, 19 times out of 20.

    http://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/majority-of-quebecers-opposed-to-more-immigration-poll

  11. A Nation of Immigrants — Only If They Assimilate
    How the Left is undoing one of America’s greatest immigration achievements.
    March 1, 2017
    Dennis Prager

    I am writing this column in Japan, a country whose crime rate is the lowest among countries with large populations. I asked my Japanese translator, a middle-aged woman, what she thought.

    “Why is there is so little crime in Japan?” I asked.

    Without taking a moment to reflect, she responded, “Because we don’t allow immigration.”

    Anyone who visits Japan is struck by the ethnic homogeneity of the nation. If you meet a Caucasian, a black or a Hispanic in Japan, you can be all but certain that the person is visiting or studying there, not a citizen.

    Likewise in the United States, there is direct correlation between ethnic homogeneity and low levels of violence. According to 2016-2017 data, the four states with the lowest percentages of violence are:

    1. Vermont — where 95 percent of the population is one race (white).

    2. Maine — where 95 percent of the population is one race (white).

    3. Wyoming — where roughly 93 percent of the population is one race (white).

    4. New Hampshire — where roughly 94 percent of the population is one race (white).

    http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/265962/nation-immigrants-only-if-they-assimilate-dennis-prager

    click through to read the rest.

  12. FRANCE – Egg on his face: Macron splattered by protester on French campaign trail

    French presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron was left with egg on his face while attending an agricultural show after a protester threw the produce at him, splattering the En Marche party member.

    The confrontation happened while France’s former economy minister attended Salon International de l’Agriculture 2017 in Paris.

    Footage of the incident shows the minister in conversation before being blindsided with the incoming egg. Members of his security team then rush to protect Macron and chase the food-firing protestor.

    This is not the first time Macron has been egged, however. Last June Labour reform protesters pelted eggs at the former Rothschild banker outside a post office in Montreuil.

    https://www.rt.com/viral/379095-macron-egg-french-campaign/

      • I can’t watch because it’s CNN, but this is a Soros creature. Sprung full-grown from some Soros’ orifice, another metrosexual like Trudeau.

        His name is a contraction for marecon – faggot in Spanish. Not all that subtle.

  13. Muslim Brotherhood: We’re Spending $5 Million on PR in U.S.
    The group has launched a major influence campaign to prevent Congress from designating the Brotherhood as a Foreign Terrorist Organization.

    A senior Muslim Brotherhood official in Sudan told an Arab newspaper* that the group’s international leadership has launched a major PR campaign to influence the U.S. media and members of Congress to oppose the designation of the Muslim Brotherhood as a Foreign Terrorist Organization.

    The Brotherhood official predicted that the group would not be designated by the Trump Administration and that the Muslim Brotherhood Terrorist Designation Act introduced into Congress would fail.

    He claimed that his organization had made contact with governmental officials and members of Congress and convinced them that the Brotherhood is opposed to terrorism, even though the Brotherhood’s Palestinian wing—Hamas—is designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization by the U.S. State Department.

    The author of the article reports that, according to sources within the Brotherhood, the group has spent $5 million on the PR campaign, with contracts being signed last month. Individuals close to Hillary Clinton put Brotherhood officials in touch with PR firms.

    http://www.clarionproject.org/analysis/muslim-brotherhood-we%E2%80%99re-spending-5-million-pr-us

    • And they will get return on their investment.
      These PR firms can’t be beat for selling garbage that becomes addictive. Watch the 4-finger salute – foxtrot-you – become the new fist-bump.

      Pamela Geller knows more about self-promotion than anybody, and she’d have to take the organized attack point by point. I don’t see us hiring top-notch PR. That’s not thinking strategically.

      • No we probably won’t, we will depend on prosecutors that may or may not be honest.

          • The current political system is very flawed and bad, there is only on justification for it< It is the best that mankind has ever tried. These flaws are why the founding fathers said we had to have eternal vigilance to preserve our freedom. We are now paying the price for a couple of generations not paying attention to the politicians and the media.

  14. ISIS Calls for Murder of Jews in the West
    A propaganda message sent using an ISIS-linked Telegram group exhorted supporters in the West to dress up as Jews to carry out attacks

    ISIS terrorists are calling on their supporters to disguise themselves as Jews to better carry out terror attacks on Jews in the West.

    A recent propaganda message shared on the Telegram group ‘Lone Mujahid’ read as follows, according to Foreign Desk editor-in-chief Lisa Daftari:

    “IF YOU’RE STILL IN THE WEST! Dress up like a Jew! Go to your nearest Jewish area! Make sure you have plenty of weapons under you coat! Then unleash the pain of the Muslims upon these A.P.E.S!!!”

    Telegram is an encrypted messaging service valued for its strong privacy policy.

    Another message in the same group later used a picture of Ahmed Coulibaly, the terrorist who carried out an attack on a Hyper Cacher kosher supermarket in which he killed four Jews and a French policewoman.

    It published a list of Jewish communities in the UK and urged readers to “Take the brother’s (rh) example and terrorize the Yahood.”

    https://www.clarionproject.org/news/isis-calls-murder-jews-west

  15. MONTREAL – CBC – Concordia University evacuates buildings after bomb threat against Muslims

    Police called in to investigate after letter emailed to several Montreal media outlets

    Three buildings are being evacuated at Concordia University’s downtown campus after a letter threatening to set off bombs targeting Muslim students was emailed to several media outlets today.

    The letter, emailed to the CBC as well as several other media outlets, suggests bombs will be set off at the engineering, computer science, and visual arts integrated (EV) and Hall buildings.

    The evacuation of the EV Building on Ste-Catherine Street and the Hall Building on De Maisonneuve Boulevard began at about 11:30 a.m. ET

    At 12:07 p.m., the university said it also was evacuating the Guy-De Maisonneuve (GM) building, which is connected to the EV building.

    The threatening letter, purportedly from a group that calls itself Council of Conservative Citizens of Canada (C4), complains about Muslim students at Concordia.

    “The suspect sent by email that he put some explosive items inside a few places inside the buildings,” said Montreal police Const. Benoit Boisselle.

    “Lots of police officers are on site right now. They looked around, they did not find any suspect items,” Boisselle said.

    ‘Threat against all of us’

    Concordia University spokesperson Chris Mota said she was alerted to the threatening email at 9 or 9:30 a.m. The school’s administration contacted Montreal police immediately, and police decided to evacuate the three downtown buildings later in the morning.

    “It is a police operation. It is not a university operation,” said Mota. “We do follow their lead, and we follow their timeline.”

    She said the university has been in touch with Concordia’s Muslim Students Association to ensure its members are safe and secure.

    Mota said the university viewed the threat “not only as a threat to one particular portion of our population, it is a threat to the entire population.

    “From the perspective of the university, a threat against any group is a threat against all of us, and we are going to come together and make sure everyone comes out of this fine.”

    Students leaving EV Building after evacuation order @Concordia pic.twitter.com/WErfrVHXH9
    — @eliabb

    Concordia said all activities in the John Molson School of Business on Guy Street are continuing as usual.

    Right after the evacuation order, there was some confusion about Metro service at Guy-Concordia station, which is linked by tunnel to the buildings being evacuated. However, Montreal’s public transit agency (STM) said service is continuing as usual.

    Concordia said classes at the EV, GM and Hall buildings are cancelled until at least 6 p.m.

    Evacuate EV and Hall Buildings on SGW campus, immediately. Classes cancelled; may resume at 6 p.m. Avoid buildings. More info:concordia.ca
    — @Concordia

    McGill security also informed

    CKUT — the campus community radio station at McGill University — was among the media outlets to receive the letter threatening Muslim students at Concordia.

    “Since we will [spread] our fight to McGill too, we at C4 decided to give you a heads up of the emergency situation at Concordia University,” said the email, from someone identified as the “C4 co-ordinator.”

    An official at CKUT said the radio station had shared the email with McGill University’s campus security.

    http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/montreal-police-threat-concordia-1.4004671

    • Concordia’s Hall, EV, GM buildings evacuated because of bomb threats against Muslims

      Montreal police are investigating after a letter was sent to media outlets Wednesday threatening to set off bombs targeting Muslim students in at least three Concordia University buildings.

      Police arrived at the university around 10 a.m. The Hall, EV, and GM buildings were evacuated. They have found no sign of explosives, police spokesperson Benoît Besselle said.

      Both buildings were evacuated, and service at the Guy-Concordia métro station was briefly interrupted. The evacuation was ordered at 11:30 a.m., about two hours after the threat was received.

      The letter, which was sent to the Montreal Gazette as well as several other media outlets, suggests bombs will be set off at two buildings this week – the Hall building on de Maisonneuve Blvd. and the Engineering, Computer Science and Visual Arts building on Ste-Catherine St.

      It said it was a warning to Muslim students. It complained about Friday prayers, men washing their feet in sinks and men walking in bare feet or flip flops on the seventh floor of the university’s Hall building. It went on to say that bombs would be detonated every day from March 1 to March 3 unless Concordia bans what the letter referred to as Muslim activities.

      The bomb threats at Concordia come one month after six people were killed in an attack at a mosque in Quebec City.

      The letter says that a member of the group calling itself the Council of Conservative Citizens of Canada reported her concern about “Friday prayers and the often anti-Christian and anti-Jewish speeches” to the Concordia Student Union, which “didn’t do anything” about it.

      The CSU’s general coordinator, Lucinda Marshall-Kiparissis, said Wednesday that the CSU learned that what the letter was referencing was a recent complaint made to one of its receptionists.

      “We are currently trying to get more information,” Marshall-Kiparissis said. “But the CSU will never compromise on the existence of prayer spaces for our Muslim students, and if the complaint was Islamophobic in nature our receptionists are not obliged to entertain it.”

      McGill University campus radio station CKUT also received the letter Wednesday morning. In an email CKUT received, the group said it will “spread our fight to McGill too.”

      McGill spokesperson Carole Graveline said the university is aware of the situation and campus security has been warned about the email CKUT received.

      Standing in a throng of students outside one of the evacuated buildings, Concordia spokesperson Chris Mota said the university is taking the threat seriously but has no evidence it is real.

      She said police asked for the evacuation so they could go through the building and assess the threat. Thousands of students, faculty and other staff poured out of the building in an orderly fashion.

      Between Monday and Thursday, one of the buildings is hosting an Islamic Awareness Week.

      The university ordered the evacuation of the two buildings around 11:30 a.m. Wednesday. Classes have been cancelled in those two buildings.

      The letter complains about Muslim students at Concordia. “Now that President Trump is in office south of the border, things have changed,” the letter says.

      Montreal police spokesperson Benoit Boisselle said several officers are at Concordia investigating. “We don’t know yet whether the threat is founded,” he said.

      Concordia spokersperson Chris Mota said the university also received the letter.

      She said she knows of no other threats made against Muslim students at Concordia.

      http://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/montreal-police-investigate-bomb-threats-at-concordia-university

  16. BREITBART – Swedish ‘Ikea Killer’ Asylum Seeker Wants to Serve Sentence in Eritrea Because He Doesn’t Like Swedish Prison

    An Eritrean migrant who murdered a 55-year-old woman and her son in an Ikea because his asylum application had been rejected is requesting to serve his sentence in Eritrea after being threatened and beaten in multiple Swedish prisons.

    The lawyer for 37-year-old Eritrean failed asylum seeker Abraham Ukbagabir requested that his client should be transferred to his native Eritrea after he had received threats and had been beaten multiple times by other inmates the Swedish prison system, Afton Bladet reports.

    On August 10th 2015, Ukbagabir went to an Ikea in the central Swedish city of Västerås. Once in the shop, he proceeded to go to the kitchenware department and grab a knife, then without warning stabbed a 55-year-old woman and her 28-year-old son to death.

    After stabbing the mother and her son, he then used the knife on himself attempting to commit suicide but was unsuccessful.

    Mr. Ukbagabir had been rejected for asylum by the Swedish government only hours before the attack and was scheduled to be deported back to Italy, where he had first claimed asylum before travelling to Sweden. Ukbagabir had lived in Italy for several months working as a fisherman before leaving for Sweden.

    During his trial, the Eritrean admitted to the attack as revenge for being rejected asylum but claimed he did not mean to kill his victims. His defence was soundly rejected by the court which sentenced him to life in prison to be followed by immediate deportation upon completion of the sentence.

    One of the most recent incidents of violence toward Ukbagabir came last October when he was brutally beaten by inmates in Tidaholm prison. He was moved to the Tidaholm prison after being beaten in August 2016 at the Salberg Institution and has been in and out of solitary confinement due to threats to his safety.

    The Swedish Justice Department for Criminal Cases and International Judicial Cooperation (BIRS) is currently looking into a possible transfer and will be contacting the Eritrean authorities on the matter. Both Sweden and Eritrea must approve the potential transfer.

    The Europe Migrant crisis has seen crime rise in many countries, but the cases most well known have been murders carried out by asylum seekers. An illegal immigrant from Kenya brutally beat a 54-year-old cleaning lady to death with an iron bar while she was on her way to work late at night in 2016.

    Perhaps the most notorious migrant murderer was a 17-year-old Afghan migrant who raped and killed asylum centre volunteer Maria Ladenburger. Though he had initially claimed to be a minor, a judge revealed earlier this month that the killer was actually an adult.

    http://www.breitbart.com/london/2017/03/01/swedish-ikea-killer-asylum-seeker-wants-serve-sentence-eritrea/

  17. BBC – Murderer Tanveer Ahmed inspires Pakistani hardliners from Scottish jail

    When Tanveer Ahmed was sentenced to a minimum of 27 years in jail for murder last August, Judge Lady Rae said he had committed a “brutal, barbaric and horrific crime”.

    Ahmed stabbed to death Glasgow shopkeeper Asad Shah – who belonged to the persecuted Ahmadi sect – because he believed he was committing blasphemy by uploading online videos in which he claimed to be a prophet.

    But in Pakistan, Ahmed is developing a growing number of supporters who see him as a “defender of Islam” for having killed someone they believed to be disrespecting the Prophet Muhammad.

    On Monday evening, about 400 gathered outside his family’s home in the city of Mirpur, in Pakistan-administered Kashmir for a rally in his honour. The crowd chanted slogans praising Ahmed as “brave” and “courageous”.

    One man attending said: “Because of what he did, the whole of Pakistan knows who he is.”

    Another speaker told supporters Ahmed could help mediate their prayers.

    “You should close your eyes, raise your hand towards the sky and pray, making Ghazi [warrior] Tanveer your representative,” he said.

    The event was organised by the anti-blasphemy religious lobby group Labaik Ya Rasool Ullah (Here I am present, o Prophet of Allah).

    The same group has championed another killer – Mumtaz Qadri – who in 2011 shot dead a high profile Pakistani politician for trying to reform the country’s blasphemy laws.

    Blasphemy is an emotive issue in Pakistan, where it is legally punishable by death.

    After Qadri was executed last year, tens of thousands of his supporters attended his funeral, and a shrine housing his tomb has been built in Rawalpindi.

    Hardline cleric Khadim Rizvi is one of the leading figures in Labaik Ya Rasool Ullah, and is the most prominent supporter of Tanveer Ahmed.

    As well as images of Mumtaz Qadri, Rizvi now uses images of Ahmed to promote his rallies and talks.

    Ahmed had cited Qadri as his inspiration for killing his victim, and their supporters often compare the two killers.

    In a BBC interview Rizvi said support for Ahmed was not as widespread as that for Qadri – but that Ahmed was held in particularly high esteem for having killed someone accused of blasphemy in a non-Muslim country.

    Over the past few months a Facebook page run by Rizvi’s followers has released a number of audio messages from Ahmed whilst in jail. The messages included Ahmed justifying his own actions – and repeating slogans that “the penalty for blasphemers is for their heads to be cut off”.

    Rizvi was prevented from attending the rally in Mirpur by police, but I met him earlier this month after another rally.

    He said that until recently he would talk to Tanveer Ahmed on the phone “every couple of weeks”, and that he was proud of his friendship with him.

    “I’m proud of the fact that we are in contact – and this pride will remain until the day of judgement and beyond.”

    Rizvi added that his conversations with Ahmed included discussions on the topic of blasphemy, and chants in support of the Prophet Muhammad.

    After a BBC report in January 2017 on Ahmed’s audio messages from jail, the Scottish Prison Service banned him from using the phone.

    Rizvi said since the ban he had not spoken to Ahmed – but was confident they would resume contact.

    “God willing it won’t change anything – phonecalls have been banned – letters haven’t – he will write to us.”

    Rizvi, Ahmed and Qadri all come from the Sufi Barelvi sect of Sunni Islam, one normally associated with more spiritual interpretations of the religion.

    Rizvi, for example, is vocal in his condemnation of recent attacks in Pakistan, and of militant groups like the so-called Islamic State.

    But in Pakistan, Barelvis have been at the forefront of anti-blasphemy campaigns.

    “A Sufi is someone who devotes his life to the Prophet Muhammad – if someone insults the Prophet and they just let it go – they are not a real Sufi,” Rizvi said.

    Other Sufi Barelvi scholars strongly disagree with Rizvi’s position – but he is an influential figure in Pakistan.

    At the mosque in Glasgow that Asad Shah used to attend, there is concern at how hardline views on blasphemy from Pakistan are being spread in the UK.

    Abdul Abid, former president of the Scottish Ahmadiyya community, said: “Pakistan has got a problem – and this problem is being exported outside of Pakistan.”

    Now it seems Tanveer Ahmed – from a jail cell in Scotland – is helping strengthen the anti-blasphemy movement back in Pakistan.

    http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-39112840
    Why is Tanveer Ahmed a hero to some hardliners in Pakistan? BBC News

  18. Are We Refugeed Out Yet?
    D. Greenfield

    There are more Iraqis living in the United States than there are in some major cities in Iraq. 156,000 Iraqi refugees have entered this country in just the last decade. 30,000 of those have ended up in California.

    In Obama’s first year in office, the United States resettled three-quarters of Iraqi refugees.

    71% of Iraqi refugees are receiving cash assistance. 82% are on Medicaid and 87% are on food stamps. Compare those atrocious numbers to only 17% of Cubans on cash assistance and 16% on Medicaid.

    It should be obvious why Obama shut the door on Cuban refugees while holding it wide open for Syrian Muslims (but closing it tightly on Syrian Christians), Iraqis and Somalis (77.4% food stamp use).

    on this page :
    http://sultanknish.blogspot.ca/2017/02/are-we-refugeed-out-yet.html

  19. Italy clears its “Great Ghetto” of migrants

    Around 3,000 were estimated to be living there at its height.

  20. 78% of native Dutch think integration has failed due to Islam and immigration
    Posted on March 1, 2017 19:30
    By Vincent van den Born

    Dutch broadcaster AVRO-TROS published a study today, based on a questionnaire presented to about 30.000 people in total. A collaboration between the shows EenVandaag and De Stelling van Nederland, the study took place from 17 to 21 February 2017 and reveal that 65% of Dutch think their identity is under pressure. As causes, they name immigration, Islam and reduced tolerance of native Dutch. Of Dutch nationals with a migration background, 36% feel Dutch identity is under pressure. The research will be the basis for discussion in a show which is to air this evening, answering the question “is this still my country?”

    A large percentage of the native Dutch that think Dutch identity is under pressure, point at immigration as a cause. Somebody wrote:

    “I can’t understand anyone in the tram anymore. Girls get cat-called. Christmas is called ‘winter feast’ and some parents just plain refuse to talk to a female teacher.”

    When asked about integration, 78% answers that it has been a failure and 85% think that those with a migration background should try harder to integrate into Dutch society. Of the 1000 ‘migrants’, 67% agree, while 40% call the integration a failure. But while 72% of ‘migrants’ think native Dutch should be more open to others, only 46% of natives agree.

    A little over half the natives thinks that the different cultures and religious can live in the Netherlands in peace. Among the ‘immigrants’ this is 72%. As long as everybody obeys the Dutch rules and laws, however, a large majority of natives (79%) as well as ‘immigrants’ (86%) doesn’t mind if there are differences between different groups of people.

    https://gatestone.eu/78-percent/

  21. Juncker bracing for EU’s downfall, presents 5 future scenarios
    Posted on March 1, 2017 16:00
    By Vincent van den Born

    Before its official presentation by one the EU presidents, Jean-Claude Juncker, this afternoon at 15.00, the White Paper that presents the EU Commission’s vision of the future of the EU has already been leaked. Politico has been able to get a hold of what looks like a final draft version of the document and published it (PDF). The report offers five possible scenarios.

    Scenario 1, carrying on, mostly means ‘more of the same’. Especially a sentence such as “there is incremental progress on improving the functioning of the single currency in order to drive growth and prevent shocks starting at home or abroad” indicates the same sort of ‘creeping barrage’ of further centralisation we see now.

    Scenario 2, is nothing but the single market, in which the EU would secede federal control over immigration, security and defence. However, it should be called ‘nothing but the single market, and the shared currency that’s dragging it down’, because it says “the euro facilitates trade exchanges but growing divergence and limited cooperation are major sources of vulnerability.” Those that were hoping for construction similar to the EEC will be sorely disappointed.

    Scenarios 3 and 4 are more or less hybrids, where the EU either divests itself from tasks, or from countries.

    In scenario 5, the so-called “Verhofstadt option,” the sovereignty of member states is severely limited, with the EU taking over foreign policy and building up a European Defence Union.

    This scenario also claims a “significantly modernised and increased [EU budget], backed up by own resources; a euro area stabilisation function is operational,” effectively leading to the formation of some sort of European Superstate at the EU level.

    https://gatestone.eu/eu-future-plans/

  22. One German weekend: Two cases of ‘Southern types’ gang-raping women
    Posted on March 1, 2017 11:00
    By David Frankenhuis

    Two women in Germany last weekend became the victim of brutal sexual assaults in two separate incidents. In both cases, the attackers were described as ‘southern types’, operating in small bands.

    Carnival rape, crying woman in Leverkusen

    On Sunday night, a 31-year-old woman in the city of Leverkusen was victimised by a gang of three men in the district of Lützenkirchen. She was attacked by all three of the perpetrators and subsequently raped on a lawn by one of them. After the assault, the men fled in an unknown direction, Freie Zeiten reports.

    Passers-by had, later on, found the crying woman sitting in the streets. She was dressed up as a hippie since she had been out celebrating Carnival.

    According to the victim, the men were dressed in dark clothes, in between 20 and 30 years of age, and all had a ‘southern appearance’. This usually means they come from countries such as Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco and Egypt.

    The police are asking the public for help, and an arrest has yet to be made in this case.

    Violent gang rape on Hamburg riverbank

    In Hamburg, two men on Sunday evening sexually assaulted a 46-year-old woman after beating her. The violent gang rape took place near a bridge called the Lombardsbrücke, which is located on the riverbank of the Alster.

    On Monday morning, the injured victim went to a hospital where she was investigated and treated, Focus.de and other local media report. Afterwards, she spoke to police to file a complaint.

    In this case, as well, the woman referred to the rapists as being of southern descent, meaning Northern Africans or, in German police lingo, the so-called ‘Nafri’s’. She could not describe the assailants more accurate.

    During the interrogation, the victim mentioned an elderly couple passing by the location of the attack. They may be important witnesses, police have stated.

    Cologne’s NYE changed everything

    Sexual violence appears to be on the rise in Germany, where this category of felonies is often committed by refugees and other migrants.

    Public attention to the problem skyrocketed after the so-called ‘taharrush‘ in the city of Cologne, where on the New Year’s Eve of 2015/2016 several hundreds of girls and young women were stripped, groped (some even raped), and robbed by some thousand Nafri’s and Arabs, virtually all of whom have escaped punishment for their crimes. Since then, German police are on the alert.

    https://gatestone.eu/two-rapes-weekend/

  23. Swedish attorney of Iranian gang-rapist demands to see rape footage to defend client
    Posted on February 28, 2017 22:00
    By David Frankenhuis

    A grave injustice is being committed against the unscrupulous Iranian-born serial sex offender Bardiya Pajouhi, at least according to his attorney Bjorn Hurtig, who is appealing his prison sentence. His 25-year-old client had been convicted of perpetrating a series of rapes and gang rapes in Sweden as well as in the United States and was subsequently sentenced to 9 years in jail. The lawyer now claims his appeal is obstructed.

    Since the abuse has systematically been filmed by the migrant, there was no lack of evidence in this case. More than 1700 clips plus some 41,000 pictures were uncovered on Pajouhi’s cell phone and tablet. In order to defend the rapist, Hurtig had recently in front of a court of appeals ‘demanded’ to be allowed to copy the videos of the attacks, but this has now been denied by the judges.

    According to daily Expressen, the request was turned down after strong objections were raised by prosecutor Jim Westerberg and by Nilla Ekström-Parry, the lawyer representing 8 girls and young women who in the past 5 years had been targeted by the immigrant. The victims, mainly from the city of Gothenburg, had specifically “voiced a strong preference to keep the footage from spreading any further,” Ekström-Parry said.

    “Once it’s out on the internet it will always be there, that’s how we look at it,” Westerberg had previously commented on the lawyer’s request.

    Pajouhi was found guilty of the string of sex assaults in December, at least one of whom was committed together with another Iranian migrant named Navid Atlassi. When Pajouhi was sentenced earlier this month to 9 years in prison, 50-year-old restaurant owner Atlassi received six years in jail for the aggravated gang rape of two 16-year-old girls, that he carried out together with Pajouhi. Atlassi has also appealed the verdict.

    ‘Disoriented victims kicked out in the streets’

    Pajouhi, who worked as a party organiser, generally drugged the girls and women before subjecting them to vaginal, anal and oral rape in his apartment. After the abuse, his hurt and disoriented victims were kicked out into the streets. Some of the felonies have been carried out during a visit to Los Angeles where, among others, a Canadian woman was raped.

    Attorney: I need those tapes

    Pajouhi’s lawyer Hurtig is critical of the court’s decision and feels that the judges are being a bit overprotective of the young rape victims and their privacy, or so he complains:

    “I can look at the material on a tablet in a police station, but I want to take part of the evidence to my office where I can view the footage anytime I want. This guy got 9 years in jail and I want to be able to defend him fully. What can I say? I have never distributed materials, I have no reason to.”

    https://gatestone.eu/demanding-footage/

  24. USA: Alan Kurdi’s aunt calls on Trump to drop Syria regime change policy

    Tima Kurdi, the aunt of the two-year-old Syrian refugee Alan Kurdi, who drowned in the Mediterranean Sea, called US President Donald Trump to stop his policy of regime change in Syria, at a press conference on the Stop Arming Terrorist Act, outside the US Congress, in Washington DC, Wednesday.

  25. DAILY MAIL – SAUDI ARABIA – Two transgender Pakistanis ‘are packed into sacks and thrashed to death with STICKS’ by police in Saudi Arabia

    The two people, identified as Amna, 35, and Meeno, 26, died in police custody
    Both from Pakistan, they were arrested in Riyadh for cross-dressing in public
    It is a punishable offence in Saudi Arabia for any man to imitate a woman
    Police officers raided a guest house and arrested 35 people, 22 are still in prison

    Two transgender Pakistanis were reportedly packed into sacks and thrashed to death with sticks by police in Saudi Arabia.

    The pair from Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province, Pakistan, were arrested in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, for cross-dressing in public.

    It is a punishable offence in the kingdom for a man to imitate a woman and officers arrested 35 people in a raid on a guest house.

    Qamar Naseem said: ‘Torturing humans after throwing them into bags and beating them with sticks is inhumane.’

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4271962/Two-transgender-Pakistanis-thrashed-death-STICKS.html

  26. CBC – Muslims face rising distrust in Canada

    Elamin Abdelmahmoud, social media editor at Buzzfeed, says that a toxic atmosphere is building distrust around Muslims

    • CBC is on the Boycott List, but even if it were not, I wouldn’t give BuzzFeed the time of day. That’s the outlet that released the “dossier” with fake-news: PET peed on fornicators in a Russian hotel.
      CBC is keeping fine company these days. /s

  27. Former Italian PM: Le Pen Victory Is ‘Game Over’ for the EU

    Marine Le Pen winning the presidency of France will be “game over” for the European Union (EU), the former Italian Prime Minister Enrico Letta has said.

    Speaking to an audience in Malta, Letta predicted: “You can have the end of Europe. I think the European Union can’t survive with Marine le Pen in the European Council representing France. It will be game over,” Euractiv has reported.

    However, he added that he would be “very optimistic” if “a younger pro-European” were to win in France, as he believes the German election due later this year will return a pro-European leader.

    Although Letta failed to mention him by name, his comments are likely a reference to the 39-year-old former socialist, now independent, candidate Emmanuel Macron who is widely expected to run off against Le Pen in the second round of voting on 7 May.

    http://www.breitbart.com/london/2017/02/28/former-italian-pm-le-pen-victory-is-game-over-for-the-eu/

  28. DAILY MAIL – Barack Obama’s close confidante Valerie Jarrett has moved into his new DC home, which is now the nerve center for their plan to mastermind the insurgency against President Trump

    Obama’s goal is to oust Trump from the presidency either by forcing his resignation or through his impeachment, a family friend tells DailyMail.com
    Jarrett has moved into the 8,200-square-foot, $5.3-million Kaloroma mansion to work closely with the former president and Michelle Obama
    Jarrett lived in the White House, dined with the Obamas, and helped shape his domestic and foreign policies
    Obama cannot use his West End office, a post-presidency perk, for political purposes
    ‘He’s coming. And he’s ready to roll.’ former Attorney General Eric Holder said yesterday about the former president’s reentry into the political scene

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4271412/Obama-confidante-Valerie-Jarrett-moves-Kaloroma-home.html

  29. zero hedge – House Democrats Delayed Dismissal Of IT Staff ‘Hackers’ Because They Were Muslim American

    A month ago, three Muslim American brothers who managed office IT were barred from congressional computers (on suspicion that they accessed computers without permission). While many congressmen immediately relieved them of their duties, two House Democrats decided to delay the firing (until today) because their Muslim background, some with ties to Pakistan, could make them easy targets for false charges.

    Meeks said he was hesitant to believe the accusations against Alvi, Imran Awan and the three other staffers, saying their background as Muslim Americans, some with ties to Pakistan, could make them easy targets for false charges.

    “I wanted to be sure individuals are not being singled out because of their nationalities or their religion. We want to make sure everybody is entitled to due process,” Meeks said.

    “They had provided great service for me. And there were certain times in which they had permission by me, if it was Hina or someone else, to access some of my data.”

    Fudge told Politico on Tuesday she would employ Imran Awan until he received “due process.”

    “He needs to have a hearing. Due process is very simple. You don’t fire someone until you talk to them,” Fudge said.

    On Wednesday, Lauren Williams, a spokeswoman for Fudge, wouldn’t provide details about Imran Awan’s firing but did confirm he was still employed in Fudge’s office as of Tuesday afternoon.

    more :

    http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-03-01/house-democrats-delayed-dismissal-it-staff-hackers-because-they-were-muslim-american